What were Russia’s real terms of victory going into the SMO?
Answer: to quickly knock out Kiev’s political leadership and avoid a full-scale war.
This failed and I have gone over this topic ad nauseum so I won’t repeat it here. Then, Russia regrouped and started an unconventional conventional war in the East. They had more than 6 months to realize that the 150-200k contraktniki that they had called up to fight weren’t going to cut it. During that time, the clock was ticking. Every single day that the war dragged out brought them closer and closer to the failure of their initial military objectives. With each passing day, Ukraine had time to mobilize more men and receive more support from NATO. Time was of the essence, and the Russians did indeed move fast. But, they ran out of steam and then began to retreat. They have not been able to mount any new offenses on the same scale as before.
Victory conditions: failed.
Since then, Russia has been fighting the war on Ukraine’s terms. But, for some reason, people have a hard time understanding why this is clearly the case.
Take the fortified cities in the Donbass. Russia is trying to take one of them right now. It has taken 8 months and they are still unable to finally take Bakhmut. Maybe they will at some point, I don’t know, but they are still playing in to Ukraine’s strategy.
Ukraine built those fortifications for a reason. It makes sense then that they would defend them. It doesn’t matter how many men they are losing, really. If Ukraine fortified those positions beforehand and is now defending them, that means that things are going according to the greater Ukrainian strategic plan. They may indeed be losing many soldiers holding these positions, but, clearly, when they were formulating a defense strategy, they had a reason for fortifying these positions in the first place and a reason for defending them now. According to 5D bloggers, the Russians are turning them into a mass grave for the Ukrainian army. Maybe or maybe not. Regardless of whether or not you think that Russia has developed some revolutionary new tactic for storming fortified urban centers that kills 10 Ukrainians for every 1 Russian soldier, you still have to admit that Russia is fighting the war according to the strategy that Ukraine prepared beforehand.
Yes, they are following the strategy that they worked out over the last 9 years. So, just think: why would Ukraine deliberately pick a strategy that was advantageous to Russia? Why would they build fortifications and defend them if they didn’t think that it was a good strategy?
Even if the Ukrainians are losing 10 soldiers to every one that they kill, they still chose to fight the war this way and so, maybe they had a reason for doing so, no? Maybe if they had fought the Russian army elsewhere or in the open, they’d be losing 20 to 1, for example. So, even if we accept the dubious K/D ratios provided to us by the 5D bloggers, we still have to admit that Ukraine thought that this was the best that they could do, made their plans around this strategy and the Russians are now fighting on the terms of the Ukrainians on the strategic level.
Where is the flaw in my logic? What is so difficult to understand about this?
We can quibble over the numbers of dead, but can we really quibble with the fact that Russia is waging war in the way that Ukraine was preparing to defend from, and therefore, the regime under which Ukraine would be best equipped to fight under?
Now, here’s some vexillology for you. Do you know why Ukraine has the flag that it does? Here, let me explain it to you now. This is the flag of Ukraine:
Do you know what it represents. Here is a photograph from Kherson:
The flag represents the clear blue sky above endless swaying fields of grain or sunflowers. The reason why this represents Ukraine is because Ukraine is a largely flat country with huge flat expanses of steppe that cover most of it. Ukraine is no Afghanistan.
So why then attack fortified positions in the Donbass head on again and again?
Possible answers:
Because that is where the Ukrainian army is
Yeah, that’s true. And even when Russia moved in initially, the Ukrainian army simply adopted a Fabian strategy and retreated to the cities. But wars are not fought to destroy armies. I mean, this Not-War’s stated aim is to kill every Ukrainian soldier, I guess. But wars fought by smart leaders are usually fought with political objectives in mind.
Besides, if, hypothetically, you can win the war without fighting toe-to-toe with the enemy army, then why not do this?
This is, after all, exactly what Russia tried to do in the initial Kiev coup attempt. So, clearly, this concept isn’t as esoteric as some analysts make it out to be. Not by a long stretch.
If the goal is to topple the government in Kiev, it does not follow that every single fortress in Donbass has to be stormed at the cost of many lives and material on both sides. And if the initial goal was to take the country intact, why commit to destroying literally every single town in the very territories that you are trying to liberate? Where is the sense or profit in that?
No, this explanation does not hold water.
That’s all that Russia can do
This is the explanation that I am leaning towards myself. Those nice, flat open plains that cover a country twice? the size of France are every attacking army’s fantasy come true. This has at least been true for every single invader of Ukraine since forever.
However, it seems that Russia has lost its ability to launch combined arms offensives. And no, the mad dash to secure key cities in Ukraine in the SMO days were not combined arms offensives. It may be the case that poor coordination, poor equipment, poor training and poor leadership has crippled Russia’s ability to coordinate such “Big Arrow” (on the map) offensives. Either that or a crippling manpower shortage.
The other possible side of the explanation is that Ukraine is able to knock out Russian armor in the open with ease thanks to NATO support. Warfare has once again evolved due to new technologies that make maneuver in the open exceedingly difficult thanks to satellites, drones, precision missiles, that sort of thing.
As a result, Russia also prefer to fight in urban environments where infantry and artillery superiority give them an edge over the Ukrainians. So, the reason why Russia is fighting in Bakhmut is because that is simply the only place where they can. The horrible failure of an attack on Ugledar through the open fields lends credence to this theory.
Politics has something to do with it
War is politics by other means, no? We take this to mean that war should be fought in service of larger political objectives. But, what if the political objective are not so large and grandiose as all that.
Say an ambitious mercenary captain wants access to men and resources and to leverage that into political clout back at home? And say that the government at home is forced to tolerate this upstart because they have nothing else to show for the last 6+ months of fighting at this point? What if the other side is also threatened by this mercenary captain and thinks that knocking him out is a worthy political objective worth committing military resources to?
I lean towards the second and third explanations.
And so, whether or not it is a question of military limitations or political realities, the war is being fought on Ukraine’s terms, on a battlefield prepared by Ukraine.
Historically, fortresses serve three purposes.
To slow the enemy’s advance and buy time
To defend strategic locations
To inflict heavier costs on the attacker
Ukraine’s fortresses in the Donbass are serving all three purposes. They continue to train a new army in the rear while trading space and lives for time. They are defending the only place that Russia seems capable of attacking. And they are causing Russia to bleed for every meter that they advance.
Again, does it matter then, really, just how many soldiers Kiev is losing? Maybe they really are losing hundreds of soldiers for every one Russian soldier. But, again, they clearly believe that this was their best chance of fighting a war with Russia, otherwise they would not have built their defense around this strategy.
Logically, it follows then that if Russia wants to stop fighting the war on Ukraine’s terms, they have to figure out a way to fight in a different way. They could:
Make new armies and attack along a new front (Kiev, Kharkiv, Lvov)
Develop tactics for fighting in the open steppe
Employ non-conventional means of fighting this war
The last point is the most interesting to consider. Russia could, in theory, start dropping bombs on Ukrainian politicians, for example. They could target propaganda stations. Detonate EMPs (yes, on paper anyways, Russia has vast electronic warfare capabilities). Or use a good old regular nuke.
After all, if the goal of the SMO is the genocide of the entire male Ukrainian population, as many pro-Russian commentators seem to think that it is, does it matter how it is done? Why not use a nuke, then? No, seriously, they are BanderaNazis aren’t they? And the only good BanderaNAZIFASCISTUKROP!!! is a dead one, right?
Why aren’t the 5Ders advocating for the nuclear option? It would follow logically, no?
Or, maybe, just maybe, the Kremlin’s 5D plan wasn’t to get drawn into this nightmare trench and urban warfare drawn out war scenario. Maybe “attrition warfare” was never the goal and not a serious Russian strategy at all, but actually a Ukrainian strategy that Russia blundered into.
Some food for thought.
Also, legalize nukes. Fun for the whole family.
I suggested tactical nukes a while ago. Only idiots and CIA stooges think they're going to quickly fight through commieblocks. Aren't the interior walls concrete too? The 5D bloggers like to claim what masters the Russians are at maneuver warfare but the Russians must have lost the manual at their last Davos sleepover.
On a side note, I'm still appalled at the way that 5D'ers are cheering body counts. I think I've seen this movie before; oh yeah I did, it was Vietnam.
The best strategy for Russia would've been to wage this war in 2014, right after Victoria Nuland handed out her last cookie. 🍪