Does Ukraine or Russia strike first with a big push? And will it be the battle to end all battles?
Russia appears to be gearing up for fighting in Luhansk province. Is it an effort to resume the offensive? Fight a defensive battle against Ukraine's counteroffensive? Or a spoiling attack to unhinge Ukraine's offensive actions?
In Donetsk, the Russian Wagner Group attacks are sputtering out. I wondered if Russia was trying to tie down Ukrainian forces to keep them from interfering with some other plan. If that's the plan, it isn't working:
The Russian attacks are supposed to tie down a lot of Ukrainian troops but that does not happen and it is Russia that is losing lots of its most effective troops every week without any useful gains.
In the south, Russia appears to be digging in with no offensive intent. That is where there is much speculation about a Ukrainian winter offensive.
And of course, there is still speculation that Russia may again attempt to capture Kiev by reopening the northern front, possibly including attacks from Belarus territory. Can Putin push Belarus to join the war by sending in its army, too?
This seems to indicate a stalemate:
Fighting in Ukraine is currently at a deadlock as neither Ukraine nor Russia can make significant advances, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency has said, while Kyiv waits for more advanced weapons from Western allies.
But the agency head, Budanov, actually specified that Russia is "completely at a dead end" and stalled; while Ukraine can't defeat the Russians in "all directions comprehensively."
So sure, Ukraine can't carry out a broad counteroffensive all along the front. I don't think that limitation has been in question. And Russia's ever-shrinking offensive is shrinking to nothing until it can rebuild its ground forces.
As the battlefield hangs in the balance, the next offensive by whoever manages to initiate it has a lot riding on it. And a lot of opportunity to score a big victory that pushes momentum perhaps relentlessly in the direction of victory in the war.
When one side's logistics fail. When one side's military and civilian morale collapses. When one side can't increase its power to win and nobody is likely to help them. Or when losing seems like a better outcome than continuing to fight.
My hopes rest on Russia enduring the second or, if Ukraine can't inflict a major battlefield defeat on Russia this winter, Russia concluding the fourth.
However the war unfolds, Putin seems determined to fight it in the new year:
Putin stated that “Russia’s sovereign, independent, and secure future depends only on us, on our strength and determination” and that 2022 “was a year of difficult, necessary decisions, of important steps toward achieving the full sovereignty of Russia and the powerful consolidation of our society.”[1] He added that the events of 2022 “became the milestone that laid the foundation of our new common future, our new true independence.” He continued: “That is what we are fighting for even today, we are defending our people on our own historical territories in the new Russian Federation Subjects [the illegally annexed territories of Ukraine].” This speech continued Putin’s rhetorical claims not only that Russia has historical rights to Ukraine, but also that Russia’s independence and sovereignty depend on regaining control of Ukraine. Putin thereby attempts to cast victory in the war as essential to Russia’s continued existence as an independent state.So Putin will rely on the army to keep fighting. Indeed, Lavrov may be right about the Russian army:
Moscow's proposals for settlement in Ukraine are well known to Kyiv and either Ukraine fulfils them for their own good or the Russian army will decide the issue, TASS agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
But the Russian army might decide Putin and Lavrov should hang by their heels from lamp posts.
UPDATE (Thursday): Putin claims to be fighting Satan in Ukraine yet proclaims a Orthodox Christmas ceasefire?
Don't fall for this. Russia would like a permanent ceasefire to prevent Ukraine from taking back more land. And allow Russia the time to rebuild their army and relaunch the invasion at a future date.
Ukraine should raise Russia's ceasefire vow not to ever attack Russian civilian targets inside Russia.
UPDATE (Friday): The ceasefire did not hold. It was just Russian propaganda trying to make Ukraine look like an obstacle to peace. In reality, Russian civilians face no threat from Ukrainians on Orthodox Christmas. And if Russia wanted Ukrainian citizens free from attacks on the holiday, all Russia had to do was not bombard Ukrainian cities.
UPDATE: Interesting:
The United States is of the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin's ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the founder of Russia's most powerful mercenary group, is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, a White House official said on Thursday.
Russia's offensive has largely shrunk to the effort to take Bakhmut. And the method of subcontracting that offensive to a private entity recalls this information I read a month before Russia's invasion:
How ... feudal: "[Russia's small wars] are financed by members of Putin’s inner circle. They don’t come directly out of state budgets. ... The oligarchs who funded the annexation of Crimea, for example, received a multibillion-dollar contract to build a bridge connecting that peninsula over the Kerch Strait to Russia." This means of finance requires short and/or small victorious wars.Which the Russians hope their nuclear weapons can enforce after achieving gains.
That method can't finance an entire war. And it may have over-reached with the Bakhmut objective despite relying on released-prisoner cannon fodder.
UPDATE (Saturday): Is it my imagination or am I reading and hearing more about a Ukrainian spring counteroffensive? What happened to the long-anticipated winter counteroffensive? Is that off? Is this spring emphasis misdirection?
UPDATE (Sunday): ISW reports that the Ukrainians and Russians are building up for possible Ukrainian counteroffensives in Luhansk province and Zaporizhia province.
With everyone looking in those two spots, is there room for a supporting Ukrainian river crossing in Kherson combined with airmobile landings and a minor amphibious operation to supplement a Zaporizhia operation and divide Russian attention?
NOTE: ISW updates continue here.
