It seems I'm not able to gather enough inspiration and motivation (and time, one thing I constantly lack to do all that I want to, and must, do) to sit for a few hours and write a proper cogitation regarding the (more than) 100 days of Putin's (Still Failed) Invasion, with a look back and a new look forward but starting almost exactly with the same words as these, I shared on Twitter some points and the thread got big enough to become itself the Cogitation #32, by copying what I wrote (with a bit more context information and references) and thus having my own essay marking this milestone of 100 days, although it's not really about those 100 days.
Before moving on to my thoughts, and since this was supposed to be about the first 100 days, I'll just be a bit more lazy and leave here a list of literature (links to other people's articles) that I feel are relevant to read about what has passed. It's kind of a collection or articles written to mark the 100 days, so the same thing I wanted to do, but this time done by people with credentials on the subject:
- As Russia's war on Ukraine passes the 100-day mark, the brutal invasion brings lessons — and warnings, by Mick Ryan (retired major general in the Australian Army. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the U.S. Marine Corps University Command and Staff College and School of Advanced Warfighting).
- The Russia-Ukraine War 100 days in, by Michael Kofman (Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at CNA and a Fellow at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the Russia and the former Soviet Union, specializing in Russian armed forces, military thought, capabilities, and strategy).
- Would we do better? Hubris and and validation in Ukraine, by David E. Johnson, Ph.D. (retired Army colonel, a principal researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point).
- The New Russian Offensive Is Intended to Project Power It Cannot Sustain, by Frederick W. Kagan (Senior Fellow and Director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute).
- Who Perseveres, Wins, by Eliot A. Cohen (professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and the Arleigh Burke chair in strategy at CSIS. From 2007 to 2009, was the Counselor of the Department of State).
So now let's move on to the thoughts, or points, I shared on my Twitter thread (this is a different link, to a site that shows the entire twitter thread in a single page).
Most of the focus of the recent action (fighting and movement) has been on the Donbas, first Izyum, then Popasna and now Sievierodonetsk (note that I try to use the ukrainian spelling of the locations) because Russia keeps "reducing" their goals (as they need another win, Mariupol was basically their only high profile one), but I'm actually much more interested in what's happening near Kherson with the counteroffensive that Ukraine has started there and is slowly pursuing. Because it started kinda slow but seems to be gathering momentum even though there are not regular updates that I believe are due to most of the attention being on the East. I've seen some opinions that the goal of the counteroffensive there is to draw Russian resources from the East (or at least prevent troops and equipment from the Southern front to move there) but I'm not so sure of that. All the news coming from Kherson indicates that Russia is "working hard" in assimilating Southern Ukraine (replace signs, give russian passports, change school manuals to russian ones, etc) so it is imperative to make it impossible for the Kremlin to announce an annexation of the territory by making it hot (unlike Crimea where Russian took full control and could announce a seamless transition to it being part of the Federation, its annexation). I strongly believe Ukraine wants to liberate Kherson in the immediate term (overall they want to liberate all their territory) and achieving that in the coming weeks, while Russia is still trying to achieve it "real objective" of "securing" the Donbas (or even just the Luhansk Oblast) would be awesome, as besides liberating the territory of its people from the invaders this would be another "nail in the coffin" for Russia's "special military operation".
Can Ukraine do it? I think they can and just like what happened before, they will.
But to what cost? To a significant cost, both human and material. The early phase of the invasion seems to have come with limited losses on the ukrainian side (I'm talking about the Armed Forces) but the current high attrition that is seen on the East is not the same. Also by going on the offensive, and that has happened in different fronts, the ukrainian forces need to take more risks and as it usual in a war, except when the side on the offensive has a huge advantage over the other like complete air supremacy, attacking leads to higher casualties than defending.
This what we are seeing on the Donbas. The Russian advances, or pushes, where they bet all their chips on, achieved gains, sometimes several gains reported, but looking into the big picture these are small ones considering the East was their "real objective all along", and they are suffering high losses as in the previous phase. But Ukraine is suffering high attrition too, there's no doubts about it. We are currently in ugly phase of the war that many were expecting and warned about.
So yeah, keeping the Russians at bay is costing a lot of lives at the moment. But what is the alternative? Surrender to avoid more bloodshed as it has been suggested by some? I think that the violence against the civilians in the occupied areas that has been seen and reported, shows that surrendering, or even a cease-fire, won't stop the killings, even if ukrainians roll over and play dead!
So all those talks about this being in reality a war the West (US/NATO) is conducting against Russia at the expense of Ukraine and Ukrainians lives is bullshit. Ukraine and its people is fighting their own war for survival, for freedom and for independence and the West is helping, as requested, that is it. But there's more bullshit being thrown around: Ukraine surrendering just to stop the war is rullshit; Ukraine giving territory to Russian just to stop the war is bullshit; Ukraine accepting the terms from Russia just to stop war is bullshit; And yes, not humiliating Russia is bullshit!
I've defended France in general, and Macron in particular, here before when it comes to their actions regarding Ukraine and the invasion and I suppose I will continue to do it from the Western European (and EU's) perspective. In the last interview he gave during a press conference with regional media (here's the link to it from the La Dépêche du Midi) that got pick up by international media (as an example this piece from Reuters) and went viral in the recent days (and after my Cogitation #31 that was dedicated to this theme) he said some right things about Ukraine but then on a question about the war escalating he used again the infamous statement "Russia can't be humiliated" (what he said in French, and you can use it to search in the interview linked above, was "Il ne faut pas humilier la Russie"). That is the main bullshit statement, or idea, he keeps repeating.
The rest of the answer is clear to what is the intent, and goes a bit with what I wrote before, but it would be great if Macron gave a clear definition of what he means by "not humiliated", but seeing he hasn't expanded on that statement I suppose he won't clarify it anytime soon, also because being vague about allows him to later adapt the supposed meaning depending on the outcomes (and intent is a major card in the international poker game, so by not showing it you are keeping a trump card to yourself). But as many english-speaking pundits have already decided, people will think that means Ukraine has to concede something (territory, international aspirations, military status) to allow Putin to save face. I disagree with that interpretation, based on other statements and the actual actions France has done so far to support Ukraine and target Russia (via sanctions), and also Macron seems to be clear that he talks about Russia due to its people and that after the war we'll continue to have to deal with such a big country whose capital is still in Europe. But there is no other option except Russia being humiliated because they must be defeated (completely driven out of Ukraine and give up on coming back, in the short term at least). After that defeat yes, diplomacy takes the stage for negotiating the terms for future relations (although I agree with the more radical positions, in relation to the Russia's future, that if Putin stays in power and there's now ideological shift, the country will continue to have the same imperialistic views towards their neighbours).
What is also bullshit are the worries by most of Western allies (NATO, including the US) that Ukraine will attack Russian territory with their supplied weapons, namely artillery including rocket launchers. Well, considering that this is a total war and that Ukraine already attacked targets inside Russia during the initial phase, yes that's what will most likely happen and to me it's normal to expect that. But these reservations that have come to light show that there are still a lot of concerns in politicians about further provoking Russia or giving them additional justifications to escalate the current conflict. At this point I have to admit that I'm surprised that some of these politicians/leaders didn't realise that an escalation of the war was a possibility once Putin decided to invade in February. Even if Russia had succeeded in occupying Kyiv, setting up a puppet regime and thus taking control of Ukraine, or of most of it, the threat of further "ventures" into previous Soviet states would always be there.
Most of the focus of the recent action (fighting and movement) has been on the Donbas, first Izyum, then Popasna and now Sievierodonetsk (note that I try to use the ukrainian spelling of the locations) because Russia keeps "reducing" their goals (as they need another win, Mariupol was basically their only high profile one), but I'm actually much more interested in what's happening near Kherson with the counteroffensive that Ukraine has started there and is slowly pursuing. Because it started kinda slow but seems to be gathering momentum even though there are not regular updates that I believe are due to most of the attention being on the East. I've seen some opinions that the goal of the counteroffensive there is to draw Russian resources from the East (or at least prevent troops and equipment from the Southern front to move there) but I'm not so sure of that. All the news coming from Kherson indicates that Russia is "working hard" in assimilating Southern Ukraine (replace signs, give russian passports, change school manuals to russian ones, etc) so it is imperative to make it impossible for the Kremlin to announce an annexation of the territory by making it hot (unlike Crimea where Russian took full control and could announce a seamless transition to it being part of the Federation, its annexation). I strongly believe Ukraine wants to liberate Kherson in the immediate term (overall they want to liberate all their territory) and achieving that in the coming weeks, while Russia is still trying to achieve it "real objective" of "securing" the Donbas (or even just the Luhansk Oblast) would be awesome, as besides liberating the territory of its people from the invaders this would be another "nail in the coffin" for Russia's "special military operation".
Can Ukraine do it? I think they can and just like what happened before, they will.
But to what cost? To a significant cost, both human and material. The early phase of the invasion seems to have come with limited losses on the ukrainian side (I'm talking about the Armed Forces) but the current high attrition that is seen on the East is not the same. Also by going on the offensive, and that has happened in different fronts, the ukrainian forces need to take more risks and as it usual in a war, except when the side on the offensive has a huge advantage over the other like complete air supremacy, attacking leads to higher casualties than defending.
This what we are seeing on the Donbas. The Russian advances, or pushes, where they bet all their chips on, achieved gains, sometimes several gains reported, but looking into the big picture these are small ones considering the East was their "real objective all along", and they are suffering high losses as in the previous phase. But Ukraine is suffering high attrition too, there's no doubts about it. We are currently in ugly phase of the war that many were expecting and warned about.
So yeah, keeping the Russians at bay is costing a lot of lives at the moment. But what is the alternative? Surrender to avoid more bloodshed as it has been suggested by some? I think that the violence against the civilians in the occupied areas that has been seen and reported, shows that surrendering, or even a cease-fire, won't stop the killings, even if ukrainians roll over and play dead!
So all those talks about this being in reality a war the West (US/NATO) is conducting against Russia at the expense of Ukraine and Ukrainians lives is bullshit. Ukraine and its people is fighting their own war for survival, for freedom and for independence and the West is helping, as requested, that is it. But there's more bullshit being thrown around: Ukraine surrendering just to stop the war is rullshit; Ukraine giving territory to Russian just to stop the war is bullshit; Ukraine accepting the terms from Russia just to stop war is bullshit; And yes, not humiliating Russia is bullshit!
I've defended France in general, and Macron in particular, here before when it comes to their actions regarding Ukraine and the invasion and I suppose I will continue to do it from the Western European (and EU's) perspective. In the last interview he gave during a press conference with regional media (here's the link to it from the La Dépêche du Midi) that got pick up by international media (as an example this piece from Reuters) and went viral in the recent days (and after my Cogitation #31 that was dedicated to this theme) he said some right things about Ukraine but then on a question about the war escalating he used again the infamous statement "Russia can't be humiliated" (what he said in French, and you can use it to search in the interview linked above, was "Il ne faut pas humilier la Russie"). That is the main bullshit statement, or idea, he keeps repeating.
The rest of the answer is clear to what is the intent, and goes a bit with what I wrote before, but it would be great if Macron gave a clear definition of what he means by "not humiliated", but seeing he hasn't expanded on that statement I suppose he won't clarify it anytime soon, also because being vague about allows him to later adapt the supposed meaning depending on the outcomes (and intent is a major card in the international poker game, so by not showing it you are keeping a trump card to yourself). But as many english-speaking pundits have already decided, people will think that means Ukraine has to concede something (territory, international aspirations, military status) to allow Putin to save face. I disagree with that interpretation, based on other statements and the actual actions France has done so far to support Ukraine and target Russia (via sanctions), and also Macron seems to be clear that he talks about Russia due to its people and that after the war we'll continue to have to deal with such a big country whose capital is still in Europe. But there is no other option except Russia being humiliated because they must be defeated (completely driven out of Ukraine and give up on coming back, in the short term at least). After that defeat yes, diplomacy takes the stage for negotiating the terms for future relations (although I agree with the more radical positions, in relation to the Russia's future, that if Putin stays in power and there's now ideological shift, the country will continue to have the same imperialistic views towards their neighbours).
What is also bullshit are the worries by most of Western allies (NATO, including the US) that Ukraine will attack Russian territory with their supplied weapons, namely artillery including rocket launchers. Well, considering that this is a total war and that Ukraine already attacked targets inside Russia during the initial phase, yes that's what will most likely happen and to me it's normal to expect that. But these reservations that have come to light show that there are still a lot of concerns in politicians about further provoking Russia or giving them additional justifications to escalate the current conflict. At this point I have to admit that I'm surprised that some of these politicians/leaders didn't realise that an escalation of the war was a possibility once Putin decided to invade in February. Even if Russia had succeeded in occupying Kyiv, setting up a puppet regime and thus taking control of Ukraine, or of most of it, the threat of further "ventures" into previous Soviet states would always be there.
Actually I'm being silly because this is not a possibility caused by the decision to invade in February, this is a possibility ever since Putin decided to reassert influence on Ukraine and Georgia! This goes back to at least 2004, following the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003) and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004). We had after that the military interventions in 2008 and 2014 (before it was more actions behind the curtains) but February this year is basically when Putin decided to, using poker terminology, stop with the small blinds and go all-in. And now that he committed to go all-in, he should be defeated.
But would the defeat in Ukraine that be enough to stop Russia's imperialism plans and goals? Well, some people that know much better the country and the russian people than me, state the problem is not just Putin, that this is an issue in the entire society tracing back from centuries ago. There are some that even claim that Russia's defeat is actually the splitting of the Russian Federation into several states (and the Russia based in Moscow becomes a much smaller republic). I believe that is an utopic wish, meaning won't happen anytime soon, but maybe I'm wrong and the dominoes might to start to falling down in the near future...
To conclude my cogitation: the current situation in the field is not as dynamic as in the first phase; people all over the world are getting tired of the war (as they usually do) and are focusing on "other important issues"; Russia's focus on the Donbas (East of Ukraine) did bring some tactical wins but situation didn't change much, considering they focused most if not all of their offensive power in this region; Ukraine seems poised in retaking ground in the South and they should do it to prevent the current efforts from Russia to assimilate and annex this region.
I think that Ukraine will reach Kherson in the next few week and if they rout the Russian forces (in a similar way to what happened in the North and in Kharkiv) this will cause another moral breakdown for the Russian military and will be another step closure to achieve a collapse of all their efforts.
Let's wait and see...
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