THE NEXT MONTH IS CRUCIAL

Today, Tuesday April 12, Vladimir Putin said that the war would not end until Russia could see that they had gained their goals.

The next four weeks, ending on the annual Victory Day celebration in Moscow celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II on May 9, are a crucial and intensely dangerous period in Russia's war on Ukraine. That makes it a deadline with significant symbolism in Russian domestic politics.

Given what appears to be the immediate military future in the war, Russia either may be repelled in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region by then and forced to claim false victories, or have used a brutal assault to cinch a strategic win.

It appears that the stakes of the next month have gotten through to the United States and NATO, with recent announcements they are rushing myriad forms of military assistance to Ukraine.

This week, Putin consolidated control of his country's military effort with the appointment of General Alexander Dvornikov as the top Russian military commander in Ukraine. Dvornikov is a general known for his brutality in Syria.

He assumes oversight of the campaign amid mounting civilian deaths, widespread destruction and slow advances, with Russian forces mired in logistical problems and military blunders. Before Dvornikov’s appointment, there had not been a single military leader for all Russian forces. There is much that remains unknown abouthim, but his experience in Syria is a key element of his background.

Known as “The Butcher of Aleppo,” Dvornikov was Russia’s first commander of its brutal campaign in Syria, where Russian forces carried out widespread and indiscriminate bombardments of Syrian civilians, neighborhoods and hospitals in tandem with President Bashar al-Assad’s own air wars and sieges. He was honored as a “hero of the Russian Federation” (the old “Here of the Soviet Union” award) in 2016 for his work there.

Many of the Russian tactics now seen in Ukraine; the use of cluster bombs, the unrelenting bombardments of civilian areas, the targeting hospitals and shelling an area and then returning to hit it again after emergency services respond, were first honed in Syria.

How much Dvornikov was the architect of these strategies and tactics is unknown. He worked in Syria with the Wagner Group, a murky network of Russian “private security contractors” (mercenaries) that was active in Syria and which is known to be operating in Ukraine.

Austria’s chancellor visited Putin on Monday, becoming the first Western leader to see him in person since the Ukraine invasion. After the meeting he said he came away feeling not only pessimistic about peace prospects but fearing that Putin intended to drastically intensify the brutality of the war.

Describing Mr. Putin as dismissive of atrocities in Ukraine, the visiting chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said it was clear that Russian forces were mobilizing for a large-scale assault in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, the next phase of a war now in its seventh week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said in a television interview that aired on Monday that what the Kremlin calls its “special operation” in Ukraine is aimed at rolling back American influence, which the Russian government characterizes as the root of the world’s ills.“Our special military operation is designed to put an end to the reckless expansion, and the reckless course toward complete dominance, of the United States.”

Just how much more brutal the war could become was described in an interview with Eduard Basurin, a separatist commander, aired on Russian state television. Basurin said that with Ukrainian forces in underground fortifications at a steel plant in Mariupol, storming the redoubt did not make sense. Instead, he said, Russian forces needed to first block the exits and then “turn to the chemical troops who will find a way to smoke the moles out of their holes.”

Ukrainian sources have claimed that Russian forces released a chemical weapon in Mariupol over the weekend. Due to the nature of the kind of weapons being used - chlorine gas could also be released by fires in electrical plants - proving such an event was intentional is difficult, as was shown with such use in Syria.

In addition to Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-armor missiles, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised provision of land-based anti-ship cruise missiles that could be used to defend Odessa, as well as other armored vehicles during his personal visit to Kyiv this past weekend. The US has already shipped armored cars. Today it was announced the US had struck a deal with former Eastern bloc countries to get Mi-17 heavy assault helicopters and give them to Ukraine. The Czech Republic has started sending T-72 tanks that formerly equipped the Czechoslovakian Army when they were part of the Warsaw Pact, and Slovakia has provided long range former Soviet S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems that can reach bombers launching missiles from inside Russia. There are now enough Javelins to take out all the tanks in the Russian army.

Preliminary plans circulating among government officials and lawmakers in Washington also include heavy artillery, coastal defense drones and protective suits to safeguard personnel in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. The new aid package could be worth $750 million. The Financial Times of London reports tonight that the Pentagon will host a meeting of top arms makers on Wednesday to discuss increasing lethal aid to Ukraine. This will include the eight largest US defence contractors, among them Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and L3 Technologies, to discuss stepping up assistance to Ukraine and preparing for a long war. “We will discuss industry proposals to accelerate production of existing systems and develop new, modernised capabilities critical to the department’s ongoing security assistance to Ukraine and long-term readiness of US and ally/partner forces,” a defence official said.

The evolution of the war over the last few weeks means that two arguments against sending more arms to Ukraine have become irrelevant. Now that western Ukraine is secure, the argument that it’s too difficult to transport heavier weapons into Ukraine is void. Second, the worry that providing “offensive” weapons is “escalatory”is now moot since there are other weapons such as armored vehicles and heavy artillery currently being sent to Ukraine.

It makes sense to send American equipment to former Warsaw Pact countries and ask them to transfer their Soviet-made armored vehicles, which the Ukrainians are more likely to be familiar, to Ukraine. That requires back-filling the American tank force. It estimated that the US had sent about a quarter of its Stinger missiles to Ukraine and that it would take at least five years to replace those at current production levels. This is a perfect opportunity to invoke the Defense Production Act.

Ukrainian ambassador Oksana Markarova met last week with representatives from General Atomics, the maker of the Reaper and Predator drones. Company officials confirmed that the company is “currently exploring options” for supporting Ukraine, something that would require U.S. government approval. “We have aircraft available now for immediate transfer. With support from the U.S. government, those aircraft could be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots in a matter of days.”

What’s coming is a battle on the Ukrainian steppe the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Battle of Kursk and Marshall Rokossovsky’s general offensive in the summer of 1943. Kursk was the biggest tank battle in history.

That’s Another Fine Mess exists because of the support of the paid contributors. Please consider upgrading your participation and joining them.

Comments are for paid contributors.