Ukraine Blog 38 – Russia has Lost the War and this is Why

Dear friends, family and colleague’s,

Yes, you read it right in the title. Russia has lost the war and now of course it’s up to me to explain why. For the past months, I have been doing weekly updates, but pretty soon, we are going back to daily updates. While for the Western media, the front seems static, what’s happening on the fronts is far from static.

As I wrote before after the fall of Severodonetsk and Lysychans'k the Russian advance came to an absolute standstill. Last week, the Russians made for the first time in three weeks a small advance when they captured the Vuhlehirsʹka powerplant and the nearby village of Novoluhanske. They managed to do this by launching daily mass infantry assaults that led to massive Russian losses. Most interestingly, the forces performing the attack were the troops of the Wagner mercenary company. Please don’t buy the narrative that this is an independent company. This is just a rebranded Russian army component created by Russia to deploy forces in overseas territories to give the illusion that the official Russian military is not involved.

All other fronts are completely stalled and the Russian troops there are completely exhausted and combat ineffective. During the past week the first signs emerged that pretty soon the front lines will drastically change in favor of Ukraine. North of Sloviansk, the Russian have withdrawn up to nine Battalion Tactical Groups (BTG’s) and they have redeployed them to the south, more on that later. This front that emerged after the fall of Izium on April 1^st didn’t move an inch since the end of that battle. In the past two days, Ukraine for the first time recaptured a couple of villages there, namely Brazhkivka and Pasika. At Pasika, the Russian also seem to have removed the pontoon bridge that they built there. These are the first indications that we can pretty soon expect a Russian “Goodwill gesture (the term they used to describe their defeat at Snake Island)” there. I do expect the Russians to give up Izium and the hinterlands all the way up to Kupiansk in the next two weeks. A Kyiv scenario there is highly possible, where the Ukrainians will recover the land without much fighting.

Instead the Russians are moving the forces from Izium to the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. Large numbers of VDV (airborne) forces were seen crossing the last remaining bridge at the Nova Kakhovka dam into the Western part of Kherson oblast.

From Russian perspective these movements are a good thing. It shows that the Russian command is not fully staffed with complete morons, but as always, the execution of the plan comes with severe incompetence. Let me explain why.

1.       Russia understands that it can’t maintain all the fronts that it is fighting right now. It’s clear they are focusing on securing the initial war aims. These are: capturing the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and secure the southern route

2.       However, those VDV forces shouldn’t have crossed the bridge at the Nova Kakhovka dam. This region of Kherson has for the past two weeks been the focus of a relentless surgical strike campaign from the Ukrainians. Besides hitting ammo depots and troops concentrations, they Ukrainians hit a lot of very critical infrastructure. The major road bridge and railway bridge are damaged to such an extent that they have been put out of action for the duration of the war. Bringing in so many troops with only one supply point left, shows how reckless the Russian still are. When the Ukrainians again will hit the bridge at Nova Kakhovka dam (which already has happened), there’s simply no way to get the equipment that they brought out. In the Western part of Kherson there are now thousands of Russian vehicles that can’t get out once that bridge is blown. To bring so many forces in to the Western part is a good thing for Ukraine though. The only way where these forces can operate is in the north western part of Kherson. They can’t reach Kherson city, since all bridges of the Inhulets river have been blown. This will save Ukraine weeks of bloody urban combat in Kherson.

In Western Kherson the Ukrainians completely crippled the Russian supply lines. It’s clear that the Ukrainian high command has chosen a strategy to bleed the Russians to a point they run out of supplies. I expect the Russians still to be able to get most of the soldiers out, but that critical haul of equipment will be lost.

But here is the thing: for the first time since the start of the war, Ukraine has an advantage in reaching its strategic objects. The crucial part is: Ukraine CAN afford to lose the Donbass. It’s not of strategic importance and Ukraine will easily survive without it. Ukraine absolutely needs to take the south (including Crimea) to secure sea access and to destroy the Black Sea Fleet.

Russia on the other hand NEEDS to conquer the Donbass and absolutely NEEDS to secure the south as well. For the simple reason that Putin sold a conquest of the Donbass as primary motive for the invasion and losing the south will end Russia’s role as a naval power in the Black Sea.

So will all Russian lines collapse and will we see an end of the war soon? By far no: I expect the Russians to do two things:

1.       They will continue to press hard to capture the remaining part of Donetsk oblast. However, this will not be as easy as it has been up until now. The Ukrainian defense lines there have been prepared since 2014 and are incredibly heavily fortified. Slovianks and Krematorsk are urban areas that will be almost impossible to conquer. Russia can’t form any “cauldrons” around these towns to impose a siege like they did in Severodonetsk and Lysychans'k. The troops they are sending now are the last of the line (more on that later)

2.       In Zaporizhzhia and east Kherson I expect the Russians will switch to defensive warfare pretty soon. Question is where we will see the “goodwill gesture” first. Western Kherson or Izium. In case it will be Western Kherson, the defensive phase will start pretty soon after.

I got many questions on why the Ukrainians are not launching an all out attack right now. Well, that would be the most stupid thing to do. Like I said: the Ukrainians are now systematically destroying the Russian supply lines and logistics in an even more methodological and relentless way than they did around Kyiv. The Ukrainians strategy is to clearly bleed the Russian supplies. When there are no supplies, even the best trained soldier can’t fight. The best indication that this strategy is a success, is that the Ukrainian casualty rate fell from 100-200 soldiers KIA per day to around 30. Still heavy, but sustainable. The Russian casualty rates didn’t increase, they even went up to around 300 KIA per day. It wouldn’t make sense for Ukraine to throw it’s forces against Russian fortified positions that can easily destroyed with HIMARS and Pzh-2000’s and making the same mistakes as the Russians do.

With bleeding supply lines, abandoning fronts and no available replacement manpower, the war is lost for Russia. According to Ukrainian president Zelensky there are now one million Ukrainians under arms in the armed forces. I would say 700.000 is a more realistic number. But even that is a sufficient number for Ukraine. Russia on the other hand tried to form a third army corps of 15.000 soldiers for the past two months. They only managed to recruit 5.500 soldiers and they man the officer corps by promoting junior officers and cadre soldiers to senior officers. This is usually a very bad signal to sustain an offensive war. You can do this in a defensive war, but this is a death sentence in an offensive war. The only way that Russia can still keep into the fight and perhaps force a ceasefire, is when Western support suddenly stops. I don’t see any immediate indications for that, but as always, the Germans are the weakest link here. Every German move should be viewed with the uttermost suspicion.

But there are still people who think we should negotiate with Russia. Please be prepared for my next special. I will explain why it’s dangerous to negotiate with Russia, why it’s pointless, why Russia violates every agreement that a foreign country or organizations makes with them and why there’s something very wrong with Russian society. It will be a piece written from a political philosophy angle. Not my best subject during my time in Political Science college, but I assure you I will give you the best.

Слава Україні!

Niels