Ukraine Blog 15 - Changes in Tactics?
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
After
yesterdays special, it’s time for a good old update from the front. And it’s a
tale of a change in tactics from both sides. Let’s start with the Ukrainians
1. Behind the line attacks: the
Ukrainians really are using the mostly stalled frontlines to their maximum advantage.
Their primary targets are to hit the Russian supply lines as hard as possible.
When looking at most maps of control, it can be seen that Russian has chipped
off a belt of maximum 150 kilometers deep from the North, East and South. With
in that small area of advance, already the Russians are facing huge challenges
to keep the supply line going. The Ukrainians are active on the following
fields
a. Railway destruction: It’s known that
the Russian and Soviet armies always have to fight close to railway lines. As
soon as they go too far away, they get into trouble. In the East of Kharkiv,
Ukrainian fighters behind enemy lines destroyed this railway line.
b. Convoy ambushes: Although most maps assign
that 150 kilometer belt as under Russian control, the truth is, that most of it
is now no man’s land. Again: Ukrainian special forces and partisan units are
hitting the supply convoys very heavily. The ambush seen below is a by the book
example of a perfect convoy ambush. Line the road with explosives. Carefully wait
till the convoy is in the ultimate position and kaboom.
Other ambushes involve coordinated artillery and/or of course the
Bayraktars
In case the Russians are not able to secure their convoy routes or at least the convoys themselves and keep sustaining the current pace of losses, the whole Russian army will become operational ineffective within one month from now. They really have to act now or soon major units will be cut off, without supplies in an extremely hostile environment. It really shows how stupid the Russian approach to military is as a whole. The U.S. army does not only do a great effort on keeping the logistics going, they also have very detailed methods and procedures when it comes to concept of force protection. This concept was created after two trucks penetrated the U.S. peacekeeping barracks compound in Lebanon in 1983. Such a doctrine seems to be completely absent in the Russian military.
2. Increase of civil resistance: Focus
here is on Kherson: where for the past two weeks, the resistance was one hundred
percent peaceful, over the past two days, the civilian resistance took a darker
turn.
a. For the first time a collaborator
was shot dead in the city. He made deals with the Russians to take over some
business.
b. Today, the Russians desecrated the city
monument by putting pro-Donbass slogans on it. When the locals wanted to remove
it, they shot with stun grenades and live ammo.
This type of response usually signals
the start of more serious resistance. When you’re just protesting peacefully
and the occupiers permits that to a certain level, there’s no reason to escalate.
However, as soon as bullets start to fly, people become more angry. Another worrying
factor for the Russians, is that the Ukrainian army is approaching Kherson from
the West fast.
The
Ukrainian shift in tactic will receive a major boost soon. A lot of people are
angry that NATO will not establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine. The thing is, that
pretty soon NATO will provide a weapon to Ukraine that’s way more useful than
fighter aircraft or a no-fly zone: the AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munition.
This is essentially a suicide drone with a range of 40 kilometers. It’s
superfast and almost undetectable. This weapon will enable the Ukrainians to
finally hit the long range artillery with more sustained fire power. The Switchblade
drones will be a significant challenge to Russia procedure of levelling cities.
The Russians
also started to adapt their tactics. The way they changed it, is good news for
the Ukrainian military, but very worrying news for the already suffering Ukrainian
population. I recognize in Russia’s behavior that the senior cadre in the
military likely acknowledged that they can’t win the war in modern,
sophisticated warfare. And Russia is now doing what it always did, when results
were needed in a military operation.
1. The Russians seem to deliberately
bombing the food supply. This is a tactic they performed the first time in Syria.
They bombed markets and shops to deprive people from food. Evidence for that
that besides the rocket attack on the Kyiv mall today, malls are also a primary
target in Mariupol and Kharkiv. I really fear for the near future. In Syria
this was the first step. The next step was deliberately bombing hospitals to
prevent wounded fighters from getting treatment. I really fear this might
happen next. We already had the Mariupol hospital bombing, but I haven’t seen
the consistent targeting of hospitals yet.
2. The second more disturbing sign is a
heavy rumor. To be honest, it could be Ukrainian propaganda, but I’m going to mention
it, since it fits the shift in Russian behavior. There are reports that Russia
is taking passport from Ukrainian citizens in Mariupol and send them to far away
places within Russia. The Russian and Soviets have a well known dark piece of history
of this. Especially during the Stalin era dozens of ethnic groups were
forcefully moved to Siberia to perform slave labor. Doing something similar to
Mariupol would make sense. Russia seems keen on having a victory there since it’s
part of their Donetsk People’s Republic concept. Leaving a population in place
that’s deeply resentful towards the Russian army will not be helpful to promote
that concept as a success. I think the Russians are desperate enough to carry these
population evictions.
3. Deployment of hypersonic missiles:
Russia has deployed a couple of hypersonic nuclear capable Kh-47M2 Kinzhal
missiles. A lot of media state that this is a signal to NATO. However, I think
it’s far from the case. I think Russia’s existing short to medium range arsenal
of missiles has been very much depleted and after almost four weeks they still
haven’t established air superiority. Right now, I don’t think the Russian’s
will every achieve air superiority. So in order to keep striking at longer
distance targets they now turned to the Kinzhal. A positive side effect for the
Russians is, that they absolutely can show it off to NATO now. This is the
first time an hypersonic weapon was deployed in combat. For those who don’t
know why this is so significant: A hypersonic weapon flies more than ten times
the speed of sound because it’s propelled by a scramjet engine. That makes it
so fast that
a. it can’t be detected by radar
b. there are currently no ways to intercept
it (only starting from 2023)
c. it can maneuver and loiter around
the target
d. it’s so fast that you won’t hear a
supersonic boom and the kinetic energy is very high. When you’re hit with one
of these, you won’t notice it.
The only ones with this type of missile in operation are Russia and China.
The West is for now lagging behind. The Americans hope to start production of their
AGM-183 ARRW missile later this year, but tests so far haven’t been promising
and recently funds for the missile have been allocated back to research and
development.
1. A couple of blogs back I voiced my
fear for a negotiated settlement. Today the Russians backed down on their earlier
reported progress in negotiations and that Ukrainians were not acting in “a cooperative
manner.” The thing is that the Russians were never and will never be interested
in a negotiated settlement. Negotiations are simply a tool to buy time for the
Kremlin. Either to re-organize or to prepare for a next round of action. And I
would like to emphasize here. Why should we trust the Russian government
anymore after multiple chief government figures ensured the West that no
invasion would happen and yet it happened. I’m sorry to say: but the only way
this ends well for Ukraine and the West is when the Russian army is so exhausted
and its casualty rate are so high that the remaining soldiers and senior
officers start to revolt.
2. Belarus: again there were reports Belarus
is about to enter the war. Latest news that it’s about to start tonight. I
still think it’s highly unlikely that Belarus will enter the war.
a. Putin might pressure Luka, but he
knows it will be the end of his reign. His generals absolutely don’t want this
and forty percent of the Belarussian army is “on leave.”
b. The Belarussian army is deployed in
the West to make push on the gathering point of Western arms, Lviv. Sorry, but
it simply doesn’t make sense to send a much smaller, even less motivated and
equipped army than the Russian army through the part of Ukraine that has the
best defendable terrain and the most patriotic population.
c. Belarussian railway works have
frustrated the movement of the Belarussian army (and in addition Russian
supplies) very successfully. Belarussian Railways has completely sabotaged the Belarussian
railway network and currently there’s no rail transport possible between Belarus
and Ukraine.
For me the picture is more and more clear how this will evolve. For the Russians it means at best a very determined and resource draining insurgency. At worst, they will be kicked out of Ukraine and humiliated.
Best
regards and "Slava Ukraini!"
Niels
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