Standstill: War in Ukraine enters its second year

This is David Martin. Armed with billions of dollars of American weapons, Ukraine has fought the Russians to a standstill. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says that's not good enough. The Ukrainians feel, and I agree with this, that they need to conduct an offensive, to change the dynamics on a battlefield. So we can't expect a Ukrainian offensive? I think we can expect an offensive in the spring. The first year of war has been a debacle for Vladimir Putin. But unless Ukraine can drive Russian troops back from their entrenched positions, he will keep fighting.

What will stop the war, in my opinion, the only thing that will stop the war is if he becomes convinced that he can't win. CBS News consultant John Sullivan was the U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the start of the war. He watched as sanctions imposed by the Biden administration hit the Russian economy. Are sanctions causing a level of pain that he can't live with? Absolutely not. Their view is they can endure anything.

They have, the Russian people haven't endured anything. It's a point of pride for Putin. Is this war at all becoming unpopular? In Russia, among Russians. No, what I saw when I was there was a people that had been prepared over decades to believe the worst of the United States. American defense plants are doing their best to forge weapons being used to kill Russians in Ukraine. This ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania is turning out artillery shells as fast as it can. Artillery ammunition and everything that goes with it is probably our number one effort.

Douglas Bush is the U.S. Army's chief weapons buyer. Why is artillery your number one priority? It's the most in demand because they're fighting a conflict without an air force, essentially. All of their fire support is from artillery. So they're using it at rates that exceed, for example, how we would fight. How many are they firing a day? Depending on the day, sometimes between three and five thousand.

Does the U.S. make that many artillery shells a day? That exceeds what we make on a given day, which is why we're dramatically increasing our production rates. The U.S. has already rushed more than a million artillery shells and nearly 40 long-range rocket systems into a war that has become an artillery duel between two Duggan armies, each side trying to exhaust the other. The Russians have had, you know, enormous stockpiles of artillery munitions over the years and they've depleted those stockpiles in a major way.

We see them reaching out to countries like North Korea and Iran for additional munitions. That tells us that they are hurting in a major way. But even with the backing of the American defense industry, Volodymyr Zelensky cannot count on outlasting Russia, which has three times the population. So the U.S. is now shipping Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to the battle. What you're seeing are current efforts to support them with more offensive capability on the ground and abilities to maneuver under fire.

100 Bradleys armed with a rapid-fire cannon and anti-tank missiles are on their way to Ukraine, along with tanks promised by 10 other countries. Still, if Russian soldiers stand and fight, Ukraine will be hard-pressed to break through their elaborate network of trenches and tank traps. Now Russia is really dug in three deep. They're dug in across a wide area. They can't perfectly defend every inch of that. And the way that this fight goes will depend upon the Ukrainians. Is this war only going to get bloodier? It's pretty bloody right now.

I think we have to remember, David, that every day there are Ukrainians that are dying. And every day Putin throws more untrained and poorly-equipped soldiers into places like Bakhmut, where 4,500 Russians have been killed for little gain. And that's just a fraction of their overall losses. 200,000, according to Western military estimates, killed or wounded to date. That's an extraordinary number. Compared to what Putin's prepared to sacrifice, a fraction of that. So bottom line, can Russia keep up this meat grinder style of war? Yeah.

I'm sorry to say, but the answer is yes. He is all in and he's not quitting.

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