Ukrainian soldier in Donbass
Photo: EPA/BBC News Brazil
There will be no peace agreements, ceasefire or surrender in Ukraine.
The next two months will bring what US defense officials are calling “a knife fight” in what the Ukrainian military is calling a “Joint Forces Operation” (JFO). This is the region known as Donbass.
For eight years, the two sides fought there in a scenario in which elements of the regular Russian army are augmented by separatist units.
Now, after the defeat in Kyiv, Russian forces are splintering the region to face Ukraine’s best and most experienced units.
The battles ahead will be more like the maneuver battles of World War II than those fought in the cities of Kyiv, Mariupol and Sumy during the six weeks of the war so far.
However, the Russians are unlikely to triumph.
After the recent defeat in the North, Russia has made some significant changes. The most important was the appointment of a general commander.
The significance of this lies not in the identity or individual experience of Russian General Alexander Dvornikov, but in the fact that the Russians will have a commander coordinating and attempting to achieve a single focused and seemingly realistic operational objective, rather than three separate objectives , who compete with themselves in the north, south and east.
Russian troops now control much of eastern Ukraine
Photo: Getty Images / BBC News Brazil
Russia is desperate to replace its significant losses in the conflict, which account for up to 20% of its strength.
New efforts will make little difference. The recently called up reactivated soldiers and reserves will not be ready in a few months.
However, the troops the Russians have fielded will be formidable, and with smaller, betterestablished lines of supply in Russia, they could potentially avoid some of the horrific blunders that have marked their side of the war so far.
Equally important in theory, in the Donbass region they can use their air force more effectively, being closer to their bases and the area covered by their air defenses.
However, recent events have shown that the theory is an unreliable parameter of the range of Ukrainian air defenses.
Ultimately, the Russian army was, and still is, very strong in artillery, the weapon they call “the red god of war.”
the battles
This type of engagement pits forces against Ukrainian defenders positioned at various high points, or “bulges”, which are areas surrounded by Russianbacked separatists.
Throughout military history, these battles provided an opportunity to ‘pocket’ enemy forces.
Military historians recall the First Battle of Ypres (19141918), the Battle of Verdun (1916), the Battle of Kursk (1943), and the Battle of the Bulge (194445) as the clearest examples of this.
The Russians tried to probe and break through the Ukrainian defenses, encircle the borders, arrest the Ukrainians and, using their advantages in air force and artillery, destroy them or at least force them to retreat.
Russianbacked separatist forces successfully conducted such an operation on a relatively small scale in February 2015 in the Battle of Debaltseve in Ukraine, where artillery was used to devastating effect.
US military analysts believe that Ukrainian positions on the border of the city of Severodonetsk and mainly around the city of Sloviansk will be the first targets of a Russian siege attempt, with an eventual attack on the city of Dnipro, a key transport hub. and communications to dominate the entire region east of the Dnieper.
All this is known to the Ukrainian commander General Valerii Zaluzhnyi and his staff.
The Russians want quick battles of annihilation. What they will get is a war of attrition.
From bitter experience, Ukrainian commanders fully understand the risks of encirclement.
They have demonstrated their qualities of agility and tactical innovation required for this type of combat.
ProRussian militias in Donetsk
Photo: Getty Images / BBC News Brazil
Better yet, they know what’s to come. NATO’s air and space reconnaissance and surveillance, along with Ukraine’s own intelligence capabilities, will ensure there are no surprise attacks.
A long war?
With continued and growing Western aid, Ukraine should be able to weather a long war better than the Russians.
NATO support will be crucial to reassert the defenders’ armored units and give them a much better chance to counterattack and regain ground.
Most importantly, however, is a degree of air control, which is why maintaining and strengthening antiaircraft missile defenses is an absolute priority.
Despite Russia’s advantages in technology and equipment, the Ukrainian armed forces will continue to exploit the opponent’s acute and chronic weaknesses in logistics and supplies.
One of the hard rules of war is that a successful attacker must enjoy a threetoone superiority.
Russia’s exhausted strength is far from superior. There are exceptions to this threetoone rule, such as in the 1991 Gulf War, when a USled and wellarmed coalition wiped out a larger, more experienced Iraqi army.
In these cases, the attackers compensated for the relative lack of quantity with quality training, planning, and the moral components critical to cohesion and motivation.
In the fighting of Spring 2022, it is the defenders, not the attackers, who have these factors in abundance, against a Russian army beset by chronic problems of endemic corruption, professionalism and training that have rendered it seemingly incapable of complex operations .
These problems will not go away and will not be solved by a change in command or operational focus.
Most notably, the damage inflicted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces reduced their manpower, equipment, and morale.
The next fight will start in the next two weeks. Trying to predict its exact course is ultimately futile, not even generals at war can.
It could be that the fate of the Russian military is already sealed in what is likely to be a long war.
The only caveat might be that Russia opts for an escalation that uses “weapons of mass destruction” in one form or another through tactical nuclear warheads or chemical weapons.
The reports from Mariupol indicate that the Russians may have already taken up these weapons. If proven, it shows that Russia is ready to do something even more serious if it fears complete military humiliation in Ukraine.
* Frank Ledwidge is Professor of Strategy and Military Law at the University of Portsmouth, England. This article was originally published on The Conversation. You can read the original version here.