Another long war in the offing

Mark Hertling, a retired lieutenant general who knows his stuff, offers on Twitter a good explanation of what is going on inside Ukraine:

Ukrainians currently outgunned, but not forever

A few weeks ago, as the “new phase” was being discussed, I suggested we should look for a couple things happening in the east and south of Ukraine. We’re very early in that new phase & there are indicators those things are happening. Let’s review what we should see. What RU has done is reinforce with lots (repeat, LOTS) of tube and rocket artillery. That is according to RU doctrine. To penetrate an enemy’s defense, RU uses mass artillery barrages all along the front. They’ve been doing that. And it is deadly.

There’s two ways to counter massive artillery strikes. 1. Get out from under it (giving up land) 2. Conduct counterfire with your own artillery after pinpointing the enemy’s guns with radar. While Ukraine’s army (UA from here out) have some Russian 152 mm cannons, and they are receiving LOTS of guns (155 mm cannons) from the US & NATO, there’s 2 problems. 1. UA is running low on 152 (Russian) ammo 2. The western guns/ammo ain’t there yet.

Yeah, yeah, I know @PentagonPresSec said the guns/radars are arriving fast, and *some* are already there. But they’re not all at the front, with the ammo, just yet. Things just don’t magically move to the front & get into the fight immediately in combat. A seque: during combat our division fielded MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protective) trucks, due to an IED threat. Trucks. Not hard to learn. Not hard to drive. No triggers to pull. It took us awhile. Fact: fielding ANY new equipment to units in combat takes time.

So there will be counterfire fights between RU and UA, but it might be awhile. So UA has to give up ground. When they do that, the RU will send in “reconnaissance in force” or RFI. Small combat units to take limited objectives in multiple places. That’s what we’re seeing now in several locations in the east & south. Lots of Russian artillery barrages against the front line, followed by smaller RU combat units attempting to seize terrain/cities/critical objectives. RU artillery is working.

The RU maneuver forces……are undermanned, not well supplied, not well led, are on ground they’re not familiar with, and they don’t do maneuver all that well. So we’re seeing RU forces temporarily take ground, then being pushed back by the smart, better led, more adaptive active defense of the UA. Finally…we’re about 7-10 days (at best) into this second phase. It will go for awhile. New forces are feeling each other out in the east. RU will initially outgun with arty, then it may become a big arty duel. But UA maneuver force will outperform the RU.

The other front

The other front is in Washington DC. There President Biden has launched a money salvo. He is asking for $33 billion more to support Ukraine. That is a lot of money, on top of $17 billion or so already spent. The Americans are also talking about using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine.

These moves betoken a broadening of US objectives. Defense Secretary Austin says he wants to weaken Russia so it can’t in the future invade other countries. President Biden has labelled President Putin a genocial war criminal who should not remain in power. Secretary of State Biden is more circumspect, but it is clear that the Americans are now aiming for a clear Russian defeat and Putin’s fall from power (at the hands of his own people, Biden has clarified). These things are not happening anytime soon, so anticipate a long war and even more spending.

The Russians are also going long

The Russians have also changed their objectives. They gave up on capturing Kyiv and installing a puppet government there. Now they aim to take all of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and the entire southern coast, most of which they already control. But they are stalled at Mykolaiv and will have a hard time swallowing a big city like Odesa, which had about one million inhabitants before the war.

The only major city they have taken so far is Mariupol, which they had to destroy to occupy. Resistance there continues. The Russians may try to use their 1500 or so troops in the Moldovan region of Transnistria to attack Ukraine from the west, but that should not be hard for the Ukrainians to counter. Russian artillery attacks on Kyiv while the UN Secretary General was visiting there signal Moscow’s determination to continue the fight, but current Russian objectives will not be achieved any time soon.

How long can Ukraine take it?

War often involves miscalculation, at least by one side or the other. Both the Americans and Russians have had to recalibrate. Only the Ukrainians have kept constant. They want to push the Russians entirely out from Ukrainian territory, but might well settle for Russian withdrawal to pre-February positions. The issue for Ukraine is how long its population can take the terrible devastation the Russians are wreaking. So far, the Ukrainians are stalwart. Another long war is in the offing.