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danieldwilliamI am in no way qualified to put forward an opinion on the course of the war in Ukraine.
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I have a very amateur interest in military history and I work in a related sector, so I understand some of the explanations of what's going on but the note below is entirely me trying to get my own head around what is likely to happen and I recommend treating it with the lack of respect that it therefore deserves. I am thinking out loud mostly for my own benefit.
By way of background I am quite hawkish about Russia. I think they are domestically a repressive autocracy run by mafioso. Externally a violently militaristic old-school imperialist aggressor. They are also no where near as strong as were or pretend to be or thought themselves to be. They have made a mistake and the West has one opportunity to change the way Russia behaves. If we don't take it they will learn from their failure in Ukraine and the next time they invade someone the wheels will not come off, literally or figuratively. Now is the time to punch them very, very hard and then kick them when they are down. So that's my background position.
As of the 21st it looks like the Russian invasion is stalling. They have advanced on too many fronts with very poor logistics and very poor troops and a very poor plan and that is all grinding to a halt. They will need to pause, re-group, re-supply and re-orientate before they move again. That will take some time. I do not think the Russians have that time. Firstly the Ukrainians will give them as little opportunity as possible to re-group. Secondly, part of the problem the Russians appear to have is very very poor morale. Thirdly, Western sanctions are already pretty damaging to Russia's economy. That damage will get worse and more sanctions are on the way. (More sanctions are on the way in part because the likely Russian response to being bogged down in Eastern Ukraine will be deliberately target the civilian population of Ukraine with artillery bombardments and perhaps large scale depopulation.) Finally, the West is sending more and more supplies, including weapons to Ukraine. Every day the the Russians are neither moving forward or moving backward is a day when Ukraine adds gets more weapons in to the hands of more people who know how to use them more.
So the Russians stalled and the Ukrainians will mess with their supply lines and harass them and I think focus on three things, degrading (1) logistics, writing down (2) armour and neutralising artillery (3). I think they are doing these things because:
Logistics - the less stuff the Russian soldiers have the worse things are for them. They can't fire ammunition they don't have. They can't travel with fuel they don't have. They can't eat food they don't have. They can't use re-enforcements that can't reach the front and they can't send wounded soldiers back if they can't move. Bad logistics means cold, hungry soldiers not moving much and not being able to shoot much. Those soldiers are less likely to kill Ukrainians and easier to kill.
Armour - very difficult to replace, very important for Russian offensive operations, very visible sign that Ukraine is winning (4) . Ukraine doesn't have much armour so as and when Ukraine wants to go on a counter-attack they will want as little Russian armour left in the area as possible.
Artillery - Russian artillery is killing (5) Ukrainian children. I think I would take that sort of thing personally and I expect Ukrainians are no different in this regard. See also Armour
The Russians have a problem - it's difficult for them to leave. Politically, at home and abroad, they can't really just apologise and go home. They've gone a bit beyond spilling someone's pint in a crowded pub. Also, domestically the Russian government has told its citizens that Ukraine is EVIL and must be destroyed and that this will be EASY (so so easy, bigly easy) so just leaving looks really really bad at home. Abroad it also looks pretty bad. I don't think the West is just going to stop the sanctions because the Russians have moved their army back. So Russia needs something to trade for the sanctions being relaxed (6). A thing they can trade that the Ukrainians want is for Russian soldiers to go away and to stop killing their kids. So, if the Russians can't go back and going forward is difficult (7) then I think they dig in.
The problem for the Ukrainians then I think is that they do not have a huge offensive capability. They lack tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and fighter-bombers. It is also very risky for them to commit these limited resources to an attack. They can only be destroyed once. If they are destroyed before they have destroyed the Russians then that really helps the Russians. The Ukrainians can get more offensive capability. They can build more tanks or buy more artillery or be given more bombers in some sort of three-way shell game where the MiG that is quick, is swapped for the jet flown by the vet, the chalice from the palace buys the radar from your neighbour and the brew that is true now has a flag that is yellow and blue. But that takes time (8) and during that time the Russians will be murdering kids.
Politically I think the Ukrainians would like their country back. All of it including Donbass and Crimea. Whether they want this more than they want Russians to stop shelling apartment blocks I don't know. I've never been shelled but the few people I have spoken to who have been did not enjoy it very much. Still I expect the Ukrainians would very much all of the Russian army to fuck off out of their country - all of it. They would also like the ability to forge meaningful alliances with their neighbours specifically the EU and NATO. I think the EU is the real problem for the Russian government. Being in the EU will make Ukrainians richer and incidentally more able to afford military kit. The EU being pretty rules bound will also reduce the opportunities for Russian Mafioso to steal wealth from Ukraine or rig elections to put one of their henchmen in charge.
If I were Ukraine I would be tempted to swap EU and NATO membership for Crimea and Donbass if I thought that I could reneg on the deal to hand over Crimea and Donbass in the next couple of decades once I was richer and more militarily powerful but I'm not sure who that works or even if it does. So probably Ukraine wants both as many Russians out of as much of Ukraine as possible and the unfettered ability to join the EU. If Ukrainians were as rich as Bulgarians (the poorest EU member state) they would be about twice as rich as they currently are. Ukraine has some incentives to fight on and win the war (expel the Russian army, degrade a lot of their future capability, humiliate them domestically and abroad so they don't try this again).
I think what we get over the next period is a more static front line with the Russians digging in and slowly starving, the Ukrainians harassing them and building up their offensive strength and very sadly many many more civilian casualties. How long does this last? I don't know (8) but I don't think Ukraine can lay their hands on a few thousand tanks this summer. Not sure I would fancy launching an offensive in autumn (9) and if you're not going to be able to launch an offensive in the autumn and the enemy is hurting very badly both at the front and at home (10) there is an argument for letting them sit there in the snow freezing to death because they are malnourished and don't have fuel for heating. Nothing says "fuck off out of my country" like a tank but if you really want to the emphasis the "and don't come back" then a nasty dose of frostbite and PTSD underlines the message.
So I think what I'm expecting is the Russians to not move forward much any more and for this to be the case until next spring when the Ukrainians counter-attack and push back a much weakened (11) Russian to the border of Ukraine. This will probably take them until autumn 2023. They will then neutralise (2) committed and active Russian nationalists left behind in Crimea and Donbass. I expect this bit will be done off stage as far as the West is concerned. I do not know how keen on Russian nationalism Russian nationalists in Crimea and Donbass are if they are not already in the committed and active camp. Your average punter in Donbass or Crimea who thinks those places would be better if they were in Russia, how much do they care? How much has their attitude been changed by the Russian invasion of their bit of Ukraine and Ukraine generally? My guess is that most Russian-favouring punters don't favour it very much. Probably a delicate balance for the Ukrainians to get rid of all the violently subversive Russian nationalists whilst leaving non-violently-subversive Russians nationalists in an okay place and an okay state of mind.
Alternatives to the above
Alternative 1 - The Russians get their act together and actually complete the invasion of the whole of Ukraine this summer - leading to a decades long guerilla war in Ukraine with NATO backed irregulars fighting Russian conscripts until Russia runs out of conscripts (12)
Alternative 2 - The Russian invasion remains stalled but Ukraine lacks the offensive capability to expel the Russian army this year - leading to guerilla campaigns behind the lines for a year or two.
Alternative 3 - Sanctions are one of a) nastier than I think they are b) more nasty ones are imposed c) China joins in the sanctions regime and the Russians remove (13) Putin and withdraw
Alternative 4 - Russia tries to unbog themselves by using a tactical nuke and every one dies
Alternative 5 - Russia tries to bouy up morale on the home front by provoking NATO by invading and everyone dies.
So that's what I think is likely to happen and what I think might happen if I'm wrong.
(1) which is one of the miliary euphemisms for destroy, kill, maim, break, get stuck, set on fire, blow up, strand in a bog, take prisoner or other wise mess with.
(2) another euphemism that means the same as above
(3) yet another euphemism that means the same as the ones above - turns out there is a lot of killing, maiming, blowing up and setting things on fire in war.
(4) driving a tank down your enemy's main street is a sign you have won, having the same tank burning whilst being filmed by foreign journalists is a sign that you have not won and that you will not being going to Kyiv today.
(5) a euphemism for murdering
(6) this presupposes that the Russians realise how bad the situation they are actually in is - they may still be kidding themselves that victory is guaranteed and only a few days away (this in turn presupposes that I am right and that the Russians really are as fucked as I think they are.)
(7) because Ukrainians keep killing Russians (sorry, degrading, writing down and neutralising Russians) if they attack and keep blowing up their supplies so they can't move.
(8) I have no idea how many tanks Ukraine can build a month.
(9) I don't know what autumns are like in Ukraine - I did say I knew very little.
(10) and the enemy have already murdered all the children they can reach.
(11) much weakened from their current already very poor status
(12) because Ukraine won't run out of guerillas and NATO won't run out of money but Russia has a shrinking population and is likely to run out of conscripts quite hard.
(13) this is also a euphemism - see (1), (2) and (3) above
.
I have a very amateur interest in military history and I work in a related sector, so I understand some of the explanations of what's going on but the note below is entirely me trying to get my own head around what is likely to happen and I recommend treating it with the lack of respect that it therefore deserves. I am thinking out loud mostly for my own benefit.
By way of background I am quite hawkish about Russia. I think they are domestically a repressive autocracy run by mafioso. Externally a violently militaristic old-school imperialist aggressor. They are also no where near as strong as were or pretend to be or thought themselves to be. They have made a mistake and the West has one opportunity to change the way Russia behaves. If we don't take it they will learn from their failure in Ukraine and the next time they invade someone the wheels will not come off, literally or figuratively. Now is the time to punch them very, very hard and then kick them when they are down. So that's my background position.
As of the 21st it looks like the Russian invasion is stalling. They have advanced on too many fronts with very poor logistics and very poor troops and a very poor plan and that is all grinding to a halt. They will need to pause, re-group, re-supply and re-orientate before they move again. That will take some time. I do not think the Russians have that time. Firstly the Ukrainians will give them as little opportunity as possible to re-group. Secondly, part of the problem the Russians appear to have is very very poor morale. Thirdly, Western sanctions are already pretty damaging to Russia's economy. That damage will get worse and more sanctions are on the way. (More sanctions are on the way in part because the likely Russian response to being bogged down in Eastern Ukraine will be deliberately target the civilian population of Ukraine with artillery bombardments and perhaps large scale depopulation.) Finally, the West is sending more and more supplies, including weapons to Ukraine. Every day the the Russians are neither moving forward or moving backward is a day when Ukraine adds gets more weapons in to the hands of more people who know how to use them more.
So the Russians stalled and the Ukrainians will mess with their supply lines and harass them and I think focus on three things, degrading (1) logistics, writing down (2) armour and neutralising artillery (3). I think they are doing these things because:
Logistics - the less stuff the Russian soldiers have the worse things are for them. They can't fire ammunition they don't have. They can't travel with fuel they don't have. They can't eat food they don't have. They can't use re-enforcements that can't reach the front and they can't send wounded soldiers back if they can't move. Bad logistics means cold, hungry soldiers not moving much and not being able to shoot much. Those soldiers are less likely to kill Ukrainians and easier to kill.
Armour - very difficult to replace, very important for Russian offensive operations, very visible sign that Ukraine is winning (4) . Ukraine doesn't have much armour so as and when Ukraine wants to go on a counter-attack they will want as little Russian armour left in the area as possible.
Artillery - Russian artillery is killing (5) Ukrainian children. I think I would take that sort of thing personally and I expect Ukrainians are no different in this regard. See also Armour
The Russians have a problem - it's difficult for them to leave. Politically, at home and abroad, they can't really just apologise and go home. They've gone a bit beyond spilling someone's pint in a crowded pub. Also, domestically the Russian government has told its citizens that Ukraine is EVIL and must be destroyed and that this will be EASY (so so easy, bigly easy) so just leaving looks really really bad at home. Abroad it also looks pretty bad. I don't think the West is just going to stop the sanctions because the Russians have moved their army back. So Russia needs something to trade for the sanctions being relaxed (6). A thing they can trade that the Ukrainians want is for Russian soldiers to go away and to stop killing their kids. So, if the Russians can't go back and going forward is difficult (7) then I think they dig in.
The problem for the Ukrainians then I think is that they do not have a huge offensive capability. They lack tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and fighter-bombers. It is also very risky for them to commit these limited resources to an attack. They can only be destroyed once. If they are destroyed before they have destroyed the Russians then that really helps the Russians. The Ukrainians can get more offensive capability. They can build more tanks or buy more artillery or be given more bombers in some sort of three-way shell game where the MiG that is quick, is swapped for the jet flown by the vet, the chalice from the palace buys the radar from your neighbour and the brew that is true now has a flag that is yellow and blue. But that takes time (8) and during that time the Russians will be murdering kids.
Politically I think the Ukrainians would like their country back. All of it including Donbass and Crimea. Whether they want this more than they want Russians to stop shelling apartment blocks I don't know. I've never been shelled but the few people I have spoken to who have been did not enjoy it very much. Still I expect the Ukrainians would very much all of the Russian army to fuck off out of their country - all of it. They would also like the ability to forge meaningful alliances with their neighbours specifically the EU and NATO. I think the EU is the real problem for the Russian government. Being in the EU will make Ukrainians richer and incidentally more able to afford military kit. The EU being pretty rules bound will also reduce the opportunities for Russian Mafioso to steal wealth from Ukraine or rig elections to put one of their henchmen in charge.
If I were Ukraine I would be tempted to swap EU and NATO membership for Crimea and Donbass if I thought that I could reneg on the deal to hand over Crimea and Donbass in the next couple of decades once I was richer and more militarily powerful but I'm not sure who that works or even if it does. So probably Ukraine wants both as many Russians out of as much of Ukraine as possible and the unfettered ability to join the EU. If Ukrainians were as rich as Bulgarians (the poorest EU member state) they would be about twice as rich as they currently are. Ukraine has some incentives to fight on and win the war (expel the Russian army, degrade a lot of their future capability, humiliate them domestically and abroad so they don't try this again).
I think what we get over the next period is a more static front line with the Russians digging in and slowly starving, the Ukrainians harassing them and building up their offensive strength and very sadly many many more civilian casualties. How long does this last? I don't know (8) but I don't think Ukraine can lay their hands on a few thousand tanks this summer. Not sure I would fancy launching an offensive in autumn (9) and if you're not going to be able to launch an offensive in the autumn and the enemy is hurting very badly both at the front and at home (10) there is an argument for letting them sit there in the snow freezing to death because they are malnourished and don't have fuel for heating. Nothing says "fuck off out of my country" like a tank but if you really want to the emphasis the "and don't come back" then a nasty dose of frostbite and PTSD underlines the message.
So I think what I'm expecting is the Russians to not move forward much any more and for this to be the case until next spring when the Ukrainians counter-attack and push back a much weakened (11) Russian to the border of Ukraine. This will probably take them until autumn 2023. They will then neutralise (2) committed and active Russian nationalists left behind in Crimea and Donbass. I expect this bit will be done off stage as far as the West is concerned. I do not know how keen on Russian nationalism Russian nationalists in Crimea and Donbass are if they are not already in the committed and active camp. Your average punter in Donbass or Crimea who thinks those places would be better if they were in Russia, how much do they care? How much has their attitude been changed by the Russian invasion of their bit of Ukraine and Ukraine generally? My guess is that most Russian-favouring punters don't favour it very much. Probably a delicate balance for the Ukrainians to get rid of all the violently subversive Russian nationalists whilst leaving non-violently-subversive Russians nationalists in an okay place and an okay state of mind.
Alternatives to the above
Alternative 1 - The Russians get their act together and actually complete the invasion of the whole of Ukraine this summer - leading to a decades long guerilla war in Ukraine with NATO backed irregulars fighting Russian conscripts until Russia runs out of conscripts (12)
Alternative 2 - The Russian invasion remains stalled but Ukraine lacks the offensive capability to expel the Russian army this year - leading to guerilla campaigns behind the lines for a year or two.
Alternative 3 - Sanctions are one of a) nastier than I think they are b) more nasty ones are imposed c) China joins in the sanctions regime and the Russians remove (13) Putin and withdraw
Alternative 4 - Russia tries to unbog themselves by using a tactical nuke and every one dies
Alternative 5 - Russia tries to bouy up morale on the home front by provoking NATO by invading and everyone dies.
So that's what I think is likely to happen and what I think might happen if I'm wrong.
(1) which is one of the miliary euphemisms for destroy, kill, maim, break, get stuck, set on fire, blow up, strand in a bog, take prisoner or other wise mess with.
(2) another euphemism that means the same as above
(3) yet another euphemism that means the same as the ones above - turns out there is a lot of killing, maiming, blowing up and setting things on fire in war.
(4) driving a tank down your enemy's main street is a sign you have won, having the same tank burning whilst being filmed by foreign journalists is a sign that you have not won and that you will not being going to Kyiv today.
(5) a euphemism for murdering
(6) this presupposes that the Russians realise how bad the situation they are actually in is - they may still be kidding themselves that victory is guaranteed and only a few days away (this in turn presupposes that I am right and that the Russians really are as fucked as I think they are.)
(7) because Ukrainians keep killing Russians (sorry, degrading, writing down and neutralising Russians) if they attack and keep blowing up their supplies so they can't move.
(8) I have no idea how many tanks Ukraine can build a month.
(9) I don't know what autumns are like in Ukraine - I did say I knew very little.
(10) and the enemy have already murdered all the children they can reach.
(11) much weakened from their current already very poor status
(12) because Ukraine won't run out of guerillas and NATO won't run out of money but Russia has a shrinking population and is likely to run out of conscripts quite hard.
(13) this is also a euphemism - see (1), (2) and (3) above
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Date: 2022-03-22 10:15 am (UTC)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60827109