Over 3,000 dead in Mariupol, 35hour curfew in Kyiv, sea bombs on Odessa, supersonic missiles fired at targets in western Ukraine. The Russians continue their raids and bombing raids, including on civilian targets. However, according to the Ukrainian army, since February 24, over 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, 1,535 tanks destroyed and 969 vehicles shot down.
But after 26 days of war on the pitch, who will win? “Given that I haven’t seen Putin’s plans, it’s impossible for me to say if the Russian army is on schedule,” he replies Gianandrea Gaiani, Director of Defense Analysis I would like to remind you that Napoleon said more than 200 years ago that no plan survives the first hour of battle. And this makes us understand that not everything will be gone, as always happens in wars, as the Russians predicted.
But if we look at the map of Ukraine, what do military maneuvers tell us?
Russian troops are advancing on the fringes of Ukraine, be it on the borders with Belarus, Russia or by the sea. These are the areas where the Russianspeaking population is most prevalent.
Because of this?
This tells us, I think, that Putin was telling the truth when he said his goal is not to conquer all of Ukraine. Moscow has deployed an array of vehicles and soldiers that are certainly insufficient on multiple fronts to conquer a country twice the size of Italy. It would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers and a postconflict surge of troops to maintain the occupation.
But many analysts said it would be a blitz. So what are Russia’s goals?
It was not, and could not have been, a blitz, the Russians knew it very well. In fact, blitzkriegs don’t exist: when war was being fought in tiny Serbia, it took 80 days of air warfare to force it to leave tiny Kosovo. Not only that, Russians decided to move at the end of February, when everyone knows very well that with the thaw, Ukraine will turn into a morass.
Why did they do it?
They claim they had to launch the offensive to forestall a serious offensive by Kiev against the Donbass, where the Ukrainian army still has the most troops.
Let’s get back to Moscow’s strategic goals.
From a military point of view, there are two. First, to capture Mariupol, and I believe that the city will fall within a few days, and the entire coastal strip of the Sea of Azov to create territorial continuity between Crimea and Donetsk. Second, after recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign republics, accounting for 40% of Donbass, Moscow must conquer all remaining territory administratively belonging to these two provinces and now in the hands of Ukrainian troops. The Russians are expected to complete this conquest by the end of the month.
How?
They complete the encirclement of the Ukrainian army stationed right in the Donbass with the best AngloAmerican units and equipment.
In Kyiv, however, the curfew is returning, Kharkiv is not spared and even Odessa is under attack from the sea. Is Moscow preparing for a major attack?
These cities fall within the political goals that Putin is pursuing, which is why he is encircling Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy and holding Odessa in check with a few bombing raids. They are being pressured to terrorize the people and get Ukrainian public opinion and the Zelenskyi government to sit down at the negotiating table and broker a peace that takes Moscow’s demands into account.
But Zelenskyy repeated several times that Ukraine will never be able to accept unconditional surrender, surrender. Will he then “force” Putin to reshape his military plans with greater aggression?
At Odessa, the Russian army could attempt a western bypass or landing to create a corridor with Transnistria, a Russian territory bordering Moldova that Russians would like to connect with Crimea. The problem is different.
Which?
Zelenskyy cannot be ready today to accept losses of territory. He knows that if he negotiates this issue, he will be squeezed by ultranationalist forces, which are not very strong in Parliament but have a certain constituency in the country. In fact, I believe that Putin has no intention of getting rid of Zelenskyy.
What if Ukrainians decide not to back down?
I think the situation is bound to get worse. But we won’t get to the invasion because Moscow wants Ukraine to become a buffer state between Russia and NATO. If the Russians pushed to the borders of Poland, we would effectively return to the Iron Curtain. But Zelensky himself knows that no one will help him. The interest of the Americans is that the theater of war in Ukraine wears down the Russians as much as possible and then widens the gap between Europe and Russia as much as possible.
The Russians used the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Is it an uninterceptable missile?
It cannot be intercepted for the simple reason that it reaches its target at speeds between 9,500 and 12,000 km/h. There are no weapons to intercept it.
Is his deployment a “political” warning to NATO?
Given that in a war no force misses an opportunity to test new weapons in combat, this is a warning, for the Russians are concentrating their missiles west of the Dnieper, even close to the Polish border, to destroy the bases into which they flow. the thousands of volunteers, certainly also from special forces, fighting alongside the Ukrainians, and the thousands of weapons being shipped to Kyiv by NATO. In practice, it’s like saying: Attention, we have weapons that you can’t intercept. The Americans, Chinese and Europeans are also working on hypersonic missiles, but the Russians are already in action, they are further.
Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrei Sukhovetsky, Andrei Kolesnikov, Oleg Mityaev, Andrei Sukhovetsky and Andrei Mordvichev: Why are more and more Russian generals dying in Ukraine?
This is the first conventional war fought on a large scale in Europe after the final Allied offensives in 1945. We were used to counterinsurgency wars like in Iraq or Afghanistan, where there were clashes at platoon or company level led by colonels or captains. Here in the field there are regiments, brigades, even army corps led by generals moving about the field. The Russians also have a tradition that caused them to lose many officers as early as WWII: not only do they stand at the side of the troops, but the headquarters are also very advanced to have a direct view of the maneuvers on the field have the senior officers are very exposed.
Has Biden failed to convince Xi to commit to using Chinese influence to end the invasion?
China would not be able to stop the Russian offensive even if it wanted to because Russia is not yet a country under Chinese control. Also, I would like to remind you that most of the Chinese military weapons are of Russian or Soviet production or are a further development of them. Beijing is now beginning to free itself from its dependence on Russia. In reality, regardless of how developments on the battlefield and then negotiations will go, the real winners of this war are already the US and China.
For what reason?
Out of this war Ukraine will emerge defeated and severely devastated. Russia itself will be defeated, should it also win at the military level, because it will have suffered enormous economic damage, which at the strategic level will force it to become more and more an Asian power and to accept China’s embrace.
And the United States?
The Americans have already won: they got Europe back on its feet, they are urging the EU to buy liquefied gas from Qatar at higher prices and pay for it in dollars, not euros. As a result, expensive energy will, as has already happened, force European production out of the market in favor of American or Chinese companies.
(Marco Biscella)
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