Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war, Crimea milestone: implications & possible escalation, and shameful disparity in support for Ukraine.
*note: a lot of readers have emailed asking for analysis of the Darya Dugin’s assassination in Moscow. There are a lot of questions around this incident: was Alexander Dugin the main target ? (he is a major Russian nationalist writer/ideologue, and fervent supporter of Ukraine’s invasion. Some in the Russian telegram/social media claim that he can even be considered as Putin’s personal philosopher - asserting the existence of a Rasputin-type spell. Probably untrue) And who was behind the murder? Ukraine? We will not speculate on these specific questions - but, potential political repercussions for Russia and Putin’s regime will be discussed in Thursday’s cables.
Ukraine War Updates:
Donbas battlefield & outlook.
For the third week straight now, no major changes in the battlefield have been observed.
On the other hand, those of us hoping for a decisive Kherson counterattack are in for a possible disappointment: according to many battlefield observers and aerospace intel interpreters (including the reputable Rochan consulting), the present correlation of forces is not favorable to Ukraine.
Typically, an attacker/defender ratio of 3:1 is needed for a significant chance of success.
This is however a general, crude measure: urban environments may demand ratios of 5:1 or even higher (some claiming up to 12:1).
Well, it appears that Ukraine is nowhere near that lesser 3:1 - in fact, if it is true that Russia has moved up to 20 BTGs (battalion tactical group - each comprised of approximately 600-900 soldiers) to defend the city, then the ratio is even lopsided - and in Russia’s favor.
This could of course be an intentional ploy from Ukraine: keep Russians guessing about the precise location of the upcoming attacks until the very last moment - stretching them thin by forcing them to defend multiple locations simultaneously, and deploying manpower only at the point when all of the bridges around Kherson (leading to the west bank of the Dnieper river) have been successfully demolished.
(side note: that, or Kyiv is genuinely still undecided about the precise locations to target)
In the meantime, Zelensky admin is facing its first major communication crisis - following the WaPo report (full of interesting details) that Kyiv failed to properly communicate the likelihood of the Russian invasion - publicly dismissing the possibility for many months.
Zelensky retorted with a pragmatism-based argument: that ostensibly, this lack of communication was a deliberate attempt to prevent chaos and severe damage to the economy (Kyiv estimated the possible flight/losses of $7bn per month).
Unsurprisingly, this did not fly - Ukrainian public is quite angry with Zelensky’s rationalizations - many blaming him for the failure to adequately prepare for the invasion (not all share this view, however - many public figures also see valid reasons for Zelensky’s judgment).
Long-time readers are of course well aware that these cables have berated Zelensky for his communication failures in the period of December to February.
This is because, Zelensky’s denials went further than mere calls for calm: he actively accused the US of causing economic chaos in Ukraine by repeatedly warning of the impending invasion.
This very rhetoric handcuffed Zelensky, and prevented his government from effectively lobbying for advanced weapons prior to the invasion.
Zelensky could have accepted the likelihood of an invasion, and could have then used that very fact as crucial leverage to demand help from NATO: if you are correct, and invasion is indeed coming, then what are you doing to help us?
Instead, he downplayed this possibility and failed to make adequate preparations.
His intel apparatus was caught off-guard and the strategically important city of Kherson was lost for no good reason (and without much resistance).
How many more towns could have been saved if Ukraine was to receive many of the weapons (even if not all) that it is now getting, prior to February?
Zelensky did a lot of things right after the invasion - for which he has been commended repeatedly in these cables.
But his conduct prior to Feb 24 was simply horrendous - there is no escaping this fact.
A lot of things turned out well for Ukraine due to enormous luck - a different President in the White House (say an isolationist or a disinterested/passive leader who would not share crucial intel with Kyiv and supply all these weapons before and after the invasion), a different PM in the UK, and a better planned & executed Russian attack (for example, where all firepower was focused on the eastern front and Odessa - instead of a wasted and badly executed campaign targeting Kyiv - or even targeting Kyiv with all firepower, and not making elementary mistakes like deploying VDV/airborne units with zero firepower and armored infantry/air force cover) could have led to wildly different outcomes.
The Crimea Milestone.
Attacks on Russian military bases and ammo depots in Crimea are now frequent, open, and systematic.
Following the blasts in the Russian military air base at Gvardeyskoye, President Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has warned that ‘‘more explosions in Crimea’’ would come over the “next two or three months”.
(side note: in doing so, he once again telegraphed way too much. Given his status, it is unlikely that this statement was not pre-approved by Zelensky himself - especially so soon after Zelensky’s own warning to government officials to stop revealing tactical/strategic battlefield plans. But Zelensky cannot expect thousands of lower-middle management bureaucrats to follow suit - if they see top level officials leading the way in ‘‘revealing too much”. So either Podolyak revealed this with Zelensky’s prior approval - a policy mistake in itself, or he misspoke so soon after Zelensky’s public appeals and warnings - a sign of intra-government miscommunication, and unfortunately, incompetence)
Separately, there are now reports that the senior Biden admin officials are all but providing explicit support for Ukraine’s campaign in Crimea:
“We don't select targets, of course, and everything we've provided is for self-defense purposes. Any target they choose to pursue on sovereign Ukrainian soil is by definition self defense…Crimea is Ukraine.[emphasis added]”
This is of course not surprising at all - but an explicit green light given to Ukraine to strike Crimea is a very important development - for it implies that Washington will not be pressuring Kyiv to stop and let go of targeting military bases in Crimea any time soon.
(side note: and given the sensitivity of the matter at hand, this statement was a backing as explicit as it could ever get)
In other words, Ukraine will be able to continue this campaign for a sufficient amount of time required to make a strategic impact and tactical battlefield gains.
Major Implications
1) Preventing Russia from crystallizing its grip over the newly occupied territories like Kherson, was a major tactical and strategic gain that Kyiv gets to secure with a renewed campaign on Crimea.
Not only is the Kremlin now forced to divert its resources away from the newly occupied territories, and towards the fortification of Crimea, but there is a major signaling effect to the local population of the occupied territories.
Those citizens that were:
a) Anti-occupation but hesitant to act (for example, by joining well-organized partisan militias) will now be more willing to take risks - given that the government in Kyiv has now signaled that these territories will be contested and that partisan movements will not be wasted in vain, and;
b) Willing to collaborate with Russians, will now have to hedge their bets against the risk of showing too much compliance/enthusiasm towards Russian governance - for the fear of prosecution for treason/labels of committing treason.
Both of these trends will inevitably erode Russia’s control over the freshly occupied regions: it is simply too challenging to establish authority over a population that is unwilling/scared to comply.
2) Ukraine has now regained momentum - both psychologically and militarily.
This restored confidence enables Zelensky to rule out further negotiations/peace settlements until Ukraine retakes all of its territory.
And this is exactly what he did in his meeting with the Turkish President Erdogan - and given the pressures on the Kremlin to restore their own momentum (more on that later below), no genuine negotiations/settlements are anywhere near in sight.
(side note: and Erdogan has played his own hand rather well. He offered some token relief to Russia, accepting their rubles for trade, and in return, gaining significant concessions/freedom to act in Syria. And to dismiss any concerns that Turkey was reducing its support for Ukraine, he decided to resume supply of military hardware to Ukraine (including Bayraktar TB2 drones - that have thus far proved exceptionally devastating on the battlefield). Erdogan essentially squeezed Putin for major concessions whilst resuming its role as a solid NATO member and empowering Ukraine with advanced weapons to kill more Russians - more effectively)
3) Signaling pressure on Russia.
Initial dismissals and blaming accidents (like rationalizing away the Saki air base attack as a random fire incident) no longer cut it - Russian citizens know full well what is going on now.
All this prompted Russia to admit Ukrainian complicity and lay the blame on saboteurs.
The attacks on Crimea will really bother Putin - the optics of Russians leaving the peninsula in droves (causing traffic jams) will especially damage Putin’s prestige and reputation for prowess.
The Kremlin is now facing a significant signaling pressure to restore the perception of total control and security over Crimea.
And they are scrambling to accomplish just that: prompt replacement of the commander of the Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet is a clear indicator of this development.
Given that Putin’s personal reputation is increasingly on the line, the scope for escalation is now all the more greater.
Possible escalatory moves from Russia.
1) New provocations against the West.
The Kremlin may very well calculate that the best way to keep Ukraine out of Crimea, is to increase the West’s pressure on Kyiv to back off by exercising leverage against Europe and the US.
Putin may go back on his word and crush Ukraine’s grain exports capacity - directly hitting grain stores and transport ships.
More sinister scenarios are also possible.
Against all media hype, the nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is still unlikely to take place - simply because it is in nobody’s interests.
(side note: the reactor cores are extremely well protected - a stray artillery shell would not cause any significant damage to the plant. An actual disaster could only happen as a result of a: 1) direct, 2) repeated, and 3) advanced strike. A high-penetration heavy bomb repeatedly striking at the same precise location, could indeed lead to a significant risk. But then again, why would any of the parties actually engage in this? Let us leave western Europe aside for a moment: Both sides would end up facing most of the harm from a potential nuclear fallout).
But Russia may use the mere possibility of this disaster as a blackmail tactic against the West: you force Ukraine to back off from Crimea, and we do the same in relation to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Indeed, Putin himself already took an early stab at this blackmail tactic (in his phone call with Macron), by commenting that the Ukrainian army was risking a “large-scale catastrophe” by shelling the plant.
(side note: naturally this was not true - Ukraine is not shelling the plant).
Having said that, this particular blackmail (in spite of the gravity of potential consequences) is weaker than it first appears.
Firstly because, the fallout will be unpredictable - potentially hurting Russia more than Ukraine.
Secondly: they will fail to make use of the massive electrical power potential of the plant - at this very moment, Russia is trying to redirect the electricity generated from Europe’s largest nuclear plant, to the occupied territories in the east (and leaving Ukrainians in the cold).
Thirdly, because Russia would lose all of the leverage once a potential incident does take place: at that very moment, Moscow will no longer have any leverage whatsoever - instead, it will most likely be perceived as a rogue, indiscriminately aggressive party that needs to be stopped at all costs.
2) New fronts - Odessa/Kharkiv/Kyiv.
Putin is still hesitant to declare a general mobilization and war (due to the major political and strategic repercussions that we have discussed in the prior cables), but he could very well decide to target Odessa, increase/redirect resources towards the Kharkiv axes, and possibly even restart a campaign against Kyiv itself (via Belarus).
(side note: and Russia’s deployment of MiG-31s (carrying hypersonic Kinzhal missiles) to its Western base in Kaliningrad, could be a signal (or a bluff) of this potential move)
And even if the Kharkiv and Kyiv axes would serve as distractions only, Russia could potentially succeed in the Southern Ukraine/Odessa axes.
Or maybe not: in the absence of a general mobilization, it is hard to see Russia being able to successfully employ sufficient manpower to these new axes - but an outright (and rapid) victory may not even be the point in the near term.
The mere fact that Ukraine would be stretched thin, and would need to defend multiple new axes of attacks, may in itself amount to a sufficient strategic incentive: the momentum/initiative may once again reverse in the Kremlin’s favor.
3) Use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Russia could once again threaten Ukraine against crossing the line in relation to Crimea.
They could follow through on this threat by conducting a demonstrative lower-yield tactical nuclear strike somewhere in the empty fields, and threaten to follow through with actual strikes: wherein, their credibility would now be bolstered, and Kyiv would probably take their threats seriously - no longer dismissing them as bluff.
Western support: the gap & disparity between allies widens.
The Biden admin announced on Friday that it will be sending new tranche of weapons to Ukraine as part of a $775mln package: new drones (supplying Kyiv with ScanEagle surveillance drones - which will help Ukrainians to better spot and correct the precision artillery and rocket strikes), armored vehicles (40 heavily armored MaxxPro mine-resistant vehicles that were originally developed for American troops in Iraq), artillery (sixteen 105mm howitzers and 36,000 rounds), TOW guided anti-tank missile systems, as well as fighter-launched high-speed anti-radiation missiles - to target Russian radar systems.
In addition, pressure is building up from the military policy-making establishment (nearly 20 former NATO military chiefs and US ambassadors to NATO) to supply longer-range ATACMS (with max range of 190 miles/300 kms) for HIMARS.
Contrast this with crickets from our European allies.
Monthly aid trackers have noticed a peculiar state of affairs (data from July): for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Europe’s six largest countries did not offer Ukraine any new bilateral military commitments.
Quite frankly, this is a policy disaster - a remarkable way to incentivize Putin to double down on his policy of energy blackmail: if Europe is slowing down already, what will they do come cold winter with no Russian gas?
This is also yet another reminder to the strategists in DC, that tough conversations with European allies have now been long-overdue.
Where is Lukashenko in all this? Is he willingly doing Putin’s bidding, or under duress, or both? Russia is overstretched and could not seriously threaten Byelorussua right now, correct? If Russia did invade them, most citizens would face a quandary: they don’t want to be ruled by either dictator.