A stalemate in the Winter War of 2022 would mean Russia holds its conquests. That's a victory for Putin even if the heavy Russian casualties tarnish the win. Will Ukraine retain its motivation to fight the next war if its people aren't satisfied with preventing conquest in this war at the price it has paid?
Russian forces displayed an inability to operate above the Battalion Tactical Group level of coordination in the initial invasion. Ukraine's successful destruction of Russian invaders even as it lost ground and later recaptured some territory masked a similar problem:
“Russian defenses are now deep, well-prepared, and backed with significant reserves, whereas Ukraine is now fighting mostly with forces raised since the 2022 invasion and which have never had the luxury of time to train properly at brigade level and above,” said Stephen Biddle, an adviser to U.S. General David Petraeus during the Iraq War and now a professor of international relations at Columbia University.
Ukraine has a year before war weariness from the "three-year rule" kicks in, possibly erasing a major morale advantage that Ukraine has had over the Russian invaders.
Of course, Russians will feel that, too. Maybe more as the invader suffering heavy casualties. I was certainly wrong before the war. But maybe Putin was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't the case. But eventually this will kick in.
That's the problem when war becomes a clash of two killing machines processing men and materiel. War becomes an attritional endurance contest.
We shall see if Ukraine has figured out how to launch an offensive this year centered on battalions rather than brigades and divisions on the Kherson front where Russian defenders are thin on the ground, but counting on the river as a replacement for troops and fortifications on the scale of the rest of the front.
That will rest on Ukraine's bridge-building abilities (will we see submerged bridges, too, as I've wondered since at least June?), air defenses to protect the bridges (F-16s, where are you?), and the logistics to sustain a drive east to roll up Russian fortifications and to push toward Crimea to at least put large chunks of the peninsula within HIMARS range (and the rest within air and ATACMS range).
ISW reports on Ukraine's assessment about what it will take to break the stalemate and on Russia's apparent plan to throw more troops at the Ukrainian lines.
One of the Ukrainian objectives from their assessment is to gain air superiority over the front lines. With drones. That is, shooting down enemy drones. Like I advocated in Army. Sure, the F-16s could sweep Russian helicopters. But the meat of the problem is in the brown skies above the combat troops. Until there are ground-based area defenses of some sort that extend over the forward troops, I think aerial fighter drones are needed to lift the burden of claiming the brown skies from forward troops already busy fighting enemy ground troops. And here's information on drone defense developments in Ukraine.
But I (sort of) digress.
The Ukrainian assessment is odd. Is it a necessary very public document to rally the people and reach a Western audience that there is a path to victory, if Ukraine is helped? Or does it have the purpose of fooling the Russians to disguise a near-term offensive? I'm not the only one to wonder about the latter. It could be either. Or something else, of course.
I just don't know if Ukraine has the time to spend a winter training its forces held back from the front in division-scale attacks--even if it gets all the equipment to equip just a single heavy division--while the Russians build more fortifications, plant more mines, revive their defense industry, and throw more prisoner cannon fodder at Ukraine's defenders over the winter and spring. It seems like Ukraine wants to continue the offensive through the fall and winter.
One problem with the trench warfare is that units become optimized for trench warfare over time. Then they lose their ability to maneuver. That's less of a problem for Russia in the short run because it holds Ukrainian territory.
But if Ukraine can't attack, I don't know if Ukraine (or its leaders) can formally admit they won't get their territory back by agreeing to peace or even a formal ceasefire.
UPDATE (Monday): I wonder if Ukrainian engineers are observing this American exercise:
Hundreds of Army engineers spent Friday building seven-piece floating bridges to move roughly 870 combat vehicles across a lake as part of the largest training exercise conducted at Fort Cavazos in three years.
UPDATE (Monday): A warning sign that the three-year rule is showing up in Ukraine:
Pessimism over prospects for a quick victory is increasing, and the spirit that infused the first days of the conflict is starting to fade, polls find.
Ukrainians will increasingly be willing to settle for defeating the invasion rather than ejecting the invaders.
I'm sure that trend is more intense in Russia. But does it matter if Russian security forces keep any discontent suppressed? Or is it more dangerous because discontent could shift from being willing to defend their early war gains to being unwilling?
UPDATE (Tuesday): So far the Russians are trying to help the Ukrainians:
Putin ... doesn’t want to hear about Russian soldiers avoiding service in Ukraine, refusing to fight once they got there, and often deserting if compelled to fight.
But so far Ukraine hasn't been able to exploit the damage the Russians and Ukrainians do to the Russian ground forces to achieve an offensive battlefield victory.
And this illustrates something I've been saying for a long time:
A growing number of Russians see the Ukraine War as something they can’t afford and can justify getting out of.
It is said Putin can't afford to admit defeat. I say that admitting defeat becomes very affordable when the alternative of staying and fighting appears far, far worse. For Russia and for Putin.
UPDATE (Tuesday) If air power is the key to enabling Ukrainian offensives, I say expand Ukraine's ability to operate more F-16s by recruiting for the Flying Nightingales. Given precision ground-based firepower, I think Ukrainian air power is more important for neutralizing Russian air power. Foreign pilots could be limited to flying behind friendly lines so a pilot who bails out won't be captured and provide Russia with propaganda about "NATO" direct intervention.
UPDATE (Tuesday): Assessing F-16s for Ukraine: "The F-16 probably won’t be a game changer, but it may very well be a decisive factor."
I wonder if they could be decisive on the Kherson front as Russian air defenses and forces in general are pushed back from Crimea.
UPDATE (Wednesday): Complaints that Ukraine's Zelensky won't try to hold elections notwithstanding its law that suspends them during a war because America held elections during the Civil War and during World War II ignores a very important distinction.
In America's wars our enemies weren't occupying our territory and preventing occupied citizens from voting. And we didn't have refugees spread out across Europe. And the difficulty of having troops vote while engaged in a desperate war would be difficult.
Do it via the Internet? Don't rule out that Russia could hack the process and either rig it or simply make it look so badly carried out that it discredits Ukraine.
And don't you dare pretend Putin's "reelection" next year reflects democracy.
It would be nice if Ukraine can hold a presidential election during the war. But I don't condemn Zelensky for not holding them as Ukrainian law anticipated. Better to help Ukraine win faster to restore regular elections if that is your worry and not your excuse to do what you want to do--let Russia win the war.
UPDATE (Thursday): I've seen photos of Ukraine ferrying armored vehicles across the Dnieper
River on the Kherson front. And more--but still small--Ukrainian
infantry seems to be operating across the river. Not many vehicles could be deployed that way.
Could the photos be for
the purpose of providing a non-threatening explanation for why Ukrainian armor is on the left (east)
bank? That is, could Ukraine have built an underwater bridge to get forces moving prior to throwing pontoon or ribbon bridges across the river to expand the attacks? Having an explanation for a few could buy some time while Ukraine puts quite a lot across. How long would it take for the Russians to realize that much more is happening?
Ukraine would need their air defenses pretty thick there to protect the bridges--despite the talk of needing them for the winter around Ukraine's cities. And Ukraine would need logistics coiled plus a lot of fresh brigades--notwithstanding the failure of the summer offensive to punch through elsewhere--ready to roll across and take advantage of the thinner Russian defenses and exploit the effects of pushing Russia back from western Crimea with their long drone and missile campaign.
Helping Russia's top commanders see what they expect to see would be important.
Ideally, Ukraine's advance would be great enough to link up with the front further east to open an overland supply line. But that would be a really big advance. I won't get too excited yet. This could just be an effort to divert Russian forces to this relatively quiet front.
This drama illustrates why it is often better to defend forward of the river. If your forces holding the front on the other side of the river are supported by artillery on the safe side, the defenders could be light enough to escape across the river in boats if you blow your own bridges or the enemy does it. Then the enemy exploitation of victory on the front line is contained by the need to cross the river.
Defending behind the river may be necessary if your forces are weak enough, but Ukraine's actions illustrate the problem. If the Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back from defending the river line, Ukraine gets some room to create a bridgehead. Then if Ukraine gets a victory on the front line across the river, the exploitation faces no terrain obstacle ahead of them.
UPDATE (Thursday): Brace yourself:
Russia has amassed an estimated 40,000 troops around Avdiivka as it prepares for a third wave assault on the shattered eastern town.
In my perfect world, Ukraine absorbs the assault on Avdiivka which is surrounded on three sides by Russian forces; counterattacks the Russian pincers with a major force that breaks the Russian attackers; and then launches an offensive across the Dnieper River on the Kherson front sustained by defended bridges.
But I don't live in a perfect world.
UPDATE: (Thursday) I read somewhere that a Ukrainian professor in the West said that even a bad peace is better than a good war. That may be true.
But as I always say, check the Definitions Section. Too often what people making that argument call "peace" is actually "the enemy pausing to reload." And now for something completely different:
UPDATE (Friday): ISW is giving the Kherson front more prominence in its daily coverage. FWIW.
NOTE: ISW updates continue here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
