The Fourth Phase of Russia’s Special Military Operation Has Begun

Western media outlets claimed that the third phase of the war began with the Ukrainian offensives in the first half of September. I strongly disagree. Rather, these offensives marked the end of the third phase, and they failed to achieve their intended goals. The upcoming referendum in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions to join the Russian Federation, this is the beginning of the fourth phase. It also appears that back in August I correctly predicted the objectives of Ukraine’s offensives, and it seems they utterly failed.

Before I go any further, let’s first understand, with 20/20 hindsight, the first two phases of the special military operation:

In my 30 March article Winning the Information War in Ukraine, I described how American military doctrine defines the phases in a military operation.

Phase 0 Shape

Phase I Deter

Phase II Seize Initiative

Phase III Dominate

Phase IV Stabilize

Phase V Enable Civil Authority

Phase 0 Shape

An ongoing military operation is cyclical, with these phases being executed one after the other and then starting over. Each echelon of a military operation has its phases, with each phase having its own sub-phases. Russia has a national grand strategy which presumably has its own 5 year plan. Their operation in Ukraine fits into a phase in this roadmap, but also has its own phases. Each front in the operation has its own phases. Each corps and division has its own phases in their operation orders, as do brigades and battalions.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Russia’s special military operation can be broken down into three distinct phases so far, and each phase had it’s own sub-phases 0-V. 22 The first phase began February 22: Russia officially recognized the independence of the LDPR, Russian soldiers directly enter the conflict. This was Phase 0, the act of recognizing the breakaway republics’ independence simultaneously shaped the battlefield and attempted to deter Ukraine/NATO from continuing to escalate the conflict. Two days later, Russian armed forces swept into Ukraine from three sides, seizing the initiative and dominating.

This first phase concluded with negotiations in Istanbul and the Russians withdrawing from the Kiev region by 4 April. Once again, Russia left the Zelensky regime in Kiev with the perfect roadmap to peace. After all, voluntarily surrendering territory is the ultimate act of deescalation. Not only could Zelensky stay in power, he could save face. Ukrainians could say they went toe-to-toe against Russia in a “David vs. Goliath” situation and gave the Ruskis a bloody nose. Yes, they lost Donbass, but saved their sovereignty as an independent nation state and retained most of their territory. As generous as this offer was, it wasn’t enough. Whatever Zelensky was thinking, NATO leaders, particularly Boris Johnson, insisted the war continue. And so it did. Looking back, I would characterize this first phase as “seize the initiative” and bleeding into “dominate.”

Consequentially, the second phase started with Russia shifting her weight in troops, equipment, and fires into Eastern and Southern Ukraine. This was, in every sense of the word, a “dominate” phase (see my post The Blood Pump of Donbass). The Russians completely dominated the battlefield with vastly superior firepower and even western journalists had to admit this. Things started getting a little murky here, but I argue that the second phase ended with the 20 May liberation of Mariupol from the neo-nazi Azov battalion and their allies in the Ukrainian armed forces. Zelensky’s best, most famous nazi forces were completely crushed, and the rest of Ukraine’s forces were so pinned down they couldn’t do anything about it. As important as the battle for Mariupol was, the Russians must have known that steamrolling the entire Ukraine street by street, room by room, like in WWII, wasn’t an ideal solution to repeat if it could be avoided. So there were no more massive sieges like that, which gives us observers a clear end point for “Phase 2” of the special military operation.

In hindsight, it should now be clear why Russian forces made no aggressive attempts to swiftly capture more territory and population centers. They spent the next several months consolidating their gains so far and grinding down encroaching Ukrainian forces. The third phase consisted of stabilizing the situation in liberated territories, enabling civil authorities (assisting local governments, recruiting and mobilizing police and fire departments, etc), and shaping the battlefield for the next phase.

But what was that next phase going to be? Well, consider the situation. Russia has spent the last 8+ years making failed attempts at a “one state solution” in Ukraine. In short, Russia tried to twist the arms of Ukrainians and Russian separatists to get along in a unified state, as described in the Minsk Agreements. By the time the last Azov nazis surrendered in Mariupol, it had long been clear that Zelensky would refuse to negotiate, and NATO intended to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” And so the liberated territories became Ruble zones and joined Russia’s +7 phone network. These steps were a shaping phase for what was to come next, referendums to join the Russian Federation.

On 31 August, I wrote What’s Going on in the Kherson Offensive:

A counteroffensive disrupts the enemy’s own offensive, inflicts attrition on their forces, consumes ammunition, fuel, and supplies, and destabilizes the territory they’ve seized from you.

 Keeping a bridgehead to the western side of the Dnieper is likely crucial to Russia’s future operations since, as past experience shows, that’s an easy place to hold a defensive line. It’s politically important as well, since holding a referendum in Kherson surely requires attaining a certain level of stability, and repeated Ukrainian offensives can prevent that from happening.

On 9 September I wrote I Understand the Ukrainian Counter-Offensive:

Combat in Ukraine has become routine for the Russian public, and that’s fine. But that’s not fine for Europe and the USA, where the sanctions war is pushing millions of people into poverty.. These Ukrainian offensives are intended to push the Russians off balance and force them to escalate. In turn, Ukrainian offensives are appropriately whitewashed, stripped of context, and casualties downplayed, then spoonfed to western audiences as propaganda. As long as Ukrainians are “winning” and there’s the perception that they’re suffering fewer casualties than the bad Russians, the story is more acceptable.

That’s the biggest “why” these offensives are happening. I’ve repeatedly stated my belief that this war is most likely to end in the winter. The Ukrainian government is on life support and western voters aren’t going to accept abject poverty, including literally skipping meals, to #standwithukraine. Or are they? What if I’m wrong, and the plan is to keep the game going through and after winter? To do that, Ukraine has to be “winning,” or at least holding their own. Meanwhile, European governments will just have to implement increasingly draconian measures to crush unrest from their own voters.

I then went on to write September 11 is Now Ukrainian Victory Day:

Now that the Ukrainians have proven themselves as an effective fighting force, they’ll be given new vehicles, weapons, and more trained soldiers. Anyone who went on this offensive can and probably already has been written off.

Regarding the question of foreign fighters. Yes, the rumors of there being many foreign fighters in the ranks of the Ukrainian offensive are probably true. And they’re just as replaceable as the Ukrainians themselves. NATO has been at war for more than 20 years, and has literally millions of combat veterans. What’s a combat soldier to do after the war he was trained for ends? He can be a janitor or a a street sweeper. Or he can volunteer for the Ukrainian army to find death or glory. So no, if anyone had this idea that Ukraine will run out of trained foreign soldiers quickly can forget it. There are plenty.

16 September I wrote an after action review of the Ukrainian offensives:

So, at the end of the day, was the Ukrainian wave of attacks over the past couple of weeks successful or not? Well, my answer is mixed. I do think they achieved surprise and this was an embarrassing setback for the Russian special operation. This was not Shoigu playing 12-dimensional chess.The offensive suddenly started and the Russian forces didn’t have anywhere close to enough assets on hand to adequately deal with it, so they chose giving up territory. The 125ish vehicles lost also seems to confirmed this, since no one deliberately gives away weapons to the enemy. But hey, this isn’t a war that will be won by gaining territory. Interesting how western “supporters” of Russia all agreed on this “territory doesn’t matter” meme until Russia lost territory, then they all had a panic and started demanding Putin declared war. This is why 99% of these western chatterheads aren’t helpful...

But on the other hand, Ukraine/NATO didn’t get what they wanted either, I think that much is clear. The intent here was pretty obviously to do more than cause embarrassment. They intended to catch a few thousand lightly armed militia and policemen unprotected and destroy them. That objective ended in failure.

…It’s far too early to say, but I am going to guess that Russia will, despite all western insistence to the contrary, still not start a mobilization. The special operation in Ukraine, after the conclusion of the Mariupol offensive, has been a holding pattern to keep Ukrainian forces pinned. It’s the big picture that matters. There is an economic war between Russia and the “collective West,” and for the moment Russia clearly has the upper hand, and will have even more of an advantage in the upcoming weeks. The heat for Maria’s apartment complex just turned on today. Can the EU and UK say the same? Is “standing with Ukraine” worth going hungry and freezing? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

But now, Russia has again upped the ante. Several significant events happened back to back. Per RT, Russia finally concedes that a peaceful solution in Ukraine is not possible.

The armed conflict in Ukraine cannot be resolved through negotiations under current circumstances, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, as cited by Interfax.

Asked if there was a path towards a diplomatic settlement, Peskov said that “at the moment, such a prospect cannot be observed,” the news agency reported.

Moscow blamed Kiev for the suspension of peace talks. In late March, the two parties discussed a draft peace agreement, which would make Ukraine a neutral state in exchange for security guarantees given by major world powers. However the Ukrainian government ended talks in April, after accusing Russian troops of having committed war crimes, an allegation that Moscow said was based on falsified evidence.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has since declared that his country will only be satisfied by defeating Russia on the battlefield and pushing its forces from the entire territory claimed by Kiev.

And the Russian Duma revisited the legal and justice framework for war. Also from RT:

The Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, adopted amendments to the Criminal Code on Tuesday, which would impose tougher punishment for crimes committed during “wartime,” “martial law” or a “mobilization period.”

The suggested changes include harsher punishments for looting or going AWOL during wartime, or committing any crime during a period of military mobilization. They also criminalize the sabotage of defense contracts.

The bill was introduced on Tuesday and swiftly passed by the Duma in three readings. The upper house of the parliament, the Federation Council, is expected to pass the legislation as soon as Wednesday, according to Senator Andrey Klishas, who chairs the Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building.

Just to be clear, this doesn’t definitively mean that Russia will have a mobilization. What it does mean is that they consider this a possible course of action they will have to implement soon, which is why they opened the rule book to make any necessary revisions. If they do have a mobilization, legislation like this will have already knocked the rust off.

Now, here is the most significant news update, and what I see as the beginning of a new phase of the special military operation. From CNN:

Russian news agency TASS reported that the People’s Council in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic has agreed to hold a “referendum on the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation” starting later this week. 

The leader of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, said that the voting will be in “a mixed format – face-to-face and remote – taking into account security issues. One day will be allotted for in-person voting,” he said, according to TASS.

As of right now while I write this post, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions will all be holding their own referendums.

Referendums were on the table for a while, but I believe the pragmatic reason for springing them now is related to the Ukrainian offensives. The Russian MoD needed to see how effective the impending NATO/Ukrainian attack was going to be before letting civilian leaders make political promises they might not have been able to keep. Furthermore, had the announcement of a referendum been made earlier, NATO might have played their hand differently, and changed the objectives and direction of the Ukrainian offensives. But now those offensives have already happened and it’s too late to take them back. If Zelensky wants to try a military solution to preventing or disrupting the referendums, he will likely have serious difficulties, and that’s precisely why Russia waited until now. The Ukrainian armed forces have suffered staggering casualties and lost a equally staggering number of vehicles. To me, it’s even more important to consider the logistical situation. Think of all of the ammunition and fuel NATO dumped into that “3,000 square kilometers of liberated territory.” I bet right now in the Pentagon there are some people wishing that they had spent those tens of thousands of Ukrainians on something more politically useful, like a more concerted effort to retake territory in Donbass or Kherson. It’s possibly too late now.

We are now in a situation eerily similar to what happened in February, and this is why I say we are in a new phase of the operation. We are back in Phase 0/1, “shape” and “deter.” The Russians are shaping the Ukraine to legally, politically, logistically, and militarily set the stage for whatever they have planned next. If the referendums go as planned, that is a game changer. Like the Phase 0 in February, this is an attempt at deterrence. NATO has a chance to deescalate. But if they persist, this will no longer be a proxy war in a third world country very few people in the West actually cares about. It will be a direct attack on Russian soil and people. Ukrainian troops will be in Russian territory, and NATO will be directly participating in a war against Russia. Anyone who doesn’t find this extremely consequential and alarming is an idiot.

Putin is supposed to make a speech tonight, I have embedded a YouTube livestream below. Please keep an eye on it, because I think in the eyes of history, it will be even more consequential than what he said 7 months ago. I plan to watch the speech, and will post updates in the comments below.

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Ian Kummer

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