Ukraine - Russia Conflict
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News from the Ukrainian MOO
A reminder of previous episodes: from a strategic point of view, Ukraine needs to go on the offensive if it is to achieve its objective of total liberation of its territory. Russia, for its part, can be content - and seems to be content - with a purely defensive posture. Ukraine's strategic offensive posture requires strong action on the enemy front and/or rear. The Ukrainian means of acting directly on the Russian political rear, a very uncertain field of action, are very limited.
The only way to act directly and effectively against the Russian front within a reasonable timeframe is to organise major offensive operations (MOO) that will enable it to be broken through or at least to push the line southwards to a considerable extent. The Ukrainian army should plant flags on major towns, not villages, and with one blow after another force the enemy back from the occupied territories and/or cause an internal political upheaval in Moscow that will force Russia to negotiate from a disadvantaged position before disaster strikes, Germany 1918 style. At least that's the idea behind the manoeuvre.
However, there are two operational problems. The first is that the Ukrainian army has no experience of major offensive operations, which are certainly one of the most complex human activities to organise. The current operation is only the third in its history since independence. The first, in the province of Kharkiv in September 2022, was highly mobile and brilliant, but took advantage of quite exceptional circumstances. The Russian front in 2023 - barring a Russian-style surprise - no longer presents such opportunities. The second operation, which was much more in keeping with positional warfare, took place around the Kherson bridgehead.
Things were much more difficult there in the face of a very well organised Russian front zone commanded, no doubt at the end, by General Mikhail Teplinsky, the commander of the airborne assault troops and unanimously recognised as one of the best Russian officers. His name is mentioned, and is worth remembering, because he is also one of those who criticise the way in which this war is being conducted by its military leaders. The method used at Kherson, hammering the front and interdicting in depth (in other words, cutting off logistics via the Dnieper), paid off, forcing the Russians to withdraw in good order, but was costly in human terms.
Linear thinking might have led us to expect the Ukrainians to "do the Kherson" again, attacking all along the line while striking in depth, but that was without taking into account the conceptual ruptures. On 23 October 1917, the French army attacked the Germans at La Malmaison after firing 3 million shells along a 12km front (the equivalent of several tactical nuclear weapons and just about everything the Ukrainians had used in sixteen months) and yet the next major French offensive, on 18 July 1918 during the Second Battle of the Marne, was carried out with virtually no artillery preparation.
In the meantime, we realised that we couldn't continue in this way and we came up with something else. This time, perhaps after an initial test phase, the Ukrainian army gave up hammering, which was very costly in terms of manpower and produced limited results as long as the defences were solid, or to be more precise, it decided to sequence things: first neutralise the Russian defence system, then assault when the conditions were right, a sort of Desert Storm - a month of shelling in January-February 1991 of the Iraqi system in depth, followed by a 100-hour land attack - but on a Ukrainian scale.
After the lack of experience of the MOO, the second Ukrainian problem is that Western military support is no longer necessarily adapted to this type of war. In the 1970s and 1980s, NATO forces had developed a whole arsenal of means of striking hard at Warsaw Pact troops in all the depths of its system, from the contact line to the second echelon armies crossing Poland. We weren't expecting a long-lasting war of positions (but perhaps we were wrong).
Since then, we have been living on the remnants of that era. The vast majority of equipment still in service in NATO was designed at that time or in its aftermath. Even the SCALP missile, the star piece of equipment of the moment, and the Caesar guns were designed in the early 1990s, at a time when we were still fighting in our exercises against a Soviet army that no longer existed. The problem is that there are now far fewer of them than there were then, and with even less ammunition.
Why maintain this costly equipment when the US Air Force was capable of doing the job with little risk? With the exception of Iraq in 1991, which made the mistake of invading Kuwait at a time when the United States and the British (not the French) were able to 'rotate' their forces, which were then at their peak in Germany, towards Saudi Arabia, the other war operations against so-called rogue states were still largely carried out under the American air umbrella. Yes, but in Ukraine there is no American air force, in fact there is very little air force at all, and even with 40 F-16s, it's not an American-style campaign.
So everything had to be done the old-fashioned way, and we found ourselves very much at a loss. Fortunately for the Ukrainians, and unlike the European countries, the United States has maintained a major military effort since 2001, and still retains significant resources in all areas, even if we are a long way from the capabilities of the 1980s. In the summer of 2022, by scraping the surface, we were able to assemble a coalition of artillery equipment, most of which had been designed to take on the Soviets (at the same time, it's a good thing, as the Russians are also equipped with equipment from that era) but with low stocks of ammunition.
This Western artillery was thus backed up by ex-Soviet Ukrainian artillery, which may have had large initial stocks (but with huge quantities of shells destroyed just before the war by Russian sabotage) but a replacement capacity that was practically reduced to a Bulgarian factory. In this general scarcity, the Americans were still seen as half-rich, which helped to maintain their position as an ally that was as indispensable as it was versatile. Who else can you turn to in a major problem if you haven't made a military effort yourself? But at the same time, how can you have total confidence in a power that can radically change its foreign policy every four years and must simultaneously defend its interests around the world?
In short, the Ukrainian Desert Storm is certainly a good idea, or more accurately, as it was in 1916, it's the kind of idea you start to use when you start to run out of men, but you have to have the means to do it, and that's where the problem lies. It was not necessarily a problem of launchers, whether on the ground or in the air, but of the number of projectiles. The West is running out of 155 mm shells, and as we are still a long way from the "war economy", we have to continue to supply what we have but also think of something else, hence the cobbled-together rockets like the Ukrainian Trembita with a 400 km range, the option of cluster munitions - indispensable in terms of their effectiveness and number, to hit artillery batteries - and long-range Storm-Shadow/SCALP missiles or, perhaps, ATACMS to hit depots and logistics routes. Another option would be to seize the huge Russian ammunition depots in Transnistria. The good news for the Ukrainians is that the Russians are in much the same situation, with stocks of shells so depleted that they have to call on the North Koreans, Iranians and Belarusians for supplies, but also with considerable wear and tear on their stockpiles.
There are several clear indications that the artillery battle is "the" battle of the moment. Between 1 May and 21 June, the Ukrainian command claimed to have destroyed 1,000 Russian artillery pieces. The important thing is not the figure - which is undoubtedly greatly exaggerated - but the fact that for the first time in the war the Ukrainians are claiming to have destroyed more artillery than fighting vehicles. From 8 May to 13 July, Oryx reports that around 200 Russian artillery pieces were destroyed or damaged for sure, which is already considerable and, more importantly, in two and a half months represents a quarter of the total Russian losses recorded since the start of the war. Add to this the statements made by General Popov, the recently sacked commander of the 58th Russian army, who spoke clearly of the Russian difficulties in this battle. So the Russians are undoubtedly suffering, and more so than the Ukrainians, whose artillery has, according to Oryx, lost around fifty pieces since 8 May, which is still a record.
But is that enough to win this battle, which would itself be no more than the essential preamble to large-scale hammering attacks, the famous "brick-breaking", which would take place under much better conditions, but without necessarily any absolute guarantee of success? We'll probably have to wait until the end of August to get an idea of how the Ukrainian MOO, and therefore the war, will turn out.
A reminder of previous episodes: from a strategic point of view, Ukraine needs to go on the offensive if it is to achieve its objective of total liberation of its territory. Russia, for its part, can be content - and seems to be content - with a purely defensive posture. Ukraine's strategic offensive posture requires strong action on the enemy front and/or rear. The Ukrainian means of acting directly on the Russian political rear, a very uncertain field of action, are very limited.
The only way to act directly and effectively against the Russian front within a reasonable timeframe is to organise major offensive operations (MOO) that will enable it to be broken through or at least to push the line southwards to a considerable extent. The Ukrainian army should plant flags on major towns, not villages, and with one blow after another force the enemy back from the occupied territories and/or cause an internal political upheaval in Moscow that will force Russia to negotiate from a disadvantaged position before disaster strikes, Germany 1918 style. At least that's the idea behind the manoeuvre.
However, there are two operational problems. The first is that the Ukrainian army has no experience of major offensive operations, which are certainly one of the most complex human activities to organise. The current operation is only the third in its history since independence. The first, in the province of Kharkiv in September 2022, was highly mobile and brilliant, but took advantage of quite exceptional circumstances. The Russian front in 2023 - barring a Russian-style surprise - no longer presents such opportunities. The second operation, which was much more in keeping with positional warfare, took place around the Kherson bridgehead.
Things were much more difficult there in the face of a very well organised Russian front zone commanded, no doubt at the end, by General Mikhail Teplinsky, the commander of the airborne assault troops and unanimously recognised as one of the best Russian officers. His name is mentioned, and is worth remembering, because he is also one of those who criticise the way in which this war is being conducted by its military leaders. The method used at Kherson, hammering the front and interdicting in depth (in other words, cutting off logistics via the Dnieper), paid off, forcing the Russians to withdraw in good order, but was costly in human terms.
Linear thinking might have led us to expect the Ukrainians to "do the Kherson" again, attacking all along the line while striking in depth, but that was without taking into account the conceptual ruptures. On 23 October 1917, the French army attacked the Germans at La Malmaison after firing 3 million shells along a 12km front (the equivalent of several tactical nuclear weapons and just about everything the Ukrainians had used in sixteen months) and yet the next major French offensive, on 18 July 1918 during the Second Battle of the Marne, was carried out with virtually no artillery preparation.
In the meantime, we realised that we couldn't continue in this way and we came up with something else. This time, perhaps after an initial test phase, the Ukrainian army gave up hammering, which was very costly in terms of manpower and produced limited results as long as the defences were solid, or to be more precise, it decided to sequence things: first neutralise the Russian defence system, then assault when the conditions were right, a sort of Desert Storm - a month of shelling in January-February 1991 of the Iraqi system in depth, followed by a 100-hour land attack - but on a Ukrainian scale.
After the lack of experience of the MOO, the second Ukrainian problem is that Western military support is no longer necessarily adapted to this type of war. In the 1970s and 1980s, NATO forces had developed a whole arsenal of means of striking hard at Warsaw Pact troops in all the depths of its system, from the contact line to the second echelon armies crossing Poland. We weren't expecting a long-lasting war of positions (but perhaps we were wrong).
Since then, we have been living on the remnants of that era. The vast majority of equipment still in service in NATO was designed at that time or in its aftermath. Even the SCALP missile, the star piece of equipment of the moment, and the Caesar guns were designed in the early 1990s, at a time when we were still fighting in our exercises against a Soviet army that no longer existed. The problem is that there are now far fewer of them than there were then, and with even less ammunition.
Why maintain this costly equipment when the US Air Force was capable of doing the job with little risk? With the exception of Iraq in 1991, which made the mistake of invading Kuwait at a time when the United States and the British (not the French) were able to 'rotate' their forces, which were then at their peak in Germany, towards Saudi Arabia, the other war operations against so-called rogue states were still largely carried out under the American air umbrella. Yes, but in Ukraine there is no American air force, in fact there is very little air force at all, and even with 40 F-16s, it's not an American-style campaign.
So everything had to be done the old-fashioned way, and we found ourselves very much at a loss. Fortunately for the Ukrainians, and unlike the European countries, the United States has maintained a major military effort since 2001, and still retains significant resources in all areas, even if we are a long way from the capabilities of the 1980s. In the summer of 2022, by scraping the surface, we were able to assemble a coalition of artillery equipment, most of which had been designed to take on the Soviets (at the same time, it's a good thing, as the Russians are also equipped with equipment from that era) but with low stocks of ammunition.
This Western artillery was thus backed up by ex-Soviet Ukrainian artillery, which may have had large initial stocks (but with huge quantities of shells destroyed just before the war by Russian sabotage) but a replacement capacity that was practically reduced to a Bulgarian factory. In this general scarcity, the Americans were still seen as half-rich, which helped to maintain their position as an ally that was as indispensable as it was versatile. Who else can you turn to in a major problem if you haven't made a military effort yourself? But at the same time, how can you have total confidence in a power that can radically change its foreign policy every four years and must simultaneously defend its interests around the world?
In short, the Ukrainian Desert Storm is certainly a good idea, or more accurately, as it was in 1916, it's the kind of idea you start to use when you start to run out of men, but you have to have the means to do it, and that's where the problem lies. It was not necessarily a problem of launchers, whether on the ground or in the air, but of the number of projectiles. The West is running out of 155 mm shells, and as we are still a long way from the "war economy", we have to continue to supply what we have but also think of something else, hence the cobbled-together rockets like the Ukrainian Trembita with a 400 km range, the option of cluster munitions - indispensable in terms of their effectiveness and number, to hit artillery batteries - and long-range Storm-Shadow/SCALP missiles or, perhaps, ATACMS to hit depots and logistics routes. Another option would be to seize the huge Russian ammunition depots in Transnistria. The good news for the Ukrainians is that the Russians are in much the same situation, with stocks of shells so depleted that they have to call on the North Koreans, Iranians and Belarusians for supplies, but also with considerable wear and tear on their stockpiles.
There are several clear indications that the artillery battle is "the" battle of the moment. Between 1 May and 21 June, the Ukrainian command claimed to have destroyed 1,000 Russian artillery pieces. The important thing is not the figure - which is undoubtedly greatly exaggerated - but the fact that for the first time in the war the Ukrainians are claiming to have destroyed more artillery than fighting vehicles. From 8 May to 13 July, Oryx reports that around 200 Russian artillery pieces were destroyed or damaged for sure, which is already considerable and, more importantly, in two and a half months represents a quarter of the total Russian losses recorded since the start of the war. Add to this the statements made by General Popov, the recently sacked commander of the 58th Russian army, who spoke clearly of the Russian difficulties in this battle. So the Russians are undoubtedly suffering, and more so than the Ukrainians, whose artillery has, according to Oryx, lost around fifty pieces since 8 May, which is still a record.
But is that enough to win this battle, which would itself be no more than the essential preamble to large-scale hammering attacks, the famous "brick-breaking", which would take place under much better conditions, but without necessarily any absolute guarantee of success? We'll probably have to wait until the end of August to get an idea of how the Ukrainian MOO, and therefore the war, will turn out.
Russian morale updates:
Just asking for a leave is ground for disciplinary action (meaning torture, because this is Russia):
mastodon.social
The Russian sex industry has gone through serious upheavals:
1. The rich customers fled to other countries to avoid mobilization, so sex workers have to lower prices and take up more customers to compensate.
2. A lot of women took up sex work after their husband was mobilized, because the mobiks lost the wages of their civilian job, but are not actually getting paid by the army either. So money has to come from somewhere, and for many women that somewhere is prostitution.
3. Russian soldiers in the trenches ruin OPSEC by calling prostitutes for phone sex. The little death may end up being not so little.
mastodon.social
Just asking for a leave is ground for disciplinary action (meaning torture, because this is Russia):
ChrisO_wiki (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 video 1/ Asking for leave is now enough to land a Russian soldier in an illegal basement-prison, according to a new report. Mobilised soldier Aleksandr Ignatov says he was detained and then attached to a regiment for "undesirables" after he asked for long-overdue leave. ⬇️
mastodon.social
The Russian sex industry has gone through serious upheavals:
1. The rich customers fled to other countries to avoid mobilization, so sex workers have to lower prices and take up more customers to compensate.
2. A lot of women took up sex work after their husband was mobilized, because the mobiks lost the wages of their civilian job, but are not actually getting paid by the army either. So money has to come from somewhere, and for many women that somewhere is prostitution.
3. Russian soldiers in the trenches ruin OPSEC by calling prostitutes for phone sex. The little death may end up being not so little.
ChrisO_wiki (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image 1/ Russian soldiers are dealing with the stresses of trench warfare by hiring sex workers to entertain them in their dugouts. Meanwhile, Russian brothels are offering soldiers on leave the opportunity to fulfil their fantasy of "punishing bad Ukrainian [women]". ⬇️
mastodon.social