RUSSIA IS LOSING IN UKRAINE

“It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.“ - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.

I may not have been writing about Ukraine lately, but I follow the RUSI updates and the Financial Times reports regularly. I highly recommend those to you. The RUSI (royal United Services Institute) is free.

At this point, Putin and Russia stand exposed as the failures they are. If the West will continue to stand firm, this criminal mistake will be resolved and the guilty parties will pay.

The reports of Russian atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine, escalated dramatically last week. On Friday morning, more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed, and 75 others wounded, by an explosion in a detention center in the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR). While the Russians blamed the Ukrainians for the attack, there are indications Russia is responsible. A particularly grisly video has been released on a Russian-sourced Telegram site, showing a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian POW with a box-cutter knife before shooting him in the head.

These are not the kinds of crimes committed by soldiers who think they are winning the war. As horrid as it is, this can be filed under Proof Russia Is Losing.

The Ukrainian resistance is everywhere. A small explosive device carried by a makeshift drone blew up Sunday at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean Peninsula, wounding six people and prompting the cancellation of ceremonies there honoring Russia’s navy. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the seemingly improvised, small-scale nature of the attack raised the possibility it was the work of Ukrainian insurgents.

Shortly after the drone attack, top Ukrainian businessman Oleksiy Vadatursky, the head of the grain export company Nibulon, and his wife Raisa died in the shelling of Mykolaiv, a town near Odessa; their bedroom was directly struck, suggesting a guided missile; making it a targeted hit.

As we know too well from the American government’s inability to admit the mistake of Vietnam (in fact, the website for the “50th Anniversary Commemoration” set up in 2014 is more like a celebration) or Little Georgie’s Invasion of Poland, er, I mean Iraq, it is hard for any government to admit to a Talleyrand-level mistake. But it is particularly hard for a tyrant whose power rests on his image as a strong man with infallible judgement.

Russia has reached the stage in the war in which it is fighting because not to fight would be embarrassing. Against all expectations, it has reached this stage quickly.

The war will only end when Putin realizes that Russia is losing it, in the precise sense that he realizes that his personal position is threatened. In other words, it will not be due to a political point that is hard to determine precisely.

It is certainly possible for Putin to change his story. He does that like other people change their underwear; it is how he rules. He changed his story the last time he invaded Ukraine in 2014 and failed to meet his objectives.

But he won't change his story until he has to, and only Ukrainian progress will force him to do so.

Is it possible for the Ukrainians to gain the necessary momentum on the battlefield? Looking at the reports, it appears likely, but one must always acknowledge that the only predictable about war is its unpredictability. Wars take place over time and on terrain, on bodies and in minds; some unexpected development can intrude from some odd angle and change everything.

It is most likely Ukraine will win, on the basis of the seven underlying factors that tend to decide the form of armed conflicts: time, economics, logistics, landscape, mode of combat, ethos, and strategy (TELLMES). With specific regard to this war, there is also the wild card of international public opinion.

My thinking about all this comes from my study of military history over the past several decades.

Time:

At the beginning, Russia was banking on a quick victory and most observers expected it. When quick victory is not produced and the enemy is not humiliated, time asserts itself. The longer a war goes on, the more the advantages that a larger power has or seems to have will be lost.

Economics:

Russia is a far larger economy than Ukraine. However, while sanctions against exports of gas and oil have not reduced either, the sanctions on Russia importing technological industrial goods (like computer chips) is having a noticeable effect already, and this affects their ability to produce new military equipment to replace losses. They have already been reduced to bringing 50-year old T-55 tanks which could not stand up in battle with a peer like any European army. This is coupled with the Ukrainian army’s technological superiority as Western military gear arrives and is put into action (like the HIMARS rocket artillery) that Russia cannot match. This has already resulted in Russia withdrawing supply depots and headquarters beyond the range of the HIMARS, with consequent disruption of Russian resupply of frontline forces and control of them.

While Russia has done much to destroy the Ukrainian economy, Ukraine is supported by western economic power that dwarfs both economies. During the Second World War, the Soviets depended on the U.S. economy (a lesson that Russians have actively forgotten) for nearly everything but most of their frontline weaponry. Now American and European economic power is on the side of the Ukrainians.

However, economic decisions depend on politics. Specifically, the Germans need to be thinking less about building an effective Bundeswehr in five years, and more about sending Ukraine what it needs in the next five weeks. Interestingly, Poland seems to have understood this, with their increased production of ammunition.

Logistics:

Because Ukraine is fighting the war on its own territory, it has the logistical advantages that soldiers and supplies do not have to be transported over great distances, while the same soldiers can count on support from local people and organizations.

Russian logistics were disastrous in February and March, as Russia invaded and failed to take Kyiv. Russian logistics in Donbas are simpler, because eastern Ukraine is contiguous with Russia, and southern Ukraine can be reached from Crimea and the Black Sea, which Russia controls. However, these conditions can be challenged, and indeed broken, with the right weapons - if the US proceeds to provide the longer-range rockets for the HIMARS, the situation can be created where nothing Russian is safe anywhere in Ukraine.

Landscape:

Surprisingly, Russia has been largely unable to take advantage of the favorable terrain of southeastern Ukraine in May and June, at a time before Ukraine could deploy large numbers of long-range weapons supplied by their partners. Russian soldiers had to deal with natural barriers such as hills and forests in the north, but this is not the case in the southeast - yet Russian progress has been very slow. And now the HIMARS are beginning to change everything.

Mode of combat:

Russian warfare depends on artillery, killing from a great distance. They shell a position until it is unrecognizable, then claim the rubble. It’s a method of warfare that kills civilians, flattens cities, and turns whole regions into wastelands, but no one in the Russian system cares. So far, the Russians have had the advantages ore more artillery pieces and more shells.

However, Ukraine is now receiving and using the long-range, accurate weapons to hit Russian ammunition dumps. The only ways Russia can adjust to this is to withdraw ammo dumps ouside of range, but that slows the supply of ammunition and reduces firing of artillery. Ukraine may soon be in a position to dictate the mode of combat. Russians do not fight well if they have to fight close. As Ukraine gains the advantage in artillery, there may be Russian retreats as commanders find themselves unable to rally their troops for close combat.

Ethos:

In the end, the Russians can always retreat to Russia, and it seems many want to. At some point, Russian commanders might make the very reasonable point to Putin that they have other responsibilities beyond Ukraine. Russian commanders do not seem to know why they are in Ukraine and Russian soldiers are not highly motivated; they have demonstrated they are an army that is happy to loot, but not to advance. While the Russian leadership and population seem not to care much about the many killed and wounded soldiers, the soldiers themselves care.

The Ukrainians have nowhere else to go. They have been openly threatened with their extermination. Ukrainian soldiers know what they are fighting for.

As the US learned in Vietnam, this is the difference between winning and losing.

Strategy:

The initial invasion was based upon Putin's faulty premises that the Ukrainian state is some kind of foreign or elite imposition, and the Ukrainian people would welcome its destruction and embrace Russian soldiers as brothers. The Russian "reasons" for fighting the war do not prepare for victory, but they do prepare for atrocity: officially, they are still committed to "denazification and demilitarization,"which means the elimination or humiliation of the Ukrainian nation and state. "Denazification and demilitarization" can however only define how the war is fought, not how it will end. The Ukrainian nation and state have been altered by this war, but not in a way that benefits Russia.

Russia has tried these last two months to encircle part of the Ukrainian army in Donbas, failed. They did take Luhansk and Donbas oblasts; Luhansk oblast is now totally or almost totally under Russian control, but half of Donetsk oblast is not. Most territory Russia has occupied was won in the first four weeks. Since the end of March, Ukraine has taken back more territory than it has lost - most of it north of Kyiv, but some around Kharkiv and Kherson, plus Snake Island.

The Russian plan now involves destruction of the Ukrainian economy, terrorizing civilians with missile attacks on cities; Gazprom is cutting energy supplies to Europe, all in the hope that the suffering lines up in Russia's favor. Much of the Russian strategy is to mount a one-country blockade of the world. This has already found its limits in the Russian decision to agree to allow Ukrainian grain to be shipped to Africa and Asia, due to the Russians being blamed in those countries (which have remained friendly with Russia) for the growing food crisis. It’s likely that the more Russia tries to win this way, the more hated they will become around the world.

The Ukrainian plan involves protecting the physical and social existence of Ukraine, which has been successful, and to launch counter-attack to win back the fertile land and strategic territory of the south in Kherson oblast, which would break Russian supply lines and destroy any residual image of Russian invincibility in mind of the Russian people.

More coherent goals provide a certain advantage. At this point, Ukraine's goals are more coherent.

The wild card is public opinion.

Opinion polls suggest a lot of support for the war in Russia, but it seems soft. So far, Asian soldiers in Russian army, poor people in the Russian army, and conscripted Ukrainian citizens have been dying on the Russian side. Russians in the major cities watch the war on television, but there is no public show of a personal willingness to fight.

Putin is afraid to mobilize the population for war, since it is supposed to be a media event, or a spectator sport. Russia has gone to great lengths to recruit while avoiding the appearance of a mobilization. Putin is smart enough to know Russian soft support can change if the war changes.

In Ukraine, public opinion is much more solid. The war is reality, not TV show. President Zelensky and the armed forces are extremely popular. This is unlikely to change in coming months.

What might be the most important variable is public opinion in Europe and in North America. Russian propaganda has not convinced many people that its war of aggression and destruction was justified. Propagandists have done a better job with the idea that Ukraine somehow cannot win, or that the war could be brought to an end if the West stopped sending weapons.

The war has shown that Ukrainian civil society is far more resilient and functional than anyone thought. Ukraine is in a position to win, but it is vulnerable to shifts in how we think about the war. Russia's only route to victory is to convince us Ukraine cannot win.

The Ukrainians have to demonstrate resolution. All we have to do to see things as they are, show some patience, and support the democracy that is under attack with the right weapons. The outcome of the war will depend upon our ability to do that.

Putin's rule is weakening. That people like Dmitry Medvedev now speak about the meaning of the war, the catastrophic consequences that await Ukraine and the West, is interesting, because it seems like a sign Putin is losing control.

The doom propaganda serves multiple of purposes inside Russian politics. First, it shows loyalty to Putin. At the same time, the doom propaganda is rhetorical preparation for a power struggle after Putin falls. If Russia loses, the people saying radical things now will have protected themselves. The fact that Medvedev and Lavrov speak as they do shows they understand Russia can lose wars, and is losing this one.

Medvedev is creating a profile that might be useful after Putin, as his technocrat profile was once useful to Putin. Lavrov’s bluster is similar.

Russians might think that Russia is winning the war. But in Ukraine the Russian army is taking losses, in equipment and in officers, that threaten its integrity as an institution. That the sanctions are working is shown by a “world-class army” going to Teheran for drones reverse- engineered from Western technology. The Russian army is taking horrible losses in menn's weakness. The Russian state is not designed for a war of this kind - it may look fascist at the top, but it does not have the fascist capacity for total war. In Russia today the reality is something more like "you pretend to win a war and we pretend to show enthusiasm."

Putin seems afraid that a general mobilization would undo his popularity and bring down his regime. The dramatic rhetoric on Russian television and on the Telegram channels of Russian leaders and the fact they allow such things as the castration outrage to become known is proof of their fear of losing.

As Clausewitz said, war is politics by other means; Putin chose this war and its atrocities. For the war to end, Putin must feel the politics change around him.

For the war to end, Ukraine must win.

For the West, this means patience and firmness and the consistent supply of the weapons Ukraine needs. With the war in Ukraine now in its sixth month, the coming weeks may prove decisive.

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