From The Institute For The Study of War:
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 21, 2023
Karolina Hird, Grace Mappes, George Barros, Nicole Wolkov, Angela Howard, and Frederick W. Kagan
February 21, 8pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 21 address to the Russian Federal Assembly did not articulate specific goals or intentions for the war in Ukraine, instead reinforcing several long-standing rhetorical lines in an effort to buy Putin more space and time for a protracted war. Putin claimed that Russia began the “special military operation” in Ukraine a year ago in order to protect people in Russia’s “historical lands,” ensure Russian domestic security, remedy the threat posed by the Ukrainian “neo-Nazi” regime that he claims has been in place since 2014, and protect the people of Donbas.[1] Putin virulently accused the collective West of arming Ukraine and deploying bases and biolabs close to Russian borders, thereby unleashing the war on Russia.[2] Putin falsely analogized the Ukrainian Armed Forces with various Nazi divisions and thanked the Russian Armed Forces for their efforts in fighting the Nazi threat.[3] The emphasis of a significant portion of the speech was on the supposed resilience of the Russian economic, social, and cultural spheres, and Putin made several recommendations for the development of occupied territories of Ukraine.[4] Putin’s speech notably re-engaged with several long-standing Russian information operations regarding the justifications of the war and did not present an inflection in Russia’s rhetorical positioning on the war. Putin could have used this event to articulate new objectives and means for achieving them, such as announcing another formal wave of partial mobilization, redefining the “special military operation” as an official war, or taking additional steps to mobilize the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) in a more concrete way. Instead, Putin said very little of actual substance, likely in order to set continued information conditions for a protracted war in Ukraine by not articulating specific temporal goals and framing the war as existential to the Russian domestic population.
Putin’s announcement of Russia’s suspension of participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) captured more attention than the relatively boilerplate content of the rest of the speech. Towards the end of his speech, Putin claimed that the collective West has used START to try to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and that Russia is therefore suspending its participation in START, although Putin did emphasize that suspension is not a full withdrawal.[5] Putin called on the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Russian nuclear energy agency Rosatom to ensure readiness for testing nuclear weapons.[6] Putin may have made this announcement in order to re-introduce nuclear rhetoric into the information space, thereby distracting from the overall lack of substance in the rest of his speech. ISW has previously reported on the Russian use of nuclear rhetoric as an information operation to discourage Ukraine and the West and compensate for Russian battlefield failures.[7] ISW continues to assess that Russia will not employ a nuclear weapon in Ukraine or against NATO, however.
US President Joe Biden gave a speech in Warsaw, Poland on February 21 to reaffirm US and NATO support for Ukraine after his trip to Kyiv. Biden emphasized the unity among NATO countries and stated “our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire.”[8] Biden also directly addressed Putin’s February 21 speech stating, “the West was not plotting to attack Russia” and “[Putin] could end this war with a word.”[9]
Many Russian milbloggers condemned Putin’s failure to use his speech to forward new war aims, outline new measures to support the war, or hold Russian authorities accountable for their many military failures. Some milbloggers with prior Kremlin affiliation as well as occupation officials attended the speech in person and expressed positive or neutral support for Putin’s framing of the war as a conflict against the West, suspension of Russia’s participation in START, and support of the Donbas separatist republics.[10] Other milbloggers criticized Putin’s address as boilerplate and without meaningful action. Russian milblogger Igor Girkin notably claimed that Putin did not say anything meaningful for 40 minutes; omitted Russia’s military defeats, military failures, and economic downturn; and failed to hold Russian officials accountable.[11] Girkin also expressed frustration at Putin’s failure to use the address to formally recognize the war, announce next objectives, or counter Western sanctions. Another milblogger claimed that the suspension of Russia’s participation in START is politically symbolic but complained that the suspension will not improve Russia’s situation on the battlefield, instead calling on Russia to hinder Western military aid deliveries to Ukraine.[12] A third milblogger compared Putin to a corpse and echoed many of Girkin’s complaints about accountability and action.[13] Other milbloggers similarly noted the need for decisive action and called for Russia to foster the growth of and promote military leaders with a demonstrated history of taking decisive action on the battlefield.[14] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that he did not watch Putin’s speech live because he was too busy working to supply Wagner forces with the ammunition necessary to continue effective combat operations in Ukraine.[15]
International journalists reportedly obtained the Kremlin’s classified 2021 strategy document on restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus through the Union State by 2030. The Kyiv Independent, Yahoo News, and several of their international media partners published an investigative report on February 20 about a classified 17-page Russian strategy document on how the Kremlin seeks to absorb the Belarusian state using the Kremlin-dominated Union State structure by 2030.[16] The journalists did not publish the strategy document to avoid compromising sources they said. While ISW is unable to confirm the existence or contents of this document, the reporters’ findings about the strategy document and its various lines of effort for Belarus’ phased military, political, economic, and cultural integration with Russia through the Union State are consistent with ISW’s long-term research and assessments about the Kremlin’s campaigns and strategic objective to subsume Belarus via the Union State.[17]
NATO must seriously plan for the likely future reality of a Russian-controlled Belarus. As ISW previously assessed, Putin will very likely secure significant gains in restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus regardless of the outcome of his invasion of Ukraine.[18] Russia’s likely permanent gains in Belarus present the West with a decision about how to deal with the potential future security landscape on NATO’s eastern flank. If the West allows Putin to maintain his current gains in Ukraine—particularly Crimea and eastern Kherson Oblast—then the Kremlin will be able to use both occupied Belarusian and Ukrainian territory to further threaten Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank. The West could alternatively set conditions for a future in which a territorially-whole Ukraine becomes a robust military partner in defending NATO’s eastern flank against Russia and Russian-occupied Belarus. This preferable long-term future is predicated on immediate and sustained decisive Western action to empower Ukraine to expel Russian forces from its territory. It is extraordinal unlikely that the West will be able to defeat or respond effectively to the Russian campaign to absorb Belarus without first defeating the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office Director Wang Yi met in Moscow on February 21 to discuss deepening Sino–Russian cooperation.[19] Patrushev stated that developing a strategic partnership with China is an unconditional foreign policy priority for Russia.[20] Patrushev claimed that Western states are acting against both China and Russia and claimed that both states stand for a fair world order. Wang stated that Sino–Russian relations remain strong and can “will withstand the test of the changing international situation.”[21] Wang will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on February 22.[22] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on February 18 that China is strongly considering providing lethal support to Russia.[23]
The Financial Times (FT) reported that international companies belonging to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin continue to garner hundreds of millions of dollars in profits despite long-standing Western sanctions.[24] FT reported that the Prigozhin-controlled company Evro Polis, which received energy concessions from Syria in exchange for recapturing ISIS-controlled oilfields, had net profits of $90 million in 2020 despite US sanctions on the company in 2018, providing a 180 percent return on investment for shareholders that was repatriated to Russia. FT reported that smaller Prigozhin-controlled companies like M Invest, which runs gold mines in Sudan, and Mercury LLC, a Syrian oil company that likely transferred operations to a new business name to evade sanctions, continue to rake in millions in profit. FT’s report further demonstrates the extent to which Western sanctions have failed to stop Russian or Russian-backed actors that help Russia fight against Ukraine.
Key Takeaways
- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 21 address to the Russian Federal Assembly did not articulate specific goals or intentions for the war in Ukraine, instead reinforcing several long-standing rhetorical lines in an effort to buy Putin more space and time for a protracted war.
- Putin’s announcement of Russia’s suspension of participation in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) captured more attention than the relatively boilerplate content of the rest of the speech.
- US President Joe Biden gave a speech in Warsaw, Poland on February 21 to reaffirm US and NATO support for Ukraine after his trip to Kyiv.
- Many Russian milbloggers condemned Putin’s failure to use his speech to forward new war aims, outline new measures to support the war, or hold Russian authorities accountable for their many military failures.
- International journalists reportedly obtained the Kremlin’s classified 2021 strategy document on restoring Russian suzerainty over Belarus through the Union State by 2030.
- Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office Director Wang Yi met in Moscow on February 21 on deepening Sino–Russan cooperation.
- The Financial Times (FT) reported that Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s international companies continue to garner hundreds of millions of dollars in profits despite long-standing Western sanctions.
- Russian forces continued to conduct limited ground attacks northwest of Svatove and near Kreminna. Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a limited counterattack near Kreminna.
- Russian forces continued making incremental tactical gains in and around Bakhmut and continued ground attacks near Avdiivka.
- Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces continue to reinforce and build fortifications in rear areas in southern Ukraine.
- The Kremlin may be directing patronage programs between Russian regions and occupied Ukrainian territory to promote socio-economic recovery and infrastructure development.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin further expanded unrealistic promises of benefits for Russian soldiers in his address to the Russian Federal Assembly.
Go here to read the rest.
From Strategy Page:
A year of fighting in Ukraine has left the Russian army defeated, depleted and demoralized. Most of the army personnel available before the invasion have been killed, wounded or missing (captured, deserted or body not found). About half the troops were conscripts untrained for combat. Conscripts only serve for a year and are called up twice a year (spring and fall) and, by the time they have acquired useful skills, they are discharged and placed in the reserves. In Russian the government has your last known address and will try to notify you if there is a national emergency and all veterans of the military are needed quickly.
Few conscripts were prepared for the intensity of combat encountered in Ukraine. The other half of Russian military personnel joined voluntarily to serve longer and receive higher pay. These somewhat more experienced troops are what passed for NCOs, since Russia has not been able to recreate the NCO Corps it had a century ago but destroyed because the new communist government believed (with some justification) that sergeants are more likely to lead a revolution than more carefully selected and trained officers. Using junior officers to supervise the troops and lead them in combat did not work as well as the Western system of having sergeants supervising the troops and a junior officer to command and lead them in combat.
Junior officers in combat units, who aren’t already veterans, require years more of training and dutifully try to carry out their orders. In Ukraine that got them and most of their troops turned into casualties, or prisoners of war. Russian combat zone medical care was also a mess and not able to handle the large number of wounded. As a result, most of the wounded died or developed conditions that rendered them unfit for further military service. Russia still has not solved this medical problem, even after trying to improvise by taking over local civilian hospitals and their staffs to just treat military casualties.
There was an officer reserve (men who had served as officers for a few years and then left the military). They were also on a “reserves” list and many were called up to replace combat losses. Many of these former officers could not be found, usually because they had moved and left no forwarding address for the army to use. Many more of these men were aware of the bad state the army was in and the heavy losses to junior officers in Ukraine. These former officers often avoided government efforts to contact them and mobilize them for active service. This was a problem the government handled by sending all mobilized reserve officers to combat units. Many of these officers were not trained combat officers, and many were doctors or other non-combat specialists. Mobilized doctors got themselves killed trying to lead a combat unit while the Russian medical support units needed all the doctors they could get.
All this made the combat officer shortage worse, to the point where newly mobilized men were sent into combat with little or no training and rarely saw an officer for very long because there were not enough officers to supervise and lead troops in combat. As a result, combat operations often failed, with troops panicking and fleeing the battlefield. This included the crews of armored vehicles, which is how Ukrainian forces acquired over a thousand tanks and other armored vehicles intact. These had their Russian army markings painted over with Ukrainian symbols. One problem with this was that the Ukrainians did not have sufficient spare parts to keep many of these vehicles operational. Neither did their previous Russian users, who often had these vehicles long enough to make them vulnerable to problems if spare parts and mechanics were not available. This was long a problem in the Russian army where the doctrine was that, in combat, armored vehicles would not last long and so were not expected to need spare parts and mechanics.
The loss of officers and combat vehicles was made worse by the mobilization of equipment and instructors from military training centers. These instructors also quickly became casualties and this slowed down efforts to provide training for newly mobilized troops. The army is slowly trying to rebuild and expand its training establishment. New training camps are being built and the shortage of officers in combat units is made worse by pulling experienced troops and officers out and assigning them to the new training schools. It will take about a year for this new training establishment to show results and the government expects to have better trained newly mobilized troops to show for it.
Replacing combat unit officers required a different approach. Soldiers with combat experience and demonstrating some leadership abilities were offered promotions to officer rank. This meant higher pay, prestige and risk of getting killed in combat. Many contract soldiers, and a few conscripts who qualified, accepted the promotions. This was not enough to make up for all the officer combat losses but did prevent utter chaos among the many newly mobilized troops. The Russian army is trying to rebuild itself with such improvisations.
One problem with this is that the Ukrainians have no similar problems. That’s because between 2015 (when NATO forces began assisting the Ukrainian army) and 2021, the Ukrainian forces were reformed and that meant training lots of veteran NCOs and officers who were competent and did not take as long to train. All those NCOs made a big difference in combat because NCOs are trained to take over if there are no officers available. The NCOs provided the needed leadership that so many new Russian troops lacked in or out of combat. Ukrainian units took few casualties compared to the Russians and were more capable of treating combat wounds quickly and returning more wounded men to service. As the war went on the differences between Ukrainian and Russian troops became more of a factor. The Russians were “mobilizing “anyone that seemed physically capable of carrying a rifle. This eventually led to the army officially mobilizing men in prison who had military experience. These policies put a lot of older men into uniform as well as a lot of men with families. As long as these newly mobilized men stayed in the army the government paid them and sent additional money to any family members. There was also a relatively large payment to families of soldiers killed in combat. This reduced desertions somewhat. Many men left the country or tried to disappear inside Russia to avoid mobilization.
While most Russians still supported the war in Ukraine, they also realized that no one was invading Russia and that was often enough justification to avoid mobilization. Another incentive was the high number (over 100,000) of soldiers killed in Ukraine so far. That was more combat deaths than the Russian army has suffered in all its wars or sundry operations since 1945. In that respect the war in Ukraine was an unprecedented disaster for the Russian army. The government noted this and quickly passed laws prohibiting any public discussion of the war losses or how the war was being waged. That did not stop Internet-based commentators and critics. This group not only reported on the war but often did so faster and more accurately than the military itself.
That failure of government intel agencies was another scandal the government has still not learned or recovered from. The government depended on the FSB (successor of the communist KGB) to accurately report on the ability of the Ukrainians to resist a Russian invasion. The FSB failed, just as the KGB had failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since the Ukraine war began the FSB has been more active inside Ukraine and suffered lots of casualties without much to show for it. Their Ukrainian counterparts were quick to go after FSB operatives inside Ukraine. That was also bad news for the Russian military GRU (military intelligence) which, while smaller, often competed with the FSB in operations outside Russia. Ukraine proved to be a very hostile environment for both FSB and GRU operatives. The FSB and GRU reports were secret while the Russian Internet commentators were not. Some of these commentators went to Ukraine and spoke to troops and junior officers as well as Russian civilians in Russian occupied Ukraine. Some Russian government officials admitted that these Internet-based reporters were providing more timely and accurate information than the government concerning what was going on in Ukraine. While nearly all these reporters were pro-Russia and most supported the Russian war effort, they were not afraid of reporting what was actually going on. The Russian government tolerated these Internet reporters, even when they were critical of government policies. It turned out that the government was not always united when it came to some war-related policies.
An example of this is the January 2023 Russia announcement of increasing the legal maximum number of its active-duty military personnel from 1,013,628 to 1,150,628. The problem was that the original million-man force was never achieved and Vladimir Putin soon discovered that this increase was an empty gesture. For example, at the end of 2021 the Russian military had 700,000 personnel on duty. The ground forces had about 400,000 men while the navy and air force each had about 150,000. About a third of air force personnel were paratroopers or air mobile infantry. The navy had about 12,000 marines who guarded naval bases in peacetime. That means that heavy Russian losses since the invasion began, and failure to mobilize sufficient replacements, reduced the army to about 250,000 personnel. Ukraine’s ground forces now outnumber the Russian army by over two to one, and Russia’s total ground forces in general. Not just in Ukraine, but in all of Russia and Ukraine.
Russia’s airborne forces and marines as well as special operations (spetsnaz) also suffered heavy losses but more of them are still in service. Since 1991 Russia has sought to maintain about ten percent of the army as an elite force of airmobile, special operations and marine force. The reason for this was simple and practical. Russia, even after the 1991 losses, was still the largest (in terms of territory) country in the world. Russia has over 22,000 kilometers of land borders and barely enough border guards to man the official crossings. The military provides ground forces for some key border areas. For example, the short Norwegian border with Russia is guarded by two brigades of marines because that border is adjacent to some of the largest and most important naval bases and shipyards in Russia. Since the war in Ukraine began the Norwegians have noticed there are far fewer Russian marines guarding the border. Military-age men seeking to leave Russia illegally are often getting across this border, where they asked the Norwegians for asylum. Most of the Russian marines were killed or wounded in Ukraine and the survivors returned to their Norwegian border duty and the additional chore of replacing their losses. It takes a long time to train a Russian marine.
There were token Russian army forces in many other parts of Russia, including NATO nations. This land border was only 1,240 kilometers at the end of 2021. This included the 196-kilometer Norwegian border. Since then, the border with NATO nations tripled to over 3,000 kilometers. That’s because the war in Ukraine prompted neutral Finland to join NATO and add its 1,340-kilometer Russian border. Ukraine wanted to join NATO, which Russia used as an excuse to invade. Suddenly Ukraine was an unofficial member of NATO, where Ukrainian troops were fighting with the help of NATO supplied weapons, munitions and much else. Everything except NATO troops were sent to Ukraine where the frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces is over a thousand kilometers long.
Russia also keeps somewhat more than token forces on portions of its 4,200-kilometer Chinese border. There Russia faces, for the first time, a larger, better armed, trained and led Chinese army. China has unresolved claims on most of the Russian Pacific coast territories. Russia also has a 17-kilometer border with North Korea and Russian troops are sometimes seen here as well. Since the Ukraine War began, fewer Russian troops have been seen on other foreign borders. That’s because the crisis in Ukraine demanded more troops to replace losses.
Something else Russia lost was most of its sparse combat logistics forces. Heavy combat losses reduced personnel strength so sharply because the Russian army has far fewer soldiers providing logistic and transportation services. These are provided by government or private contractors who assemble and move supplies close to the combat zone, where military trucks and drivers move the supplies to army-maintained collection points or the combat units. This works inside Russia where the state-controlled railroads are equipped for operation by civilians who are trained for such support. For a major war against Russia, civilian trucks and drivers are mobilized for military transportation. Such a mobilization would disrupt the entire economy but is seen as necessary t0 defend Russia. During World War II Russia received lots of trucks, combat vehicles, ammunition, food and other much needed items from the United States. This is why the Ukrainian invasion was not called a war but an “internal operation” in what Russia declared was Russian territory controlled by rebels who were receiving the military aid in quantities to what Russia received in World War II. This time the Russians are playing the invaders and not doing as well as the Nazis.
Go here to read the rest. Putin entered into his Ukrainian adventure with an Army that had severe problems. This Army has suffered catastrophic losses and is becoming an Army in name only by Western standards. Military service has never been popular among Russians, but normally they take pride in their military. Putin has destroyed that pride and given the Army a legacy of defeat. If major civil unrest occurs in Russia, it will be because of Putin’s mishandling of the military, a military still full of conscripts, dear to worried parents and friends, who are risking death for nothing.
British MoD said that over 90% of the Russian army is already in Ukraine, and Norwegian and Estonian intelligence claim forces in the Kola Peninsula have been reduced by fourth-fifths. So where does that colonel MacGregor on Tucker Carlson get away with claiming Putin is just “patiently” waiting to sweep through a “devoted” Ukrainian army?
“devasted”. Sorry
In war, all news is fake news to some extent.
I have mo more respect for Tucker Carlson. His opposition to assisting Ukraine has been borderline lunacy. It is as if American aid to Ukraine is singlehandedly causing American inflation and deficit spending. Carlson trembles in fear…as does Glenn Beck..when Putin makes his shallow and empty threats of nuclear war.
DeSantis even chirped in criticizing American aid to Ukraine. Trump already has done so.
These dufuses would blame Poland if Russia attacked Poland.
I always felt like Tucker’s in the Tucker Carlson business, not the business of information.