A sideways look at Ukraine war news

Bakhmut holds - but maybe not for much longer

Chris Johns

I write a (short) daily post for Powerscourt, a Strategic Communications company, based in London and Dublin. The idea is to summarise the news flow around the war in Ukraine - not so much the news that makes the front pages but more the stuff that we find interesting/relevant. News that may have not attracted the attention it deserves. Anyone interested in receiving the short email on a daily basis is welcome to contact Powerscourt here: insights@powerscourt-group.com.

Monday May 15th

Heightened military activity at several points along the frontline - and a few locations behind it - remains consistent with ‘battlefield scoping’ operations as Ukraine tries to keep Russia guessing. It’s also consistent with Ukraine’s counteroffensive having started several days ago. It’s also consistent with the idea that even Ukraine doesn’t know where and when its main thrusts will come: only when it establishes where Russia’s weak points are will the necessary attack orders be given. The fog of war is necessarily thick.

Things, indeed, are hotting up. The Economist correctly notes that most of the claims about the onset of the Ukrainian counteroffensive come from Russian military bloggers, who say that attacks and advances have occurred near Bakhmut, Soledar, Mayorsk and Belgorod (which is in Russia). The UK’s Ministry of Defence today revealed that Ukraine has attacked an important Russian airbase, Seshcha, which is 150km north of the border. The Kremlin claimed that UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles have already been used to attack Luhansk. Several sources suggest Russia lost four or five aircraft over the weekend. It’s possible that at least one of them was downed by Russian ‘friendly fire’. Three of them were shot down while still in Russian airspace. The Kremlin admitted that at least two senior commanders were killed in fighting over recent days. Russia has continued its drone and cruise missile assaults on several Ukrainian targets, mostly logistics hubs but also civilian buildings. 

Germany has finally upped its bet in Ukraine, with a promise of nearly $3 billion in additional military aid and a promise from Chancellor Scholz to ‘do whatever it takes’ to support Kyiv. Germany is not the only country to have dithered over its stance on the war but this latest declaration of unequivocal support is significant. 

Zelenskiy is doing a good job as he tours European capitals and today arrives in London. He will no doubt give a diplomatically neutral answer if asked about Jacob Rees-Mogg’s latest claim about the benefits of Brexit. The ex-cabinet minister reckons that if the U.K. had not left the EU, Russia would have succeeded in taking Kyiv in the early days of the war.

Tuesday May 16th

The increasingly hysterical head of the Wagner mercenary group is reported to have contacted Ukrainian intelligence in an attempt to swap Bakhmut (a Ukrainian withdrawal) in exchange for information about the location of regular Russian troops. Both Moscow and Yevgeny Prigozhin have denied the Washington Post story. 

If a bizarre territory-for-intelligence swap was indeed proposed, the only possible explanation is that it was part of Prighozin’s ongoing feud with his political enemies in the Kremlin and the Russian army. Prighozin is said to still have Putin’s confidence and has been keen to emphasise that his loyalty to the Russian President is not in doubt. It seems that the propaganda value of total victory in Bakhmut could trump strategic good sense. Indeed, the desire to take the small city seems to have driven strange - to the point of madness - decision making.

On that note, Hal Brands, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks Putin is making the same mistakes as did Napoleon. In a long opinion piece for Bloomberg, Brands argues that (good) strategy nearly always beats brute military force. Strategy means out thinking your opponents as well as dropping bombs on them. 

Both force and strategic smarts are necessary for sustainable success but any immediate military gains are rarely sustainable without superior strategy. “Russia’s neo-imperial onslaught on Ukraine reminds us that force is still central to world affairs. But Ukraine’s inspiring resistance shows why strategy is a many-faceted thing…The war’s worst strategist, surely, is Putin. In blundering into this conflict, he gave his Western enemies a chance to use economic sanctions, export controls, intelligence sharing, military assistance and other tools to make the costs of Russia’s war as high as possible. He largely nullified forms of leverage, namely energy exports, that Moscow had previously used to suborn Europe; he condemned his country to economic and technological servitude to Beijing.” Brands’ article is well worth a read. 

Wednesday May 17th

n 2018, Vladimir Putin unveiled a new air-launched, nuclear-capable missile, the Kh-47M2 ‘Kinzhal’. That translates as ‘Dagger’, although NATO chose to christen the weapon ‘Killjoy’. Putin stated that the missile, with speeds up to Mach-10 (over 12000 kilometres an hour) and a range of  2000 kilometres, would evade any known defence system. The UK’s Ministry of Defence today confirmed that several Kinzhal’s have been shot down by Ukraine. Russia, no doubt alarmed by these developments, is targeting Ukraine’s anti-missile defence systems which are now shooting down the majority - if not all - the Russian and Iranian manufactured ordnance aimed at Kyiv and dozens of other targets. The near total effectiveness of Western supplied defence systems will no doubt have caught the attention of intelligence agencies everywhere. Unnamed US defence officials are quoted by Al Jazeera today, confirming the Kremlin’s claim that a Patriot defence system has been damaged - but not, as also claimed by Moscow, destroyed - by a Russian attack.

The MoD has also confirmed that four Russian aircraft were shot down in recent days. The downing over Bryansk - Russian airspace - of two advanced combat jets and two helicopters will be a serious concern for the VKS, the Russian airforce, as this is the area most used for air-launched operations over Ukraine.

According to Institute for the Study of War, Russia has sent large-scale reinforcements to Bakhmut. The reported gains made by Ukraine in areas surrounding the ruined city contrast with further advances by Russia inside Bakhmut itself. Those Russian reinforcements have surprised some observers, as that could be precisely what the Ukrainian military wants. The Russian troops will almost certainly have come from somewhere else along the front line, potentially leaving a weakness to be exploited by Ukraine. On this logic, the two ‘battlefield scoping’  operations currently underway (around Bakhmut and Kherson) could soon be joined by a third.

Thursday May 18th

Another night of Russian attacks on Ukraine, another night where the only photos are those consistent with claims that most or all of the drones, cruise and ballistic missiles were shot down (29 out of 30 according to Ukrainian sources). One reason why the Americans were so slow to provide defensive systems like the latest generation Patriots could be that they didn’t want the Russians to find out how effective they are, particularly against hypersonic missiles. It may or may not be related, but the Kremlin yesterday was reported to have charged three hypersonic missile scientists with high treason.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, yesterday repeated his belief that the West will eventually get bored with supporting Ukraine. Lavrov predicted that American involvement in the war will end up the same way as did US support for Afghanistan. Plenty of analysts, including those appearing on Russian nightly news TV channels, think that all Putin has to do is hold out until Donald Trump retakes the White House. 

Hungary’s foreign minister said yesterday that his country has ‘had enough’ of supporting Ukraine and will oppose any further EU aid packages, including the next tranche of assistance that has ostensibly already been agreed. One of the keynote speakers at this week’s National Conservatism conference in London was Kevin Roberts, President of the US Heritage Foundation. At a recent appearance at a CPAC Hungary conference he spoke of his ‘good friend’, Victor Orban. Roberts added, ‘Hungary is no country for woke men, which is at it should be’. In London this week, Roberts said ‘the EU embodies the cultural chauvinism, spiritual decadence, strategic incompetence, and tyrannical ambition that have hurried the continent into chaos for millennia’. Other keynote speakers joining Roberts were Michael Gove, Suella Braverman, Jacob Ress-Mogg and several other key Conservative Party members.

Friday May 19th

The UK’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) published report today that provides something of a reality check for those who think the poor performance of Russia’s military is evidence of a command and control structure that is incapable of learning. According to Bloomberg, the report makes one or two brutal points. During the battle for Bakhmut for instance, Russia has been criticised, if not ridiculed, for deploying huge numbers of poorly trained and lightly armed soldiers. Inevitably, a large proportion of those troops died or were injured. Such a tactic did have a form of military logic: when the Russian infantry were cut down, that meant defensive Ukrainian positions were revealed. At that point, more experienced and better armed Russians were sent towards those exposed Ukrainian soldiers.

The RUSI has spent the last couple of months interviewing Ukrainian combat troops. Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities have improved enormously and they have neutralised some of Ukraine’s radar seeking missiles. Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month. It is claimed that Russia can decipher Ukrainian electronic communications in real time. Russian engineers now quickly build better pontoon bridges and construct hardened command bunkers that can withstand HIMARs. 

That latter observation explains the significance of recent deliveries of U.K. (Storm Shadow) and French cruise missiles that represent a renewed threat to those bunkers far behind the front line. The Russian response has yet to be observed but it must be assumed there will be one.

Even the deployment of old Soviet-era tanks, much ridiculed on social media, has some military logic. They are typically deployed as makeshift infantry fighting vehicles, albeit ones with good artillery.

All that said, it is acknowledged that the performance of Russia’s army has been poor and come nowhere near to delivering on the objectives set by Putin. Bakhmut was supposed to have been taken months ago - at the latest by May 9th in time for the all-important victory day parades. Fighting inside Bakhmut continues today but the ruined city could, finally, be on the verge of falling to the Russian onslaught. The word Pyrrhic comes to mind.