Let's title this one, 'Plan E'...
Began writing the following yesterday, primarily to address the question, ‘are the Russian armed forces underperforming – and why?’
This morning, I have a feeling this write-up was ‘overrun by developments’ – though also confirmed to the last dot and comma, and that by nobody less than the latest press conference of the Keystone Cops in Moscow of the last evening. Namely, they have announced that ‘now’ the RFA is to concentrate on the situation in eastern Ukraine.
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The answer is my favourite: ‘yesno’.
Keep in mind that everything a military force does is what its political masters equip, train, and order it to do. If orders of political masters are realistic, the military force is – usually – successful. If not, then not. In this regards there’s next to no difference between democracies and dictatorships – except that in democracies the politicians might be more likely to listen to the advice of their generals. In a dictatorship not only are generals unlikely to properly advise the dictator (for the fear of being ‘removed’), but even the best intelligence service cannot supply a correct assessment of the situation.
In the case of the RFA in Ukraine, matter of fact is that there is only one person determining its military objectives: that is the Fool in Kremlin. Therefore, Putin is the primary culprit for the failure and underperformance of the RFA. He is the secondary culprit, too, for it was his responsibility to take care the RFA to be properly equipped and trained, indeed: reformed and re-armed, the last 20 years. Fact is: it wasn’t, because Putin’s mafia-styled regime is as corrupt and as incompetent as it is. Indeed, Putin’s regime sacked even its own members the moment they began complaining about corruption. Unsurprisingly, the Russian Armed Forces simply couldn’t perform as expected.
Why is all of this important? Because Putin started this war to avoid accountability for all of his own failures of the last 22 years. Not because of ‘NATO’s expansion’ or whatever other kind of nonsense. The aim was to sack Ukraine and thus prevent it from joining the NATO and then the EU; prevent Ukraine from developing democracy and thus having a 'negative' (for Putin) influence upon Russia.
But, I’m digressing… Point is this: Putin ordered Ukraine to be overrun within three days. For this task, Shoygu deployed about 70% of available VDV- and Spetsnaz units, more than half of the Rosgvardia and a brigade of Kadyrov’s Chechens. The VDV and the Spetsnaz are the ‘elite’ of the RFA: definitely best-paid, supposedly best armed- and trained units, too. Rosgvardia and Chechens are comparable to a combination of Waffen-SS, Hitlerjugend, IRGC, and Gestapo: incompetent on military plan, but well-armed and more trusted by Putin than the RFA (so much so, Rosgvardia is nowadays responsible for protection of all the strategically important installations in Russia and occupied parts of Ukraine, including nuclear facilities).
Plan A
Putin’s Plan A was to overrun Ukraine within three days: to kill or capture – i.e. topple – the government and implement a regime change. That plan failed: we do not yet know exactly how and why: it could be it failed the moment the VDV lost the Hostomel Airport to the 4th Rapid Intervention Brigade, and/or the Chechens were hacked to pieces while driving into downtown Kyiv, on the first day of the war. But, there is no clear evidence in this regards, and it's going to be some time before we know for sure.
Plan B
As is obvious by now, Putin had no Plan B. He was (and remains) so obsessed with his illusions about the weakness of democracy and collapse of the West, that he could not imagine any other outcome but a quick victory. When that plan failed, he ordered the RFA to improvise the Plan B. This resulted in a dissipation of effort and utmost chaos: instead of running a ‘victory parade while liberating Ukraine’, the RFA rushed to simultaneously assault Kyiv from north-west and east, to take Mariupol, to take Kharkiv, and to reach Odessa and connect with Transnistria. Based on another illusion (‘Ukrainians are too weak to resist’), the Plan B fell apart in a matter of 2-3 days, too.
Plan C
Undaunted, Putin ordered the RFA into Plan C: besiege Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Mykolaiv. Force them into submission by wholesale destruction of Ukraine, through murdering civilians, making their life miserable....Still based on unrealistic expectations, this plan failed, too: it only resulted in catastrophic losses of RFA units that attempted to effect all these sieges in too many places at once.
Plan D
Then, around 10-14 March, Putin ordered the RFA to go for the Plan D: secure Ukraine east of Dnepr. The RFA was still improvising and lacked troops for this: the most it managed was an advance from Kherson up the western bank of the river, while simultaneously pushing for Zaporozhye. The first prong run out of steam, until colliding with Ukrainian defences south of Kryvyi Rih, the second was ambushed and de-facto destroyed south-east of Zaporozhye.
Plan E
Now we have clear evidence that Putin ordered the RFA into the Plan E: surround the Ukrainian forces along the LOC in Donbas, and secure Mariupol. The fate of that plan is going to be decided somewhere within triangle Izium-Vuhledar-Zaporozhye, and then by
a) the ability of the RFA to deploy a superior force and punch through into the back of the Ukrainian forces along the LOC, while
b) preventing another massive loss.
Conclusion: the RFA didn't under-perform, but was given unrealistic objectives. Each of objectives was outside of its reach, and thus insufficient forces, support, and supplies were assigned for the task in question. As a result, so far, all the objectives remained outside its reach.
Now, why should anybody care about all of my rambling here?
Pay attention at the following fact: Putin is all the time downsizing his aim. From 'all of Ukraine’, 'collapse of the West' and 'destruction of democracy', via ‘Ukraine east of Dnepr’.... he's now down to 'just the LOC'.
This is about the only 'good' development in this war by now.
hvala.
