An interesting article from
'The Spectator', copied below. So far Mr. Putin seems to have lost, in two weeks, more tanks than the Russians took 10 years to lose in Afghanistan, and more combat deaths than the Americans and coalition took over 20 years in Iraq. On that basis, all that he doing now is reinforcing failure. Now, as the weather moves into a cycle of freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing, his forces are pretty much obliged to stay on the metalled highways.
Putin’s dream of annexing Ukraine is over
But the war on the ground is still stacked in Moscow’s favour
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its third week, it is becoming abundantly clear that the Kremlin’s maximalist geopolitical aims of regime change and a ‘
greater Russia’ which includes Ukraine and Belarus are no longer achievable. The question now is how much damage will Russian forces inflict on Ukrainian cities and their brave defenders before Putin and his advisors lower their ceasefire conditions to terms that Ukraine’s leaders and population can accept. Ukraine is in a strategically stronger position than many in the West appreciate, but the war on the ground is still stacked in Moscow’s favour in the short term.
The plan to decapitate the Ukrainian state at the national and local levels with infiltrated special forces and operatives, while seizing key points with airborne assaults and surrounding the major cities with ground forces, failed spectacularly during the first week. Having been given next to no warning or time to plan, the Russian army advanced down major roads in poorly coordinated columns and lead elements were largely obliterated by stiff Ukrainian defences.
Airborne assaults, most notably
at Hostomel airport west of Kyiv, were almost unsupported and were rapidly destroyed or scattered by Ukrainian rapid reaction forces. As a result, many of Russia’s best trained and motivated VDV (paratrooper) and special forces units suffered huge casualties in the first week of the invasion without achieving significant results.
In the north of Ukraine, regular Russian army formations found themselves stuck on congested roads due to the extremely muddy off-road conditions. This has allowed Ukrainian forces to conduct ambushes with artillery, UAVs (drones) and the numerous anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) launchers provided by western countries.
Due to the lack of planning, most Russian frontline units were sent into Ukraine with very limited food, fuel and ammunition. In the north and north east, Ukrainian forces have successfully exploited and aggravated this initial weakness by ambushing and destroying resupply convoys travelling along supply routes. These tactics have been aided by the
failure of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) to provide effective cover for the ground troops or for resupply convoys. As a result, the second week of the invasion saw Russian forces in the north and north east of Ukraine largely pause to regroup, try and sort out their logistics nightmare, and complete the encirclement of Kharkiv and Sumy. Ukrainian forces have even conducted successful counterattacks to take back towns to the north and west of Kyiv at Chernihiv and Irpin, which are now the scene of renewed heavy fighting.
In the south of Ukraine, however, Russian forces had much more success. This is partly due to the very limited Ukrainian regular forces which had been positioned to defend against an attack across the open and relatively dry agricultural land near Crimea, where Russian firepower and heavy armour has the advantage. As a result, the cities of Kherson and Melitopol were rapidly taken, and Mariupol was encircled and has been under almost continuous bombardment for nearly two weeks.
The Ukrainian government now faces an extremely difficult choice in the coming few days
Perhaps more worryingly, Russian forces are advancing northwards towards Dnipro – largely bypassing the Ukrainian defences at Zaporizhzhia – in an apparent attempt to link up with its forces besieging Kharkiv in the north.
Despite heavy casualties on both sides, the Russian army appears likely to succeed in linking up this attack from the south with the its north eastern assault from Belgorod in the coming week or two. This would complete the encirclement of the bulk of the Ukrainian regular army, which is still fighting a desperate battle with the Russian and separatist forces attacking from Donbas in the east.
The Ukrainian government now faces an extremely difficult choice in the coming few days. It could attempt to withdraw these forces towards Kharkiv and Kyiv to set up a new defensive line. They would undoubtedly take heavy losses in the process, but this retreat could prolong the army’s ability to fight, at the cost of surrendering much of southern and eastern Ukraine. If the Ukrainian forces stay in the Donbas, then they will likely fight on for as long as possible once encircled, but they will eventually run out of ammunition and other supplies and be overwhelmed.
For the Russian army, however, the situation is far from encouraging. While they continue to advance in the south, and are making slow but costly progress in the north after a week regrouping and redeploying their forces, the initial objective of overthrowing the Ukrainian government and bringing the whole country forcefully back into Moscow’s orbit is now unachievable.
Resistance by regular and volunteer Ukrainian forces is unified, highly motivated and continues throughout the country despite heavy casualties.
Positively identified equipment losses for the Russian military already total more than 1,000 vehicles, aircraft and heavy weapons since the invasion began, and the real total is likely to be significantly higher. US
officials have estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops have been killed, and the ratios in previous wars would suggest that the figures for wounded, missing and captured troops will be three or more times that number.
These casualty estimates suggest that in two weeks Russia has suffered more combat deaths (and lost more equipment) than the US-led coalition lost in almost 20 years of combat in Iraq. The roughly 190,000 troops Russia committed to the operation are woefully inadequate to take and occupy the whole of Ukraine. The Russian army is falling back on the brutal tactic of encircling and bombarding cities to starve and terrorise the population and defenders into submission as a way to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to negotiate. But this approach also ensures that any Russian occupation or client government will face a vicious and protracted insurgency motivated by the hatred such atrocities inspire.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is receiving a steady supply of modern anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile launchers, ammunition, food, medicine, and financial aid from the West. Much of this is being pushed into Kyiv itself before Russian forces manage to encircle the city completely. Failing to encircle the capital before these supplies were built up – as managed at Mariupol, Melitopol and Kherson – may have already made it almost impossible for Russian forces to take the capital. At the same time, the Russian government is facing economic catastrophe and almost complete geopolitical isolation with nothing more to show for it than the prospect of capturing several Ukrainian cities which they are destroying in the process.
It will take an unsustainable number of troops to hold areas which Russian forces do conquer, and to sustain their supply lines in what is now resolutely hostile territory awash with weapons. Additional forces are being mobilised and rapidly equipped in western Ukraine, and the continued provision of modern weaponry and other supplies from Nato and the EU to support the build up of Ukrainian counter-offensive potential will be critical to sustaining Kyiv’s ability to fight the war over the coming months.
The most critical equipment for Ukrainian forces would be additional mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems – ideally legacy Russian-made systems such as SA-8 and SA-11 which Ukrainian troops already know how to operate. These systems have so far been critical to limiting the VKS’s ability to strike Ukrainian forces while they are on the move. The West should make sure though these systems are supplied with as little fanfare as possible to avoid giving Russia a pretext for more threats and escalation.
Russia’s emerging strategy of city bombardments and the encirclement of the Ukrainian forces in Donbas is a desperate gamble to force the Ukrainian government to accept ceasefire terms which could allow Moscow to claim a partial victory, regroup and consolidate its initial gains.
If Ukrainians can sustain their extraordinary resistance, the Russian army risks being bled dry at the end of vulnerable supply routes while the domestic economy and political system which sustains it chokes on western sanctions and isolation measures. The West should continue to give Ukraine every assistance, short of direct military confrontation, to support this goal.
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