The Ukranian War

 

As I write this (11-03-2022) the Russians have finally untangled some of their columns near Kyiv, and are getting ready to attack the city. I do not have enough information (or time to find it), to analyse in detail how it will unfold (or rather how I would do it), but I believe I can provide an educated guess as to what the following months will unveil for us in Ukraine.

I build that estimate on 35-ish years of study of military history, strategy, tactics and logistics. But also on training in the Danish Home Guard during The Cold War to lead men in the exact kind of resistance the Ukrainians are undertaking now. As well as an intensive study of Guerrilla and subversive warfare as part of my university studies.

And let me say from the start; I make mistakes. I am no teller of the future, just an educated guesser. I made two mistakes. First I believed there was only a 20- 25% risk of war with Rasputitsa coming up- I thought the Russians would wait till summer and nap the wheat harvest at the same time, and I had believed the Russian military had been reformed and made more effective after the lacklustre performance in 2008. Apparently they had not. And like us in the West, they trained in Battalion Combat Teams, not the brigade or division scale necessary for this kind of combat. Add to this widespread corruption in the military and a fear of reporting bad news, and we see a situation where things stop working that should work and a performance so utterly terrible that it gives me flashbacks to The Winter War. Hence my prediction on the first day that the Ukrainians would resist strongly for a few days before taking to the cities to neutralise the Russian material superiority (like the Red Army did at Stalingrad) and make taking them very costly while waging a Guerrilla on Russian supply lines was wrong. I was and is right that the Ukrainians will never surrender (maybe a nuke might cow them, but I suspect not). The Ukrainians are giving ground only slowly and the poor sods Putin has deployed seem to have no idea what they are doing (they have not, for they have not practised it) and they pay a horrible price for their dictator’s wish for Lebensraum. Muddy conditions and few main roads have not helped either (though I thought the Russians would know Rasputitsa better than most). So they only control the few clogged main roads and have been bound to these. They have thus been easy targets for Ukrainian drones and ambushes by light infantry with various handheld AT weapons, notable the very effective Javelin System that hits the tank from above where it has the thinnest armour, but also many others. This has taken a heavy toll on the Russians and will continue to be a problem as long as they control only the main roads.

However, it seems the Russians are getting ready for a first serious assault on Kyiv.

It will fail! Kyiv is well fortified and we saw the first probe on its suburbs get ambushed by artillery and tanks, while driving too close together like untrained recruits. But more serious probes and then assaults will come if the Russians can gather infantry for them. And preparatory barrages that will inflict damage on Ukrainian defences, but mostly on civilians. And as they push the front close enough to Kyiv and get enough tubes and grenades moved forwards, the shelling of Kyiv will begin- probably coordinated with an attempt to isolate and encircle the city.

To be cont.

Yea well... I work too much, so it's been a whiiiile...

But today 31-03-2022 the Russian offensive has very certainly culminated without reaching anything resembling its original goals, and limited Ukranian counterattacks started on the exhausted and depleted Russians. Around Kyiv, near Kherson, and today in the Huliaipole District the Ukrainians are counterattacking, while the Russians are regrouping and reinforcing, but also digging in. Officially the Russians now only want limited goals in the Donbas Oblast- especially taking Mariupol, but despite that statement (an admission of failure) they are sending reinforcements to the area north of Irpin. In the coming week or so, it is imperative for the Ukrainians to keep up the pressure. They need to retake as much as possible, and if they in any way can, they should surround Russian forces in "Kessels", to denude the next Russian offensive of trained/experienced troops. With the ground drying and the Russians soon no longer limited to road travel, they have a limited window of opportunity. Meanwhile the Russians will try to regroup and dig in, while taking Mariupol. The fighting there is desperate and intense, with high losses to the Marines and elite Motorised Rifle Infantry fighting there, and though in theory they could be employed as offensive force towards Odessa if Mariupol had fallen a week ago. They are likely now too exhausted and depleted, and the "Tick Tock Brigade" of Kadyrovtsy (Chechens under Kadyrov) seems of little actual fighting value. 

Istitute for the Study of War writes of the forces NW of Kyiv; "Russia continued to withdraw elements of the 35th and 36th Combined Arms Armies and 76 Air Assault Division from their positions northwest of Kyiv into Belarus for refit and likely further redeployment to eastern Ukraine. However, these units are likely heavily damaged and demoralized. Feeding damaged Eastern Military District units directly into operations in eastern Ukraine—predominantly conducted by the Southern Military District—will likely prove ineffective and additionally introduce further command-and-control challenges for the Russian military."
To which I will add that the lack of a centralised command of the war will very much amplify this.

The Ukrainians are in much the same position as France in late 1914, where Germans had occupied important parts of the country and its industry, and thus needed to be kicked out fast, but was not- the fighting grinding to the bloody stalemate of The Western Front. Consequently, the Ukrainians need to be fast, before the Russians dig in, and in order to relieve Mariupol before it falls. They have to gamble some of their limited reserves and take the higher loss rates from attacking. The Russians must not be allowed to dig in and reinforce, and the Ukrainians have the advantage of interior communication and supply lines here- like Frederick the Great in the Seven Years War, though Russian air superiority will complicate things. The Russians meanwhile, will be claiming to have limited goals, but restart the attack as soon as they can. And with the high loss rates of their combat infantry, it will be by a mixture of survivors, Rosgvardiya, Kadyrovtsy, Wagner Group and militia from the rebel areas of Ukraine; supported by a lot of artillery, and there will be high loss rates on both sides. 

The Ukrainians will very likely defeat that effort as well, seeing as attacking with combined arms is an art the Russians seem to have forgotten (my soul hurts from the ineptitude they have shown, even though it is a good thing- my 1989 Danish Home Guard squad had more skill and tactical acumen even though we were "Weekend Warriors" only). However a pure infantry attack is no less difficult; requiring traning and coordination to perform the "sturmtruppen" and flanking tactics necessary. My estimation is that we will see larger scale attacks like that of Wagner Group on the US forces in Syria at The Battle of Khasham, where the "elite" mercenary group launched their Syrian allies with support from themselves and tanks in a frontal assault on a position defended by American SF supported by US air power and artillery. 

When that bloodbath ends, the front will probably freeze as will the conflict. 1915- 1917 on The Western Front and The Korean War from 1951 and forwards, as well as the Iran - Iraq War provide models of what I expect to see. The task of the Ukrainians will be to find a way to break the deadlock and kick the Russians out, for their population and economy are not as large as Russia's and they can ill afford a war of attrition.

And that is the problem; Russia's economy is currently reeling, and will get worse for a while, but at some point they will realign it along India- Chinese lines and start to rebuild it, but with growing Chinese influence, Russia that risks becoming a Chinese puppet or vassal, and Ukraine will suffer like France did in The Great War; a war of attrition is never desirable for the smaller country, and they will need a lot of western aid. 

Alternatively, the Ukrainians may roll up some or all of the weakened Russian armies, but what response will that elicit for a dictator who has gambled everything on a fast and glorious takeover of the Ukraine? Tactical nukes on cities and supply points cannot be ruled out, whatever outcry it may create globally. It is unlikely that the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal will come in play, for no single person can activate that, and it will up the game to a level where the west might have to respond in kind- and nobody is interested in a nuclear exchange, nobody! Also, if the Russian strategic arsenal is in the same abysmal state the other armed forces are, they may be very reluctant to reveal that.

04-04 Interestingly, the Russians seem to have given up entirely in the north. That surprised me as much as their general incompetence. I can only ascribe it to Ukrainian pressure and rolling up the front. There will no doubt be another wave in the southeast as described above, and with the consequenses I predict.