Today the New York Times published a grim description of Ukraine’s prospects on the Donbass front. It is worth reading in full. My biggest takeaway from this is how bluntly the NYT says things that just two years ago were loudly and universally dismissed as “Russian disinformation.”
The opening paragraph sums things up pretty well:
For much of the past year, Russian troops launched bloody assaults on Ukrainian positions that often yielded only limited gains. But the relentless attacks are now starting to pay off: In October, Russia made its largest territorial gains since the summer of 2022, as Ukrainian lines buckled under sustained pressure.
Not rocket science. Territory can be regained, lives cannot. The goal of war, after all, is to destroy the enemy’s means to resist. This war is odd and in many ways resembles the American invasions of Korea and Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Ukraine’s military supplies are mostly from abroad in countries that cannot be hit (much like how China and the Soviet Union couldn’t be hit in the Vietnam War, as much as the USA might have liked to hit them). Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian military and energy infrastructure isn’t zero, but it’s low enough to probably not be a factor in the outcome of the war.
But perhaps the strangest aspect of this war is that it is not a war at all. Nobody has declared war, or really even acts like they are at war. Ukraine dutifully continues shipping Russian gas to Europe, which in turn powers some of the very factories sending munitions to Ukraine. It’s a bit absurd when you think about it, but doesn’t elicit much commentary either, because that ruins the “good versus evil” narrative.
Anyway, back to the NYT:
Russia’s rapid advance is a striking change from the situation last year, when the front lines remained mostly static, with both sides launching ambitious offensives that largely failed.
But the stalemate that defined 2023 laid the groundwork for Russia’s recent progress. However marginal the gains, Russia’s attacks gradually weakened the Ukrainian army to the point where its troops are so stretched that they can no longer hold some of their positions, Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts say.
Half of Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine so far this year were made in the past three months alone, according to Pasi Paroinen, a military expert with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. “The situation in southeastern Donbas rapidly deteriorates,” he said…
Mr. Paroinen likened the relentless assaults Ukrainian forces must try to fend off to “a constant game of whack-a-mole, with new crisis points emerging faster than they can be dealt with.” That allows Russia to quickly advance whenever it finds a weak spot.
I’ve said this repeatedly. When facing a numerical disadvantage, it makes sense to shrink the front to a more manageable size. When given a numerical advantage, it makes sense to expand the front. This puts the enemy in a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Attacks from a new direction can’t be ignored otherwise they’ll overrun crucial high value assets, like Kharkov for example. But he who defends everything defends nothing. By continually refusing to give up territory under any circumstances, Ukraine loses on all fronts.
In other places, the Russian army has used a tactic of threatening encirclement to force Ukrainian forces to withdraw, such as in Selydove. Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of Ukraine’s Security and Cooperation Center, a nongovernmental research group, said Selydove protected Pokrovsk’s southern flank and that its capture would help Russia position artillery and secure supply routes there.
The semi-circles formed around towns by Russia’s encirclement tactics have given the frontline in the Donbas a jagged appearance.
Well, I noticed this too and think there’s more of an explanation than Ukraine simply being low on infantry. Russian attacks in the past, like the bloody affair in Artemovsk, were so difficult largely for the reason that they were not properly encircled. Fighting house-to-house from one end of town to the other is, for obvious reasons, not cost-effective in terms of lives and time. I think the most likely explanation for why the creation of three-sided cauldrons became so much easier is because the fire power gap between Ukraine and Russia turned into a casm. Yes, there is the increased use of Russian FABs cited by the NYT article and increased production of shells, but judging from news reports, I think it is fair to say Russian fire support’s effectiveness has increased while Ukraine’s decreased.
NATO’s GPS-assisted munitions like HIMARS and Excalibur rounds are now consistently jammed. I’m not saying they’re useless, but without terminal guidance, there’s a severe loss of accuracy. Having terminal guidance can be the difference between landing within one meter and 100 meters of the intended target. Without this, HIMARS just becomes a very expensive MLRS system, nothing special about it except an extremely bottlenecked ammunition supply.
The NYT article also questions Zelensky’s baffling decision to do a months-long photo op in the Kursk region while his troops in Donbass are getting turned to paste. While I did say it makes sense to give up territory to avoid casualties, Zelensky is somehow accomplishing the worst of both options. I don’t see the benefit of running around in the woods trading punches with the Russians while crucial fortifications in Donbass are falling almost without a fight. Last year, it would take months to capture a single town. Now those towns are falling within a few days or even hours. I cannot even begin to understand how anyone in Kiev or the frontlines thinks this is a good trade.
One element the article does not mention, but should, is the question of desertions. In Patton’s autobiography War As I Knew It he states that enemy prisoners are a much better indicator of success than casualties. If large numbers of enemy soldiers are being killed that means morale is high and they’re willing to fight. But if large numbers are surrendering, that means morale is low and they’re declining to fight. But in this conflict, Ukrainian surrenders have been low. Maybe we can say this is simply because Russians do not surrender, but more likely it is because defending soldiers in Donbass do not need to surrender. They can just run away. There are cases on both sides of small units being cut off and forced to surrender, but for the most part if someone decides the situation is hopeless he can just leave. The massive pincer movements of previous conventional wars just aren’t happening now.
So instead of looking at Ukrainian surrenders as a barometer of morale, we need to look at desertions. In 2022 the AFU opened 9,000 criminal cases for desertion. In 2023, that number exploded to 24,000. In 2024 so far, 51,000. Though the actual number of desertions may be much higher. If the Ukrainian desertion rate doubles or triples again, they simply won’t have an army.
But it is important to consider some circumstances influencing the increase in the desertion rate. For one, the AFU was simply much bigger in 2023 and engaged in a much higher operational tempo than in 2022. So a jump from 9,000 to 24,000 desertion cases wasn’t necessarily alarming. The jump from 24,000 to 51,000 is much more serious, but I have a logical explanation for that too. The previously mentioned push into Kursk means much of the Donbass front was transferred from well-trained professional units to territorial defense. So this does not necessarily mean the AFU is disintegrating, but it does mean Zelensky is using up a not-infinite supply of manpower in a not-sensible way.
In conclusion, I think my often-repeated timeline of this mess ending some time in Summer 2025 is likely to be accurate.
Ian Kummer
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Well, I hope u are right.