How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Ales Dvorak]

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/02/01/ukraine-website-puts-croatian-president-on-black-list/

[kevinkin]

Short read with a small sample size of UA troops directly fighting:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64455123

First mention of Russian CAS in a while. The rest seems to align with our gut feelings at this stage of the war. 

"There have been cases of [Ukrainian] units who don't seem willing to fight, and disagreements [over tactics]," one Ukrainian soldier acknowledged, speaking off the record.

Others talked about the trauma of seeing their friends die, of units that had sustained overwhelming numbers of casualties and of the psychological impact of fighting amidst the corpses of so many uncollected Russian soldiers. One soldier, citing fears of a new Russian mobilisation and the huge size of the enemy's population, spoke of his fear that "Russia will grind us down". But most troops we met waved away such doubts, blaming them on exhaustion and - in general - praising their commanders for giving them time to rest.

One experienced officer said he believed Russia was looking to straighten its frontline, take a few more chunks of the Donbas, and then declare "mission accomplished" and push for peace negotiations. He said he was sure Ukraine would never agree to that but warned that the military would need Western fighter jets to break through all of Russia's new defences, particularly in the south of the country.

[Battlefront.com]

One thing this thread has struggled with since the very beginning is what we define as "victory" for Ukraine.  I said on Day 2 that Ukraine had likely "won" and Russia had "lost" the war already, and a few days later said definitively this was the case.  And yet a year later the war is still going on and there's no sign that it is going to end in the next few months.

I stand by what I said here (and before the war started) that Russia picked a fight it can not win.  Even if every single nation supporting Ukraine stopped and Ukraine's military put on permanent defensive, Russia will never get what it wanted out of this conflict AND will have suffered horribly for what little it does get.  That is the definition of a lost war for sure.  On the Ukraine side, in this extremely unlikely scenario, one could argue that it "won" because Russia "lost".  Worst case is an argument that, for now, Ukraine fought Russia to a "draw".

This sort of situation is what Combat Mission's Victory Conditions system was designed for.  Where one side clearly loses but the other side doesn't clearly win.  Or both sides lose or both sides think they won.  There's plenty of conflicts that were resolved without a clear definition of winner and loser.

In fact, this is what happened in 2014/2015 between Russia and Ukraine.  Neither side won that conflict, but considering what Russia had intended to do to Ukraine I rank it as a "Minor Victory" for Russia and a "Major Victory" for Ukraine.  If anybody thinks I'm crazy, ask yourself... if Russia really "won" in 2015 why did it need to pursue the biggest conventional war since (arguably) the Korean War?  Usually a country that wins a war doesn't have to launch an even bigger one to secure what it set out to do in the first war, right?

Am I concerned about Trump getting into the White House and tapping into traditional US isolationism?  Sure, it is a possibility he will become President again and it is a realistic assumption to think he'd end the good relationship with Ukraine.  However, any other person, Democrat or Republican, winning the Presidential race will not.

Plus, there's quite a bit of time between now and then.  Time has never been on Russia's side, even though time is what they are seeking to use to their advantage.  Things will be much clearer this Summer, of that we can be certain.

Steve

 

[Grossman]

US preparing $2.2bn package

The US is readying a $2.2bn package of military aid for Ukraine that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time, and other munitions and weapons, two US officials briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.  

[Zeleban]

For those who still doubt that the reason for today's war is in the archaic Russian mentality and not in Putin himself.

You can listen to the most liberal president of Russia

[billbindc]

48 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Plus, there's quite a bit of time between now and then.  Time has never been on Russia's side, even though time is what they are seeking to use to their advantage.  Things will be much clearer this Summer, of that we can be certain.

Steve

 

This last point deserves emphasis. Russia didn't invade Ukraine because it was winning anywhere. It invaded because its situation...as seem from the POV of the oligarchic dictatorship that runs the country...was declining. Color revolutions, ally defections, economic indicators, demographic trends and peer military challenges (or so they thought) were all working to erode Russian status as a major power. Attempting to reverse all of that was a degenerate gamble based on a complete misapprehension of reality even in the near abroad. 

If you are wondering who is winning or losing here...well, what among all of those factors is getting better now?

Edited February 1, 2023 by billbindc

[Seminole]

42 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I stand by what I said here (and before the war started) that Russia picked a fight it can not win.  Even if every single nation supporting Ukraine stopped and Ukraine's military put on permanent defensive, Russia will never get what it wanted out of this conflict AND will have suffered horribly for what little it does get.

If ‘every single nation supporting Ukraine stopped’ then the NATO thing is off the table and the Russians have the buffer they said they’d go to war to maintain.  
You can argue the price paid isn’t worth it, but that’s subjective, and none of us have the mindset detailed repeatedly since the end of the Cold War regarding the Russian opposition to NATO expansion.  
 

15 years ago today, then ambassador to Russia and now CIA director, Williams Burns cabled Washington:

NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains ‘an emotional and neuralgic’ issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This last point deserves emphasis. Russia didn't invade Ukraine because it was winning anywhere. It invaded because its situation...as seem from the POV of the oligarchic dictatorship that runs the country...was declining. Color revolutions, ally defections, economic indicators, demographic trends and peer military challenges (or so they thought) were all working to erode Russian status as a major power. Attempting to reverse all of that was a degenerate gamble based on a complete misapprehension of reality even in the near abroad. 

If you are wondering who is winning or losing here...well, what among all of those factors is getting better now?

Maybe there's reasons that are tied to economy, etc, as mentioned above.  But maybe it's just Putin's megalomania?  Not the first tyrant to be driven by a sick greed for power & status & the ego-enhancing power of a successful conquest.

[billbindc]

9 minutes ago, Seminole said:

If ‘every single nation supporting Ukraine stopped’ then the NATO thing is off the table and the Russians have the buffer they said they’d go to war to maintain.  
You can argue the price paid isn’t worth it, but that’s subjective, and none of us have the mindset detailed repeatedly since the end of the Cold War regarding the Russian opposition to NATO expansion.  
 

15 years ago today, then ambassador to Russia and now CIA director, Williams Burns cabled Washington:

NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains ‘an emotional and neuralgic’ issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene

We should make a distinction between what a leader or elite might think is a good outcome and what objectively is a good outcome. Russians may tell themselves that destroying their military and soft power was worth it emotionally and neuralgically...but empirically those losses will have real world effects. The 'stans going out of Russia's sphere of influence, loss of leading power status to Turkey in Azerbaijan, high dependence on China for trade, an absolutely buggered energy sector with concomitant effects on state budgets, loss of younger skilled workers, exacerbated demographic problems, sanctions, etc. 

And even a Russian 'victory condition' of gaining a buffer is debatable given that the problems above will continue the erosion of state power that the invasion was intended to reverse.

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

"There have been cases of [Ukrainian] units who don't seem willing to fight, and disagreements [over tactics]," one Ukrainian soldier acknowledged, speaking off the record.

I mentioned it before, not sure if it was talked about, but does Ukraine have a military justice system that is significantly more lenient than the West? Apparently according to the article below, soldiers who refuse to obey orders or flee can at most be fined, not imprisoned. Perhaps that is a factor in units fleeing or refusing to move.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/5970

 

[Gpig]

Having seen some regular posters step away from this thread for mental health reasons (including myself), it makes me wonder about the supports allowed and/or provided for the leaders of Ukraines armed forces. How their outlook and perspective on their situation might shift or be skewed by stress and sleeplessness / weight of responsibility etc. 

I recall reading more than a few examples in history books (eg., Eisenhower’s biography on WWII, or No Holding Back, operation Totalize, etc) of leaders being consumed by the never ending pressures of command, etc. ending in a tailspin that typically led to a horrible miscalculation of some kind.

how do modern western armies mitigate those conditions within a command, and do we know if Ukraine might benefit from something similar? Or is it naive to think there would even be time or luxury to consider that kind protection afforded decision makers in a fight for survival?

[Harmon Rabb]

1 hour ago, Ales Dvorak said:

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/02/01/ukraine-website-puts-croatian-president-on-black-list/

What is interesting about this case is President Zoran Milanovic's own government, including the Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic have distanced themselves from Zoran's pro-Putin statements.

Does Croatia have a sizable amount of voters who support Putin? I'm wondering how Zoran benefits by making these statements, because one thing I know about politicians is they do not make statements for no reason.

 

[Zeleban]

 

[Seminole]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

We should make a distinction between what a leader or elite might think is a good outcome and what objectively is a good outcome. 

How does one objectively measure the value of whatever grip Russia exercises on the ‘stans with not having NATO stationed in Ukraine?

You can objectively measure how many miles from Moscow to Kiev, but the value you or any Russia puts on having NATO in Kiev is subjective, and can’t be objectively defined.  
 

Is it more important to them than 1 million young Russian men’s lives?

10 million?

[Pete Wenman]

Interesting update from Tom Cooper at a tactical level, (he has also just done one at operational level as well)

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-31-january-2022-tactical-level-1d78150d44cf

Suggests that Ukraine are in the ascendancy across the board at the tactical level.

 

edit to add the Operational level article

https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-1-february-2023-operational-level-e87baf595f45 

P 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Pete Wenman

[Lethaface]

7 hours ago, poesel said:

IIRC the Netherlands and Germany were the first countries after WWII to abolish border controls, which led to Schengen in the end. Let's hope this leads to a European army.

Btw, none of this made the mainstream news here. Hmmm....

Could be because the 43rd Mech Brigade was already quite a while part of the 1st Pz Div, including the tank lease for the Dutch Battalion. As was the 11th airmobile brigade already integrated. So the news is that now also the 13th Light Brigade will integrate.

There is even a shared corps HQ since quite a while:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._German/Dutch_Corps

Basically this latest news means that all Dutch brigades will now be integrated with the German army under shared command. Like @Yskonyn stated, KCT (commandos), the marines and other specialist personnel will not be integrated (at least not at the moment). In the naval area there was/is much cooperation with the UK.

Agreed on the European army. But compromising will take a while
 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Lethaface

[A Canadian Cat]

19 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Well I guess that is because until we see some indication in a shift in Ukrainian military capability, or political will, there is no reason to think or deduce that they are somehow in worse shape than they were 3 months ago.  It isn't "shhh dont inquire" it is "well what has fundamentally changed?"

The UA conducted a double operational offensive last fall that took back roughly half the area the RA held.  It was hard grinding at Kherson but not army breaking.  Since then the UA appears to have dug in and happily let the RA break itself in the Donbas again.  This time we are not seeing the massive artillery campaigns we saw last year, instead the RA is throwing what appears to be human wave assaults while the UA is giving ground very slowly. 

This whole discussion thread is an echo from this summer. Remember when everyone was anxious (including me) about could the UA actually push the RA off of territory? Remember all the doom and gloom that this was going to become a frozen conflict? Remember? If I recall correctly @The_Capt was patiently explaining that things take time and we should hold on to our hats a little longer. Remember what happened? I do, two successful offensive operations and two successes by the UA at pushing back.

Just because the weather has messed up any plans at a winter push doesn't mean suddenly the UA can't pull off more. In fact we should feel better than last summer because we have seen that the UA can push back and launch a successful offensive. Ukraine is in a better place now than the were then. The RA is in a worse place now than it was then.

 

19 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Everyone seems to think the RA may try to make a major push sometime this winter/spring, I for one am waiting to see what becomes of that.

I predict a nothing burger. Oh they'll try to take a town or two and the might even success but that's hardly an offensive. I mean look a the propaganda the RA generated from their disastrous push in Bakhmut.

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

does Ukraine have a military justice system that is significantly more lenient than the West?

I think is severe cases while at war a soldier can be jailed. Mostly they are thrown out of the military and lose any benefits as part of a dishonorable discharge. Less severe cases involve loss of rank and given dead-end assignments. But I am not in JAG.

But what is actually more interesting the the mention in your link of hodge-podge of formations and their wide use. I just wonder if a major UA offensive is going to have to bring in more standardized units. At least to effect an initial  break in/ break through.

 

 

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

This is the major legitimate worry...that Trump or someone like him gets into office in 2024. Yes, the Senate will remain on board for helping Ukraine but execution of the policy is entirely up to the White House. If you get a rank isolationist, Russia gets to try and turn this into a frozen conflict. That said, the pressure on any President to hang in there with Ukraine is going to be intense. Don't be surprised if one of the Trumpist alternatives gets in and decides to stick with it.

I would not spend much time considering this war in the same terms as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq for the many reasons that Steve mentioned above. There are no body bags coming home and the cost/benefit analysis is just too dramatically and obviously in America's favor to bear the comparison. This is what Americans call a "good war".

There is also the small difference that Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were all USA invasions of foreign countries (for better or for worse, I'll leave that up in the air), while this time the USA is helping another country (Ukraine) defending against an invasion.

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So if that has been the trend in this war so far then why cannot we rely on the “conditions that made those possible” going forward?  This is the crux of issue, what has fundamentally changed?  How have the operational conditions changed to the point we should begin to doubt the UAs ability to successfully prosecute this war?  How have the strategic conditions changed to the point our interests in this war are misaligning or shifting?  

 

What changed is that the endorphin ran out.

[dan/california]

Not the most important person in Europe, but not nobody either. Every election that goes Ukraines way matters.

[Ales Dvorak]

47 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

What is interesting about this case is President Zoran Milanovic's own government, including the Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic have distanced themselves from Zoran's pro-Putin statements.

Does Croatia have a sizable amount of voters who support Putin? I'm wondering how Zoran benefits by making these statements, because one thing I know about politicians is they do not make statements for no reason.

 

It's normal, Plenković and Milanović are from different political parties. Plenković is in another corruption affair,  while Milanović is just less diplomatic.

Does Croatia have a sizable amount of voters who support Putin?

Don't know, but things started to change after this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Zagreb_Tu-141_crash

[JonS]

4 hours ago, Gpig said:

how do modern western armies mitigate those conditions within a command

Yeah, command is hard.

In peacetime - and wartime to a degree - a lot of armies alternate their officers between so called 'command' appointments (platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander ... army commander) and 'staff' appointments (x1, ... x9 in operational units, or really in-the-rear-with-the-gear at a camp or higher HQ). Partly that's to provide well rounded leaders who've had first-hand experience at different aspects of the big green machine, but also to provide mental and emotional relief between command appointments. Oh, and there's also coursing which will routinely take an officer out of the mill for a few weeks or months every year, and by the time you get up to staff college it's a full year. Intellectually hard, to be sure, but you aren't constantly having to deal with Private Ballbags getting drunk every pay and beating up his wife, or Cpl Snooks forgetting to order ammo for range week again.

As you note, there's plenty of examples - there is a fairly robust theory that after Normandy Montgomery was done. He'd been in command on active operations since September 1942 (in addition to his not insignificant involvement in France 1940), so the better part of 2 years, all of it at the forefront of Britain's most significant operations. He'd personally planned and directed ... what ... at least three amphibious invasions, fought Rommel to a standstill then back across about 2000km of dust, then Sicily, and Italy, as well as directing the ground campaign in Normandy. And, of course, his abrasive personality ensured that he was fighting with his own side as much as with the Germans. Anyway, by the end of 1944 he must have been exhausted emotionally and mentally, and I think it shows in the lead up to Market Garden and the drifting operations that followed until the Battle of the Bulge started.

Allenbrook, too, in his diaries talks about the stress of managing Britain's military effort and campaigns, compounded by the additional stress of managing Churchill's whims on a daily basis. He needed to take breaks occasionally and just go off bird watching or fly fishing for a few weeks.

At the other end of the spectrum, Sydney Jary's '18 Platoon' is a good read. To briefly recap: his first posting was to a battalion in Normandy in July as a battle-casualty replacement platoon commander. He held that position - in the same platoon - until about March '45 I think, at which point he was sent off to a staff appointment. Someone (Monty? It's been a while since I read it ... I need to fix that) realised he'd been in that position too long, and had earned/deserved/needed a break.

And that highlights a rather harsh reality of mass-war: combat leaders tend not to last very long - weeks, or maybe months if they're lucky, before they're either killed or wounded - so the mental and emotional exhaustion tends not to become a problem. The conflicts over the last several decades have either been short overall (Gulf 1, Falklands^, Panama, etc) or covered by regular troop rotations, in part to manage this exhaustion. I believe the UN's recommended tour length is no more than 6 months, but that often isn't practical and some militaries opt for 12 month rotations, or longer, and deal with (or ignore) the trauma later back home.

Sooo ... Ukraine. And Russia. I don't know what they're doing. I suspect that casualties and promotion of the survivors, and unit rotations, means that combat commanders aren't having to command combat operations for months at a time. Russia is, of course, regularly scapegoating their own senior commanders, which ... might be good for them from a mental health perspective? The senior commanders of the Ukraine armed forces (and Zelenskyy) will be drawing deep on their reserves of resilience though, even though the war isn't yet a year old.

 

^ curiously, the battalions sent to the Falklands each only conducted one deliberate battle - mostly the attacks into the hills around Port Stanley. The exception was 2Para, who got to play down at Goose Green as well as at Stanley. It was noted at the time that they were the first British battalion in decades to have to conduct a deliberate battle while still dealing with the aftermath of a previous one.

Edited February 1, 2023 by JonS

[Kinophile]

6 hours ago, Zeleban said:

 

Exactly what I'm thinking for operational level actions,  writ large. 

[panzermartin]

Probably this war won't be won on western equipment alone but how many personnel Ukraine will have left in the end. 

We are bashing Russia for sending ill prepared troops in human wave style assaults but I haven't seen  mentioning that a lot of UKR troops were lost in encircled traps like in Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut etc while they could have withdrawn to fight another day with better chances. 

On the contrary RU has shown much more preservance reflexes(at least in defense) , pulling out of unfavorable situations instead of fighting to the last man. I understand the different mentality of someone defending his homeland but it seems these "no step back" decisions are coming from above.

A lot men have left Ukraine as well. And a lot have deserted to the east or joined the DPRs and LPRs and some videos of enforced recruitment have been circulating lately. How many can Ukraine sacrifice and how many losses can the foreign volunteers replace as the war widens.