Ukraine Blog 36 - It's the Logistics (again)
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
It was a
bit quiet from my side for the past 1.5 weeks. In part because of being busy on
other stuff and enjoying the summer, in part because of heavy battlefield
analysis. It took me a while to link all the events together and to determine
what the plan is for Ukraine. And what a plan it is. Let’s dive into it.
Since the
HIMARS arrived three weeks ago, Ukraine has executed something that can only be
described as a relentless campaign of tactical and limited strategic strikes
deep into Russian occupied territory. They did it with just four to eight
HIMARS systems and as I predicted, the effect has been devastating. The targets
chosen by the Ukrainians (well, I think it’s actually the Americans) have a
particular sequence.
1. In the first set of strikes, the command and control positions were heavily targeted, resulting in lots and lots of senior officers killed. In addition, a lot of logistical vehicles were destroyed in these strike.
2. Pretty soon after the attention
shifted to ammunition depots. In the last two weeks Twitter is full of videos
of huge explosions at Russian ammo depots that go on for sometimes a week.
You have to understand that when an ammunition
depot (and Russian ammo depots are usually huge) takes direct hits, there’s
practically nothing you can do to combat the fire. The heat is immense and ammunition
continues to fly around and cook off for days, weeks and in some occasions even
months, making any firefighting impossible.
3. In the daily Russian losses chart of
the Ukrainian military I also noticed that after a long stagnation, the
Russians again start to lose one to two mobile Surface to Air missile (SAM)
launchers per day. It’s heavily suspected that French/Swedish BONUS rounds or
German GIWS SMArt-155 rounds are responsible for this. The targeting of these
systems has a very specific purpose, but we will come to that later.
4. It seems that Ukraine is already
running out of targets in category 1 and 2. In the past couple of days, HIMARS
strikes seem to shift to railway junctions, bridges and the trains themselves.
The
objective of these strikes is not to destroy Russia’s ammunition stockpiles and
military capacity. Although Russia lost tens of thousands of tons of ammunition
in the past couple of weeks, we already saw in the ammunition special on this blog
that Russia has millions of tons of ammunition available and won’t run out of
ammo anytime soon. The purpose of the strikes is the following.
1. The battle for Kyiv was won because
Bayraktar and Javelin/NLAW anti-tank weapons crippled the Russian logistics.
Russian troops had to operate sometimes hundreds of kilometers from their nearest
supply points. This leaded to Russians reaching their maximum capacity in no
time. In the Donbass, the Russian military was already entrenched for years, so
the Russian troops there could rely on easy available supplies. Due to the
HIMARS strikes, the Russians can’t bring their ammunition in large numbers to
within 100 kilometers of the frontline. As I explained before, the Russian
military heavily relies on railway transport for logistics. By simultaneously
targeting the ammunition depots and the railway infrastructure, the Russians
have no way of bringing ammunition to their troops other than by using trucks
that can only handle far smaller amounts. For now Russia still has a small
artillery advantage, but that’s shrinking per day.
2. The main tool that was ever present
in the first phase of the war, the Bayraktar drones, have been absent in the
Donbass. The reason for this, is that Russia’s mobile SAM coverage over Donbass
is actually quite good. And we learned that the Ukrainians simply don’t deploy
Bayraktars where it doesn’t make sense. Now that Western smart munitions have
started to arrive, Russian mobile SAM’s taken out start to increase. Over time
this will increase in such a weakening of the Russian air defense coverage that
the Bayraktars will be able to operate over Donbass. We all know what that
means…
3. Due to the attacks on Command and
Control installations, the Russians have been forced to redeploy those sites to
more than hundred kilometers from the frontline. Russian officers need to be
close to their frontline troops in order to ensure that their units achieve something
(quite often resulting in the deaths of the officers themselves). Moving officers
so far from the frontline will make sure that the Russians will operate as even
less coherent units as was previously the case.
It's
important to emphasize that not only new high tech Western weapons are
responsible for this carnage. The Ukrainians also kept a large number of their
old Soviet Toschka-U’s in reserve with the aim of deploying them under more favorable
circumstances. They are responsible for the longest range strikes of more than
hundred kilometers.
It’s good to
see how effective these weapons are in combination with modern Western weapons.
I get a lot
of pushback from people who state: “yeah, but the Russians are still advancing.”
Well, yeah, they do, but they only advance on one small front near Siversk where
they concentrate half of their entire invasion force and progress is literally only
hundreds of meters per day against huge losses. On all other fronts progress is
stalled and in Kherson and especially Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainians make good
progress in counteroffensives (although I think these are still prepping
operations and the main counteroffensives haven’s started yet).
And lets talk
about Russia’s result. Although they took Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, they
completely failed in what should have been their primary objective: the encirclement
and destruction of Ukraine’s Joint Group of Forces. Although these forces
suffered heavy losses, most of the men and material got out and the Russians
captured surprisingly little POW’s and equipment. Although Ukraine has lost
this territory, it did so by inflicting irreparable losses on the Russians.
Moreover, the Russians wasted the only chance they had to encircle the Joint
Group of Forces. Their won’t be another opportunity to do that. The Russians
now have to throw their remaining forces against absolute fortresses like
Sloviansk, Krematorsk and Bakhmut.
But first
and foremost, wining a battle might be about tactics, winning a war is about
logistics. Although without Western weapons Ukraine could do little to harm
Russian logistics, right now it has found the right way to do just that. There’s
little the Russians can do to stop the HIMARS attacks. It now becomes clear why
it’s so important Russia had to establish air superiority in the first three
days of the invasion. The fact that 4,5 months into the war, Ukrainian air
superiority only increases, will bite them extra hard. In addition, Russian
equipment really starts to suffer from the lack of spare parts due to Western sanctions.
Both on land and sea, cruise missiles literally start falling from the sky immediately
after launch.
(1) Типичный Донецк on Twitter: "@IntelCrab 👇 https://t.co/Bdv4Gh3CH3" / Twitter
Most of the
missiles that make it to Ukrainian government controlled territory are now shot
down over rural areas. My suspicion is that also here, Western weapons are
making the difference. I heavily suspect Norwegian NASAMS missiles to be
responsible for this. This is a very advanced SAM system, where the Norwegians
put American AMRAAM air-to-air missiles on ground based platform.
Russia resorts
increasingly to very old and large cruise missiles that were built in the
sixties and seventies to deliver nuclear weapons. With NASAMS in place, these
ancient weapons have no chance.
It’s great
that Western high tech equipment has arrived and started to make the crucial
difference, but there also lies the risk. For example, just under 60.000 high
precision missiles for HIMARS where ever produced. Those missiles are very advanced
and take time to produce. The stocks of Western high tech weapons are far from
unlimited. This implies that Ukraine has to launch a large scale counterattack
at some point to destroy the Russian army. If that offensive is started too
late or not executed at all and Ukraine expends all its Western weapons, the
Russians will adapt and resupply their forces with ancient but at that stage
still effective equipment. Make no mistake: Russia might even force a stalemate
at this stage, but winning the war by taking cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv is
impossible.
And when will Russia stop? Well, I was wrong at 30.000 casualty mark. According to the official Ukrainian number, we are close to Russian 40.000 deaths now, but I think the real number is far higher. The 30.000 number was based on the simple historical war logics that you take the invasion force, in this case 200.000. Any military force will become combat ineffective at a loss rate of 60 percent. So 30.000 deaths is 15 percent, wounded are always three times the amount of death. So that would make 120.000 casualties in death and wounded the breaking point for Russia. But strangely enough, defying all historical trends, the Russians keep going. There’s no logic in it. I start to believe that they really are orcs.
Moreover,
the Russians managed to assemble 30 more of their Battalion Tactical Groups in
Russia by scraping the bottom of the barrel. Those units are comprised of a wild
mix of volunteers, conscripts with extended service contracts, mercenaries,
technical and maintenance personnel (this will bite Russia in the tail at a
later stage) and training officers (as discussed in an earlier blog, this will
also bite them very hard later). I really doubt these units can operate as cohesive
fighting units and will likely do more harm to Russia on the battlefield than to
produce gains. As it looks right now, Russia will also throw these units in the
meatgrinder. With no clear achievable short and long term goals, it’s a mystery
what still drives them. There’s only one solution: Ukraine needs to continue
keep killing them at relentless rate. At some point they might not stop
fighting, but it will simply be impossible for them to operate as a coherent
fighting force.
Слава
Україні!
Niels
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