By Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 9/27/24

“Next year in Ukraine, expect the unexpected,” I wrote in Canadian Dimension at the end of last year. And indeed, the past nine months have been full of surprises. I don’t know, for instance, of a single military analyst who foresaw that the Ukrainian army would launch a large attack on Russian territory, as it did in the Kursk region a few weeks ago. Wars are inherently difficult to predict.

That said, there comes a time when the general trend in a war becomes evident. Individual incidents may still surprise, but the overall movement of the conflict is no longer in doubt. In the middle of 1942, for instance, it would have been rash to predict the outcome of the Second World War. But by the middle of 1944, it was fairly clear what the result was going to be. The Germans were still able to pull off a few shocks, such as the Battle of the Bulge, but it was obvious that they were doomed.

In much the same way, the general direction of the war in Ukraine is becoming increasingly clear, and it doesn’t look good for the Ukrainians. That’s not to say that it’s glowingly positive for the Russians, but we have reached the stage where the odds of Ukraine achieving its objective of recapturing all its lost territories are vanishingly small. The issue is more likely how much more territory it will lose rather than how much it will be able to recapture.

Today, the Russians are in the process of surrounding and capturing the town of Vuhledar (Ugledar), which is the linchpin of the Ukrainian defence in the southern part of Donetsk province. What remains of the town’s garrison is faced with the grim choice of fighting its way out, staying and dying, or surrendering. The town’s capture now seems inevitable and will be a major victory for the Russian army.

Meanwhile, the Russians are advancing elsewhere, grinding the Ukrainians down with superior numbers of troops, equipment, and ammunition. As one prominent Ukrainian military analyst noted this week, “Unfortunately, the situation on the frontline is dire in many areas. These tiring efforts to paint a rosy picture … are hindering honest discussions and urgent calls for help … Ukraine is going to lose the war unless there are radical changes in how this war is approached.”

There is, however, little prospect of such a radical change, and even if it were to happen it might not matter, for the simple reason that Russia’s resources greatly outmatch those both of Ukraine and of its Western allies (or at least what the latter are willing and able to give it). It is hard to see how the Ukrainians can reverse their decline.

All of which provides a context for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s much-hyped ‘victory plan’ and his visit this week to the United States.

It would appear that while Zelensky continues to talk of restoring all of Ukraine’s lost territory he has begun to wake up to the reality that this is impossible by direct military means. Unable to shift military dynamics in his favour, he is hoping instead to shift the political dynamics by refocusing the Ukrainian war effort away from defending its own territory and towards striking the territory of the Russian Federation. He also perhaps hopes to drag NATO deeper and deeper into the war on his behalf. This could, at least in theory, put political pressure on the Russian authorities to end the war, even as the Ukrainian position on the frontline continues to deteriorate.

This explains the attack on Russia’s Kursk province as well as Zelensky’s repeated demands for permission to use NATO weapons to strike deep into Russian territory and his continued requests that NATO grant Ukraine immediate membership.

The exact details of Zelensky’s victory plan are a closely guarded secret, but press reports suggest that the core of it lies exactly in this—NATO membership and long-range weapons along with permission to use them deep in Russia.

As plans go, it’s not a very good one. NATO membership isn’t on the cards, while if long-range weapons could win the war, Russia would have won it long ago, as it has been using them in abundance against Ukraine for nearly three years. Ukraine’s fundamental problem is Russia’s growing advantage on the ground, in terms of manpower and weaponry. The victory plan fails to address this in any way, merely relying on the hope that damaging Russian infrastructure will somehow change Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mind about continuing the war—a rather long hope indeed.

American officials are supposedly “unimpressed” by the plan. Zelensky’s meeting with US President Joe Biden on Thursday evening passed almost without comment in the media. There were no big announcements indicating a shift in US policy in the direction Zelensky wants. Notably there was no talk of NATO membership, nor of lifting of restrictions on long-range attacks. Zelensky’s victory plan is dead in the water.

That’s not to say that Zelensky is going home empty handed. This week, Biden announced another $8 billion of aid to Ukraine. But it is unclear when the weapons and ammunition associated with this will actually reach Ukraine, beyond which it is just more of the same, and to date it is obvious that the same is utterly inadequate. Thus, while the US has rejected Zelensky’s plan, it hasn’t come up with anything remotely plausible to replace it.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this is not the last large tranche of aid that Ukraine will receive from the US. Relations between the Republican Party and the Ukrainian government are going from bad to worse. This week, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives accused the Ukrainian ambassador to the US of electoral interference on behalf of the Democratic Party for having invited only Democrats to accompany Zelensky on a visit to an American military factory. Republicans are already reluctant to spend more money on Ukraine. If, as seems likely, the latter’s military situation continues to deteriorate, that reluctance will probably only grow, as more and more people make the argument that it is pointless, and even counterproductive, to throw more and more money at a lost cause.

Among those making this argument is Donald Trump, who on Wednesday blamed Biden for encouraging Ukraine to continue with a war it could not win, thus bringing ruin to the country. “Any deal—the worst deal—would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”

Dare I say it, but Trump has a point. One of the criteria of just war theory—that body of philosophy that helps one determine if war is justified—is that of “reasonable chance of success.” Given that wars inevitably involve great destruction and suffering, waging one which cannot reasonably hope to succeed cannot be justified. As things stand, it’s very hard to say that Ukraine has a reasonable chance of success. Indeed, it’s very hard even to say any more what “success” might be.

Unfortunately, there is as yet hardly a politician in the West who is willing to admit this. Speaking to Zelensky on Thursday, Biden told him, “Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way.” This is obvious nonsense, as the US clearly doesn’t support “every step” that Ukraine wants to take. It’s unwilling, though, to tell Ukraine that it should consider stepping in a different direction entirely. The result is a slow, but accelerating deterioration of that country’s position. Sadly, it appears that neither the Ukrainians nor their Western allies have a realistic idea of how to improve their situation while also being unwilling to admit that they don’t and to draw the necessary conclusions. This does not bode well for the future.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

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Russia Matters, 9/27/24

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Russia is likely to retaliate with greater force against the United States and its coalition partners, possibly with lethal attacks, if they agree to give the Ukrainians permission to use their long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russia, NYT reported. As the debate continued this week among Ukraine’s Western allies, officials interviewed by WP said that the Ukrainians had expected Joe Biden to have already granted permission by now. 

Russia has made fresh gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region this week. Moscow’s forces captured the town of Ukrainsk near the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, and looked closer to encircling Vulhedar and Kurakove, which, if taken, would allow Russia to encircle and take Pokrovsk, severing Ukraine’s main supply line to the region according to FT and Ukrainian group DeepState. FT reported that Russian forces have moved within 8 kilometers of Pokrovsk and just 4 kilometers of Myrnohrad. On each of two days last week, the Ukrainian military reported more than 200 clashes between the two sides—the highest such numbers in many months, according to DeepState,

Russia plans to spend 6.2% of GDP on defense in 2025 and sees only slight declines in the following two years as Putin’s war on Ukraine shows no sign of ending, Bloomberg reported. Draft three-year budget proposals seen by Bloomberg News show the government intends to increase defense spending to 13.2 trillion rubles ($142 billion) in 2025 from 10.4 trillion rubles projected for this year. Additionally, the Kremlin is planning to spend more than 40 trillion rubles ($431 billion) over six years to achieve social targets Putin set for his current presidential term, according to Bloomberg.

By Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 9/19/24

Over the course of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has drawn several “red lines” – with ostentatious references to Russia’s huge strategic nuclear arsenal – only to seemingly do nothing when these lines are crossed by Ukraine or its Western backers.

It happened when Ukraine acquired new and more powerful Western arms. It happened when Kyiv used its own drones to hit Russian airfields, refineries, and even the Kremlin itself. Most recently, it happened when Ukrainian forces actually invaded Russian territory. That has led Ukrainians, and many NATO officials, to conclude that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling is an elaborate bluff.

But when Mr. Putin warned last Thursday that Moscow will consider it a direct act of war by NATO if British, French, or U.S.-made missiles are used by Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia, he said this time is different.

Many Russian experts agree. And for now, Washington seems to be heeding his threat and holding off on permitting Ukraine to use the weapons.

“Russia’s frustration has been growing because the West appears to have lost all fear of nuclear war. Deterrence is absent,” says Sergei Strokan, an international affairs columnist with the Moscow daily Kommersant. During the Cold War, he says, that fear drove both sides to the bargaining table, aiming to limit conflicts and control nuclear weapons.

“There is a growing feeling that the West needs some kind of a wake-up call, an event that would make them see they are flirting with World War III if they escalate these attacks against Russia,” he says.

Deterrence and the war in Ukraine

Mr. Putin, responding to a question from a journalist, distinguished the use of the weapon types being discussed – British and French cruise missiles and U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles – from previous red-line scenarios because he said such weapons are too sophisticated to be operated by Ukrainians alone. He claimed they would require hands-on NATO assistance and satellite targeting and guidance to effectively carry out strikes deep inside Russia.

“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us,” Mr. Putin said.

The Kremlin sounds like it’s treating this challenge as the final straw. For over a year Mr. Putin has been under public pressure from hawkish members of his security elite, led by foreign policy dean Sergey Karaganov, to “restore deterrence” by staging a demonstration nuclear strike in order to remind the West that Russia is a nuclear superpower that shouldn’t be trifled with.

It’s not clear what response the Kremlin may be mulling, but the Russian media are a hotbed of speculation about it.

At the mild end of the spectrum are steps such as cutting off diplomatic relations, especially with the NATO country that Moscow views as the most actively hostile one, the United Kingdom. Another idea would be to stage a demonstration nuclear weapons test, something Russia has not done since 1990. Some reports say the old Soviet Arctic nuclear testing site at Novaya Zemlya has already been prepared for that possibility.

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, says a stronger response might be to attack NATO airfields in Poland and Romania where, he says, “We know Ukrainian F-16s are based. These aircraft would probably be used in launching those NATO missiles at us, so we would regard them as legitimate targets.”

Forthcoming changes to Russia’s official nuclear doctrine may radically change the calculus for unleashing nuclear weapons.

At present, Russia would be prepared to use atomic weapons only in the case that the country is attacked with them by a nuclear-armed power, or if the very existence of the Russian state is threatened amid a conventional conflict.

Mr. Markov says the amendments under consideration would lower the threshold for employing tactical nuclear weapons, perhaps making them an integral part of any future battlefield.

Another revision might change the provision that Russian statehood must be in peril to instead enable the weapons to be used when Russian “strategic interests” are threatened. It would also allow their use against non-nuclear states that are part of a coalition that includes nuclear-armed powers if they are attacking Russia.

Fear of nuclear war

According to Alexei Levinson, an expert with the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent polling agency, fear of nuclear conflict has been growing among the Russian population since the Ukraine war began, from around a quarter of respondents to over a third.

“In our focus groups, we find it is the second biggest fear after concern for the well-being of self and immediate family,” he says. “It has escalated since the beginning of the special operation and is at a constantly high level.”

One of Russia’s top security experts, Alexei Arbatov, told the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta this week that the drift of events is very dangerous because of the widespread belief in the West that Russia would never use nuclear arms.

“This is a very serious misconception: at some point, nuclear weapons will be used, despite the risk of escalation and general catastrophe,” he said.

Mr. Strokan argues that Western observers do not appreciate the extent to which Mr. Putin is under pressure from hawks to his right, such as the nuclear strike advocate Mr. Karaganov.

“Putin is probably the most moderate politician in Moscow right now, and if it weren’t for him we’d probably get a collective Karaganov in power,” he says. “Even now they are expressing open impatience and asking, ‘Why haven’t we pressed the button already?’”

By Valentin Alfimov, Komsomolskaya Pravda (Machine translation), 9/11/24

The author of the telegram channel “Whisper of the Front” in a conversation with “Komsomolskaya Pravda” named the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It turned out that they have people left for a year or two.

– How do you count the losses?

– It’s a program that searches by keywords. It monitors the Internet, social networks. Local councils sometimes write obituaries, factories… like, “zaginov” (died – from Ukrainian) such and such “zahisnik” (defender – from Ukrainian). Yes, people post it on social networks – it’s like a cry from the heart for them.

– Can you compare, now the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are more or less?

– The same or even more. Last week there was a record – 1208 or 1206 obituaries per day. Even during the Bakhmut operation at the peak there were 1100 and something.

“You have a margin of error, don’t you?”

– Of course, so the losses are most likely even greater. But everything comes to light over time: they will post 300-400 obituaries… but after some time, information about new deaths at the same time in the same place arrives.

MANY ARE STILL IN THE FIELDS

– How long have you been doing this?

– Back in 2014, we had a group called “Situation of Novorossiya”. We published all the obituaries that the Ukrainian press printed. In 2014, we counted about 6.5 thousand losses of the Ukrainian army.

– How many do they have now?

– There are 501 thousand obituaries now. This is what I got after painstakingly collecting information for over two years. The figure matches what is confirmed by the Americans, European politicians, the Russian Defense Ministry. Everyone confirms it, except the Ukrainians. Although they publish it themselves, they are afraid to believe it.

– You emphasize that this is the number of obituaries. But how many actually died?

– I think their real losses are around 600 thousand. Plus or minus.

– We talked to you in November 2023. Then you mentioned the figure of 380 thousand obituaries and 420-430 thousand losses. Now there are over 500 thousand obituaries and somewhere around 600 thousand losses…

– Maybe not 600, but 540-550 dead. After all, they can’t put up an obituary when there is no body. And there are still quite a few bodies on the combat line.

– It’s still a lot.

– The final figure of the Ukrainian army, when it loses combat capability, is 800 thousand dead and totally wounded. This is based on the population, the composition of the armed forces, calculated by political scientists and mathematicians of the world. After that, they will not be able to fight anymore. That is, their backbone, which pulls the entire front, is 200-300 thousand still alive. At this rate, it will be for a year or two.

“WILD GEESE”

– Do you count foreigners?

– There are publicly available websites, social media channels. As of today, they have posted 670 names from 56 countries. But they themselves warn that this figure is inaccurate. Then, they write that these are “volunteers”, not mercenaries, former officers. And it is clear that they are deliberately understating. Here they write: “Venezuela – 1, Uzbekistan – 1”. But I know that there were at least 4 people from Venezuela. I think that there are up to a thousand dead foreign mercenaries.

“Where does the most come from?”

– Most of all the English are going. There were a lot of Americans at first. Now a lot of Colombians are taking part. There are enough French, Georgians. Well, of course, some NATO officers are dying – American, even Australian…

– What can you say about the attack on the training base in Poltava?

– I think there are about a hundred casualties – that’s what my Poltava relatives say. And many wounded, some of whom, of course, will not survive, so the number will grow.

– Are there many foreigners?

– There are foreigners. I just saw a clipping from a German newspaper: the mayor’s office of the German city of Hessen posted an obituary. But they didn’t sign who exactly died. As soon as the information comes out, we’ll look for this person.

41 BODIES PER DAY

– The first Ukrainian F-16 pilot was killed by friendly fire. Can such losses be tracked?

– It’s hard. At one time there was a video of Ukrainians killing each other in Kharkov – that was February 2024. They admitted it later, though. But they keep quiet about a lot. Such losses are hidden.

– Is it possible to weed out losses due to illness, lack of medical care for the wounded, due to the incompetence of commanders?

– No, all in one piggy bank. For example, 400-500 names fall out in a day. Somewhere the obituary is 2-3 lines, and sometimes on a page. So, we need to look for where they died, how. It’s almost impossible. And 10-15 percent of obituaries are those who died in hospitals. But they also write there – the hero, died…

– In which hospitals do people die the most?

– The largest flow is given out by the Dnipropetrovsk hospital, the Zaporozhye military hospital and the Kyiv one. One nurse from the Dnepropetrovsk hospital once wrote to me that in a day they pulled out 41 bodies to the backyard.

Those who cannot be helped in the same Zaporozhye are taken to Dnepropetrovsk. That’s why there is such a high mortality rate – especially after their counteroffensive, everyone was taken there.

BY THE WAY

There is no spirit left in Ukraine

– You communicate with those who remained in Ukraine. Can you assess the dynamics of moods?

– Everything is sad there. This is a dying country. If it is still normal in Kyiv, then the cities to the east are suffering – Poltava region, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporozhye. It’s fun only in Transcarpathia – they don’t feel anything there, they earn a lot of money on the “runners”, on the border, on the export of timber…

– And what do people say?

-Sorely… I have relatives in Poltava. They don’t talk. It all comes down to “no comment”.

– Because they are angry?

-Afraid. There are no prospects, everyone is snitching on everyone – God forbid someone notices you in sympathy for Russia. You can’t trust anyone.

– Why don’t the people rise up, don’t protest?

– On the Maidan, it all started with the students, on whom the Americans later played. Do you know how much they spent on it?

5 billion dollars is the official figure. 5 billion to grab such a large country. Everywhere you need to bribe.

The opposition in Ukraine has been knocked out, people are intimidated and bullied – even the TCC (territorial recruitment and social support center) can no longer win – this is specifically the SS, these 3-4 men will twist you, beat your kidneys: “Go serve in our place.” No one in Ukraine is rising up, not in a single region. There is no spirit, nothing. The whole country is watching the telethon. Thank God, at least on the Internet there are people who curse this government.