The Battle for Donbas has reached a decisive point — unless Putin’s hordes unleash a major attack soon, Ukraine has won another epic victory.
NOTE: Originally published on Medium, May 18, 2022. Held up pretty well after, as the fighting turned into attritional warfare along the Bakhmut-Siversk line.
Unlike most folks who assess Russia’s war on Ukraine, I adamantly refuse to get caught up in starry-eyed optimism and rah-rah appeals.
Why? Because overconfidence gets good people killed, plain and simple. Thousands of Americans —including a couple guys I served with — died in Iraq and Afghanistan because politicians in D.C. couldn’t figure out how to win or get out for a decade.
Way too many Americans act like warfare is some team sport where shouting how loudly Putin sucks is useful. Meanwhile, Ukrainians and volunteers from abroad like jmvasquez on Twitter are actually bleeding to defend Ukraine, while pathetic leaders like Biden and Johnson still refuse to give Ukraine’s defenders modern tanks and jets yet steal its valor at every turn.
Since the war began I’ve posted numerous pieces that push back against the self-serving conventional wisdom spammed by powerful people in D.C. and London. None of them has ever had Ukraine’s best interests at heart — for them Putin’s brutal invasion has been an opportunity to achieve longstanding political objectives that do not help secure America or its allies.
To be absolutely clear: I’m on Ukraine’s side — but not NATO’s, and definitely not Russia’s. True neutrality of the sort I practice requires the active defense of anyone who comes under attack unjustly, but if you believe NATO has Ukraine’s best interests at heart you should to ask yourself why it is still failing to deliver enough heavy weapons three months into this war.
But what about Putin’s nukes?! The cowardly experts in the West cry. If we do any more, it’s World War 3!
Yeah, newsflash: it’s way too late to worry about that now. NATO weapons are killing Russian soldiers in a fight Putin has staked his rule on. If you look at what’s being said in the Russian media, the biggest skeptics of the war are calling for escalation, not negotiation.
It’s all over folks — the postwar order is dead and done. There’s almost no hope things don’t get substantially worse all over the world before they start improving again. The world system is entering a collapse phase where it will be reforged and reborn as has happened so many times before.
In Russia, seeds are being sown to convince the Russian people that NATO is effectively trying to destroy them. Last year, Putin’s historical screed laying out why Ukraine didn’t exist and didn’t need Donbas even if it did, included a remarkable statement:
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us — V. Putin
Putin is comparing the loss of Ukraine to the use of a weapon of mass destruction against Russia. And he has lost it, so far failing even to fully “liberate” Donbas.
Russia has already been nuked in Putin’s mind. Barring a miracle, some form of nuclear use is now almost inevitable. Most probably not a world-ending apocalypse, but a “limited” counterforce exchange that could still unintentionally inflict millions of casualties around the globe if it goes beyond each side shooting at the other’s ICBM silos.
There is no face-saving off-ramp for Putin or his regime. A coup is extremely unlikely, and probably results in nuclear use anyway because in the end, Putin will happily let Russia burn to secure his personal power — Putin is not Russia, remember. Like all world leaders, the power he holds over his subjects is an end in and of itself.
This is likely why he was so eager to play Thunder Run in Kyiv like he was Bush Jr. ordering the Third Infantry Division into Baghdad. Putin was performing for all the world— and now revealed to be far weaker than he had bluffed, he must now restore his credibility through achieving parity with his nemesis, NATO.
In Putin’s mind, Russia is more likely to survive a nuclear conflict than America — at least in the terms he personally cares about. And when he realizes he’s lost in Ukraine, escalate to de-escalate will be his only logical choice. This might simply involve direct strikes with hypersonic missiles on a NATO logistics base or two, but truth be told no one knows for sure how far up the escalation ladder Putin will go to force NATO to negotiate directly over Ukraine’s future.
Putin will never take Ukraine down now. That’s a simple fact. Even if he mobilizes Russia’s full might and uses nukes on the battlefield, Ukrainians will never accept Russian occupation after Bucha and Mariupol and all the others. Once regime change in Kyiv failed, his only viable option was the destruction of Ukraine’s main army in Donbas and taking the country bit by bit. But even there the evidence is mounting that he has failed.
Putin simply has no way out of this mess now but victory or death. The only way I see the world escaping a nuclear exchange is if he is separated from his people to such a degree Russian military officers refuse the launch orders when they come.
Remember: Putin is not Russia. Moscow is not Russia. Like America, Russia is an idea, in practice a settler-colony forever on the verge of splitting apart into smaller units. When Russian leaders lose foreign wars, civil war usually follows.
In Putin’s alienation total from the people he rules lies all hope for a better future now. Unfortunately, America and NATO want Putin to remain where he is, just like the Allies preferred Hitler running Germany to a more competent alternative.
But this is Hitler with nukes, and we’re approaching a place where either Putin is willing to use nuclear weapons or he isn’t. The fateful choice he makes in the end can no longer be impacted by anything Ukraine’s allies do short of launching an open invasion. Nuclear threats therefore have to be completely disregarded, and the correct kind of military support flooded to Ukraine — and fast enough to give Kyiv a chance to win this summer.
Too many Western voices are obsessed with convincing everyone Ukraine is bound to win simply because we want it to. This is part of an information war they’re waging on behalf of political leaders who aim to wound Russia without having to bleed themselves.
Putin’s assault was telegraphed almost a year in advance. NATO could have protected Ukraine and saved tens of thousands of lives, but chose not to — and Ukraine should never forget. Neither should the rest of the world.
But the powers that be haven’t stopped playing their sick power game. They’re never held accountable, they just roll with the punches and live to screw up another day. Now they aim to convince everyone that the aid sent so far is enough for Kyiv to win, all in the vain hope of avoiding Putin lashing out at them if he realizes Russia is losing.
This is why the pundits trumpet every local counterattack Kyiv launches as evidence of Russia’s imminent demise. For three months the entire Russian military has been on the verge of collapse, if you listen to the execrable Institute for the Study of War, yet Ukrainian casualties clearly continue to mount.
It’s all part of a sick paternalistic game, giving Ukraine just enough gear to not lose while pretending delivery of Abrams tanks and F-16 jets is what will suddenly push Putin to go nuclear. Ukraine is almost in a position to go on the strategic offensive, because the fighting in Donbas appears to have reached a point where one of two scenarios is about to unfold:
Russia executes a vicious, coordinated attack from around Izium in the north and Huliaipole in the south to encircle all of Donbas
Russian efforts fully degenerate into localized encirclement efforts that will ultimately result in a stalemate until it mobilizes reserves
It is possible, though it seems more and more unlikely with each passing day, that Putin’s regime has been gaslighting Western analysts over the past few weeks. Appearing sick in public, having oligarchs whisper that he’s dying, making it seem as if Putin is intervening in low-level military decisions — if you were trying to bluff that Putin is nuts and Russia’s military on the brink of exhaustion this is how you’d go about it.
Generally, it is wise to assume that any major leader’s appearances are carefully scripted. Putin seems to be trying to convince the rest of the world that he’s losing control and about to go nuclear at any moment. If successful, this deception effort could aid battlefield successes in Donbas once Russian forces are ready to unleash their assault.
The scattershot nature of Russia’s attacks in Donbas the past few weeks add some credence to this view. They have shifted decidedly east, towards areas Ukraine has been preparing to defend for years, which makes little military sense given the simple fact that the terrain in the eastern sector of the battle zone is much harder to break through:
Everyone on a battlefield relies on cover to survive. Even attackers want to remain invisible for as long as they can. But when you’re moving tanks and artillery around, this simply isn’t happening. The real power of mechanized military units is their ability to drive around fixed defenses and hit more vulnerable parts of the defender’s line.
In a world where Ukraine is able to put Stugna, Javelin, and NLAW anti-tank weapons into the hands of every territorial guard team, quickly breaking through close terrain is nearly impossible. And bridging operations are almost suicidal when your opponent is able to launch artillery strikes on the exposed engineers and their gear.
Yet this is exactly what Russian forces tried not once, but three times in the same damn place! The world this week was treated to a scene of epic destruction where over 50 Russian armored vehicles were destroyed and probably 100–200 personnel killed, with many more wounded.
The abject incompetence on display here is very telling. If Putin really is intervening directly, Russia is utterly doomed on the battlefield — strategic chaos artist he might be, Vlad is no soldier.
The chances of Russia pulling off an elaborate ruse are declining fast. Either this crazy expenditure of personnel and equipment is intended to pull Ukrainian forces and reinforcements away from the real intended line of attack farther west, or Russian forces really are so utterly inept they can’t hope to win.
Plenty of people in social media will be quick to jump to the latter conclusion, because after Kyiv didn’t fall in two days like most intelligence experts insisted it would, the conventional wisdom shifted to assume Ukraine is invincible. In reality, we may simply be only now realizing thatwarfare has reverted to where it was back in 1914, largely thanks to technology.
It might well be too hard to hide major mechanized forces and keep them supplied when remote sensing capabilities are so inexpensive and powerful and everyone has access to precision weapons and radios to call for support. Ukraine’s Territorial Guard units have done an amazing job covering the gaps between regular army units, clearly aided by being able to call down fire from artillery and drones while remaining hidden.
Still, Russians are human beings too, and people have a way of surprising you when they’re trying their best to not die. There must remain some concern that Russia is still preparing for its main blow in Donbas. Lacking any reliable information on what’s happening behind the lines near Izium or Polohy, a wise commander must always assume that a powerful reserve force is waiting in the wings for the right opportunity to strike. [Edit 1/23/23 - as it turns out, Russia did have a major reserve in Izium, but it lacked personnel thanks to the failed efforts to recruit fresh soldiers before Putin enacted partial mobilization in September. Most of this equipment wound up abandoned to the Ukrainian counterattacks that month.]
Ukrainian forces are likely well aware of this, which helps explain why they’ve launched a series of spoiling attacks near Izium in recent days. It appears a force crossed the Donets river northwest of the town and hit the Russians massing there before being forced back, which is a classic technique if you want to disrupt an offensive before it is launched.
When you’re trying to organize a big push, it’s a real pain to have to shift focus to halt a crisis. If Russia is playing things cagey, Ukraine probably threw off their whole schedule.
Whatever happened, Russian forces remain bogged down in their bridgehead south of Izium. They clearly want and need to take Barvinkove to cut a major rail line supplying forces around Slovyansk, but Ukraine’s forces anticipated this and entrenched right where they needed to.
I am slowly growing confident that even if Putin unleashes a successful surprise attack, Ukraine’s forces will hold on. Over the weekend I found an excellent map by Military Lab that does a good job of estimating where Ukraine’s defenders are dug in, and it’s very telling:
Basically, Donbas is already a whole series of Mariupols waiting to happen. Ukraine has had eight years to prepare for Russia’s onslaught and it appears that they’ve been stockpiling supplies ahead of the fight and digging in. As so often is the case when an underdog is fighting for its life, Ukraine has clearly predicted most of Russia’s moves and prepared accordingly.
However, turning the tide isn’t enough to break the looming stalemate. Ukraine’s operations near Kharkiv, while exciting, are emblematic of the necessarily slow, grinding pace of the effort to kick Russia out of the country entirely without more support.
Russian forces have lots anti-tank missiles too. And they have effective air superiority over the battle zone — not supremacy, implying total control, but it is clear from reading the testimony of Ukrainian pilots that they are fighting for their lives whenever they go up to disrupt incoming strikes.
Russia also retains the ability to hit Ukrainian targets with cruise missiles, which they’ve used fewer of, it appears, than they have their Iskander ballistic missiles. This won’t be an easy fight, especially if Ukraine doesn’t get new and better gear right away.
Defending is just so much easier than attacking, especially now that drones and satellites are always watching. While Ukraine’s utterly ferocious defense against Russia’s assault deserves far more credit than deliveries of NATO weapons, the fact remains that pushing Russia out of Ukraine entirely will require a completely different level of military force than what Ukraine has used to protect itself.
Going from giving Ukraine light infantry weapons to towed artillery over the space of three months is not going to reverse Russia’s gains or liberate Ukraine’s lost territory. This Command and Conquer game Ukraine’s supposed allies are playing is getting old.
Had Ukraine started receiving new modern gear in March, soldiers would be completing training and putting it to use already. Logistics chains could have been established to handle resupply and parts — Ukraine could have already counterattacked to great effect. Kherson might not have remained occupied, and Mariupol might not have been lost at all.
Instead, a new race has begun. Ukraine is working to arm and train a million soldiers that will mostly be equipped with basic gear until its allies get with the program. Russia is reorganizing and learning how to actually fight, reverting to Syria style tactics under the butcher of Aleppo. Too officer-heavy to function efficiently, it appears Russia’s vaunted military reforms hyped for years by Blob think-tankers like Michael Kofman have been a total bust.
By August, either Russia has enacted a full mobilization of reserves, or its military will be utterly exhausted. Some apparent leaks of Russian losses are making it into the public sphere, confirming what open source reporting at Oryx blog has reported.
Putin faces a simple stark choice: lose, or escalate. I don’t see how he can accept a loss. And whether he is ill or not, Russia’s nuclear arsenal will have to come into play to demonstrate Russia can still defend itself, given its army’s wretched performance.
Neither Kyiv nor Moscow is in a position to back down now, and for Putin the war is steadily turning to the epic confrontation with NATO he’s clearly been dreaming of dragging Russia into for twenty years. In America, Britain, and Russia too Boomer leaders are committed to self-immolation now that they’re being forced to confront their mortality.
Determined to pretend they’re FDR, Churchill, and Stalin respectively, they won’t let the war end. If some nukes don’t fly in the coming year, it will be a miracle.
Which means, somewhat paradoxically, that the threat of a nuclear conflict can’t impact allied support for Ukraine. The Anglosphere and Europe are already functionally at war with Russia, and in the end both sides are set to lose everything.
So be it — the war in Ukraine has been a possibility since the 1990s, when the Boomers first came to power in America. They failed to secure the peace after the Cold War, squandering a unique historic opportunity. Now, under Biden, the bigoted Clintonite fools are back, determined to win their long twilight struggle at long last as if that will shed the legacy of Vietnam at long last.
Just like the Ragnarok prophecy predicts, the dire wolves Skoll and Hati will swallow sun and moon, plunging the world into darkness. It’s all happened before, and probably will many times again — all any of us can do is survive and impact what we can.
World ripping itself apart aside, all this still leaves the critical issue of ensuring Ukraine actually wins — not just ends up in another eight year stalemate, but wins. That’s America’s stated objective, so for once it ought to stick to its promises.
Ferocious as Ukraine’s fighters are, even a million can’t hope to beat Russia’s entire mobilized military on their own — at least not without receiving a lot more heavy equipment. Tanks, jets, rocket artillery, and more: to beat Russia will require access to all of NATO’s conventional arsenal.
Or more precisely, America’s. The time has come for immediate and large-scale deliveries of every piece of gear in the US arsenal — Abrams tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Paladin self-propelled artillery systems, MRLS rocket systems, F-16 jets, and long-range anti-ship missiles.
After all, these weapons were specifically designed to take on Soviet forces in Europe. It is a brutal irony of history that America’s pathetic leaders have mostly used the country’s Cold War gear fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, scenarios the equipment was never designed for.
Truth be told, most of it is obsolete now. Once upon a time, I served as an enlisted soldier and actually worked with much of it — even sixteen years ago it was getting long in the tooth. European equipment is actually better on average, but America has deeper reserves.
Fortunately, Russia is also using Cold War gear that is even more obsolete than NATO models. Unfortunately, so is Ukraine. Ukrainian tanks, mostly modifications of the old T-64 and newer T-80 models, lose their turrets in catastrophic, crew-killing explosions too.
The time has come for the United States to begin direct transfers of the most modernized equipment in American stocks. There is simply no reason not to begin handing over pre-positioned stocks in Germany to Ukrainian troops to be trained on their use over the next 2–3 months.
After all, it isn’t as if it will be needed to fight someone else. Russia is kind of occupied, and any fight with China will be naval and aerial in nature.
America has 900 or so M1A2 tanks — that have safety features that prevent them from killing their crew — lots more M2 and M3 Bradleys, and hundreds of F-16 fighter jets that are superior to Russian kit and basically sitting wasted in US arsenals. All of it needs to be replaced with clean sheet designs well before the unlikely event the USA winds up in another ground war, because if it isn’t, American personnel are going to bleed like Russians are today because warfare has evolved since 1980.
Active protection systems to stop incoming missiles, remote-controlled turrets that let the crew to sit in an armored box protected from direct fire, drones and camera traps, robust battlefield networks allowing fully decentralized operations and total situational awareness — the future of ground warfare requires all this and more. Personnel are always the most valuable asset on the battlefield — give me a big enough team of capable people without weapons and I can beat a battalion tactical group with traps alone.
It is simply disgusting that Ukraine’s so-called allies have failed to transfer next-generation gear to Ukraine. It’s part of a sick game that they think protects them from Russia’s wrath, but really just ensures that when the war does escalate, it will get completely out of control.
But hey — even if America and Russia are reduced to ashes, I’ll always take comfort in this: Ukraine will survive!
The good guys win, for once. And even if nobody gives it the help it deserves, sooner or later, Ukraine will win.
Putin got what he personally wanted from this war. And now, once he’s gone, however he goes, everything he ever cared about will be burnt to ash.
Soon enough, I suspect Russia will no longer exist.