THOUGHTS ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE - PART TWO
THOUGHTS ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Observing the Russian build-up of troops in the borders of Ukraine and in Belarus during the winter of 2021/22, most of us initially assumed this to be a means of pressurising Ukraine to give up its tentative moves towards an alignment with Europe rather than with Russia. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 Russia had always regarded Ukraine as within its sphere of influence. Russia was already supporting separatist elements in Donetsk and Luhansk, and it was on 17 July 2014 that a civilian airliner, a Boeing 777 of Malaysian Airways, was shot down over the contested area of Ukraine killing all 283 passengers and crew. We know that the weapon used to bring down the aircraft was a 9K37 BUK (NATO designation), ground launched anti-aircraft missile system. The question was – who did it? While the armed forces of both Russia and Ukraine were equipped with the BUK, it was in neither country’s interests to shoot down an unarmed aircraft of a state not involved in the conflict and proceeding along a recognised and authorised air corridor. Again, the state of training in both counties was good enough to identify a civilian aircraft from one with hostile intent, so it is unlikely that either Russia or Ukraine was the culprit. The most likely answer, it seems to me, is that the separatists, having been provided with at least one BUK unit by Russia, had manned it with ill-trained amateurs who, spotting an approaching aircraft on radar, took it to be of the Ukraine air force and pressed the button. One suspects that the firer may have been taken out and shot, for rightly or wrongly the Russians got the blame.
During the troop build-up Russia consistently claimed that this was merely the prelude to military exercises. It was when units not normally needed for an exercise, rather than for war, started to appear that it became apparent that this was no exercise. People do get killed and injured on exercises – they go to sleep under tanks which sink in the mud, they get run over by vehicles in the dark, they light fires inside bunkers to keep warm and die of carbon monoxide poisoning, but there are never enough to warrant the deployment of a complete field hospital – that is only needed to cope with the mass casualties that may occur in war. Similarly, the deployment of more logistic units than would be needed for an exercise of a few weeks added to the suspicion that what was intended was the real thing – an invasion of Ukraine. Sure enough on 22 February 2022 the war – dubbed a ‘special military operation’ by Russia - began.
Either Russian intelligence was woefully wrong – unlikely – or it was unwilling to tell President Putin the truth, for there can be no doubt that the Russians thought this would be a walkover. A swift advance into the capital, Kyiv (Kiev as was), a removal of the Ukraine government and a puppet regime installed, all over in a week or two and a bogus plebiscite with the population asking to be absorbed into Russia. All done and dusted before the West could react. Clearly there was a complete failure to understand both the extent of Ukrainian resistance and the capability to do so. An initial attempt to seize the airport to the north of the capital, an entirely sensible move which could allow heavy equipment and more troops to be airlifted in had it worked. It did not work and Phase Two began with an armoured thrust on the capital south from Belarus, one of Russia’s few European allies. Long columns of tanks stretched nose to tail for miles along the one road. Why on earth did they not deploy off road? They did not because they could not – the Spring thaw, the time the Russians call the ‘time of no roads’ was early and vehicles, even tracked vehicles leaving the road would bog in and be unable to move. Any study of Operation Barbarossa in the Second world War would have told them that. To send columns of armoured vehicles through built-up or wooded areas without infantry ahead and to the flanks is incomprehensible, and made them sitting, or barely moving, targets for anti-tank ambushes at which the Ukrainians excelled. They were equipped with the excellent shoulder launched NLAW (Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon) originally designed by Bofors, manufactured in N Ireland and supplied by the British, and also with the US equivalent. NLAW is highly effective and will knock out any known tank, and, crucially, men can be trained to use it in a few hours. After losing a large number of armoured vehicles and an unknown number of dead and wounded soldiers the advance on Kyiv stalled and was then abandoned.
In those areas briefly occupied by Russian troops from which they had been forced to withdraw, reports began to come in of mass looting, ill treatment and in some cases executions of civilians, rape and wanton destruction of property, as well as large amounts of personal kit and military stores abandoned. A properly trained and disciplined army does not behave like that. Either officers had lost control of their men, or such behaviour is institutional in the Russian armed forces (as was seen in Berlin in 1945). It was clear too that the lessons of the Georgian War in August 2008 had not been learned. Then vehicles broke down, radios did not work and tactics were pedestrian. In the end numbers told but as a result huge sums were allocated to modernise and re-equip the armed forces, particularly the army. All that money would seem to have disappeared into back pockets somewhere; it has certainly not been spent on the army.
In any military campaign, particularly one that is spread over a wide expanse of territory, it is axiomatic that there should be one overall commander, and yet at the outset the forces attacking from the north, in the east and along the Black Sea coast were commanded by the commander of the military district from whence those troops came. At any one time five different commanders were conducting operations with co-ordination, such as it was, exercised by the defence minister, Shoigu, in post since 2012. He holds the rank of army general, equivalent to full general, despite having no military experience other than in the quasi-military civil defence organisation. Eventually this became clear to Putin who appointed Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov as overall commander in April. Dvornikov had been the commander of the motor rifle regiment (small brigade) that reduced Grozny to rubble in the Chechen war, and was then the commander of Russian ground forces in Syria. This improved matters for the Russians somewhat but after successive embarrassments little was seen nor heard of him in the summer, and in October Army General Sergey Surovikin was appointed in his place. Originally an army officer, Surovikin fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, then as a captain he ordered his men to fire on anti-coup demonstrators in August 1991. Although arrested and held for some months he was exonerated by the then President Yeltsin on the grounds that he was only obeying orders. Since then he has had considerable military experience, including command in Syria and, transferred to the Air Force, as commander of aero-space forces. His influence on the campaign has yet to be felt.
More next week.