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Warfare Russia/Ukraine War
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In his annual press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he will be ready for a peace settlement with Ukraine only after he has achieved his goals, which haven’t changed since he launched his full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. He wants Ukraine to be demilitarised, meaning subjected to Russian military and security control of its territory; and he wants ‘denazification’, meaning Ukraine would be put under Russian political control. In other words, Russia would absorb Ukraine so that the latter ceases to exist as an independent nation-state.
Time and again, Putin has declared that there’s no historical justification for Ukraine, since it comprises territories that were long held by the Russian Empire. But something similar can be said of countries across Europe today. Many previously fell under the yoke of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Wilhelmine or Russian empires. And globally, the vast majority of the 193 countries that make up the United Nations became independent only in the aftermath of World War II. In the historical period that preoccupies Putin, many of today’s countries didn’t exist even in people’s imaginations.
The problem, for Putin, is that the age of empires is long gone. He stubbornly refuses to accept that we now live in the age of nation-states, with an international order organised around the UN charter’s principle of territorial integrity, which prohibits any redrawing of national borders by force. Instead, he fantasises about recreating the Russian Empire by swallowing up Ukraine and Belarus (followed, perhaps, by many other neighbouring countries).
When Putin launched his war of conquest, he obviously expected Ukraine to fold quickly. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was to be dispensed with, and a Russian puppet government was to be installed within the space of a few weeks.
But that plan failed spectacularly. Ukraine’s population—especially its armed forces—refused to bow down to the wannabe tzar. Instead, Ukrainians united in fierce resistance, preserving control of their capital and then gradually taking back around half of the territory that Russia’s forces had initially occupied. Relying on missiles and drones, Ukraine has effectively put Russia’s Black Sea Fleet out of action, and its air defences have succeeded in creating a virtual no-fly zone over the country.
While Western financial support and military supplies have undoubtedly been critical to Ukraine’s defence, what matters most are the Ukrainian people’s high morale and determination to defend their country. With Russia holding a presidential election in March, Putin needs to make a credible argument that victory in his war isn’t a pipedream. He has put Russia’s economy on a war footing, mobilised 400,000 troops, cranked up the Kremlin’s propaganda machine and taken repression of dissent to new post-Soviet heights.
But none of that will win him the war. His heavily battered army seems incapable of making any meaningful advances against Ukrainian defensive lines. His only hope is that the Ukrainian people’s determination to resist will waver, and that ‘war fatigue’ will continue to build in Europe and the United States. Once the Western financial and military support has dried up, Ukrainian morale will evaporate, and his forces will be able to advance, imprisoning, deporting or simply executing anyone who still resists.
Yet if Putin thinks this scenario would bring peace, he’s gravely mistaken. His advancing armies already committed mass atrocities in the initial invasion, and they would do so again. But these horrors would galvanise political will in the rest of Europe, as would the flood of millions more Ukrainian refugees westwards. Though European governments’ responses are difficult to predict, they most certainly wouldn’t be aimed at securing peace with Russia. Far more likely is an even wider and more prolonged conflict, where the outcome would ultimately be decided by Europe’s economic and industrial strength, irrespective of changing US attitudes.
In short, there’s simply no way for Putin to win the war that he started. Peace will come only when he is defeated—only when the Ukrainians (with Western help) have succeeded in defending themselves, and when Russians see that Putin’s insane war has jeopardised their own futures.
It is impossible to predict when that will happen. For now, Putin seems satisfied that he hasn’t been militarily defeated yet. He is trying to exude confidence in his war effort, even though it is nowhere close to achieving any of his stated goals. But this performance can last only so long. Sooner or later, the grim reality of what he has done to Russia will become impossible to hide.
One day, when Russia finally abandons Putin’s neo-imperial illusion, it will start to focus on its own future as an independent nation-state among independent nation-states, including Ukraine and Belarus. Only then will it be possible to talk about peace.
Carl Bildt is a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden. This article is presented in partnership with Project Syndicate
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/p...urce=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Putins dead end
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Shades of WW1 - Ratten kreig!
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Ukraine-Russia war: Rat bite fever strikes Russian troops
Russian soldiers are suffering from an outbreak of rat-bite fever, Ukraine’s defence intelligence (DIU) has said.
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Footage of a Ukrainian soldier disassembling a Russian 300-mm 9M55K cluster rocket used in the Smerch MLRS. The 9M55K missile, with a cassette warhead, contains 72 9N235 fragmentation-type combat elements, weighing 2 kg each. Each of the 72 combat elements contains 96 fragments weighing 4.5 grams and 360 light fragments weighing 0.75 grams. The mass of the projectile is 800 kilograms. 9N235 combat elements are subsequently used for dropping from drones. On the channel you can also watch the use of the 9M55K cluster rocket in Ukraine. And the dismantling by a Ukrainian soldier of a 155-mm M483A1 cluster projectile made in Turkey.
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It has been proven over and over that Russia is lagging behind
- there is a huge training deficit when it comes to their troops as a whole (yes, I know you will find some exception proving the rule when looking long enough)
- their grunts equipment lacks basic provisions like winter clothing and often even plate carriers or comparable basic equipment
- artillery is probably the only point where they can make up a little. This is more to Western equipment obviously failing rather often since western systems (Pzh2000, Cesar, Krab) seem to be designed for quick, limited use instead of protracted war with a lot of wear. However, western gear proves a lot more accurate and superior in counter batery operations - as long as it works that is.
- Tanks / armour: the turret/ammunition problem of the whole T series is evident; armoured assaults have rarely yielded desires results. Kiev, Vulhedar, Adiivka, Bakhmut. If a city has been taken, it was infantry waves storming it - tanks featured only in "how not to do it" roles. It's quite telling that there hardly are tank on tank duels. Mines, drones, Javelins - the days of the MBT are over and even more so if your MBT has so many deficits like the Russian T series. I have yet to see catastrophic losses of Western MBTs - they sure are possible, but it seems even Russian anti tank systems have big trouble. I have seen 3 crews of AT guys taking on a single Ukrainian T64 and miss.
- Russian aviation and air defence is subpar. Wherever a patriot, there no Russian aviation. It seems as simple as that. This obviously isn't true for S300/400 on the other side - despite being outnumbered so far, Ukraine silll has a working air wing and I recall more S300 kills of Russian planes in blue on blue than of Ukrainian jets. Introducing F16s might actually deliver air superiority to Ukraine despite F16 being an older model.
- in terms of drones, Russia is only slowly adapting. After having experienced the worlds first drone war right at its doorstep in Armenia/Azerbaijan, Russia refused to learn and simply invaded 1980s style with the expected results. 300,000 dead Russians later they did get the memo, but they are too little too late and again, Ukraine has an edge here. That said, drones are a shitty way to go and the glee on pro Russian sites as well as on places like here about drone drop kills is irritating me. There is so little honor in this playstation war.
- navy, well, by now both navies are irrelevant to the war, which is an Ukrainian victory since it pretty much had no navy to begin with. Russia on the other hand doesn't even manage to successfully threaten a grain export corridor. When the bulk carrier isnt taking your navy seriously.
- nukes: blah blah blah. He can't use them, since it would mean his end. And even if he did, many probably would not work, a lot more would be intercepted but yes, still not keen on testing the waters. But no chance in hell of it happening.
It's a question of time when Ukraine wins this conflict. Actually Ukraine winning quicker would even help Russia by saving them lives and economic losses. I'm not sure whether we in Europe should like the Ukraine coming out of this conflict, though. It will probably be a super nationalist country with a big feeling of entitlement extracting much more money from the EU than we yet expect.
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I agree on the most parts what you said, but however..to add into the discussion here's my 2 cents on a couple of things.
When the time for the rebuild effort (the scope of which have not been seen since the end of ww2) will eventually come, I cannot see any other means than super cheap/free loans backed by the EU/international partners coalition with some form of coordinated cartel(isation?) of industrial know-how divided between the member states. The alternative would be millions of bitter Ukrainians moving abroad from a ruined country and that would not bare well for the already stagnating EU economy. I mean shouldn't the end goal be the inevitable Ukrainian integration/membership process into the EU?
Honor of the methods used is irrelevant. You're supposed to kill/disable/destroy the enemy by any means available, in as big numbers as possible and with the least suffered casualties to your own forces as possible. Efficiency has honor by its own right.
They can 100% have their pride from defeating the attacker, all the sacrifices they've done so far (and are yet to face) will eventually be for the sake of rest of the Europe. It's not for us to tell them how they should feel about it, it's for us to understand and be ashamed should one feel we've not done enough for them.
When the time for the rebuild effort (the scope of which have not been seen since the end of ww2) will eventually come, I cannot see any other means than super cheap/free loans backed by the EU/international partners coalition with some form of coordinated cartel(isation?) of industrial know-how divided between the member states. The alternative would be millions of bitter Ukrainians moving abroad from a ruined country and that would not bare well for the already stagnating EU economy. I mean shouldn't the end goal be the inevitable Ukrainian integration/membership process into the EU?
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