Tuesday 8 March 2022

Putin must reconcile himself to defeat

On the 13th day of the war in Ukraine, I am more convinced than ever that Russia will never take it. Putin has been gaslighting the west as much as his own people, convincing NATO and countries bordering Russia that his army is all-powerful and invincible. That myth hasn't survived contact with determined resistance on the Ukraine Steppes in winter. The rate of attrition of men and weapons is simply unsustainable. Kyiv is nowhere near surrounded and Ukrainian defenders are growing in confidence and are being resupplied from the west.

How Putin will respond is anyone's guess, but he will soon have to reconcile himself to defeat.

These are the Russian losses claimed by Ukraine - almost certainly overstated, but not totally inconsistent with video footage we can see on Twitter, of equipment destroyed or captured and troop losses.

When he does fail, it will almost certainly be due to logistics issues. I follow a retired American civil servant from the Department of Defense, Trent Telenko, on Twitter and he tweeted a link to an article from November 2021 which forecasted exactly the scenario we are now seeing play out:

This is a short extract from the article: Feeding the Bear: A closer look at Russian Army Logistics and the fait accompli., by Alex Vershinin,  a 20 year US veteran who has spent years war gaming and developing defensive concepts for NATO: 

"While the Russian army definitely has the combat power to achieve these scenarios, does Russia have the logistics force structure to support these operations? The short answer is not in the timelines envisioned by Western wargames. In an initial offensive — depending on the fighting involved — Russian forces might reach early objectives, but logistics would impose requirements for operational pauses. As a result, a large land grab is unrealistic as a fait accompli. The Russian army has the combat power to capture the objectives envisioned in a fait accompli scenario, but it does not have the logistic forces to do it in a single push without a logistical pause to reset its sustainment infrastructure. The Russian Aerospace Forces (with a sizable tactical bomber and attack aircraft force) and attack helicopters can also pick up fire support to alleviate artillery ammunition consumption.

"NATO planners should develop plans focusing on exploiting Russian logistic challenges rather than trying to address the disparity in combat power. This involves drawing the Russian army deep into NATO territory and stretching Russian supply lines to the maximum while targeting logistics and transportation infrastructure such as trucks, railroad bridges, and pipelines. Committing to a decisive battle at the frontier would play directly into Russian hands, allowing a shorter supply to compensate for their logistic shortfalls."

He suggests Ukraine "focus on exploiting Russian logistic challenges by drawing Russian forces further away from their supply depots and targeting chokepoints in the Russian logistic infrastructure and logistic force in general" - which is exactly what they seem to doing and doing very successfully.

At the UN, Russia is making itself look ridiculous as well as brutal. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN yesterday accused Vladimir Putin of having a plan “to brutalize Ukraine” and the Russian ambassador responded by "claiming Ukrainians are shelling themselves."

This is not only a lie, but a lie the ambassador must know is a lie. How could anyone think Ukraine is killing its own citizens and systematically destroying its own cities in order to paint Russia in a bad light?  How can you negotiate with people like that?  What doe they hope to achieve?

Finally, on Brexit I spent a long time in 2017 and 2018 on street stalls campaigning against Brexit. One of the things I did was to produce leaflets for SfE. One leaflet had a section about which European countries were either EU members or candidates, had some sort of relationship that put them inside the single market or were subject in some way to its rules on product standards or tariffs.

I remember saying if Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine applied to join (and they have now officially applied), Britain would be one of only three countries outside the bloc - the others being Belarus and Russia. Not a happy band to be part of is it?

After the war is over - and it will be within weeks, perhaps even days - it will be good to remind people of the powerful unity that EU member states have shown while NATO has effectively been sidelined. In particular, Britain's response to the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Ukraine (1.7 million so far) has been a national disgrace.

The Times' editorial this morning is a sharp reproach to the government, reminding them of our responsibilities under the 1951 Refugee Convention:

They should not be 'sent back' due to a lack of paperwork. The government is indeed shaming us all by demanding terrified women and children go through a lengthy application process taking weeks before being admitted.

While Poland, Romania, Germany and other countries take in huge numbers we have managed 300 so far with 13,000 having 'applied' - a shocking figure to me.

Proceedings started yesterday at The ICC in The Hague, with Russia not even sending anybody to represent them. This is going to play out over the years. Personally, I don't think sanctions should be lifted until every Russian indicted for war crimes has been handed over by Moscow.

Only when people realise they will personally be held responsible for their actions will we be able to permanently consign what Russia is doing in Ukraine to history.

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