The Russo-Ukrainian War on the Cusp of Winter.
The Bite of Ukrainian Winter or the Onset of Russian Despair?
The 19th century Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote that "war is merely the continuation of policy by other means."[1] This has been interpreted to mean that military action must align with realistic political objectives, otherwise war degenerates into random violence. Nevertheless, this oft cited language needs to be placed in its proper context. Clausewitz's experience with war was primarily as a staff-officer in the Prussian and Russian armies during the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century. So, despite his overarching phrase and philosophical musings that are sprinkled throughout his seminal work On War, a careful reading reveals that war for him was still about the destruction of the opponent's army followed by the capture of the enemy's territory, particularly the capital.[2] This is consistent with the concept of sovereignty that was established by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the bloody Thirty Years War in Northern Europe. The peace accord enshrined the territorial integrity of states and reserved the monopoly on large scaled organized violence to state funded regular armies.[3] In that respect, Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 23, 2022 was "so Westphalian." Putin's acolytes in the security services launched a lightning strike to seize Kyiv and to destroy the Ukrainian armed forces by attacking from all directions. In accordance with Westphalian principles, Ukraine avoided defeat in the early phase of the war because it retained control of its capital and maintained a capable army in the field. Moreover, when this army achieved a spectacular battlefield victory along the Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum axis in the second week of September 2022, conventional wisdom concluded that momentum had shifted in favor of Ukraine. Western media portrayed a Russian army that had lost the will to fight and was on the verge of collapse. Likewise, pundits began forecasting the Ukrainian recapture of occupied territory, not only to the pre-war borders but also of the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and even Crimea itself. Unfortunately, this view does not reflect the true strategic balance in Ukraine today. Although, Ukraine has mobilized more men and women into its armed forces than Russia and enjoys a temporary numerical superiority over its much larger neighbor, the Russian military still retains a numerical superiority in weaponry and the potential for escalation through long-range missiles and tactical nukes. More blunt force than surgical instrument, the Russian army still retains control over the economically vital delta of the Dnieper River and the adjoining stretch of the Black Sea coast, which were seized during the first weeks of the war. Moreover, despite recent military setbacks, Vladimir Putin continues to wage war on Ukraine by flipping von Clausewitz's phrase on its head, turning to economic and political means to try to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He issued a decree on September 21 for partial mobilization in an attempt to replenish his battered brigades with fresh recruits.
Although soundly defeated in the Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum operation and forced to relinquish the strategic initiative, the Russian army still retains significant combat power. It is engaged in ongoing operations on no less than five fronts, namely, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts, which are color coded in the map above. Contrary to popular belief that it is on the verge of collapse, the Russian army continues to fight stubbornly and remains a dangerous, albeit wounded animal. It maintains a robust defense along the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia fronts and attacks stubbornly on the Donetsk front, where it has retained the local initiative. Except for a few instances during the rout at Balaklia and Izyum, there have been no mass surrenders nor head-long flight. Traditionally reliant on its artillery, the Russian army's ability to mass fires continues to create tactical difficulties for the Ukrainians. The elite paratroopers of the Russian vozdushno desantny viiska (VDV), that are concentrated on the Kherson front, stubbornly resist and counterattack Ukrainian incursions. Four divisions and three independent brigades of the VDV (15,000 paratroopers) under the command of general Mikhail Teplinsky have effectively stalled the Ukrainian offensive towards the river crossing at Nova Kakhovka and to Kherson. Despite Ukrainian bombardment of the bridges over the Dnieper River by U.S. supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), the Russians doggedly continue to resupply their artillery with ammunition via pontoon bridges and boats, making Ukrainian attacks across the open steppes of Kherson oblast costly in men and equipment. Moreover, Russian artillery on the opposite bank of the Dnieper is not affected by the interdiction of the bridges and can blanket any Ukrainian advance within 40 kilometers of the river.
Meanwhile, in the Donbas, the mercenaries of the Wagner group continue to batter their way forward slowly towards the city of Bakhmut, apparently to prove to Putin that their curator Evgeniy Prigozhin is tougher than any Russian general. Furthermore, the Russians have partially reinforced the 20th and 1st Tank armies that were mauled at Izyum in September with recently mobilized recruits and are preparing defenses along the Krasna River in Luhansk oblast to safeguard lines-of-communication from Russia to the recently captured twin cities of Lysychansk and Severdonetsk. Therefore, after some spectacular successes in September and early October, the Ukrainian army has become mired in positional warfare on all fronts and is on the verge of losing the strategic initiative, unless it finds a convenient sector to launch another breakthrough of the Russian front lines. Of course, such a task has become that more difficult with the onset of the Autumn rains and resultant mud.
With the onset of the muddy season in mid-October, mechanized maneuver is channeled onto paved roads. The Russian command has every intention of taking advantage of the Fall weather to defend along the Kherson and Zaporizhzia fronts, blocking Ukrainian access to the Black Sea. Putin's decree for a partial mobilization on September 21 will allow Russian commanders to reinforce their depleted brigades in Ukraine, even if with untrained recruits. This is sufficient for positional warfare, where manning a trench does not require specialized training and poses an obstacle to an attacking force, especially if it is limited to the paved roads.
The extra time gained by the Russian defensive strategy will win Putin time to invoke two indirect economic and political stratagems. With the approach of Winter, he hopes to fracture West European support for Ukraine by playing voters off against their political representatives after rising energy prices force citizens to choose between heat and food. Moreover, if the Republican party captures the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the mid-term elections in November, he anticipates a cut in American funding for the Ukrainian war effort. Without the military and financial support of the West, Ukraine will be hard pressed to maintain its offensive on multiple fronts and may have to assume the defensive; perhaps even accept a less than optimal cease fire agreement with Putin, which will freeze Russian territorial gains in place. This will only increase the pressure on an already failing Ukrainian economy.
A pause in the fighting will also give the Russian army time to reconstitute and rearm for offensive operations by next Summer through the recent mobilization, when it can launch attacks from advantageous staging areas from the south and north of Ukraine. Thus, it is imperative for the Ukrainians to continue their offensives to seize Kherson and Melitopil before ammunition stocks run low and political support from the West begins to wane. At a bare minimum, they must advance deep enough to bring Western supplied 155-millimeter artillery within its 40-kilometer maximum range of the river crossings of the Dnieper at Kherson and Nova Kahkovka. It is vital to increase the interdiction of supplies and ammunition to Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnieper. So far, the Ukrainians have been able to partially interrupt the Dnieper River crossings with the relatively small number of U.S. supplied HIMARS systems. But the additional bombardment of these supply chokepoints by hundreds of conventional artillery pieces will increase the suffering of Russian soldiers on the front lines exponentially. Ukraine can effectively starve the Russians of artillery ammunition and gradually force them into retreat to the east bank of the Dnieper. Therefore, the Ukrainian General Staff must exploit the narrow window of opportunity afforded to it to take advantage of its temporary superiority in numbers to recapture key territory before Putin is able to turn the tables during the winter months.
I hope to better illustrate the strategic stakes for both sides at this stage of the war in the paragraphs below.
a. Ukraine's Center of Gravity; Support from the West.
According to Carl von Clausewitz, war is reduced to three basic elements, namely primordial violence, that is channeled through political subordination, subject only to chance and probability.[4] Some have reduced these elements to the concepts of passion, reason and luck. These are manifested during war by the interplay of three actors: namely, the people, the army, and the government.[5] Von Clausewitz believes that the commitment of all three must be calibrated in the context of a particular conflict if a state is to wage war effectively. A quick survey of the first eight months of the Russo-Ukrainian war leaves no doubt that such a trinity is well calibrated and thriving on the Ukrainian side. Indiscriminate Russian killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure have brought the primordial hatred of Ukrainians for Russians to a fever pitch. Despite a multicultural population where half speaks Russian and with divisions upon ethnic and religious lines, the Ukrainian people coalesced behind president Volodymyr Zelensky and their armed forces. In turn, the president has rallied the people and given the armed forces the manpower and material support to conduct an effective defensive war. Since the beginning of hostilities Ukraine has been able to mobilize close to 700,000 soldiers, 400,000 of whom have received basic training. After eight months of warfare, more than 200,000 also have combat experience. Furthermore, the government has been able to supply the army with modern weapons. This has been accomplished through superior Ukrainian diplomacy and information warfare, which has translated into military and financial support from the United States and the collective West.
Despite Russia's greater population, Ukraine has both a numerical and qualitative advantage over Russia in manpower, especially infantry. Russian organizational defects in force structure dating back to reforms in 2006, which emphasized funding for modern weapons instead of personnel, resulted in the quick attrition of the initial invasion force of 120,000 front-line troops. This decision deviated from the traditional Russian cultural preference for war, which over the centuries depended on mass armies to outnumber its enemies. As early as April 2022 the Russian army fell short of the infantry necessary to protect its tanks and to hold terrain. Due to Putin's initial reluctance to declare a mobilization of the Russian people and to declare war (the entire enterprise was called a "special military operation"), the Russian command has so far been unable to match the greater Ukrainian numbers. Despite Putin's recently declared partial mobilization, the initial wave of recruits lacks basic training, and it will take at least until next Spring before Russia matches Ukrainian numbers in personnel, albeit of lesser quality. Ukraine's mobilization has been across the board, inducting people from all economic strata, which have congealed into a more enterprising and tech savvy fighting force than that of Russia, which has relied on poorer and less educated non-Russians to fight this war. While the recent mobilization has snared some of Russia's middle class, over 700,000 of the better educated males have fled the country to avoid military service. The prognosis is that the Russians will not be in position to resume large offensives until next Summer.
Nonetheless, despite enormous equipment losses, Russia still retains a clear advantage in the number of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and airpower. Concurrently, Ukraine lost less equipment, but started with a much smaller number to begin with. The sheer intensity of this war has destroyed Ukrainian equipment at no less a proportionate rate than Russia's. Due to the devastation of its arms industry, which is located near the fighting, Ukraine is unable to replace its losses on its own. Therefore, Ukraine's armed forces rely on the quality of imported Western weaponry and ammunition, to offset Russia's quantitative advantages. This brings us to a discussion of the one factor that determines whether Ukraine wins or loses this war - Western support.
Without question, Ukraine's center of gravity is the continued military and financial support from the West, particularly the United States. Without the continued supply of modern weapons and ammunition, as well as financial support for its fragile wartime economy, it is doubtful that Ukraine can continue a conventional war for long. Perhaps it can sustain conventional combat for six months, but only if on the defensive. Although, Ukraine can use its superior infantry to hunker down in trenches to resist Russian offensives, it will be nearly impossible to fight indefinitely against Russia's artillery driven attacks without the high-tech weaponry and ammunition that dominate modern war. Of course, the Ukrainian army can purposely dissolve and go under-ground to launch a vicious insurgency. But that would subject its civilian population to even more suffering and is a strategy of last resort. Thus, it is crucial that Ukraine cultivate the support of its allies for as long as it can. That is where Volodymyr Zelensky is so essential - there is no better salesman for Western support than the Ukrainian president. Even after eight months of war, his infectious cheerfulness, charm and charisma appeal to voters in foreign countries and fuel continued support for Ukraine, sometimes over the heads of their political representatives.
Putin is aware of this. Realizing that he is losing on the battlefield, the Russian president has gambled on economic and political gambits to shift the momentum of this war back in his favor. Thus, his sinister decision to withhold Russian oil and natural gas from Western Europe in order to parlay rising energy prices against falling temperatures, to force European voters to put pressure on their political representatives to end military and financial support for Ukraine. The next three months will tell whether European leaders have stocked sufficient energy reserves or lined up alternative suppliers to withstand Putin's blackmail. As far as the United States is concerned, Putin is hoping for a Republican red wave in the mid-term elections, to exploit a Republican controlled Congress through its power of the purse to limit or diminish the Biden administration's continued military and financial support for the Ukrainian war effort. There is no telling what insidious efforts or resources the Russian secret services have unleashed in support of this goal. One can only hope that the historical bipartisan hostility to Russian aggression by the U.S. Congress holds firm.
In pursuit of this strategy of economic and political warfare, Putin expects his recent mobilization decree to fill the gaps of his depleted army, while it assumes the defensive and holds on to the strategic southern regions of Ukraine until Western allies pressure Ukraine into a ceasefire or until the Russian army can resume offensive operations. Moreover, his recent brazen annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts obfuscates the identity between who is the invader and who is the invaded. The annexation also enables him to send conscripts to Ukraine, since under Russian law these cannot be sent to fight outside of the borders of the Russian Federation. Therefore, it is essential that the Ukrainian armed forces reclaim as much of Ukraine's economically strategic Dnieper River delta and Black Sea coast as soon as possible, just in case Putin's devious plans pan out.
b. Russia's Center of Gravity; Disaffection of the Russian People.
Despite its dazzling speed and style, the Ukrainian victory at Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum did not lead to a recapture of strategically vital territory, such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. At first glance, the offensive was merely an operational success that was achieved on a secondary front. (Designated on the above map in pink.) Undeniably, the capture of Kupiansk, a vital logistics hub, and Izyum, the staging area for Russian attacks further south, ruined Putin's ambitions for the capture of the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. However, these were always ostensible objectives, intended to impress Putin's domestic TV audience, rather than seize territory of strategic importance. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were familiar to Russian viewers from the fighting in the Donbas in 2014 and the Putin administration expected approval ratings to go up if the two cities were captured by the Russian army. After all, Ukraine can exist as a viable state without Sloviansk and Kramatorsk; it cannot survive economically without direct access to the Black Sea.
Nevertheless, the scale of the success of the Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum operation achieved an unintended, yet invaluable strategic breakthrough for Ukraine. The extent of the defeat could no longer be hidden from the Russian public, whether on social media or TV. In particular, the vocal nationalist fringe of the Russian political spectrum was so outraged by the debacle that it began baying for Ukrainian blood and looking for scapegoats amongst the Russian high command. As a consequence of the popular backlash, on September 21 Putin took the dangerous step of issuing a decree for the partial mobilization of 300,000 Russians in support of the war effort (actually close to 500,000 have been mobilized because of overzealous local draft boards). The intention was to address Russia's manpower shortage before Ukrainian offensives recaptured more territory. For the first time, ordinary Russians were to be exposed to the pain and hazards of this hyper-intensive war. It no longer remains a curiosity to be experienced vicariously and painlessly as reality TV. This potentially exposes the Russian government and Putin personally to overthrow. For the first time, the war has existential consequences for the dictator of Russia. Let us examine this development further.
In a remarkable essay published in the government publication Ukrainform on September 7, 2022, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commanding general of the Ukrainian armed forces, and Mykhaiylo Zabrodsky, former airborne general and current member of the Ukrainian parliament, outlined the strategic balance in the Russo-Ukrainian War.[6] The two generals saw Russia's ability to strike Ukrainian civilians with long-range missiles without fear of retaliation inside of Russia as a center of gravity in the war. As long as the Russian public remained detached from the direct cost of the fighting, Ukraine would not be able to influence Russian public opinion. Without the threat of popular dissatisfaction Putin can pursue the war indefinitely, since his hold over the political, military and business elites of Russia is comprehensive. Paradoxically, his mobilization decree of September 21 changed the paradigm. Ordinary Russians are now personally affected when their husbands or sons come home in body-bags or are forced to emigrate to parts unknown to avoid military service. Prior to the mobilization decree, most of the casualties at the front came from the non-Russian ethnic minorities from the far-flung margins of the Russian Federation. As more dead and wounded start coming from the ethnically Russian middle-class regions of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the steam in the pressure-cooker of popular disaffection will only build. Where this leads, is anyone's guess. We have already observed how the initial botched mobilization effort, where thousands of aging and medically unqualified recruits were arbitrarily inducted by overzealous draft boards without the necessary infrastructure to clothe, feed and house them, has laid the seeds for further anger and frustration by ordinary ethnic Russians.
As a dilettante historian, I can report with some confidence that significant political change in Russia occurred on only four occasions, each time after a humiliating defeat in war. The first followed the Crimean War in 1954. Tsar Alexander II was persuaded by his top advisers to introduce domestic reforms, culminating with the abolition of serfdom in 1861. The second political concession transpired after defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Russia was rocked by the Revolution of 1905 and Tsar Nicholas II was forced to allow a parliament of sorts, the Duma. The third event was truly revolutionary. In 1917 tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate by his generals following food riots in St. Petersburg after repeated military defeat in World War I. As a result, Russia suffered through its first bout of democracy. We all know that the Bolsheviks exploited the subsequent chaos and eventually seized power. Finally, ten years of a bloody insurgency in Afghanistan led to Soviet retreat in 1988. Undoubtedly, the defeat contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia's second experiment with democracy in 1991. On each occasion change came from the top when advisers to the tsar forced his hand or after Communist apparatchiks botched an attempt to reform the Soviet regime from within. Regardless, the anger and despair of the Russian people were a major catalyst for political change on each occasion.
There is no guarantee that a Ukrainian victory in the Russo-Ukrainian War will bring about regime change in Russia. But a comprehensive defeat at the hands of the "lowly" khokhly [7] will likely lead to a groundswell of disaffection that Putin may not be able to subdue. As always, if change comes, it will come from one of Putin's lieutenants or someone else within the political elite. After all, there is no established succession plan in Russia. However, anger against the regime by broad swaths of Russian society will be the reason why a rival will build up the courage to make a grab for power.
If the above-described development comes to pass, the Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum operation will have a strategic affect that far exceeds its original operational objectives - the capture of Kupiansk and Izyum. The reason for its disproportionate impact is that the Ukrainian victory exceeded all expectations and caused the Russians an unexpected psychological shock, leading to Putin's mobilization decree. After all, the Russians were expecting a quick victory against the little regarded Ukrainians. It is doubtful that the planners of the offensive in the Ukrainian General Staff anticipated such a consequence to their operational plan. However, that is irrelevant. In war, all that matters is victory. A loss of will on the part of the enemy is always an aspiration.
The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War is a good example of an operation that led to an unexpected strategic benefit that far exceeded its operational objective. Despite an American battlefield victory, the ferocity of the nation-wide offensive by North Vietnam and its Vietcong proxy shattered the expectations of the American people for eventual victory. In retrospect, the Tet Offensive eventually led to a decision by the American government to withdraw from Vietnam, after a significant segment of the American people turned against the war. Similarly, the shattered expectations of the Russian people for easy victory against their former Ukrainian vassal will not recede from their collective consciousness and will eventually manifest in a backlash against the current regime.
Events during the Winter of 2022 will determine whether the Russo-Ukrainian War ends in 2023 with Ukrainian victory or continues for the foreseeable future, where the outcome is harder to predict. The Ukrainians have the initiative and the temporary manpower advantage. However, the Russians are sitting in prepared defensive positions and taking advantage of the muddy conditions. Militarily the decision will probably come in the south. Winters in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts fall within the "wet cold" category - the absolute worst for frontline service. A soldier is never fully dry and the dampness only exacerbates the cold. The Ukrainian army has the task of making the Russian soldier as miserable as possible, in order to drain his will to fight and to drive his loved ones back home to despair. Whether this objective is accomplished in Kherson or Zaporizhzhia oblasts, where the Russians are ready and waiting, or on an unexpected axis of advance, like at Balaklia-Kupiansk-Izyum, is up to the craft, cunning and vision of the Ukrainian General Staff. Theirs is a tall order.
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1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 87.
2. Ibid., 90-92.
3. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War. (New York: The Free Press, 1991), 32-36.
4. Clausewitz, 89.
5. Ibid., 89.
6. Prospects for running a campaign for 2023: Ukraine's perspective., Ukrainform, September 7, 2022. https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3566404-prospects-for-running-a-military-campaign-in-2023-ukraines-perspective.html
7. Pejorative Russian term for Ukrainians.