Before I start on this I should say I have no special insight, apart from having studied history (as in having my undergrad degree in it) and having read a fair amount of coverage of the war in Ukraine to date (including the excellent coverage and analysis here on DKos). So, take the following for what it is worth.
It seems clear that Russia’s communications suck. That’s part of why they’ve lost so many high-level officers — they are finding that they have to be “up front” to personally direct things, exposing themselves to danger (and I’m sure that Ukrainian snipers and drone operators are looking for anyone that looks important or like they’re giving orders). It’s also clear, if you’ve been reading the analysis here on DKos, that Russia has been unable to coordinate any sort of large-scale operations — their offensives have been piecemeal, usually involving no more than 1 or 2 battle groups at a time, which are much easier to repulse for the Ukrainians than a large offensive would be.
It’s also clear the Russians are shifting forces that had been around Kyiv, as battered as they are, over to the east.
So now I get to my theory of what might be Russia’s plan for an offensive in the east, if not in the near future, eventually as they get more desperate for a victory:
Old-school WW1 mass offensives, trying to simply overwhelm some part of the Ukrainian defenses through sheer quantity.
What options do you have when you have a large spread out force that you can’t really control well? Send out an order that at X time on Y date, all forces are to begin an advance. Maybe preface it with an artillery barrage, to try to disrupt the Ukrainian lines beforehand and keep that WW1 aesthetic.
That simple of an order is hard for even the least trained conscript to screw up. And would be manageable for the mangled units moved in from around Kyiv, some of which are apparently being cobbled together back into single units by combining two or more depleted units into one but who have never trained together before as a unit. And it potentially would put Ukrainian defenders in a bind because it would pin down their entire line, making it difficult to move reinforcements around in the event that the Russians managed a breakthrough.
The disadvantage would be that it would almost certainly result in massive casualties for the Russians. But we all know Vlad doesn’t give a damn about that. The body count is irrelevant to him as long as he gets some kind of win. The other disadvantage for Russia is they may simply not have enough cannon fodder (aka soldiers) available to pull it off. For something like this to work, the offensive force needs to have enough forces to absorb the high casualties taken and yet still push forward with the attack. At the moment, I doubt Russia has that kind of manpower in Ukraine. But if they get to the point where they mobilize their reserves, they might. And this is the sort of attack even a half-assed trained reservist could manage — put a rusty Soviet-era AK-47 in their hands and tell them “At 6:00 a.m. start heading west with your unit and shoot any Ukrainian you see and don’t stop until nightfall.” If they get shot, well, there might be a half a million or more others in line with essentially the same orders. Trading bodies for territory seems like the sort of tactic Russia would be willing to try at this point, as it’s been a Russian tactic plenty of times in past history.
So, Kossacks, chime in: what do you think of this line of thinking? Am I delusional? It’s hard to see, given Russia’s clear deficiencies in communication and coordination, what other options they have short of resorting to WMD’s like chemical or biological (or even tactical nukes) weapons. Drop your thoughts in the comments.
