Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine's blistering counteroffensive, the impact on Russia's state system, and Putin's bargaining chips.
Ukraine War Updates.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive & outlook.
The tempo and success (thus far) of the long-awaited counteroffensive by Ukraine, has caught many by surprise - not least the Russian soldiers fleeing the battlefield, leaving their weapons behind.
There are now two major axis of attack against the Russian occupying troops: One in the south (Kherson and the vicinity), and an additional axis (producing most outsized and unexpected gains) in the northeast near Kharkiv.
The southern axis has thus far produced more modest results.
But the northeastern offensive succeeded in breaking through Russia’s defensive lines - seizing a highly strategic railway hub of Kupiansk - a city that lies at the intersection of crucial railroads and highways - providing a logistical base for the majority of Russian troops west of the Siverskyi Donets River.
In addition, with the capture of Velikiy Burluk, Ukrainian forces are now 15km away from the internal borders of Russia.
And this is yet another data point that makes the debates about empowering Ukraine with deep strike capabilities moot.
With Ukrainian troops so close to the Russian border - these meaningless arguments that have precluded Kyiv from securing longer-range missiles/drones - are now losing all their potency and relevance.
(side note: Ukraine’s military chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi admitted that Ukraine was responsible for launching a missile strike on the Saki airbase in Crimea. Left unmentioned however (no doubt intentionally), was precisely how this strike was carried out. Perhaps Ukraine’s own long-planned ballistic missiles are now in full operational use. Or maybe, the US did after all supply Kyiv with longer-range ATACMS missiles - albeit in secret)
In addition to rapid battlefield accomplishments, Ukraine has furthermore achieved another important political outcome: Russia has now delayed proposed referendum (to concoct an annexation) in Kherson.
The rationale is quite simple: with the fate of Kherson now in question, the Kremlin cannot risk annexing and thereafter losing an official Russian territory - setting a terrible precedent that yet another one of their “red lines” will be left unenforced.
This great news arrives at an important time: when the EU is about to embark upon a cold winter of gas shortages (and the cost of living crisis shows no signs of abating).
Demonstrating battlefield success and viability of the overall victory is going to be crucial to maintain a consistent pipeline of Western support.
(side note: of course, beyond idealism, and the defense of liberty-based lawful world order, a proper statesman practicing effective realpolitik would further argue that crushing the reputation and capabilities of America’s second most dangerous adversary at the cost of $40bn, is a great return on investment. Sadly, not all European statesmen share such visions.)
And if there was a need for any further reminder that Russia must be defeated, well Putin did his part yet again - approving the “Russian world’’ doctrine of foreign policy that argues for “protection, safeguarding and [the crucial part] advancement” of “Russian traditions and ideals” in the world.
Looks like comparing himself to Peter the Great was not enough - Putin wanted to be loud with yet another announcement of unhinged imperialist ambitions.
It is the job of the West to stop him in his tracks and crush these delusional aspirations that have already caused tens of thousands of lost lives, and many more displaced and facing hunger.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive success will reveal further cracks in Russia’s “power vertical’’.
The surprising speed & scale of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has put to rest two major doubts about Kyiv’s ability to prosecute this war:
1) Is Ukraine capable of conducting offensive operations with sufficient coordination and organizational/logistical excellence?
2) Are they capable of integrating different types of forces to engage in an effective combined arms offensive?
The answer to both questions is (thus far) a resounding yes.
Even though the expectations need to be tempered and the tempo of further success will be slower (with Ukrainian troops extending their logistical lines and already securing most of the low-hanging fruit), Ukraine’s battlefield success is however, another opportunity to watch for the unfolding cracks that are now likely within Russia’s overall state system.
It is unclear how Putin perceived the progress in this war up until this point - did he believe his own public posturing?
Or perhaps he admitted (at least to himself) the current lackluster progress, whilst still estimating that Russia had a longer staying power, and that Ukraine will be abandoned in the long term - that the tide of the war will definitely sway in Russia’s favor in the medium to long-term?
Regardless of his thoughts to date, his assessments are bound to change now that Ukraine is in fact demonstrating progress on the battlefield - altering the fundamental correlation of forces on the ground with every passing day.
And this success is bound to have a revelatory impact on Russia’s overall state institutions.
Specifically, cracks and revelations of weakness, corruption & mismanagement, and internal politicking are most likely to be observed in the following state systems:
1) The security apparatus.
This is now Russia’s second major failure in this war - the first being the botched attempt to promptly decapitate the entire Ukrainian government and seize Kyiv.
The first failure was caused by both a terrible plan and an incompetent execution (stretched out logistics/ground lines of communication, little air power, infantry and special forces thrown forward without much armored support, etc).
But primarily, the main fault lay in the faulty assumptions fed by the erroneous and incompetent intelligence.
As such, a vigorous in-fighting ensued between the main intel structures of the Russian security apparatus - sometimes resulting in high-profile arrests, and rumors of further informal punishments.
Consequently, most of the leadership in the military itself (including the Defense Minister, and Putin’s pal Shoygu) were left unscathed.
(side note: there are rumors of tensions between the Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, and Putin. But firing or demoting such a high-profile figure would come with significant political costs, and would additionally contradict the official state propaganda of the successful prosecution of war).
But going forward, maintaining this facade, and leaving the military leadership untouched will become increasingly untenable.
For in this specific failure, Russia (along with the rest of the world watching from the sidelines) had plenty of advanced warning that a counteroffensive was coming - this particular failure therefore, cannot be explained away as yet another failure of intelligence.
Consequently, (and if events keep unfolding in the current trajectory) there will be some brewing tensions, in-fighting, and yet another wave of blame-game developing within the Russian security apparatus.
2) The Russian propaganda apparatus.
Up until this point (and ignoring minor variations), the public support for the prosecution of this war has remained largely static (and high).
But things may change in the upcoming weeks - how will Russian propagandists rationalize away major public defeats in Ukraine?
How would they manage to maintain public support for the prosecution of war?
Will they blame NATO, and call for general mobilization? (more on that later below) in a last-ditch effort to maintain the unity of purpose around this war?
Or will they blatantly deny the realities on the ground?
Thus far, it seems like the brazen lies are to be avoided.
It is likely that Russian propagandists want to maintain at least a shred of credibility by admitting Ukraine’s “substantial victory” on the ground.
Whatever the final pitch/narrative they chose, clear realities on the ground will significantly restrict the propagandist’s maneuverability.
3) Military support systems.
If Russia decides to mobilize, (or at least amp up the recruitment operations significantly), the strain on the Russian “Voenkomats” (admin/recruitment centers) will become transparent.
The extent of corruption and mismanagement will now be laid out in the open.
In addition, Russia’s military-industrial complex is also failing to catch up with the demands of the battlefield.
This red-lining cannot continue for too long.
Russians are already procuring drones from Iran and artillery shells from North Korea.
Indeed, the UK’s MoD assesses that Russia has already used more than 35% of its total artillery ammunition reserve - and this is only in six months..
(side note: this then indicates that a significant proportion of Russia’s stored artillery shells were not fit for combat.)
But how could the west overestimate Russia’s artillery production this badly?
At the beginning of this war, many analysts asserted that (unlike other advanced guided missiles/weapons in need of advanced chips - and that is another major crisis faced by Moscow) producing unguided 152mm artillery shells was Russia’s forte - and this could be easily sustained for at least two or three years - without any slowdown in pace of production.
It now seems that most observers focused on the manufacturing of shells and not the actual charges/explosive - since as it turns out, the production figures for the latter have been quite low from the outset.
In other words, even Russia’s areas of unique advantage were also surrounded by an unsustainable facade.
And going forward, further embarrassments and revelations of inadequacy and incompetence are only likely to continue.
Putin deploys his biggest economic bargaining chip - a miscalculation?
With an indefinite stop to all gas flows from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Moscow has engaged in the biggest escalatory move in the economic war against Europe.
Given the economic repercussions, and given that (unless the move is promptly reversed) the EU will now definitively break away from Russia as an energy source (and that even countries most dependent on the Russian gas - countries like Austria, Germany and Italy will now scramble to find a sustainable long-term alternative), Moscow is at a major risk of losing its biggest lever over the EU.
And given this context, given that Putin has now deployed his biggest bargaining chip against the EU, the question then becomes: was it premature?
Did Putin miscalculate?
Did he deploy his biggest economic weapon too soon?
Many reputable Russia-focused strategists in DC seem to think so.
Why would Putin give away all that leverage? And for what?
Is it even likely that he will achieve any political objectives by deploying this move?
Well to answer this question, let’s consider what Putin could demand in return for resumption of the gas flows.
There are three plausible objectives he could have sought to accomplish:
1) Reversal of the most biting sanctions
2) Pressuring Kyiv into negotiations/Russia-favorable stalemate, and commitment to stop further armament of Ukraine
3) Reversal on an announced intent to impose price caps on the Russian gas.
None of these objectives are even remotely likely to be accomplished (especially the first and last one).
And as long as Ukraine is demonstrating at least some progress on the battlefield, it is also unlikely that the EU would go against Washington and pressure Ukraine into ‘‘negotiations’’ and a ‘‘ceasefire’’.
So if Putin is unlikely to achieve these objectives, is it not therefore the case that he miscalculated and deployed this economic weapon at an inopportune time?
Well that would require us to unpack the alternatives: when else was it going to be a better/more opportune time to use this most weighty bargaining chip?
How about if/when Ukraine started to gain more ground, was inflicting more significant losses on Russia, or was close to retaking Crimea and/or the entirety of Donbas?
Indeed, at a first look, this more humiliating scenario could appear like a more suitable occasion for the deployment of the most premium bargaining chip in Putin’s arsenal.
But this then assumes three conditions:
1) That the EU would pressure Ukraine to stop when it was winning (and that Ukraine would ignore its own momentum and would concede to Brussels - even if it was still supported by DC);
2) That the EU would still be affected by the Russian gas embargo to the same degree - indeed, this is the most erroneous assumption: that the conditions within the EU’s own energy market would remain static.
Realistically, the next six months is the last opportunity for Russia to inflict maximum injury on the EU by cutting off its supply of gas.
By spring, the warmer weather and replacement options will combine to alleviate most of the ‘‘emergency’’ that the EU would be under.
In addition, the very fact that the EU is proposing a price control on the Russian gas, indicates that the union is already on track (if that is, it has not been already accomplished via secret/informal commitments) to secure itself an adequate alternative to the Russian gas.
This then ends up being yet another data point entering the Kremlin’s calculus - suggesting the era of maximum leverage over the EU is slipping away, and that any remaining levers better be deployed sooner rather than later - whilst they still can cause at least some impact.
(side note: and if it is an overconfident bluff, then it still does additionally bolster the EU’s leverage in the negotiations with the potential alternative suppliers - Brussels’ willingness to impose these price caps signals that the union is no longer desperate for suppliers, and would thus not accept any terms at any cost)
3) That there are no other better/more effective threat display and final warning capabilities.
All those claiming that Russia is expending its biggest economic weapon at little return, need to be reminded of the fact that Moscow can (and probably will) still deploy yet another threat around the possibility of a nuclear war.
Indeed, just this week, this was the very concern aired by the Ukrainian military chief.
If conditions on the battlefield escalate too much in Ukraine’s favor, if: 1) The entirety of Donbas and the Crimean peninsula come under a realistic threat of recapture, and 2) The Russian leadership is unsure about its capacity to contest these territories by using its conventional military means, then it is indeed likely that Moscow may resort to drastic threat display tactics: bringing back the possibility of a nuclear (albeit tactical, and initially, probably demonstrative) strike.
In other words, Moscow still has bargaining chips for the most extreme scenarios, and it is unclear how the deployment of its most consequential economic weapon in the form of gas cutoffs can be assessed (with sufficient certitude) as a miscalculation and a premature waste of its powers.
A more likely scenario is that the Kremlin leadership simply saw the opportunity for an impactful deployment of this very bargaining chip slipping away at a very rapid rate - it is therefore unlikely that Putin perceived this as a premature, miscalculated move.
And this is good news: we want Putin to believe that the tide is turning against him, and that his maximalist objectives are increasingly unrealistic.
And only this belief - save for an outright (and therefore, still unlikely) military defeat, would force Putin to negotiate a backdown in good faith.
The EU was therefore right to pursue this confident policy: more sanctions, more military aid, and no compromises until Putin is forced to accept the new realities on the ground.