Russia/Ukraine Crisis 2022-3

[Jubal]

Yeah, I think there's a difference to be considered between Wagner and other private military groups here.

Why Wagner? I think mainly because they're too big to fail - the Russians needed them because they had combat-hardened ground troops at the start, now they've ballooned in size and Putin can't risk cutting them loose, they're serious political players in Russia. Prigozhin would probably happily stab Putin in the back if he could become president and seems to be positioning to do a "stabbed in the back" mythos where the corrupt generals failed to give the brave Wagner company weapons and the ability to win, so that if/when everything goes even more to armadillo and the war is lost he can claim only he was really trying to win for Russia and appeal to the Imperialist-hardliners and tell the Russian citizens that their sacrifices should not have been in vain (which is always a comforting thing to believe when someone is selling it to you).

So given Wagner is becoming a problem, why let other companies start recruiting? My guesses would be something like -

• It counterbalances Wagner and indeed also the army: anyone thinking of turning an army back around against Putin has more roadblocks to deal with if, say, other companies run by Putin cronies may be waiting with guns.
• The legality issue means they can be cut loose more easily if any of them go rogue than is true of the army proper.
• There's probably demand for it from Putin's cronies: the worry of a civil war if things go south must be on people's minds and they don't want to risk being steamrollered. Putin may be buying support by allowing this to happen.
• Deniability in war situations and better press. If Ukraine bombs a military generator system run by the army, that's one thing. But what if it's a "civilian" generator operated by armed Gazprom troops that just happens to be sometimes responding to military demand? Much easier to generate support that way.
• I wonder if there's any dodging import restrictions involved here? A country or institution could nominally sanction and refuse to sell microchips to the Russian military and Wagner but still sell them to "civilian Russian companies" under a certain level of deniability. I think most western countries wouldn't sell to Russia regardless, but it's the kind of thing I could see appealing to the Chinese way of doing business (to the extent that I understand it, which honestly I really don't).

[dubsartur]

Meanwhile a fair amount of Iranian ammunition has been seen in Ukrainian hands, and there are debates whether this is all arms for Yemen or Lebanon intercepted by NATO + Israeli forces, or whether someone in Iran is selling arms to someone who passes them on to Ukraine.  Ukraine Weapons Tracker leans towards the second theory but its basically a judgement call https://nitter.net/UAWeapons/status/1631388286248689680#m

[Jubal]

Russians are being told that the British are eating squirrels in order to be able to afford the Ukraine war effort, which is the sort of take that if we weren't talking about a massive brutal war with enormous geopolitical repercussions would be delightfully quirky.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/russian-propagandist-britain-squirrels-olga-skabeeva/

Meanwhile a fair amount of Iranian ammunition has been seen in Iranian hands

You mean Ukrainian. I think?

[dubsartur]

Meanwhile a fair amount of Iranian ammunition has been seen in Iranian hands

You mean Ukrainian. I think?

Yes, typo fixed.

I'm told that Israel is providing substantial military aid and information to Ukraine in private without denouncing the Russian government in public.  And Russian propaganda videos can show T-90s rolling off the assembly line, but not what parts had to be substituted because of sanctions (or which they can only get by evading sanctions).  So we can play fantasy football if we want, but we really don't know how fast either side is generating and losing weapons and troops.

It also seemed that last year, some public statements by NATO officials that Ukraine was too ambitious might have been part of the attempt to deceive the Russians into sending troops to Kherson before the Ukrainians attacked east of Kharkiv.  Hard to interpret!

Edit: A Russian outfit at https://nofuture.press/klub-24/ (link is dead to me) supposedly reported that a group of Russian conscripts from Volgograd were sent to Kherson with no ammunition in September/October, left in a remote trench under bombardment, then ordered to board trucks full of munitions and evacuate.  The trucks promptly came under indirect fire killing many of the Russians.  There does seem to be lots of evidence that mobiks were thrown into the front lines with a few hours of training.

And there are lots of stories of tensions between the Russian military and the LNR/DNR militias (even though in theory Donetsk and Luhansk are part of the Russia now).

Edit: Illia Ponomarenko who should know is indicating that the situation for the defenders of Bakhmut is very rough as of 11 March.

[dubsartur]

Italian veteran Thomas Theiner posted on how armies in the model of the US and British armies in 1944 breach defensive lines

https://nitter.it/noclador/status/1634644361643261953#m

Did you notice how many specialized parts have to move in unison?  Or how these days the defenders can start dropping mines out of artillery shells onto the cleared channels from tens of kilometers away?  And the Ukrainian army massively expanded a year ago and has taken heavy casualties among its most capable combat-arms units.  That is why operations like Desert Storm or the first two years of WW II are so rare: one army needs to have very good training and lots of the right kit to smash through defensive lines and break an army in a few weeks with a few dead.  Like most things that seem effortless, they come out of many years of preparation.

His 14 brigades plus follow-up troops is what, 7 divisions?  That is also IIRC twice the size of the Polish army (and does not count the troops holding the line and watching the Belarussian border).  And doing something with more people and machines is always harder. 

I'm not trying to predict what the next big Ukrainian offensive would look like, but I am saying that a lot of things seem easy when you are just talking.  I am not sure which NATO members other than the USA have 14 brigades although most of them have people who could plan an offensive like this on paper.

[Pentagathus]

Yeah I don't see how the big spring offensive would actually be successful. Every frontline seems to be well fortified or protected by natural barriers, unless the saboteur/guerrilla forces remaining in occupied territory are somehow able to cause a major distraction I really don't expect to see any big breakthrough, and I imagine that's a very unlikely scenario too.
But I also don't see why Ukraine and the US keep promoting the big spring offensive if they don't have something planned, and I don't know much about warfare.

[dubsartur]

And even the commentators with extensive military experience and research into recent wars have never been in this particular war.  I don't know how the Ukrainians are keeping such an assortment of vehicles working.

I think the thread is good at showing why rich mechanized armies have so many specialized vehicles and how they are trained to defeat defensive lines with mines, anti-tank obstacles, and bunkers.  The next big Ukrainian attack might or might not look like that.

[dubsartur]

The Tank Museum, Bovington has a not bad 23 minute video on armoured ground warfare https://piped.mha.fi/watch?v=DR4rNAYAdIk  Like most pop culture it focuses on the ground troops who are at the most risk (and do things which are easiest to imagine) at the expense of artillery, air, and C3I.

It seems like a lot of combatants are now using nets, wire mesh, or bars to stop kamikaze drones from hitting their vehicles and detonating against the thin top armour.  There are some videos of this working, a light drone has a pretty big wingspan and not a lot of mass!  In the first few months of the war, Russian forces did not seem to be using any kind of camoflage, I did not see any videos of drones spotting Russian tanks under a camoflage net or artillery hitting a tent park under a net interwoven with branches.

Nathan Russer who made the excellent maps of the first stages of the war is not impressed with the maps of control in Bakhmut which he sees journalists and the ISW using.

[Jubal]

So, small civil war going on now.

My initial read is that Prigozhin is trapped and working out of desperation more than strategy: he doesn't have the armour or planes to take on the military, who were already rattling sabres about taking Wagner under direct control. I'd imagine that the most likely scenario is that the military goes in hard to take him out in Rostov, his forces melt and he runs - a bad loss of Russian manpower and pulling their troops out of place, but a bit of a squib long term and with the mercenary leader defeated the MoD could move ahead with integrating what's left of Wagner into the conventional forces.

I think the main things that would change my assessment would be if chunks of the regular military or other senior figures in Russia back Prigozhin, but IMO they won't do unless he starts winning. Russia's army, as much as it's bad for wars, is as Brett Deveraux keeps reminding us probably better structured for resisting coups. I'd also change my view if Wagner heavily defeated the Russian army, or if Ukraine inflicted the kinds of routs on the regulars in the coming days that it'd get harder to oppose Wagner internally because the army were busy fleeing across the Donbas.

Anyone else got a view?

[psyanojim]

So, small civil war going on now.

My initial read is that Prigozhin is trapped and working out of desperation more than strategy: he doesn't have the armour or planes to take on the military, who were already rattling sabres about taking Wagner under direct control. I'd imagine that the most likely scenario is that the military goes in hard to take him out in Rostov, his forces melt and he runs - a bad loss of Russian manpower and pulling their troops out of place, but a bit of a squib long term and with the mercenary leader defeated the MoD could move ahead with integrating what's left of Wagner into the conventional forces.

I think the main things that would change my assessment would be if chunks of the regular military or other senior figures in Russia back Prigozhin, but IMO they won't do unless he starts winning. Russia's army, as much as it's bad for wars, is as Brett Deveraux keeps reminding us probably better structured for resisting coups. I'd also change my view if Wagner heavily defeated the Russian army, or if Ukraine inflicted the kinds of routs on the regulars in the coming days that it'd get harder to oppose Wagner internally because the army were busy fleeing across the Donbas.

Anyone else got a view?

I agree that the Russian army (at least the bit remaining in Russia, most of the competent units are in Ukraine) is better structured for 'resisting coups'... at least those consisting of civilian mobs.

Some of those Rosgvardiya 'population suppression' units were sent into Ukraine, and they were sent packing in short order by the Ukrainian army.

And those are no civilian mobs marching up the highway to Moscow. They are probably the single most battle-hardened, ruthless and unpleasant unit in the entire Russian armed forces. Certainly the only unit to make any kind of forward progress against Ukraine in the last 12 months.

Yes, you can argue it was using crude human wave tactics, but even that shows an astonishing will to bleed to achieve an objective... a will that has never been tested in many of the Russian units that will face them.

Add Wagners reputation for dealing with enemies and dissenters with box-cutters, sledgehammers etc, plus a large number of ex-prisoners who I'm sure would love to get their hands on the 'police' for a bit of light revenge... I wouldn't want to be facing them, thats for sure.

I have no idea what Prigozhins ultimate goal here is - top job, or just more power in the existing circle?

But to me, I would not write off Wagner at this point. For a historical analogy, they look disturbingly like some kind of Praetorian Guard - battle-hardened and personally loyal to a single man... everything a budding warlord needs.

[Jubal]

Yeah, watching over the course of the day the lack of rapidity in Moscow's response has surprised me. Prigozhin does have some problems - most obviously, lack of allies and relatively low troop numbers. Nobody outside Russia actually wants him to win, though lots of people might want him to weaken the regime: and I've not seen any e.g. regional governors or similar declaring support for him either. I was interested at how fast Kadyrov declared for Putin: I'd expected him to keep his powder rather more dry on this on. But the way Wagner seem to be advancing without significant pushback does suggest that he might actually take Moscow pretty quickly, and I don't know what happens then in terms of wider civil war/government collapse.

I also think that Prigozhin kind of has to be going for dictatorship/presidency or at least ruling from behind such an office. He's undermined Putin's rationale for the war so badly now that he's in a bit of a dominate-or-die position I think. He might be trying to leave room for a power-behind-the-throne position but if he wins and Putin survives, it seems unlikely that Putin will be really calling the shots any more.

[dubsartur]

The reason the strongman's personal guards usually keep loyal in this situation is that if they let the rebels in, their comfortable lives are over.  Not only have they failed to protect the man who gave them their bread, but the rebels all want comfortable lives close to their leader, and the obvious way to do that is to toss the old bodyguards out and put the rebels in.  We will never know what would have happened if Prigozhin had continued but I would not bet on him and Putin both being alive and free in 2025.

Remember that its not "the Russian army" but a series of concentric circles of force with the army the biggest but lowest in status and others existing to intimidate and abuse it so it can't threaten the regime.  These include state forces, private military companies, and gangsters with connections.

As I have said, even though the fronts are frozen the Russian regime's long-term prospects do not look good.  A lot more military and economic power is supporting Ukraine than is supporting Russia and while foreign aid for Ukraine might decrease, its hard to see where more support for Russia would come from except China.  I think that view from 40,000 feet is more helpful than trying to understand personal politics in a dictatorship whose language you don't speak.

[Jubal]

I'm a little surprised Prigozhin didn't try and keep pushing: I wonder if his situation must have been (in his military judgement) actually a lot worse than the international media seemed to think. In that if you're accepting terms of "disband and go into exile" and the person whose court you're going into exile at is Alexander Lukashenko, this possibly suggests you don't have a lot of other friends. I feel like my initial read of the day might not have been bad, honestly: that Prigozhin was feeling the noose tightening with threats to shut down Wagner and absorb it into the army, and was throwing the dice to try and secure his power base before it was going to be taken from him anyway. He seems to have failed at that.

Also, I'd put money on a bunch of people thinking pretty hard about how to assassinate him in Belarus, with or without Lukashenko's assent. After all, Belarus is not a bad place to be sitting if you're Prigozhin, you suspect that the Russian government will dissolve in the next three years anyway, and you still think you could walk in and claim that you were the unjustly felled patriot who can now restore order. I don't know that that'd work - Prigozhin has shown the political acumen of a cucumber so far, whatever his abilities in producing ruthless military forces - but I can imagine it being part of his thought process.

I agree of course with dubsartur's point that the 40,000 feet view is probably more informative than any of my rambles on this. But speculation among friends is interesting regardless!

[dubsartur]

Humh, maybe that is what is wrong with the pundit / corporate social media model?  It takes chatting among friends and presents it to a big audience as something more important than shooting the breeze?

I don't follow breaking news, if Prigozhin is going to exile in Belarus that seems an odd choice.  I suppose the Caucasus would be too close to Kadyrov and Central Asia is too far from Moscow (and Lukashenko is short of military power so maybe he would have trouble just shooting Prigozhin for Putin).

It is delicious to watch terrible people fighting terrible people.

[Jubal]

It looks like Lukashenko brokered the deal, which I think is the core answer to "why Belarus". I don't think any of the other states around Russia really have enough skin in the game to want to broker such a deal (except perhaps the government in Georgia, but they couldn't do it because they can't be publicly involved in Russian-sphere politics for local reasons).

And yeah, I think there's something to the idea that part of the punditry problem is taking general-purpose interested people and publishing their thinkythinks and chatter and treating it as considered expertise, and that's definitely a worse problem with microblogging systems which amplify such chatter and shove it in front of journalists very fast. And then this is doubly tricky when a lot of hearsay is involved in the base information, especially where journalists don't have the linguistic skills for verification (tons of people will cite "someone said this on pro-X telegram channels in Russia" and that's not a very scientific gauge of opinion but it's the sort of nugget it's easy to get excited over if you feel you need to keep up to the minute).