182 - Not a Slam Dunk: Ukraine v Putin's Russia

            Ukraine’s military has many advantages, but its counterattack against the arrayed Russian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine is neither assured of success nor even of the recapture of occupied lands.

            Ukraine’s fighting legions have a fired-up confidence and an abundant sense of righteousness that their Russian opponents lack. Ukrainian enhanced morale gives the men and women in the trenches and in the tanks strong reasons to fight and to endure the terrible privations of combat. Emboldened by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s charismatic leadership and the support of NATO and the West, Ukrainian contingents have so far exceeded expectations, surprised the Russians, and demonstrated a vital and effective sense of purpose. As a whole, the soldiers and officers of the Ukrainian army and air force have rendezvoused successfully with destiny.

            The Russians lack all of those attributes.  But they have superior, if under-motivated, numbers, fuller supplies of ammunition, howitzers, easier logistical lines from the nearby Russian heartland, and massively prepared defenses all along the hitherto static lines of confrontation. Moreover, the Russians have heaps of kamikaze drones and fields planted with landmines to deter Ukrainian advances. They are indifferent to human suffering in the occupied lands or of their own conscripts, hence the dynamiting of the Kakhovka dam (with its wasteful destruction of their own as well as Ukraine’s terrain). Additionally, the Russians have more fighters and bombers; if Ukraine had an equally powerful air force it could push the Russians back more readily.

            The Russians have not needed to risk losing the occupied lands that they now hold; a sclerotic slog between Ukrainian and Russian troops served Russian ambitions well enough. Once Putin and his generals realized that there would be no easy march on Kyiv, it suited Putin’s aims well enough to tie down Ukraine’s valiant defenders along a 600-mile front while bombarding Ukraine’s infrastructure and attacking civilians by missile and drone. His overriding default strategy – once the invasion itself stumbled and failed – has been to punish Ukraine from afar as thoroughly as possible while doggedly waiting for Ukraine’s backers to tire of the war and the massive support that Ukraine has required to defend itself and, now, to mount a counteroffensive.

            President Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and the leaders of most other European countries, especially the Polish and Baltic ones, have promised to back Zelensky and Ukraine “as long as it takes.”  But democracies always have constituencies fearful of helping others instead of themselves; Putin wants Trump to be elected in 2024 so that he can then march into Kyiv with less difficulty. Putin wants to hold out that long.  No retreat by Putin may be expected.

            That is why Zelensky and his generals have been compelled to press forward now, to achieve a momentum that could conceivably carry their forces to victory and, decisively, could show their Western backers that Ukraine is capable of employing all of its newly acquired Western materiel to good effect. Momentum is critical on the battlefield and for positive public relations.

            Yet victory is hardly assured. At its most optimistic, victory means a breakthrough of the Russian lines this week or next in the direction of Zaporizhzia, Velyka Novosilka, Mariupol, and Melitopol, the rapid retreat of Russians, and the cutting of Russia’s control of southern Ukraine. Doing so would make Russian ascendancy in Crimea harder to sustain, and conceivably take Ukraine to the Sea of Azov.

            If any re-ordering of territory like that took place, Putin would find it hard to dismiss his losses or to continue waiting for Trump (as in “Waiting for Godot). But it is more likely (at best) that any Ukrainian march toward the Sea of Azov will be slow and painful, and not necessarily a “victory” in the obvious sense. Russia still has a formidable military machine in place, even if it is much more fragile than anyone anticipated.

            Hence, Ukraine might have contingent successes on the battlefield that would advance its goal to take back the territory lost since 2014, but without propelling a massive Russian retreat and without regaining much of Crimea.  It would in that scenario have achieved momentum, burnished the morale of its fighters and its civilians, and given backers in the West much to tell their own publics.

            But the biggest and most likely gains in repulsing the Russians, if it occurs minimally well, will be to position Ukraine more advantageously for the (hopefully definitive) peace talks that are almost certainly to be encouraged, even promoted, by the West if and when Ukraine successfully breaks the Russian hold on at least sections of conquered territory.

            There are two other less likely scenarios to consider: First, that the Russians fall over themselves to flee the Ukrainian advance; that the Russians are routed. Something like that happened last week, but no one should count on such an optimistic outcome, largely because of the depth of Russian supplies of materiel and men, and because Putin has effectively neutered public opinion at home.

            Second, that the Russians hold off Ukraine, with great Ukrainian losses of life and of tanks and so on. Such a defeat is difficult to envisage, but it would threaten continued Western support for Ukraine and lead, inevitably, to a disastrous peace settlement between the contending parties. Most independent military analysts (British, Australian, and American) believe that this is the least likely scenario, but combat sometimes unravels in unexpected ways.

            Ukraine’s fighting forces do not underestimate their foe.  Nor should we. No slam dunk is in sight.