In one of my early diaries on the war in Ukraine someone in the comments section asked if I would write an article owning up to my predictions if I got them wrong. While the person later commented they meant it as a joke, here I am anyway to examine to good and the bad of what I’ve written. I’m a fan of accountability. It’s why I write using my real name on DKos. What I write here is something I want to stand by. I fully support pseudonymous writing as well if done responsibly, I simply chose using my real name for myself.
I will be comparing my writings to Kos and Mark at times, not in terms of quality but in terms of topic and message. I do this not to grade us against each other, but only to put my own writing into the context of what the professionals were saying around that date. I’d also like to point out that I have a different set of constraints and goals than Mark and Kos. As an amateur not representing a company, I can go a little more out on a limb on some topics. I’m also not being graded to a journalistic standard. Part of my writing intentionally makes use of this distinction as I went out on a few limbs neither of them could go out on (probably for a good reason). I’d also like to say I will not cover every one of my 30+ diaries on Ukraine (a small fraction of Kos and Mark, but I’m not getting paid to do this). If I skip an article that for some reason has something in it you think I got wrong (or right) please do bring it up.
My hope is we are near a big turning point
My first article written regarding Ukraine was on the very first night as MSM sources predicted a swift Russian victory as the through up stats about Russia’s million man military versus little old Ukraine. I saw the despair and the doomsayers and decided to write about hope. Because I honestly felt hope. I also thought the best way I could support Ukraine would be to share that hope. I honestly expected to get ridiculed. Instead the story got 348 recommends, currently my second best recommend total ever. I don’t think it was the writing, I think it was people needing hope, or wanting hope, or feeling hope themselves and responding to its expression. As for accountability, not much as I couched it all as opinion:
I don’t claim to be clairvoyant, or be able to psychohistorically predict the future. So please don’t focus on all the points I get wrong here. This diary is not about logic, but about hope. It’s only my gut instinct that we are near a turning point.
But on the prediction side I wrote:
My hope is that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to his downfall. He’s clearly planned to steamroll Ukraine before the spring thaw turns everything into mud. He clearly didn’t account well enough for the large number of javelin missiles the US gave to Ukraine. Helicopters and planes are being downed, perhaps by US provided shoulder fired weapons. With 190,000 Russian Troops attacking a larger force on the defensive fighting for their homes, I don’t see the Russians winning.
A few days later on Feb 28, I was getting rather annoyed with the constant predictions of Ukrainian defeat so I wrote:
The case for a Ukrainian military victory
I still couched it with:
What follows here is not a guarantee of Ukrainian victory. I will even avoid giving odds or probabilities as this is war and things change quickly. I also have very little intel on what is actually going on.
So after making that firm stand I wrote the following (edited down here to the high points):
Instead, if the Ukrainians are able to accomplish what I outline below, they can win outright.
1) Maintain junior officer initiative advantage.
2). Trade space for time and enemy attrition
3) Take advantage of overextending.
4) Continue to negate supposed Russian tech advantage.
5) Indiscriminate bombardment is militarily pointless.
What could happen:
In the next few days and weeks Russian units will be pushed to take their objectives. These units will have light supplies, get cut off, and routed. As foreign supplies pile in, eventually the Ukrainian military will have attritted Russian forces in theater enough to take on larger scale offensive operations themselves. Once you see that, the Russian military may fold surprisingly quickly.
In the end, my hope is we will see a complete Russian military collapse by the end of March. No guarantees or likelihoods.
Yeah, timing is going to be my achilles heal on the accountability front. March. Oh well. To be fair the northern conflict around Kyiv was getting most of the attention and I hadn’t fully grokked Russia’s usage of artillery. As point 5 shows above, I thought bad artillery performance was poor execution instead of the doctrinal blanketing of everything that later became apparent when Russia was in better supply. With so little info on the southern and eastern conflict I didn’t pick up this key point. The Russian Kyiv offensive did collapse in April so end of March wasn’t to bad for at least part of the conflict.
In Counting down to combat ineffectiveness I did some simple back of the napkin math extrapolating out Russia’s then current casualty rate. The 1.3% casualty rate predicted combat ineffectiveness after 100 days (so end of May). As stated in the article I didn’t know Russian reinforcement rate from outside the theater. Not much more to say as it was a crude calculation to begin with.
No predictions in Lessons for Democrats to learn from Ukraine to grade but I think the article continues to hold up well enough in terms of general lessons we can learn.
Then on March 10th I decided it was time to make a bold statement with Ukraine will win 2 weeks after the ground firms up. I knew when writing it so much could go wrong with the timing. But I wanted to leave behind some of the weasel words and be far more specific. How did I do?
- I do not see Belarus entering the conflict with its own troops.
- And here lies a big Russian weakness. Ukraine has what’s called short lines of communication.
- Sometime in the next month (I’m guessing before April) we will see a major Ukrainian push in the NW from Kukhari to the water cutting off Russian troops near Kyiv.
- From there cutting off the troops on the line from Chernihiv to Sumy would be next provided the ground is solid enough to go cross country. But really, after Kyiv next moves will be dictated by ground conditions and local Russian weaknesses
- A Ukrainian conventional victory is now only a matter of dry ground, and enough time to organize the new soldiers and materials into an offensive. Putin could always pull something out of his hat, but he’s on the clock.
First point has held. Second point is an observation, not a prediction. Third point, I was off by a few weeks but called the action fairly well. The fourth point happened simultaneously with the Kyiv retreat. Fifth point I’m good if we focus on “enough time to organize” rather than the attention grabbing headline of 2 weeks after the ground firms up. I had expected Ukraine to follow up the northern Russian collapse more continuously. The northern units were needing far more recovery time than I anticipated and I had expected more of a pre-war fighting capability rather than needing to wait until September for big movements. Darn timing again.
Then came my all time most recommended article: Today was a bigger day for Ukraine than many realize. Kos and Mark had been doing their great work reporting things out but only a few people seemed as excited about the days news as I was, so I had to write this article to express my enthusiasm. The news of the day was Ukraine update: Ukraine retakes 75 miles of Russian-held territory, pushes toward Kherson. It was prior to the retreat from the north and was the first time Ukraine had taken land back from Russia. Russia had overextended way past Mykolaiv and was beaten back to the lines we pretty much saw in Kherson until recently.
My first mistake in the article was calling it a major counter-offensive. As we now know it would be better described as a local opportunistic counter-attack taking advantage of a Russian mistake. In the fog of war it was difficult to tell what amount of troops Ukraine was throwing into this. As it turns out, not so many. While not a “major counter-offensive” is was still a big deal.
- Either way this is a defeat of what should have been the major Russian axis of advance in the south.
- Instead, Ukraine is about to push the Russians out of Ukraine west of the Dnieper in the south. The bridges in the middle of the country over the Dnieper will continue to supply eastern Ukrainian forces and allow troop movement back and forth.
- The morale advantage of a first major successful push is fairly obvious.
- What is less obvious but more important is the Ukrainian army learning that Russian forces don’t appear to defend any better than they attack.
- Finally, cutting off forces headed to Kryvyi Rih would be yet another blow to Russian numbers while consolidating Ukrainian positions.
- The next big action to watch for will be around Kherson again. How the Russians prepare for the defense of it will indicate if we are headed towards a long static war or quick rout of Russia. If Russia is unable to hold the river crossing then they will most likely lose Crimea. If they can’t properly defend a river, I doubt they’ve had the foresight to set up proper defense at the isthmus. And there should be a counter-offensive around Kyiv to look out for. Hard to know when as it depends heavily on force information that’s hard to come by. But it’s just too important to leave unattended for too long. A successful rout of Russian forces around Kyiv could possibly force a pullback of all Russian troops to pre-2014 borders. At some point they would be risking the annihilation of a significant portion of the Russian Army.
I stand by the statement that the Russian’s should have focused on taking the whole southern coast before using Odessa to supply a strike north on Kyiv. So point one is fine. Points 2, 4, and 5 were just wrong. I was wrong about the next action being around Kherson. Instead Kherson became a slow back and forth and the Northern Russian advance collapsed instead. That collapse sadly did not lead to a larger Russian collapse to pre-2014 borders.
So I got right that it was a big deal, but failed on most of the other parts other than a Kyiv counter-offensive was coming.
My next story The optimist case for a Ukrainian offensive was written on March 21st as a direct response to Kos’s Ukraine update: Good news, Russia can't win! Bad news, neither can Ukraine. His story was written in the middle of the “NATO won’t send offensive weapons” messaging from the NATO countries. Kos was writing that Ukraine couldn’t win with the weapons it had on hand at the time finishing with:
In case you’re wondering what offensive weapons might look like, it would be a shit-ton more drones (including suicide ones, given how cheap they are), modern armor, precision-guided artillery, ground-attack aircraft, ballistic cruise missiles, long-range surface-to-air missiles, electronic warfare capabilities (to jam enemy radar and counter-drone measures), and a great deal of training to learn how to combine all these elements into a cohesive fighting force, and manage the supply lines to support it. (Let’s never forget logistics!)
And even if all that was possible, Ukraine would have to decide whether it was worth thousands more dead, billions more in infrastructure damage, and continued economic damage and food insecurity (both domestically and globally), all for pieces of land that aren’t required for its own successful statehood. Heck, pull a West Germany—build such a successful economy, that Donbas would want reunification. Aligning with the Russian wasteland won’t bring prosperity to the region. If the past eight years are any indication, quite the opposite will continue to happen. — Kos
So I started my disagreement with Kos with a statement of, just believe Kos:
First, know that I’ve been an optimistic story article writer throughout the conflict. Early on it was my way to help myself and perhaps help others not succumb to defeatism. Just interpret everything I write though that lens. I haven’t felt the need to present both sides as I felt the negative side was adequately covered. Second, Kos is a better writer, journalist, has more experience in the military, and far more time to cover this. So go with him if you’re unsure. My purpose here is not to say Kos is wrong, but to offer a more optimistic alternative. If we’re talk multiple possible futures here, Kos presented a very likely outcome. I’m presenting a less likely but hopefully possible set of outcomes. Also, I’m being basic in descriptions to keep the discussion approachable for everyone. I know Kos knows more about this than I do. — Pete
Part of my disagreement with Kos was based on him coming from US military and what I felt was a presumption on his part that the whole US military package from overwhelming air supremacy to advanced tanks is what was required. My philosophy was rather a scrappy imaginative force defending their homeland could kick the invader out, particularly with some advanced weapons like javelins. As this was prior to M777 announcements I pointed out the utility of mortars and how Ukraine had the weapons to perform many of the tasks required for an offensive, even if they weren’t ideal.
I then speculated Russia would be deficient in on-call artillery which I would say is partially correct. When a Russian artillery unit has a working drone they can do “on-call”. When the artillery is being called by a different unit requesting a fire mission it appears I was correct (at least by some first person accounts). I also partially got wrong that Russia couldn’t supply enough artillery shells for non-stop artillery. It was only after the northern collapse that I learned that Russia artillery effectiveness depended highly upon how close the unit was to a rail-head. Artillery close to trains could fire pretty much non-stop.
So who was correct? We will never know because what neither Kos nor I knew at the time was all the goodies NATO was already or about to be training the Ukrainians on. Deals on M777 artillery and HIMARS were almost certainly in the works behind the scenes at that time. It would make no sense for Ukraine to go forward with an offensive before those (and other) systems came online. The Kyiv northern collapse was less a Ukrainian offensive and more a successful Ukrainian defense with the attacker retreating before a counter offensive could be launched. Kos was probably correct, but it was important to me to get the message across that Ukraine could win this war. Thankfully NATO was already stepping up and we didn’t need to find out.
As it is late and this is running long, I will have to continue another time with a Part 2.