War Commentary

The Russian Offensive

59 Comments

A campaign assessment.

If we can keep pouring in weaponry, at some point Ukraine will start more counteroffensives. As the assessment notes, the Russians are already taking up defensive positions. Eventually, I’m sure that the Ukrainians would want to not just break the siege at Mariupol, but cut the Russian lines in half and encircle them to the west, to provide a buffer for Odessa.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, looky here:

How did Ukraine manage to attack a key port and sink a ship well behind Russian lines? No one’s quite sure yet, the Wall Street Journal reports, but the apparent success may create even more problems for Russia’s attempts to seize Mariupol. Berdyansk had been a key supply point, and seemingly out of range of Ukraine until this morning.

Expect to see them take more initiatives like this.

[Afternoon update]

An interesting Twitter thread.

[Friday-afternoon update]

The Russians have already lost.

[Bumped]

59 thoughts on “The Russian Offensive”

  1. What remains to be determined are how many conventional Ukrainian victories remain below the threshold of what Putin would consider an “existential threat” to Russia. Otherwise, in the ultimate irony, tactical nuclear devices that once resided in Ukraine under Ukraine military control as part of the defunct Warsaw Pact, would be used against Ukraine on Ukrainian soil. The best case scenario is a fight to a stalemate and then a negotiated settlement to give Putin an exit ramp. That probably means permanent loss of the Donbas and Crimea. Until a century or more so in the future when territorial disputes can actually be settled peacefully with the inhabitants wishes involved, largely because what happens on Earth in a space faring civilization is no longer a strategic existential problem but rather a provincial one. Zelenskyy has already indicated a willingness for such, as well as a pledge not to join NATO, I suspect he’ll have to forgo EU membership as well. At least until Putin is gone. At this point, I suspect Putin will not leave office as long as he is alive. Thanks in part to the Russian casualties he has caused, I put the odds of a natural cause of death right now at about 51/49 yes/no.

    1. The status-quo will not work in this situation, lest Russia starve.
      There will have to be a settlement. Food may not be a good weapon, but it sure as hell is a good motivator.

      1. “…I suspect he’ll have to forgo EU membership as well.”

        Now there’s a sacrifice!

    2. “The best case scenario is a fight to a stalemate and then a negotiated settlement to give Putin an exit ramp. That probably means permanent loss of the Donbas and Crimea. ”

      I think that’s all they really counted on getting but hope(d) to get the Eastern half of the country if they got lucky.

        1. We’ll see, won’t we? My biggest fear is, Xi is directing this, and when NATO is engaged, China will invade Taiwan and Russia will make Mark Felton’s proposed conventional cruise missile attack on the UK (Felton proposed a mix of air and subarine launched missiles from the Norwegian and North Seas). My second biggest fear is, the Neocons will fall for it. And what *does* happen if tactical nukes are used?

          1. And what *does* happen if tactical nukes are used?
            Depends upon where. Regardless, a bad idea. Even if confined to Ukraine, ground burst fallout could poison their farm ground for years. THAT would starve Russians too.

      2. More and more I am convinced that this invasion was a rope-a-dope to break the dollar as reserve currency. If so the sanctions, especially on their forex reserves, was a historical own-goal. If there is suddenly a cease-fire after Russia manages to sign a majority of its production away on contracts in some combo of non-dollar currencies, gold, and bitcoin then it should be pretty clear what went down.

        Then again, maybe it was a double-rope-a-dope. Let’s get either China or Russia tied down in a drawn-out invasion of some suddenly very well-armed not-quite-ally so we have political cover to cancel their forex reserves and finally get our manufacturing onshored. Either way, I’m pretty sure Ukraine is a pawn in a much larger game.

        1. Never attribute to calculation that which is adequately explained by stupidity and desperation.

          The invasion of Ukraine was stupid. It has resulted in sanctions that mean Russia now has few places to sell its oil and gas or in which it can spend any of the dollars it would otherwise have gotten for same.

          Russia entertaining the notion of selling oil to China for yuan is not some master plan to take down the dollar as the currency of petro-transactions but an attempt to get something for the oil it cannot otherwise sell. Yuan are spendable mainly in the PRC, but there are certainly things Russia would like to buy there – hell, Russian soldiers in Ukraine are carrying Chinese-made radios. This potential oil-for-yuan deal would enable more of that sort of thing.

          This is not Putin singing Everybody Wants to Rule the World. It’s Putin singing Help Me Make it Through the Night.

          1. “Never attribute to calculation that which is adequately explained by stupidity and desperation.”
            I recommend keeping this in mind when both watching the invasion and listening to Joe Biden talk about it.

        2. More and more I am convinced that this invasion was a rope-a-dope to break the dollar as reserve currency. If so the sanctions, especially on their forex reserves, was a historical own-goal.

          Not seeing it over here. Russia isn’t that big a trading partner to cause that kind of impact.

          If there is suddenly a cease-fire after Russia manages to sign a majority of its production away on contracts in some combo of non-dollar currencies, gold, and bitcoin then it should be pretty clear what went down.

          Which incidentally would be a pretty big loss for Russia, ignoring the years of economic turmoil they’re likely to receive anyway. China might like this, but I have this feeling that Russia didn’t go through this exercise for China’s benefit.

          My take is that this doesn’t threaten the US dollar. The loony economic shenanigans that have been going on since G. W. Bush (they were around longer than that, but it’s gotten really bad since 9/11) are what’s going to take the dollar down.

    2. The Orsk is a Project 1171 landing ship tank (LST) of which there are two assigned to the Black Sea Fleet. It was used to ferry vehicles so… if it sinks it partially blocks the port and significantly screws with Russian logistics…if. Could be quite an inconvenience, much more than if a corvette was sunk.

      1. I was reacting to an MSM headline that called it a troop, and didn’t look further due to busyness and lazyness. That said, it’s a stretch to call 1171s an LST, since they are sometimes used a troop ships. 1171s are small (3400 tons displacement) and old (1960s). And today I read it wasn’t the Orsk, but the slightly older, otherwise identical Saratov. MSM said “destroyed,” but pther sources say merely “on fire.” I also read another 1171 is on its way. No idea what’s true.

    3. The late Orsk was an LST. Maybe as long as a corvette, but at least twice as wide. Bigger target.

    4. “Wouldn’t take much to sink a docked corvette with a small missile.”

      Probably even less than it would take to sink a double-parked Mustang GT.

  3. I wouldn’t get all excited about the attack on Russian supply lines or assume this fight is over. There are startling similarities to the Russian 1939-1940 invasion of Finland:

    Russian lack of progress

    Russian digging in in defensive positions

    Attacks on Russian supply lines

    Initial Finnish success in generating lots of Russian casualties (the offense almost always takes more casualties as compared to the defense).

    Poor training of Russian conscripts.

    But then Russia regrouped, got better leaders and troops, used the defensive positions as launching points for an offensive and within a couple of months forced Finland to sue for terms.

    In the end, Russia got more Finnish territory than they tried to get through negotiation prior to the war.

    Not saying that the situation in Ukraine is identical to the Russo-Finnish war. Just saying that this isn’t over yet – not by a long shot. And I wouldn’t count Russia as defeated at this point.

    1. The current population of Russia is less than the 1939 population of the Soviet Union (approx 145 million vs. 168 million), whereas the pre-invasion population of Ukraine was 44 million vs. 3.7 million for Finland in 1939. So currently Russia is 3.3 times more populous than Ukraine, versus a 45 fold population advantage when the USSR attacked Finland.

      Last night I showed a map I made of rough lines of control, and compared it to WW-II invasion ratios (population vs. invading troops) and some post WW-II ratios. Generally a ratio of more than soldier per 25 inhabitants was the norm for successful invasions, whereas ratios as low as 1 to 40 produced failure. In Russia was trying to take all of Ukraine, their ratio going in was around 1 to 240, a huge outlier even for modern times. What I also found interesting was that by my estimates, their invasion stalled out when the ratio for the territory they control reached about 1 to 22, which I’d take as the norm for what’s reasonably achievable with pretty evenly matched equipment. I think that’s about where both sides have a rough numerical parity in fit, armed, fighting-age males.

      Anyway, I’m working on other theories to explain the Russian dispositions, but Google maps isn’t helping much when I try to get it to show the density of Ukrainian beer and liquor stores.

  4. Interested non-Neocons are wondering why the Russians are playing fuckwad with this, using a minimal force structure (only Neocons believe this is all they have) and least trained troups. My Ralph Nader based theory (get the cameras off Hunter Biden’s laptop) is funny, but I really couldn’t say. Other theories I’ve seen say Putin and Xi are waiting for NATO to fully engage, after which the Taiwan shoe will drop. The historian Mark Felton published an article outlining a conventional attack on UK infrastructure once NATO does engage. Again, interesting, but I have no idea what’s true.

    1. ” Only Neocons believe this is all they have.” Really. You have to be a Neocon to think that possibly a dictator of a notoriously corrupt country might have overstated the strength and readiness of his military substantially? Or the military overstated its strength to the dictator because they don’t want look bad.

      1. That;s pretty much the size of it. And if you believe what’s in the MSM and are *not* a neocon, then that’s prima facie evidence you’re a boob. Go to the Wikipedia article on the Russian Military Forces and start looking up the hundreds of references there. Look up and read Mark Felton’s articles. Until then you’re just another Internet goof with a phony-looking handle. Bombloader, indeed.

        Many people post here under their real names, so their expertise can be validated. My name hooks to my website, from which you can validate that I am indeed a fucked-up, has-been SF writer of some distinction. Mark R. Kelly comes across as a blowhard, but you can look him up and be suitably impressed. Etc. The people with “handles,” not so much. Anonymity is almost all of what’s wrong with the Internet.

        PS: I do share Elon Musk’s opinion of Wikipedia: “It’s 90% accurate. It’s just not clear which 90%.” But that’s what the references are for.

        1. Ok. So most people link to sources that show their point, instead you insult. Let’s just say just while the fog of war is real, Russia is sucking badly compared to what many thought. I suppose it’s possible there’s some plan Putin has up his sleeve that he’s waiting to deploy, but it also seems likely he either can’t deploy more forces because they’re either less ready than we’ve been led to believe, logistical issues getting them to the front and supplying them, or he’s paranoid and keeping them back because he’s afraid he’ll need them in case there’s a rebellion. (Or he thinks NATO will attack from another direction.) Occam’s Razor makes me lean toward one or more of the 2nd options. As far as the China connection, I’d say it’s plausible that Xi would like to get attention off of him so he can invade Taiwan, but if it’s true that it was actually coordinated, Putin’s doing poorly at his part. He’d be better off taking the country fast enough to force NATO to either jump in quickly or have to mount a Desert Storm style attack to get it back. As it is, NATO is less inclined to get involved IMHO. As to handles, I care less about whether someone uses a real name or handle than whether he makes good arguments and predictions that come true. (FYI, mine is related to my previous specialty in the Air Force, before I started doing cybersecurity in the reserves. ) I prefer handles for myself because in today’s world, you never know what a**hole will come after you for trangressing against the latest in “correct ” thought.

    2. The Russian force in Ukraine isn’t all Russia has, but it’s apparently more than half of what Russia had readily to hand.

      Before even kicking off the Ukraine invasion, the Russian army had committed significant strength to putting down a populist uprising in Kazakhstan at the behest of its octagenarian shadow ruler and Soviet-era satrap Nursultan Nazarbayev. That’s still going on so far as I know.

      And Russia is just a very large place with a lot of border mileage. What mainly distinguishes the Russian border from our southern border is that almost nobody wants to sneak into Russia these days. But still, appearances must be at least minimally kept up.

      If the Russians could whistle up entire field armies at will as the USSR repeatedly did during WW2, Ukraine would have no chance and would, in fact, be Russian territory again by now. But the Russians are bringing in Chchens and recruiting in Syria. Those are not the actions of a nation with a deep bench, militarily speaking.

      1. What’s in Ukraine is 1/3 of the Russian infantry force, apparently the conscripts. I know there’s a problem that about a quarter of the contract infantry is misappropriated conscripts. I need to look up the Kazakhstan “peacekeeper” force as I forgot about it. None of this counts the ca. 40,000 air mobile infantry. The Russian reserve force is released conscripts for the most part, and I don’t know if they show up if called. Most nations have that problem. Can you image the Germans fighting the Russian Army? Me neither.

    3. I think it’s the Vietnam syndrome. They didn’t want to risk more than they had to. So minimal force. It’s interesting for example, that the T-90 tank apparently is not involved at all in this fight – that’s their current most advanced tank in operation (with T-12s going into production shortly). If I read Wikipedia right, Wikipedia presently claims there’s 350 (with 200 in storage) or so of them, out of a main battle line tank force of 3000 (plus roughly 10,000 in storage).

      So they seem to be in the fight presently with less experienced troops, the less advanced equipment, and remarkably poor air support. It’ll be interesting to see what they were thinking going into this. But my bet is that the politicians were worried that committing too much would look bad with the public. And maybe way too threatening to the other countries neighboring Ukraine.

      1. They have been using a lot of prototype weapons, including tanks, so strange to see them hold back.

        1. I wonder if they were afraid of having them lost or captured by the enemy and didn’t think they’d be necessary for an “easy” campaign (IIRC the US didn’t deploy thereason in WWI for this reason. ) Another possibility is that the T-90 has serious shortcomings that we aren’t aware of so isn’t readily deployable.

  5. There is a lot of BS out there and our media spreads some of the worst. Not saying this report is but it is it is pretty slanted.

    “Russian forces continued to settle in for a protracted and stalemated conflict over the last 24 hours, with more reports emerging of Russian troops digging in and laying mines—indications that they have gone over to the defensive.”

    Creating defensive positions is pretty normal. The report frames everything through a lens of Russian failure but the things they cite as evidence for that are ambiguous. Is using combined arms doctrine really a sign of failure? I don’t know how the Russians are doing but portraying it as a negative that they are using bombs and missiles is a little off base.

    Americans use bombs and missiles all the time.

  6. William Barton, cute kitty on your Amazon authors page.
    I’ll probably buy “Age of Aquarius” shortly after I get through reading a bunch of old out of print Poul Anderson stories.

    1. I had a large surgical scar I decided to hide with a kitten (named Lurchie). The scar’s white now instead of red, and the front tooth lined up with it is still gone. I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror.

      “Age of Aquarius” is as accurate as I could make it with the material available to me in 1993, but it’s mainly about my boyhood feelings of the time. It was one of those stories I always meant to write, and finally did.

  7. Russia’s nuclear threat is based on the premise that they took better care of them than the conventional weapon and truck hulks littering Ukraine. A supposition not so far supported by evidence. If it was easy to steal from the army, how much easier is it to steal from supporting weapons that no one expected to use and which really can’t be tested for real because of treaties?

    1. When Mathias Rust landed his Cessna in Red Square, Emmett Tyrrell of The American Spectator joked that in response, the Soviet leader had pressed the Big Red Button launching an all-out nuclear strike against the US, but the missile launches were all fizzles or duds and nothing happened.

      At the time, and owing to the seriousness of the Cold War standoff, I thought this was a sick joke. Now, I wonder if there was any underlying truth to Mr. Tyrrell’s speculation.

      Soviet weapon systems were said to be crude, yes, but robust and Soviet-era-conscript-soldier proof. They had large quantities of them, and you know the saying that quantity has a quality all its own.

      The Russians have really had carnal relations with man’s best friend on this one in showing the hollowness of their military capability.

      Instead of reacting to Russian threats with counter-threats, could we try “trolling” them instead? “Vladichka, babe, so sorry to see your tanks, APCs and supply vehicles running into so much trouble, not only against a determined opposition with modern infantry weapons. Who would have thought that drones from Turkey, of all places, would be that capable? How about we work out some kind of arrangement to just unroll recent events and put things back to where they were, a comfortable and profitable business-as-usual?”

      1. The reliability of USSR, and now Russian, ICBMs has always been a question mark.

        After the collapse of the USSR, Russia pulled some of their hypergolic ICBMs out of their silos and repurposed them as satellite launchers. The SS-18 heavy ICBM became the Dnepr satellite launcher. The SS-19 became the Rokot. 22 Dneprs were launched – 1 failed. 34 Rokots were launched – 3 failed. That’s a combined failure rate of about 7%.

        What that means for the reliability of currently deployed Russian ICBMs – a fair number of both SS-18s and SS-19s are still in service as ICBMs – depends on whether one assumes the Russians picked the ICBMs in best shape for conversion to satellite launchers or did the opposite or just chose at random. Then one needs to factor in an additional two or three decades of aging on both the missiles and their associated launch infrastructures.

        Against that, one must note that more than half of Russia’s current strategic missile inventory is now solid-fueled, though some of these are getting pretty long in the tooth too. Also, the SS-19s still in service are being fitted with a new hypersonic glide warhead so one presumes the carrier missiles have been freshened up too.

        1. Interestingly, a 7% failure rate agrees with the general failure rate for all orbital launchers in the 21st century, which is in the range of 5-8% per Ed Kyle of soon to be extinct Space Launch Report. Remember the US stood down Titan II because one exploded in its silo, launching its warhead across the prairie? It’d be interesting to review test stats for all deployed ICBMs, along with test item ages.

          1. I don’t think it just exploded. I hear there was an accident regarding a worker dropping a wrench.

            Yes, that a dent from a wrench could start leaking the hypergolic propellants, but still, I don’t think it just blew up for an unknown cause.

            The other thing is that if you get 93% of your ballistic missiles to leave their silos when calling for a military strike, that seems pretty good. The thing is, wouldn’t a satellite launch involve more thorough preparation and checkout? Would pressing the Big Red Button involve that degree of preparation?

        2. Like you said most of the Russian strategic forces now use solid rockets. And the Russians regularly test their missiles at least once a year. The liquid fueled rockets were modernized recently. And they have put a new large liquid rocket to replace the SS-18, the Sarmat, in production last year.

          While I would question the reliability of their rockets they have more than enough of them in service and they are modern enough to be quite credible as a deterrent.

  8. Quote William Barton “but I have no idea what’s true.”
    That is the only true statement on this entire thread, and perhaps of all the “reporting” of this war.

    1. I would say that’s my bottom line on all this. Progressive lies, Neocon lies, Russian and Ukranian propaganda, and no facts. I’m disappointed that the people who were so skeptical about covid are so gullible about this. I live 50 miles from the nearest plausible target, but the Russians appear so incompetent, they could accidentally nuke my garden…

  9. Take a look at the size of Ukraine on Google Earth. It is about 1200 km by 600km.
    Then re-calibrate Russian advances.
    If I was Putin and I wanted to convince the west of my nuclear bona fides without having to nuke anyone and triggering WW3 I’d do an underground test. Been a while since any western nukes were tested too and it is my understanding that they are a perishable commodity.
    Could be embarrassing.

    1. That’s like saying, take a look a Putin running around with his shirt off. Does he shave his chest? Is he a homo? Could be embarrassing.

      The bottom line is, you don’t *know* anything, nor do I, nor do any of the people claiming to know anything. Worst of all, the people running USG appear to know nothing, and are basing their decisions on a belief in unicorn farts.

  10. What would I call myself if I wanted to hide behind a handle? Has-been SF writer only describes a hobby. In real life I was a high end mechanic, and, among other things, worked on nuclear submarines. But eveyrthing was classified, and there’s hardly a trace (and not suprising after 40 years!). I became a software architect and worked for the next 30 years on high end projects that were either classified, or involved trade secrets. So also hardly a trace (I think I wrote a couple of magazine articles about some clever crap I figured out). Would anyone care that I wrote a hundred user’s manuals, or that I worked on medical expert systems to the point where I became an inadvertently trained diagnostician (and besides, I’m almost as much of an asshole as Gregory House)? So when the Internet came about, I decided I might as well hide behind my own name. It didn’t occur to me to be afraid.

    1. FWIW I am right there with you, mostly. My career spans more years that I want to admit to publicly. At one point though, I thought that I would be the proud inheritor of working decades in high tech wearing various hats with NO TANGIBLE evidence of ever having done anything upon retirement. Thus I could proudly proclaim having been compensated well into many digits gross pay, across my entire professional career, for absolutely nothing! Alas. Not so. Along comes the Internet and now, preserved forever, one of my career contributions, the twin 50-pin connectors in the lower right hand photo of the VAX-11/750 floating-point accelerator. Put there on my insistence for manufacturing test purposes, my 2nd year out of college! Oh well.

      https://i.imgur.com/S6YApbM.png

      1. As an undergrad, I hedged my legacy against this whole engineering thing not working out after observing that a number of engineers had immortal names, such as Reynolds, Prandlt, Nusselt, Froude, Biot, Knudsen, etc, said immortality conferred by attachment to a dimensionless number. Since I had my own successful dimensionless number, I christened it “The Kelly Number”. Ideally, its value is “1”, though it can take on any real, complex, or even alphabetic value depending on the problem at hand. It is defined as: the right answer divided by the answer I got (dimensions of “answer” cancelling), and I used it to multiply every answer I came up with to homework and test questions.

        Hey, it got me through grad school…

          1. Did you know that 1^pi, a real number to a real power, has the obvious value of 1…but also an infinite number of complex values as well?

            Makes Euler’s identity look pretty pedestrian.

  11. One astonishing aspect is the alleged high casualty rate. According to that NATO source, Russia may have experienced 20% casualties since the start of the invasion and elsewhere there are tenuous claims that Russian casualties are higher than Ukrainian to this point.

    Needless to say, that’s not sustainable for Russia even if they keep putting new troops in. Sounds like their goals will be building solid supply lines, secure C&C, and establishing air superiority. Ukraine’s goals will probably be mostly to deny them that – probably with considerable success. As I wrote earlier, “If the Ukraine is still in action two weeks from now, I’d say they’re greatly exceeding my expectations.” Well, they’re greatly exceeding my expectations.

    Another factor that needs to be considered here is that continued weakness on the part of Russia will be tempting to neighboring countries. We might see direct military support rather than just supplies of military weapons at some point. Russia doesn’t have similar avenues to tap.

    1. Almost certainly Ukraine / NATO propaganda. No way the Russians are that bad. Everything we hear and a lot of what we have seen in this war is disinformation.

    1. ‘Let’s just not do this research because it’s too dangerous,’ to me, that makes no sense at all,” he added.

      Well I’ve been advocating for years now that we need to modify the LHC to allow for fast matter toss in to cool the highly energetic collisions that create graviton intensive loops during heavy particle collision experiments. Those that oppose this research as just too dangerous have their heads stuck in a dark hole if you ask me.

      1. “Well I’ve been advocating for years now that we need to modify the LHC to allow for fast matter toss in to cool the highly energetic collisions that create graviton intensive loops during heavy particle collision experiments.”

        I agree…with whatever it was he said.

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