Ukraine war diary

A coordinated consensus: the counteroffensive has failed

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 August 21st

Pure coincidence, of course, but three prominent newspapers have carried essentially the same story over the last couple of days. The Washington Post started it with a briefing from those - by now infamous - unnamed Pentagon sources to the effect that Ukraine will not meet its counteroffensive objectives. Specifically, the US military establishment thinks there is little chance that Ukraine’s thrust to the south will ever reach the sea and thereby split the Russian occupying forces in two.

The FT quotes several military analysts and commentators, all bemoaning Ukraine’s slow progress. The US is annoyed, apparently, because Kyiv didn’t follow American recommendations for a single point of attack and and has not deployed NATO-style combined arms tactics. At least not after first week of the counteroffensive when the tactics led to horrendous losses. Lots of people are apparently perplexed by Ukraine’s ongoing attempts to retake Bakhmut, a town with little strategic significance.

The Economist echoes a lot of this thinking which, it says, is also heard in Kyiv, where election rumours are swirling. It may seem a bit odd to contemplate a general election during an existential war but Zelensky’s hero status may not  survive if he is forced, via a prolonged military stalemate, to negotiate peace terms that include giving up territory.

The Institute for the Study of War, normally very conservative in its assessments, suggests that a lot of this doom and gloom is overdone. While Ukraine may not reach the sea, it could well progress to the point where it can cut critical Russian supply lines. The ISW suggests critics who extrapolate from the slow progress of the last few weeks are ignoring the realities of war, particularly the fact that nothing happens in a linear fashion, at least not for long. Hemingway’s remarks on how bankruptcy occurs are the quote of the day: “Gradually, then suddenly’. 

When all these august publications suddenly come out with the same line of thinking they could, of course, just be reflecting reality on the ground. Your correspondent, not usually prone to conspiracy theories, thinks that it all looks a bit orchestrated. Everyone is aware that a clock is ticking, one that is counting down to the US Presidential election. Putin is waiting for Trump. Maybe someone is trying to make something happen between now and then. 

Tuesday August 22nd

For the first time since the counteroffensive began, Ukrainian forces may have broken through Russia’s formidable first line of defence, mostly deep and extensive minefields. One of Ukraine’s points of attack has, for some time now, been in the vicinity of Robotyne, a village in the western Zaporizhia Oblast. 

Multiple reports say Russian troops have retreated back to their next set of defences. Although the absolute amount of territory gained by Kyiv is likely to be relatively small, the tactical significance of the gain of Robotyne could be significant. Ukrainian forces can now, for the first time, move around this area without the fear of Russian mines. The hope is that the next line of defence will consist of demoralised Russian conscripts, short of reserves, arms and ammunition. Moscow committed  plenty of forces to the defence of Robotyne and it is likely that their losses will have been horrendous.  

Electronic warfare has played an outsized role for both sides ever since the war began. Russia has learned from its mistakes and has become skilled in jamming Ukrainian signals.  Russian forces no longer talk on easily intercepted public mobile phone networks. Ukraine has used  the Starlink communications system, mostly owned and entirely controlled by Elon Musk.

Starlink is a network of around 5,000 small, ‘sofa sized’, low-Earth orbit satellites, designed to allow internet access for those nowhere near regular broadband networks. There are plans to increase that number to 40,000. Starlink facilitates other types of communications, including those of a military nature. Musk has reportedly expressed concern about facilitating Ukraine’s war efforts and, according to the New York Times, repeatedly restricted Ukrainian access to his satellites. 

Musk has featured in discussions between Ukrainian and American defence chiefs. Reports have emerged about conversations between Musk and Putin, something which Musk has previously denied. Perhaps to head off any threat that Musk might pull the plug on Ukrainian access, the Pentagon has bought several of the satellites. Nobody is quite sure whether or not the drones now daily attacking Russian territory are aided by Starlink. 

Wednesday August 23rd

Sergei Surovikin served in the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, ordered troops to fire on pro-democracy protesters in Moscow in 1991 and led Russian forces in Syria. During that Middle Eastern conflict he stood accused of indiscriminate aerial bombing and ordering the use of chemical weapons. 

Russian media nicknamed Surovikin ‘General Armageddon’. His appointment last year to head up Russia’s army in Ukraine was taken as a threat to use any and all tactics during the conflict. The successful lines of defensive fortifications that have, so far, slowed to a crawl Ukraine’s counteroffensive have been dubbed the ‘Surovikin line’. Rumours about his career coming to an abrupt end have been swirling ever since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny came to a halt on Russia’s M4 motorway. Today, there are widespread reports about something that has been evident for some time: Surovikin is no longer in charge of the army and defence minister Shoigu has survived and thrived.

Mystery still surrounds Prigozhin’s survival. Surovikin has gone because of his alliance with the Wagner boss. But Prigozhin has recently turned up in Africa, claiming business as usual for his monsters in their ongoing campaign to sow chaos and keep very nasty people in power.

US disquiet over Ukraine’s tactics are again making front page news, this time in the New York Times. The Pentagon is said to be increasingly frustrated by Kyiv’s failure to concentrate its forces on a single point of attack. Nobody in Kyiv has asked the Americans, ‘How many wars have you fought and won lately?’ 

The Institute for the Study of War has again taken issue with these anonymous Pentagon briefings, calling them ‘problematic’. The ISW thinks that multiple points of Ukrainian attack are fixing Russian forces in place, thereby preventing lateral reinforcements.

Reports of the recent destruction of a TU-22 Russian ‘backfire’ bomber serve as reminder that things are not always as they seem. The nuclear capable aeroplane first appeared in the 1960s, an event said to have astonished the Pentagon - and the wider US intelligence community - who had taken Krushchev at face value when he said the future of war was with missiles, not aircraft. 

Thursday August 24th

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s presumed death surprised nobody - even Joe Biden warned him last month ‘to be careful what he ate’. We may never know what happened or who ordered the probable bomb or missile attack. Fingers are firmly pointed at the FSB, the successor to the KGB. Sources within Russia suggest that the official investigation will conclude that it was either a ‘terrorist attack’ or a mistaken launch of ground based air defence systems. 

Consensus opinion assumes that Putin has consolidated his power base and remains more in control than ever. That’s probably correct. Some Wagner fighters are undoubtedly disgruntled but probably not enough to stand up to Putin. The Kremlin has been systematically dismantling Wagner ever since the failed mutiny and the ‘Private Mercenary Company’ will now probably all but disappear. New mercenary groups have recently been given contracts throughout Africa where Wagner once dominated.

More worrying for Putin is the ongoing slide of the ruble. Foreign currency is slipping out of Russia and export earnings are being eroded by sanctions, particularly the cap on oil prices. 

On the war’s frontline, Ukraine continues to make gradual progress in the Robotyne area. This is where things start to get really interesting. The Institute for the Study of War suggests that the narrow Ukrainian advance has already thwarted Russian plans to counterattack. Ukraine should now widen its point of attack, manoeuvring to threaten Russia’s second line of defence, possibly now only two kilometres away. That secondary defensive line will probably not be protected by the same extensive minefields as are the first lines. Russian soldiers must (presumably) have the ability to fall back to that secondary line without getting blown up by their own mines. The ISW suspects that Russia’s secondary defences may prove to be brittle.

Friday August 25th

A swarm of 42 drones and a missile attack - all, it is claimed, downed by defence systems. A familiar enough headline, but what’s unique about this one is that it is Russia complaining about being targeted. If confirmed (Ukraine, as usual, is saying nothing) it will be the single biggest daily attack on Russian-occupied territory seen during the war so far. Most of the drones had Crimean targets. A missile appears to have been aimed at the Kaluga region which borders Moscow. Two of Moscows airports were briefly shut down as a precaution. 

The historian Max Hastings published today a long essay (on Bloomberg), forecasting that the war will last beyond 2024. Hastings sides firmly with those who believe that Ukraine will not be able to regain Crimea or the Eastern Donbas. Russia’s defences and Ukrainian commanders’ inability to wage modern combined-arms warfare mean that the war will continue at least until the US Presidential election. Putin waits for Donald Trump or Western war fatigue, whichever comes sooner. Hence, argues Hastings, the West’s only strategy must be a whatever-it-takes commitment to support Ukraine at least until it becomes obvious to both sides that a military victory is not possible for either of them. If stalemate is the only possible military path, it is either a forever war or a negotiated end. 

As soon as the word negotiation is mentioned, armchair warriors at this point start yelling about betrayal of Ukraine. Hastings argues that it’s just a matter of military logic. The historian recently stayed in an Italian hotel, still owned by one of Putin’s cronies. It was a sobering experience, he says, to pay the bill, the proceeds of which will flow straight to the Kremlin. Hastings is appropriately scathing about our willingness to accept Russian bank deposits throughout the West and travelling oligarchs in our tourist hotspots.