Some Thoughts on the Russian Strategy in Current Invasion of Ukraine

Over the past two weeks, western “news outlets” (both mainstream and alternative) have been full of magical and wishful thinking masquerading as serious analysis about how the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine will definitely fail. Given the known and horrendously bad track record of these propagandists.. I mean journalists.. it is darkly comic to watch the same idiots who uncritically bought the hilariously bad establishment lies about COVID-19 pandemic now swallowing the official western governmental bullshit about what is going on in Ukraine. I could write volumes about the laughable incompetence of western media and general dumbness of most people in some countries, but let us try to tackle something which can be addressed (at least partially) in a single Substack post.

So have you ever wondered about the thinking and strategic considerations behind the Russian decision to invade Ukraine and how they are going about it? Well.. here is an explanation to show you that much of what you currently see and hear can be understood through the lens of cold-blooded rationality.

1] The decision to seek a permanent military solution to the current stalemate in Ukraine was probably made by Russia about 2-4 years ago. The current invasion became inevitable once it became obvious that Ukraine was becoming a defacto member of NATO within a few years. Since the 2014 ‘color revolution’, the foreign policy pursued by successive Ukrainian governments greatly accelerated cooperation with NATO including the construction of new facilities to host military personal and equipment from that alliance. As far as Russia is concerned, any bordering country hosting NATO is functionally identical to joining that alliance. Article 5 (collective defense) considerations are an afterthought, especially since Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly expressed a desire to “take back” Crimea and other eastern provinces with an ethnic Russian majority.

As far as Russian leaders were concerned, large-scale armed conflict with Ukraine was inevitable in next few years. They correctly concluded that forcing a military solution right now was a better idea than doing it a few years down the road after more NATO assets were deployed in Ukraine- leading to a much higher probability of actual military conflict. In my opinion, that was a smart move as even historically anti-Russian NATO countries such as Poland and Romania are not currently eager to get militarily involved in the current conflict. This does not mean that Russia did not try to solve the problem in a more peaceful manner, since they did repeatedly approach the American government to come up with enforceable treaties or agreements for addressing their security concerns. However for reasons beyond the scope of this post, the American government though they could get away with ignoring long-standing Russian security concerns. The simplest version is that American government is full of people who think the world has not changed since the 1990s.

2] Having decided to undertake military action in Ukraine, the main goal of Russian government is quite clear. While they haven’t said so openly, they want to partition Ukraine (see map above) such that the future Russian-dominated half of that country will encompass most of the land east of Dnieper river in addition to entire coastline of present-day Ukraine. It is almost certain that Russian leaders, including Putin, want to convert whatever is left of present-day Ukraine into a land-locked country almost entirely on the west bank of Dnieper. While this might seem like a challenging task, it is the only permanent solution to this problem- as far as Russia is concerned. They know that most people in western part of Ukraine will never be friendly or mindful of Russian security concerns. The regions east of Dnieper, on the other hand, contain enough people who see themselves as ethnically Russia or close enough.

But what about all those people in the eastern part of Ukraine who hate Russians? As I wrote briefly in a previous post, it is almost certainly that they will be “incentivized” to permanently relocate to western part of Ukraine or other EU countries. Given the current and upcoming economic situation in Ukraine, that would be fairly easy. Some of you might see this ethnic-cleansing ‘lite’ and that is correct- but what are you going to do about it? In any case, western countries have ignored recent instances of large-scale ethnic cleansing when it occurred in other countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq- to name a few. As far as the Black Sea coast is concerned, it is almost certain that Russia will hold on to and incorporate this area into the new breakaway country because a lot of potential security threats to Russia were a consequence of Ukraine having that access to the coast.

3] Now let us talk about Russian military strategy in the current invasion. Some of you might think that Russian leaders underestimated Ukrainian armed forces etc. Others might want to believe that Russians had expected Ukrainian army to surrender and run way like American-trained forces did in Afghanistan. Sadly, neither is true. One does not simply gather almost 200k soldiers, thousands of vehicles and accompanying logistics at the border for months if you are expecting an easy victory. Also, deploying less than 50% of assembled forces by end of first week after invasion started suggests that they expected a decent amount of resistance. The strategy followed by Russia can be described thus: first destroy most major bases, command and control facilities, ammunition depots and fuel facilities in first week using missiles and PGMs. Next, send inadequate numbers of troops using older equipment to probe their defenses and identify pockets of resistance. Then, deploy more troops and vehicles to occupy and secure the poorly defended parts of Ukraine in addition to encircling and shrinking pockets of armed resistance. Also note that Russia put in a lot more effort at securing coastal areas of Ukraine than surrounding or occupying Kiev.

Some of you might wonder why Russia didn’t go all “shock and awe” like USA at the onset of their failed occupation of Iraq in 2003. Well.. the reason is very simple once you understand their long-term goals. The type of outcome desired by Russia requires careful and methodical occupation of certain parts of that country. Face it, Russia want to split Ukraine and convert most of the eastern part and coastal areas into a new country. Large-scale destruction of buildings and other facilities in those parts of present-day Ukraine would be counterproductive to their long-term goals. They want to keep most of stuff and friendly locals while expelling unfriendly ones westwards. This is also why they have used their considerable air power very sparingly. This does not however mean that they won’t level a handful of smaller cities such as Mariupol, parts of Kharkiv or even Odessa. But the ultimate goal is capture and repurposing of territory, hence the lack of widespread destruction and heavy civilian casualties. I am guessing that most people in western countries don’t understand these considerations since USA has never fought a war in this manner within living memory- if ever.

What do you think? Comments?