THE HARD PART WAS LURING VLAD INTO THE WAR:

The Ukrainian edge? Their mobile forces, determined fighters, smart leadership, superior intelligence and targeting, and, coming soon, a surge of heavy weapons, arriving after months of delay.

Most of the weapons and real-time intelligence are coming from America, supplemented by some from NATO allies, such as Britain's state-of-the-art Starstreak missile. These modern weapons will be crucial in the upcoming fight because they allow Ukrainian forces to take out enemy tanks and artillery from positions beyond the reach of Russian counter-fire.

The key now is getting these weapons to the battlefront (a complex logistical task, performed under enemy fire) and making sure Ukrainian fighters know how to use them. The operators' training is happening now and the supplies are moving across hundreds of miles in Ukraine, undeterred by Russia's attacks on road and rail junctions such as Lviv.

Even with these new weapons, it's still guesswork as to whether Ukraine can actually defeat the Russians. So let me guess: Ukraine will win. It will be a hard fight, and the victory may be incomplete. But the odds now favor Ukrainian victory for several reasons.

The Russian army, which already demonstrated its deficiencies in the fight for Kyiv, is now badly damaged and low on morale. It is essentially stalled in its latest push to take more territory and take out Ukrainian formations by moving west from areas it currently holds in Luhansk and Donetsk (the Donbas region). That drive would have been supplemented by Russian forces around the northeastern city of Kharkiv, which has short logistical lines because it is close to the Russian border. But that move failed to take the city. Its forces are being driven back from surrounding territory, and utterly failed to move south and encircle more Ukrainian forces.

Across the whole eastern region, Russia's latest push has achieved only modest gains. And even those are tenuous. When Russia redeploys its forces after taking territory, Ukrainian fighters often take it back.

Air power should have helped Russia, but it didn't. Russia has never established air superiority despite a much larger air force. Ukraine's skies are still contested space. That's especially impressive given that the US has not supplied Ukraine with modern air defense systems, and denied them the Soviet-era MiG fighters held by NATO members that were once inside the Warsaw Pact.

Russia's aviation problems go even further. To fight effectively, their air force should be tightly connected to ground operations. But it isn't. Put bluntly, Russia cannot conduct modern, combined-arms warfare, which melds air power, cyber resources, battlefield intelligence, tanks, artillery and drones. That kind of combat is the backbone of NATO strategy, and Ukraine is using it effectively, even though it is not a member.

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