Ukraine: scope for nightmares

By Richard North - April 27, 2022

In a recent piece, Mark Hertling, former commanding general of US Army Europe and Seventh Army, makes it very plain that the Russian army is not up to much.

He had the benefit of direct personal experience, but anyone familiar with the works of Viktor Suvorov, who had then followed open source material about the Russian armed forces over the decades, would have come to the same conclusions.

It makes you wonder how the Telegraph’s article entitled “How Vladimir Putin turned Russia’s dilapidated military into a modern, lethal machine” could ever have been written. But it was, as were many others on the same general theme.

Interestingly, many of the pundits who so unashamedly talked-up the Russian capabilities have now moved seamlessly into explaining why the forces are rubbish and how they were always going to be defeated by a much-improved Ukrainian army.

But what none of us can know is the extent to which this hindsight has percolated the Kremlin, to be taken on board by Vladimir Putin. And if the Russian president is now aware of the deficiencies of his armed forces, this begs two key questions.

The first of those questions is whether he is prepared to make the fundamental changes necessary to improve his forces, but the second is perhaps even more challenging: whether indeed it is actually possible to make those changes over any meaningful timescale, if at all.

Given that he is even prepared to address those questions, the brutal truth is that, when it comes to the second, it is probably impossible to turn a corrupt, inefficient, badly structured and ill-equipped army into the semblance of a modern fighting force capable of subduing Ukraine.

Even should those aspects be dealt with, though, the most intractable issue Putin would have to deal with is the quality and training of his personnel, in the context where attempts to turn his army into a professional, all-volunteer force have already failed and are even less likely to succeed now.

And past that hurdle, there is then the problem of size. As Oleksiy Arestovych said in his interview, which I reviewed yesterday, “You can’t attack a 250,000-strong army with a 200,000-strong army”, which is precisely what the Russians have been trying to do.

Back in 1914, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, it was reckoned that a continental power could field one army division, of about 12-14,000 troops, per million of the population. With the population of Russia standing at around 145 million, that puts the number it can comfortably field in the sub-2,000,000 range.

This calculation, however, excluded recruitment for a navy or air force, and did not take into account the huge requirement to manufacture and service modern military equipment, and the administrative support needed to keep an army in the field.

Taking all that into account, the current size of the Russian ground forces, comprising 280,000 active duty personnel, is probably close to the maximum sustainable size, without putting the country on a war footing, and calling up the reserves. And with the other military commitments, only about half of those could be committed to field operations in Ukraine.

By contrast, Ukraine is on a war footing so the proportion of its population which can be impressed into the armed forces will be higher. And then, with the industrial might of Nato and other countries supplying the weapons and many supplies – as well as offering to service equipment – the support “tail” will be dramatically reduced.

In short, therefore – unless Putin is prepared to convert his “special military operation” into a full-blown war, and put his country on a war footing, Ukraine will always be able to count on numerical superiority. And with the flow of high quality weapons from Nato countries, Ukraine can also rely on qualitative advantage.

When you add in the better training, high motivation and all the other factors, it has to be conceded that Russia cannot field an army under current circumstances which can win a war against Ukraine. For sure, it can do a great deal of damage, and achieve some local successes, but it cannot win the war with the forces and equipment it is capable of deploying.

That inevitably brings us back to the one area where Russia has an undisputed superiority in capability – that of nuclear weapons. And it is there that Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is now making noises, partly as a reaction to Ukraine extending the geographical scope of the war, by attacking Russian infrastructure outside its borders.

The possibility of a Russian nuclear strike is explored in depth in an article in European Pravda by authors Mikhail Samus and Sergey Sidorenko, who argue that, “For Russia, tactical nuclear weapons are just a tool with a scenario of an attack on Nato”.

In this context, the Samus and Sidorenko rule out the use of strategic nuclear weapons, not least because the “enormous consequences” would include radioactive contamination of Russia itself. The distance between Kiev and Moscow is only 750 km.

Therefore, we are talking about tactical nuclear weapons, of which Russia is thought to have about 2,500 operational, of which about half are available for use in Europe, ranging in power to Hiroshima level, equivalent to 15 thousand tons of TNT.

Chillingly, Samus and Sidorenko assert that Russian military science considers tactical nuclear weapons to be absolutely normal weapons on the battlefield. That is, when the Russian military consider the use of artillery, or missile forces, or aircraft, or naval forces, they always have an element of tactical nuclear weapons, and they practice it in training.

The doctrine stems from the Soviet Union when it was believed that in a situation where ordinary military forces could not succeed, it was appropriate to use nuclear weapons, after which Europe would agree to negotiations.

What is problematical is that the means of delivery, principally the Kalibr cruise missiles and the Iskanders ballistic missiles are being used against Ukraine each day. So, when either are launched, the defence forces can’t know if they are carrying ordinary or nuclear warheads.

As to options for use, for “limited nuclear war” to succeed, it is necessary to strike first and gain a psychological and tactical advantage. This could amount
to a “demonstration” in a deserted area, to demonstrate a willingness to use nuclear weapons.

If Ukraine did not respond, preferably by surrendering, then there could be a second strike. This would be in a lightly populated areas, where there are troop concentrations or infrastructure nodes. The aim would be to cause “significant damage” without striking at cities.

Before escalating to cities, Russian would seek the agreement of Nato countries that Ukraine must surrender, forcing Zelensky to do so. Thus, the message sent after the first strike would be that Russia will continue to launch massive nuclear strikes, and Nato countries will suffer.

What is useful here is that the authors consider how to prevent such an attack. Contrary to the views of some, it is felt that western partners supplying weapons to Ukraine will reduce the likelihood of a nuclear strike. The more powerfully and decisively the Ukrainian Armed Forces will beat the Russian army, the less likely it is that Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons.

Russia’s most realistic goal in such a strike is to force Ukraine to capitulate. Therefore, Putin may strike the first “intimidating” blow, but he will not dare to shell densely populated cities, because he understands that this is the end of virtually everything for him. And if the Ukrainian army demonstrates in advance that it will not give up – then the first blow becomes meaningless.

But, say the authors, there is a possibility that Putin will launch one nuclear strike just to show that he can, on the basis that “the Americans bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, so I can bomb Ukraine.

Much will depend on the situation on the battlefield, in Russia and inside the Kremlin, but the situation will be eased if Ukrainian anti-missile capability is improved.

If a missile is shot down in flight, the chances are high that a nuclear warhead will not work. Of course, if the nuclear charge is destroyed, a kind of “dirty bomb” will be created and the impact zone will have to be decontaminated, but compared to a nuclear explosion, “this is nothing”.

Thus, it seems, the overall message is “more of the same” in respect of western support. But, as long as the war continues, there will always remain the possibility what we will wake up one day to the news of a nuclear strike.

That is terrifying enough in its own right, but equally terrifying is the range of Nato responses, and the possibility that the strategy hasn’t been properly thought through. When you think who has their finger on the nuclear button in the UK, there is plenty of scope for nightmares.