Ukraine’s Eight Long Weeks
Dig in. Dig deep. Swat away.
As the image above shows, when Ukraine’s combat power surpasses Russia’s, it will automatically diminish Russia’s capacity to fight. However, the question remains: when will it rise above the Russian line to make an impact?
It’s a bit difficult to answer. Even the Russians do not have a clue. They are trying to inflict as much damage as possible to Ukraine’s combat capacity before Ukraine reaches that point. The level of mechanized assault the Russian forces have mounted in the last two weeks has intensified, and it is likely to remain high until the Russians feel they have exhausted all available resources.
They are not going to sit back and tally the obscene losses. Instead, they are going to assess how much we still have and how many days we can continue like this.
I would typically label anyone an idiot if they were investing too many resources for meager returns. However, this time, I am going to refrain from doing exactly that. Russia, from their perspective, considering the battlefield’s conditions, potential developments over the next six months, and factoring in the weather, has all the reasons in the world to ramp up their attacks.
If they have reserves, then now would be the time to throw them all in. Yes, it is a risk, and it could spectacularly backfire, but the consequences will only manifest a few months from now. Russians act as if four months from now never exists in their lexicon.
Many people referred to the recent mechanized assault near Tonenke on March 30th as the largest maneuver warfare waged by the Russian forces. However, I am not entirely convinced. There have been instances when the Russians deployed an unholy amount of heavy weapons into a pocket. For example, Vuhledar in Jan-Feb last year and the first few weeks of Avdiivka assaults that began in October 2023 were some instances I can recall.
So, they have done it before. But never before on the battlefield have I been able to say that the Russian strategy of soaking up heavy losses was reasonable until now. Although the Avdiivka sector continues to remain the focal point of Russia’s attention to launch waves of armored assaults, I would be surprised if the Russians stick to this area alone.
The odds are extremely high that we will see these efforts spread to other areas as well.
Factor 1: US House Speaker Mike Johnson
US House Speaker Mike Johnson is slowly inching towards clearing the Ukraine aid bill. However, he has done this before; he will get close and then find a way to escape. The only difference this time is that he does not have any margin for error to hold onto his post. The Republican House majority is practically zero. After recent resignations, they are down to 217 votes in the US House of Representatives. That is the exact number of votes needed to pass anything in the House. And the Republican party members never vote en masse. There are a lot of members who only work for themselves. What this means is that even to save his House speaker post, Johnson needs assistance from opposition party members.
As a result, the odds are high for him to strike a backroom deal with the Democrats. ‘You save my post from MAGA Republicans who are eager to kick me out, and I will bring the Ukraine aid bill,’ could be the gist of such a deal. I don’t think he is going to come out in public and say it, but what choice does he have to protect his job without Democratic assistance?
He does not have many options. So, I do expect something to come out of the House to help Ukraine.
The Kremlin would have noticed this. If the American aid bill clears, a ton of mid to low-range weapons will start flowing from American warehouses. They won’t worry about high-end weapons. They will not worry about the United States sending high-end weapons because the U.S. National Security advisor’s name is Jake Sullivan.
But even the mid to low-range weapons Ukraine receives from the United States will have a significant impact on Ukraine’s combat capacity.
Factor 2: Weather
The Institute of Study of War said that “Russian forces may be intensifying mechanized assaults before muddy terrain becomes more pronounced in the spring and makes mechanized maneuver warfare more difficult”.
This is certainly a factor.
Russia will not be able to order large-scale mechanized assaults on the frontline when the ground turns muddy in the Spring. Not that they won’t do it if they think the Ukrainian lines are weak, but the odds are looking extremely high for Ukraine to be in a much better position in the Spring than they are now.
So, why wait for the terrain to turn bad and for Ukraine to stock up when the Russians have the option to hit them now?
Factor 3: Czech Republic’s Petr Pavel
While French President Emmanuel Macron is addressing Ukraine’s long-term requirements, their short-term problems are being addressed by Czech President Peter Pavel. He is an army man, a former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and he understands Putin as well as Kremlin’s politics better than most European leaders.
He is going to ensure that artillery shells are provided to Ukraine. What the Russians do not know is how much Ukraine will receive and when.
If you are Russia, what will you do? Will you wait to find out or will you throw as much as you can into the battlefield, reducing Ukraine’s combat power as much as possible before they start stockpiling their ammunition? At the very least, you want to diminish Ukraine’s manpower. They are slightly on the back foot right now, so push them a bit deeper into the hole.
Factor 3: Russian reserve strength
We have no insight into the current level of reserves held by the Russians. The only way I discern this is by observing the intensity of their attacks on the frontline. They generally ramp up when they have more and then slow things down when they have less.
They don’t care one bit about destruction. In the Mala Tokmacha incident, which you may recall, Ukraine initiated a large-scale mechanized assault on the Russian frontline, resulting in the loss of numerous vehicles. Consequently, Ukraine completely abandoned the strategy of sending waves of heavy vehicles to attack the frontline.
Russians don’t give two hoots about what they lose. If they lose 12 tanks today, they’ll send another 24 tomorrow. The question is never about what we lost and how we can improve; it’s always about how much we have and what the Kremlin will say.
Russians are hunting for gaps in the frontline, and they want to find them fast. Instead of picking a spot and grinding it as they did in Avdiivka, they are eager to identify any vulnerable spots they can break through over the next few weeks. They do not want to wait to find out whether House Speaker Mike Johnson clears the Ukraine aid bill, nor do they want to wait to find out when the first batch of artillery shells will be sent to Ukraine by the Czech initiative.
What can Ukraine do?
The next eight weeks are going to be an extremely difficult period to negotiate. Russians are not going to stop until they exhaust their reserve strength. Ukraine is still short on material and manpower. Russia will keep pounding their cities, dams, and energy infrastructure to keep Ukraine’s air defenses depleted and away from the frontline.
Thankfully, Russia had lost an unholy amount of resources to capture Avdiivka. As a result, their combat power is not where it could have been. However, things are still not going to be easy for Ukraine until they receive a batch of 200,000 to 300,000 artillery shells.
They need to dig deep into their mental fortitude to absorb the Russian hits.
Retreat if needed. Defend using depth.
Buy time.
Keep destroying Russia’s capacity and exhaust their resources.
If Ukraine manages to destroy around 250 tanks every month, Russia will be in deep trouble in the second half of the year. In March and February 2024, Russia lost 570 tanks, as reported by Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksander Syrski. Since Russians are going to keep throwing more tanks and armored vehicles at the frontline in April and May, Ukraine can maintain the destruction intensity at the highest level.
So, not everything is going to be bad for Ukraine over the next eight weeks. They survived the 2023 winter, a period when they had no heavy weapons and zero Patriot systems. If they could survive that, they will be able to endure the next eight weeks. They will lose a lot of lives, and it could have been easily avoided by the West.
But that did not happen. So, dig in, dig deep and swat away.
