Sham negotiations. Russia is making demands it knows Ukraine cannot possibly accept, walks out claiming it tried to achieve a peaceful end to a war it says does not exist, and then continues to bomb the fuck out of Ukraine. Russia will succeed in annexing the country. Sheer quantity will overcome the lack of its military's quality, and not for the first time.
Well, perhaps not. Russian ground forces total only about 400,000, of which only 280,000 are active duty and the rest are conscripts, which Putin says are not supposed to be used. Right now Putin has mobilized a significant fraction of that for the invasion, and he is bogged down. Ukraine can field more than that actually, although they are outgunned especially in air power. They hold significant advantages nonetheless. They are being armed with sophisticated anti armor weapons by the West. They can mobilize their entire country to fight against them. Urban warfare will negate a lot of air power and long range artillery, which is why you don’t see them taking Kharkiv or Mariupol despite several intense attacks. Plus Russia has to hold on to rear areas. The risk of an insurgency is very high. Just controlling the area takes a huge number of troops away from front line duties.
One estimate I read is that Putin will need to deploy over 340,000 troops to conquer and control Russia. That‘s 85% of their forces. That’s not sustainable. Frankly, I think that number is too low, but I also don’t think Putin will try to go much further west than Kyiv. He’ll probably want to only occupy the country east of the Dnieper. He could leave a rump country in the west, knowing that it will never join NATO.
But really that won’t work. For starters, an untouched Western Ukraine will be a platform for continuing the war. Thus he may be forced to either call up reserves and conscripts and cross the Dnieper in force to attempt a full scale occupation. This is something he said wouldn’t happen. Thus doing so would be tantamount to an admission of failure on his part.
Second, they don’t have near enough troops just to conquer the East right now. They can’t even take Kharkiv and have surrounded but not penetrated into Mariupol. That means they can’t free up these troops to attack Kiev. They may make gains, but each one comes at a greater and greater cost. Why hasn’t Odessa been
attacked yet? Simple: they can’t.
Third, Ukraine doesn’t have to win on the battlefield so much as they just have to hold out long enough for the Russians to say they’ve had enough. That could be a lot sooner than people think. Sanctions are going to make life very uncomfortable in Russia. But it will take some time. The US is also sanctioning any Chinese companies who do business with Russia, and that also should put significant pressure on Russia from their supposedly stalwart friend. China will sell Russia under the bus if they can’t wrap this up quickly.
What they are left with is the same strategy as they used in Grozny and Aleppo - namely terror bomb the cities into submission. But look at their experience in Grozny, where Chechen rebels, unsupplied by the West and with far fewer forces held back Russians for months and continued the fighting back and forth for about 6 years. Russian forces were far less so they could sustain the fight for far longer without too much opposition on the home front. Ukraine is far larger, and there are numerous Grozny’s to deal with.
This war will end with Putin’s downfall. It’s the only way. Putin will be the final casualty. His military will eventually revolt. Unfortunately it will take months before this happens, and in the meantime, tens of thousands are going to die.
www.theguardian.com
