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Ukraine SitRep: Offensive In Doubt – No Talks – Social Breakdown
Since early April, when Pentagon briefing slides about the state of the Ukrainian army 'leaked' onto the web, the writing in 'western' media about the much discussed Ukrainian counteroffensive has become more gloomy.The hyping is largely gone and the assessments become more realistic. Three days ago the London Times offered a piece in that category:
Ukraine isn’t ready for its big offensive, but it has no choice (paywalled, archived version)
Kyiv is locked into a spring or summer push despite burning through ammo so fast that the West can’t keep up. Luckily Russia is out of ideas too
[W]hile the Ukrainians are moving quickly to assimilate their 230 new and reconditioned western tanks and 1,550 armoured vehicles, they still lack proper air defences for any big offensive operation. That puts them at risk from Russian airpower. Western defence sources are also uncertain whether senior commanders can adapt to the new systems as well as their soldiers on the ground.
Yet Kyiv has little real choice but to launch a major spring or summer offensive. Its leaders are increasingly boxed in. As an American defence official put it: “The Ukrainians have surprised us as well as Putin in the past, but have much less room for manoeuvre now . . . and the Russians know it.”
President Zelensky has managed the West with great skill, but to maintain its support he has to show what Washington insiders rather tastelessly call a “return on investment”.
He must also balance domestic politics. Hawks such as Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, prevent any meaningful talk about negotiations, even though some in the government think now is the time to put out feelers. One western diplomat in Kyiv described a “surreal parallel experience” as his interlocutors “discuss potential formats for negotiations one evening” and then “shout that there can be no talks with Russia” in public the next day.
During the war Kiev first burned through its standing army material and personnel. It then received a large amount of Soviet era equipment from former Warsaw Pact members and burned through that stash. It has now received 'western' arms for a third army that will largely consist of mobilized civilians with little military experience. After the counteroffensive has run its course, no matter the outcome, that third army will largely be destroyed. There will be no more material and personnel for a fourth army.
In contrast the Russian military is largely undamaged. So says General Cavoli, the U.S. commander in Europe:
Russian ground forces have suffered significant losses in Ukraine. Despite these setbacks, and their diminished stockpiles of equipment and munitions, Russian ground forces still have substantial capability and capacity, and continue to possess the ability to regenerate their losses.
Russia remains a formidable and unpredictable threat that will challenge U.S. and European interests for the foreseeable future. Russian air, maritime, space, cyber, and strategic forces have not suffered significant degradation in the current war. Moreover, Russia will likely rebuild its future Army into a sizeable and more capable land force [..] Russia retains a vast stockpile of deployed and non-deployed nuclear weapons [..]
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Russia pursues a military modernization program that prioritizes a range of advanced conventional, hybrid, and nuclear capabilities to coerce the West. […] These weapons provide Russia asymmetric threats to NATO and present new challenges to Western response options.
If or when the Ukrainian counteroffensive will start is still an open question. The weather is a major factor:
The spring rains have been much more intense this year than normal. The heavy downpours in Zaporizhzhia over the last few weeks have turned the battlefield into a gelatinous soup.
“This has been an unusual spring,” a commander with the brigade said. “There has never been this much rain before.”
There is of course also the question of ammunition. Ukraine already lacks sufficient numbers of artillery rounds. Each days it uses more than it receives and what it receives is more than the 'west' can produce. The counteroffensive will burn through whatever ammo is left. Then what?
There may be additional reasons to hold up the counter offense. The British Ministry of Defense is requesting offers from the industry for some specific equipment. Among it are mine breaching equipment for main battle tanks, tank launched bridges with 70 tons capacity and transporters for heavy main battle tanks.
With around 40 tons Soviet tanks are build significant lighter than 'western' tanks which weigh up to 70 tons. The newly delivered Leopard and other tanks can not pass over typically Ukrainian country bridges without seriously damaging them. Without the necessary infrastructure and support equipment in place the 'western' tanks are largely useless. To launch a counteroffensive against hardened Russian defense lines without such equipment is not really possible.
But waiting is not possible either. There is not only the pressure from Washington and other supporters of the war in Ukraine but there is also the permanent threat of Russian strikes on the accumulated stocks and forces. As longer those stay in the preparation areas the higher is the chance that they will get detected and destroyed.
Over the last two weeks Russia destroyed a large part of the Ukrainian air defenses in the Kherson and Pavlograd region. There are no replacements for those systems.
Still, the British Ministry of Defense seams to believe that the war will continue for several more years. For Ukraine it also wants to acquire:
Missiles or Rockets with a range 100-300km; land, sea or air launch. Payload 20-490kg
The closing day for that request is May 4. If you happen to have a few of those missiles laying around or if can produce those you have two more days to make your offer. But realistically the earliest possible delivery for such missiles will likely be in 2024/25. One wonders if Ukraine will by then still be around.
Yves Smith is discussing the chances of a ceasefire after the counteroffensive has run its course. She finds that Russia is unlikely to agree to one without receiving very significant concessions:
I don’t see how peace talks get anywhere. The hawks are still in the driver’s seat and will either balk at negotiations or set preconditions. Recall Russia previously rejected preconditions; even if they were to entertain them now, the odds are very high the West’s initial demands, like an immediate ceasefire, would be rejected, or quickly vitiated by Russian counters like “Only if you suspend the sanctions.” That does not mean there won’t be backchannel chatter, but don’t expect it to go far.
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Let’s charitably assume, despite all that, that the West actually does ask Russia to negotiate. Unless the request is made in an obviously unacceptable manner, Russia has to entertain it.
But I don’t see how this goes anywhere until leaders in West have really, really internalized that Russia holds a great hand and does not have good reasons to stop until it has subjugated Ukraine.
And all Russia has to do to substantively sabotage negotiations is to bring up the demand that Putin has been making in different forms since the Munich Security Conference of 2007: security guarantees.
Who will give them? The gleeful French and German admissions of duplicity with respect to the Minsk Accords means no NATO state can be trusted, save maybe Turkey (and if Erdogan survives, he’ll likely be deemed too close to Russia to be acceptable). The US clearly can’t be trusted. China would not be acceptable, and is not suited to the role (it’s not a land power and does not have a presence in theater).
So unless some tail events happen (and Taleb warns tails are fat), we still look to be on course to Russia prosecuting the war until it can impose terms on Kiev.
Meanwhile the social-economic situation in Ukraine is getting worse:
The scene in the pawn shop illustrates the crisis of growing poverty in Ukraine, the reality of which stands in contrast to the surface bustle of Kyiv’s busy restaurants and bars where it is often hard to get a table, with many living a precarious existence.
Poverty increased from 5.5% to 24.2% in Ukraine in 2022, pushing 7.1 million more people into poverty with the worst impact out of sight in rural villages, according to a recent report by the World Bank. With unemployment unofficially at 36% and inflation hitting 26.6% at the end of 2022, the institution’s regional country director for eastern Europe, Arup Banerji, had warned that poverty could soar.
Behind his window in Treasure, Stepanov describes the hardships experienced even by those who have work. “The price of everything has gone up. Food is the most expensive and then it is fuel for the car. Some things have gone up by 40-50%. Before the war my wife would go to the supermarket to shop and it would cost 200 hryvnia, now the same shop costs 400-500.”
The billions of dollars and Euros the 'west' provided to Ukraine are skimmed off by those who visit fancy restaurants and bars in Kiev. Those not in the bribes receiving circles will have to get used to being hungry.
Karlof1 @26
Another fine high-altitude overview. However often many of us recognize that all wars are hybrid / multi-domain in Von Clauswitz’s sense, analysts on both sides lapse into an unhelpfully Ukraine-centric perspective on the conflict. Understandable, but in the absence of counterweights such as yours, the local overdetermines the global.
At this point, I suspect Russia considers what is currently happening as secondary. Other than Odessa, Ukraine has little that Russia wants, and is only fighting there because forced to. Indeed, if Russia has to fight NATO in a limited engagement, SE Ukraine is pretty much the best place to do it. Put in other terms, Ukraine functions for Russia at the operational level, but the strategic level is conflict with the West of which the Ukrainian NATO army is just the most kinetic front.
A recent exception from an unexpected source came in the form of comments from a senior, serving Polish military figure. War is not just kinetics but something like the vector sum of economics, industry, finance, resources, etc., & on that basis Russia is nowhere near being exhausted while the West struggles with its logistics and defense-industrial capacity.
Basically, he seemed to be trying to warn people–perhaps specifically the Polish people–that Russia is at least 2 to 3 years away from so much as breaking a sweat.
Beyond the concrete enumeration of multiple factors and domains such as you provided in @26, a couple of additional considerations:
1. Insofar as Russia–at least since April–recognizes that it is at war with NATO, the RF is managing the conflict in such a way as to become stronger *relative to NATO* over time. RF could, for example, have “spent* another 50 to 100 aircraft to pursue an intensive SEAD campaign months ago, but has held them back to conserve strength *relative to NATO* not Ukraine.
2. I continue to speculate that one of the few leading scenarios that the RF strategic planners are considering, perhaps the leading one, is, as Gurulyov (sp?) has recently stated, a slow grind out to 2030–capturing perhaps 5km / month, and forcing NATO to send their resources across 1000km free-fire zone for Russia to attrit. Russia’s leadership are not ‘traitors’ for leaving the bridges intact that bring NATO’s resources into a shooting gallery optimized for Russian economy-of-force, attrition strategy.
3. Some–though surprisingly few–thoughtful Western observers have noted the shocking discrepancy in bang-for-buck between the US/NATO military spending and Russia’s. One obvious (though still elusive to many) adjustment is from USD & GDP terms to PPP. Only a very few analysts (Martyanov, for example) point out that RF military R&D operates on a cost-plus basis, rather than using war-profiteering mark ups. But this can be taken further: as a global ‘producer of margin’ of most strategic resources, Russia is able to produce a stunningly high proportion of its weapons systems from raw materials to finished product–essentially wholesale pricing with negligible imports, vs. NATO’s defense-industrial system of multiple stages of imports with debt-financed siphoning and corporate mark ups at each of multiple intermediate stages.
3a. Further, the more of its strategic resources that Russian MIC uses and that Russia sells to ‘friendly countries’ as a priority, the scarcer and more expensive these resources are in global markets from which the enemy countries must buy to produce their weapons. Only the most obvious of these is energy. But also such things as iron, aluminum, titanium, palladium, antimony, neon & other noble gases, sapphire substrates, etc–all needed for military production.
4. I’m not fully confident of this, but suspect we are getting some indication of this ‘wholesale’ vs ‘high-end retail’ and ‘industrial capitalism’ vs. ‘finance capitalism’ in the fact that Russia’s inflation rates are in the 2 to 4% range, while Europe’s is over 10% and the US/CAN in the 8 to 10% range. As the West buys in global markets that are tighter due to Russia exports being somewhat reduced, sold at higher margins, then laundered through friendly countries, the West’s loss in real wealth is being experienced, for now at least, as inflation rather than currency devaluation, which may be just around the corner.
5. So as the West de-industrializes, de-energizes and its currencies & the parasitical FIRE sector of the global economy loses dominance, not just the industrial but the tax base–in real resource purchasing terms–erode, even as the West is almost weirdly slow in recognizing that it has a perhaps fatally flawed defense-industrial model. Whatever it costs to incrementally increase military production (already 10X what it costs Russia), the investments in new factories and technical-training systems to staff them will be immense–say 20X Russia’s costs to bring production to massive Russian levels. And this is IF an adequate new business model can be developed, preferably on the first try.
6. Though the West seems almost certain to continue to weaken, giving Russia some security to **perhaps** negotiate an end to the conflict (on Russian terms), it may have become clear to Russian strategic planners that though the West will be weaker in the future, Russia will not likely have a less competent, less prepared enemy than it has NOW. That is, Russia may be readying itself–from now to 2030–to **break** NATO–even to confront the US directly *in* Europe by or before 2030, rather than accepting another decade of subversion from the Nazified West.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | May 2 2023 19:10 utc | 46
https://www.kp.ru/daily/27497/4757337/
Russia is ready for a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: What do the statements of Defense Minister Shoigu mean
Military expert Anatoly Matviychuk announced Russia’s readiness for a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
What did Sergei Shoigu mean when he said that we have enough ammunition in the NVO zone to defeat the enemy? We are sorting it out with a military expert, retired colonel Anatoly Matviychuk.
– Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the number of weapons that enter the NVO zone increased by 2.7 times over the year. And the ammunition is “sufficient for fire destruction of the enemy.” What can this mean in terms of confrontation with the Leopards, Abrams, Bayraktars sent by the West to Ukraine…
– The West has promised to supply tanks, millions of ammunition, even planes are already being discussed. And the reality is that the ammunition was delivered in very limited quantities. Shells of the “Soviet” caliber of 152 mm are almost completely absent from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Poland and Slovenia did not fulfill this task, although they promised.
Tanks – a total of 40 Leopards have so far been delivered to Kyiv, which cannot do anything in such numbers. We oppose them with 3.5 thousand.
Well, of course, you also need to take into account the T-72 tanks that the Czechs supplied to Kyiv, which, by the way, they stole from Morocco. To date, Ukraine has about 200 tanks, a maximum of 220 units. Somewhere around 50 different aircraft. They have a large number of drones, yes. But the most important thing is that Ukraine does not have enough artillery ammunition. That is, they are not ready to gain fire superiority, air superiority.
What Shoigu said today, I perceive it this way. Our army after mobilization fully brought itself to combat readiness. And we should not, at least, feel hungry during the fire escort of our actions. We are ready to repel the offensive of Ukraine, if it takes place. And then go on the counteroffensive.
– Still, NATO tanks can break through our defenses?
– 12 Challenger tanks supplied to Kyiv by Great Britain, they weigh 70 tons each. Even if they wait out the thaw, even if it dries up, well, imagine what such a tank will do on the bridges built in Ukraine during the Soviet Union? They have a carrying capacity of only 60 tons.
Second. London said it had delivered depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine. Well, the flag is in their hands, let them try to use it. I think that, besides the fact that the Americans have already installed nuclear sensors in Ukraine, our sensors have been there for a long time. And our diplomats have warned the British that this will untie the hands of our retaliatory measures. Once they use depleted-impact munitions, an environmental catastrophe could take on a universal scale – depleted uranium can be answered with real uranium.
Third. Tanks will need to constantly replenish ammunition. During an offensive, a tank, as a rule, consumes from 6 to 10 tank ammunition. I don’t think they have that much ammo. Then it will be a disaster – the tanks simply will not be able to perform their tasks.
On the whole, I assess the situation in such a way that the fire, tactical, maneuver initiative is on the side of our troops.
– In your opinion, how much longer will Kyiv refrain from attacking? They constantly tell the West that there are not enough supplies, more is needed.
– Ukraine is a hostage. She will be told to advance, she will advance. That is, in any case, the offensive will take place, whether they want it or not, whether they have shells or not. They will be thrown into battle because money has already been paid for this music. The West is already asking questions – we have given you so much, where did everything go, why are you not advancing? I predict that they will still deliver several blows, perhaps even break through our tactical defense zone, that is, they can go 5, maximum 10 kilometers, then they will not have enough strength. The throw of our troops will follow – the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and our transition to the offensive.
Posted by: Oblomovka daydream | May 2 2023 19:39 utc | 59
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