Ukraine War, Q&A Session for June 2024, Part 3
Yet more answers to your questions… (yes, I’m working myself through ‘older’ ones too, as I go… please have some more patience with me).
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1.) How do you assess this war: a regional conflict between Ukraine and Russia, a proxy war between Russia and NATO, or an already emerging war for world dominance between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the USA? And does such assessment influence your judgement about the specific policies of the parties involved?
I foremost understand this war through the prism of the Russian GenStab: as a continuation of Pudding’s politics through other means. Several times over the last 20+ years, Pudding clearly said that Russia is in the state of war with the entire West (and especially the USA). Secondly, I understand it as Pudding’s war of extermination of Ukraine: for him, it’s entirely unacceptable for Ukraine to exist (at least not as an entity separate from Russia).
As next, I see this conflict in which Ukraine was forced to realise that it must completely (re)establish itself as independent from Russia: as a sovereign country with its own history, traditions, language, politics, and future. And it must enforce that way of thinking upon not only the Russians - but its ‘Western allies’, too. Thus, I see this conflict as an ‘ultimate version of the Ukrainian independence war’.
With other words: I do not see this conflict from the typically Western-centric point of view (think it was Mark Galeotti who described it as ‘Western narcissism’), and thus can’t see it as a ‘proxy war’. It’s a ‘proxy war’ only for those who think Ukrainians have no own minds (or are some sort of ‘misguided Russians’) and were played around by outside powers into separating from Russia: as a war based on some sort of sinister plot. I find that way of thinking outright dumb, definitely primitive, and certainly misguided.
From my point of view, the situation is the same like in Libya or Syria of the early 2010s: nope, there wasn’t any kind of ‘Western regime-change plot’, but the people of Libya and then the people of Syria rose against murderous regimes that were terrorising them for 40+ years. Neither needed some sort of ‘CIA-Mossad-al-Qaeda conspiracy’ to come to that idea and it was only after that point that the West became involved, and even then: only to a limited degree (indeed, in both cases the country went down the sink precisely because the West then refused to impose itself upon the locals and preferred to accept interests of other foreign powers for the sake of apeasment).
Of course, there are lots of foreign powers involved in Ukraine. There is lots of playing with Ukraine – especially by the Biden-Blinken-Sullivan gang (the EU has no coherent enough foreign policy to do anything similar; it’s rather so that Scholz is doing his stuff, Macron doing his, and everybody else their own….). And yes: because the West is supplying arms, money, and political support, the war is likely to ‘resemble’ a ‘proxy war’ for many. However, it was nobody else than the Russians who drove Ukrainians into taking things into their own hands, it was nobody else than Russians who invaded Ukraine (Pudding admitted this already back in 2015), and it is nobody else than Ukrainians who are defending their country, nation and their sheer existence as Ukrainians. That’s the bare essence of this conflict, and that’s always going to remain that way. Which is why this is also a war that is going to force Ukrainians into re-defining the role of themselves as a country and a nation in the future.
(….where I think Ukrainians should always keep in mind: when there is a huge country in Eastern Europe, with a population of some 37 million… then the West is not ‘horny’ about accepting it as ‘equal’, at least not without securing its own interests as first. ….and mind that the ‘West’, actually, needs Ukraine more than the other way around.)
Finally, this is a war I hope might force the West into fundamental reforms of the way it’s ruled (because what we have right now is, simply expressed, a ‘kleptocracy with limited pluralism’, but by no means ‘democracy’). This is what is adding the element of ‘war for the World dominance’ to the entire situation: if our oligarchy and its private and corporate interests continue dominating the politics and governance, and remain dependent on extracting profits from their cooperation with the PRC (and, latest analyses of the situation are indicative of both the USA and the EU being hopelessly unable of disentangling their commercial interests from Beijing, i.e. remaining neck-deep involved there), then our systems are not an inch better than any other dictatorships out there.
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2.) So, according to you, the chances of Ukraine (to win this war) are low?
My assessment is that the way things are right now – IF Ukraine keeps on waiting for the western aid to significantly increase, and thus remains overdependent on the Western support in form of supplies of artillery ammunition, SAMs and similar items – this war is just going to go on like it’s going on since the summer of the last year.
That said, I do not see this (nor any other, similar situation) as ‘chances are low’, but as ‘there are endless opportunities’. Wars as big as this one (not only in geographic-, economic-, or political sense, but also in sense of their impact upon humanity, politics, technological development and thus economy, culture etc. well away from the battlefield, too), tend to ‘shake narcissist humanity down from its ivory tower’, and force it to realise, accept, and work on its own fallacies (of which there are too many, meanwhile).
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3.) Is it possible for Ukraine to become completely independent of western support in ammunition?
Not in short term. Is likely to take some 4-5 years at least, depends heavily on selection and investment into the ‘right’ technologies, and is going to be conditional on the Ukrainian capability of significantly improving the protection of both its energy sector and industry.
Because: the industry can’t manufacture without power (indeed: the entire system ‘civilisation’ can’t function without electricity), and the energy sector can’t manufacture if it’s demolished by Russian missiles.
With other words: the way things are right now, we’re still somewhere around the ‘Level 30 out of 100’ in this war…
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4.) The way this air war is usually described, there was highly intensive flying and fighting the first 1-2 weeks, and both sides suffered heavy losses. Then the intensity decreased significantly. And, what about right now? What is the story of the 110th Mechanised Brigade shooting down older Su-25s in recent days, and during the Battle of Avdiivka: is that exaggerated or what? Is there something destroyed or damaged in aerial warfare and if yes, how often is that the case?
Right now, I have no reasons to ‘expect’ the number of known losses from earlier times of this war to significantly increase. For example, there to be, all of a sudden, some 10-15-20 additional, entirely unknown losses – whether on the Russian or on the Ukrainian side.
There might be 10-15, even 20 or more of ‘write offs’: cases of aircraft written off after returning to their base – whether due to combat damage or other reasons. But, not as many ‘unknown shoot downs’.
As next, yes, I know, the mass of Western commentators and experts – even many of Ukrainians – say that the air war was very intensive in the first 7-10 days, and then the action slowed down, and never became as intensive again…
My assessment is fundamentally different. For example: right now, I’m working on this book: it’s going to describe, between others, the Battle of Izyum and the Russian break-through at Popasna, through March-April-May-June 2022. As far as I can say by now, at least gauging by the number of their losses, the Russians flew at least as intensively in support of these operations as they did while assaulting Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and beyond. They only did no heliborne assaults, and they flew well away from Kyiv, and thus far away from the ‘public eye’.
Moreover – and partially because of the outcome of these battles (at least those in the Popasna area) – official Kyiv wasn’t really keen to brag, while many of felled Russian aircraft and helicopters crashed behind their lines, and thus outside the Ukrainian ability to verify their losses. That all said: it’s not my fault if the mass of other monitors and commentators have missed this part of action, and thus have missed the fact the VKS – which is an air force with primary task of supporting the Russian ground forces – did exactly the same like the Russian ground forces and re-set its focus on away from ‘important’ places like Kyiv, to ‘unimportant’ like Izyum, Balakliya, Kreminna, Severodonetsk, Kramatorsk etc. Shouldn’t mean they flew less. Or have suffered less losses.
Regarding what is going on right now: early during the war, there was lots of fatalism. On both sides, but especially within the ranks of the PSU. Kind of, ‘OK, they’ll take us (Ukrainians) down, anyway, so lets take as many of them with me as I go down…’ Was one of primary reasons why Ukraine suffered such high losses within ranks of its highly experienced pilots, early on.
Additionally, both air forces flew direct air strikes: attacks in which they were directly aiming their unguided weaponry (bombs and unguided rockets) at enemy positions while overflying the same. Due to the widespread availability of air defences, including such MANPADS unknown to the Russians like the Polish-made Piorun, this resulted in excessive losses. Dozens of aircraft and helicopters were shot down.
The survivors of both sides have analysed these experiences and quickly concluded that it’s not making sense to operate that way any longer – especially if they get shot down even before they can release their weapons. Therefore, both have changed their tactics to ‘indirect’ attacks: like ‘spray & pray’ of unguided rockets, and, more recently ‘tossing’ of guided bombs from stand-off ranges.
The amount of explosives deployed against their targets thus actually increased over the time; the precision even more so – even if the total number of combat sorties flown decreased by a margin. But then, that’s one of points about deployment of guided weapons: one needs not flying as often but can still score much more hits.
Re. claims by the 110th Mech for shot-downs of some 5-6 Russian Su-25s in the Avdiivka area over the last few months: at least a few are perfectly OK. Point is: instead by old SAMs, most of them are scored by Buk M1s firing RIM-7 Sparrows/Aspide, or Osa-AKMs firing R-73 air-to-air missiles, and then (this is especially valid for the 110th Mech) by upgraded MANPADs. See: ‘new’ weapons. I.e. just like back in February-March 2022, there is the ‘moment of surprise’ involved: the Russians are surprised because they’ve encountered a weapon they never encountered before. They always take time to react to such appearances.
Thank you for this analysis. I really like the answer in the beginning.
Thank you very much for the detailed answer to the first question.
I think it's great that you focus explicitly on the Ukrainian issue: it is above all a fight for freedom and independence by Ukrainians for Ukrainians: Their suffering, their courage, their fear.
But that is not necessarily a contradiction to the proxy war theory, illustrated by the fact that Ukraine is moving from one geopolitical sphere of influence to another, and powerful external political and military actors are therefore automatically involved. Unfortunately, there is no political, economical or military vacuum of power in the world.
Using the same logic, one could also argue that this European proxy war is already part of a global power struggle between the USA and China; perhaps undisclosed agreements between the two powers are responsible for somehow limiting the conflict so far, accordingly an escalation could mean greater involvement by both at various levels.
I don't know any of this and have no basis for making any well-founded assumptions. However, I have learned by experience to distrust my opinions, because it is always only a matter of time until it turns out that I was mistaken and not able to explain the world adequately. At first I was a little offended, but now I can live with it quite well because I have recognized that reality, with its natural authority, represents a remarkable and practicable compromise of innumerable factors, that I myself am not capable to manage. At most I try to understand it, but I am hesitant to redesign it notionally on a large scale according to my opinion.
I only emphasize this so much because your last sentence about our western 'dictatorship' likewise does probably not stand up to scrutiny. Our civilization, which undoubtedly reveals countless problems and is increasingly less capable of solving them satisfactorily and sustainably, is nevertheless the vibrant product of ongoing discourse and, through continuous adjustments, the best possible world available as a whole.
That does not mean that we should not criticize it and stop striving to improve it bit by bit; on the contrary, we have to intensify our efforts - but not in a contemptuous spirit even to the point of discarding it as a completely failed project. Instead we ought to try to better it responsibly and lovingly as our most precious asset.
Because one thing seems clear: Ukrainians would not fight this war of independence together with the West if they did not believe that it would be worthwhile and that they could evolve among us as a nation more freely and happily than hitherto.