In the past week, the long and brutal battle of Avdiivka reached a crescendo, with the Russian Army forcing the withdrawal of Ukrainian units. After the Ukrainians secured the city in 2014, Russian forces significantly expanded their attacks in late 2023, and have inexorably enveloped the city while pounding its buildings and defenders into bloody ruin.

As we reach the two-year mark of Putin’s war against his sovereign, democratic neighbour, Russia’s “capture by destruction” of Avdiivka is a metaphor for its approach to this war. As it became clear that Russia’s 10-day plan to politically subdue Kyiv and its government had failed, Russia decided that it would rather destroy Ukraine than allow it to exist as an example of self-determination and sovereign resilience for Russian citizens.

The revelations of the widespread Russian torture and murder of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha was horrifying. They included the discovery of standardised detention and torture centres in multiple locations formerly occupied by the Russians. They indicated that Russia had adopted institutionalised rape, torture, kidnapping and murder to subdue Ukrainian citizens in Russian-occupied territory. Ukrainian prisoners of war have been routinely starved, beaten, castrated and murdered.

The millions of Ukrainians who remained outside lands captured by Russia were not free of its strategic and political campaign to cower them into a political accommodation and acceptance of Russian suzerainty. Thousands of Russian missiles, drones and ballistic rockets have been launched at civilian infrastructure such as power plants, shopping malls, schools and hospitals. Putin thereby hopes to demonstrate that Ukraine’s government cannot defend its people, and that eventually, the only possible outcome in this war is a Russian victory.

Ukrainians, and citizens across much of the world, were given heart by the stout and courageous resistance of Ukrainian military personnel (supported by local citizens) in the country’s north. Bolstered by the strategic influence of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his speeches to global parliaments, multinational institutions and social media, the Ukrainians demonstrated that most central aspect of sustaining the life and prosperity of any sovereign nation: will.

It was Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz who codified the importance of will in the competition of nations and the clash of military forces. One of his most important passages states: “War is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.” The Ukrainians, in the early days of the war and every day since, have demonstrated an intense and determined will to resist Putin’s cruel violations of their nation.

But, as vital as this national will has been, it is insufficient. In modern wars, nations must mobilise their production, their people and ideas to solve problems presented by new technologies.

The conflict is now a war of industrial production. After the war in the north, large-scale use of Russian firepower in the mid-2022 eastern campaigns indicated that mass use of ground forces and artillery had returned after an absence of decades. The Russians recognised this early. Putin’s partial mobilisation declaration in September 2022 included increasing defence production.