Russo-Ukrainian War. Day 348: Fierce battles are ongoing in the Donetsk region – Zelenskyy.

1. On the war. 

The Institute for the Study of War has made the following assessment as of  February 5, 2022:

Reznikov thinks Russia will not use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, Ukrinform reports. “There has always been such a risk, but I ask myself the question every time: if they wanted to use it [nuclear weapons], what would be their goal? It seems clear – to make us fall to our knees and stop the West from helping us. However, every time the Russians do something extremely terrible – Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol – the West is starting to provide even more assistance to us, because the partners understand that the Russians must be stopped. If they are not stopped in Ukraine, they will go further and they will have to be stopped in Europe. I think the Europeans have already understood that the Russians must be stopped on the battlefield in Ukraine, with Ukraine’s victory, Reznikov said.

According to him, if Russia decided to use nuclear weapons on the front lines, it would pose a danger to its own army, and if they did so in the temporarily occupied territories, it would pose a danger to the population that the Russians allegedly “protect.”

To do it inside Ukraine […] in order to demonstrate that they are so determined? It could be anywhere. And what will it give them? It will give the biggest proof that the tribunal is guaranteed for all of them, because Ukraine is not a nuclear-weapon state and, accordingly, we do not pose a nuclear threat. And the general concept of using nuclear weapons is a weapon of deterrence, he said. At the same time, Reznikov said that the Kremlin had received a signal not to use nuclear weapons from its so-called allies, China and India.”

1. Consequences and what to do? 

Ukraine’s Defence Forces to introduce Delta system which gives an advantage over occupiers, Ukrainska Pravda reports, citing the Government portal. “The government decided to introduce the Delta system in Ukrainian Defence Forces on Saturday, 4 February. […] Delta is a situational awareness platform created by the Defence Technology Innovation and Development Centre of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. […] In addition to the use of the platform by the military, the government has authorised the deployment of Delta in the cloud outside Ukraine. This will allow the system to be protected from Russian missile and cyber-attacks.

It was noted that the Delta system has been under development by the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2016 and was significantly updated with the beginning of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in February 2022. The system currently provides real-time data to field commanders and enables faster and more informed decision-making by integrating multiple data sources.

On 3 January, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Ukraine created an improvised intelligence network to coordinate combat units on the battlefield; it turned out to be a cut-price version of a network on which the Pentagon has spent decades and billions of dollars. WSJ also cited Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of Aerorozvidka, a nongovernmental organisation that has been helping the Ukrainian army with surveillance drones since 2014, that almost every unit that participated in the battles for Kyiv in the spring used the Delta program.”

When it comes to building its own defence, Europe has blinked, The New York Times reports. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the greatest challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War, but the Europeans have missed the opportunity to step up their own defense, diplomats and experts say. Instead, the war has reinforced Europe’s military dependence on the United States. Washington, they note, has led the response to the war, marshaled allies, organized military aid to Ukraine and contributed by far the largest amount of military equipment and intelligence to Ukraine. It has decided at each step what kind of weapons Kyiv will receive and what it will not.

Its indispensable role was manifest in the recent decision to provide Leopard tanks to Ukraine and allow others to do so — a step Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany refused to take, despite strong pressure from Poland and Britain, unless the United States provided some of its own modern tanks.

American leadership has almost been too successful for its own good, leaving Europeans with no incentive to develop leadership on their own, said Liana Fix, a German analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. The perception is that there is no real leader in the European Union and the US is doing helicopter parenting with Brussels, she said. This is a problem that can come back to haunt the US And the Europeans, too. […]

The goal of President Emmanuel Macron of France for “strategic autonomy” — for the European Union to become a military power that could act independently of the United States, if complementary to it — has proved hollow. In large part, diplomats and experts say, that is because European nations disagree sharply among themselves about how the war should end and even about their relationship with Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, both now and in the future.

It is impossible to have a real European defense without a coherent European foreign policy, suggested Charles A. Kupchan, a former Obama administration official and a professor of international studies at Georgetown University. The Ukraine war cuts both ways, he said, prompting a new unity among Europeans, but also new cracks. There is very little appetite for autonomy if that means distance from the United States, he said, because the war has underscored the importance of the American military presence in Europe and the guarantee it extended to European allies since World War II.

Central and Eastern Europeans, along with the Baltic nations and Britain, have always mistrusted promises of an autonomous European defense and have worked to keep the United States engaged in European security and in the NATO alliance. For them, the American nuclear umbrella is considered indispensable to deter a Russia they saw as more of a threat than did other allies like Germany, France, Spain and Italy, especially since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. […]

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary general who has proposed a plan to bolster Ukraine’s security against Russia, said that Mr. Macron has undermined his own idea of European autonomy by his statements and behavior when it comes to Putin, arguing that a new European security order must include Russia and that Mr. Putin must not be humiliated. […] So long as Europe’s major powers cannot agree on a common approach to Russia, then the rest of the crowd will look across the Atlantic and look for security guarantees from the United States, he added.

The European dream was always to have two major collective pillars, one fiscal and one defense, said Guntram Wolff, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Germany would anchor the first and France the second. But the Ukraine war was a big game-changer for European security, he said, and Central and Eastern Europeans immediately understood that they need the US for their security, and Germany quickly decided the same.

Despite a promise by Mr. Scholz, the German chancellor, for a “Zeitenwende,” or a turning point in German security policy, details were lacking. Now it turns out the €100 billion set aside to rebuild the paltry post-Cold War German military will be spread out over the life of the Parliament. Bureaucracy has made it difficult to start spending the money, and the government failed to get the German defense industry moving.

Rheinmetall, a German arms manufacturer, makes the Leopard tank and has about 200 in storage, and it says it needs up to a year to refurbish them for Ukraine. But Germany could have easily paid the company to get the tanks ready 12 months ago, even for its own military. Germany already wasted a year, Mr. Wolff said.

European countries have tried to catch up with needed defense investment, but in a national and fragmented way, not coordinated by Brussels. That inevitably meant buying off-the-shelf, which mostly meant American weaponry, not European.

Germany annoyed France by immediately buying American F-35 fighter planes, rather than buying European or even waiting for a long-delayed Franco-German-Spanish jet project, the Future Combat Air System, itself in competition with a proposed British-Italian-Japanese one. But neither project expects to have a working fighter until 2035 or 2040.

Similarly, worried about its vulnerability to Russian nuclear-capable, medium-range missiles in Kaliningrad, Berlin shocked Paris by proposing a “European Sky Shield Initiative,” an air and missile defense system, in cooperation with 13 NATO allies and Finland, and later Sweden, too, that would primarily use existing American and Israeli technology, not a European design. […]

The fact that Mr. Scholz relented on providing tanks to Ukraine only with the Americans stung in Europe. It shows that Europeans in the end don’t trust one another, and for Central and Eastern Europeans, trust and credibility is gone, she said. At the same time, Ms. Fix said, both Germany and France think the Central and Eastern Europeans underestimate the risk of Russian escalation and need Washington to restrain them. So everyone is looking to Washington as the main arbiter,” she said, “and not to one another.

Mr. Macron and Mr. Scholz, whose relations are said to be frosty, have failed to provide necessary leadership, separately or together, analysts said. France missed an opportunity to show what strategic autonomy is or could be, said Bart Szewczyk, a former Obama administration official now with the German Marshall Fund. Under the surface of the slogan, he said, there was not much there in terms of resources or deployment or even in intellectual leadership. […] For some time to come, then, strategic autonomy is dead, Ms. Fix said, and the French don’t like this at all.”

Hans Petter Midttun: The analysis supports my article The eight signs of discord within NATO. When the Head of States stress that they have never been more united despite the obvious indications of the contrary it is time to sit up and pay attention.

Oil embargo, price cap: Russia’s losses may reach $125B a year, Ukrinform reports, citing former Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Pavlo Klimkin. “For the Kremlin, there is already a real and tangible threat of macro-economic destabilization. I have seen various estimates of the losses of the Russian regime depending on the fluctuations in oil prices: from 75 to 125 billion dollars per year. And it’s very cool. The main result is that Moscow is forced to play in view of the ‘red flags’ set by the West. Russia remains a supplier, but ceases to be a player, Klimkin said.

According to him, Russian budget expenditures in January 2023 increased by two-thirds compared to last year, and this is also an indicator of how much the war is costing Russia. At the same time, Russian budget revenues shrank by almost three times.”

 

Hans Petter Midttun: There seems to be a consensus on the expectation of a Russian attempt to conduct a major offensive within the next couple of weeks. Lately, both President Zelensky, the Head of Defence Intelligence (DIU), Kyrylo Budanov, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and the Secretary of National Security and Defence Council, Oleksii Danilov, has warned about a forthcoming escalation of the war.

“President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine is preparing for a possible new offensive by Russia with the aim of revenge, in particular in the east of our country, and for this, the Ukrainian defence forces need more weapons, including long-range ones. The Head of State stated this at a meeting with media representatives following the 24th Ukraine-European Union summit in Kyiv.

Russia wants revenge. Revenge exactly where it didn’t work out. It wants to take the east. Our task is not to give them such an opportunity.”

The assessment is shared by Western officials, experts and analysts. On Jan. 30, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the same assessment.

President Putin has allegedly ordered the Russian Armed Forces to occupy all of Donetsk and Luhansk by March. According to DIU, Russian forces are redeploying additional assault groups, units, weapons, and military equipment to the east.

Russia is not assessed to be able to launch an assault from Belarus. Nor is it believed that it will make another attempt to capture Kyiv. After failing to take Kyiv last year, Russia has radically scaled down its objective for territorial gains (for now). For symbolic reasons, it plans to occupy all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Most believe that the new assault will be launched from the Luhansk oblast as the frontline in Donetsk has been brilliantly defended for nine years already. Russia has suffered enormous losses trying to advance around cities like Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Pervomaiske, Vesele, Nevelske, and Mariinka in Donetsk oblast.

Ivan Yakovina, journalist and political columnist for NV magazine and website, argues that Russia will launch the assault near the town of Vuhledar, Donetsk region. His assessment is based on the postulate that “infantry wins battles, logistics win wars”.

“For the Russian army, logistics means, first of all, a well-functioning railway, since all Russian military logistics is somehow built around railways. Now the weakest point of the Russian Armed Forces in this sense is the lack of a direct rail link between the Donbas and Crimea. The only branch that links these two Ukrainian regions runs at a distance of about five kilometres from the front line, which makes its use dangerous, and virtually impossible. At a five-kilometre distance, any locomotive can be hit even by artillery and an anti-tank complex.

Without a normal rail link along this line, the Russian General Staff cannot urgently transport reinforcements, ammunition, or fuel from Donbas to southern Ukraine and vice versa. […] The General Staff of the Russian Federation needs to move the front line away from the railway that goes from Donetsk to Crimea. This can be done in only one way, namely, by capturing and occupying Vuhledar. […]

If Russia manages to capture this seemingly small and not very significant town of Vuhledar, then Russia would receive a wide logistical artery along the entire front line. And, accordingly, the ability to quickly, massively transfer troops from one direction to another.”

Lately, we have seen reports of increased fighting around Vuhledar. Russia is reportedly massing forces in the region. 30,000 soldiers have been reported in the Mariupol region alone, less than 100 km south of Vuhledar.

In total, it is believed that there are currently about 326,000 Russians fighting in Ukraine. Additionally, 150,000 mobilized personnel are still undergoing training in preparation for the next big push.

The massive build-up of forces does, however, not mean that Russia is likely to succeed. Russian ability to wage war was at its peak one year ago.

It has since lost many of its elite forces and much of its newest weapons and equipment. It is running out of precision-guided missiles and is low on both artillery and ammunition. The fundamental flaws revealed during its failed attempt to conduct “Blitzkrieg” last year are still just that: fundamental flaws. Having suffered tremendous losses, the motivation of the Russian soldiers is running low. The Russian Armed Forces suffered more than 21,000 KIA in January alone, the highest number of casualties until now.

While Russian ability to wage war has been gradually degraded during the last 12 months, Ukrainian ability has gradually increased.

The inflow of Western defence support has accelerated since summer. Its biggest advantage, however, is both superior command and control, situational awareness and intelligence. Russia is unable to hide its forces and, consequently, its intentions. It is constantly advancing towards prepared Ukrainian positions. Additionally, Ukraine can deliver precision strikes against Russian logistics, command and control posts, areas of force concentrations and ground lines of communication.

On February 2, the Institute for the Study of War concluded that:

“Putin may have overestimated the Russian military’s own capabilities again, as ISW previously assessed. ISW has not observed any evidence that Russian forces have restored sufficient combat power to defeat Ukraine’s forces in eastern Ukraine and capture over 11,300 square kilometers of unoccupied Donetsk Oblast (over 42 percent of Donetsk Oblast’s total area) before March as Putin reportedly ordered. ISW previously assessed that a major Russian offensive before April 2023 would likely prematurely culminate during the April spring rain season (if not before) before achieving operationally significant effects. Russian forces’ culmination could then generate favorable conditions for Ukrainian forces to exploit in their own late spring or summer 2023 counter-offensive after incorporating Western tank deliveries.”

According to the Russian independent media outlet “Важные истории” (Important Stories), the assessment is shared by the Russian General Staff.

“According to a source close to the Ministry of Defense, the military understands that a strategic offensive in Ukraine is impossible. There are two main reasons – the lack of high-quality equipment and ammunition, as well as the inability of the high command to realistically assess the situation at the front.

“Plans to go to Kyiv again are drawn, but only because the country’s leadership requires it. Nobody believes in the implementation of these plans, it will be suicide,” the source said. The source calls the mood among the “understanding” military men for panic, noting that the officers themselves use this word.”

The outlet claims that Russia is creating reserves that it keeps far from the front line to block a possible Ukrainian breakthrough.

Russia will escalate the war in the weeks to come for lack of choice. The orders have been given by a President that is running out of military options and lacks a realistic understanding of Russian military capabilities.

The weather forecast is cold and dry for the next few weeks which will harden the soil and permit offensive operations. Bakhmut is increasingly isolated and UAF might at one point decide to withdraw. We must prepare to see a steady but slow Ukrainian withdrawal in the months to come as the UAF will be conducting a fighting-withdrawal, exhausting Russian force as western tanks and infantry vehicles are slowly arriving on the battlefield.

It is unlikely to be able to occupy all of Donbas because the Russian ability to wage war is being degraded while Ukrainian capabilities are gradually increasing. Russia lacks the men and equipment to launch an offensive that will change the war to its advantage.

A lack of Russian military success, however, is not likely to change its strategic aim and objectives. Time is still assessed to be on Russia’s side.

Even if the Russian offensive is stopped, it doesn’t make the task of evicting Russian forces from well-prepared defensive positions any easier.

Ukraine will be forced to do what Russia has been doing for months, though with better tools and more professional soldiers. That said, it will not have the toolbox needed. It will still be missing the number of western main battle tanks and IFV required. Ukraine is also missing the 4^th generation combat aircraft needed to conduct combined arm and joint operations.

Russia still plans to force Ukraine into submission through the combined use of both military and non-military means. The occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, combined with its maritime embargo and gradual destruction of Ukrainian critical infrastructure, continue to undermine the financial viability of Ukraine. It needs 3-5 billion USD monthly in Western support to uphold its internal and external commitments.

The Russian calculus is based on the expectation of a reduction of Western support over time. It is also waging a hybrid war against Europe to help manipulate both populations as well as key decisions and policymakers to make decisions favourable to the Russian Federation (e.g. negotiating a peace agreement ceding parts of Ukrainian territory to Russia for the promise of (temporary) peace). As a consequence of the rising costs of living, increasing inflation and credit rates, and signs of recession, increasingly more people are taking to the streets to demonstrate their discontent, increasing the political pressure on the Head of States and governments.

Recognising that time is on Russia’s side, the West still need to consider its military options. In my humble opinion, acknowledging the internal discord within NATO, a coalition of the willing should be considered for military intervention in Ukraine. It is the only logical conclusion given the commitment to ensure Russia’s failure and Ukrainian victory.

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