Russia is forced to demonstrate 3 war strategies on the battlefield. Serhiy Zgurets column

The NYT investigation on Russia's war against Ukraine

Just yesterday, the New York Times published an extremely interesting investigation about Putin's war in Ukraine titled How Putin's War in Ukraine Became a Catastrophe for Russia. It describes the main problems of the Russian army in the first days of the invasion. There are many interesting new details, so everyone should read it. It mentions why the enemy failed to capture Kyiv in 18 hours, including the fact that the enemy sent riot police at the head of the columns, which contradicts any military logic. The fact that tank regiments were tasked to cover 400 km in 24 hours, is absolutely unrealistic. It is even written that the US tried to prevent Ukraine from killing the Chief of Russia’s General Staff Gerasimov during his visit to the war zone.

The story is that the Americans found out that Valery Gerasimov was planning a trip to the front line, but hid it from the Ukrainians, fearing that an attempt on his life could lead to a war between the US and Russia, according to the NYT. However, the Ukrainian side discovered the trip plans, and after internal debates, Washington asked for an extraordinary step - to stop attacks on enemy command posts. However, the Ukrainians said that the attack was carried out, dozens of Russian soldiers were killed during the strike. However, General Gerasimov was not among the dead, although after that Russian military leaders cut down on their trips to the front. The story of Gerasimov's visit is also interesting because he arrived in Izium in April to lead the Russian troops. At that time, only 2 outlets were the first to write about it: Defence Express and Espreso TV.

Changes in Russian strategies on the battlefield

Against the background of new details about the past miscalculations of the Russian army, it is quite indicative of how the Russian army is forced to change strategies on the battlefield. As for me, the Russian army for almost 10 months has demonstrated 3 ways of warfare.

The first one is a blitzkrieg, which was prepared on the basis of a completely erroneous strategy of assessing the situation in Ukraine, first of all, regarding the scale of public resistance and the quality of the Armed Forces’ defense capabilities. It completely failed. Then Russia relied on another combat model. Let's recall the so-called great battle for Donbas, as it was declared by the Russian Federation, where Russia relied primarily on the firing shaft, that is, the superiority of artillery. We saw the consequences in the fighting for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, where we could retaliate 40,000 enemy shots with only 4,000 because there was a catastrophic shortage of artillery and ammunition. But this advantage of the enemy was lessened when we began to receive American howitzers, ammunition and HIMARS and MLRS, which completely changed the history and dynamics of hostilities because Ukraine began to destroy all Russian stocks and now the enemy needs to transfer shells for 100 km because any closer is extremely dangerous. This really stopped the dynamics and approaches of the fire rampart, which Russia had established earlier.

Now we see Russia’s third adjustment in terms of warfare. This is increasing personnel numbers, an attempt to restore losses, to achieve stabilization of the front line, to conduct offensive actions at the expense of additional manpower, namely mobilized personnel. So, now on the battlefield for some time we will face the third paradigm of warfare on the part of the Russian Federation due to a significant number of untrained personnel. Will it be effective? I think, only for a certain time, because the systemic problems of the Russian army have not disappeared and are corroding Russia's ability to conduct effective combat operations from within. Despite all the systemic shortcomings, the enemy still accumulates forces for offensive actions in the near future, which is the reason for special attention from the military and political leadership of Ukraine and the establishment of their own plans in response to hostile intentions.

The probability of a new Russian offensive

Viktor Kevliuk, the retired colonel and expert of the Center for Defense Strategies, noted that when one of the parties unleashed a war of aggression against Ukraine and has to achieve military and political goals, it cannot do it by defensive operations, so Moscow's third attempt should be resolved by an offensive. It is difficult to say from which directions, where they will advance. The only thing that is absolutely clear is that the Kremlin will not be able to achieve its goals without capturing Kyiv and establishing a puppet regime that will make all the decisions necessary for Russia. The conclusions of our military and political leadership that this will happen are based on what history says.

Moscow has spent the last 400 years destroying Ukrainian statehood and records of Ukraine. They are not doing anything new in this sense. Now they have conducted a partial mobilization, which really continues to this day, respectively, they are forming regional groups in Belarus. Conscripts are being trained at Russian training grounds. The enemy is increasing activity in the Eastern direction, trying to seize Bakhmut. In some areas, defensive lines are being built, but it is much easier to attack based on them than on the newly created operational structure, so the leadership of Ukraine comes to the right conclusions, orienting the state that aggressive offensive actions of Russia should be expected in the next 60 to 90 days. Undoubtedly, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces knows more than the entire expert community, but the 200,000 mobilized in Russia are more a figure of speech than reality.

If we summarize the capabilities of the entire training and material base of the Russian Federation, it can take in 120,000 to 130,000 people. There is a reason why the regional grouping appeared; it is an attempt to involve the base of Belarus, their 4 training grounds, where the units of Russia’s motorized infantry division are trained. They may have 200,000, but 100,000 of them are probably in field camps, TACs, military camps, hardly adapted to accommodate such a large number of people. It is very doubtful because they have no space for training and no one to learn from. Russians have the most primitive and cheapest equipment, built in the Soviet times with the aim to deploy a multi-million army, which should move towards the English Channel. So far they are advancing towards Bakhmut, but not very successfully.

The West’s capability to provide the Ukrainian Armed Forces with weapons

It is difficult to say what we can have and when, because I have not seen any information that negotiations with partners are ongoing. The contact group in the Ramstein format received the relevant wishes, but after the Vienna Agreement and the Paris Document, which limited the armed forces in Europe, all armies began to be reduced and reformatted. The bet was made on early response units to eliminate the crisis at the early stages. Surplus weapons were withdrawn to the reserve, sold. What we have in Europe now is the necessary minimum for the security of these states, so they will not be able to withdraw weapons from their armed forces. What is stored at the bases can be transferred under several conditions.

First, the weapons must be brought into proper technical condition. Many must be modernized. The third condition is that all producing countries must agree to the transfer of weapons to Ukraine. Switzerland has not agreed to the transfer of ammunition for Gepard, and we have a choice: to take the remaining ammunition from the Bundeswehr or to make an agreement with Brazil to bring it here. There is information that the German company Right Metal has bought a factory in Switzerland to provide Ukrainian Gepard with ammunition. There are non-standard solutions, but all of them are the result of very difficult negotiations. Whether we have so many negotiators, or whether the International Military Cooperation is ready to provide all this, Viktor Kevliuk is not ready to answer, because the fact that critical imports are a huge problem was known at the turn of 2010. Since then, there have been no radical improvements. It is difficult, but we have to take this into consideration. What the commander keeps in reserve, he will use for an offensive. To squander the reserve means to refuse to return part of the Ukrainian territory, so he behaves accordingly.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to make Russian losses tangible for Russian society. The totalitarian state, which is Russia, is not sensitive to losses, and pain. One of the red leaders said: "One death is a tragedy, millions are statistics". They live in this paradigm. No matter how many people die, they will be proud of the empire, have a wooden school with a toilet outside and launch half a billion dollars worth of missiles at Ukraine every day and be proud that there is no electricity for 6 hours, so we should not count on the Russians.

Thanks to the efforts of Ben Wallace and the pro-Ukrainian lobby in the British Parliament, we received Brimstone missiles and many other weapons that significantly increased our long-range firepower. Before the active phase of offensive operations begins, it would be right to reduce Russia's long-range firepower. The Russian Federation does not have many long-range bombers and until recently they were in the zone of fire damage. We even showed how it is done at the airfields Diagilevo and Engels-2, reaching 500 km and almost 700 km deep into Russia and causing some damage. In second place are the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, which use sea-based cruise missiles. If we find an approach and antidote to them, then we can return to building up our capabilities, increasing striking and maneuvering capabilities for ground operations.

The importance of Russian leaders in the public space

After the defeats near Izium and Lyman, the defeat in Slobozhanshchyna, northeastern Ukraine, we observed an information surge and pressure from Prigozhin on the military elite of Russia. Colonel General Lapin, who headed the group in Slobozhanshchyna, was removed from the leadership of the Central Military District. Russian society is involved in the military efforts of the state through mobilization, "volunteer" movements, and financial support. The influence and authority of paramilitary groups are growing. This indicates the prevalence of the non-military component over the military. This needs to be urgently corrected, so we saw a performance of "everything is fine in the state, do not worry, here is the Commander-in-Chief, here is the Minister, the Chief of General Staff, we even have a command post of the “special military operation” leadership". That is, the performance is purely for the Russians on the one hand; for the foreign countries that support Ukraine, it is an attempt to show the steadfastness of the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces.

On the other hand, the other day Viktor Kevliuk analyzed the front line from Troitske to Kreminna, Luhansk region, and counted 17 battalions from a dozen regiments, 5 divisions and 3 different armies. That is, there is virtually no clear leadership. There is a performance going on in Moscow, and chaos in the field of command and control of troops on the ground in the Luhansk region. Chaos will not last long, because we have to use it and cease the existence of all this.