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Ukraine: The myth of stasis [1]

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Date: 2023-06-18  

With a slower start to the summer offensive than some hoped, I have seen plenty of folks back to predicting this is a static war that will not change from here. The static war is a funny argument for which people rarely seem to think they even need an argument for. To them it appears to be self evident. The sun came up yesterday and the day before, it will come up tomorrow.

But even the sun will someday fail to come up, or more specifically it will have expanded over a few billion years to size possibly large enough to engulf the Earth (or at least large enough to cook the surface of all life). Even the sun will eventually burn through all it’s hydrogen fuel. A case in point is the star Betelgeuse has recently been predicted to go supernova in the next 100 years. At 600 light years away it would be bright enough to see in the daytime sky. Our sun won’t go supernova, but it will eventually become a white dwarf. The point is, even those things which look static often have processes hidden going on in which determinative events are taking place.

Ukraine has been far from static, even though it is often described that way. This is not World War 1. The initial Russian attack was very fast, probably the second fastest movement of the war. The fastest change was their retreat a month or so later giving up all the land they took in the north. But during their stay there the pessimists were constantly on about the inevitability of the Russian win and the stranglehold the Russians had on Kyiv. The Russians were just the next convoy away from winning it all. But underneath a different dynamic was playing out. The Russians were quickly burning through all supplies in the north and quickly becoming non-functional, to the point were when they did leave, a lot of vehicles with empty fuel tanks got left behind.

Then it was the turn of some of us optimists to get some things wrong. Upon seeing and analyzing the Russian defeat in the north, I at least, failed to understand the difference in the supply conditions between the long drawn out roads of the north, and the Russian operations closer to a railhead in the south. In the south the supply burn could be matched by materials brought in by train. Combined with my misunderstanding of the Russian willingness to throw good money (and lives) after bad, the Russians kept fighting long after more sane people would have called off the bad operation.

And we had reached a new point of slow grinding combat. The pessimists pointed out the slow but inevitable Russian gains fed by inexhaustible piles of ammo and vehicles left over by the Soviet Union. Russia also had their infinite supply of men to be cast into the butchery. This war was going to go on for a long time until Russia simply ground down Ukraine into submission. Except it didn’t.

This static grinding World War I reboot was interrupted by HIMARS detonating really large piles of ammunition. And ti was interrupted by HIMARS also typing out Morse Code on the bridges across the Dnipro preventing their use. And so Kherson fell , oops, Kharkiv was liberated! Because underneath the grind of an apparently static war events were in motion where Russia failed to properly defend the Kharkiv front and Ukraine took advantage. And then Kherson was liberated too because the dynamic of starving out that front just took a little longer to happen.

And then we had 6 months of nothing happening. Well, Russia did gain a few square kilometers of Bakhmut. But absolutely nothing else happened. Except well maybe Russia squandered tens of thousands of soldiers lives and tons of ammunitions and vehicles making almost no gains at all. While Ukraine received large amounts of new(ish) material and trained up to 20 new brigades of troops (9-12 “western brigades” and 8 “offensive guard” brigades). But nothing significant was happening. The war would go on forever.

And then in June we’ve seen an uptick in Ukrainian attacks and the engagement of 4-6 of those brigades. These early attacks have not been the lightning offensive all the pessimists have been saying the optimists have been predicting (making it a pessimist prediction?). For my part, having gotten burned by my too optimistic predictions following the Kyiv retreat, I have been a little more guarded in my predictions. I still see a Ukrainian victory coming, possibly even this year but by the end of 2024. What I have not been predicting was a win by June 18th. I also have been waiting to see some of the emerging dynamics before committing too much.

Russia has had 6-12 months to prepare their defensive positions. We also didn’t know what Ukraine had in mind, what their plan was, or Ukraine’s timing. When Ukraine didn’t explode off the line like a 100 meter runner, we saw an uptick in the comparisons to World War 1 static warfare again. 2 weeks of poking at Russia in the south was enough for some to declare the era of mobile warfare dead, just 6 months after Kharkiv and 12 months after Kyiv had shown otherwise.

But declarations of static war for decades needs no explanation nor support in the arguments. Isn’t it obvious that is where we are? Isn’t it obvious Russia’s helicopters have taken a pitfall like grip on the battlefield and will allow no other dynamic? Those 100 helicopters, of which are advance tech which Russia can pump out an infinite number of replacements, or which are invincible, or may just never wear out from heavy usage, will forever dominate the field of battle. Ukraine has zero means to counter them and will receive no help against them from the West.

They are also the only dynamic which matter on the battlefield. The reported Russian shortage of tanks can’t be real because we know from earlier the Soviet Union had a supply so large the Russians could never go through them all. And even if it was, we all know that only helicopters matter on the modern battlefield and the tank is dead, except when they come in inexhaustible amounts from Soviet surplus when they are invincible.

What I know is that Ukraine is making forward progress faster than anything the Russians have done since the start of the war. So sure, it’s a slow static front. I also know this war is locked in World War I trench warfare as it has been the entire war except for the start, the retreat from Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson. And I know very few people predicted those dynamics.

I can tell you I really want this war to be over, and over fast. I can tell you there are many changing dynamics hidden from mostly from view driving this war towards whatever the next big surprise is. Heck, the Ukrainians have shown far more patience than I have. They just may take their time moving right now (again their slow movement being faster than anything Russia has done in the past year) until those hidden dynamics are just right. I wish I knew the exact way through this but I don’t and that’s a good thing. We don’t want Ukraine to be predictable. We want them to be winners. I don’t think what the Russians are doing is sustainable and it’s my belief they will fail in a major way sometime over the summer. When will a lack of tanks become critical? I don’t know. When will the helicopters fail, or become irrelevant again like they have been most of the war, I don’t know. But I know they will. Even if its just waiting for them to wear out from overuse, the Russians can’t replace the high end ones.

Don’t get sucked into a pessimism because Ukraines rate of advance isn’t Kharkiv fast. It’s still way faster than anything Russia can do. And things are changing underneath as well.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/18/2176119/-Ukraine-The-myth-of-stasis

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