Four Weeks On

Diplomatic and Military Operations have slowed down, but it is hard to go back to February 21st

Overview

• I have not written much over the last week and a half due to a heavy workload combine with international travel. It is not due to any sort of perception that the war has “slowed down” even if that appears to be an increasingly popular conclusion among analysts and Western intelligence. I suggested a weak ago that already the movements between maps from different sources dwarfed any actual day to day or even week to week movements on maps of actual frontlines. No better demonstration of that phenomena can be found than this AFP map from February 24th, nearly four weeks ago, which other than failing to show Russian advances along the Sea of Azov, could pass for a contemporary picture of the battlefield.

(From Ukraine War Mapper)

• Diplomacy is also stalled. As I predicted two weeks ago, the hopeful statements coming from underlings on both sides that agreement was near and that concrete proposals might be ready within three days was a PR exercise in damage limitation. Which is arguably our best evidence for an actual stalemate. The behavior of both sides makes sense in a context where Russia is not able to secure political concessions capable of justifying the war absent further military action. Either to make territorial gains, or to inflict enough damage to change the risk calculus for Kyiv or Western governments. In turn, Kyiv seems confident enough that its military situation will not deteriorate beyond the point where it cannot secure a settlement to make talks a secondary priority. This does not require Moscow and Kyiv to have the exact same read of what is going on militarily. They almost certain do not. Wishful thinking will play a part. But it does imply that neither thinks the situation is about to be suddenly transformed, despite Ukrainian claims that the Russians have 3 days of fuel left.

  • Both Ukraine and Russia also seem to be refocusing diplomacy on a longer conflict. Ukraine has largely dropped demands for a No Fly Zone in favor of maintaining the flow of financial and military support, while Russia is focused on stabilizing its position rather than seeking escalation or mediation.

  • Perhaps the best evidence is the focus of both sides on “Humanitarian corridors” which indicates they see the continued presence of large civilian populations as obstacles to their military operations.

Have the Russians Stalled?

The general consensus forming among the commentariat is that the Russian advance is, in the words of British intelligence “largely stalled.” There is some variation of what this means and the extent to which it is true. US DOD sources take what is probably the most extreme position

What we're seeing is a near desperate attempt by the Russians to gain some momentum and try to turn the course of this in their favor.

And -- and doing so could simply be -- again, could -- I want to emphasize the word "could" -- could simply be an attempt to improve their position at the negotiating table, to get some kind of leverage, because right now, it doesn't appear like they have a lot of leverage to negotiate with.

This echoes the Institute for the Study of War, which on March 19th assessed that

Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war. That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine. That campaign has culminated. Russian forces continue to make limited advances in some parts of the theater but are very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives in this way. The doctrinally sound Russian response to this situation would be to end this campaign, accept a possibly lengthy operational pause, develop the plan for a new campaign, build up resources for that new campaign, and launch it when the resources and other conditions are ready. The Russian military has not yet adopted this approach.

The ISW goes onto make a number of points to justify the contention that the Russian invasion has reached its culmination point, Carl von Clauswitz’s definition of the point at which an attacker reaches their maximum strength relative to the defender. Many of the claims reflect arguments I made two or three weeks ago. Namely, that if initial Russian advantages in airpower and mechanized forces failed to achieve rapid success against Ukrainian infantry armed with Western weapons, then Ukraine would find it far easier to replenish its stock of trained infantry and Western infantry equipment than the Russians would to increase their air and mechanized assets. That is not least a matter of quality. It has rightly been pointed out that Russia is a larger country with a larger population and in theory should be able to pour more manpower into the conflict. But that manpower is unmotivated, untrained in support for armor, and cannot fly planes. The combat potential of future Russian reinforcements is likely to be substantially below that of the forces already deployed both in absolute terms and relative to the gap between Ukrainian losses an their replacements. At least up to a point. That point would be Ukraine running through its reserves of veterans of the Donbass conflict, who number around 400,000.

For the time being, that number is likely sufficient to deal with the 200,000 or so men Russia has committed, and whatever effectives, 15,000 perhaps, Belarus might be able to contribute. But it does present a second culminating point. If Russia choses to continue its campaign beyond a certain level of attrition the balance will again shift. The question then becomes a political one. Can Russia continue the campaign that long? Will it?

What Does Russia Even Want?

This is a matter of both capabilities and goals. Analysts have tended to focus on one or the other, but a different Clausewitz quote, that War is merely the continuation of policy by other means. Leaving aside claims that Putin has “gone mad” from some combination of Parkinson’s or Long Covid, the decision to launch this special military operation came not in 2004 or 2014 but in 2022. Even if the estimates it was based upon regarding the strength of Ukrainian resistance, the capabilities of the Russian army, and the Western response were hopelessly optimistic, it still represented a risk on a scale unprecedented in Vladimir Putin’s career, or contemporary Russian history. It was almost certainly undertaken because all alternative means of achieving the political goals that Putin defined as vital had been exhausted.

This does not mean it was launched with a clearly defined set of goals. History is replete with examples of regimes and states launching wars because they feel geopolitically cornered. Austria-Hungary was infamous for this. Vienna had little to gain even from victory over Sardinia in 1859 or Prussia in 1866, and everything to lose, and the stakes in 1914 were even greater. Defeat meant destruction whereas victory would merely bring more Serbs into the Empire. Nonetheless, the hope was that military success would bring with it not merely territory, but prestige. It was the lack of prestige which Austria carried which, policy-makers in Vienna were convinced, encouraged smaller neighbors to agitate and challenge Austrian interests. The conquest of Serbia was not the goal in 1914. Serbia’s destruction was. That, it was hoped would send a message that the only path forward for the Empire’s minorities, and smaller neighbors was accommodation. It was for that reason that Vienna could not allow Serbia “to get away” with the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

I have outlined a multitude of reasons why Putin, and for that matter almost any alternative Russian leader would have problems with developments in Ukraine. Some of these are concrete - the assimilation of Russian-speakers into an anti-Russian cultural sphere, the geopolitical alignment of Ukraine towards the West, the status of the Crimea, but ultimately Russia and Putin’s problem is a lack of respect. Georgia would not have dared pursue an anti-Russian policy if it respected Moscow’s power. Nor would the Baltic States or Kazakhstan. That Azerbaijan felt able to overthrow a settlement imposed by Moscow and enforced by Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh last year is evidence that Baku no longer respected Moscow in its own backyard. Putin might have dreamed of annexation and partition if things went well. A puppet government as an acceptable outcome. But he needed respect. He might even have been able to live with a humiliated Zelensky following a Russian triumph. But he cannot live with a victorious or vindicated one.

This is the fundamental problem for Moscow. It is possible to haggle over just how badly this war is going, or what Russian plans were, or how meaningful that will be militarily, but the Russian campaign has failed in its most basic political objective. To restore the respect of the Russian army and state in neighboring countries. The last four weeks, whether because of battlefield setbacks or successful Ukrainian propaganda, it does not matter the balance between the two, have made Russia’s neighbors less afraid of the Russian army and more contemptuous of Putin’s words, wishes, and threats. Putin cannot afford to end the war before somehow regaining some degree of respect.

That can come through a military victory. It can also, however, come through terror. Austria did not need, or even particularly desire to conquer Serbia in 1914. It needed to destroy it. It would have vindicated Putin’s view of the world, of Russia’s historical role, and Moscow’s criticisms of the West and line about how the 2014 Euromaiden was a minority coup if Ukraine had rapidly collapsed. That would have been infinitely preferable. But ultimately, if Putin levels large parts of Ukraine reducing the country to a wasteland that will act as warning enough that to anger Moscow is to court annihilation. The West may send weapons to prevent conquest, but NATO is not coming with a no-fly-zone to stop Russian aerial attacks or take out Russian artillery. If Putin escalates to chemical weapons and again no one comes, it sends the message to Russia’s neighbors. It might cost him, but if you annoy Putin he will come and destroy you. And America will not help you.

This, fundamentally, is the problem of any discussion of a Ukrainian victory. Averting a Russian conquest is humiliating for the Kremlin, but it will not on its own end the war. In fact, it makes it much harder for Russia to end the war without turning to terror. The Ukrainians will need to either gain the offensive ability to inflict damage on Russian artillery and aircraft, or holdout until there is an off-ramp.

A brief digression on off-ramps. Many commentators in the West have been saying Putin needs an off-ramp. I agree. But they err in assuming he needs or wants one from the West. Putin is not after territory or economic resources anymore. There is nothing he can possibly gain which can compensate for even a fraction of the cost of the last month. Putin needs respect, and respect can only be earned not given.

One of the errors Chamberlain made at Munich was misunderstanding what Hitler wanted. He assumed Hitler was primarily concerned with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles as they related to territory, German disarmament, and reparations. If these were removed, then Germany would be satisfied and act as an equal in the European system. But Hitler’s actual objection to Versailles was that it existed at all. He was furious that it had been imposed on a defeated Germany, and that Germany was and always would be “defeated” in the eyes of both Germans and everyone else unless they took back what was theirs. Being “given back” territory or the right to have an army implied it was legitimately within the power of Britain and France to take them away in the first place. For Hitler, who felt defeat had made Germans despondent, the peaceful takeover of the Saar, Rhineland, and Austria bred complacency and pacifism, convincing Germans that war would never be neccisary. Chamberlain’s appeasement not only failed to appease Hitler at Munich. It enraged him. How would he convinced the Germans they would ever need to seriously prepare to fight if they could destroy Czechoslovakia peacefully through bluff? He responded by swearing he would never be cheated out of war again and made sure to make appeasement that much harder in the future.

Historical analogies are awkward, and the “Putler” ones are cringe. But if Putin’s problem is that the small states around Russia do not respect Russia as much as they do the United States, ending the conflict with an agreement in which Washington takes pity on Russia and generously grants concessions reinforces rather than challenges that impression. It leaves Washington, not Moscow, the decisive arbiter of events within the region.

Putin will need Washington to eventually recognize the Crimea as Russian for it to have value, but he needs Ukraine to be forced to do so first, by Russian arms. He is not served by Washington deciding to. This is what all the commentators obsessed with the Dragonbear arguing the US should appease Russia to peal Moscow away from the Chinese do not get. Only a self-confident Russia can do that, and their appeasement would be insulting.

A further worry is the extent to which what Putin needs and what Russia needs are becoming conflated. For all the debate over Russian public opinion, there is a logical argument for Russians who did not want this war, and are not fans of Putin, that Russia is harmed by lack of respect, and that the loss of prestige entailed by any end to the conflict that cannot be spun as anything other than a Russian defeat would be catastrophic. They need a win too.

So if Russia needs a “win” for an off-ramp, it is not winning, and concessions from the West cannot serve as part of any off-ramp(or not as the core component) what can? I think the answer lies sadly in Mariupol. The city, under siege for two weeks, was the center of Ukrainian resistance to separatists in the Donbass for the last eight years. It is closely identified in Russian propaganda with the neo-Nazi Azov battalions. Surrounded, with Russian forces penetrating into the center of the city according to the Pentagon(and visible on the below map from a Pro-Russian source) it is likely to fall in the next week or two.

That fall might free up Russian forces for an encirclement of the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass, but with Ukrainians still holding(and even counterattacking at) Izium after 17 days, and the logistical challenges involved that would take weeks after its fall to manifest. More likely, it would provide a victory which would allow Moscow to claim it “de-nazified” the center of Nazism in the Ukraine. That would provide the moral and prestige cover to make an agreement on other matters.

It is my belief that both sides have stalled talks until Mariupol falls.

Ideally, Putin would probably wish to take Kharkiv as well, but that seems like a logistical longshot at this point. But Mariupol is probably the minimum condition.

Brief Military Overview

The three major developments of importance are

• The seemingly impending fall of Mariupol which the Pentagon suggested Russian troops had penetrated on the 22nd. That Russia demanded the city’s surrender indicates that there is some way to go before it is taken, but that even Moscow is concerned about the PR consequences from the level of destruction. How much the fall will matter is up in the air.

  •  Psychologically it will be a big deal, but much less of one than if it had fallen in the first days or even hours as Russian sources leaked at the time. The effect Mariupol falling after four to five or even six weeks will be mitigated on the Ukrainian side by the fact that it will have held out for five to six weeks. The main, impact, as I noted above, will be on Russian domestic opinion who view the city as the center of Nazism in the Ukraine in the form of the Azov battalion and can be sold on the idea its fall represents the fulfillment of the de-Nazification mission behind the special military operation.

  • Militarily, while the fall of Mariupol will free up forces for use elsewhere, the speed with which they can be redeployed and the use which can be made of them are again significantly reduced from what they would be if the city had fallen quickly. The troops have spent weeks engaged in an emotionally draining siege. That will lead to not only physical exhaustion, but mental familiarity with a type of warfare very different from that in open country. It is not merely a matter of putting them into vehicles. They will need time to recover. Logistically, almost all of the supply lines have been setup over the last few weeks to bring ammunition, food, and men to Mariupol from the Crimea, not away from it. There is no single switch which can be flipped to diver those towards an offensive northward to try and encircle the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass.

• Continued fighting around Izium. Russian forces reached the city on the 6th of March. On March 18th, the Pentagon assessed that Russian forces had secured Izyum after an 11 day battle on March 17th. This now appears to be untrue. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have confirmed fierce fighting the last week, and Russian forces had failed to take it as of today according to Igor Girkin, the former Russian commander in the Donbass. Absent capturing it, the Russians are not “close” to encircling Ukrainian forces in the East, no matter what commentators sharing maps off Telegram say.

• Girkin also raised losses among separatist veterans in frontal assaults.

The Armed Forces of the DPR are gradually advancing everywhere, however, the Armed Forces of Ukraine regularly counterattack. And if things go on like this, - by mid-April there will simply be no "personnel" Armed Forces of the DPR (to a lesser extent - the Armed Forces of the LPR, but the situation there is also not very different) - they will simply not physically remain. And completely untrained mobilized reservists (who are also thrown into battle - with corresponding losses) - you won’t gain much. Do they understand this in the Russian command, which continues to throw the Donetsk infantry into frontal attacks every day - I find it difficult to answer. The enemy also suffers very heavy losses, but his mobilization reserve is much more significant - many times more. But next in line are the rear fortified areas of the enemy in Kurakhovo, Bakhmut, Soledar, the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzhkovka-Konstantinovka agglomeration no less heavily fortified and extremely inconvenient for assault.
I remind you that in imperial and Soviet times, mobilized military personnel underwent at least minimal training in training and spare parts before being sent to the front. And tankers, artillerymen, sappers and signalmen (etc.) - came to the front already trained in their military profession to a sufficient extent. Otherwise, they would not be able to fight. I don’t know anything about the creation of such units and subdivisions in the LDNR (in other words, they don’t exist, if there were, I would know). And the war is for a long time. And if an infantryman can still be thrown into battle in the hope that "he will learn everything in a couple of days if he survives," then who will be put behind the levers of military vehicles when "all the old men are knocked out" - I don’t understand. Moreover, VOLUNTEERS FROM THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ARE NOT PERMITTED across the border. Often even those who have "calls" to specific military units. Moreover, it is precisely the "border authorities of the LDNR" that do not let through. Why this is done and for what - one can only guess ...

• In the southwest, the most promising news for the Ukrainians is that they appear to have been able to carry out a major counterattack, driving Russian forces back 75 miles from the outskirts of Mykolaiv almost all the way back to Kherson. Unlike other Ukrainian counteroffensives which either manifested in the form of raids designed to damage Russian forces(as around Kharkiv) or to retake vital defenses areas() this offensive seems to not only have inflicted losses, but retaken extensive territory. Strategically important territory as well, since it blunts any serious overland threat to Odessa for the foreseeable future.