The fog of war brought down to earth
On these pages, I have in recent weeks expressed the hope that the war in Ukraine will soon be coming to an end. I have had in mind an imminent Russian military victory and Ukrainian capitulation. I came to that conclusion shortly after Russian Defense Minister Shoigu said publicly that the Ukrainians had used up all of their reserves in men and materiel. Separately, but pointing in the same direction, there were reports from a variety of credible sources that Ukrainians have suffered 400,000 deaths so far in the conflict plus a multiple of that number in those injured and hospitalized. Taken together, this suggested that the Russians could now safely launch their own massive offensive and sweep the table.
This meant that the Russians could now safely launch their own massive offensive and sweep the table.
In the meantime, many commentators in the U.S. and European mainstream, beginning with CNN and Bild, appear to acknowledge that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been a failure and that Ukraine cannot possibly recapture the territory it has lost in the Donbas, not to mention the Crimea. Even John Mearsheimer has admitted as much in his latest essay on his substack.com platform, pointing to the vast manpower and artillery advantage that the Russians enjoy now that blitzkrieg did not yield the hoped for results and the war shifts back to a war of attrition, where the Russians’ advantages count. Till recently John was steadfast in speaking about a stalemate and never once considered a scenario of Russian victory, which is implicit in his writings now.
What is missing is a timeline for the Russian victory in a war of attrition.
The fact remains that even under conditions of disastrous Ukrainian losses of men and materiel these past two months, there are still Ukrainian soldiers coming out in many sorties across various points of the front every day. The Russian war correspondents visiting their tank officers and those manning the artillery and multiple rocket launchers (Grad), allow us to hear that the Russians must be quick to move their equipment within minutes of firing lest they be victims of return artillery fire from the Ukrainian side. The reports from the field sound very much as if a serious and deadly war is still going on, not a simple rout of one side.
Moreover, there is another nagging problem that puts in question the notion that a Russian victory is just around the corner. The problem is that after watching every day the artillery duels in which the Russians destroy Ukrainian artillery and multiple rocket launchers of U.S., Polish and other origin in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in the Zaporozhie and Kherson regions and list the equipment models and numbers of Ukrainian soldiers killed at each location, I then listen to accounts of how the Ukrainians have just bombed residential districts of Donetsk city. Yes, every day there are multiple artillery and HIMARS attacks on the city, with destruction of buildings and daily deaths and injuries. How can this be? The Ukrainians are firing from just a few kilometers outside the city. Why are the Russians unable to locate and destroy these Ukrainian fortified areas across the line when they seem to be doing so well elsewhere on the thousand kilometer line of confrontation?
In conclusion, I find that we remain in the midst of the fog of war and nothing can be taken for granted.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023