Still in the game

Many of us have been surprised - indeed awestruck - by Ukraine's determined resistance against Putin's invasion. The experts were pretty united about the likely outcome when Russia invaded. Eliot Cohen published an analysis in The Times a few days ago saying why the experts had got it wrong about Ukraine's ability to resist the initial assault. Like many people who know much more about it than I do, I was a little surprised that the Russians hadn't opened up with more of a shock and awe approach. I assumed that this was because they preferred to try to occupy a functioning country. And I still thought it would be over in Russia's favour fairly quickly. I also presumed that when the Russians reverted to Grozny and Aleppo style bombardment as plan B - as deployed at Mariupol - that Ukraine's collapse would be slow rather than quick but would still happen as I feared that Kyiv would soon face a similar fate.

The best I felt we could hope for was a long drawn out stalemate and possibly a partitioned Ukraine.

But Cohen said the experts (and the mere opinionated like me) were wrong on that also. He said that the more likely truth is that the Ukraininans were winning for which there was "abundant evidence" and that the failure of the experts to recognise it will be one of many elements of this war worth studying in the future. In the subsequent days the tide does seem to have turned and Russia has retrenched to focus on its primary objectives in the south and east. Nevertheless it's worth looking at why Cohen was predicting this (actually to him it wasn't a prediction as it was already happening). He said:

"The Ukrainian miltary has proved not only motivated and well led but also tactically skilled, integrating light infantry with anti-tank weapons, drones and artillery fire to defeat much larger Russian miltary formations. The Ukrainians are not merely defending their strong points in urban areas but manoeuvring from and between them, following the Clausewitzian dictum that the best defence is a shield of well-directed blows. The reluctance to admit what is happening stems perhaps in part from the protectiveness scholars feel for their subject (even if they loathe it on  moral grounds), but more from a tendency to emphasise technology (the Russians have some good bits), numbers (which they dominate, though only up to a point) and doctrine".

Cohen points out that the areas of Ukraine we see marked in red aren't occupied by Russia per se, but just areas they have moved through. Noting the various credible reports of significant Russian losses and allowing for the likely multiple for numbers out of action wounded, he posits that around 15% of the invading force could have been removed by wounds, capture or disappearance, saying this would be enough to render most combat unites ineffective.

What about reserves? He says the Russian army committed well over half its combat forces to the fight, behind that stands very little and that most of those reserves have no training to speak of. We know Putin may get some Chechen and Syrian forces to bolster his numbers but one wonders how well they would integrate. It is striking that Belarus has not committed troops in support and there are reports that Russian national guard forces, normally considered Putin loyalists, are claiming their service contracts don't provide for them to serve outside Russia. 

So there may not be much behind the front line deployment. It would seem that, if the Russian army is routed at its front line, Ukraine could push them out - a prospect that I had thought existed pretty much only in the mind of its president.

How has it come to this? Cohen points out that:

• the Russian army command can be rather cerebral and admire elegant tactical and operational thinking rather than pressing hard on practice. Modern armies rely on a strong cadre of non-commissioned officers and Russia's are weak and corrupt without which "even large numbers of sophisticated  vehicles deployed to a compelling doctrine will end up broken or abandoned and troops will succumb to ambushes or break under fire"
• the repeated tactical blundering, visible on videos even to amateurs, included vehicles bunched on roads, no infantry cover for the flanks, no closely co-ordinated artillery fire, no support from helicopters and panicky reactions to ambushes. The one to one ratio of Russian vehicles destroyed to captured speaks of an army that is unwilling to fight. The inability to concentrate forces on one or two axes of attack, or take a big city, are "striking" as are the problems of logistics and maintenance. (I would add that the Russian military and political hierarchy will suffer from being told over many years only what it wants or expects to hear in a culture where no-one will point out the lack of clothing to the emperor)
• the Ukrainians have auxiliaries too and, while some may be "worthless or dangerous to their allies" they include snipers, combat medics and other specialists who have fought in western armies. More important they have the military industry of many countries behind them resulting in a flow of thousands of advanced weapons: the best anti-tank and aniti-aircraft weapons in the world, plus drones, sniper rifles and all the kit of war. When the UK was providing anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems and training Ukrainian forces in their use in the run up to the hostilities I felt that it surely couldn't be enough to make a difference, but the west would get to see its kit tested in real battle. It has made an enormous difference
• I had presumed that the Americans in particular would have extensive intelligence about Russian deployment and intentions from its spy satellite system and that the performance of the Ukrainians suggests that this intelligence must be being shared. Cohen says the adroitness of Ukrainian air defence and deployments means we can suppose this to be correct
• I had expected Ukraine to collapse quickly into confusion, its communication and other essential systems hit by Russian cyber hackers. But Cohen notes there has been no evidence of Russian cyberwar. I wonder if they aren't as good at it as we feared or the systems the west have provided over the years to the Ukrainians have proved resilient. (I'd also assume that the Ukrainian infrastructure is less connected to the hackable internet than ours). But more than that, it's been the other way around: Russian secure comms systems have been poor or inoperable and their use of conventional unencrypted comms has contributed to Russian generals getting themselves killed. Others have fallen because of their desire to unstick things at front lines. The half a dozen or so generals the Russians have lost has been reported to be about a quarter of the total for the whole of Russia's army
• and, even when a city is turned to rubble, while we look at the destroyed hospitals and apartment blocks and wonder how people can possibly survive and continue to fight, Phillips O'Brien of St Andrews University has argued this conveys the brutality but not the military reality. Even when a town has been practically levelled, its defenders are unlikely to have been killed off. The Russians should know this from their own experience at the hands of the Germans 80 years ago

It also strikes me that the Ukrainians have used the time since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 very well. They were apparently embarrassed by their inability to offer any significant resistance. I think the photographs of bridges blown up and Russian vehicles ambushed, the evidence that the Russian advance had stalled and the ability of Ukraine to keep its rail system operational, bringing supplies through from its western border with Poland all show to me evidence of advance planning to an extent I doubt could have been done in the few weeks while Russia gathered its invasion force. They have certainly trained their forces well. The BBC reported that many had, of course, seen service fighting the Russian separatists forces in the Donbas. Another point made by Ukrainian troops Mark and Vlad when interviewed by BBC was that, while the Russian forces adjacent to Karkhiv sleep in their trenches, they take turns to sleep under cover in the town, where they have plentiful supplies of in date ready meals (captured Russian troops have are reported to have some meals dated 2015) and where ambulances can still get access to take the wounded out to hospital. 

The reported arrival of nearly twenty plane loads a day of supplies and weapons to an airfield near the Polish border, mainly from the US, must have been absolutely critical. But I saw a cutting comment from a Times reader to the effect that a few weeks ago we thought Russia had the second best army in the world, now it's clear they have the second best army in Ukraine.

Can Ukraine actually do it? Cohen feels they can but it will help if the west double down by arming them on the scale necessary, throttling the Russian economy pressuring an elite that, by and large, he says don't subscribe to Putin's ideology or paranoid nationalism, penetrating his information cocoon which is insulating the Russian people from the reality that thousands of their young men will come home maimed or in coffins, announcing a Marshall plan for Ukraine and beginning to make arrangements for war crimes trials and naming defendants. I had thought the last of these was pointless but I was wrong on that as well: what harm can it do to inject the possibility that what happened to the likes of Ribbentrop and German military figures at Nuremberg and Mladic and Karadzik at The Hague could actually happen to them?

I had also thought that, in the context of modern warfare, Churchillian type speeches had become irrelevant. President Zelensky has proven otherwise. His series of speeches to various parliaments have been inspirational, all cleverly targeted and producing standing ovations, generally followed by a debate. Apart from Germany where their speaker thanked Zelensky perfunctorily and moved on to next business by wishing two MPs a happy birthday! Zelensky was perhaps more critical of Germany than other countries, referring to the country's "worthless" lip service to the Holocaust and how slow it had been to wake up to the true nature of Putin's regime, though to be fair we don't know whether the UK would have been just as keen to buy Russian gas in Germany's position. He also got stuck in to Germany for being the most reluctant to block Moscow from the Swift banking payments system. He said " When we asked for preventative sanctions we...turned to you. We felt resistance. We understood that you want to continue the economy. Economy. Economy" with a bite of sardonic sarcasm in his voice.

Germany's policy towards Russia and China is Wandel durch Handel (change through trade), the idea being that the more it did business with such countries the more democratic and less authoritarian they would become. A former British ambassador to Germany told Dominic Lawson "The German attitude is that trade is the key to harmonious relations and should not be threatened no matter how vilely Russia or China behaves towards its own people. It is a genuine principle but, of course, self-serving." 

Lawson noted a comment by German journalist Raplh Bollmann: "We are in a dep crisis of the German economic model that is not yet in the minds of many Germans: our model depends on exporting to China especially and importing cheap gas from Russia". 

Zelensky's addresses have been very clever and adroit. Germany has moved more on defence in the last few weeks than in many decades but it still has a lot of ground to make up and the Ukrainian president hit that nail firmly on the head.

There was some carping in the UK about how relatively slow the UK was to enact sanctions on Russian oligarchs. The government decided it needed to tighten the law before it could proceed and it's striking to me that those complaining were likely to be exactly the same as those who had accused the government of acting illegally in proroguing Parliament and on other issues. I'm only suprised that they didn't blame Brexit because it did actually have something to do with it - the UK hasn't had experience of sanctioning countries for several decades and has had to relearn it. Never mind that the UK sanctioned Abramovich before anyone else and has now probably acted against as many bodies and people as any other country or group of countries. What is also clear from listening to Zelensky and, come to that, everyday Ukrainians is that the assistance the UK has provided and the leadership the UK has shown in the international community is very much appreciated to the point where I've heard it said that the second most popular politician in Ukraine is Boris Johnson. 

Johnson has so far had a good war, as it were. Oh sure he says some daft things as always, in particular his wilfully misunderstood but crass comment linking Ukraine and Brexit. While I found his remark rather odd, if he'd left it at Ukrainians and Brits tend to choose freedom without bringing Brexit into it as an example for the Brits no-one would have batted an eyelid. Bizarrely Nicola Sturgeon then joined in, saying:

"Putin's war has also cast new light on the realities of Brexit and the particular challenges posed to Scotland and the rest of the UK by being taken out of the world's biggest single market. The events of recent weeks have underlined the importance of independent countries co-operating in supranational organisations such as the EU. That is why we are determined to achieve independence for Scotland by offering the choice of a better, fairer future."

Wow. What a bunch of convoluted non sequiturs. Sturgeon's remarks were condemned as unacceptable and tasteless but I'm left wondering firstly why on earth either politician would make such strange remarks. More importantly, as regards Sturgeon's statement, we could question very seriously whether Ukraine being in the EU would have made the slightest difference. You might want to be in the EU, Nicola, but in this context I'd suggest NATO is rather more important. And having your own nuclear deterrent. I daresay if you get your independence you'll freeload like Germany on defence spending and want the nuclear bases removed while being secretly glad that Britain will maintain the deterrent and would not dare leave the northern part of the island exposed.

It seems to me that despite Johnson's never ending ability to say daft things, he has done pretty well as one of the main western leaders pushing for action and unity. Indeed I read that Canadian PM Trudeau praised Johnson at one of the early international meetings for being able to find the words to get the leaders on the same page. The actions the UK took in providing lethal aid early (stepping it up before the Russians invaded) and pressing for concerted action via Swift etc seem to me a damned sight more relevant than prioritising sanctioning some oligarchs. Especially since at that point pusillanimous Germany was refusing to let our lethal aid even transit their airspace en route to Ukraine and was itself sending field hospital equipment (useful but hardly likely to change the outcome). The sea change in the German response was welcome but needs to be just the start.

If you doubt that Johnson has done well so far, reflect on two things. Firstly sleepy Joe Biden's ability to say even dumber things (what on earth did he mean when he told American troops in Poland that they would see for themselves when they got to Ukraine? Is he trying to start a nuclear confrontation?). And secondly, Russia's reaction when they described Johnson as "the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian" and called him public enemy number one.

The fact that internationally Johnson has been seen to leading the west's response as much as Biden may not compute to those ordinary Brits who've had enough of him. But either way it doesn't mean the PM is in the clear once Plod finally concludes its risible investigation into Partygate. To be fair the Met can't really win on this: quick and cheap or drawn out and expensive, many have made their own mind up either way and depending on that will find the investigation flawed. So why take quite so long and spend quite so much on it?

The inevitable question to come will be whether a few fixed penalties whoever they land on will be enough to make people decide the PM should be brought down over his failure to set an example to civil servants who didn't directly work for him while the world has been looking into the abyss.

A week ago I would have said Zelensky was more in the no-win situation. Now it's not so clear. It will become clear in time. But for now, both Johnson and Zelensky are still in the game. Except for Zelensky it's not a game. It's life and death. One can only watch in admiration and hope for him and his people.

I'll leave you with this photo of the Russian embassy in Lisbon, illuminated by protesters in Ukraine's colours. (From twitter but fact checked as true)

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Cohen's piece The experts were wrong: Russia hasn't won and isn't going to was in The Times on 23 March

Ukrainian troops Mark and Vlad told the Russians "go home while you are still alive" in item on BBC website on 24 March and video that was shown on the tv news; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60860548

The Bundestag reaction to Zelensky's speech and the German media's reaction to it is covered in https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-speech-sparks-soul-search-germany/. It was also noted in Dominic Lawson's Sunday Times column on 20 March, "Zelensky lays bare Berlin's failed strategy"

Decoupling from China would be a much bigger issue than Russia for the west. For example, VW had a 14.6% share of the Chinese market in 2019. The nearest competitor had 7.3%. VW sold 4.184m units in China in 2018 compared with 4.326m in the EU; from https://daxueconsulting.com/volkswagen-in-china/. I read that half of all VWs are made in China.

Russia says Johnson is the most active particpant in the race to be anti-Russian https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-kremlin-attack-russia-ukraine-b2043073.html?r=76065