Kiev’s counterattack will go ahead to gain back at least some of the lost territory, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar. This is a desperate throw of the dice.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in center rear behind soldiers, paid tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers on St Michael’s Square in central Kiev on April 20. (NATO)
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Peoples Dispatch
Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to the country’s “new territories” of Lugansk and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions last week to assess the military situation.
The countdown has begun for the Ukrainian “counterattack.” The arrival of Patriot missile system in Ukraine testifies to the scale of mobilization to impose heavy losses on Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg just paid a surprise visit to Kiev, his first since the war began.
The leaked Pentagon documents are skeptical about the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, but Moscow makes its own assessments. Primarily, the neocons are not going to pull the plug on the Zelensky regime, since that means opening the Pandora’s box while President Joe Biden is announcing his bid for a second term as president and cannot accept that Ukraine is losing the war.
In reality, Ukraine is hemorrhaging. It is in the nature of attritional wars that at some point, the weaker side breaks and thereupon, the end comes very fast. This is how it was in Syria where — once the five-year old Battle of Aleppo was won in December 2016 — government forces swept through the country in a string of military victories bringing the curtain down on the conflict.
The attritional war in Ukraine may look “stalemated” but the clincher will be which side is inflicting the greater casualties. There is no question that the massive military, intelligence, financial and economic assistance by the West notwithstanding, Russian forces have ground down the Ukrainian side all along the line of contact.
The Russian ambassador to the U.K. recently said the ratio of losses in the attrition war is roughly seven Ukrainian soldiers to every Russian soldier. To put things in perspective, Western media reports estimate that around 35,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be involved in the upcoming counter-offensive along the 950-km frontline while Putin is on record that the Russian reserve forces on the frontline come to 160,000 soldiers.
The Ukrainian air defense system is in a critical state. Russians have a predominance of artillery and have heavily fortified the frontline in the recent five-to-six months with multiple layers of defense such as mines, earthworks and bollards to impede advancing tanks.
Russia’s Fortification Line
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, arrives at headquarters of the Dnepr Group of Forces, Kherson Oblast, April 17, 2023. (Kremlin)
This is a desperate gambit for Ukraine, which has lost a large share of its most experienced soldiers (estimated 120,000 casualties), to take on the Russians who have superiority in missiles, air defense, artillery and, above all, trained manpower.
The areas that Putin chose to visit — Kherson / Zaporozhya and Lugansk — are where the Ukrainian counteroffensive is most expected. Putin heard from the commanders about the military situation and, of course, most certainly, that will provide input for his decisions on Russian counter-strategies, both defensive and offensive.
Despite the Pentagon leaks and the ensuing disarray and confusion in Washington and European capitals (and Kiev), the Ukrainian counterattack will go ahead to gain back at least some of the lost territory. This is a desperate throw of the dice.
However, delusional thinking still prevails in Washington. This is apparent from what two veterans of the U.S. establishment — former State Department official Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — wrote recently in Foreign Affairs. Their article, The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine: A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table, largely sticks to the myths spawned by the neocons, that Russia’s special military operations failed and the war has “turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted.”
But it also contains flashes of realism. It builds on the refrain currently in vogue in Washington that “the most likely outcome of the conflict is not a complete Ukrainian victory but a bloody stalemate.”
Haas and Kupchan wrote that
“By the time Ukraine’s anticipated offensive is over, Kyiv may also warm up to the idea of a negotiated settlement, having given its best shot on the battlefield and facing growing constraints on both its own manpower and help from abroad.”
The authors take note en passe that Russia’s leadership has options and calculations too, as Western sanctions have failed to cripple Russian economy, popular support for the war remains high (above 70 percent) and Moscow senses that time is on its side as the staying power of Ukraine and its Western supporters and their resolve will wane and Russia should be able to expand its territorial gains substantially.
NATO’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on April 21. (NATO)
Fundamentally, Haas and Kupchan hail from another planet. They cannot comprehend that Russia will never accept a scenario where the conflict ends with a ceasefire but NATO will continue to beef up Ukraine’s military capabilities and steadily integrate Kiev into the alliance.
Why would Russia want to play another game of musical chairs while the West formalizes Ukraine’s NATO membership — that is, acquiesce in a replay of the grotesque interregnum between Minsk Agreements of 2015 and Russia’s special military operations?
Putin’s visit to the new territories at this crucial juncture with the attritional war at a tipping point conveys a powerful signal that Russia too has an offensive plan and it is not up to Biden to blow the whistle and call off the proxy war — out of sheer fatigue or pressing distractions in the Asia-Pacific or due to cracks in the Western unity or whatever else.
Ukrainian oblasts annexed by Russia since 2014 (Crimea) and 2022 (others). The 2022 annexation creates the equivalent of a strategic land bridge between Crimea and Russia. (SyntaxTerror, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Equally, it is improbable that Russia can ever reconcile with the Zelensky regime, which Moscow sees as a puppet of the Biden administration. But how can Biden possibly dump or lose sight of Zelensky while the skeletons are rattling in the family cupboard?
Most importantly, Russian public opinion expects Putin to redeem the pledge he made while ordering the special military operations. Anything short of that will mean tens of thousands of Russian lives perished in vain.
It is not in the grain of Putin’s political personality to ignore the groundswell of Russian opinion — or overlook the wounded national psyche as images are playing out of forced eviction of hundreds of monks of Pechersk Lavra, the 11th-century Orthodox cave monastery complex in the heart of Kiev, branded as Russian fifth columnists. It was a calculated political move by Zelensky with tacit Western encouragement, (see here and here).
Kiev Pechersk Lavra complex. (Falin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
What the neocons in the U.S. are yet to grasp is that they failed to subjugate Russia despite all the humiliations poured on its national honor, proud history and enviously rich culture. Why would Russia normalize with states that appropriated its sovereign wealth and imposed such draconian sanctions to bleed and weaken its economy?
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted on CNN that sanctions may ultimately risk hegemony of the U.S. dollar. But her remarks do not go far enough.
Meanwhile, the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership has strengthened, the signal this week being Moscow’s willingness to coordinate with Beijing to counter military challenges in the Far East.
[Related: China & Russia Circle Wagons in Asia-Pacific]
Russia is far from isolated and enjoys strategic depth in the international community. Whereas, during the last year, the systemic decline of the West and the waning of U.S. global influence has become an inexorable historical process.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.
This article originally appeared on Indian Punchline.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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