Ukraine needs longer-range weapons to bring this war home to the Russians - military expert Handelman

I would like you to respond to the words of Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin who described the situation as an undoubted manifestation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ success. We are talking, of course, about both the Kharkiv direction and the southern direction.

First of all, I must say that the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are conducting a simultaneous offensive both in the southwest, in the Kherson direction, and in the northeast in the Kharkiv direction, which in itself is not trivial, as it shows that at least the Ukrainian army can afford to do this, in terms of the accumulated reserves it needed to develop this offensive. In itself this indicates good preparation. Further, we have seen progress, unexpected in depth, in the district of ​​Balaklia: of course, this is an indisputable success at the tactical level. If Ukrainian troops can establish themselves on the boundaries reached to date, it could even turn into an operational success. Then it depends on when each side will be able to transfer additional reserves. For the Ukrainian side, it is more about developing its success. For the Russian side, it is possible to stop the Ukrainian troops somewhere, if not to stop the overall offensive, then at least to stop it in some areas. But, of course, both in terms of surprise and in terms of the depth of the breakthrough, it is a success at the tactical level, and then, perhaps, at the operational level.

In any case, we understand that the aggressor state is the Russian Federation and they are forced to throw ever increasing numbers of their reserves into the furnace of war. I don't know where they stand with their reserves, but the third so-called corps has not shown itself in the best light.

As far as we can judge, it has hardly shown itself at all yet, it was mostly not involved in combat - rather it was pulled in several different directions. So far I haven't seen any confirmed reports that any parts of it actually entered combat operations. But at least we can say that even if it is drawn into battle, it is not a fact that it will strategically change the situation. Because the Russian army’s main problem in this war is really the fact that, historically, the Russian army and the Soviet army have always been based primarily on their numerical superiority. And if they do not have this advantage in the war in Ukraine, then this is the reason for such operational density, including the Kharkiv direction. This is what made it possible to make such a breakthrough, because there are many such areas where it is enough to break through the first line, and after that you can move for a couple of dozen kilometers almost unhindered, because the Russians do not have any second echelons anywhere, they need to collect reserves from neighboring area and plug the breach. This is also due to the fact that occupiers lack manpower, which the Russian army is not used to. And now, due to the fact that they faced such a great opponent, they often simply do not know how to solve this problem, because it is one that Russian troops are not used to facing.

And the main problem for the Russians is that, when the offensive is conducted on two opposite sections of the front, Ukrainian troops have internal communication, in case of need, they can transfer reserves between these two directions. It is not a fact that it will be needed, but at least they can. In Russia, communication is external, and if they need to transfer from one area to another, the front is more than 1,300 km, there are very big difficulties in terms of logistics. Well, why should they transfer - because they simply do not have enough personnel for such a long front.

And why wouldn't Russians move to the phase of general or partial mobilization? They could go the other way, they could raise the payment to their contractors, for example, twice. And they also failed in their promised plans, more precisely regarding the involvement of Assad's fighters. Russia does not have it all there.

As far as we can judge by the numbers, the salaries they offer for a short-term contract are very large sums for depressed regions. For residents of more prosperous cities, it is not a fact that you do not need to offer some astronomical sums to make them leave. Regarding mobilization: the problem is that for the same reason why it is forbidden to call a war a war in Russia, only a special military operation, the whole propaganda and political line, how this war is broadcast to Russia as something limited, what professionals and volunteers do, not in in any case, not a case of "arise, massive country" (reference to a famous Soviet war song - Ed), this is something where mobilization is not needed and it should not concern ordinary people. In the extreme case, theoretically, of course, Russia can resort to such a tool as mobilization, but this will mean reformatting the entire approach. First of all, they must admit that the special military operation has failed and war is needed. "War" in the Russian public consciousness is a very heavily charged word. First of all, political mobilization will be needed, all propaganda must be rebuilt. And most importantly, it will be an admission that the plan did fail and it will not be possible to continue to say that everything is going according to plan: if you suddenly needed mobilization now, how can you simultaneously agree that everything is going according to plan, and now suddenly mobilization? Did you plan that you will need mobilization in six months? No. Therefore, as far we can judge, Russians will do without mobilization as much as possible. The problem is that this directly results in a lack of manpower.

On the other hand, they entered into a big war against Ukraine with an attempt to occupy it, with a plan to take Kyiv in three days. This is just ridiculous: as far as I understand, they had no other operational plan. Although, due to certain reasons, they achieved some success in the south, but this success was not military, it was the success achieved by their secret services, who infiltrated their agents and prepared certain areas for deployment in the south. What can we expect from them now? According to rumors, Shoigu and Gerasimov are already removed from making important decisions at the level of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense.

Actually suspended or not - there is no big difference, even if they stayed. It is not a fact that they have any strategic genius left. As Stalin said, "we don't have Hindenburgs in reserve." Therefore, they will decide: these generals, those generals, they must still operate with the amount of forces and means that are available. Some brilliant strategic moves, even if someone comes up with them, will not help, because the array of forces and means at their disposal does not allow them to do much other than what they are already doing. Once they cannot mobilize, they cannot change the composition of their forces and resources. So, as you said, if in the south it was partly the success not so much of the army, but the special services, apparently they expected that the same would be possible in the north, and Kyiv, and so on, and would succeed after creating the first shock and awe, after the first blow, it is possible to enter Kyiv, install a new government, and then there will be some scattered defense units without a unified management of the army and Ukrainian society. After this plan failed, it was discovered that they had a much smaller group than the Ukrainian army. And since then, all these months, it looks like this, because the initial plan was not so much purely military as intelligence-political-propaganda.

How do you think they might try to act now? Because the so-called long protracted campaign is bequeathed. In their article, Generals Zabrodskyi and Zaluzhnyi described everything very well. This is an extremely brave article. Now, let's move on to the attempt to scale the scenarios that Generals Zabrodskyi and Zaluzhnyi ultimately specified.

It describes ideal scenarios from the point of view of Russia, how it could move further in the eastern direction, and in the southern direction. And there is an option mentioned, maybe they will want to return to Kyiv. All this, of course, requires large resources, which are not available now. But theoretically, if we assume up to the change of the political system in Russia, purely physically, there is that number of personnel in Russia. Simply, if it is not mobilized, then it cannot be deployed to the front. But due to the fact that this article is not by some columnist or analyst, it is the article of a person who does not just know the situation, this person makes decisions, this is directly the commander-in-chief, he outlines not just what he sees, what can be, it is what he, in particular, wants. For example, he says that geographically, the center of gravity is Crimea, and politically, the transfer of strikes to the territory of Russia, not only Crimea, but also other occupied territories. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to at least reduce the distance gap between Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, Ukraine needs much more long-range means to bring this war to the Russians. In the article, Zaluzhnyi says that the main reason why Russian society either supports the war or is neutral is because this war does not affect them, in simple words, as he writes there, because of impunity. If this impunity is not at least partially eliminated or at least reduced, he believes that it can have an impact on the political level as well. It is clear that this article did not just come out yesterday, the day before the conference in Ramstein, where the issue of further supplies will be discussed. And this is a program statement that Ukraine, in addition to those 10-20 additional combined forces divisions, which he also writes about there, it is directly stated that much more long-range weapons are needed, and this is exactly what will make it possible to influence the center of gravity of the war and thus swing the entire schedule of the war in the other direction.

I personally have the feeling that something like this was extremely expected in the Pentagon. Because this is basically a precedent for Ukrainian military history. This is extremely brave and correct, but at the same time it is a military-political signal to the Pentagon, made in public. We understand that a fundamentally new story is really beginning in the relations of the aggressor state with the entire Western world. We don't know how far everything will go, maybe Putin will try to somehow minimize and localize the war against Ukraine without turning it into a war with the whole world. On the other hand, we understand that in the West, it seems, they have lost all fear of Putin's unpredictability - we are talking about all those threats regarding the "dirty" atomic bomb and, in particular, regarding the use of tactical nuclear weapons. As far as we understand, extremely powerful signals went to the Kremlin from the Western capitals, in particular from the Pentagon. I think they could have been warned about it in plain language.

Among other things, Zaluzhnyi also mentions tactical nuclear weapons in the article. He says that, of course, it is necessary to convey to the Russian side the complete rejection of such actions by the West, because it is clear that, perhaps, some long-range means will be given to Ukraine, but while there is no question of giving nuclear weapons. Therefore, in this regard, a warning from the West is needed. In any case, he says there that next year's campaign will not be easy and these are the means that are needed, this is what the West should do. He then talks about the deployment of forces, as he emphasized, it depends on the "ambitions of the Ukrainian command." The implication is that Ukraine can go further and swing more if it receives enough resources.

In your opinion, what should we expect from the Russian scenario in the fall? Remember Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back? And you rightly mentioned that they may try to use the second attempt to approach Kyiv. Of course, the situation is not the same now, our Armed Forces are ready, but Russians do not formally have the resources, but I do not believe that they will not try to take revenge now, in order to try to lead to one or another negotiation line. How serious could a second attempt to invade Kyiv be now?

As for returning to Kyiv, there are currently no indications that this is possible, because there is no large group of the Russian army on the territory of Belarus, without which it is virtually impossible to advance from there. The Belarusian army as such is practically incapacitated offensively, it could theoretically be an auxiliary echelon in case of a Russian invasion group. But so far it is not on the territory of Belarus, so no one can help. Theoretically, Russians can start transferring forces to Belarus and form strike groups there, but again, where will they get enough personnel if they now have a problem even with what they have already captured - in the same Izyum direction. For now, at least in the near future, their concern will be to limit Ukrainian offensives and only then to think about where they can restore theirs. Everything rests on the resource, they now have such a large and stretched front, they do not have so many resources to create some shock "fists", to conduct some big offensives. Now we see that their immediate task is to thwart Ukrainian offensives. Then, perhaps, if that is more or less satisfactorily done, then perhaps they will begin to think about their advance, and perhaps a 3rd Corps will be brought into action, and perhaps they will want to raise more. At one time, the order was for each of the four military districts of Russia to create such a corps on its territory. So far, only one has been created, and that's not a complete set. Let's see. At this rate, it will take them a very long time to create additional reserves of sufficient size to allow for some major offensives.

And why didn't the phenomenon of reaction to the war occur, as happened, for example, during the first Russo-Chechen war or the Russo-Afghan war, when a certain number of killed soldiers appeared and, in fact, the number of corpses began to rock, sway public mood, public opinion in Soviet Union and Russia. And now this has not happened, although, for example, we see three times more Russian soldiers killed now than during the Soviet-Afghan war.

The Afghan war imposed an atmosphere of stagnation, when the state as a whole, everyone already felt, if they could not even express in words, that the state had reached a dead end, the state was collapsing. And that's why restructuring and other things happened not because of the Afghan war, but because of the whole complex of problems. The war may have been an additional factor. During the Chechen war, there was a different situation, a different political system. If we are talking about the first Chechen war, then in general there was democracy in political terms. Besides, the Russian army in general was a deplorable sight, much worse than it is now, because the Soviet army had collapsed and the Russian army there was fighting in permanently assembled battalions. And at the same time, the practice of sending various SOBRs, riot police, and so on was born there purely because there were not enough internal troops and the army. Now, of course, for such a big war in Ukraine, as it turned out, the modern Russian army is not enough. These 168 BTG are constantly in combat readiness, but this is not enough. However, in general, if the war had been in the same format as in Chechnya or as a war against Georgia, this would have been quite enough for them and again in a few days they would have completed all tasks, raised flags, etc. For some reason, they thought that the same could be done with a huge country like Ukraine, whose army is bigger than Russia's. They did not succeed, so they slipped. And in terms of why society does not react to the victims in such a way - because now the political system is different, Russians have been taught for so many years that it is dangerous to be outraged by some actions of the authorities. And besides, mostly those who go on a short-term contract are from depressed regions: Tuva, Buryatia, Dagestan, and so on. This does not concern the residents of the capital, unless someone wants to leave for ideological reasons. Therefore, as they say, God is high, the king is far, somewhere there is a war going on, which is specifically described from every television as a special military operation, not a war that concerns everyone. This is exactly what it looks like. All these six months, they tried to convey to the Russian society that "the war is somewhere out there", "everything is fine here", as Putin said, "Russia has not lost anything from this, and maybe even gained". Therefore, it is the fate of the few to be outraged by something for general political reasons. Personally, it does not concern those who care, because no one goes to war anyway. Those who are not outraged by the war - they were taught not to be outraged. That's why it's such a closed circle. There were, of course, at the beginning.

And how many corpses will it take to wake up Russia? There are 50,000 killed. Does there need to be 150,000 or 300,000? Because this is an extremely serious tool for forcing the Kremlin to get out of the war.

So that in the near future there will be a number, so that it will have an impact in the political plan, until there is physical exhaustion, when there will actually be no one to recruit. Now we see that contract workers are recruited up to the age of 60, recruited by firms and so on. When physical exhaustion sets in, when there is no one to send, then a dilemma will arise: either to reformat the approach and announce mobilization, or to collapse in some other ways, to make some "gestures of goodwill", to make some statements that "we didn't want too much" and so on. But until the purely physical soldiers begin to run out, precisely in terms of moral impact on society, it is far from a fact that 100,000 or 150,000 dead will somehow affect Russian society in terms of impact on morale.

And what about equipment, in particular, "high-precision" Russian missiles. We hear that negotiations are ongoing with North Korea to supply something. And the story with Iranian drones has already become legendary.

The whole problem is that this is a very big war. A huge expenditure of even not so high-precision missiles as artillery shells. The Americans have not yet said that there were purchases, but we have information that Russia has approached Iran. It is clear that Russia denies this, and we have not seen Iranian drones on the front so far, but if they turn to Iran, it is clear that Iranian drones are not the same as Western ones, but Russia is so lacking in its drones for such a large front that you can also take it in Iran. There is a problem with tanks, and with artillery barrels, and with ammunition. It is clear that there will be enough of them in the near future. We saw all these sentiments in Ukraine at least 3-4 months ago, when there were estimates that everything would be over in three months. As you can see, it's already September and it's not over yet. They will be enough for a while, and then you can start saving. Now we can see: Mishustin has announced the construction of two tank repair plants, perhaps the production of at least conventional ammunition will also be expanded. If high-precision missiles require Western components, it is easier for conventional artillery shells. In principle, you can drag like this for quite a long time. Rather, the calculation should be based on what Ukraine will do on the battlefield. Not how to exhaust Russia so that she has nothing to shoot at, but simply to push her back on the front so much that it begins to affect the situation directly on the front.

And what might the so-called winter war look like? We understand that Russian logistics have already failed during the preparation of the Belarusian bridgehead. We are talking about December, January and the beginning of February, when Russians were preparing during the exercises. That is, various information was received about the level of provision of troops and logistics. We also saw failed logistics in their attempts to break through in the Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kyiv directions. Now the winter can be quite harsh, they are in the south, actually in the steppes. I don't know what Russians have, what they are ready for, but what forms could this war take? Generals Zaluzhnyi and Zabrodskyi outlined the term, which most likely will extend into 2023.

As it looks now, indeed, despite these tactical successes, perhaps also operational ones in recent days, it is not a fact that it will be possible to continue at such a pace all the way to the Ukrainian border in all directions. In winter, specifically, everything depends on the pace of major offensives from the Russian side. That's not to say they can't be expected this month, but they're less likely because there's no staff. Being on the defensive with regards to logistics is a bit easier than being quick to attack. Most likely, there will be the usual all-Russian supply problems, such as winter uniforms, heating, etc. But, in principle, everything depends on Ukrainian actions. If there are Russian offensives, then providing the troops with some means for war in winter will not be the biggest Russian problem, they will have more problems of a purely military plan, ammunition, etc. In terms of logistics, in terms of delivery of means, the main problem is not so much winter, it is rather autumn, when there will be a swamp and all the roads will be washed away, the main problem will be there. When winter comes and it freezes, then, in principle, it will become even easier.

And how long can the Russian military intervention group on the right bank of the Dnipro river last? We are talking about their military units, there are 15,000, or 20,000 or 22,000 of them located near Kherson, on the right bank of the Dnipro river. Their group may fall into the operational environment.

They already have problems, of course, with supply. As we all know, the supply through the Dnipro bridges is practically interrupted, they are supplied by barges, boats, even helicopters. But, as we can see, there has not yet been any complete transfer of Russians to the Dnipro, they are still more or less holding on. Further, it depends on what additional forces the Ukrainian command will introduce into the battle, the greater the pressure on this group, the more Russians will have to spend forces and resources, including artillery shells, which they may not be able to deliver through the Dnipro at this rate. All these factors may eventually lead to having to either evacuate or surrender, but it is not yet a fact that this will happen in the near future. The fact is that Russians have not yet fallen. It all depends on what force the Ukrainian army will be able to strike in this direction. How many shells and other means they will need depends on this. So we will see.