What I Know About Ukraine

What I Know About Ukraine? 

By the Numbers 

By hobby, I am a war gamer, and so by extension, am well read on the history of war. WWII was a favorite of mine since high school, and I read the everything available with a Dewey Decimal System of 940.5 in two libraries.

And in WWII, the battles across Ukraine were some of the largest of the war. There were few regions of the world that suffered more from continuous fronts moving back and forth for years. At the moment I can only think of one.

My sympathies are with Ukraine. How can it not be?

But like every analyst of the war so far, I guessed wrong. Everyone thought Ukraine would be crushed by the might of the Neo-Red Army. And this may still be so. But so far, it has not happened. Why? Russia has huge advantages in manpower and equipment. About a million men under arms, compared to 200,000 for Ukraine. And better equipped in all categories. So what is happening?

The first casualty of war is truth. What we have been presented so far has to be construed as propaganda. Every video and piece of information is an attempt to deceive.

Don't get me wrong, some of the videos are absolutely true, and are presented to support the narrative. But much is also presented, and taken out of context, by either the powers that be, or their sympathizers. So you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

So Miss Ukraine (2015) did not join the Ukrainian army to fight. The pictures of her in full garb are factual, and intended to promote her people to fight. But the rifle she is holding is an air-soft gun, of which she is a player.

The Grey Ghost, Ukraine's first fighter ace since WWII may exist, but may not, the videos of him shooting down a Russian fighter is not him.

The video of the lady showing how to start a Russian APC was filmed last year.

The Ukrainian farmer towing a APC away with his tractor is also true.

And there are far too many videos of captured Russian soldiers expressing their horror of finding themselves in a war to be untruthful.

However this turns out on the battlefields, Ukraine has won the propaganda war.

Like England did when the Germans invaded Belgium in WWI. Their press described the invasion as "The Rape of Belgium." And since the trans Atlantic cable ended in England, that was the only version of the story that America read. And the Germans have been vilified ever since.

But there is one ultimate truth in war, war is not fought with equipment, it is fought by men.

And the Russian rank and file seemed to be as stunned by the invasion as everyone else. The secrecy of the preparations was that good. Only Ukraine, the western intelligence agencies and the Neo-Red high command were in on it. But not the Russian soldier.

And that is a problem. If your soldiers have no idea what the objectives are, or how to achieve it, then they cannot be expected to carry them out. And from what we are seeing so far, that is what is happening on all the fronts.

The northern attack on Kyiv (formally known as Kiev), is especially telling. Initially, there was an airborne attack on the Kyiv airport by helicopter troops, with follow on by a number of heavy lift transports once the airport was secure. The helicopter troops were defeated, and there was sufficient Anti-Aircraft put up that the transports aborted. On the second night, in a different air field, a Spetznatz (commando) group penetrated the facility in an attempt to do the same thing. Two incoming transport aircraft were shot down, and some of the troops parachuted out, but the remaining transports aborted.

I am fairly sure this all happened. And that it was defeated, because there are still no Russian troops in Kyiv. I frankly think this was the main part of the Russian plan, to take Kyiv, rush in ground troops from Belarus, demoralize Ukrainian forces so the other attacks can succeed with minimal resistance.

This is evidenced by the much ballyhooed "40 mile" column of Russians stuck north of Kyiv stuck with logistics issues for, at this writing, 5 days. By one estimate is this formation is 15,000 men, or about 1 division. So maybe 1,500 vehicles of all types. The Belarus border is only about 60 miles from Kyiv, so how do you run out of gas in 60 miles? There is a big difference between a convoy just cruising down the road and a convoy traveling down a road expecting resistance. Traveling expecting ambushes is much slower, and takes much more fuel.

This tells me they were expecting to cruise down the road all the way to an already occupied Kyiv, and then they can refuel once they arrived. So a tank of gas per vehicle, with the fuel trucks arriving later. But they stalled, and the troops have to stay warm, It's winter you know, IN RUSSIA, so the engines were running all night till they ran out of gas. So where are the fuel trucks?

I don't know.

Apparently no one else knows either. Wherever they are, they certainly were not ready to refuel the stalled columns.  Part of the Russian problem there is a resupply has to go through, and with the cooperation of, another country.  And while he has Belarus's president's support, this resupply effort will take the cooperation of the Belarus rail system, which seems to be not very efficient.  And apparently, they don't work on weekends. 

Another thing to mention is the Pripyat Marshes. This is a huge marsh land about half the size of France. A fair portion of these marshes are between Belarus and Kyiv. This means any force is road bound. So now we have a congested road column, in hostile terrain, and you can't take it off road for fear of sinking in the mud.

If the Ukrainians had a couple of A-10 Warthogs, this would be a highway to hell.

My impression is the Alpha strike has failed, and all the other fronts, which were counting on a failure in Ukrainian morale for victory, were under supplied for the battles they are now experiencing. 

So, in essence, Putin was hoping for a quick, and more importantly, cheap victory. That could be why he attacked with only a near parity in manpower. But now the war has just got very expensive.

Right now, there are many battles on several fronts.  Centering on the capture of cities.  Cities are very expensive to take.  In WWII, the Germans planned on 10,000 men lost for every city captured.  And that was assuming they were the finest army in the world.

But trying to take a city, with pissed off defenders, with unmotivated, under supplied troops?  That is a disaster waiting to happen.  

Russia has admitted to 500 dead, the Ukrainians claim 11,000.  Both are probably false, and I am unwilling to cut down the middle either.  I am willing to accept below half the Ukrainian claim at 4,000 dead.  I am thinking very few casualties initially, but now its in the cities, the numbers are going to rise.  

Here is another number.  In WWII, the USA death to wounded ratio was 4-1. By that number, multiply the dead by 4, and that is the number of casualties the Russian number has taken.  That takes us to 2,000 on the low end, and 44,000 on the high.  My estimate of 4,000 puts that at 16,000.  The invading army has between 160,000 and 230,000.  By my estimate that's 8-10% casualties.  Those are serious losses.  

But when you look at the American army in Iraq, fighting asymmetric warfare, the wound to death ration was 10 - 1.  The body armor was worth that much.  The Russians have body armor as well, and lets just assume it has a similar protection value.  That puts the Russian casualty range between 5,000 and 110,000.  My pick of 4,000 then has the casualty counts at 40,000.  Around 20%.  This is past the point where armies break.  Especially conscripts.  We are not seeing mass hysteria, because if there was, the Ukrainians would have reported it.  

So I'll have to dial back the Russian personal protection to, lets say 6, casualties 24,000, about 10% or so.  Not the breakpoint of an army, with several cities being fought for, this is going to climb rapidly.  It could approach the Ukrainian claim of a 1,000 dead/ 6,000 wounded per day.  The current Russian army cannot sustain those numbers for long.  

But Russia has the military resources to still overwhelm the Ukrainians, but they didn't plan for it, and so they need time to get it to the front.

Remember, it is still winter, in Russia. After that is the famous mud season. Called "Rasputitsa", or "the time without roads." when the meters of snow melt into the ground, and off road movement is impossible. I have seen pictures of horses sinking up to the torsos. This will last about 6 weeks. Now there is a lot more macadam then in WWII, so the war won't stop like it did then, but it will be extremely restricted.

There is a lot of comparisons between Putin and Hitler. Much of it justified.  Both pulled their countries out of an extended economic mess.  Both then went for quick land grabs.  Georgia, Crimea, now Ukraine.  With Hitler it was the Sudetenland, Austria, and Danzig, the later started WWII. Both had alliances with a far weaker country, Belarus / Italy, and both had the tacit support of an Asian country famous for abusing human rights.  

But for army performance, I would offer Mussolini as a comparison to Putin.  In the 1930's, in an attempt to restart the Roman Empire, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia.  Why?  Well they already occupied Eritrea since the 1800's, and which is effectively the Ethiopian coast.  And Ethiopia had no treaties protecting it, so no one in the west cared.  The Italians attacked a relatively backward nation with modern weapons including machine guns, armored cars, and artillery.  Frankly, nothing new there.  The Italian generals didn't take it seriously, and the Italian troops were unmotivated  And Ethiopia kicked their ass.  A pit trap that can catch a lion, pretty much can disable an armored car, and while the natives had spears, they also had a goodly number of rifles, they knew the terrain, and Ethiopia has some very rugged terrain providing good cover.

The Italians retreated, regrouped, and then they came back.  This time the Italian Generals took the war seriously.  And eventually the bravery of the Ethiopians fell to the technology of the Italians.

This is what I fear will happen to Ukraine.  

Putin is not going to quit.  Any of his Generals that protest will be removed.  We can hope that Putin will be removed by his power structure, but when has that actually happened?  Do you have any examples of modern dictators being removed by their people?  We have the velvet revolution. Which only happened because the Soviet Union collapsed.  You can argue South Africa.  And a couple Muslim countries during the Arab Spring.  So it has happened.  But also we have North Korea, China, Cuba, Iraq, which sanctions alone did not bring down.  

If Putin succeeds in Ukraine. Then where to next?  Will his ally make a go at Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia?  That would start WWIII.  Lukashenko is not the most stable personality, and at 67, may want to establish a bigger empire for his legacy.  Will Putin go into Moldova?  There is a  propaganda piece out there suggesting that Moldova is the next target.  Finland?  Finland finds it self with a majority of its people wanting NATO Membership.  Putins main excuse to attacking Ukraine is to prevent a NATO nation from bordering Russia.  And Ukraine was on the road for membership.  If Finland makes more noise towards NATO, then he might try to crush them to prevent it.

These are all fear mongering possibilities.  Putin is not going to start a war with NATO.  Lukashenko may be a nutter, but he won't either.  Moldova is a possibility, but why?  Ego maybe.  Putin is going on 70 years old.  It took Russia 8 years to ready itself to invade Ukraine after annexing the Crimea.  Moldova aside, how long would it take to recover and launch a new attack?  And against whom?