World Affairs Brief, May 20, 2022 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
RUSSIA’S SECOND OFFENSIVE IN UKRAINE ALSO STALLED
Due primarily to Ukraine’s acquisition of long-range US artillery systems, Russia’s attempt to retreat from Kyiv and concentrate their forces in the Donbass (eastern Ukraine) have been stymied. The Russians have even lost ground in Kharkiv, on its eastern border with Russia, and the second largest city in Ukraine. Russian forces there have been driven back across the border into Russia. …
This brings up a core problem with the Russian military—poor treatment of its troops and conscripts, said “Foreign Affairs” this week. Echoing what I have said in prior briefs, Russia is not putting in its best troops or armor into Ukraine, but foreign troops and conscripts, led by Russian trained officers.
Despite its sophisticated military equipment and multiple advantages on paper, Russia has stumbled strategically, operationally, and tactically in Ukraine. It has been hampered by faulty planning assumptions, unrealistic timelines, and impractical objectives. It has suffered from inadequate supplies, bad logistics, and insufficient force protection. It has been impaired by poor leadership.
These problems do not stop at technical equipment issues, poor training, or corruption. Rather, they are linked by a core underlying theme: the military’s lack of concern for the lives and well-being of its personnel. In Ukraine, the Russian military struggles to retrieve the bodies of its dead, obscures casualties, and is indifferent to its worried military families. It may spend billions of dollars on new equipment, but it does not properly treat soldiers’ injuries, and it generally does not appear to care tremendously whether troops are traumatized.
My response is that either the “conflict will never end,” as Ritter says, leaving both sides to continually attack each other in the Donbass, or Russia will find this war too costly and withdraw. Ukraine is not about to concede Russian control over the Donbass, and even if they can’t stop Russia’s occupation there, Ukraine certainly will try to stop Russia from capturing the Southern Ukrainian border with the Black Sea—which will leave Ukraine land-locked and prohibit the export of their wheat crops—which are already being hindered by Russia’s destruction of the port city of Mariupol. Russia has been lobbing missiles at the port city of Odessa on the southern coast, trying to damage infrastructure and intimidate civilians. It also has damaged two vital bridges connecting Odessa with the rest of Ukraine. But in the long-term I can’t see Russia gaining any more ground in Ukraine.