Ukraine's Latest Successes Have Demolished Stalemate Claims

Ukrainian gains in Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Tokmak, across the Dnipro as well as in reducing Russian naval power in the Black Sea and rendering Crimea increasingly unsafe have undermined the pro-Putin 'stalemate' argument while positioning Ukraine for further strategic advantage. JL 

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

Ukraine continues to take advantage of this willingness of the Russians to sacrifice power. The war has shown that analysis of what the Russians could achieve with their armor was completely overblown. 20 months later and they are still trying to do this. The Russians have committed mass to try and take a very small city that has no strategic value, so that they can claim to their people that they are making progress. Its strategically bonkers. Hopefully the Russians will continue to throw everything they have into these attacks. (And) the stalemate narrative has only a land-war focus.

Well it was a rather important week in that ATACMS were actually deployed by Ukraine for the first time (and extremely effectively). At the same time, it does not seem that they supply and variety of warhead is particularly numerous, so once again the delivery of support remains extremely sub-optimal. There were also a number of important pieces taking on the idea of the war as in a state of stalemate (it only is in a narrow sense) and there was some discussion of the situation for Russia in terms of shell supply, with evidence from an intelligence service that should have a good idea what its talking about.

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Berdyansk airfield after the Ukrainian ATACMS attack: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/destruction-from-ukraines-first-atacms-strike-now-apparent

ATACMS Arrive

This story exploded with a bit of a thunderclap on Monday morning. Russian sources provided pictures of what looked to be ATACMS delivered munitions that had been used against the Russian airfield in Berdyansk (heretofore far outside HIMARS range).

ATACMS Have been used--finally.

PHILLIPS P. OBRIEN

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OCT 17

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Berdyansk Airfield: Blue circle represents approx range HIMARS wold have had to launch from previously.

The raid was caused some immediate elation when the initial damage indications were revealed. The Ukrainians claimed to have destroyed 9 helicopters, a range of specialized military equipment and some ammunition depots. This alone would have made it the worst day for Russian military aviation since February 24, 2022. However it turns out that there was indeed even more that was it. Satellite photography did not always make it apparent how many helicopters were seriously damage. Soon the British MOD chipped in to say that a total of 14 Russian helicopters were hit, the 9 in Berdyansk and 5 more at Luhansk.

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 Since then the claims have emerged that if you add seriously damaged helicopters to the list, Russian losses are closer to 20 or even 21.

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 If that is true, it was a devastating blow for certain.

It also showed the great potential for ATACMS. IN short order the Ukrainians were able to coordinate attacks on major Russian facilities, giving the Russians no time to react. It also showed that the Russian military is still not the learning institution that many of those analysts who talk up its abilities like to pretend. Even though the arrival of ATACMS had been talked about for weeks, and Washington sources had made it clear that they were on their way, the Russians left a huge stock of very valuable helicopters sitting out in the open, relatively bunched together, to be the most inviting of targets. If only Ukraine had more ATACMS instantly available, they could have probably wreaked even more devastation on Russian facilities that the Russians had previously thought were safe. But so far it seems the supplies were quite limited, and that reveals once again that Washington still does not understand how to properly support Ukraine. It might make sense to divide the ATACMS summary into good news and bad news.

Good News ATACMS: They have been given and have shown to be extremely damaging to Russian facilities. And these are just one kind of ATACMS, not the longest range (they come from what is called block 1A and can only reach 165 kms. Later generation ATACMS can reach over 300 kms.

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 Basically with a rather limited form of ATACMS the Ukrainians can do great damage. If they were given the full range (some with high explosive warheads, so with the scattered munitions used at Berdyansk) ATACMS could be a major part of an effective ranged campaign against Russian facilities in every part of occupied Ukraine.

Bad News ATACMS. I still cant get too excited about this because its been 20 months since the Russians launched their full-scale invasion and only a small number of simple ATACMS have arrived. Reports stretch from somewhere between 12 and 20 in the first instance. This is not enough to wage a sustained campaign—indeed its enough to warn the Russians about their potential, but then give the Russians time to make counters. Moreover, it shows that, the Russian escalation bluff remains potent—even when time and time again its shown to be a bluff. Remember when it was said Ukraine could not get ATACMS because Russia would go nuclear—well we see Putin’s own reaction to this first ATACMS attack and its the opposite. He has tried to downplay their importance—in other words he wont use them as an excuse to escalate.

"War is war," Putin said. "And, of course, I have said that [ATACMS] pose a threat. It goes without saying. But what counts most is that they are completely unable to drastically change the situation along the line of contact. It's impossible."

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Its the same bad movie we have had to watch over and over again. From HIMARS, to MBTs, to F-16s, to Cruise Missiles, to ATACMS we limit what we give to Ukraine in terms of conventional weapons (and mostly older conventional weapons at that) because its said that Putin will react by crossing the nuclear threshhold. This makes no sense for many reason (will write a substack about that soon). Yet here we are seeing the same halting approach again.

So while I would like to stress the good news, for some reason this whole series of events leaves me with a strong nagging sense of pessimism. Its now clear (as it always should have been) just how effective ATACMS could be. All those saying they would not make a major difference had no idea what they were speaking about. However, the US seems only to have handed over a small number, and having its policies governed by a Russian intelligence operation that has shown to be false time and time again.

Can we just give Ukraine the full suite of conventional ranged capabilities it needs to liberate its own land (ATACMS, Taurus, F-16s, etc) and end this war as soon as possible? Is that too much to ask?

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Avdiivka and the Massacre of Russian Equipment

If Ukraine’s supporters are still prevaricating, the Russians are at least doing their part in helping Ukraine progress to eventual victory by continuing to lose massive amounts of equipment launching massive assaults against targets of no strategic value. What we have seen during the fighting over Avdiivka over the last two weeks.

Concentration of Russian AFV being hit around Avdiivka: https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-combat-video-destruction-russian-armor-tanks-new-assault-2023-10

Its sort of hard to make sense of what seems to be a massacre of Russian forces around Avdiivka. On one day, last Wednesday, the Ukrainians made extreme claims for Russian losses over a 24 hour period, including 55 tanks and 120 APCs/IPCs.

Certainly the photographic evidence of Russian losses versus Ukrainian losses over the last week have been some of the most lopsided (if maybe the most lopsided) of the war. Here, for instance if Andrew Perpetua’s Osint count of relative Russian and Ukrainian losses for October 20, the same day as the Ukrainians released the count above.

Source: https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1715393802490216558

It seems that the Russians have basically committed mass to try and take a very small city that has no strategic value, so that they can claim to their own people that they are making progress seizing the land they have illegally annexed. Its all strategically bonkers. Avdiivka looks like an easy target, but that is only under the pre-war mistaken understanding of fast moving armored attacks. The whole war has shown that the pre-war analysis of what the Russians could achieve with their armor was completely overblown. Yet here we are, 20 months later and they are still trying to do this. And in this case, the Russians even threw in some airpower to start.

Well, if they refuse to learn, Ukraine should continue to take advantage of this willingness of the Russians to sacrifice power for pointless gains. Its why the Ukrainians were right to fight for Bakhmut in the first half of 2023 and why they are right to continue fighting for Avdiivka now. Hopefully the Russians will continue to throw everything they have into these attacks.

Stalemate

I’ve already been very clear (I hope) about why I find the stalemate narrative so problematic. It has only a land-war focus on war, ignores issues like adaptability, etc. It also is being grasped upon by those who support Putin to try and force Ukraine to make concessions (and believe me, we will soon see lots of articles about the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive). However, this week two separate articles appeared which combated the stalemate narrative well.

Professor Timothy Snyder in the FT published an article which shows why giving in to the whole stalemate rhetoric is not just wrong its self defeating.

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 You can sign up for an FT account and read it as a free article if you haven’t yet.

The beginning of the piece is brilliant.

It is strange to leave Ukraine and then listen to how the war is described elsewhere. In a dynamic battlefield situation, no one talks about a “stalemate”. And yet back in the US, I hear the phrase all the time. How we speak drives how we think, and how we think drives what we do, or choose not to do. When we speak of the Russo-Ukrainian war as a “stalemate”, we misunderstand it, and prepare to make moral and strategic errors. Show me your metaphor, and I will tell you your next move — or, in this case, your lack of one. In chess, a stalemate is a draw generated by the curiosities of the rules. For example, a player can only move the king, but in so doing would put the king in check, which is not permissible. In war, unlike in chess, the number of actors can change at any time. Western powers can supply Ukraine with weapons. If my friend can drop an extra three kings and half a dozen extra queens on the board, I am no longer facing a stalemate. It would be strange if my friend, holding those pieces in his hands, chose instead to say: “Tut, tut, stalemate.”

Also, in Foreign Policy, Oz Katerji and Vladislav Davidzon released a piece looking at the war in the whole.

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 By focussing on Crimea and the Black Sea (where by the way the Ukrainians are continuing to ship more and more from their ports) they also argue against the stalemate narrative. If you have a subscription, its worth a look.

Its important that this narrative is being pressed, because those who want concessions to Russia are going to soon start pressing the stalemate narrative in articles, podcasts. etc. Believe me, its coming.