Is Ukraine doing the world a favor?
It’s damn sure grinding the Russian military down to a helpless nub.
Depending on where and who you read these days regarding the Ukraine war, either Russia is beating their socks off, Ukraine is slowly getting ground down, or the war is at a stand still. A few writers here on Medium are still optimistic at Ukraine’s actions and their capability to win.
I’m no military analyst, or an expert at judging who might be winning a war. I’m am an old guy who spent some years in ROTC learning about military history, tactics and strategy, then a few years as a grunt groundpounder in Europe. But the ensuing decades I spent studying what the world’s superpowers were doing, and about the various conflicts going on in all kinds of corners, and putting all that together, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.
But the biggest thing that’s caught my attention is what a few writers here have been doing — exposing the casualties of that war, and the relative damage being done. There are three things that have caught my attention.
First, Russian losses. According to many differing sources, and even some mainstream ones, the Russian military has been ground down badly. Their losses, just in hardware, are amounting to close to what they had in commission before this conflict started, and in some categories exceeds that number, and has ground into decommissioned equipment in storage having been recommissioned and sent into the conflict, only to be destroyed in turn. The personnel losses are even worse.
Second, Ukraine has gotten so doggone good with drones, they’re now hitting oil facilities — three days in a row now — along with other militarily and economically important factories. Some of them a damn long way from the borders! This is definitely a long game, yet it will have shorter term consequences that will hurt the Russian economy sooner than some think.
Third, Russian missile attacks in Ukraine have been in large part against civilian targets, and mostly unimportant targets, either militarily or economically. And they’re using literally millions of dollars worth of missiles doing it. Essentially wasting those missiles.
Ukraine hits militarily important targets. Oil facilities are good militarily important targets. Markets and apartment buildings are not.
This exposes Russia’s command structure as weak in strategic thinking, while Ukraine is pursuing both a short term and long term strategy using drones and missiles against targets that have both a short term affect and a long term one against the country as a whole, and not just immediate military tactical usefulness.
Sadly, this is having a terrible affect on Ukrainian personnel casualties, both military and civilian.
But in reality, Ukraine is doing the world a favor, and one we’ll owe them for their suffering for a very long time in the future.
What’s that favor? In the middle term, destroying Russia’s ability to attack NATO. Which explains why Europe and NATO have kicked their assistance to Ukraine into high gear. A lot of folks blame that on the US, and while they’re not wrong, exactly, the real reason why Europe and NATO are stepping up is because they see what Finland and Sweden saw when they applied to NATO for membership. Russia was, at no point at all, going to stop in Ukraine. They were just gonna keep on rolling west, and NATO finally realized that fact, and that they had to be ready. (Unlike how unready they were before WWII.)
So, now they’ve done that. Not only increasing their military readiness, but sending help to Ukraine.
Yet, there’s something else going on.
Is it deliberate? Maybe not, but it could be. It could be because what Ukraine is doing now is pretty clear — they’re grinding Russian military capabilities down to almost literally nothing. I mean, come on, man, before Ukraine, everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE (including US military analysts) saw Russia as having the number two sized and capable military worldwide.
Yet, for two years — TWO YEARS — Russia has yet to take any more significant amount of territory — and in addition, many people note that Ukraine took back half of the area Russia had taken in the first week or so in the war!
Does that sound like a military second only to the US military?
Not for a nanosecond.
I hear a lot about how Russia is going to create chaos around the world, and how its gonna attack NATO, etc. If you think that, I’d advise you to take a close look at the casualty figures being published by folks like Dylan Combellick. That does not look like a military capable of attacking NATO and doing more than getting its ass kicked in 24 hours. I mean, Ukraine has shot down an amazing number of high cost and important Russian aircraft — with only second tier anti-aircraft weapons! Would that give you any confidence in Russian abilities against the first and top tier weapons systems NATO uses?
No, Ukraine is certainly taking this one for the rest of us, and is doing a wonderful job of destroying Russian capabilities to screw around with anyone in the middle term future.
I see this war as ending in one of maybe three ways.
One — Ukraine wears them down as they’ve been doing, and maybe gets enough hardware and ammo to mount a strong counter-attack in this summer. At some point, those drone attacks on their command structure and logistics chains bears fruit, and the Russian army in Ukraine just collapses. It’ll start in one spot and just spread like wildfire. Might take a day or so get going, but eventually, they just run. Leaving all their stuff behind, they just climb into whatever fast moving vehicles they can and just run for the border. That collapse would perhaps spread to Putin’s government. Maybe. But their ability to pursue the war in Ukraine would be over. As would their ability to use their military anywhere outside of Russian borders.
Two — At some point, someone inside Russia sees the possibility of #1 and assassinates Putin, takes over and just unilaterally pulls out of Ukraine, if only to preserve the Russian economy (and their own fortunes).
Three — some combination of #1 & 2. Maybe Putin dies or is assassinated and that itself affects the war and the Russian military pulls out without orders, just to preserve itself. Or maybe the economy in Russia collapses and Putin is assassinated as a result? Or he dies and that collapse of their economy happens at the same time?
In reality, it doesn’t matter. At some point, Russia will be incapable of continuing to maintain the war against Ukraine. Maybe it’ll ask to negotiate first, maybe it won’t have the chance. But if Russia cannot maintain a war against Ukraine, it cannot move militarily against NATO, or for that matter, anyone else. They certainly won’t have the cash to pay these “private” military companies everyone’s worried about.
So, let’s keep thanking Ukraine. One way to do that would be to release the sequestered Russian funds around the world. A little cash in wartime goes a long way! And maybe if Russia tanks in the next nine months, that’ll stomp on Trump’s campaign here and make him more likely to lose.
One can only hope.
