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mariacallous · 3 months ago

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It has not been a good few months for Ukraine. Russia is slowly but steadily gaining ground in the country’s Donetsk region, where its forces bombard towns and cities, overwhelming an exhausted Ukrainian military. A regional war in the Middle East has eclipsed the refocused western allies elsewhere. The prospect of another Trump presidency, and the political unpredictability that would entail, looms large. Yet Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has written and commented extensively on the war, thinks the narrative of impending Russian domination is too simple. I spoke with him about the state of play on the battlefield, Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russian territory, and Vladimir Putin’s recent nuclear saber-rattling.

Thanks for speaking with me again for the third time in the last two years. Sure, Ben. What did you want to talk about today?

This may come as a surprise to you, but the Russia-Ukrainian War is the main topic. Nobody calls me for my cooking recipes.

We can do a section on that at the end if you want. I’m an avid fan of barbecue.

This is how the Washington Post recently described the larger dynamic in Ukraine: “Enemy troops are storming the battlefields in small teams that minimize detection and make return fire difficult, backed by superior quantities of artillery and drones. Russia has also improved its battlefield communications, helping coordinate attacks and while losses are staggering, Ukrainian soldiers have said the Russians have the numbers to keep up the pressure and Western aid isn’t making up the equipment deficit.” Does that strike you as pretty much an accurate depiction of where things are on the front? I would quibble with some pieces of that, but in general, I think it’s fair. My own view is that Russia has enjoyed a materiel advantage and the overall initiative for the past year. That advantage hasn’t proven decisive, at least not sufficiently enough to enable operational-size breakthroughs. But Russian forces have been steadily pressing the Ukrainian military in Donetsk and in other parts of the front — for example, by Kupiansk. And despite the costs, as you mentioned, both to materiel and personnel, they’ve been making fairly steady incremental gains.

Last week, the town of Vuhledar, in Donetsk, officially fell after being under attack for more or less the entire war. Pokrovsk, to the west, may be in Russia’s sights over the next few weeks. How far do you think they can go in the near future? And to what extent are they limited by the impending winter? Weeks is unlikely for Pokrovsk, but I think it will become the site of one of the next major battles. Russian forces have focused on trying to flank south of the city right now, taking the town of Ukrainsk, attempting to close a pocket by Kurakhove, and most recently taking Vuhledar. I think we are seeing both sides position for the siege of Pokrovsk. The Russian military is now pressing Ukrainian defensive lines outside the city, and the eastern half of the city is within artillery range. Pokrovsk is an important logistics hub, although its military value, I think, is going to rapidly decline at this stage. Russian forces are also pushing at Toretsk and around Chasiv Yar. It’s clear that their primary objective remains the capture of the rest of the Donetsk region. I think one of the main outstanding questions is to what extent can the Ukrainian military stabilize the front and exhaust the Russian offensive over the course of this fall and winter.

Republicans held up the last American aid package for months before it finally passed, and by that point Russian troops were already making some advances. How important was that delay in terms of explaining Ukraine’s position now? I would say it was a very significant factor, but not the only one. I want to draw your attention to three interrelated factors that more or less are causal of how we ended up to where we are today. The first is of course a delay in the package from September of 2023 to the middle of spring of this year. That made it very difficult to engage in any sort of planning and formulation of joint strategy with the Ukrainian military, since we didn’t know what resources they would be working with. And of course that led to a significant deficit of artillery ammunition over the course of the fall and winter and shortages across the front in other forms of materiel support.

That said, the Ukrainian leadership dithered on mobilization and took an exceedingly long time to begin addressing the issues of manpower and a lack of fortifications at the front from fall of last year to approximately this spring. After passing two mobilization laws — or, more aptly, changes to the current mobilization laws — and having begun a nationwide fortification construction program over the course of the winter and spring, there’s been marked improvement. But the first-order problem Ukrainian forces have had is a deficit of manpower, especially infantry, followed by issues with fortifications and munitions.

Because Ukraine suffered from a deficit of manpower, it was very difficult to rotate units without additional brigades, which they’ve been forming over the course of this summer and fall. That led to a general depletion of the force, a degree of exhaustion, and also incohesiveness in parts of the effort as brigades were forced to detach battalions and other units to send them to particularly troublesome parts of the front in order to essentially firefight or prevent Russian advances. And so it was a combination of issues with fortifications, a lack of well-prepared defense, a deficit of munitions and materiel as provided by the United States and other western countries. But also many of the issues have to do with mobilization and following mobilization, the need to substantially revamp training and improve Ukraine’s absorption capacity, actually training personnel and either generating new formations, standing up new brigades — or being able to effectively replace losses at the front line.

Considering the position they’re in now, those challenges sound pretty steep. While the situation looked quite precarious this spring, by summer it actually began improving among all those factors. Now, provision of materiel assistance wasn’t going to give Ukraine parity in terms of artillery fires but would substantially reduce the Russian artillery advantage at the front. Mobilization began to yield significantly increased numbers of personnel, although there’s issues in absorption and quality, and Ukraine’s campaign to build fortifications was starting to show some results, although there are nuances there as well. That said, Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk has, from my point of view, increased the cone of uncertainty as we look out on the prospects over the course of this winter and next spring. Ukraine had been, I thought, on track to hold Russia to relatively incremental gains, or let’s say avoid any major collapse on the front line, when I was last there this summer.

How did you find the mood on the battlefield at that point? I was last in Ukraine at the end of June and my impression had been actually more positive compared to this past winter and spring. Ukrainian forces had effectively halted the Russian offensive at Kharkiv. In looking across the front, while the situation was difficult, it appeared to be steadily improving and as though the worst-case outcomes could be avoided later this year. The primary problem, as I saw it this summer, was perhaps less the situation at the front line and more the nationwide deficit of air defense, missile defense, versus the growing threat posed by the Russian strike campaign. Over the course of the spring, Russia had destroyed or degraded a substantial portion of Ukraine’s power-generation capacity. Back then, and I think this is much more salient now, Ukraine faced a harsh winter with much of the preparation focused on how to ensure electricity supply to Ukraine’s main city, to the front cities, to the front lines, because the level of damage being inflicted by Russian strikes against Ukrainian critical structure, from my point of view, was likely more significant than the day-to-day shifts at the front line.

You mentioned Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory at Kursk. The plan seemed to be to divert Russian troops from the east and south of Ukraine, but that hasn’t really happened. Do you see it as a failure of strategy? From my point of view, the Kursk operation was a bold gamble. It tactically was a success and not only did it improve morale, but, at least for a period of time, it changed the conversation from the prevailing doom and gloom, particularly in the media, to give a sense that Ukraine still had options, that it still had the capacity to restore offensive potential to the force, that it was still capable of surprising us.

From a more operational perspective, I don’t think Kursk was that successful, because if the primary goal was to shift significant Russian forces from their advances in and around Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar, this did not take place. And while Russia did redeploy forces from within the country and from more stable or less active parts of the front line, it did not lead to a loss of Russian momentum. If anything, the Russian rate of gain accelerated over the course of August and September, arguably at a pace not seen since spring of 2022. The last question, and this one I think is worth discussing and debating, is to what extent Kursk was a political success. One of the tests of that would be the results of Ukrainian leadership’s visit to the United States in September and whether or not this will yield any significant changes in U.S. policy, the formulation of a new strategy or new plan, or the provision of greater materiel assistance and support.

There’s also an important meeting that’s going to take place in Ramstein on October 12, so to some extent, I reserve judgment. My own view is that so far I’ve not seen significant political results from the operation. That said, I interpret it as a calculated risk. And at a bare minimum, I suspect that what motivated the Kursk offensive was concern, certainly among the Ukrainian leadership, that they might be pressed into negotiating a cease-fire from a position of relative weakness. Particularly looking at the trajectory of the U.S. election, if you think back to June when the planning for this offensive was likely formulated.

From the beginning, analysts have said that Russia’s big advantage is their numbers. As in past wars, they can send wave after wave of soldiers into battle, and they seem to have little regard for those soldiers’ lives. From what I’ve read, the army has learned from some of their failures in the past couple years, and some of the new soldiers are being more strategic. But they still have the meat-grinder mentality. They’ve captured towns, but at a huge cost in men. Is there any limit to the Russian supply of troops? Do you see that advantage fading at all, whether because of diminishing numbers or political backlash? It’s a good question. Russia’s advantage has been the ability to withstand very high levels of attrition because of the materiel and manpower resources they have, and also their significant capacity for mobilization of resources on a national scale — that is, defense industrial production, manpower recruitment, and the like.

But Russia’s actually operating under very significant constraints. And if anything, its advantage on the battlefield is likely to decline as we get into this winter and look further ahead into 2025. First, in terms of equipment, the Russian military has been sustaining very high levels of loss that are principally being replaced by Soviet-era stocks — not entirely, but at this stage, Russia is eating through its Soviet legacy, and its rate of equipment production is quite low relative to the numbers being lost on the battlefield.

This doesn’t mean that Russia is going to run out of armored fighting vehicles. What it does mean is that the Russian military has increasingly been forced to adjust tactics to minimize their losses, and that also reduces their ability to achieve any operationally meaningful breakthroughs. When you look at manpower, the Russian government has significantly increased the payouts and benefits to recruit personnel. The reason for that is straightforward. It’s clear that at this rate of loss, the Russian contract recruitment campaign is unable to keep up. This too does not mean that Russia is going to run out of manpower, but it’s clear that they’re struggling, and they are not likely to be able to sustain this pace of operations, staying on the offensive with this rate of loss.

Which could mean there’s an incentive for both sides to come to the negotiating table. Perhaps a bit more of an incentive than there was a year ago? The way I would put it is that the Russian military is actually operating under significant constraints. Given the likely decline in the relative advantage at the front line, Russia’s potential negotiating position actually isn’t all that strong. And while Russia has the resources to sustain the war in the near term, looking just a bit beyond that you see a fairly problematic picture in terms of the rate of inflation in Russia’s overheating economy, the deficit of skilled labor — because the state is pulling workers into the defense industry and contracting them to fight in the war — the steady depletion of Russia’s liquid reserves, and the fact that much of the budget is tied to the current oil price. The economic picture for Russia isn’t particularly rosy. The effort to juggle several different parts of this equation may not be sustainable. And this too must at some point weigh on the Russian leadership’s mind.

Ukraine has always said it won’t give up any land that Russia has taken from it since 2014, and that has come to seem as more and more far-fetched as Russia gains. Do you think they’d eventually cede some of what they’ve lost? I think a settlement is unlikely in the sense of a political settlement that resolves the issues that led to this war. If anything, there could be a cease-fire, but the challenge for Ukraine is how to achieve war termination on favorable terms and avoid having to negotiate from a position of weakness that would have conditions imposed upon it that I think Ukrainians would find fundamentally unacceptable. And secondarily, how to attain security guarantees from the West. Because any cease-fire agreement is very likely to yield a rearmament period, which could prove more beneficial to Russia. That matter can be debated, but nonetheless, it’s not likely to lead to any sort of lasting peace, and it would leave Ukraine quite vulnerable. And therefore, Ukraine’s leadership is dealing with a dilemma.

A cease-fire agreement with Russia is unlikely to be worth the paper it’s written on. And as long as Vladimir Putin’s in power, he’s likely to continue to seek the Ukraine’s destruction. So one thing we should consider is that there’s a fair chance that how this war ends, or more accurately pauses, is likely to lead to a third war.

Oh, great. Let me add to that last thought. It’s important to not just seek a cease-fire or an agreement for agreement’s sake, because it may not resolve either Ukraine’s concerns or the West’s concerns more broadly when looking at the future of European security. That said, since 2023 and the failure of Ukraine’s summer offensive, I think there’s been a very observable drift in both American and western strategy writ large in this war, and a lack of good answers on how to achieve war termination on favorable terms for Ukraine, or to put more simply, how they even effectively compel Russia to arrive at the negotiating table. So that’s what much of the discussion has been about in recent months.

One thing that has been true from the beginning of this war is that Ukraine asks the Biden administration for something, whether it’s weapons or permission to strike certain locations. The U.S. says no, Ukraine keeps asking, and the U.S. eventually says yes. The latest example is Ukraine wanting to strike targets deeper inside Russia with long-range artillery. So far, they’ve been denied, but that might change. If they did get the green light to do that, how much would it matter? First, regarding the history you mentioned, I think it’s been a very unhelpful dynamic that capabilities that could have benefited Ukraine’s war effort have not been deployed at scale at a time when they could have been operationally relevant. They’ve often been released after the fact when the political pressure mounted, but their introduction into the war hasn’t been timed or sequenced in order to achieve any significant effects.

And the reason I raise this is that most of the capabilities have their greatest impact when they’re first introduced to scale, and then they drive a cycle of adaptation and development of counters by the opponent. Which is why introducing new types of weapon systems or technology in small numbers, just trickling them onto the battlefield, usually doesn’t yield that much in terms of its net effect on the war. And when done out of sequence, while of course it does have an effect, it’s not an effect that can substantially impact the course of the war.

To your question on the restrictions of Ukraine’s ability to use long-range strike capabilities in Russia, I think a cogent case could be made that a campaign of this type could potentially compel Russia to hold its strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, or that it could inflict sufficient levels of damage against Russian logistics and supporting military infrastructure to slow the momentum of the current Russian offensive and potentially buy Ukraine time. So there is a strong case that could be made for the benefits.

That said, much depends on the actual availability of missiles that could be provided by the United States and by other countries. And my suspicion is if reservations exist, it’s much more a cost-benefit analysis and potential concerns about horizontal escalation. My own view is that the debate has centered on what is now a fairly arbitrary line after a change of restrictions to enable Ukraine to use HIMARS systems to strike into Russia in Belgorod and Kursk, and an extensive strike campaign that has been conducted with both U.S. and other European capabilities in Crimea.

Putin has been making noises about nuclear weapons again, saying that if a western country does what we just discussed and gives permission for Ukraine to launch long-range artillery attacks, that could now be grounds for a nuclear response. Do you make anything of this threat? First, from what I understand, these are public statements about proposed changes to Russian nuclear doctrine. But I think folks should understand that this is primarily about signaling and a change to declaratory policy. Therefore, I don’t think that they’re going to garner much of a reaction. Declaratory policy is typically intended to deter opponents and, for lack of a better word, to scare them or to induce caution.

And the declaratory policy is not a defense-planning document, nor is it something that Putin will remotely care about if it ever comes to making such decisions. In short, this is primarily about signaling and posturing more than anything else. And I think it is very much driven by the Russian fear that over the course of this war, they’ve been effectively salami-sliced by the United States and our allies across a host of thresholds or perceived red lines — and that the deterrent effect of Russian statements or claims has weakened tremendously over the course of this war.

Ukraine has called that out as saber-rattling all along, and they’ve proven correct so far. I would say that could be a fair reading of how we got here. My own view is that concern over escalation did have a significant effect early on in the war in 2022 in delaying western materiel support and slowing down decision-making on a host of issues and our overall involvement in supporting Ukraine’s war effort. It became far less significant once we started looking at the latter part of 2022.

But we should not be dismissive of the potential effect it might’ve had in that initial, fairly decisive period of the war. On the other hand, I think history will show that the United States and other western countries steadily expanded both materiel support and support in terms of intelligence and planning to the Ukrainian military far above and beyond what they had ever considered in the early periods of the war. So on the one hand, it was slow and late, and on the other, it’s hard to look at the trajectory of western assistance to Ukraine and necessarily read that as a deterrent success story for Russia. If anything, Russian leadership at this point appears increasingly cornered.

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argumate · 1 year ago

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Russian forces continue to expend significant combat power on counterattacking to hold their current positions and appear to be resisting the operationally sound course of action of falling back to prepared defensive positions further south. The Russian command constructed a multi-echeloned defense in southern Ukraine that would have allowed the Russian command to deploy defending Russian forces in depth throughout subsequent defensive layers. Russian forces have instead expended considerable amounts of manpower, materiel, and effort to hold the forwardmost defensive positions in southern Ukraine and have only withdrawn to subsequent defensive positions at the direct threat of Ukrainian advances. Russian forces’ elastic defense requires that one echelon of Russian forces slows a Ukrainian tactical advance while a second echelon of forces counterattacks to roll back that advance. Counterattacking requires significant morale and relatively high combat capabilities, and the Russian military appears to rely on relatively elite units and formations to counterattack, likely at the expense of these forces’ degradation.

Some Russian and Ukrainian sources have acknowledged that some Russian counterattacks in the wider Robotyne area have been senseless. A defense in depth should afford these units respite from further degradation through withdrawal to a subsequent defensive layer. This withdrawal would allow the Russian command to conserve critical combat power for more operationally significant counterattacks and efforts to attrit attacking Ukrainian forces, although the task of conducting an orderly withdrawal under fire or pursuit is quite challenging and risky. American military analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee recently assessed that Russian forces have underutilized the depth of their defense and have yet to execute “a true defense in depth” in which Russian forces trade “space for attrition” and that the Russian command’s decision to defend forward has allowed Ukrainian artillery units to attrit Russian forces. ISW concurs with this assessment. ISW has observed a concerted Ukrainian effort to attrit Russian forces even as Ukrainian forces make significant tactical gains, and the Russian resistance to withdrawing to defensive positions further south is likely compounding the asymmetric attrition gradient Ukrainian forces are trying to create. Russian counterattacks aimed at holding forward positions have been tactically significant, but it remains unclear if these counterattacks will have lasting operational importance.

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sa7abnews · 3 months ago

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Russia's mass advantage against Ukraine should start declining by 2025, war expert says

New Post has been published on Sa7ab News

Russia's mass advantage against Ukraine should start declining by 2025, war expert says

Russia is unlikely to run out of steam soon, but it’ll have to recalibrate tactics and lower the intensity of attacks, said analyst Michael Kofman.

... read more !

#Military & Defense

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douxlen · 3 months ago

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Russia's mass advantage against Ukraine should start declining by 2025, war expert says

New Post has been published on Douxle News

Russia's mass advantage against Ukraine should start declining by 2025, war expert says

Russia is unlikely to run out of steam soon, but it’ll have to recalibrate tactics and lower the intensity of attacks, said analyst Michael Kofman.

... read more !

#Military & Defense

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webntrmpt2x · 3 months ago

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#ukraine #russian war of aggression

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head-post · 9 months ago

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Ukraine’s dependence on Western allies grows stronger

Earlier this year, reports emerged that the war in Ukraine seemed to have reached a stalemate. However, a more concerning prospect has arisen, with a new Russian offensive breaking through Ukraine’s fortifications, especially at a time of ammunition and manpower shortages, according to The Economist.

Following the fall of Avdiivka in February, Russian forces have launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine and are advancing as far west as possible in an attempt to prevent Ukraine from forming stronger defensive lines there.

Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace stated that Ukraine desperately needed “manpower, fortifications and ammunition.” An analyst at Rochan Consulting and author of the Ukraine Conflict Monitor, Konrad Muzyka, suggested that at such a pace, major changes could be seen by the end of the summer.

The next five to six months could be critical.

Having resumed grain exports from Odesa, Ukraine is conducting an aerial campaign against infrastructure in Russia using home-made drones, thanks to which Kyiv is partially compensating for “shell hunger.” However, drones cannot deliver concentrated fire the way artillery can.

The blocking of the Biden administration’s $61 billion military aid package by Republicans in Congress led to direct consequences, especially amid the European Union’s inability to provide more than half a million shells it had promised to deliver by this month.

Read more HERE

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dserwer1 · 11 months ago

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Stevenson's army, January 27

– WaPo says US isn’t planning Ukraine offensive – Michael Kofman et al. have their suggestions on WOTR – Kenya court blocks Haiti mission; Haiti suffers. – Congress approves F16s to Turkey -Additional countries halt aid to UNRWA – Biden promises border crackdown if new law is passed – WaPo says Trump plans expanded trade war with China Fred Kaplan revisits Ukraine nuclear decision with…

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#China #Defense #gaza #Haiti #Immigration #Kenya #Nuclear weapons #Trade #Turkey #Ukraine #United States

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jcmarchi · 1 year ago

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Russia Is Losing BMPs Faster Than It Can Make Them - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/russia-is-losing-bmps-faster-than-it-can-make-them-technology-org/

Russia Is Losing BMPs Faster Than It Can Make Them - Technology Org

Forbes writes that Russian forces in Ukraine are now losing as many BMP combat vehicles as Russian industry is able to produce or pull out from long-term storage.

BMPs in a way are even more important than tanks. They are basically the workhorses of the Russian mechanized war. They carry infantry into battle, support them during landings, and evacuate survivors if they are forced to retreat. Not surprisingly, in 2022, Carnegie Foundation analyst Michael Kofman wrote that he suspected that the main shortcoming of Russian armour is not in tanks, but in BMPs.

Destroyed BMP in Ukraine. Image credit: Олексій Мазепа / АрміяInform via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)

It is noted that at the beginning of the war, Russia had about 4,000 BMP-1, BMP-2 and BMP-3 vehicles in active service. However, during 23 months of fighting in Ukraine, Russia lost about two thousand BMPs. A thousand infantry fighting vehicles a year! Mostly, of course, with a crew. This does not mean that Russia has only 2,000 of such machines left.

But even in a hurry, the Russian military industry manages to produce or pull from storage about the same number of BMPs as they lose in Ukraine. That is, the pace of their production and preparation coincides with the rate of destruction. And stocks in long-term storage sites will run out at some point. Especially since some vehicles stored there for decades are only suitable as donors of spare parts.

Russia produces about 400 BMP-3s per year. Another 600 older BMP types are being withdrawn from long-term storage sites by Russia.

The BMP-3 is being talked about as some kind of new weapon. It is a Soviet infantry fighting vehicle in service since 1987. It was used in both Chechen wars. It is an approximately 19-tonne tracked armoured infantry fighting vehicle with a crew of 3 and room for another 7-9 soldiers.

Most often, the BMP-3 is armed with a 100 mm automatic cannon, has anti-tank missiles, and machine guns on board. The BMP-3 is actually a heavily armed infantry fighting vehicle, but it is much loved by Ukrainian kamikaze drones. And aluminum armour of the Russian BMPs loves Ukrainian drones as well.

Formerly Russian BMP-3, it is now in the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Image credit: Kozubenko via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Infantry fighting vehicles are very important in modern warfare. There are always more of them than tanks and they accompany (or transport) infantry in assault operations. It is hard to imagine that such rates of BMP losses would not cause concern for Russia.

The main way to compensate for the losses is still BMPs from the long-term storage and that resource is going to be coming to an end soon. If Ukraine has such ability, it should increase its efforts to destroy as many Russian BMPs as possible in the shortest period of time.

Written by Povilas M.

Sources: Tsn.ua, Wikipedia

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globalhint · 1 year ago

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Ukrainian soldiers fight fatigue as the conflict continues into the second winter.

Ukrainian soldiers fight fatigue as the conflict continues into the second winter, After fighting Russian soldiers nonstop in the pinewood forests close to Kreminna, Istoryk, a 26-year-old soldier in eastern Ukraine, eventually fell asleep one morning. An hour later, a new gunfight broke out, bringing the senior combat medic back into action for a protracted and intense clash. This cut short his slumber. "We engaged in combat for more than 20 hours," Istoryk, using his military call sign, declared. "Non-stop fighting, assaults, evacuations, and you know, I managed it," he said on Thursday to a Reuters reporter who was paying him a visit. "And we succeeded together. We need to gather strength right now because we're not very fresh." His account of recent battles and the exhaustion he and his unit are feeling highlight the extreme pressure the war—which is in its 21st month—is placing on Ukraine's meagre resources as well as its soldiers. In Europe's worst combat since World War Two, the soldiers are also aware that Russia has a much larger force, more weaponry, and ammunition. This raises the painful question of how Ukraine will ever be able to defeat the invaders once and for all. In an interview that was released this week, Ukraine's top commander, Valery Zaluzhnyi, spoke of a "stalemate" on the battlefield and said that a long-drawn, attritional conflict would favour Russia and would even endanger the country itself. Zaluzhnyi stated that only new capacities, including increased supplies from Western partners and locally made drones, will tilt the scales back in favour of Kyiv. The well-respected general's harsh judgment comes after a summer counteroffensive that has liberated much less area than Kyiv had planned, and just as seasonal rains are starting to fall, making it more difficult to move across muddy ground. Even while tiredness is inevitable for those in the trenches, motivation is still high. Speaking in a thick West Ukrainian dialect, Istoryk smiles charmingly as he describes his gloomy experiences. "I think so," he said in response to the question of whether he could fight for one more year or maybe two. For sure." CHANGING SENSITIVE Istoryk is stationed in the Luhansk region's Serebryanskyi woodland with a rifle battalion of the 67th Mechanised Brigade. Russians occupy the majority of the province. There are craters left by incoming shells all along the route to the trenches, and the blasts have split some of the burnt trees in half. This type of fighting is occurring all along the front lines, which stretch from the northeastern border with Russia's Belgorod region all the way mainly maintained. Although Russian forces quickly withdrew from their positions in the Kherson region in early November of the previous year, more significant advances are yet possible. Muddy circumstances, however, could hinder offensive efforts. "When you are up to your knees in mud, wearing warm clothes, protective gear and a rucksack full of extra clothes, it's a whole different story," Colonel Oleksandr Popov, the commander of an artillery reconnaissance brigade whose units are also operating in the area, told Reuters this week. His brigade's drone operators seemed less worn out than those in the surrounding combat battalions. According to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Fellow Michael Kofman, the conflict has entered a "transitional phase" in which both sides are in the driver's seat. in various locations along the front. "Overall, Ukraine's offensive in the south has either culminated or is about to," he stated. ALSO READ: Death toll rises in Gaza, Blinken calls Israel to take measures to prevent humanitarian losses ARMAMENTARY WARFARE Two significant thrusts are occurring in the south, one near Orikhiv and the other south of Velyka Novosilka. Major fights are going around the eastern cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Kupiansk along the front that stretches about 1,000 km (620 miles). Popov predicted that artillery would continue to be a vital weapon in the winter, pointing out that it worked better against more stationary targets and that the lack of trees offered minimal cover for ground forces, which harmed both sides. In the Lyman area of the front, the colonel observed a nearly three-fold decrease in the quantity of Russian artillery strikes. Some experts said that both sides had low ammunition inventories, despite the colonel noting a nearly three-fold decrease in Russian artillery strikes in the Lyman area of the front last month compared to October 2022. "My sense is that the artillery advantage that Ukraine had for much of its offensive is now going to recede and that Ukraine's ammunition availability is going to be constrained," stated Kofman. "Russia will also be forced to conserve ammunition, but will now increasingly benefit from the influx of supply coming from North Korea." Using long-range missiles provided by the West, Ukraine has attempted to destroy Russian air defences, aircraft, and naval assets away from the conflict in the hopes that such assaults will make it more difficult for Russia for the opposition to aid troops in the front lines. Meanwhile, Russia has continued to attack Ukraine with drones and missiles, claiming that this is a targeted military operation, but in reality, thousands of civilians have died and essential infrastructure for transportation, power, and heating has been destroyed. The next phase of the conflict, according to 26-year-old officer Zakhid, would be difficult and a true test of the military's character back in the forests surrounding Lyman. Source credit SEE: Israel tackles militants from Hamas inside Gaza’s tunnels Read the full article

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luismiguelezcurrarondon · 1 year ago

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🎙️ Michael KOFMAN nos da las claves de la contraofensiva BUEN VIDEO, VEANLO, AMIGOS, AMIGAS

#youtube

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eagletek · 2 years ago

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy vows to defend Bakhmut; China says Russia ties will go from ‘strength to strength’ | Russia

Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s vow to defend Bakhmut following a meeting with senior military officials may be at odds with the developing situation on the ground. Michael Kofman, director of studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington Virginia, and one of the few observers to have correctly called Russia’s…

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mariacallous · 9 months ago

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The war in Ukraine has altered the course of global history. These authors explore how. When Vladimir Putin's forces sought to conquer Ukraine in February 2022, they did more than threaten the survival of a vulnerable democracy. The invasion unleashed a crisis that has changed the course of world affairs. This conflict has reshaped alliances, deepened global cleavages, and caused economic disruptions that continue to reverberate around the globe. It has initiated the first great-power nuclear crisis in decades and raised fundamental questions about the sources of national power and military might in the modern age. The outcome of the conflict will profoundly influence the international balance of power, the relationship between democracies and autocracies, and the rules that govern global affairs.

In War in Ukraine, Hal Brands brings together an all-star group of analysts to assess the conflict's origins, course, and implications and to offer their appraisals of one of the most geopolitically consequential crises of the early twenty-first century. Essays cover topics including the twists and turns of the war itself, the successes and failures of US strategy, the impact of sanctions, the future of Russia and its partnership with China, and more.

Contributors: Anne Applebaum, Joshua Baker, Alexander Bick, Hal Brands, Daniel Drezner, Peter Feaver, Lawrence Freedman, Francis Gavin, Brian Hart, William Inboden, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Michael Kimmage, Michael Kofman, Stephen Kotkin, Mark Leonard, Bonny Lin, Thomas Mahnken, Dara Massicot, Michael McFaul, Robert Person, Kori Schake, and Ashley Tellis.

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tomorrowusa · 2 years ago

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That’s basically true, though there is a gradually changing dynamic.

Since April, the Kremlin has concentrated on capturing the Donbas, an industrial region of eastern Ukraine where Russia-backed separatists are in control. “Where Russian forces have advanced those advances have been incremental, Ukrainian forces have been able to conduct tactical withdrawals pretty consistently,” Kofman said.

His comments come as an assessment by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command on July 22 said that “due to significant losses of personnel and equipment, Russia probably no longer has the military capacity to realize its ambitions in Ukraine.”

Russia has to rely increasingly on aging and less reliable equipment.

Along with Vagner contractors, the Russian military is relying more on volunteer and reserve battalions because of a shortage of infantry, Kofman explained, and that those troops are now fighting more and more with less lethal Soviet-era equipment, such as “older T-80BV tanks.”

“Russia still has quite a bit of equipment in storage. That's true. But it's a considerable step down in terms of quality and technological level compared to what they began the war with. The attrition issue is significant. I think it's fair to say that, in key categories, they've lost 30 percent of the active armored force,” Kofman said.

On the other hand, Ukraine is being resupplied with newer and more effective equipment.

“I think that HIMARS certainly is going to help Ukraine gain a degree of parity with Russian artillery, and is going to create a big problem for the Russian military, and how they organize both logistics and command and control and the degree of attrition they take on the battlefield,” predicted Kofman.

HIMARS have a longer range and are more precise than the Soviet-era artillery that Ukraine had in its arsenal, and Ukrainian officials have said their deployment has been critical in the fight to repel Russian troops and to strike their supply lines.

[ ... ]

The truck-mounted HIMARS launchers fire GPS-guided missiles capable of hitting targets up to 80 kilometers away, a distance that puts them out of reach of most Russian artillery systems."That's one of the biggest challenges for them, because their ability to obtain air superiority is at best localized, and their counterstrike options are limited. So, their capacity for targeting HIMARS isn’t particularly good."

Select Ukrainian military personnel are being trained in NATO countries on how to operate the more advanced equipment they’re getting. In turn, when they return to Ukraine they pass along the training to larger numbers of troops.

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US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently released a list of various items delivered to Ukraine as part of its security assistance program to help repel Russian invaders.

The list began with this preface:

In total, the United States has committed approximately $8.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $7.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked and brutal invasion on February 24.

On July 22, the Department of Defense announced $270 million in additional security assistance for Ukraine, including our sixteenth Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $175 million, as well as $95 million in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin allegedly is hoping that the US succumbs to attention deficit disorder and forgets about Ukraine. That is a reminder of how delusional he is.

From time to time we see Russian bots and trolls on social media and in comments sections trying to encourage appeasement of Russia or stoke impatience with the war effort. They have been remarkably unsuccessful.

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nicklloydnow · 2 years ago

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“If the war continues to move against the Russians, and particularly if the Ukrainians begin to invade Crimea, they will reach ever greater levels of fear that the future of the Russian regime is at stake. Some genius within the Russian leadership will then put forward the idea that they can reverse the momentum and demonstrate their greater willingness to accept Armageddon by a nuclear demonstration. As Michael Kofman and Anya Lukianov Fink have noted, Russian military analysts have long believed in “a demonstrative use of force, and could subsequently include nuclear use for demonstration purposes.” The West, this Russian optimist will argue, doesn’t really care about Ukraine and will recoil at the real prospect of nuclear war. Lacking better options, or really any other options at all beyond surrender, Russian President Vladmir Putin (or his successor) will seize on this deus ex machina. Such thin hopes of turning defeat into victory are the most effective enemies of peace.

Russian forces will launch a small number of tactical nuclear attacks against Ukrainian troop concentrations or NATO supply lines within Ukraine. If they can’t find any of those, they will use them against Ukrainian civilian targets. The target is not essential because the point of this attack will be to destroy Western will to continue supporting Ukraine, not to directly reverse the military situation. They would additionally put their strategic nuclear forces on alert and begin “unusual movements” of nuclear assets in an effort to warn the United States against responding to the attack.

The United States government has certainly considered this contingency, which is why both National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were recently dispatched to warn the Russians they would suffer “horrific” and “catastrophic” consequences if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. In the event, however, the U.S. government will struggle to find a response that reflects the gravity of the Russian use of nuclear weapons but does not represent further escalation toward direct confrontation and all-out nuclear war.

The American equivalent of the Russian genius will argue that a direct, proportionate response aimed at the attack itself will send a signal to the Russian leadership that the United States is seeking to punish the crime of nuclear use, not escalate the war or overthrow the Russian regime. They will see the Russian strategic nuclear alert as a bluff, arguing that to follow through with a strategic nuclear attack would be suicide. Lacking better options, the U.S. leadership will seize on the idea of such a finely calibrated response and launch a conventional NATO attack on Russian troop formations in Ukraine or the military base in Russia where the Russian nuclear strike originated from. As a precaution, they will also put U.S. nuclear forces on alert, put more U.S. nuclear submarines to sea and recommend to the British and French that that they also put their forces on alert — if these two independent powers had not done so already.

Unfortunately, such a subtle message is likely to be lost on a paranoid Kremlin. They will see a direct NATO attack on Russia or Russian forces as confirmation of their view that the West intends to destroy the Russian regime and kill all its leaders. For Russian leaders this is an ever-present reality: Putin reportedly obsessively watches the video of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s death after he was overthrown by NATO forces. Facing the prospect of death if they do not act to save their regime, Russian leaders will risk launching further conventional and tactical nuclear strikes on NATO troop formations and Ukrainian supply operations in bordering NATO states such as Poland and Estonia to signal that Russia is willing and able to defend itself despite the risk of strategic nuclear escalation.

The attacked NATO states will invoke Article 5 and NATO will begin a conventional operation to eliminate Russia’s offensive capability to make such attacks. Fearing that those attacks will destroy the Russian strategic nuclear capability and thus leave them defenseless against NATO conventional forces, the Russians will launch a first-strike strategic nuclear attack on the slim hope that it will weaken the Western resolve or capability to respond and save their regime. I will then have something in the order of a few minutes to send out an email to my colleagues saying, “I told you so.”

This is only a scenario. None of it is inevitable, of course. But this is the path that we are currently on and the likelihood of it coming to pass grows by the day as one side or the other becomes more desperate.”

“Russian nuclear strategy has been the subject of vigorous debates in recent years. Some believe it hides a plan to compel war termination through early use of nuclear arms after a case of aggression, i.e., escalate to de-escalate; others see it primarily as a defensive deterrent to be used in exigent circumstances. Analysts have argued that Russia’s lowered nuclear threshold is a myth, a temporary measure born out of conventional inferiority. Others believe that “escalate to de-escalate” does not exist as a doctrine, or that the term itself should be terminated because the real strategy is escalation control.

(…)

CNA’s Russia Studies Program recently concluded a study on Russia’s strategy for escalation management, or intra-war deterrence, across the conflict spectrum from peacetime to nuclear war. The research consulted a representative sample of over 700 Russian-language articles from authoritative military publications over the past three decades. Delving into the current state of Russian military strategy and thinking on these subjects, we found that the Russian defense establishment has developed a mature system of deterrence and a coherent escalation management strategy, integrating conventional, strategic, and nonstrategic nuclear weapons. Russian thinking on deterrence and escalation management is the result of decades of debates and concept development. Official policies, strategies, and doctrines offer glints of the thinking behind Russian nuclear strategy, using refereed terms and concepts whose actual contents are discussed extensively in military writings.

(…)

Russian strategy, integrating nonnuclear and nuclear deterrence, is intended to solve a straightforward escalation dilemma stemming from a lack of force flexibility and capability in the 1990s: The United States could inflict unacceptable damage on Russia with conventional capabilities and attain victory with precision-guided weapons in the initial period of war while making minimal contact with Russian forces. Moscow’s answer would necessitate large-scale use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons in theater. This was an untenable situation, which led to the Russian military’s quest for both the ways and means to build a “deterrence ladder” with multiple rungs, and flexibility in conventional and nuclear options, to manage escalation. Conventional force modernization has not altered Russian thinking on the importance of nuclear weapons at higher thresholds of conflict, for intra-war deterrence, and ultimately for warfighting.

The Russian military sees an independent conventional war as possible, but believes conflict is unlikely to remain conventional as it escalates. This is not a departure from late-Soviet military thought. The military expects a great-power war between nuclear peers to eventually involve nuclear weapons, and is comfortable with this reality, unlike U.S. strategists. However, in contrast with Soviet thinking, the Russian military does not believe that limited nuclear use necessarily leads to uncontrolled escalation. The Russian military believes that calibrated use of conventional and nuclear capability is not only possible but may have decisive deterrent effects. This is not an enthusiastically embraced strategy, but an establishment’s answers to wicked problems, in the context of a great-power conflict, which have no easy or ideal solutions.

(…)

Russian stratagems can be divided up into phases of demonstrative actions operating under the principle of deterrence by fear-inducement (устрашение), and progressive infliction of damage, which is deterrence through limited use of force (силовое сдерживание). Deterrence by fear-inducement operates through demonstrative acts, which, during peacetime or a period of perceived military threat, communicate that Russian forces have the means and resolve to inflict damage against an opponent’s vitally important targets. These objects — for example, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants, chemical and petroleum industry facilities, and others — are those that might lead to significant economic losses or loss of life, or impact the target nation’s way of life.

(…)

If escalation cannot be managed, then capabilities are employed en masse for warfighting and retaliation. Generally, the Russian military sees escalation management as possible up to larger-scale employment of nuclear weapons. Subsequent use of force falls primarily into the retaliation category.

As a regional or large-scale conflict escalates, the Russian military could follow the employment of nonnuclear capabilities with single and grouped nuclear strikes using nonstrategic nuclear weapons, either for the purposes of demonstration; against a target in a third country; or against deployed adversary forces. As prospects for managing escalation decline, use of force intensifies with extensive use of precision-guided conventional weapons in a regional war. In a large-scale war, the Russian military expects that its forces will use nonstrategic nuclear weapons in warfighting, together with limited use of strategic nuclear weapons.

The purpose of limited strikes is to shock or otherwise stun opponents, making them realize the economic, political, and military costs they will pay for further aggression, but also to offer them off-ramps. The approaches described above are not mechanistic. Military science may give the impression that these actions are preprogrammed, but much depends on the context and what Russian political leadership authorizes (and the manner in which that authority is given). The figure below offers one representation of the potential courses of action.

(…)

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has largely disarmed of tactical nuclear weapons save the B-61 variants of gravity bombs, while Russia reduced its nonstrategic nuclear arsenal by about 75 percent. However, the Russian military has been modernizing and expanding nonstrategic nuclear weapons alongside strategic conventional ones. This suggests a different philosophy at work in terms of the balance between conventional and nuclear capabilities in Russian military strategy. Russia sees nuclear weapons as essential because their psychological impact, and deterrent effect, cannot be supplanted by conventional capabilities. They are an asymmetric investment to neutralize U.S. conventional advantages, representing a competitive strategy. Simply put, conventional weapons cannot match the deterrence bang for the ruble spent on nuclear weapons.

No less important is the theory that binds Russian conventional, nonstrategic, and strategic nuclear weapons. Limited use of conventional weapons has added coercive effect if nuclear use is expected to follow, and it lends credibility to follow-on nuclear threats, which by themselves might prove unconvincing in early phases of escalation. A large strategic nuclear arsenal is not just important as a survivable nuclear deterrent. It raises the fear of uncontrolled nuclear escalation once nuclear weapons are used. This nuclear dread generates psychological pressure on the elites and population of a targeted state to avoid escalation once nuclear weapons are used.

(…)

Compared to Russian military considerations of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the criteria for use of nuclear forces remains unchanged, and if anything the thinking has been refined over the last two decades, as has declaratory policy. The role of nonstrategic nuclear weapons has been pushed further into regional or large-scale war, with Russia preferring conventional options in a crisis and the initial period of conflict. What has changed in the last two decades is not so much the threshold, but more so the timing when nuclear weapons might come into play. There is strong doubt in Russian military circles that political leadership will authorize early, preemptive use of nuclear weapons. In general, despite some marginal voices who consistently call for early nuclear use, the consensus is that attempts to coerce with nuclear weapons early on will not be credible. This is precisely why the Russian military invested in complementary means of nonnuclear deterrence. However, Russia’s strategy of deterrence by fear-inducement when under military threat makes heavy use of nuclear signaling, which serves to create the impression that the country is far looser with its thinking on nuclear use than is actually the case.

Important differences exist between Russian military thinking on escalation management and what some have characterized as Russia’s early war-termination strategy, nicknamed “escalate to de-escalate,” where Moscow acts aggressively and seeks to terminate the war with preemptive nuclear use. De-escalation as envisioned by the Russian military means escalation management, which includes containing conflict to a specified threshold — for example, keeping a limited war from becoming a regional war — or deterring other states from becoming involved; containing the war geographically; attaining a cessation of hostilities on acceptable but not necessarily victorious terms; or simply generating an operational pause. It includes more than simply war termination. Successful escalation management results in escalation control, because escalation control is not something you do, but something you get as the result.

Single or grouped strikes may or may not result in follow-on nuclear escalation, but widespread use of nuclear weapons is not about escalation management. It is for general warfighting as a last-ditch effort in cases where the military is losing a war and the state is under threat. Can Russia find itself fighting a war that it perceives to be defensive in nature, and then resort to nuclear first use as the conflict escalates? Absolutely, but this proposition assumes a host of military and nonmilitary actions taken on both sides prior to nuclear escalation, rather than an attempt at preemptive nuclear coercion. There is no gimmicky “escalate to win” strategy, in which military strategists believe they can start and quickly end a conflict on their terms thanks to the wonders of nuclear weapons. The U.S. defense strategy community needs to put away this boogeyman and stop telling this scary tale like some kind of nuclear ghost story. The Russian military has a visibly different comfort level with nuclear weapons than the United States, and arguably always will, but it does not write of nuclear escalation in recklessly optimistic terms, incognizant of the associated risks.

(…)

The challenge posed by Russian nuclear strategy is not just a capability gap, but a cognitive gap. The Russian military establishment has spent decades thinking and arguing about escalation management, the role of conventional and nuclear weapons, targeting, damage, etc. In the United States, precious little attention has been paid to the question of escalation management, which is overshadowed by planning for warfighting. Thinking on escalation management and limited nuclear war should take priority, because the political leadership of any state entering a crisis with a nuclear peer will inevitably wish to be assured that a plausible strategy for escalation management and war termination exists. Otherwise, leaders may back down because the risks may simply outweigh U.S. interests at stake, and the defense establishment’s ideas for managing that potential escalation prove unconvincing.

(…)

Any conflict with Russia will always be implicitly nuclear in nature. If it is not managed, then the logic of such a war is to escalate to nuclear use. The United States needs to develop its own strategy for escalation management, and a stronger comfort level with the realities of nuclear war.”

“The president is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to using Russian nuclear weapons, both strategic and non-strategic, according to Russia's nuclear doctrine.

The so-called nuclear briefcase, or "Cheget" (named after Mount Cheget in the Caucasus Mountains), is with the president at all times. The Russian defence minister, currently Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, currently Valery Gerasimov, are also thought to have such briefcases.

Essentially, the briefcase is a communication tool which links the president to his military top brass and thence to rocket forces via the highly secret "Kazbek" electronic command-and-control network. Kazbek supports another system known as "Kavkaz".

Footage shown by Russia's Zvezda television channel in 2019 showed what it said was one of the briefcases with an array of buttons. In a section called "command" there are two buttons: a white "launch" button and a red "cancel" button. The briefcase is activated by a special flashcard, according to Zvezda.

If Russia thought it faced a strategic nuclear attack, the president, via the briefcases, would send a direct launch order to general staff command and reserve command units which hold nuclear codes. Such orders cascade swiftly down different communications systems to strategic rocket force units which then fire at the United States and Europe.

If a nuclear attack were confirmed, Putin could activate the so-called "Dead Hand" or "Perimetr" system of last resort: essentially computers would decide doomsday. A control rocket would order nuclear strikes from across Russia's vast armoury.

(…)

To prepare a TNW strike, it is likely that Putin would consult with senior allies from the Russian Security Council before ordering, via the general staff, that a warhead be joined with a delivery vehicle and prepared for a potential launch order.

These steps could be picked up by Western intelligence, as would unusual Russian troop movements away from any potential target in Ukraine or change to Russia's nuclear posture.

"I think Putin would signal and would want us to see that he was moving towards nuclear weapons because he would like to get whatever he wants for free," said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

"If you are going to use a nuclear weapon to send a very costly signal, the first thing you do is say: ‘You know what I am going to do, right?’. And then you might get what you are asking for and if you don’t then you go through with it."

Because Putin could not predict the U.S. response, Russia's entire nuclear posture would change: submarines would go to sea, missile forces would be put on full alert and strategic bombers would be visible at bases, ready for immediate takeoff.

Then, at his leisure, Putin could use his nuclear briefcase to give, or not to give, a launch order.

"You can imagine that Putin might want to have a slow process so that Ukraine and West would sweat as they watched the preparations," said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.”

“'It is a common joke among nuclear experts that the best advice in the event of a strike is to make sure you die in the first wave,' Dr Lewis says, grimly.”

#war #nuclear war #nuclear weapons #russia #ukraine #america #nato #armageddon #putin #jeremy shapiro #michael kofman #anya loukianova fink #jeffrey lewis #middlebury #middlebury institute

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fapangel · 3 years ago

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History Resumes: A guide to the Russo-Ukranian War for anime avatars

(Google Docs version) As is usual when the world shifts gears without a clutch, there’s an awful lot to talk about. However we must first explain what has actually happened in the first 24 hours in Ukraine, and what it means. In order of importance:

Ukraine is fighting incredibly hard and has outperformed all expectations. Their competence, capability and willpower have exceeded all expectations – including, apparently, those of the Russians.

There is an ongoing battle of operational maneuver scale that the Ukrainians are holding their own at. Russia has made serious and threatening advances in one area, but are having enough trouble that their eventual victory is anything but certain.

This is far from over. Russia has yet to commit roughly half their troops and Ukraine’s reserve units are still mobilizing. This is, in every way, classical conventional warfare; the kind fought in WWII; that takes place over vast distances and multiple days of intense combat.

The Current Situation

The most important fact is also the most obvious: Ukrainian forces have been demonstrably unimpressed by “shock and awe” and not only failed to collapse quickly, but defended their initial positions with incredible tenacity. The always excellent Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) has drawn this simple, but (so far) quite accurate Red Arrow Explainer that lays out Russia’s apparent operational plan:

The goals Russian forces hope to gain via maneuver are 1. to encircle/flank/divide the Eastern Ukrainian flank from the rest of the country to ease defeating them in detail and 2. to take Kiev itself – or rather, capture the government that is in Kiev – the entire government; not just the top leaders, but all their subordinates and as many politicians/influential people as possible and kill them, so that Putin may install a puppet government without any risk of another revolution like the one that toppled his favored puppet in 2014.

Compare to this map of the present situation at roughly 9PM EST (-5 GMT) which is guaranteed out-of-date and somewhat inaccurate but reflects the best generalized picture that can be gleaned from watching the war unfold one shaky smartcam video at a time on Twitter:

As you can see, the Russians are well short of their likely Day 1 objectives. Do not underestimate what they have accomplished; remember that Ukraine is a huge country; twice the size of California; and only slightly smaller than Texas. They have driven a good 160km from Crimea to reach the city of Melitopol and 100km to reach Kherson. However, how much significance this actually holds is questionable.

Even from a simple two-color map the significant natural barrier in Ukraine is obvious – the river Dnieper. This is no normal river; easily defeated by tracked bridge-laying vehicles or forded with snorkels on tanks; it’s a massive river the equal of the great Mississippi and represents a serious barrier to Russian advancement. To truly divide the country in half to achieve an easier defeat of Ukrainian forces in detail, piecemeal, they need to control both banks of this river. Hence the importance of the drive on Kherson. At last report the Russians had crossed the river and taken Kherson, but the Ukranians had somehow managed to re-capture the major bridge behind them. I’ve also seen reports that the Russians have been driven out of Kherson completely. Mixed messages like that in the fog of war typically owe to heavy, confused fighting (as evidenced by the mixed reports on the fighting at Hostomel Airport.)

At first blush it would seem that the Russians have made solid gains in the South, but this depends largely on how far inland the Ukrainians actually placed their Main Line of Resistance. Trying to bottle the Russians into the Crimean peninsula would have been a fool’s game given the vast amount of men and materiel the Russians crammed into Crimea to facilitate a breakout against just such a force; to say nothing of the amphibious landing capability that could land a (smaller) force west of them to assist a breakout or ferry forces across the Sea of Azov; either landing taking place well within range of heavy, massive supporting fires by Russian heavy artillery units and airpower from Crimea. When combined with the restrictions imposed by the need to capture a bridge over the Dnieper (there’s only so many bridges to target,) it makes perfect sense for the Ukranians to place their MLR back a ways from Crimea – at least out of long MLRS range – to obligate the Russians to come to them and step at least a little bit away from their base of supply.

There is also the road situation to consider. Much has been made of the hardness or softness of the ground, the fabled spring thaw/Russian mud, but the simple truth is that any army greatly values roads. The Roman empire’s roads were the backbone of its empire simply because it allowed its armies to move about quickly. Even in the relatively open terrain of eastern Ukraine it’s highly desirable to control the major roads – as evidenced by the Russian’s advance towards Melitopol in the first 24 hours being up highway E105, that runs parallel to the coast. Tanks can cross almost any terrain, but the supply trucks that feed them have a bit more trouble; even rugged military vehicles. Thus, if you consider the layout of the major highways north of Crimea, you can see that the Russians are a bit limited in options if they wish to maintain a speedy advance and not get overly bogged down:

Melitipol can obviously be bypassed if Kherson and Kakhovka cannot be taken, but even with control of a bridge crossing it will be of much more limited use without free use of the highway that runs through Melitopol.

Thus, controlling those southernmost Dneiper bridge crossings (or, in the worst extremity, blowing them completely,) and controlling the gap between Melitipol and the river are key to containing the Russian thrust from Crimea and preventing Ukrainian forces from being flanked and isolated.

Tonight, this appears to be the most crucial part of the battle.

Other notes:

1. Russian amphibious capability can’t effectively bypass the need to hold a bridge – it can put a smaller force in a flanking position to help take one, but if they could feasibly keep one supplied with ferry runs around Crimea, the Russians wouldn’t bother fighting for a bridge.

2. Ukraine’s choice to fight for the Eastern part of the country, despite being so badly outflanked and on unfavorable terrain, makes sense if you consider it’s the heart of both their industrial AND agricultural industries. Losing Ukraine east of the Dnieper would be devastating.

This concludes the Red Arrows part of the explanation. If nothing else, understand that the most significant thing here is that the red arrows actually still matter. Ukraine is currently holding its own in a conventional, force-on-force fight with Russia and that’s significantly better than anyone expected.

Bear in mind the above info might have been rendered obsolete before I finished typing it. Part 1 goes up now for that reason; I now write part 2.

Part 2: Northern Flank, Brick Tank

Once again, the roads explain almost everything about the fighting in the north of the country:

Kharkiv is a road hub so major that it played a big role in multiple battles throughout history; and while Sumy grants access smaller highways but Russian maneuver forces will want to hold both cities/highways to protect their flank and lines of communication (i.e. roads) back to friendly territory – because there are confirmed Ukranian armored units in Kharkiv. This translates to a powerful maneuver force that could absolutely succeed at an attack designed to cut said lines of communication and/or flank Russian forces. Without Kharkiv the Russians will be hard pressed to quickly and effectively race southward to outflank forces defending the eastern border.

Flanking Kiev is a concern as well, but less of one because of its sheer proximity to the Belarusian border (Russian units should be nearing artillery range of Kiev now,) but also because Kiev needs to be actually taken, held and controlled for the Russians to achieve their primary goal of decapitation (and subsequent regime change.) Thus outflanking Kiev isn’t going to massively help because Russia will face a nasty urban fight anyways, and because holding Kiev was always non-negotiable for the Ukrainians they will have sequestered a very significant number of supplies in their city and well-fortified and hid them. Russia clearly committed to a fast, quick operation to kill/imprison the current government (and destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces as completely as possible to ensure any future revolution can be easily destroyed) and thus avoid the costs of a prolonged occupation. Given credible reports from Russia itself that young Russian men are being forced to sign conscription papers at the border itself, this makes sense – Russia does not have the sheer professional manpower to effectively occupy Ukraine and conscription is extremely unpopular with the Russian people.

From what I can tell the Ukrainians have reserved their best units for the north of the country and for good reason; as devastating as losing Eastern Ukraine would be, losing Kiev would spell the end of the Ukrainian nation as a free state and people. Between this and the apparent bloody tenacity of the defenders the Russians have simply unable to break through either Sumy or Kharkiv – and this is without the fighting actually entering the cities proper yet! Even if the Russians – by dint of heavier application of indiscriminate firepower or more fresh reserves – manage to batter the Ukrainians well enough to force them back into the cities, they will have to go after them if they want full control of the roads to keep advancing and lines of supply/communication safe. Urban fighting is ugly, and given the conviction of the civilian populace it would be very ugly. I don’t want to say that maneuver “doesn’t matter” up here, but so far it doesn’t look like the Russians really can maneuver out of the need to take these cities. Remember that they are racing the clock here; Ukrainian reserves are mobilizing, civilians are signing up to fight en-masse and as Ukraine’s chances seem better with every passing hour the willingness of the West to take risks to keep resupplying them will grow, and Russian attritive losses will mount.

This matters greatly in the morale equation, as well – Russia’s conscripts are draftees dragged from their normal lives at gunpoint. Bad enough normally; but much, much worse when they’re being sent into an active warzone against a competent and tenacious foe. Ukraine’s reservists, volunteers and civilian militia, on the other hand, are fighting not just for their nation, but for homes and families that are, in most cases, right at their back. Russian difficulties on Day 1 may somewhat be attributed to a professional force that was told (and had decent reason to expect) that they would roll over the Ukranians swiftly; the speed and design of the Day 1 attack indicated at least some expectation of that strategy’s success. They have clearly been disappointed in that regard.

Speaking of conviction, morale, and competence, the things witnessed through Twitter, darkly, on Day 1 are significant enough to warrant their own discussion. But first, a vitally important discussion of materiel concerns – what matters, and what does not.

“Muh IADS”

Both the media and my own friends have, with surprising regularity, illustrated their pessimism of Ukraine’s chances in the opening few hours with the simple phrase - “their air defenses collapsed in an hour! An hour!” To which I invariably replied: “WHAT defenses?”

When multiple generations pass where the only serious wars fought by the first world are vastly asymmetric ones that pit powerful, sophisticated air forces against antiquated air defenses in limited-scope campaigns, this misunderstanding is inevitable. The collapse of a country’s air defenses is unconsciously associated with inevitable defeat from the air. This impression is grossly incorrect in the case of the Russo-Ukranian war for multiple reasons, chief among them 1. The Ukranian air-defense “system” never really existed in the first place and 2. Russia’s capabilities in the air, while formidable, are nowhere near equal to the standard set by the United States in particular and NATO in general, especially in a full-scale symmetric war.

First, Ukraine’s air defenses. Like so many former Soviet Republics, their air defense assets mostly consisted of legacy Soviet equipment; except because of prior corruption/poverty and later hostility they never had the opportunity to significantly upgrade those legacy systems, either via aftermarket purchase from Russia or through domestic development efforts (save a single homebrew upgrade to their SA-3 systems.) Missile defenses come in many sizes (and corresponding ranges;) from “theater-defense” systems that can protect significant portions of an entire country to small tactical systems that can shoot on the move and protect tanks from marauding attack helicopters. Crucial to understand is that these systems build upwards, like a brick wall – you can use the lowest tiers without the upper ones, but rarely if ever the other way around. (This is precisely what the US has done for decades with Patriot and why there’s crash programs underway to rectify it.) The reason is that big, powerful SAM systems are also big targets that cannot hide very easily, and thus are relatively simple to destroy by simply saturating their defenses; shooting enough missiles at them that they cannot shoot down all the incomings. A modern Integrated Air Defense System is a sophisticated, networked “system of systems” that weave together like chainmail; combining airborne and ground-based radars, fighter planes and an interlocking network of ground-based missile launchers; with short-range mobile systems serving as point-blank point defense against ground-skimming cruise missiles targeting the larger missile batteries.

Ukraine had none of this. Their S-300 systems were not just laughably dated (and thus very susceptible to Russian jamming and ECM) but were also literally built by the Russians and so amounted to not much more than targets. This goes double due to the relative lack of smaller missile systems to provide them point-defense. Ukraine did start this fight with a handful of SA-15 Gauntlet (Russian name “Tor”) systems which are actually still pretty decent mobile-tactical systems, as well as point-defense systems, but using them to protect big, poorly-mobile batteries that probably would struggle to acquire and engage a single target anyway would just be a moronic waste of them. Much the same goes for their other systems; the SA-3 and SA-4s. If these are still alive and fighting out there, more power to them, but they’re trailer-towed systems and thus have all the disadvantages that Ukranian towed artillery suffer on a modern battlefield where computers are doing the heavy lifting of locating enemy shooters and mailing death in their direction. Additionally, they are short-ranged systems; effectively tactical in their reach.

This almost total dearth of real SAM capability (against an opponent like Russia) translates into bad news for their air force. The Ukrainian air force was pretty small to begin with, but the inability to engage incoming cruise or ballistic missiles with any real reliability – plus the loss of strategic depth innate to Russia getting to surround Ukraine on four fucking sides – meant their air force had no real refuge. If your airbases cannot be put outside of the enemies reach they must be shielded from it, and Ukraine had no real option for that. In fact, the fact that Ukraine’s air force generated even a single sortie – much less the multiples they actually have – is as much due to Russia’s odd choices as Ukraine’s tenacity. (More on this later.)

Now, against an air force like the United States, or NATO (but I repeat myself) this dearth of defensive capability would indeed result in another Highway of Death; a dire replay of the brilliant and brutal airpower campaign in the Gulf War.

But, ladies and gentlemen, the United States’s equal the Russian Federation fuckin’ ain’t.

FLY TRUE, FIM-92

If you uttered “Muh IADS” don’t feel bad, because I’m currently sniggering at more than one OSINT-discord know-it-all who told me I was wrong about exactly what we’re seeing play out in Ukraine because they’re a LockMart engineer and know more than the plebs. What they didn’t know, apparently, was how to pay attention to Russia’s air campaign in Syria... which was mostly conducted with dumb bombs, not Precision Guided Munitions.

This isn’t that surprising – despite their seeming modern ubiquity, even the United States maintains significant stockpiles of old-fashioned iron bombs, because they are cheap. PGMs are fucking expensive and in a full-scale war of the kind we’re seeing play out in Ukraine; one scaled proportionate to US forces, the US would be using unguided munitions whenever possible as well. This is significantly worse for Russia; because despite a great deal of modernization and stockpiling, employing PGMs against tactical targets is a hell of a lot more complicated than just point-and-click. The conflict that put PGMs on the map as the new wunderweapon, the Gulf War? Most of the real carnage inflicted on Iraqi maneuver units – i.e. vehicle columns – were made with unguided cluster munitions or MK82 Snake-Eyes. Smartbombs had plenty of problems – just because you could find a target didn’t always mean you could guide a weapon to it, as illustrated by the problems in the “scud hunt:”

This is why a significant chunk of the F-35’s cost is invested in that dome housing a terrifying witch-eye sensor laced with eldritch power that lets it find one asshole hiding in a bush from 35,000 feet. This is also why planes like the A-10 – and, for that matter, any attack helicopter in existence – still exist. There is still a need for aircraft that can go down into the weeds and get very, very close to a target; not just to hunt for targets on their own, but also to bring in fire with pinpoint precision on targets to support troops in contact – often with unguided munitions like guns or dumbfire rockets. The problem with this is that to do it, you have to fly low, where every asshole with a rifle is shooting at you. The IL-2 is fabled as the most produced warplane of all time, but it’s never mentioned why – it was shot down so much. And yet, Stalin still threatened the factory foreman personally to increase production because despite that loss ratio, it was still cost-effective. The A-10 was designed in the 60s, and that’s effectively the kind of plane it is. And the fact that NATO isn’t ditching their Apache attack helicopters anytime soon – despite having the F-35 and it’s Eye of JDAM – indicates that they think there’s a real operational niche for that still as well.

Well, folks, in case you didn’t notice, the Russians don’t have an F-35. But they DO still have lots of attack helicopters, and SU-25 attack jets. They also have less money, less sophisticated air-to-ground sensors, and simply put, less practice in calling in supporting CAS fire from jets. This isn’t surprising, given Russian force doctrine has always favored ground-based fires (viz. artillery) over airpower for tactical/operational fires. Russian Tupolevs were performing medium altitude level-bombing attacks with dumb bombs in Syria; classic WWII style attacks – to save on precious PGMs. Sure, a big Serious War means they’ll be much more willing to expend PGMs, but they’ve also got many more important targets to hit with them... and due to the frugality in Syria required to save that stockpile for, well, now, they haven’t nearly as much experience at ground-to-air control.

Simply put, Russian tactical airpower was always going to be leaning heavily on attack helicopters and SU-25s relying at least in part on unguided or short-ranged weapons.

And that brings them into the MANPAD envelope.

Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles aren’t magic; they have lousy range, can’t hit anything above 10,000 feet or so and their seekers are small, cheap and primitive compared to anything else. But they make up for this by being so small and portable they can be anywhere. Many MANPAD shots will be juked by flares or IR jammers; but if troops know how to employ them right (and video from the war I’ve seen myself indicates the Ukranians do) they’re still going to rack up the kills.

Ukraine can’t do fuck-all to stop bombing of stationary targets like bridges, barracks, ammo dumps, etc. They can’t stop an SU-35 at 35,000 feet any more than they can stop a high subsonic cruise missile. But that’s not the firepower that inflicts steady attrition on infantry and armored forces; the kind of firepower that really grinds down and decimates a force.

If attack helicopters are the cost-efficient, attritable way to move mud, then MANPADs are the cost-efficient way of shooting back at them. And the Ukrainians have lots of them – and as video from the first day of war showed clearly, they’ve been well-trained in how to use them properly.

This is far from optimal, of course – major maneuver cross-country with just MANPADs for air cover is still a miserable, brutal thing (lol Avenger) – but nonetheless, the Ukrainian forces are not helpless against Russian airpower.

Part 4 incoming. Hold tight.

Competence, Conviction and Morale

Something you probably heard about that I haven’t mentioned but in passing is the fighting at Hostomel (aka Anatov) airport, where yesterday Russian VDV (airborne) troops took the airport only 15km north-west of Kiev in a heliborne operation, only to get Remagen’d (a constant risk with any airborne operation) when the Ukranians promptly bombarded, then counter-attacked and crushed their little salient before they could start landing reinforcements in transport planes. Information (again, Twitter OSINT but apperently credible) indicates that the VDV lost several choppers on the way in, at least a few of them to Ukranian MiG-29s, and during the assault on the airport the Ukranians were able to generate a sortie with one of their SU-24s to hit the airport.

I didn’t mention this before because, despite being dramatic, it wasn’t of major strategic interest once the attempt was crushed. Had the Russians been able to quickly build up a bridgehead, it would have been a big coup for the Russians; getting them to Kiev much faster without having to fight their way there. But that required, above all, speed. To use an airport it’s not enough to physically possess the runway; you need to make sure nobody shoots the thing while rather delicate, thin-skinned transport planes are landing and taking off on it. That means you have to control a few kilometers around the airport as well, so sneaky lads with MANPADs or 81mm man-portable mortars can’t get enough to nail transports. Damage that would be survivable while on the wing is often fatal during take-off, and while landings are a bit more survivable a trashed, burning plane on the runway presents a problem for future air ops.

And even if they’d been able to get enough lightly-armed airborne infantry onto the airfield in time to do that, they’d still have the problem of, oh, all the heavier artillery in Kiev, only 15km away.

There’s also the fact that the Russians 1. did not put every Ukrainian airbase and/or aircraft out of commission before it took off and 2. didn’t provide their airborne assault with a close air escort, nor a BARCAP over the airfield to cover the paratroopers. One or the other is understandable; USGOV reported 160~ missiles fired between the opening 4AM salvo and the follow-up attacks, and to properly knock out a single airbase can easily require forty or fifty munitions. Given the small size of the Ukrainian Air Force it’s understandable that they declined to work over their airfields that hard, but in that case their failure to run off a few cheeky lads in MiG-29s hugging the deck to avoid the S-400s over the Belorussian border is simply nuts. The fact that an SU-24 was able to sortie mid-day to attack the paratroopers mean the Russians 1. didn’t learn from losing those choppers and 2. didn’t have any plans to work over those airbases and render them unable to refuel and rearm aircraft with cheaper, much more affordable laser-guided bombs delivered via airstrike.

Sum total, the VDV got Remagen’d because the Ukrainians were a hell of a lot less impressed with their shock-and-awe then they thought, and the Russians are apperently significantly less competent than most people, including myself, were expecting.

I was not expecting Ukranian armored units to amount to much due to how dated their tanks are, how dated their armor-piercing ammo for those tanks are, and the sensors/technology advantage the Russians will have, to say nothing of training. Apparently the training the United States provided paid off handsomely because those old T-64s have made a decent accounting of themselves and even stopped Russian armored thrusts in maneuver combat in places, something that St. Javelin of Kiev, despite her prowess, can’t do nearly as well.

Few people realize that the Ukranian army has been receiving training from the United States for eight years since the Crimean annexation and invasion of the Donbas – not just on weapons systems, but on how to structure the army’s command and control itself. The Ukrainian army in 2014 was a joke; a government job in a horribly corrupt post-Soviet-collapse satellite state and thus just an excuse to strip-mine the carcass of the once mighty Soviet Army and sell it the highest bidder. It was every bit the generic caricature painted in that movie Lord Of War.

Eight years of training and support from the United States later, and it’s turned into a fighting force that has taken a massive haymaker on the chin from one of the world’s most powerful military’s and come out swinging. There’s a reason the US accomplished this with such modest aid, when twenty years of lavish expenditure on the Afghan army couldn’t produce a force that lasted for three fucking days against a bunch of 7th century goat farmers.

The Ukrainians give a shit.

Ukrainians are not just fighting for their government, nor their nation. They are fighting on their own soil to defend families and homes right at their back. They are fighting in their own cities, which the Russians, in characteristic Russian fashion, are raining indiscriminate MLRS fire on. These are people who overthrew their last pro-Russian President in 2014 out of disgust at his corruption and Putin-worship, for which Putin punished them with an invasion of their own soil; eight years of war, 14,000 dead Ukranians and the loss of most of their heavy industry.

In the first 24 hours on Twitter I saw clear evidence of this; not just in the tenacity of Ukrainian defenders that brutal Russian firepower could not dislodge, but directly in men lining up around the block, twice, to volunteer to fight, waiting to pick up their rifles. The Ukrainians say they’ve handed out ten thousand rifles in Kiev alone and I believe them. I’ve seen at least one Russian supply truck with flat tires and a very, very dead Rooskie driver lying by it, and no other Rooskies nearby to chase away the guy with a cameraphone who was very close. All together that equates a rear-echelon supply driver that paused at a stop-sign and got lit up by some babushka with an AK. I’ve seen Ukrainian civilians verbally accosting and screaming at the Russian soldiers. I’ve seen Ukrainians gripping their heads in stunned anguish as they crouch over the bodies of family members killed by Russian MLRS strikes on their apartment buildings.

I have no doubt that the Ukrainian civilian volunteers will fight. They’re fighting in their own cities, watching their own fellow citizens get indiscriminately blasted by Russian rockets, and their families and homes are at their backs – literally, for those ten-thousand Kiev citizens who just signed up to defend Kiev.

As for the Russians, the situation is rather different. Despite a calm, efficient and pre-planned police crackdown, anti-war protests in multiple Russian cities quickly grew quite large. The “Mothers of Russian Conscripts” group (a sort of PAC for mothers that are pissed off when their young sons are drafted for their year of mandatory duty and come home in a body bag, as has happened before,) have said that conscripts are being actively used in Ukraine – and given that the Ukrainians have captured some, apparently not always in very, very rear-echelon lift-and-carry roles, either. The conscripts themselves, just judging by fitness and age, are clearly not cream of the crop, either, and yet Russia is using them in-country which tells you where their manpower situation is at.

Add to all this the simple psychological fact that the Russians clearly expected less resistance – at least enough to judge the risk of that airborne operation as worth it. Despite the fabled Russian indifference to casualties, they wouldn’t have risked the lives of two hundred odd elite airborne soldiers – who are rather scarce and expensive to train – if they hadn’t judged there to be a good enough chance of success. There’s no way that attitude didn’t percolate down to the troops themselves – if we in the West thought Ukraine’s chances were so grim, what do you think volunteer contract Russian soldiers who are neck-deep in the propaganda mill thought?

One noticeable facet of the war in the first 24 hours has been how there’s very little to any direct OSINT – i.e. some asshole filming on a smartphone and uploading it – of Ukranian troops themselves, moving around, in contact, etc. I’ve seen an uploaded video of a Russian EW (ground jamming) unit that had clearly been hit by Ukranian artillery – a unit member filming and uploading his own unit’s mission-kill. Twitter OSINT accounts are mostly agreeing not to spread any Ukranian-side info they find to help them, but even THEY say they haven’t seen much if anything to censor. This message discipline – even among civilian volunteers – is the natural result of spending almost a decade fighting a prolonged “grey zone” war against Russia in which information ops are key. There’s a reason Ukrainian soldiers almost universally wear masks to hide their faces – it doesn’t pay to let Russian agents figure out who your mother is and what her phone number is.

Meanwhile, the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are reportedly using Tinder, so I’d say it’s safe to say that they seriously misread the mood of the locals that’d be greeting them. It went from “hot Ukranian chick want you liberate her long time” to “they have Grads too and they know how to use them fuck” in an awful goddamn hurry, didn’t it?

The upshot of all this is that the clock is definitely ticking against Putin. This war is massively unpopular in Russia, and the Ukrainians are fighting a hell of a lot harder, on average, then a good chunk of the forces Russia has to call upon as reinforcements and rear-echelon troops. This can absolutely make the difference; it not only increases Ukraine’s odds of holding out longer, but increases the stakes of prolonging the war significantly. Oh, Putin might not give a shit about ten gorillion protesters or even eleventy-billion but as this drags on the troops are going to be dragging their feet more and more.

And this is what we are just seeing now – in the first 24 hours or so. This fight is still relatively clean by Russian standards, by the scale of what could happen. If this goes ugly, the Ukrainians are highly likely to retreat to the cities and fight in them, and the Russians will have to send their weary troops, some of them unmotivated, in after them to fight Gronzy 2.0.

That’s the ~strategic~ consequences of the conviction and morale things I’ve seen through the OSINT window so far. And now that I’ve said it, it’s time to dig into what this war is going to mean for us. How it has already changed the world. And how Ukranian’s conviction is key to it.

He Who Honks Last

The last 24 hours has conclusively settled an awful lot of debates, and with it, an awful lot of insufferable think-tank types that I used to insult on Twitter regularly are currently reeling, clutching their heads, and asking how they could have missed how full of shit Joseph Nye was all these years. It’d be a lot funnier if the price of that wasn’t watching civilians being shelled as a free nation fights to the death to preserve their independence and sovereignty. It’s gratifying to see the neoliberals howling as History pops out of that grave Krushchev dug to bite them in the ass, sure. It’s fantastic to see those fools still whining about the INF staring in slack-jawed horror as MK1 War (Conventional Symmetric) kicks in the door screaming “DETER THIS!”

But of all the rude awakenings, the absolute best is the one received by those who so smugly lectured us on Russia’s Legitimate Security Concerns, as if Russia was worried about conventional land-launched missiles in Ukraine in a way they weren’t concerning ship/sub launched weapons from the Med, up to and including D-5 Tridents on a depressed trajectory tipped with thermonuclear MIRVs. It’s the people who patiently explained to me, a Greek-Orthodox man who sits next to native Slavic speakers from northern Greece in the same Greek-Orthodox church, that western Ukraine speaks Ukrainian, and Eastern Ukraine speaks Russian, and so that land is really Russian clay; trusting us to understand without explicit statement that the “rebellion” in Donbas isn’t a Putin sock-puppet but Totally Legit. And it’s especially the ones who claim the 2014 ousting of Putin’s puppeteered “President” was a CIA-led coup, and thus Ukraine’s desire to join NATO is clearly just an extension of a dire plot to “encircle” the biggest fucking country with the longest contiguous international border in the world.

I would pay almost anything to have seen the looks on their faces when Putin went on national TV and explained, for thirty minutes, why Ukraine – the entire country – was a filthy kulak capitalist NATO lie, why it didn’t deserve to exist at all, and why it was really rightful Russian clay from day one, so he was going to take it, by fire and force.

Not the Donbas. Not the Russian-speaking areas.

The entire fucking thing.

And then he threatened to nuke anyone who dared oppose him.

And then those same people; so many of whom had held forth quite smugly on the Tight Cultural Ties of Ukraine to Russia, of their disgust for their Rotten Corrupt Government, had to watch as the craven, dissolute, dejected people who Weren’t Really A Country Anyway, Much Less A Nation held off the much stronger, much wealthier, much much more vaunted juggernaut that they’d predicted would crush Ukraine in a day – in self-defense, of course.

If it’s not yet obvious how the Russo-Ukraine war changes everything, it soon will be once more video evidence of the carnage and the scale of combat comes out. It’s a return to the kind of fighting the world prepared for throughout the five decades of the Cold War but never ultimately ended up fighting. If the building tension between China and America was the 1930s tension between America and Japan replayed, then this is 1939; Germany crashing into Poland. Someone on Twitter said that a “senior administration official” told her to enjoy the last few hours of peace on the European continent for a long, long while, and he wasn’t wrong. The elaborate academic theoreticals have crumbled away to reveal the craggy face of might and conquest... and with it, the real truths of what give people an identity and what forges them into a nation. Common culture more even than common language, and common struggle above even that.

So pull up a ringside chair, oh statue avatar accounts. Gather round, international relations doctorate students. And watch the nation you made excuses for demonstrate that it wasn’t the victim of the useless neoliberals, but the dragon it foolishly fed. Watch very carefully as the AK Babushka you all laughed at so hard does more for her people and nation, and does more than anyone, especially the Russians, thought was possible to kick their asses bleed them dry.

And then you can shut the fuck up.

#ukraine #russo ukrainian war #russo ukrainian crisis

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