Why Russia will lose this war?
Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is?
I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals
Consider a timely paper on Russian army by Bismarck Analysis. It's good & informative. It's correct on its land-based and artillery-centric character. It's also correct that Minister of Defence Serdyukov greatly increased army's efficiency in 2007-2012. But it's still misleading
Yes, Minister Serdyukov indeed reformed the army. He increased its efficiency, fought with corrupt and crony armament producers improving the army supplies. As a result he became extremely unpopular, made tons of powerful enemies and was ousted in 2012 losing his power and status
His successor Shoygu knew better than that. Now who's Shoygu? Shoygu is the *only* single Russian minister who uninterruptedly worked in government since 1991, since the very beginning of Russian Federation. He worked for all presidents, all prime ministers avoided all purges [..]
Serdyukov fought with interest groups and was destroyed. Shoygu was smarter than that. He launched a PR campaign presenting himself as the "saviour" from the Serdyukov's legacy. Whatever his predecessor did, was dismantled. Media cheered, people cheered, interest groups cheered
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So. Land-maxing requires minimising the naval ambition. Does Russia minimise its naval ambition? No. It feels obliged to maintain as much Soviet naval legacy as possible. Keep old ships afloat, build new ones, maintain and expand infrastructure for the ocean navy
Here is another dilemma. Regional fleets can be effectively used in land wars. For example, Russia declared "navy manoeuvres" and then attacked Ukraine from the sea. That's cheap and effective. But keeping a regional fleet doesn't sound sexy. It's efficiency-maxing, not PR-maxing
And Russia is PR-maxing. Putin declared that the share of new ships should reach 70% by 2027. Old Soviet ships are becoming obsolete, Russia's building new ones. BUT. Major Soviet shipyards are located in Ukraine. So now Russia expands shipyard infrastructure to reach this goal
Soviet naval legacy is a curse of Russian military. USSR could afford ocean fleets with carrier strike group. Russia can't. But abandoning Soviet ambitions would require suppressing their own hubris (impossible). So they strive to maintain it. Ergo: they can't and won't land-max
[Blitzkrieg]
How does it reflect on this war? First, Russian invading force is small. It has LOTS of artillery ofc. But it's not numerous enough to win. Pro-Russian analysts compare their advance with Barbarossa. But unlike Wehrmacht in 1941 Russian invaders have only *ONE ECHELON OF TROUPS*
How is a Blitzkrieg organised? By echelons. First echelon is moving forward as fast as they can. Ofc this means that lots of defenders will be left in their rear. But then the second echelon comes, then third, etc. They finish defenders, occupy territory, control the supply lines
If Russia launched a proper Barbarossa-style Blitzkrieg that would happen now - first, second, third echelons. But the second echelon didn't come. It never existed. Why? First, Russia's *not* landmaxing and thus doesn't have so much resources and infrastructure for the land war
Secondly, launching several echelons would require long arduous preparation. You need to mobilise them, move to the borders, quarter, maintain and supply. It's not that easy. It's a hard job that should have been done well in advance to wage a Blitzkrieg. And it hadn't been done
Why Russia didn't prepare a proper Blitzkrieg? And now we come for the third and main reason. Blitzkrieg is a war strategy. Blitzkrieg is how you break & suppress the enemy who's actually fighting. Russia didn't plan it because it didn't plan a war. It planned a Special Operation
Ofc partially that's just modern discourse. After WWII traditional understanding of sovereignty as of legal right of sovereign rulers to wage offensive war died. As a result modern states never admit they're waging wars. They're waging "pacifications", "counterterrorism", etc
[..] Modern world abolished the distinction between the enemy and the criminal, a key idea of the Roman Law. Powers do wage wars, but to do so they need to criminalise and dehumanise their enemies. Hence, all the "terrorist" discourse. In a sense Putin is going with the flow
But on a deeper level Putin is absolutely correct. His declaration of "special operation" in Ukraine is sincere, because he didn't expect the war. He doesn't know how to do wars. For all of his life he's been organising and launching the special operations [...]
Later he initiated conflicts each time his had to boost his popularity and tough image. Chechnya, Georgia, Syria. But neither of this was a war. Every conflict was a Special operation waged:
1) for political goals
2) against small force which had no chance to win against Russia
Putin fought only with small countries. Chechnya - 1 million people, Georgia - 4. Syria had more, but he fought with rebels, with no proper training or armaments. Also "counterterrorist" discourse allowed Russians to simply level entire cities to the ground with no consequences [...]
Putin decided to repeat this little trick again. Hence, not that numerous army of invasion, only one echelon of advance, etc. But Ukraine is much bigger - it has 44 million people. What was Putin thinking? Apparently he was expecting zero resistance from the Ukrainian army
Putin had a good reason to believe so. Indeed, in 2014 Russian regulars ("ихтамнеты" = "there aren't any of them there") easily destroyed Ukrainian forces in Debaltsevo and Ilovaysk. He saw that Ukrainian army is weak and he can easily route them simply sending Russian regulars
Strategically speaking Putin fucked up. He defeated Ukraine, inflicted pain and humiliation. Anyone with an IQ above the room temperature knew the war is not over and Russians would strike again. But - Putin didn't finish Ukraine back then. He thought he'd always have a chance
What happened next was quite predictable. Inflicting a painful but not critical defeat on your enemy is risky. Yeah, they kinda became weaker. But the balance of power within them changed. [...]
Nothing motivates as hard as an existential threat. First, Ukrainians admitted the truth:
«I'll be frank. Today we have no army. Now we can assemble a group of 5 thousand capable soldiers max [out of 125 on paper]"
- reported minister of defence in 2014
In 2014 Ukrainian equipment was awful. Almost 100% vehicle and ammunition were 25+ year old Soviet stocks. Moreover, most of it just expired. Like vehicles existed on paper but were never checked or used since 1991. Their radiators, accumulators all rotten and unrepairable
[...] That's how Ukrainian army looked back then. No wonder it was immediately crushed by Russian regulars in Debaltsevo and Ilovaysk and Putin had every reason to believe that resistance will be broken the moment he launches his regular army en masse
A lot has changed. First, Ukraine has had six drafts. Men were drafted and sent to Donbass. Then most demobilised and returned to civilian life. This Donbass contingent was around 60 thousand soldiers and constantly rotated. So now Ukraine has 400 000+ veterans of Donbass war
Many of them were in combat. Thus Ukraine has huge number of veterans with combat experience. Probably more than Russia. Yes, Russia has been fighting in Syria. It never published the size of its force but it's estimated to be 2-3 thousand. Most Russian soldiers have not seen war
Furthermore, combat they've seen is different. Russian soldiers are used to fighting only when they total superiority. In Syria they would just level cities to the ground with bombers. Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldiers have fought only against far stronger and better equipped enemy
Equipment-wise this war took Ukrainian army half-resupplied. It developed many innovative weaponry of its own, but almost none of it was produced on large scale. In most cases soldiers have only few prototypes of new, Ukrainian-produced weaponry
Ukraine ordered 48 Turkish Bayraktars TB2 drones. That's not bad - more than twice what Azerbaijan had in Karabakh. But only 12 of them got to the troops by now. Ukraine is also developing new, stronger drone Bayraktar Akinci together with Turks, but it's too late for this war
However, Ukrainians got a number (unpublished) of American-produced Javelins and M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, & British-Swedish produced MBT LAWs. Together with Ukrainian produced anti-tank weaponry such as «Stugna-P», RK-3 "Corsar" and «Barrier» it helps to fight Russian tanks
Ukrainian troops hadn't received many new tanks by the time Putin attacked. But they got new armoured vehicles, such as domestic-produced Cossack-2 with Turkish produced Aselsan fighting modules and a number of American armoured vehicles, humvees, etc
Finally, Ukraine created a new type of troops - the troops of territorial defence, whose number is estimated in 60 000. It's a copy of the Polish troop type. These are civilians who get military training and can be mobilised in a day to fight only in their own town and region
Why? Well, that's pretty obvious. If Russia made a proper Blitzkrieg with several echelons of attack, Ukraine would lose anyway. But Russia didn't. And Ukrainians bet that they wouldn't. First - it's costly and difficult for a state security regime which isn't landmaxing
Second, Putin expected Ukrainian army to run away or surrender in the first day. Like most of foreign observers expected. Now they're of course changing the narrative, but if you look at their posts few days ago they didn't believe that Ukrainians would make any real resistance
So Putin attacked with only one echelon. Troops pushed forward leaving many non-destroyed Ukrainian regulars and levy behind. In a proper Blitzkrieg a second and third echelon would have come to finish Ukrainian defenders. But they didn't. These additional echelons didn't exist
Which immediately created the supply and replenishment problem. The first echelon pushed forward. It needs a supply in ammo, in fuel and well, in people. But these supply convoys are being attacked by the regulars and territorial defence troops left behind, [and] by those few Bayraktars Ukraine got
And reportedly by the levy whom the government just distributed guns. These people would be unable to stand against the Russian columns but they can attack convoys. Consider that Ukraine has many veterans with combat experience among civilians [...]
What does it mean? Putin's plan didn't work. Cuz he didn't plan for war. He never fought a war and has no idea how to fight them. He has been always doing Special Operations and this is a Special Operation, too. They should have just run away or surrender, but they keep fighting
The defeat in this operation will inflict enormous consequences for Putin and his regime. They are unlikely to survive this defeat. Meanwhile, it's unlikely that Putin wins by the same methods
It's not that Russian morale is low, it's rather that it depends on how hard the war is.Most Russian troops would be enthusiastic or wouldn't mind against a small foreign vacation with fun and adventures. Fighting a hard long war with real possibility of death is another matter [...]
What Putin can do?
1. Start destroying infrastructure (done)
2. Blockade cities (done)
3. Simply level cities with bombers and artillery like in Chechnya or Syria (may be)
The first two would inflict humanitarian catastrophe and as he hopes break the will
Third one is more problematic. Unlike Chechnya or Syria where you could easily justify the open genocide with "fighting jihadees" which is a fair play in the "war on terror", here it would be more difficult and actually might draw the NATO response. Still, I can't exclude this
So my prognosis is: if the fight continues and victory is not achieved Russian ability and willingness to fight will be disappearing quickly. Putin doesn't have a choice but many of his subordinates do
Even in case when Russia doesn't technically lose and some source of armistice/agreement is achieved, Ukraine already won. Why? Many describe this conflict as kinetic. Bullshit. Human conflicts or interactions are not kinetic. They are mythological and run by myths
Money is a myth. It exists only because we believe so. Power is a myth. Nation is a myth. Institutions are purely mythological. Consider the story of the burning of Moscow in 1572. Ivan the Terrible divided his country to Zemschina (land) and Oprichnina (taken apart)
Oprichnina was under his personal rule. Oprichniks - his forces - launched terror campaign against Zemschina. They slaughtered entire noble houses, massacred cities, killed enormous number of commoners facing no resistance. Why? Were they strong and brave? No. Because if the myth
Russian people existed within a myth of Orthodox monarchy. [...]
Oprichniks became very brave and badass. Because mythology of the Russian people prohibited 99% of them to resist these security forces. So with the time they decided they are really cool. In 1572 when Crimean Khan attacked Moscow Oprichnik forces went to face him
Kinetically speaking they had overwhelming superiority. Guns, cannons, much heavier armor or weaponry. Their defense and firepower was very much stronger. But they were routed in one day simply by arrows. Because they were used to fight people whose myth prohibited to resist them [...]
They were not used to getting arrows in the face. The very realisation they are not demigods but mortals shocked them. They ran away dropping their armor, guns and cannons. Moscow was burnt to the ground despite having total "kinetic" and technological superiority
So. Power is mythological. Russian state security are gods within their own mythological space where they represent the god like state. But what they found that Ukrainians left this mythological space. Thus Russian state security has no power there. They are just mortals
And finally. The very fact of resistance against so much superior enemy very much empowers the Ukrainian mythology. It's enormous mythos building we are witnessing. The very phenomenon of war is inconceivable without taking into account mythological dimension
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