Analyzing the War in Ukraine
Shedding light on the Fog of War, or at least some of it.
On February 24th of this year, Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s been all over the news, but there’s been such an overwhelming amount of reports that it can become hard to sort through and get a good picture of what’s really happening.
Before we go on, let’s get one thing very clear: Ukraine is a victim. This invasion is a major violation of International Law that the Centre for European Policy Studies calls “an invasion that is without any justification whatsoever”, and is widely considered to be a War of Aggression — something that the International Community has sought to stamp out after the horrors of the two World Wars.
So make no mistake: Despite things rarely having the black-and-white, good-and-evil dynamic we’re used to seeing in the movies, the Russian government are very much the bad guys here, and there are no two ways about it.
So, with that out of the way, let’s repeat some of the common subjects (and the less common as well), and see how well they hold up to scrutiny. Spoiler alert: If it makes Russia look bad, it’s probably true.
Did the Russians commit war crimes in Ukraine?
Yes.
Yes, they did.
According to Amnesty International, Russian forces in Ukraine have committed myriad war crimes, though their report focuses mostly on Russian targeting of densely populated zones — a war crime because of the potential of injury and death to non-combatants. Russia has done more than “just” that, so we’ll later examine other reports as well.
The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General
These attacks have included in them the use of ballistic missiles and artillery, none of it guided. This is despite Russia’s claim that they’ve used highly precise guided munitions to avoid civilian casualties, a claim that Amnesty International calls “patently false”.
Beyond the intentional targeting of civilian areas, there have also been reports of looting of homes, stores, and banks by Russian troops in the city of Kherson, and the bombing of agreed-upon humanitarian corridors by Russian forces while Ukrainian civilians were trying to use them to escape to safer areas.
This shows us that the war crimes go beyond what Russia’s Generals have ordered: there’s strong evidence, such as what happened in the city of Kherson, that Russian troops are being “set loose” in the cities and villages they captured to loot and pillage as they please, perhaps as a way to offset morale losses.
Has the Russian Military performed badly in the conflict so far?
Yes.
Very much so.
The Russian Military expected to be able to win this war in a couple of days at most. This is evidenced by their air assault and capture of Hostomel Airport, just north of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
This is relevant because it implies that the Russians wanted to use the Airport as a resupply base — and possibly even as a Headquarters — for an assault on Kyiv.
If Hostomel Airport was one of their early objectives, then it’s only reasonable to assume that they expected Kyiv to fall soon after.
Instead, Ukrainian forces managed to prevent the airport from being used by Russia to ferry troops and supplies, possibly delaying a battle for the capital city that Putin thought was sure to follow.
To make matters worse for Russia, the days following the battles in and around Hostomel Airport didn’t go as planned, either. UK Intelligence reports that the Russian advances had stalled on all fronts.
As for casualties: The official casualty rate for the Russian Military as cited by the Kremlin is 498 dead, and a little over 1,500 injured. However, a quickly-deleted leak by the Russian Pravda — a pro-Putin newspaper — listed the “official” death toll, as known by the Russian leadership but kept quiet, was of 9,861 dead and 16,153 injured.
There is little, if anything at all, about this invasion that can be considered a positive for Russia.
What is the deal with Russian Logistics?
One of the often-cited problems the Russians have had so far is poor logistics.
Here’s what NATO has to say about the importance of logistics in a war:
“It is of vital importance for any military operation and, without it, operations could not be carried out and sustained. Logistics can be seen as the bridge between deployed forces and the industrial base, which produces the material and weapons deployed forces need to accomplish their mission.”
NATO — Topic: Logistics
Russia has, reportedly, been encountering Logistical problems throughout their invasion.
These include a general inability to provide food, ammunition, water, fuel, and medical supplies to their frontline troops.
This results in situations where Ukrainian civilians take it upon themselves to acquire these vehicles, to deny their usage by the enemy. Many of the vehicles captured by Ukrainian civilians were abandoned by their Russian crews due to a lack of supplies.
This means that their poor logistics has resulted in two major problems: Their invasion slows down or even stops entirely because their vehicles either have no fuel or — in the case of the ones that do have fuel — they end up losing them because the fuel they had wasn’t enough.
Besides the problems above, there’s even this video of Ukrainian troops analysing the field rations they stole from the Russian Army — they’ve been expired since 2015.
What is the role of Belarus in all of this?
Belarus has aided Russia every step of the way. They are Russia’s friends and, by extension, Ukraine’s enemies.
Belarus — Russia’s “Key Ally” — served as a staging point for Russian forces invading Ukraine from the north. Their main push into Ukraine has been from Belarus, which also served as a staging point for the Russian forces that captured Chernobyl early in the invasion.
It’s clear that if Belarus hadn’t assisted Russia, this invasion might have never even taken place.
Not only that but there have been rumours that Belarus could soon invade Ukraine alongside Russia, adding to the problems that Kyiv is facing.
The Belarusian people, meanwhile, have been opposing their dictator and staged massive protests against their dictator Alexander Lukashenko, almost for a full year, between May of 2020 and March of 2021.
Their opposition didn’t stop there: They have also been actively sabotaging plans for Belarus’ entry into the war on Russia’s side.
How have the Russian people reacted to the war?
Russia has faced anti-war protests, and anti-war protesters have faced retribution.
On March 7th, NPR reported that close to 5,000 anti-war protesters had been arrested in 65 cities across Russia, with at least 30 instances of protesters being beaten by the Police. And that’s only on one day — the count goes up much higher if you include all the protests that had happened between February 24th and March 7th: over 13,000 people had been arrested in that timespan.
By March 13th, Al-Jazeera reported that an additional 756 people had been arrested, with roughly half these arrests taking place in Moscow.
Human Rights Watch has stated that the Russian police is guilty of brutality and ill-treatment while arresting anti-war protesters, calling the thousands of arrests “arbitrary” in nature.
How have the sanctions affected Russia?
The effect has been widespread.
The sanctions have had a wide-ranging impact on the Russian economy, including a large number of western companies leaving the country altogether.
Among these are Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Estée Lauder, Swatch, Sephora, Levi’s, Ikea, Puma, Stradivarius, and Deloitte.
Oil giant BP has broken away from Russian oil company Rosneft, in which it had significant amounts of money invested. Other western companies in the sector, including Shell, ExxonMobil, and Equinor have pledged to also leave the Russian market.
Other companies that have also suspended participation are Airbus and Boeing — potentially hampering the operation of Russian airlines, which are already banned from America and most of Europe’s airspaces.
Samsung has said that they will suspend deliveries to Russia but made no mention of closing their stores.
Tik-Tok, meanwhile, went the opposite way: Limiting non-Russian content for Russian users, likely under pressure from the Russian government.
As for the sanctions themselves, the Financial Times has reported that they’ve “blown holes” in the Russian economy, and goes even further:
“The rouble has collapsed, bond default risk has spiked, the Moscow stock exchange has closed and Russian oil trades at ever-deeper discounts to Brent.”
The Financial Times
These are not just sanctions on the country as a whole, either. Some 400 individuals and roughly 600 companies are each, individually, sanctioned by the U.S. and the E.U.
The biggest effect they are likely to have is that they’ll limit Russia’s capacity to continue waging this war. That may already be happening: there are reports that Russia’s main tank factory has run out of parts — parts that they cannot acquire or manufacture due to renewed sanctions.
Not only that, but the sanctions also limit Russia’s ability to recover post-war. Even if we assume that they can defeat Ukraine, and we hand-wave the factor of any post-war insurgencies that may occur, there is still the hole left in the Russian economy from all the western companies leaving the market.
The hole is likely to be filled by Chinese companies sometime in the future, meaning that Russia is already running the risk of becoming financially dependent on them.
