The War In Ukraine Enters A New Phase
After its failure to take Kyiv the Russian military is radically changing its strategy. The four axis invasion of Ukraine was a stunning and embarrassing failure. What was supposed to be an easy campaign that would only take three weeks at most turned into a massacre for Russian armored forces. Most estimates are that Russia has lost 25% of its armored vehicles in this campaign. That not 25% of those deployed to Ukraine, but 25% of all active armor in the Russian army.
RUSSIAN STRATEGY
After failing to take the entire country the Russians are shifting their focus to eastern Ukraine. They will continue to leverage their strong support in the Donbas region, using it to regroup and provide a logistics hub for the major attack to come.
They'll also continue to use Donbas to support the southern salient along the Black Sea and Azov Sea coasts. While the Black Sea port city of Mariupol put up a very stubborn resistance its now effectively in Russian hands.
The dominant speculation is that Russian forces will strike westward from Donbas to engage and fix the large concentration of Ukrainian military assets there. At the same time they'll strike northward from Mariupol up into the rear of the Ukrainians, cutting off their supply lines, encircling them and eventually destroying them.
Reports say that the Russians also intend to press westward along the coast all the way to Moldova. There's a semi-independent Russian-supported enclave called Transnistria in eastern Moldova. The Russians apparently intend to take the entire Black Sea coastal strip to link Donbas to Transnistria. That would cut off Ukraine's access to the Black Sea and Azov Sea, leaving it an totally landlocked nation. That would be economically and psychologically devastating to the Ukrainian people.
The Russians have finally stepped up their air support. They've recently deployed their heavy bombers for the first time. More fighter-bombers are being shifted from other regions into the fight. There's reports tanks are being pulled out of reserve storage, though the condition of those tanks is thought to be very poor.
UKRAINIAN STRATEGY
Ukraine has been conscripting very large numbers of military age civilian men and giving them rapid combat training. While these inexperienced soldiers won't be extremely effective, their very presence in such numbers presents a problem the Russians can't ignore. The Ukrainians continue to receive huge quantities of weapons from western nations. They've used anti-tank weapons and short-range man portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) to very good effect. Now they're getting attack drones, including the U.S. Switchblade and Ghost loitering munitions, aka 'suicide drones'. While the Ukrainians were able to launch counter-offensives in the north, this battle in the east will very likely have them almost entirely on the defensive.
RUSSIAN ADVANTAGES
In the northern salients aimed at Kyiv the Russians were largely confined to roads and towns by the 'mud season'. The region has heavy forest that provides excellent cover for Ukrainian forces to set up ambushes. And the hostile population supported Ukrainian troops. That allowed the Ukrainians to lay waste to Russian vehicles at will and hide from what little air power the Russians deployed. Supply lines were seriously compromised, one of the main factors in the failure to take Kyiv.
Donbas is an entirely different story. The terrain is flat and firm, perfect for armored vehicles to go cross country. There's little cover for Ukrainian forces. The population is mostly pro-Russian. The Russians will be able to launch smaller attacks across a wide front, hiding the concentrated armor thrusts that will come from behind them. These attacks will be preceded by the standard Russian tactic of massive artillery barrages to degrade Ukrainian forces, destroy as much of their equipment as possible and crush their morale. The Russians will not have to divert large numbers of troops to protect their supply lines in their rear as they had to in the north. They will be able to focus their forces on the offensive. Their logistic lines should be far more secure. And with open terrain and little cover the Ukrainians will not be able to use their pretty short range anti-tank weapons in the ambush tactics that were so successful in the north.
RUSSIAN DISADVANTAGES
Russian logistics have been a total disaster. That's not just because of constant Ukrainian ambushes savaging them. It's because of incompetence and corruption. The Russians are almost completely out of military trucks. Their crappy maintenance and funds diverted by corrupt officers and oligarchs have resulted in military trucks dropping like flies. That's compounded by the cheap Chinese tires they bought that are failing all over the place, leaving trucks, wheeled APCs and other military vehicles stranded. Russia is already turning to commandeering civilian trucks to try and keep their supply lines up and running, though civilian vehicles are ill suited to dealing with roads destroyed by the incredibly heavy traffic of constant military convoys. Whether their logistics can keep up enough to support two huge offensives, one out of Donbas and another along the coast, remains to be seen.
Another big disadvantage is that Russia is nearly completely out of high-tech precision weapons. They've used up a huge number of cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles and LASER-guided bombs. With their far smaller military budget their arsenal of precision weapons was small, and is now seriously depleted. The Russians had even resorted to using anti-ship cruise missiles from warships in a secondary ground attack role from lack of missiles actually designed for that job. That leaves them with only very inaccurate 'dumb' weapons, making their close air support much less effective and denying the capability for precision cruise missile attacks on critical targets.
One of the biggest problems the Russian military has is structural in nature. Western forces, notably the U.S. military, relies heavily upon a professional and experienced NCO corp. In the west those grizzled combat vet sergeants advise and support their officers. In the Russian military the NCOs are treated as just grunts. NCOs are ignored by officers. Any independent thinking or tactics are not just discouraged, but punished. Russians follow orders from high above to the letter, making them extremely inflexible. This is true on the ground, in the air and on the sea.
UKRAINIAN ADVANTAGES
A huge advantage that Ukraine enjoys is the massive amount of military intel that the U.S. is providing them. With our satellites, E-3 AWACS & E-8 JSTARS synthetic aperture RADAR planes, heavy long range surveillance drones and more the amount and quality of the intel is staggering.
Ukraine has new attack and surveillance drones that will give them great situational awareness of the battlefield, as well as the ability to instantly attack targets in the frontal areas. This is critical to identifying and blunting Russian armored thrusts as well as degrading their heavy artillery. The west is also shipping them longer range anti-tank missiles including the latest versions of TOW. These will be able to destroy Russian armor at standoff distances.
Ukraine has managed to beef up its fighters wings practically overnight. Many former Warsaw Pact nations still operate the same MiG-29s and Su-31s the Ukrainians have. Those countries shipped a whole bunch of spare parts into Ukraine. That allowed Ukraine to repair a lot of its fighters previously grounded for lack of spares to fix them. The Ukrainians were able to put 20 fighters back into service in a week.
The U.S. is shipping large numbers of armored vehicles to Ukraine. While these are armored Hummers and older M113s, they're still extremely useful. They allow the Ukrainians to move soldiers and critical materials around the battlefield protected from artillery shell splinters and small arms fire. That's a critical capability. We're also sending them M109 self-propelled 155mm guns. These are armored vehicles mounting big artillery pieces that can move quickly and pound enemy targets.
One of the greatest advantages Ukraine has is that they're fighting for their homeland on their own turf. They're determined and enraged. The Russians are fighting in a foreign land they personally don't really care about. And now many of them are conscripts who don't want to be there at all. Morale is a much more important factor than most people realize.
CONCLUSION
There's an epic battle shaping up. Several epic battles, actually. Both sides are strained and drained in different ways. Both sides have their strengths and weaknesses. The outcome is very much in question. This is the first great military campaign of the 21st century in Europe. It will determine the future of Europe and Russia. The innocent will suffer and the death toll will be high. History is happening before our eyes. As with past wars we thought we were past this kind of thing in Europe. And as with past wars, we were wrong. Society changes but human nature remains the same. And history is rhyming again.