(Russian corpses along the approaches to Bakhmut. January 7, 2023)[1]
I must interrupt my discussion of the Ukrainian way of war, to comment on recent developments, that arose since my previous newsletter on December 31, 2022. Although, there were no events of strategic consequence at the front, Putin's replacement of general Sergei Surovikin as theater commander in Ukraine by Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, may have far reaching consequences for the Russo-Ukrainian War. My segment about the NATO influence on Ukrainian military practices will resume later.
a. Loss of Soledar
As of mid-January 2023, the front lines have remained relatively stable, apart from a Russian tactical success at the town of Soledar in Donetsk oblast, which the Wagner mercenaries and the airborne vozdushno-desantnye voiska (VDV) troops enveloped from both north and south on January 12, 2023. The Ukrainians retreated from Soledar to avoid encirclement, leaving a rear guard to engage Russian reconnaissance units in the northwest suburbs. Although the loss of Soledar makes it easier for the Russians to threaten the communications hub in the city of Bakhmut further south and to sever its communications with Siversk to the north, the fall of Bakhmut is not preordained. The Ukrainians have built strong secondary defenses on the high ground west of Bakhmut, which will impede the Russian advance towards their ultimate objective - the twin cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. Although lacking any perceptible strategic importance, the capture of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk has remained Putin's political objective since the beginning of the war, which he has pursued at the cost of thousands of soldiers killed and armored vehicles destroyed. In any case, the Russians will have to pay a further price in lost souls and crumpled steel before they seize Bakhmut. The significance of the moderate success at Soledar was blown out of all proportion by Russian TV and social media, trumpeting the victory as if it was some iconic Soviet victory in World War II. After a string of Ukrainian successes since the Summer of 2022, Putin was thirsting for a win, any win, to give his propaganda machine the opportunity to claim that his "special military operation" is on track. What is amazing, is that most of the Russian public is buying the message - or at least wants to believe it. According to an anecdotal sampling of social media responses, support for the war and glee at Ukrainian suffering is still prevalent amongst most Russians.
Map of Soledar and Bakhmut from MilitaryLand.net.[2]
b. Demotion of Surovikin and Appointment of Gerasimov
Moreover, the Russian victory at Soledar exposed internal divisions within the Russian war effort. The Wagner group, the personal mercenary army of the oligarch Yevgeny Prygozhin, also known as "Putin's chef," claimed that the fall of Soledar was achieved by mercenary forces alone, refusing to give any credit to the VDV of the regular army. In response, the Russian Ministry of Defense ascribed credit for the tactical success to the VDV, without mention of the Wagner forces or Prygozhin. Notwithstanding Prygozhin's apparent success at Soledar, his conflict with the Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, suffered a setback on January 12, 2023, when Vladimir Putin removed general Sergei Surovikin from overall command of Russian forces in Ukraine and entrusted the entire war to none other than Gerasimov. Please recall that the appointment of Surovikin as commander on October 8, 2023 was supported by Prygozhin and Kadyrov, the Chechen strongman.
The sudden replacement of Surovikin has perplexed Kremlin watchers, since during his three-month term as commander of Russian forces, the Russians started making prudent strategic decisions. For instance, the Russian retreat from Kherson and the indefensible west bank of the Dnieper was the correct decision, despite a political embarrassment for Putin. After all, it was Putin's insistence on defending Kherson that put the Russians in a predicament on the west bank. Moreover, Surovikin implemented the brutally effective campaign of bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure with drones and missiles. Although a clear war crime, because of the suffering it caused to the Ukrainian civilian population, the bombing campaign slowed Ukrainian rail transport towards the front lines when electric energy shortages forced the Ukrainians to rely on diesel power. Furthermore, the bombardment of civilian infrastructure forced Ukrainian air defenses to shift away from the front lines back towards the cities, making it easier for Russian fixed wing aircraft to target Ukrainian ground forces. Nonetheless, Surovikin remains as Gerasimov's second-in-command in the theater of operations. Therefore, he may still wield influence over the everyday conduct of the war. Perhaps, political considerations within Putin's circle of lieutenants necessitated Surovikin's demotion, albeit without shunting him aside altogether.
Apparently, Sergei Shoigu decided to push back against the growing influence of Prygozhin, who backed the appointment of Surovikin in the first place. Despite Prygozhin's success at Soledar, Putin decided to support his long-time ally and defense minister. Now, with Surovikin's demotion, Gerasimov receives the "poisoned chalice" of commanding Putin's war against Ukraine. As Chief of the Russian General Staff, Gerasimov is the senior military professional in Russia. Nonetheless, until now he has never been in overall command of the theater of operations in Ukraine. Thus, he has been able to deflect formal blame for Russian defeat so far. Now he has no more cover. Blame for the failure to achieve Putin's objectives in Ukraine will ultimately be laid at Gerasimov's feet.
c. Ukrainian Limited Offensive Towards Svatove and Kreminna
At the same time, the Ukrainian limited offensive in Luhansk oblast towards Svatove and Kreminna continues, in fits and starts. The capture of the two communications hubs can force the Russians to send supplies to the troops attacking Bakhmut and other objectives in Donetsk or Luhansk oblast by a much longer circuitous easterly route through Starobilsk. This would exacerbate the inherently inefficient Russian logistics even more. Infantry from Ukraine's elite 25th airborne, 80th, 81st and 95th air-assault brigades have pursued a deliberate and gradual advance through hilly and wooded terrain west of Kreminna, that has been slowed by desperate Russian counterattacks and plentiful mine fields that have been sown along the approaches to the operational objective. Similar hurdles have impeded the 92nd mechanized brigade in its approach to Svatove. Furthermore, muddy conditions through the first week of January impeded the use of armor all along the front. However, the onset of sub-zero weather conditions throughout southern Ukraine during the second week of January 2023 has not made any appreciable difference in the rate of Ukrainian advance. Which begs the question regarding the Ukrainian capacity to launch a major offensive during the remaining winter months.
It is becoming apparent that Putin's mobilization order of September 21, 2022, has created more problems for the Ukrainian war effort than previously believed. Reportedly, 300,000 Russian reservists were mobilized, of which 100,000 were sent to fight in Ukraine during the last quarter of 2022, with minimal training. These have suffered heavy casualties. Another 200,000 are being trained in Russia to bring the brigades that were destroyed during the earlier phase of the war back to their official levels of manpower. Despite a lack of training and equipment, the mobilized Russian reservists have substantially thickened Russian defenses, thereby slowing the Ukrainian offensive in Luhansk oblast towards Svatove and Kreminna. Furthermore, others have been sent to reinforce defenses in Zaporizhzia oblast, throwing the prospects of a major Ukrainian offensive towards Melitopil or Mariupil into serious doubt. Others have reinforced the efforts of the 40,000 strong Wagner group to take Bakhmut. Finally, Surovikin's retreat from Kherson and the west bank of the Dnieper has shortened Russia's front by some 250 kilometers and released 25,000 of the elite VDV paratroopers to plug holes everywhere. Therefore, the Ukrainian General Staff has fewer gaps to exploit for a breakthrough, forcing it to opt for attritional offensives that require a slow and grinding advance that costs more in lives lost and materiel destroyed.
Reforms to the Russian armed forces in 2008 altered their historical reliance on superior numbers to prevail in battle.[3] Instead, resources were thrown at rearming the Russian armed forces with numerous and superior weaponry at the expense of manpower, especially infantry. The reduced numbers were to be compensated by a professional army of volunteer contract soldiers. Russian operational doctrine was reoriented more towards speed and maneuver. Consequently, when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it attacked with thousands of tanks but with less than 200,000 men. At the start of the war, the Ukrainians were able to meet and eventually outnumber the Russians in manpower. With the advantage of fighting on the defensive, the Ukrainians destroyed much of Russia's professional army during the Battle of Kyiv and the subsequent battles for Izyum, Severdonetsk and Lysychansk. With Putin's recent mobilization, Russia has begun to revert to historical form by restoring its deficit in manpower, although at a reduced state of readiness. While the Russians have not been able to replace their losses in top-of-the-line tanks and artillery, the newly mobilized recruits have been armed with moth-balled equipment, like the older T-72A and T-62 tanks. Although, this new army is technologically inferior to the one that invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it is more numerous. The Ukrainian General Staff must decide whether to throw the dice in one more offensive in Zaporizhzia oblast against improved Russian defenses and incur serious losses in men and equipment in the process or conserve its forces for defensive battles against new Russian offensives later this year, when the remaining 200,000 Russian mobilized are brought to a modicum of preparedness.
d. Prospects for Ukrainian Winter Offensive in Zaporizhzia Oblast
Nevertheless, a major Ukrainian winter offensive cannot be discounted. An indicator of a possible offensive in Zaporizhzhia oblast is the recent news that brigadier general Oleksandr Tarnawsky, who commanded the operational strategic group Kherson in the final push to capture Kherson in November 2022, has now assumed command over the new operational strategic group named Tavria, which has been organized east of the Dnieper. An operational-strategic group is the equivalent of a US army (30,000-60,000).[4] Ukrainian strategic-operational groups are named after their geographical area of operations. Tavria is the traditional name for the region in southern Ukraine that is east of the Dnieper River. Thus, an advance towards Melitopil, Tokmak, Polohy, or Volnovkaha is not off the table. The capture of even one of these objectives would bring Russian communications to Crimea within the 80 km maximum range of the U.S. supplied high mobility rocket systems (HIMARS). Such a development would strengthen Ukrainian leverage during peace negotiations appreciably.
Tarnawsky is developing into one of the more accomplished Ukrainian field commanders, having achieved success as commander of the operational group Sloboda in the Ukrainian local offensive to push Russian forces away from Kharkiv in July-August 2022 and then presided over the famous capture of Kherson as commander of the operational-strategic group Kherson in November 2022. Conversely, Tarnawsky's appointment may be part of a Ukrainian psychological operation to create misdirection and to sow confusion, such as was achieved prior to the famous offensive towards Izyum and Kupiansk in September 2022, when the Ukrainians trumpeted an offensive towards Kherson.
A factor that augurs against a major Ukrainian winter offensive is that the Russian push against Bakhmut has forced the Ukrainians to allocate too many of their better mechanized brigades to contain the Russian offensive. The 24th and 28th mechanized and 128th mountain brigades were all part of the force that pushed the Russian VDV forces across the Dnieper River and liberated Kherson in November 2022. Recently, battalions from all three have been rushed to stop the Wagner push on Bakhmut and Soledar. Furthermore, elements of the 30th mechanized brigade have been fighting south of Bakhmut for weeks, while the 72nd mechanized has been tasked with defending Vuhledar. These are all regular brigades that trace their lineage back to independence in 1991. All gained combat experience during hostilities in the Donbas in 2014-2015. They started the war on February 24, 2022, with a full complement of experienced officers, NCOs and personnel. The previously mentioned 24th and 30th mechanized brigades held the line against the Russian onslaught in the Donbas through July 2022, when they had to be withdrawn because of heavy casualties. They spent two months resting, refurbishing, and reconstituting with new personnel and equipment. The Ukrainians have recently brought several new brigades online. Some of these have more than proven themselves in battle near Bakhmut, like the 46th and 77th air assault brigades. In contrast, the old brigades have lost so many of their original cadre that their fighting power may have deteriorated from pre-war levels.
e. Ominous Signs of Russian Escalation
A troubling tell-tale sign surrounding Gerasimov's appointment may be that Putin has decided to prepare Russia for all-out war, lasting to at least March 17, 2024, when he faces re-election. In which case, command-and-control over the war requires centralization at the very top of the military establishment. Thus, Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, has taken the reins from a mere general of the army, Surovikin. Perhaps the war is to morph from a special military operation into a war involving a Russian "nation-in-arms." Rumors persist, that Putin may declare a wider mobilization beyond the 300,000 men that have been inducted so far. If that occurs, the increase in mobilized Russian personnel that can be thrown at Ukraine may approach one million men. With such a massive force, the Russians could launch offensives from multiple directions, including Belarus. True, these would be crude affairs, dependent on artillery to pave the way for poorly trained infantry, just as in World War II. Russian industry would have to transition to a wartime footing, dedicated to supplying the army with crude yet plentiful weapons that are easy to mass produce. The most important product would be artillery shells, which Russia is currently exhausting at a gluttonous rate. In effect, Putin may be taking a page out of Joseph Stalin's playbook and girding himself for an ostensible replay of the Second World War. He may appeal to the Russians to duplicate the self-sacrifice of their grandparents in the Great Patriotic War. Given that the Putin regime celebrates the victory over Hitler as the supreme historical achievement of the Russian people, many ordinary Russians are psychologically indoctrinated to embrace such a national crusade.
In an earlier newsletter I outlined the two centers of gravity in this confrontation between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine's prospects for prevailing in this struggle depend on the continued support of the West in supplying weapons, ammunition and money. Ukraine lacks the industrial capacity to produce the tens of thousands of artillery shells and missiles that are necessary monthly to defend against Russian aggression. This war is an existential threat to Ukrainians. Defeat will result in no less than a Carthaginian peace [5], where the entire political, military, and cultural elite will be physically destroyed; the Ukrainian-speaking population will be exposed to forced Russification, resettlement, migration, or exile; and large swaths of the country will be resettled by Russians. Therefore, for Ukrainians, defeat is not an option. Ukraine will mobilize as many men and women as it takes to sustain the war. However, manpower depends on the state-of-the-art weaponry that is the sinew of modern warfare. Although, Western support has been instrumental in the successful Ukrainian war effort so far, troubling statements by politicians regarding continued US support, particularly from the more vocal members of the Freedom Caucus of the Republican majority in the U.S. Congress, create unease within the administration of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. To placate the unruly right-wing of his party, even House Majority Speaker Kevin McCarthy has questioned the continued funding for the war in Ukraine. If the steadfastness of the American effort falters, the Europeans are unlikely to pick up the slack. Putin believes that time is on his side, and he needs only to outwait the West.
The appetite for shells and missiles has also affected Russia. The Russian army fired off an unbelievable torrent of munitions through the first eight months of the war. Ukrainian military commentators noticed a slackening of Russian fire during the Fall of 2022. Supposedly, Russia is making up the shortfall by purchasing artillery shells from North Korea. Moreover, it is no secret that the Russians are buying drones from Iran to pick up the slack for all the cruise and ballistic missiles that they fired at Ukrainian targets during the earlier phase of the war. Nevertheless, Russia will find a way to keep its artillery and rocket batteries supplied with a steady, albeit leaner, volume of ammunition in the mid to long term. The Russian wartime economy will eventually fill the current void. The Achilles heel of this war for Russia is not technological but moral.
Russia's center of gravity rests on the continued support for the war by the ethnic Russian population, particularly in the metropolitan centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg. So far, Putin has been very careful about keeping the Russian middle-class from being affected by the war and has mobilized non-ethnic Russian citizens from the periphery of the Russian Federation or ethnic-Russians from the poorer regions of the Russian Republic. It is true, that heavy casualties amongst the haphazardly mobilized reservists in the Fall of 2022 resulted in outrage from the affected communities - located far from the Russian metropolitan centers. However, support for the "good tsar" Putin remains strong. The outrage is directed against the "bad boyars"; namely, the incompetent generals who have negligently and needlessly killed the reservists in mindless attacks or the local officials who have botched the mobilization process.
Furthermore, none of the Russian conscripts that begin their one-year mandatory military service every year have been sent to Ukraine. After all, these are 19-year-olds who the Russians consider mere children - innocents who should not be slaughtered needlessly. The 300,000 mobilized so far have been reservists who previously served out their one-year military obligation. Therefore, they have "lived their lives" and can be sacrificed for Mother Russia. The Russian middle-class supports Putin's war for now, so long as it does not have to pay the butcher's bill in dead husbands, sons, and fathers. Small victories like Soledar gives Russian propaganda the opportunity to paint the war a success. As long as the denizens of Moscow and St. Petersburg are not personally affected and their self-esteem is enhanced by the myth of Russian military prowess, Putin can sustain this war. The only means to change this calculus is for the Ukrainians to kill more and more Russians and deny Putin major successes. For instance, opposing Russian efforts to capture Slovyansk and Kramatorsk serves an important strategic purpose in that it denies Putin a political triumph. As long as Putin does not have to reach into the cupboard of middle-class manpower, he feels his hold on power is secure.
It is unknown how many dead and wounded the Russian army needs to suffer before there is outright hostility amongst the civilian population or widespread mutinies at the front. After all, the threat of mutiny in the Fall of 1917 was one of the factors that convinced the Russian General Staff to force the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Perhaps Western sanctions will push the Russian economy into a deeper recession, which will darken the general mood of the populace. Historically, popular disaffection has been kept under control by the Russian security services. However, the spread of sustained protest from below has been the catalyst for political elites to force a change in Russian leadership. Russia has undergone political change only four times in its history; every time after suffering a humiliating defeat in war. These included the Crimean War in 1854, the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, World War I in 1917 and the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in 1989. Regardless, change, if it comes, will come from the top. To forestall such a development, the recent appointment of Gerasimov to command in Ukraine may have been carefully calibrated by Putin to placate the military establishment. Prygozhin's growing popularity and influence have threatened the generals, especially after the capture of Soledar. Putin is too canny a politician to allow his generals to turn against him.
Putin truly fears that not only his political future but physical well-being are at risk in this war. To win he realizes that he must sustain the war for as long as it takes. Therefore, he must convince the Russian people that the survival of the Russian world, the so-called Russki mir, depends on destroying Ukraine, in effect by punishing the Ukrainians for rejecting the Russian way of life. So far he has labeled Ukrainians Nazis and belittled them as mere pawns of the West. The million dollar question in this Russo-Ukrainian War is how many dead are the Russians willing to endure to placate their national pride and to inflate their self-esteem. Until they reach that tipping point, it appears that the Russians have no moral aversion to killing every Ukrainian who rejects the Russki mir.
In any case, the next month will reveal whether another major Ukrainian offensive is coming this winter, or whether the Ukrainian General Staff has determined that prospects for the recapture of strategic territory are not worth the risk of failure. Better to conserve blood and treasure for defensive operations later in the year. Like it or not, we are relearning the dynamics of a protracted war between peer adversaries. Carl von Clausewitz's interplay between the trinity of primordial hatred, reason and chance are on full display for us to dissect. Moreover, the interrelationships within the other Clausewitzian trinity of the army, the government and the people are also in play.[6]
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[1] https://censor.net/en/photo_news/3391861/feld_near_bakhmut_strewn_with_corpses_of_russian_occupiers_photos
[2] https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-328-summary/
[3] Michael Kofman and Rob Lee. “Not Built for Purpose; The Russian Military’s Ill-Fated Force Decision,” War on the Rocks, June 2, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/
[4] The Ukrainian ground forces are organized into four operational commands, labeled "North,"South,"East" and West." However, these are more administrative than operational. The actual operations are organized into ad hoc operational-strategic groupings of troops (operatyvno-stratehichne uhrupovannia viisk), in effect armies, which are in turn sub-divided into operational groupings of troops (operatyvne uhrupovannia viisk), the equivalent of a corps. Kherson oblast was recaptured by the operational-strategic grouping Kherson, which consisted of two corps sized sub-units, the operational grouping of troops Prymoria, commanded by marine brigadier general Andriy Hnatov, and the operational grouping of troops Kakhovka, commanded by brigadier general Mykhailo Drapatyi.
[5] A Carthaginian peace is a brutal peace that is imposed after the complete defeat of one adversary by the other. In 146 BC Rome defeated Carthage in the Third Punic War. The males were slaughtered, women and children enslaved, the city of Carthage was burnt to the ground and salt was sown on the land, so that nothing could grow.
[6] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 87-89.