There’s a storm coming soon in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians will attempt to get all their land back, or as much of it as possible come a stalemate.
By every informed metric I have been able to find, the Russians will not be able to cope. The only factor that is difficult to assess is air superiority. Neither side have it which may indicate that neither side can. That will shortly be tested.
The Russians have a logistical superiority in numbers of stuff (guns/tanks/aircraft/soldiers/etc), but that will not be enough to resist the Ukrainians from basically chopping them up then killling or capturing them, or those that do not flee in time anyway.
It’s not about numbers but intelligence. It is so clear now that the Ukrainians’ capabilities are on several levels above the Russians. Operationally they are also on several levels above the Russians with perhaps the exception of street fighting which is a bloody, lethal grind. But street fighting is not going to win or lose when thousands of square kilometres are on the line. In any strategic sense the best thing you can do is encircle them and starve them out.
As one ex-Special Forces advisor put it: imagine 30 Leapord 2 Tanks supported by 50 Bradley’s overrunning your positions at night while supported by artillery and close air support, mobile anti-aircraft defenses deployed and infantry following up, all in night vision equipment, and you will have chaos on the battlefield. The difference is that the Russians will not be able to cope while the Ukrainians will be exploiting this to their advantage.
As you hear the Leopards and Bradleys moving into the distance behind you while coordinated artillary and air strikes target your strongholds, mechanised infantry will pin you down and methodically roll you up.
The ability to react and coordinate at speed is tactically decisive, and we have had over a year of examples of how the Ukrainians do this so well all the time.
There will obviously be places where the tactics do not work; a stubborn well defended stronghold, mistakes made by assault groups or communications, but this is not the piecemeal low number engagements that has been the status quo for some time. Basically during the time of mud. Nothing is guaranteed in war, but the difference between gaining and losing control is in how you operate and respond. There may be some astute Russian Commanders, but they haven’t a hope in a large front engagement. If you are waiting for orders from a superior, you might be dead by the reply, if you ever get a reply.
Obviously one cost will be more Ukrainian casualties, but they know that. They are fighting for their very existence so commitment, morale, and motivation is extremely high. The same as you would have if someone was coming to kill your childrem. But the Ukrainians are smarter, so casualties will be minimised as much as possible. Except for the Russians. The Ukrainians will maximise their casualties.
The Russian doctrine and mindset includes acceptance of high casualties. Very high. Observing them operationally in the last 6 ~ 12 months shows that. The casualty to territory gain ratio is horrendous. But they can not only run out of combatants, they can also be as good as useless or worse as they rout through your lines and surrender leaving gaping holes in a disintegrating front.
Will they get all the way to the Russian borders and take Crimea? I don’t know. Maybe not. It’s not just breaking through the enemy lines and rolling up their occupation, you have to keep them out, and that takes numbers. The Russians have a lot of humbers. That’s tricker to predict.
But they will take back a significant amount of what Russia now occupies before the offensive comes to a halt.
So the question is what will Russia do about it? Initially events will move too fast for them to mobilise coherently (which they find difficult enough anyway). When Putin sees that the military are not coping and he is losing swathes of occupied territory, what will he do to try and rescue the situation? Nuclear weapons?
Don’t rule it out. This is a zero sum game for Putin. It is game over for him if he loses. He has already demonstrated his willinglness to sacrifice the lives of many innocent people and destroy infrastructure. In that respect he has absolutely kept to his word. He will see Ukraine burn before he allows it to join NATO.
If Ukraine look as if they are going to take back all the currently occupied land incuding Crimea, then Putin may as well take a pistol and put a bullet in his head. If he doesn’t he may trip and fall out of an eleventh story window.
I do not think the Russians now have the capability to recapture much if any Ukraine territory they lose. What else is there for Putin to do apart from try using Nukes to rescue the situation or committing Seppuku?
I think we can take some comfort knowing that the ‘West’ (basically the USA obviously) has declared that it will not respond with nuclear weapons if Putin should do so, as long as they are used in Ukraine. If they are used in any NATO country then we have a wholesale superpower war in Europe.
Secondly, if Putin uses Nukes in Ukraine, I think it would stop the war very quickly if not immediately. Whatever the state of the combatants are. It has to because letting it continue only goes one way, and nobody wins and everybody could lose. There are certainly crazies on both sides that would turn the world to ashes, but most of the others find that rather unappealing, preferring life over death.
So there is a storm coming. Ukraine will try to take back all their land. Russia will of course try to stop them. I reckon that before the offensive slows down Ukraine will liberate very large chunks of terrritory currently occupied by the Russians, and there is nothing Russia can do to stop that.
I would challenge anyone to predict where this goes, and the consequences will be global and for some time.
So damn the West for pushing Putin over the edge which they did, and damn Putin for bringing death and destruction to so many people. Damn them all to hell…
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