How the Pentagon assesses Ukraine’s progress
How the Pentagon assesses Ukraine’s progress
A rare interview with America’s Defence Intelligence Agency
A Biden administration official says that Ukraine can keep the offensive going for around six to seven weeks more, and there are private disagreements over how much progress can be made in that time.
Given that AFU having abandoned most of their reserves to break through the defence line and suffered heavy losses while trying to break through it, are unlikely to be able to go far.
Meanwhile, according to a senior US intelligence official the quality of Ukrainian forces is declining over time.
Finally, US officials have criticized the Ukrainian military strategy, in particular for the decision to deploy experienced units in the east, near Bakhmut, rather than in a key area in the south.
It looks like AFU is now stretched thin across the line of contact and isn't able to concentrate sufficient numbers of troops in any one area to make significant progress. Russian offensive in the north means that Ukraine can't pull troops to the south without sacrificing their positions. However, the west wants to see visible progress and pressuring them to do so.
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Not a soldier, but one thing I am fairly sure of –
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WRONG WAY TO MEASURE MILITARY PROGRESS: Land gained. You might gain some kilometres of land at huge cost, if it's well defended. The enemy might cede it to you in a strategic retreat that leaves you very bloody, and then you've got the land. Sure if the land contains something like a port that matters to the war machine it is real progress.
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RIGHT WAY TO MEASURE MILITARY PROGRESS: Are you deteriorating the enemy's ability to wage war faster than he is deteriorating yours? Are you killing his men, smashing his machines, using cheap bullets to shoot down expensive helicopters, disrupting his supply lines to increase his costs? If you keep doing this, his war machine will collapse before yours does.
I'm not a military expert, but isn't this what they teach? Isn't this in Clausewitz and Mao's books and isn't it basically common sense? You don't win a war by displaying encouraging maps on the evening news.
Right, and that's the conundrum for the west and Ukraine. Since Ukraine is entirely dependent on the west, they have to keep showing visible progress that western public can understand in order for western governments to continue dumping money into Ukraine. So, the pressure is to make big offensives like the one we're seeing now that are incredibly costly and can't be realistically sustained.
On the other hand, Russian military doesn't have to constantly make preformative stunts for the domestic public in Russia. They can go at the pace they choose to, and grind down Ukrainian army in a war of attrition. The best example of the fact that Russian army decided to spend half a year on building defensive lines and organizing its army without making any visible progress. Western media have been screaming at the top of their lungs the whole time that this is a clear sign of how incompetent Russian army is and that Russia isn't capable of making any progress.
Russians knew that the west would force Ukraine into a disastrous offensive sooner or later, and now we see the results of that. Ukraine is seeing incredible losses, and its not able to even fight its way out of the security zone before the first line of defence.
I expect that once the Ukrainian offensive burns itself out in another month or so, we'll see Russians going on an offensive against depleted and demoralized remnants of the Ukrainian army.
Interestingly enough, this dynamic was understood by NATO analysts for a while now. Here's a pretty insightful article explaining the dynamic and predicting precisely what we're seeing unfold now https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
Russia has to wait for the end of the rains, right? Unless you're suggesting an offensive without mechanized support under the assumption that Ukrainian supply lines will be equally fucked.
Yeah, I think they're gonna wait until the ground firms up, and in the meantime use drones and the air force to hunt as much Ukrainian armor as they can.
This reminds me of what happened in Kherson, where Russia fled back over the river. Was it around the end of last year?
It was touted as a huge victory for Ukraine. Maybe it was. It seemed obvious to me that Russia would gain little by trying to keep open a supply line at the time across the river, potentially leaving it's troops and equipment vulnerable. I know what I'd have done—there's a point at which you've got to cut your losses.
If it was even cutting their losses; if they weren't too interested with Kherson at the time, it could've been a success, by drawing in Ukrainian forces, away from something else they Russia actually wanted at the time.
Same as the land towards Kiev/in the North. All presented as huge losses for Russia. I'm sure there's war propaganda that slips past me. 100% sure, in fact. But this western reportage about land is all shoddy, transparent propaganda.
I assume it's intended to maintain public support and to sell papers/air time. It's easy to forget that what journos push as an exciting narrative (read: trivialising and cynically twisting a tragedy for personal gain) gets eyes on paper/screen—an invitation to sell advertising space to the army surplus and hunting stores for new camos and knives.
Not to mention the dialectic between the public knowing this story because it's in the movies, and the public afterwards thirsting to buy more cinema tickets to watch movies that help them imagine being the hero in the Ukrainian unit. (And vice versa for Russians and Russian media.)
When we hear about the land is a pompous politician, who's shit ideas get plastered over every sheet and screen. When it's news about how much equipment Ukraine is losing, it's hidden in an article with loads of inflated rhetoric that doesn't really mean much. We can't claim they don't tell us what's happening but they obfuscate the truth like hiding a single blueberry in a kale and spinach smoothie.
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There it is, then. I didn't realise the connection between the retreat and the referenda.
Although I at least knew there were referenda, even now I talk to people who have no idea that those regions held a vote at all. The propaganda worked.
It's also the big mistake that literally everyone fighting in Russia has found out: the Russians can retreat longer than you can attack.
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