It’s the second year of the war, and Russia’s officials haven’t got anything to show for it.
They didn’t capture Kyiv, retreated from Izyum and Kherson, and the Donbas combat devolved into trench warfare.
There is a reason General Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the last Ramstein Meeting that Russia had already lost.
Their defeat is strategic, tactical, and operational, he claimed.
The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd James Austin III announced at the same meeting
that America will support Ukraine’s spring offensive, providing all necessary aid.
It’s no secret that the Ukrainian army will launch the offensive any time soon.
The only unknown is how deep it will be: to Melitopol or all the way to Sevastopol.
Meanwhile, Russia’s top military brass is trying to convince their citizens that their “legendary and undefeated” army
will mount an attack any moment now.
Or that it already has done so. It is very difficult to tell heads from tails without the assistance of military analysts.
They, however, aren’t much help, either.
There was an interview on the YouTube channel Live Nail, Zhivoi Gvozd', with Valery Shiryaev,
military analyst and writer for Novaya Gazeta.
He apparently overestimates the might of the Russian army. Today, let’s try to figure out what’s happening at the frontlines.
MATH IS HARD
The assessment of the battlefield situation usually starts with a look at the numbers.
The simple math: how many soldiers, tanks, artillery pieces, and fighter jets both parties involved have.
The one who’s got the most is the “king of the hill.” The side with the threefold advantage attacks.
That math, though, is usually a fallacy, and let me explain why.
A year ago, Russian generals used that approach to see how their own forces stack up against the Ukrainian ones and decided
that they had the win in a bag.
The math said it would be a Blitzkrieg.
Analysts from all over the world were arguing if Kyiv would be captured in three days or a full week.
It took seven months to realize that they didn’t have enough soldiers to control the occupied Kharkiv Region,
let alone capture the Ukrainian capital.
Oops...
They had to begin the mobilization drive.
Now, Valery Shiryaev in his interview states that the forces have evened out, but Russia will need twice the numbers it’s got
now for the win.
This means that Russia cannot attack without a new mobilization call-up since it has no reserves left.
Ukraine in the meantime is creating eight new brigades: that’s no less than 40,000 soldiers, tens of German Leopard tanks,
and hundreds of U.S. Bradley IFVs.
That is an army unit that can have a serious impact on the war dynamic. It will be ready in spring, any time soon.
Could Russians counter the assault with artillery?
WHOSE SIDE IS GOD OF WAR ON?
Col. Viktor Murakhovsky, an expert for the Russian military industry committee, has provided the following statistics:
80% of all infantry casualties are caused by shrapnel from artillery shells and mines, and only 20% is attributed to other weapons.
Artillery plays a major role. Russia has several times more reserves and units, which is significant.
It’s difficult, however, to get the actual numbers since they are classified information.
So let’s have a look at how artillery is being used by both parties.
There is a detailed review by one of the Russian military journalists of how a self-propelled artillery unit operates.
They were manufactured back in the 1970s.
The condition of the pieces is atrocious. Not a single of the six guns has its loading mechanism working.
The overall wear of the barrels and the mechanics causes constant failures and decreases the accuracy.
There is a standard: when snap fire is being ordered, each gun needs to fire three shots a minute.
But it’s impossible to match that time since everything is done manually with the shell weighing around 110 lbs.
That is exacerbated by the inoperable fans.
Due to that, the working compartment of the artillery fills up with propellant fumes after 10–12 shots.
All the crewmen display signs of poisoning: they are experiencing vertigo,
their attention span decreases, and their energy depletes fast.
The commander loses clarity of mind, the gunner sees double, the driver mixes up the pedals, and the loader can’t lift the shell.
To add insult to injury, self-propelled units often require to be kick-started — otherwise, they won’t budge.
The fire control system is awful.
They lack enough drones to adjust the shots. When drones are used, commanders still need to use the old ways to aim.
They do get the coordinates to a modern tablet computer.
But they still grab a boussole after that, which is an artillery sight invented just before WW1,
and aim the same way their predecessors did.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian artillery uses modern American, French, or German guns with digital fire control and satellite navigation.
The commander gets the data from a satellite or a drone, punches in the numbers, and that’s it. Fire!
The difference in effectiveness is palpable.
Let’s go back to the math that is so loved by the analysts.
According to Valery Shiryaev, Russian artillery fires five times more shells than Ukrainian.
There are trainloads of shells being used daily. Does that impress? Sure!
The military journalists don’t share that optimism, though. It’s no wonder: the closer men are to the frontlines,
the less they care about the officials.
They are inclined to tell the truth. One of them, Roman Skomorokhov, is complaining that Russians fire thousands
of shells, but the effectiveness is low.
You can see it for yourself by looking at the drone footage.
The moonscape around the Ukrainian lines is a clear testament that the majority of Russian shells miss their targets.
That is why so many of them are needed. Those shells need to be delivered from the railroad station in trucks and stored.
That’s when HIMARS come to their own. One launch blows the whole warehouse to smithereens.
The Ukrainian artillery units are doing surgical strikes on military infrastructure instead of blanket fire.
This way, a limited amount of launches have made the whole numbers game moot.
Now, Ukraine is receiving new missiles for HIMARS with an increased range.
Let’s keep rolling!
Large-scale usage of artillery has created another problem.
Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russian foreign and defense politics for the American Tufts University, has warned
that Russia will soon encounter the wear of artillery barrels.
Every gun has a shot limit. Getting to it would see accuracy drop. Russian artillery crews already can’t hit a wide side of a barn,
but it’ll be worse than that.
It will mean the need for even more shells to suppress the Ukrainian defense.
That, in turn, will lead to even more logistical issues and further increase the wear on the guns. It is a vicious circle.
You can break it by manufacturing more modern guns and precision-strike shells on par with the American Excalibur ones.
Russian military industry cannot produce them in the desired quantities, though.
The same applies to the production of modern artillery pieces.
Shiryaev complains that Russian industry cannot produce complex and expensive tanks and self-propelled guns.
He says it is better to manufacture outdated systems in larger numbers than modern ones. The sanctions work, that is.
It's not plain sailing for Ukraine, either.
The famous American M777 guns are facing barrel wear, too. In November last year,
The New York Times said that those guns are in need of repair.
The higher accuracy of the “triple sevens” demands higher maintenance.
Military analyst Shiryaev jokes that every American gun needs its own repair squad.
We need to bear in mind, though, that modern units require proper maintenance. That is the price paid for progress.
Ukrainians are finding ways around it. American artillery crews have a dedicated internet channel where they are assisting
Ukrainian colleagues around the clock, helping them repair the guns on the battlefield.
In cases when that doesn’t work, guns are taken to Poland, where the repair shops are located.
So we have a competition going on between the two different approaches:
Russian blanket firing vs. precision strikes from the Ukrainian side.
The former requires tens of shells per target, while the latter needs a single shell guided by the fire control system.
Some Russian analysts think that the first approach is preferable. We will see very soon. Spring is coming, after all.
It is worth noting that many Russian analysts are inspired by shell consumption in this war.
Russia has extensive stockpiles of old shells.
That is what’s being used. Western countries, on the other hand, need to ramp up the manufacturing of new ones.
Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, announced in early February 2023 that the U.S. had allocated $522 million
for the manufacture of artillery shells for Ukraine. They are due in March. Again, spring is coming.
Sure, Western politicians were stunned by the Russian aggression.
The stockpiles were significantly reduced after the Cold War ended.
The consensus was that an all-out war in Europe was impossible. They didn’t expect Putin to pull that stunt.
In his analysis, Valery Shiryaev says ironically that the West did not expect that war.
According to him, Americans were dead wrong in thinking that modern war would be a mobile one.
That it would consist of lightning-fast offenses, with forces advancing hundreds of miles quickly, just like we saw in Iraq.
Bam, here’s the battle for Bakhmut dragging on for eight months. Apparently, defeating Saddam Hussein was a fluke.
The secret sauce of the American army in Iraq was something else entirely, though. They have revolutionized the war.
They have created a unified computer network joining the staff, the intelligence, and the attack forces.
A new horizontal structure has come to replace the age-old army vertical.
As a result, every artillery unit, tank, fighter jet, or soldier can receive their target from any of the sources, be it a satellite,
a drone, or a reconnaissance unit.
The exchange of information is happening in real time. They have also given more autonomy to the commander at all levels.
That has seen a massive decrease in the time it takes to make a decision.
In addition, Americans had formed alliances just before that war. It also helped that they attacked a much weaker enemy.
What does Russia have? A lieutenant has to report to a captain, who, in term, needs to report to a major.
The major needs to prepare a report for a colonel, colonel to general.
The general’s decision will need to take the same route down.
It’s no surprise that by that time, the lieutenant has very little use for that decision, however genius.
No wonder Ukrainians have adopted the American system, and not the Russian one.
That gives Ukraine a real shot at winning in the upcoming spring offensive.
In February this year, the Ukrainian army has created Delta control system. It integrates reconnaissance, staff, and battle forces.
The system uses Starlink satellites to connect all its pieces: drones, soldiers, and weapons.
What could the Russian command use against that? Shouting down the phone?
How can a commander speed up the order without proper communication equipment to relay it to his sloppy subordinates?
A lieutenant can’t even theoretically contact a general directly.
The same applies in reverse: a general’s cussing can only get to a lieutenant through the long top-down chain.
The future for the Russian army seems pretty bleak. Even mobilization is not an answer.
They would still need to catch those people and train them. Spring, however, is already around the corner.
It’s not all down to numbers.
Let’s look at the situation with drones. Russians didn’t have enough of them to start with,
which gave Ukrainians a sizeable advantage.
Okay, they have managed to cobble up more and send them to the front. Believe ir or not, that has made it all so much worse.
Military journalists have told the story of the 150th Motorized Infantry Division.
They report that there’s now calamity in the air. Russian tank crews mistake Russian drones going back
to base from reconnaissance missions for Ukrainian ones and are trying to shoot them down.
Anti-drone units armed with electronic countermeasures do the same thing.
Infantry units have joined the fun, and they’ve got their own drones now. It’s a mess. There’s no communication.
It’s impossible to sort that mess out without an automated control system.
A system that the Russian army doesn’t have. And they aren’t getting it any time soon.
Do you know how they address the drone problem?
It’s elementary! Drone pilots attach a fishing line to their crafts, essentially keeping them on the leash.
It won’t go far that way, but they always have an expensive machine under control.
The line gets in the props, which results in the drone crashing. But it’s better than it being lost.
At least the operators have the wreckage to show to their commanders.
Ukrainian drones, on the other hand, are always above Russian soldiers’ heads.
They are swarming like hornets, dozens at a time. No lines are attached.
They are doing reconnaissance, helping artillery aim, or dropping bombs on the enemy.
VICTORY TO THE FREE
Western army guys are saying that Ukrainians are very quick to adapt to modern war.
The Ukrainian army is transitioning to NATO standards and providing their low-level commanders
with the freedom to make their own decisions on the battlefield.
The same can’t be said of the Russian army.
Very strict hierarchy and centralized command, lies and dumbf**kery negate any advantage Russia might have in numbers.
Other inherent problems of the Russian army like terrible communication, dismal reconnaissance,
obsolete command system, and horrendous logistics don’t help things, either.
Russia couldn’t achieve supremacy in the air despite having a decisive advantage in the number and quality of the Air Force.
Shiryaev has noted that Ukrainian anti-air forces saw that advantage shattered.
In spring, when new armament is going to arrive in Ukraine.
It will be well covered from the Russian planes. There’s nothing to stop the assault.
What can Russia pit against all that? Maybe it will be badly trained and ill-equipped mobilized recruits?
Could those be Prigozhin’s Wagner convicts?
They are the only ones to achieve at least some military success, however limited.
Prigozhin’s methods only work if enforced by sledgehammer- wielding thugs. You can’t win the war that way.
They might capture Bakhmut, but there’s no way they win the war.
It's dead simple. An army of free men stands higher chances of success.
If you give people the ability to show initiative, make their own decisions, and think fast, they can create a very effective system.
A system with a strict hierarchy can’t do anything against it. The authoritarian style doesn’t work even in the army nowadays.
We can look at the defeat, and it was a clear defeat, of the Russian army near Kyiv; or at the “goodwill act” on Zmiinyi Island;
a retreat from Izyum and Kherson.
Year two of the war sees the Russian army pretty much in the same positions.
If they do manage to advance, they do it 100–200 yards a day.
The army that had Europe wetting their breeches a year ago has become a laughingstock.
It has proven its uselessness in combat.
It was enough for Ukraine to receive a hundred American artillery pieces and several HIMARS systems to stump
the Russian advance and have Russian generals scream that the war is against all of NATO.
The current Russian army can’t exactly be called a modern one.
How can it be different if the Russian president doesn’t even know how to launch a web browser?
With such Commander-in-Chief, the Russian army can only wait for the Ukrainian offensive and plan the routes for retreat.
They are deciding on the speed the Russian army will run after the next “goodwill act.”
It's not bad at all. Putin’s army is the aggressor in this war. They are the ones who occupied territories of another country.
The fact that they will be kicked out of there due to their inability to fight can’t be called bad, really.
It’s a pity that many people will die because of someone’s dumb idea.
See you tomorrow!