The mystery is how such a huge, pre-planned, properly supported military operation could go so wrong. From a purely military perspective, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is looking extraordinarily unimpressive.
A quarter of Russia’s military is directly involved in the invasion. Not a lot is actually being achieved, except casualties. The expensive military incursions are largely meaningless in any tactical or strategic sense.
A large Russian convoy headed to Kyiv looks imposing, but it’s having trouble even getting to the area. It looks more like a large traffic jam, or a large unmissable target, depending on your point of view. The total distance from the nearest points in Russia and Belarus is about 2 hours away max. It looks like the Russians are even failing basic traffic management.
Ignominiously enough:
- Belarus, Russia’s “geopolitical prosthesis”, is offering to send troops to Ukraine. What, there aren’t enough Russians? These Belarus troops have spent the last few decades oppressing their own people. They’re certainly in the wrong neighborhood against un-tyrannized, highly annoyed, armed, Ukrainians.
- Belarus has also offered to allow Russian nukes in to the country, as though that makes the slightest difference to missile ranges or does more than make Belarus a target. The military question is why is any of this even considered relevant? …Because it isn’t. It’s the best Russia can do to make a truly idiotic military situation look a little better, and it hasn’t even achieved that.
An uncompromising military reality
The current “gains” of Russian forces are about as irrelevant to the stated political objective as possible. Nothing has actually been achieved. The current situation looks more like a raffle than a planned attack.
In terms of objectives:
- So far from demilitarizing Ukraine, the entire country is now a large armed force.
- Kyiv is likely to be even tougher than Kharkiv. The Russians have now bounced off Kharkiv multiple times, and Kharkiv is practically next door to Russia’s main distribution networks.
- More fighters, weapons and ammo are coming from outside Ukraine. The Russians can’t stop that at all. They simply cannot cover the borders.
- The Russians haven’t even been able to report any significant military victories themselves. For a propaganda war, that’s a serious defeat.
- The Ukrainian regular military isn’t at all visible in any reports. Recent comparisons of Ukraine’s military forces indicate that a large number of Ukraine’s ground assets aren’t even being mentioned in combat reports. That’s a lot of tanks, artillery, and other assets unaccounted for. (Ukraine has upgraded a lot of assets, including T72s, in recent years. Not a word has been said about them.)
- Russian tactics seem seriously out of date and extremely inept. Troops are simply blundering in to their opposition and losing. Wrecked Russian vehicles are common sights. In Kharkiv, there’s a video of a car running through mortar fire at a crossroad. There was almost no traffic, definitely no military targets, and basically nothing to shoot at. The mortars were apparently “firing by the map”, a very old artillery tactic, without direct observation. They didn’t even hit the car.
The mystery
How is it possible to totally screw up such a large military operation? The short answer is that it’s not, and that’s the mystery. No modern military is trained to be so vague about its methods and objectives, let alone actual combat.
Firepower has miscarried, badly:
- Russian targeting is another mystery in itself. The sheer number of hits on anything but meaningful military targets might be indicative. Putting random holes in apartment buildings is unlikely to be part of any military fire plan doctrine. Nor do modern munitions leave so very many duds all over the landscape.
- Russia’s “Grads” are direct descendants of WW2 Russian rocket artillery. They fired the first shots at Kharkiv, and some were duly knocked out. They also give an unmistakable target signature to any combat system made after about 1970. They’re still blazing away ineffectually, contributing more noise than substance.
- The Russian TOS missile systems are much heavier weapons mounted on T72 chassis. They have a range of about 10km, delivering thermobaric “fuel bombs” which rip the air out of a large area. They’re designed to cause casualties. Not much has been heard of these systems in Ukraine, but they are expected to be in the regions of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
- These systems could be fatal failures if deployed against effective countermeasures, too. So far, Russian firepower has misfired badly, and regularly, against opposition.
Mobility and maneuver dysfunctions are obvious issues for the Russians:
All Russian forces deployed prior to the invasion were fully mobile with close support from Russian territory on tap. A kid on roller skates could have gone from one side of Ukraine to the other in 5 days, and the Russians haven’t. Bull at gate tactics have shown a fantastic degree of rigidity.
In combination with a staggeringly uninspired choice of objectives, their mobility has become a liability, misused at an astonishing level. Some of the AFVs even ran out of fuel in a day or so. Going nowhere or to the wrong places is the net effect so far, and it’s far too late to change that situation.
Ukrainian resistance has been unbelievably underestimated:
- On paper, the Russians have overwhelming superiority. In practice, they’re losing firefights on a routine basis.
- How did Russian intelligence so badly misread this environment?
- If a few square kilometres of Ukraine can be so hard to take, let alone lose again after being taken, what’s the prognosis for the rest of the campaign?
- Does anyone in Russia seriously believe that the fighting will stop after X or Y is taken? It very obviously won’t. The Russians are fighting real people, not some academic political entity.
Add to this tale of woe another truly mysterious, grotesque military situation inspired by the Kremlin. Russia has threatened Sweden and Finland with more “consequences” if they join NATO. That interestingly stupid idea opens up a whole new theatre of military issues, well away from Western Europe, for the Russian military to manage, just as NATO wakes up. The Finns and Swedes are relatively politely ignoring it.
The smart move would be to get the hell out of Ukraine. Russia can expect years if not decades of negative outcomes from the current situation. Further outbreaks of equally inept genius could make things a lot worse.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
