Ukraine: awaiting the final blows

By Richard North - March 10, 2022

It is now day 15 and, according to the plans captured by the Ukrainians, the war was supposed to be over. That we seem to be nowhere near the end game does, therefore, most definitely support the view – shared by many – that Russia bungled its invasion plans.

There is a strong debate going on in diverse corners of the internet – and now, even in the legacy media – as to why this should be. Some interventions are quite helpful, such as this (even if I think podcasts are a lazy form of commentary), while others, like this, are less so – despite the appeal to authority.

The authoritative figure here is Ben Hodges, former commanding general of US Army Europe, who in his authored piece asserts that “Russia’s key problem is logistics”. And, to support his argument, he cites the “infamous convoy” that has now stalled north of Kiev.

It is a commander’s nightmare, Hodges writes, forcing troops to consume the supplies they were meant to carry forward. No military planner, he says, would purposely allow such a large group of personnel to sit road-bound on a single highway, surrounded by agricultural land too soft to allow vehicles to divert.

Yet, precisely in his own terms, Hodges identifies the bungle as a planning problem – which indeed it is. As I wrote in the blog comments yesterday, this is “Bridge too far” territory. You don’t send an army down a single road with no exit other than a bridge at the end, which the enemy holds.

This, however, is what Putin’s generals have done, with their push down the west side of the Dnieper, via Chernobyl, the route ending abruptly at the bridge of the Irpin River, demolished since the second day of the conflict.

There is a lot more to come out about the fighting in the first desperate days of the invasion, but it is clear enough that the Russians sought to pave the way for the western thrust by an airborne landing at the Hostomel (aka Antonov) airfield, which was temporarily overwhelmed by a coup de main.

There are certainly strong parallels with Operation Market Garden in late 1944, where Allied airborne forces sought to pave the way for the advance of 30 Corps, so much so that one blog commenter suggested that Putin should have been sent a copy of the video of the “Bridge too far” film. But that the Russians should have made such a basic error does lend credence to the testimony of CIA director Bill Burns, that little resistance was expected from the Ukrainians.

To this extent, one wonders whether Putin and the Russian military planners were influenced by the fall of Kabul in August of last year, when the Taliban entered the city unopposed after president Ashraf Ghani fled the country to Uzbekistan.

Had Zelensky disappeared on the day of the invasion, history might have been different and perhaps Putin’s real mistake was in thinking that he would. The Ukrainian forces might not have been so firm in their resistance with a vacuum of leadership.

But, if Zelensky was the hero of the hour, he could now become part of the problem if he is too inflexible in his approach to Russian demands and refuses to make at least some concessions.

The point, of course, is that if this war is to end – and that cannot be soon enough – then there will have to be a diplomatic solution. However abhorrent the thought might be, unless Putin is able to come away with something from a peace package – sufficient for him to save face – he has no incentive to stop fighting.

And while, with the help of western military hardware and foreign fighters flocking to the cause, Zelensky might be able to stave off outright defeat, the Ukrainian armed forces cannot beat Russia, no matter how stricken by the corruption of its leaders and weakened by poor planning.

From outside Ukraine’s borders, where his reserves are untouchable, Putin can throw in more and more reinforcements, and pummel the cities into the ground – keeping the conflict going for as long as it takes to secure a settlement and the semblance of victory.

So far, though, Zelensky has shown some flexibility. “I’m ready for dialogue, we’re not ready for capitulation”, he said as late as Tuesday, rejecting Putin’s demand that Ukraine lay down its arms and enshrine neutrality in its constitution.

He did, though, hint at areas of possible compromise: “I think that items regarding temporarily occupied territories and pseudo-republics not recognised by anyone but Russia, we can discuss and find a compromise on how these territories will live on”, the Ukrainian president said – a pragmatic position as his armed forces do not have the power to recover the disputed Donbass region, or Crimea.

Zelensky also suggested he was less committed to pursuing Nato membership, saying: “I have cooled over the issue a long time ago after we understood that Nato is not prepared to accept Ukraine”.

But then, yesterday saw the appalling destruction, death and injury after the Russian strike on the maternity hospital in Mariupol (pictured). After mounting international outrage and widespread media condemnation, all bets may be off.

The concern here is that, by lionising Zelensky (despite his somewhat shady dealings) and giving Ukraine a free pass, the west is taking sides rather too firmly, promoting what amounts to a proxy war with Russia, as we prepare to fight to the last Ukrainian. As positions harden on both sides, there is danger of the war escalating, with no end in sight.

The trouble is that, for Ukraine, being invaded by Russia is rather like going to confession – all past sins are absolved. With that – and especially after the Mariupol outrage, which could well be a game changer – the country has acquired pristine victim status.

Supporting the underdog is almost written into the DNA of the western (and certainly British) culture, so support for Ukraine against our former Cold War adversary is entirely understandable. But, while we should be offering aid and practical assistance, we should also be doing our best to broker a cease-fire and sponsor negotiations on a long-term diplomatic solution.

By our overtly partisan stance, though, we have ruled ourselves out as mediators yet, as even Zelensky is prepared to acknowledge, Russia has issues which need to be resolved. Failure to do so will bring untold misery and suffering to countless numbers of ordinary people.

And yet, US secretary of state Blinken seems to to be opting for an alternative scenario. He is “absolutely convinced that Putin will fail and Russia will suffer a strategic defeat”, declaring: “you can win a battle, but that doesn’t mean you win the war”.

If this seems unduly bellicose, Blinken also says that the US had sought to provide “off-ramps” to the Russian leader, but every time there’s been an opportunity to take them, Putin has “pressed the accelerator and continued down this horrific road that he’s been pursuing”. Therein lies the ultimate problem: it takes two to tango.

As it stands, therefore, after a day of local cease-fires, allowing the escape of some civilians to safer areas – all against the drumbeat of sporadic, low-level fighting, Russian consolidation and some Ukrainian successes in the air and on the ground – we are awaiting what could be the final blows, as the invaders attempt to invest fortress Kiev and bring the war to an end by brute force.

In the wider world, though, the impact of the war is being felt in rising prices, and especially in the energy field where the pain is being felt as motorists seek to fill their vehicle tanks. This, perversely, has the US in particular being forced to make some morally ambiguous choices where, according to the WSJ, the Biden administration is having to contemplate dubious deals with the Saudis over Yemen’s civil war.

The price for keeping the oil flowing may be paid by Houthi militants in Yemen, whose misery, unlike that of Ukraine, has not captured the world’s attention: the treasured “victim” status has eluded this impoverished group. By contrast, Russian bombing notwithstanding, the Ukrainians could be a lot worse off.