With almost 6 months of this war approaching, I think it’s time to kinda recap, reevaluate and redicuss this war. Curious what yous think about the state of the armies, the strategies of either side, what are your predictions, what do you think the goals are and who’s closer to achieving them?
I’ll go first and mostly talk about the Russian side to keep it shorter and because it’s the active party mostly.
Strategy
Honestly even after 6 months I find this incredibly hard to pin down. What are their plans with this war geopolitically and on the ground? Yes, we’ve heard “demilitarization” and “denazification” when things first started, talk about creating a multipolar world has since started too. But let’s be real, that’s all incredibly vague and the Russians really aren’t communicating anything more specific at all. The liberation of Donbass is the one concrete goal I can make out.
Do they want a landlocked Ukraine, destroy it completely, demilitarize and destabilize the entire West, just liberate Donbass? I don’t know and to me it feels like they didn’t start this war with a clear, concrete goal. Maybe they had one but didn’t anticipate the dimensions this would take, maybe it’s all going according to plan - I’m just unable to tell and to me it feels like nobody on either side is able to tell either.
What’s the strategy on the ground? Again, Russia is obv tight lipped about this, but I still can’t tell this one either. What feels somewhat certain is the following
- The pace is absurdly slow
- This whole thing has mostly become a positional artillery war of attrition
- Russia is unwilling or incapable of sacrificing large amounts of men, civilians and equipment in big armored assaults
- Size of the invasion force has been constant despite Russia being outnumbered
So where does that leave us? My most generous interpretation is that Russia is content with shelling the Ukrainians to hell, while fixing its own economy, doing its best to erode US and EU positions around the world and deepening their internal crises. That they’re unimpressed with the fallout of sanctions, they don’t care about completing things fast at all and really the kinetic war has been relegated to second priority, behind the larger economic and geopolitical calculations. That it’s useful, because the West needs to dig itself deeper into the mess the longer this goes on and because it allows Russia to demilitarize NATO at a comfy pace without engaging it directly.
The least favourable interpretation is that Russia is not capable of going any faster than it is currently, either because it isn’t viable politically (eg declaration of war, higher casualties) or it militarily just can’t. That they didn’t have a clear plan going into this, got caught off-guard by the Wests rabid response and now don’t have the means or the plans to end both the kinetic war and the fires it started.
No idea which is closer to the truth and I’m not going to be a smartass and just say it’s something in the middle. It doesn’t feel super well thought out and planned, it doesn’t feel like a panicked, incompetent adventure at all either and it also doesn’t feel like some mix of the two.
Predictions
Always hard to make in war and politics, but especially so in this war. Just a couple I feel somewhat confident in
- This war isn’t ending this year
- Ukraine doesn’t have and won’t have any offensive potential
- Russian offensives on Kharkiv, Odessa, Nikolaev, etc are hopium. They won’t assault them, they won’t encircle them and they won’t besiege them this year. If they could or wanted to they would’ve done so early in the war
- Bakhmut-Siversk line will take at least another month to take/break
- Unless UAF collapses somehow, Slavyansk & Kramatorsk won’t fall this year
Fall and winter are approaching and I’d imagine that’ll slow the absurdly slow pace even further at some point. But I reckon winter will decide this war anyway with the economic and social crisis really kicking the EU in the gut by then. They won’t be able to support Ukraine past a point and Ukraine is simply not capable of surviving without foreign help anymore.
Other than that I only see a few options how this whole thing could change its dynamic. A declaration of war and mobilization, a collapse of the West, a collapse of the UAF or deployment of Russian reserves in Ukraine after the referendums to free up more regulars for combat. Last one seems most likely, but no idea if that’ll really change things that much.
Bottom line
Rereading this feels like a whole lot of “idk”, but honestly, despite heavily engaging with this conflict almost everyday for the past 6 months, that’s still pretty much where I’m at. It’s uniquely strange to me and just very hard to really make sense of - propaganda and fog of war certainly aren’t helping.
Keen on reading your opinions and whether you guys have been able to make more sense of it than my dumbass.
Cheers
How would you suggest it get resolved faster? Ukraine had eight years to shore up defences and drum up the ideological zealotry. Not to mention the training, weapons and materiel provided by NATO. It’s kinda hard to go quickly when the enemy is consciously placing artillery smack dab in the middle of residential areas. Faster would mean a Shock and Awe type, with UA cities turned to cinder.
NATO not pouring piles of weapons, materials, and training into Ukraine would be the top of the list.
Well NATO doesn’t seem keen to stop. So that is off the table.
They very much do seem keen to stop. The amounts of military aid have been getting steadily more slim. NATO knows the game is up, and they’re quietly weaning themselves off Ukraine.
Scholz had just signed another batch of weapons, as did Slovakia. It’s not a lot, compared to the absolute sale that was the original USian package, but it’s there. And thirty T-72s is still thirty tanks too many.
Additionally it opens the door for more drastic and desperate actions - such as the current shitshow around Zaporozhye, or the talks about chemical weapons being used against Russian soldiers.
Ukraine still needs tank crews to actually operate these tanks. When Ukraine loses tanks then they also lose their trained tank crews along with them. The west is desperately trying to prolong this as much as possible, but it’s pretty clear that this can’t go on much longer.
There will likely be ever more desperate actions taken going forward, but that was always going to be the case.
Fair enough
Like I said I doubt Russians goals with this haven’t been met so literally it can end faster by Russia discontinuing the campaign. Another comment suggested NATO stop funneling weapons and military aid in and also very much that Zelensky could and should surrender. So many ways that it could end tomorrow and every day of this war is as irresponsible as the previous day. War isn’t good and so many people are dying. Nobody is talking about leveling kyiv or kharkiv whatever but what point is the illegitimate Zelensky government going to say alright its done, never because they’re living a fantasy where Ukraine is gonna March on Moscow somehow