A Collapse Is Coming – And Then?

Guest Post by Moon of Alabama

In the last Ukraine situation report I discussed the choice of General Oleksandr Syrski as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He is likely to support the more aggressive choices the Ukrainian president Zelenski will make.

For mostly public relation reasons Zelenski demands constant attacks on Russian forces and no retreat of Ukrainian forces until absolutely necessary. Syrski is willing to deliver on that even as history says that he is unlikely to be successful:

Syrski, who was born as a Russian, had lost the cauldron battles of Debaltsevo (2015), Soledar (2023) and Bakhmut (2023). Currently Avdeevka is in a cauldron and likely to fall.Rumors say that Syrski has already ordered reserves to reinforce the troops in Avdeevka.

The latest news says that some reinforcements have indeed arrived:

Some units of the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade in Avdiivka have been replaced by other units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Source: Ivan Sekach, Chief of Public Relations of the 110th Separate Mechanised Brigade named after Marko Bezruchko, in an interview with Radio Liberty on 13 February

Quote: “We lack sufficient capabilities to maintain control of the city, but reinforcements are arriving, and we rely on friendly units. For the first time in almost two years of the 110th Separate Mechanised Brigade’s operation, some of our units have been fully withdrawn from combat for rest and rotation. Indeed, reinforcements have come. I won’t specify [which] unit, but it provides substantial support. We feel a bit more at ease since its arrival.”

We do not know for sure which brigades have replaced the completely worn down 110th Mechanized. Rumors have it that the 3rd Assault Brigade was sent to relieve Avdeevka. The 3rd had evolved out of the ‘nationalist’, i.e neo-nazi, Azov militia. Other news said that at least parts of the planned reinforcements for Avdeevka were successfully attacked on their march while still being far away from the city.

All lines of communications to Avdeevka are under Russian fire but have yet to be physically cut. After a few days of sprints the Russian attacks have noticeably slowed down. This may be because of increased resistance from the Ukrainian side but could also have plenty of other reasons. Large scale FAB500 bombings continue to destroy the city and its defenders.

The Russian army is now on attack along the whole frontline. This is reflected in unusually high Ukrainian losses as reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Today’s report lists up to 1145 Ukrainian casualties – double the number than usual. Material losses on the Ukrainian side are also high. In total some 23 armored vehicles and over 60 trucks were reported to have been hit during the last 24 hours. The number is a lot higher than on the days before.

The mismatch between armored vehicle losses and the losses of mere trucks, which earlier in the war was one to one or even two to one, has now held up for several weeks. My interpretation of these numbers is that Ukraine has lost so many armored vehicles that it needs to use trucks to ferry troops and supplies to the front lines. Many of those get destroyed by the proliferating use of First Person View drones.

Reports of Ukrainian artillery pieces hit by Russian counter battery fire are down by a large margin. Months ago some 20 or more gun kills per day were normal business. The reported numbers have now come down to just a handful per day. I associated this with a lack of ammunition on the Ukrainian side. Guns which have nothing to shoot do not have to reveal their position and are more safe than guns which actively fire.

While the carnage along the frontline continues every day, Russian artillery forces use long range drones and missiles to hit weapon production facilities and troop agglomerations deep within Ukrainian territory. As the Ukrainian air defense also lacks ammunition more of these attacks are able to successfully destroy their targets.

The Ukrainian army is lacking ground forces. As previously described:

Yesterday a Washington Post article, sourced from interviews at the Ukrainian front, describes the utter shamble the Ukrainian forces are in:

In interviews across the front line in recent days, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders told The Washington Post that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks.

Even if efforts to raise more personnel succeed, at high economic costs, it will take months until they will reach the frontline:

The new Ukrainian mobilization law, which is supposed to refill the army with fresh bodies, is still creeping through the Ukrainian parliament. It will likely come into force only by April. The first new troops conscripted under it will take until July to be combat capable.

But even if the existing Ukrainian forces can hold out that long they still will lack the ammunition to hit back at Russian efforts. Even if the U.S. agrees soon to spend more money on Ukraine, which seems unlikely, it would take many months to refill the Ukrainian arsenals.

For all these reasons I expect that the Ukrainian frontline will break rather sooner – within weeks – than later – i.e. within months.

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism takes a look at what will probably happen beyond that point:

Ukraine now resembles a patient with a terminal disease who is staring to exhibit multi-organ failure. His longevity is still uncertain but is measured in months, not years. It’s not obvious which system will go first and whether that one by itself will be fatal or will kick off the terminal cascade. But the odds of pulling out of the current trajectory are poor.We’d like to step back and consider what Russia’s choices might be as Ukraine starts coming unglued.
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“Collapse” means a combination of widespread surrenders, retreats/abandonment of positions, and Russian captures of Ukraine forces because they are surrounded and lack the ammo to fight back.
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[Why] a big arrow move toward the Dnieper might be seen as suboptimal is the unhinged state of the West. You do not make sudden moves around crazy people. Yet another reason to watch and see how Ukraine comes apart is the administrative burden of occupying territory. That is likely a reason for Russia bulking up its military so much.

If Russia did want to rachet up pressure on Kiev, some sort of re-run of its 2022 pining operation might be a preferred move. If Russia is lucky, the government will decamp to Lvov, which would be an admission that they expect to lose Kiev and much of central Ukraine.

The reason for trying to engage in a bit more granular thinking is that many commentators can envision some end states Russia would like, but how to get from A to B is not obvious.

The best Russian move may well be to continue on a slow pace:

So aside from possibly pinning Kiev and finishing incorporating the missing parts of the four oblasts, one possible path is for Russia to keep biting off pieces as what is left of the central government and the US and NATO are forced to watch and are relegated to missile and drone attacks, but not enough to change the direction of travel. Kharkiv might be next on the menu due to proximity (and therefore less Poland / Baltic freakout) and high proportion of ethnic Russians. Taking Odessa is a logistical challenge; the best train lines are either through Krivoy Rog or from the northeast across the country.

Back in March 2022 I looked at the future constellation of Ukraine and concluded that Krivoy Rog and Odessa, for ethnic, historic and economic reasons, should be part of the Russia friendly area:

When the war to disarm the Ukraine started to my utter surprise I asked what Russia would desire as the geographic end state of the war:

It is difficult to discern what the planed end state of this operation is. Where is this going to stop?

Looking at this map I believe that the most advantageous end state for Russia would be the creation of a new independent country, call it Novorossiya, on the land east of the Dnieper and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population and that, in 1922, had been attached to the Ukraine by Lenin. That state would be politically, culturally and militarily aligned with Russia.

biggerThis would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection.

The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.

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Novorossiya roughly includes the red and yellow areas in the above map. It also includes the valuable Soviet developed iron ore mines and factories of Kryvyi Rih [Krivoy Rog] west of the Dnieper river.

My best hunch is that the Russian government has come to the same conclusion.

Yves continues her outlook:

But the other reason for being maddeningly slow, aside from getting better data, is that with hyperinflation and a highly-likely baked-in economic collapse in non-Russian controlled Ukraine, is that things may get so bad that having Russia come in and take charge may start looking less bad to many of the locals. Again, the longer Russia hangs back and lets more of Ukraine drift into failed state territory, the more this dynamic has the potential to kick in.

I am not saying any of these are givens. But Russia still needs to move carefully and deliberately if it is to increase its odds of having what is left of Ukraine not merely be neutral as the result of an imposed settlement, but have a very sizeable majority of its citizens be so sick of war and war-related privations that they will be highly resistant to NATO and CIA efforts to turn them back to being its pawns.

Yves’s ruminations point to a quite plausible longer term state of the Russian operation.

It will continue to be a very slow walk for Russia which will give the West time to come back to its senses.

This also fits well with the latest RAND paper on the war which urges for early U.S. negotiations with Russia and for finding a long term security agreement to prevent a future deterioration of East-West relations into a larger war.

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