Over the last couple of days I observed a lot of pessimism in comments of the Ukraine update posts by Kos and Mark Sumner. I wanted to take a moment to respond to a few of the comments made by posting a diary rather than responding in the comments, as that seemed more useful.
Russia’s army hasn’t collapsed yet, therefore Ukraine is doomed
At least one commenter was making claims that people here on Dkos were claiming early on that Russia’s army would have collapsed by now. Since it hasn’t, therefore Russia’s army is not going to collapse and so so Ukraine is screwed.
I’d say first of all I question the accuracy of the claim that Kossacks were claiming a Russian collapse by the end of May. I’ve followed the Ukraine coverage on this site pretty religiously, and I don’t recall any serious claims by any commenter that Russia’s military was going to collapse by now. If there were, it was a tiny minority, hardly a representative sample of the outlook of the site’s readers.
Second, while Russia’s military hasn’t collapsed, it certainly isn’t in good shape. Definitely not the juggernaut it was though to be the day before the invasion began, and things have only gotten far worse. Some recent revelations:
- Russian conscripts from Donbas are showing up on the front line carrying WW2-era Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifles. While a very good rifle and one of the most widely manufactured firearms in history, it was first produced in 1891 (it saw service in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War) and production of the weapon ended in 1973. And while a good rifle, it’s still a 5-shot bolt action rifle being sent into action against troops armed with AK-74 assault rifles.
- Despite supposedly having many thousands of T-72 and T-80 tanks on paper as well as it’s supposedly cutting edge T-90 and AT-14 tanks at it’s disposal, Russia has started sending T-62 tanks to serve in the Kherson area. The T-62 was last produced in 1975, and has a smaller gun and thinner armor than the other tanks previously mentioned, and requires an extra crew member because it lacks an autoloader system. The T-62 is also of a different design lineage than the T-72 or T-80 and so requires a different supply stream of parts for maintenance and repair (and Russian logistics have, shall we say, seemed to be lacking already).
- Speaking of logistics, much has already been written on Russia’s logistical woes. Reports of thousands of tanks in storage rendered unusable due to poor maintenance and even outright theft of important components, reports of vehicles breaking down due to lack of maintenance, etc.
- Su-34’s have been shot down in Ukraine that were found to have commercial GPS units taped to the control panel. Russian vehicles have been captured and found to have 1980’s paper maps of Ukraine in them.
- Captured or destroyed Russian equipment has been found to have been jury-rigged using components like semi-conductors and chips from Ukrainian household appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators.
- A recent article that discussed interviews with five recently captured conscripts from the Donbas region noted that 4 of the 5 had been sent to the front with no training at all (one, a student, had been sent to join a mortar team, despite having never seen a mortar outside of movies).
- Russian prisoners and deserters and intercepted communications indicate frustration with the poor quality of personal equipment they have been issued. Some soldiers are being forced to supplement their Russian-issued gear by purchasing their own boots, camp stoves, etc. — even body armor, because they either did not receive them or they were such poor quality as to be useless. In the early weeks of the invasion, some Russian troops were suffering frostbite due to lack of proper cold weather gear.
So no, Russia’s military hasn’t collapsed yet. But it’s certainly not at all well. And of course the low morale among them is pretty widely known as well, with entire units refusing to go into combat when ordered. Kos himself has already weighed in many times on how Russian BTG’s paper strength differs from their actual field strength and how those Russian BTG’s are almost certainly severely undermanned and underequipped. Experts have assessed that Russia’s offensive capability is nearing “culmination,” meaning that before much longer, Russia will have so depleted it’s capabilities that it will no longer be able to carry out any type of major sustained offensive. Some think this latest Russian offensive at Severodonetsk is pretty much Russia’s last gasp as far as major offensives is concerned. The fact that the Russians seem to have given up on encircling Severodonetsk and instead seem to be resorting to brute force frontal attacks to take the city may actually be an indication that this is happening.
Russia has massive reserves, therefore Ukraine is doomed
Multiple comments made mention of the relative populations of the two countries or otherwise mentioned the supposedly massive reserves that Russia can draw upon. Therefore, supposedly Ukraine is doomed because it is massively outnumbered.
But reserves only matter if they are mobilized, trained and equipped.
And first of all, Putin has not mobilized the reserves. Even if he were to do so immediately, it would be September at the earliest that any of them could show up at the front — assuming they receive full training and, unlike the poor bastards from Donbas that Russia shoved into uniforms and sent to the front that I mentioned above, aren’t just sent off with no training. An untrained or poorly trained soldier isn’t much of an asset to an army, and the learning curve is potentially lethally steep. On-the-job training in a war zone is a helluva way to get trained.
And those reserves are not all they’re cracked up to be. “Reserves” in Russian parlance pretty much means “anyone who’s ever served in the military and is of serviceable age.” So, someone who was a conscript at 19 years old and is now a forty-year old manager in an office somewhere complete with fifty pounds of middle-age spread is considered a “reserve,” despite never having had a single minute of refresher training since his 12 months as a conscript expired 20 years ago. On paper, Russia has about 2 million of these reservists. But that doesn’t mean a damned thing if they’re not mobilized.
Logistics is a further issue. You might have noticed in the previous section how I noted that soldiers were buying their own equipment, that conscripts were showing up on the frontline with ancient bolt-action rifles, and the Russians are sending Vietnam-era tanks to Ukraine? If that’s the case NOW, how is Russia going to equip, say, a million mobilized reservists? And Russia is having trouble supplying its current army in the field — adding another million men to supply with food, weapons, vehicles and ammunition isn’t going to help their problems.
A few comments have noted that Russia has played fast and loose with rules about Russian conscripts not being sent into Ukraine, and that they’ve been using mercenaries, and that they’ve been conscripting from Donbas, etc. That’s all true but hardly enough to make up for the losses they’ve been suffering, and drafting someone from Donbas gives Russia a warm body to put a uniform on but doesn’t provide them with a weapon or an IFV to ride around in — which gets back to Russia’s logistical woes.
Meanwhile, Ukraine mobilized its own reserves at the start of the invasion, and may have as many as a million troops trained and ready to join the fight in coming weeks — the first trainees should be finishing their training any time now. And they are being supplied with substantial amounts of gear by a number of nations, and while some of it is a bit dated, we’re talking 90’s tech and not leftovers from WW2 scrounged from the back of a warehouse somewhere as seems to be the case with some of Russia’s stuff. And some of it is actually cutting edge stuff, like Switchblade drones.
The world is going to lose interest, therefore Ukraine is doomed
The doomsayers are suggesting that the countries currently funneling arms and aid to Ukraine are going to lose interest and cut off the spigot, so therefore Ukraine is screwed.
And while it’s true that certain personages in Europe are making some noises that Ukraine should trade territory for a cease-fire, that doesn’t seem to be the majority outlook, nor a popular one. And even if suddenly every country in the world were to cut off the aid spigot tomorrow and only supply what has already been committed to, Ukraine still will have received a LOT of equipment to carry on the fight. There is certainly no reason to think that Ukraine’s doom is a foregone conclusion even if that incredibly unlikely outcome were to happen. And certainly, even if certain western European countries were to lose interest, the ones much closer to Russia certainly won’t, if only out of their own self-interest and sense of self-preservation, because they don’t want to be next on Vlad’s invasion list.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Seemed easier and more efficient to write a diary than to respond to a dozen or more comments in multiple other diaries.