08.12.2022

Notes on the war

General Winter will favour those who have the best extreme weather kit, equipment and rations. Jack Conrad looks at the military situation and the wider strategic picture

After nearly 10 months of war, what has Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’ achieved? Well, there was, to begin with, in phase one, the utter failure to decapitate the Kyiv regime. To this day, Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the world from his Soviet-era bunker and is feted by western presidents, prime ministers and public opinion alike. He is, predictably, Time magazine’s person of the year (in 2021 it was Elon Musk). Its editors praised “Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader”; “which has relied on the fact that courage is contagious” (December 26 2022).

Not that Putin has gone without his successes. With much Kremlin fireworks, speechifying and ceremony four Ukrainian oblasts were, on September 30 2022, “forever” incorporated into the Russian Federation. However, about half of the supposed Russian territory has been held, or regained, by Ukrainian forces - not least the west bank of the Dnieper river and the oblast capital, Kherson. A humiliating loss for Putin.

What have the pocket-sized conquests cost? One hundred thousand Ukrainians dead and wounded, one hundred thousand Russians troops killed,¹ eight million internally displaced Ukrainians, 7.8 million Ukrainians fleeing abroad, Mariupol wrecked, half of Ukraine’s energy network trashed, 1,400 Russian tanks destroyed or abandoned and, in scenes reminiscent of World War I, fighting around Bakhmut descending into the grinding hell of dugouts and trench warfare. Then there are the western sanctions, the EU, G7+Australia oil price cap, the G20 condemnation, Nato expansion and the billions of roubles wasted on what amounts to a well-prepared US elephant trap.

By giving covert approval to attacks on the ‘people’s republics’ in the Donbas, by demanding the return of Crimea, by supplying military hardware, training and advisors, by holding out the distant prospect of Nato and European Union membership for Ukraine, US imperialism lured Putin into staging a full-scale invasion. He seriously seems to have believed that Kyiv would fall within days and the entire country within a few weeks.

Interestingly (though it is advisable not to treat anything he says seriously), Donald Trump has made that same sort of point. Speaking on Real America’s Voice, the former (and would-be next) president attacked the Biden administration for having “taunted Putin” and “almost forcing him to go in with what they’re saying. The rhetoric was so dumb.”² Dumb or not, the US state department - and the Demorep war party - got what was long intended: a proxy war that Russia cannot win and conditions which allow for a regime-change operation in Moscow.

Russia’s desperate high command now seems to be banking on General Winter to break the will of Ukraine’s civilian population. That presumably explains the missile and drone blitz on power stations, transmitters and energy infrastructure. Doubtless millions will shiver, suffer frostbite and many - in particular the elderly and infirm - will die from hypothermia, as temperatures plunge to -20°C and even lower.

But this is unlikely to weaken the “morale of the civilian population” sufficiently to see the Ukrainian army “either disbanded or surrendering”.³ Contra what Giulio Douhet, the Italian general and air-power theorist, wrote in his groundbreaking study, The command of the air (1921), people demand horrible, bloody, revenge for all the death, destruction and suffering inflicted on them. Not capitulation. Though his book was the bible of warmongers, such as Walther Wever, William ‘Billy’ Mitchell and Sir Hugh ‘Boom’ Trenchard, World War II proved him wrong. Civilians cannot be bombed into submission. So in all probability Ukrainian nationalism will not be diluted, but made ever more toxic. Ethnic Russians are already distrusted, spied upon, politically persecuted and hunted down. Worse will surely come. Leave aside the Azov regiment, ominously, Andriy Meluyk, a former diplomat and defender of Stepan Bandera, the fascist mass murderer and collaborator with the Nazis, is currently serving as Zelensky’s deputy minister of foreign affairs. Ordinary Ukrainian-Ukrainians will certainly not be clamouring for surrender. Instead they will store up food and water, wrap up warm, hunker down in air raid shelters, burn logs, hope that enough diesel and thermal generators can be supplied … and they will curse the name Vladimir Putin. If need be they will learn to live without electricity.

Kyiv is meantime furiously lobbying Nato, particularly the Americans, for air-defence systems to prevent the power grid being completely knocked out. Ukraine has already taken delivery of two highly mobile NASAMS batteries - jointly produced by the US and Norway. Effective against aircraft and drones, but no use when it comes to rockets. Hence Kyiv has its eye fixed on Patriot missiles and a Ukrainian version of Israel’s Iron Dome. However, this is no plug in and go system. Training and maintenance means it is no quick fix.

Tempo

Nor should we expect General Winter to come to Russia’s rescue on the field of battle. Yes, he helped beat the Livonian Crusaders, Napoleon’s Grande Armée and the Wehrmacht. But General Winter has not always been a good friend of Russia. Under the military command of Carl Mannerheim, Finland gave the Soviet army a real bashing in the 1939-40 Winter War. Its much smaller forces travelled by ski, stopped tanks with Molotov cocktails and staged guerrilla attacks behind the lines. True, the Soviet Union eventually won - Finland sued for peace and ceded territory. But the Red Army lost well over 120,000 men, Finland just over 25,000.

Strategists - professional and armchair - have been arguing that we will see “fighting at reduced tempo” with the onset of winter.⁴ Both sides are assumed to be set on using the next few months to rest, rotate, retrain and re-equip troops. Obviously, with much of the country’s power grid out of operation, Ukraine’s civilian population will be praying for a mild winter. But not the generals. A severe winter allows manoeuvre. Tanks, howitzers and soldiers can move swiftly over solidly frozen ground. A mild winter means mud. Everything gets bogged down, especially trucks. The front lines find themselves running out of fuel, ammunition and food.

And it is becoming increasingly clear that, whatever the weather, Russia and Ukraine are both determined to keep on fighting during the winter months. For example, Russia is using forces freed up by the withdrawal from around Kherson to bolster its attempt to surround and capture Bakhmut in Donetsk. However, it is the Ukrainians who are particularly keen. They want to build on the momentum achieved in last few months, with their stunning victories around Kharkiv in the north-east and most recently in Kherson in the south. Crimea, with its large concentrations of troops, aircraft and warships, is now in the crosshairs.

Over the next three months it will be General Winter versus who has the best equipment, kit and rations. When the war began in February with the push on Kyiv, the Russian army was plagued with mechanical and logistical breakdowns. Not only was there poor-quality manufacture, but, surprisingly, a failure, like the Wehrmacht, to thoroughly winterise tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks.

Ukraine has, of course, been supplied with billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weaponry: eg, Nlaws, Himars and Switchblade drones. As a result, it has turned the tables on Russia and gone from defence to offence. Nato countries have been sending winter kit too. Extreme-weather clothing, white camouflage uniforms, heated tents, mobile generators and high-protein rations. By contrast Russian conscripts are not only poorly trained: non-state Russian media, military bloggers and rank-and-file soldiers post stories about them going without hot food and having to “buy their own thermal gear and sleeping bags - even pleading for stoves for basic heating”.⁵ If true, a military clincher.

Of course, Russia has winter-ready forces stationed in Ukraine, such as the 80th Separate Arctic Motor Rifle Brigade. However, the chances are that General Winter will favour the Ukrainian offensive. Its defence ministry has arrogantly tweeted its determination to take back yet more territory: “Those who are now talking about a possible ‘pause in hostilities’ due to freezing temperatures in the winter have likely never sunbathed in January on the southern coast of Crimea.”⁶ So, whether it be mild or severe, nothing signals a quiet winter.

There is the outside chance of Russia reopening its northern front. Satellite pictures show the build-up of large-scale Russian forces about 160 kilometres from the Ukraine-Belarusian border. Intelligence sources put numbers at 20,000, which would, conceivably, be enough to stage an invasion. Even if only bluff, as some experts say, the threat draws Ukrainian forces away from the southern and eastern fronts and pins them down on the northern border.⁷ The likelihood of the Belarusian military being directly involved is though, surely, very remote. ‘Strongman’ Aleksandr Lukashenko and his regime is far too weak to risk such an adventure. He owes his survival to Russian support. But, precisely because of that, he is malleable. There are reports, doubtless scurrilous, of Moscow arranging a failed assassination attempt with a view to “intimidating” him into ordering his troops to join the ‘special military operation’.⁸

To be on the safe side, Ukraine has reinforced military positions, sown mine fields and sent the 104th Territorial Defence Brigade to the northern border.

Kherson

The withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson back across the Dnieper has shocked the Russian public - happening as it did just weeks after the whole oblast was declared part of the Russian Federation “forever”. People do not really know what the war is all about and why it is going so badly. De-Nazification, saving Ukraine’s Russian minority from genocide, Ukraine and Russia being one nation - all are utterly unconvincing and certainly not worth so many young men dying for.

Putin’s standing has been much weakened. There is open dissent amongst the elite. Chechnya’s warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been more than vocal in his criticism of military failures and the botched mobilisation of reservists. A hawk’s hawk, he positively advocates the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The same goes for Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner Group. Incompetent commanders should be stripped of their medals and sent barefoot to the front with a machinegun, he says. Given that Russia has banned any criticism of the conduct of the Ukraine war by making it illegal to “discredit the armed forces”, such language is highly significant. The ambitious will be quietly preparing for their moment.

Clearly the decision to abandon Kherson without a fight was recommended by the high command. Ukrainian forces were relentlessly advancing, the city was in danger of being surrounded on three sides with, at their back, the Dniepner cutting off Russian forces from easy supplies and reinforcements. Note, the river does not freeze to the point of allowing lorries to safely cross, as with Leningrad’s 1941-43 Road to Life, but ferries can no longer operate due to shattering ice flows. Of course, the ultimate go-ahead decision to scuttle must have come from Putin himself.

There was, though, nothing inevitable about the Kherson withdrawal. Putin could have issued orders to mincemeat incoming Ukrainians by turning the city into a modern-day Stalingrad. Having almost reached the Volga, German forces were left cut off in 1942-43 - the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime. After a siege within the siege, Germany’s 6th army ignominiously surrendered. Some 91,000 Germans were taken prisoner.

Army commanders dread the idea of being dragged into urban warfare. Defenders possess huge advantages. They plant explosives, erect barricades, put in place missile, artillery and machine-gun positions, hide troops deep in bunkers and even sewers, ready for surprise attacks, etc. Building by building, street by street, the fighting exacts a huge toll on the would-be conquerors. Instead of the city being a single fortress, it becomes a dispersed network of fortresses. These are battle-proven tactics taught in military academies throughout the world. After all, that is exactly what Ukraine’s 3,000-strong units of the far-right Azov regiment did in Mariupol. It took months before the city was finally taken. For the record, Russian forces in Kherson numbered some 20,000. They could have resisted, but instead orders came to evacuate.

Amazingly, given the decidedly below-par performance of the Russian army so far, the Kherson exodus was carried out efficiently, at speed and without any noticeable losses of personnel, equipment and general supplies. The much celebrated 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk by the British Expeditionary Force left behind some 40,000 men and all its tanks. By contrast, in Kherson, the stories are of Russian soldiers looting whatever they could find: TVs, fridges, cars, furniture, laptops, etc. Remember, the bridges across the Dnieper had been put out of action and there was the real and present threat of further Ukrainian missile, drone and artillery attacks.

So either Russia’s operational commander, Sergei Surovikin, should be counted amongst the military geniuses of all time or there was a deal done. While Russia and Ukraine are not officially talking, there are back channels, not least via the US. The latter seems more likely. And, of course, the US paymaster recently told Zelensky to drop his intransigent position of no negotiations till the last Russian solider leaves the last piece of pre-2014 Ukrainian soil. Naturally Zelensky instantly did as he was told.

So the evacuation of Kherson looks like a quid pro quo. Russia would be free to consolidate strategic positions on the east bank of the Dnieper and redeploy its troops to the Donbas. Ukraine would retake Kherson without having to go through the meat-grinder of urban warfare.

Not that diplomacy is back centre-stage. Biden’s tentative offer of peace talks was bruskly rejected by Putin doing his own stonewalling. There will be no official negotiations till the US recognises the annexation of the four oblasts - bravado, surely, designed to show, crucially to a domestic audience, that he, Putin, remains Russia’s strongman.

Disaster

Then there is the north-east. To avoid encirclement, Russia abandoned Izyum and Lyman with obvious haste and shifted its army away from the Kharkiv oblast in order to defend Donbas. Given that this counteroffensive was Ukraine’s first attempt to proactively shape the war, it is right to call it phase three of the conflict: the first being the unsuccessful drive on Kyiv, and the second the failed attempt to take the whole of the Donbas and landlock Ukraine by driving all the way to Moldova.

Putin responded to Russia’s territorial losses in Ukraine by ordering the partial mobilisation of his country’s reserves - 300,000 men in all. Yet not only was the call-up shambolic, with the sick and over-age being drafted, but there was a rash of protest demonstrations and a mass exodus to remaining open borders: eg, Georgia. Some 200,000 men are “reported to have already gone into exile”.⁹ Evidence, surely, that wide swathes of the Russian population have not bought into Putin’s lies.

Like all great men down on their luck, Putin has ratcheted up the rhetoric. For instance, following the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 - presumably by US or UK navy submersibles - he bloodcurdlingly spoke about how he is prepared “to defend Russian land by all available means” and how the US had “set a precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons.¹⁰ Doubtless, Putin wants to appear just crazy enough to press the nuclear button in the attempt to frighten Kyiv into agreeing to a ceasefire and resuming negotiations on Russia’s terms.

Frankly, though, at least as we see things at this particular moment, the whole ‘special military operation’ has been a disaster for Putin. Far from the eastward march of Nato being halted, Putin - the generalissimus who oversaw the defeat of Georgia in a mere five days, who reunited Crimea with mother Russia in 2014 and who faced down the US over Syria - has seen France, Italy and Germany thoroughly subordinated to US strategic plans, Finland and Sweden apply for Nato membership and Ukraine act as a militarily successful US proxy in what is a (Nato-armed) people’s war.

No wonder all manner of splits and divisions have opened up amongst Russia’s ruling elite. And the state media, military correspondents, even members of the usually pliant duma have joined in too. Inevitably, suitable scapegoats have been found. General Aleksandr Dvornikov, commander of operations in Ukraine, has been dismissed - likewise colonel general Andrey Serdyuhov and colonel general Aleksandr Zhuravlev. But, so far, no-one at the top has made the call for Putin to go.

Now aged 70, he has taken no obvious measures to put in place a successor. Instead Putin appears intent on staying on as president for life. Constitutionally prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, former director of the tax service, is next in line, but the expectation would be that the siloviki - that is, the heads of the FSB security and spy agencies - would not want a technocrat, but one of their own, to take over when Putin dies … or is eased aside. Though a career soldier, and not a former member of the KGB, one name that has been widely mentioned is general Surovikin. Despite Kherson he is still worth watching.

Whether Ukrainian forces are really capable of driving the Russians out of Donbas and Crimea is questionable. Most military commentators still doubt it. So the US is probably not banking on an outright Ukrainian victory: rather an unwinnable war, which creates the conditions needed not only for the siloviki retiring Putin to a sanatorium, but much, much more.

The US wants to degrade the Russian Federation. That means one, two, three, many Ukraines - in other words, promoting ‘national liberation wars’ in Belarus, Moldova and Georgia and separatist movements too: in particular amongst the Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, Crimean Tatars, Yakuts and Volga Tatars - all options which are surely under active consideration.

If the US state department could get its man into the Kremlin through a ‘colour revolution’ - say, the already presidential Alexei Navalny - there could well be a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. But that would be Russia’s Versailles. The defeated country would be saddled with crippling reparations, stripped of its high-end arms industry and reduced to an oil- and gas-supplying neo-colony.

There is already excited talk of demilitarising, denuclearising and decentralising a post-Putin Russia, so as to “remove” it as a threat to world peace and make it safe for its neighbours.¹¹ Meanwhile, more sober voices are being raised, warning of a ‘Pax Sinica’: that is, a post-Putin Russia throwing itself into the arms of China and becoming its Austria-Hungary. Either way, the main US strategic target remains China itself - Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjian are already set up for such purposes.

In that context, it is worth, once again, recalling Biden’s address to the regular Business Roundtable of top American CEOs back in March 2022. He talked of instituting a “new world order” - led, of course, by god’s blessed US of A.¹² In such a new world order the US would, so he hopes, be able to “manage” the Eurasian world island - as envisaged by Zbigniew Brzezinski.¹³ The result would not, however, be a new age of democracy, peace and prosperity, as he promised: rather the imposition of breakdown, warlordism and social regression.

The declining US hegemon is the bringer, nowadays, not of new heights of (capitalist) civilisation: eg, the post-World War II social democratic settlement (in western Europe, Japan and, with a final flourish, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore). No, instead it brings barbarism (eg, the contras in Nicaragua, the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, sectarian fragmentation in Iraq, civil war in Libya). Fear of the pending US new world order, surely - at least in part - explains why a whole raft of countries - and not only the ‘usual suspects’ (eg, Belarus and North Korea), but China, Iran, India … even Saudi Arabia - have all refused to join its anti-Russia crusade.

1. Associated Press, November 10 2022.↩︎

2. Newsweek October 8 2022.↩︎

3. G Douhet The command of the air Tuscaloosa AL, p126.↩︎

4. The Sunday Telegraph December 4 2022.↩︎

5. The Guardian December 5 2022.↩︎

6. www.politico.eu/article/russia-ukraine-war-energy-army-can-no-longer-rely-on-general-winter.↩︎

7. See www.rferl.org/a/satellite-images-russia-buildup-belarus/32121143.html.↩︎

8. Daily Express December 5 2022.↩︎

9. Financial Times October 6 2022.↩︎

10. tass.com/politics/1516155.↩︎

11. neweasterneurope.eu/2022/03/17/the-7d-plan-for-a-post-putin-russia-to-ensure-global-security.↩︎

12. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/21/remarks-by-president-biden-before-business-roundtables-ceo-quarterly-meeting.↩︎

13. Z Brzezinski The grand chessboard New York 1997, p30.↩︎