Ukraine War Diary

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 July 10th

Lots of speculation about Joe Biden’s short visit to London has focussed on splits over Ukraine membership of NATO. According to the tabloid press, Biden earlier this year scuppered UK defence Secretary Ban Wallace’s ambition to be the next boss of NATO because the ‘Irish-American’ President is anti-British. A more considered view is that Wallace shot himself in the foot by breaking NATO’s taboo about airing disagreements in public. 

Wallace laid bare differences between the U.K. and US over how fast is Ukraine’s path to NATO membership. Germany and the US are not keen while Eastern members - generally those physically near the conflict -  are quite gung-ho. 

Some observers think it was at a gathering in Bucharest in 2008, when an undated promise of NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine was made, that led directly to a more or less immediate Russian invasion of the former and the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The West’s muted response to the Georgian invasion encouraged the later move on Crimea. In turn, when nobody did very much about Wagner’s Crimean coup, the seeds were sown for what happened in 2022. 

Whether that original membership promise was a reason or an excuse for Putin’s military response is still debated. Revanchist is a word often used to describe the Russian President. When the Kremlin started to describe the 2008 membership commitment as  NATO’s ‘annexation’ of Georgia and Ukraine, what happened next was sadly predictable.

Meanwhile the war continues as it has done since the beginning of June. Ukraine quickly adjusted its counter offensive tactics and now seeks only to make incremental progress. Another almost constant feature of the battlefield reports is that much of that progress, such as it is, is around Bakhmut. Nothing is certain, but reports from that part of the front line are consistent with the thesis that Ukraine is not going to repeat the bloody Russian tactic of entering the city and engaging in street-by-street fighting. Ukraine could be seeking to encircle Bakhmut and then simply shell the trapped Russians until they surrender.

Tuesday July 11th

Russia has so far managed to replace killed or wounded troops without any obvious difficulty. But rates of attrition are such that questions have been asked about just where these reserves are coming from. There are some suggestions that local militias from Eastern Ukraine are being tapped or perhaps more civilians are being pressed into service. The UK’s Ministry of Defence today confirmed earlier rumours of ‘mobilisation by stealth’ in Russia itself, with details of how Moscow constructions firms are losing out on government contracts if they fail to meet quotas of ‘volunteer’ recruits for the army. Given the nature of employment in the building trades, this will hit ethnic minorities particularly hard. It seems that Putin is trying everything bar a formal mass mobilisation.

The Economist today summarises the various methods that data analysts use to calculate the number of Russian casualties. Around 200,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded so far.

Speculation is growing about Ukraine’s intention to encircle Russian forces occupying Bakhmut. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar yesterday stated that Ukrainian forces have taken control of some of the high ground overlooking the ruined city, without specifying the exact location of those forces. Malyar said that her troops have fire control over Bakhmut and Russian ground lines of communication. Russian milbloggers have given voice to fears that the Ukrainian claims could be accurate. Even if Bakhmut is successfully encircled it could still take some time for them to retake the city, if that is their intention. A lot will depend on the calibre and morale of the trapped Russian forces. Aerial supply lines could yet prove crucial.

Although attention has understandably focused on the territory gained by Ukraine since the counter offensive started around six weeks ago, it should be remembered that Russia also attempts further capture of terrain on a daily basis. The Institute for the Study of War calculates that Ukraine has taken almost exactly the same amount of ground since the beginning of June as Russia managed since the start of the year. That amounts in both cases to between 250 - 300 square kilometres. Russia currently occupies around 161,000 square kilometres of Ukraine. 

Wednesday July 12th

One of the first rules about propaganda is that there needs to be a good chance your intended audience will fall for it. The daily briefings supplied by the Kremlin either have never heard of this rule or, more likely, they know their audience better than we do. Perhaps it is just cynicism about the human capacity to believe just about anything. A Russian acquaintance of your correspondent points out the content of the British tabloid press. 

Yesterday, Russian defence minister Shoigu made another series of implausible claims about Ukraine’s battlefield losses. According to the Kremlin, Ukraine has, since the start of the counteroffensive, lost 26,000 men along with 1,244 tanks and heavy infantry fighting vehicles. Russian milbloggers are among those who have poured scorn on these numbers, with several saying that when the Russian army shells a Ukrainian truck, each hit is counted as a vehicle destroyed. So each truck is shelled multiple times. Centrally planned economies have, historically, been very good at meeting or exceeding output targets in similar, meaningless ways.

Propaganda can, of course, take many forms. The ubiquity of images, particularly video shot by front line soldiers, is one of the new features of this particular war. Some agencies try to check the veracity of what can be seen on various platforms by cross-checking with satellite and other data.  Care must always be taken, particularly with the dates the video or photos are claimed to have been taken. 

Photojournalism, at least how it was practised during twentieth century wars, has taken something of a backseat given the advent of new media channels and techniques. However, anyone who happens to be in Copenhagen over the next while should consider a visit to the Danish War Museum. There, an old-fashioned exhibition of large scale black and white photos taken in various Ukraine war locations will literally take your breath away. One of the many remarkable things about the pictures is that they were all taken by one individual, Jan Garup. He must have spent a long time driving up and down the front line.

Thursday July 13th

What was he thinking? For the avoidance of doubt, I am referring here to U.K. defence secretary Ben Wallace, who is reported to have demanded more gratitude from Ukraine. Expressing irritation with daily requests for more arms and munitions ignores two facts. First, we would all do the same in Zelensky’s position. Second, Ukraine would now be entirely occupied by Russia if the West, principally the US, had not shipped most of its stockpiles of heavy artillery to Ukraine.

The Kremlin watches this kind of thing very carefully. Sowing disunity and outright chaos has long been a key part of Russia’s foreign policy toolkit. So when Zelensky gets a ticking off from Whitehall, Moscow’s apparatchiks don’t quite do cartwheels around Red Square but do express grim satisfaction on the nightly news. 

More seriously, the evident split within NATO over Ukraine’s membership status has been interpreted by Russia as a signal that both the Americans and the Germans are very muddled about their ultimate strategic goals. Either that or both countries are signalling that the end game will be negotiations over how much Ukrainian territory Russia gets to keep when the war eventually ends. Moscow, in its collective mind at least, now has two possible outcomes: a Trump presidency that could mean anything (but unlikely to be anything good for Kyiv) and/or Ukraine is left as a buffer state between NATO and Russia. Nobody knows for sure but it is thought in some quarters that Germany is particularly keen on this latter ‘solution’.

To counter the Russian narrative, NATO sources point to the ‘security guarantees’ offered to Ukraine, the multiple promises of yet more aid and munitions and the defeat of Russia’s stated  pre-war strategic imperative of ‘no more NATO expansion’. On that note, Turkey’s volte face over Swedish accession to NATO has nevertheless left no clear timeline for membership. 

Friday July 14th

Russian state media announced that no nuclear submarines will take part in the annual Navy Day celebration due to take place in St Petersburg later this month. This has never happened before. It could be that increased operational requirements are to blame but the UK’s Ministry of Defence today made an oblique yet curious reference to ‘internal security concerns’ following Wagner’s failed mutiny. Could that really be a hint that someone is worried about a possible submarine hijacking?

The Kremlin looks to be purging senior ranks of anyone thought to have supported Wagner. Generals are also being fired if they voice any criticism of the conduct of the war. General Ivan Popov is the latest to go, fired by Defence Minister Shoigu. Popov sounded off to army veterans about ongoing failures in the Zaporizhia Oblast, particularly with regard to lack of rotation of frontline troops, equipment shortages and dodgy leadership.

Popov’s remarks were leaked by an ex-army officer turned politician. Particular criticism was aimed at General Gerasimov, about whom nobody seems to have a high opinion apart from Shoigu. The Institute for the Study of War reckons the Defence Minister fired Popov before his complaints got to Putin. There is a school of thought that says the Russian President is being shielded from the true state of the war.

The official narrative remains in place: Russian defensive lines are holding. Indeed, Russian counteroffensives are taking place as well as Ukrainian ones. Weary cynicism is growing in some quarters, consistent with the idea that a prolonged stalemate will eventually lead to negotiations that cede territory to Russia. The resulting armistice and/or ceasefire will be very unstable. 

By contrast, if Popov’s criticisms are in any way accurate, Russian losses of men and equipment are such that should Ukraine break through somewhere along the frontline, those defences might prove more fragile than they currently seem.