Month: March 2023

The Telegraph

Vladimir Putin’s health may be disintegrating and it should terrify us all

Colonel Richard Kemp – March 21, 2023

Images of Putin gripping his chair and squirming next to President Xi in Moscow have again fuelled speculation about his health. He was filmed limping during a visit to Crimea a few days ago and during a February meeting with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko his leg was shaking uncontrollably. Since Putin invaded Ukraine last year, rumours of his physical well-being have been rife, with a range of theories from cancer to Parkinson’s.

This may amount to little more than wishful thinking that the man whose actions have led directly to the deaths of tens of thousands may be falling apart, and CIA Director William Burns said last year: “As far as we can tell, he’s entirely too healthy”.

But if we imagine, for a moment, that he is suffering from some serious affliction, then that would have big ramifications. For one, the immense stress that must press upon him could rapidly exacerbate his illness and directly affect his mental processes and judgement. Even if Burns is right, the demands of running a country in any circumstances are huge, and we’ve all seen the way many national leaders appear to age prematurely over their time in office.

The pressure cooker inside 70-year-old Putin’s head must sometimes reach bursting point after leading Russia for a quarter of a century, presiding over a war which has been going catastrophically wrong for the last year. Such a crushing burden would be tough enough for the leader of a democracy, but as ruler of the Russian autocracy Putin is well aware that his end could come in a violent death. Short of that, he will also know that he could face jail time following the arrest warrant for war crimes issued last week by the ICC. If he is deposed, it is possible a new regime in Moscow might hand him over as happened to Slobodan Milosevic in 2021.

All this will be playing on Putin’s mind, although his troubles could have been eased by a lifeline from Xi during his visit, perhaps with promises of money, weapons and sanctions busting. That will have been his hope, but it might also have gone the other way depending on Xi’s calculations of where his interests lie. China stands to gain from this war, whichever side prevails.

Whatever the truth about Putin’s state of mind, we should be prepared for him to behave with growing irrationality unless he is able to dramatically improve his fortunes on the battlefield. That is far from certain, with Kyiv reportedly gearing up for a major offensive next month.

Those around him know far better than we do about Putin’s mental state and if they perceive a dangerous deterioration, or if he becomes physically or mentally incapable, it’s possible they could seek to bring him down. That is a more likely scenario than the much-discussed possibility of a coup inspired by disaffection over the way he is running the war. Any attempt to depose Putin, especially if he resists as is likely, could lead to a violent power struggle, instability and chaos across the country and potentially even civil war with untold consequences for Russia and the world.

Another possible impact of a Putin breakdown may be even more apocalyptic. His sabre-rattling over nuclear weapons earlier in the conflict was an attempt to cow the West. But those who argue that he will never use battlefield or strategic nuclear weapons based on the logic that it could lead to retaliation that will do much greater damage to Russia than Ukraine or the West should remember we could be dealing with a man fighting for his life and increasingly devoid of logical thinking.

While the circumstances today are different, it’s worth remembering that Hitler, who had become increasingly deranged as he contemplated the collapse of his Reich, ordered the destruction of all economic, industrial, transport, military and communication facilities in Germany. As Hitler’s diabolical orders were refused, we must hope that those in Putin’s nuclear chain of command would also refuse to press the button if they were told to do so.

Hope, though, is not a strategy and as we seem to be witnessing a deterioration in Putin’s condition, it becomes increasingly urgent that Western leaders prepare for the possible consequences. Much of the burden for that falls on US and British intelligence agencies, who will already have been doing what they can to covertly influence Putin’s key nuclear players and preparing – as far as possible – to shape events in the wake of a collapse in the Kremlin, including early engagement with whatever regime emerges. That will involve a race with Beijing’s Ministry of State Security.

Business Insider

Ukrainians are riding tanks captured from an elite Russian unit into battle in Bakhmut, but their new gear may not last long

Michael Peck – March 21, 2023

• Ukrainian troops have repurposed an array of gear that Russian forces have left on the battlefield.
• That includes T-80 tanks captured from the 1st Guards Tank Army, an elite Russian armored unit.
• But Russian tanks are designed for Russian forces, and Ukraine might get limited use out of them.

There is poetic justice in the idea that a country under attack is using its adversary’s weapons against it.

No wonder Western observers have been thrilled by reports of Ukrainian forces capturing hundreds of Russian tanks and turning them against the invaders. No doubt Western governments were happy, too; the more weapons Ukraine captures for itself, the fewer Western countries may have to send from their own stocks.

Michael Kofman, the director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, said that the gear Ukraine is repurposing includes tanks that were captured from Russia’s elite 1st Guards Tank Army and sent back into Bakhmut, the site of Ukraine and Russia’s deadliest fighting.

Kofman spoke at a March 13 event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment and described a recent trip to Bakhmut, where he said that he saw “a reinforcing tank platoon coming in from the Ukrainian side which was entirely made up of Russian T-80s that they had captured from 1st Guards Tank Army at Izyum.”

“They were very easily identifiable,” Kofman added. “You can see an entire unit composed of nothing but captured Russian tanks.”

That the tanks were trophies from a 1st Guards Tank Army defeat must be particularly galling to Moscow. The unit earned fame as a Red Army formation from World War II. It was deactivated in 1998 but reactivated with great fanfare in 2014 as an elite, well-equipped force that became the Russian army’s prime ground maneuver unit.

The 1st Guard Tank Army took heavy losses in several battles around Kyiv and Kharkiv when it was deployed in Ukraine — and eventually had to be withdrawn for refitting.

Russian troops have been quite generous with their equipment, leaving an array of hardware, some of it undamaged, for Ukrainian forces to capture.

Living off captured hardware may work for insurgents, but it doesn’t work for armies that need advanced weapons for protracted operations, and Ukraine now faces the question of how long these vehicles will be in fighting condition.

While Ukrainian mechanics have worked wonders to restore captured Russian equipment — aided by the fact that most of Ukraine’s pre-war arsenal was based on Soviet-era designs — sustained operations with Russian tanks will require a stream of parts from Russian factories.

“They don’t have the parts that keep a lot of these running,” Kofman said. “So on paper you may capture a lot of vehicles, but you don’t have the engines, you don’t have the transmissions, you don’t have the parts to keep them going.”

While Ukraine needs tanks and will get use out of them, Kofman said that ammunition and other spare parts are higher priorities: “First and foremost, it’s artillery ammunition and replacement of artillery barrels. Alongside air-defense ammunition — that’s missiles and what have you, and air-defense systems.”

Kofman said that he believes Ukraine doesn’t need tanks as much as it needs armored vehicles to carry infantry into battle.

“Ukraine has very large brigades of mechanized infantry, but to be mechanized, they actually need to be riding on something. Otherwise, Ukraine has a lot of manpower, not a lot of mobility,” Kofman said at the Carnegie event.

A similar situation played out in World War II; one reason German-panzer divisions were so formidable early in the conflict was that they were the first to carry infantry in armored half-tracks — rather than in soft-skinned trucks — so that infantry could safely keep up with the tanks.

Large numbers of immobile Ukrainian infantry “might work for a defense-in-depth strategy and that might work for holding Bakhmut,” Kofman said, “but it’s not going to work if you want to go on the offensive.”

Kofman said that Ukraine still needs Western tanks, which have a more reliable supply of spare parts and ammunition. However, these tanks — including the older Abrams tanks the US has agreed to send — need to be refurbished and could take months to arrive.

Political and public attention is focused on tanks — as well as fighter jets — for reasons that are as much symbolic as strategic, but discussions that are “overly centered” on tanks risk neglecting other crucial factors, Kofman said.

Such discussions often don’t touch on “important things like force quality and training, expanding that, scaling it up, and dealing with the real challenges in the Ukraine force — things like communication systems, distribution of intelligence, surveillance assets, and intelligence,” Kofman said. “A lot of other things have been very significant in this war but are less spoken of.”

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master’s in political science. 

The Week

Russia’s spring Ukraine offensive may be winding down amid heavy troop losses, munitions shortages

Peter Weber, Senior editor – March 20, 2023

U.S. officials are quietly warning Ukraine to conserve its dwindling supplies of artillery shells and other ammunition, air defenses, and experienced soldiers for a major spring counteroffensive to regain territory from Russian invaders, expected to start in May, once Western armor and weapons are in place. Ukraine is especially running through artillery shells and suffering heavy losses holding on to Bakhmut, a razed town U.S. officials see of limited strategic value.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainians say Russia is using more ammunition and suffering much heavier losses in Bakhmut and elsewhere along the front lines for only incremental, halting gains. “And Ukrainian commanders on the front lines say that they sense that Russian units are hollowed out and could collapse in the face of a strong Ukrainian counteroffensive” in the spring, The New York Times reports. After Russian forces came dangerously close to encircling Bakhmut in February, Ukraine pushed back and has kept open its western supply routes.

Statements from Ukrainian military officials and warnings from Russian pro-war military bloggers “suggest that the overall Russian spring offensive may be nearing culmination,” with few “operationally significant gains” to show for it, the Institute for the Study of War think tank assessed Sunday. If 300,000 conscripts “have been unable to give Russia a decisive offensive edge in Ukraine, it is highly unlikely that the commitment of additional forces in future mobilization waves will produce a dramatically different outcome this year. Ukraine is therefore well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counteroffensives in critical sectors of the current front line.”

What Russian war bloggers call Moscow’s mass-casualty “meat assaults” on Bakhmut, Vuhledar, and other contested cities have also prompted a new flurry of videos from Russian troops begging Russian President Vladimir Putin to change tactics, The Washington Post reports. “People die for nothing,” a balaclava-covered recruit from the 5th Motorized Brigade said in one video. “We are not meat. We are ready to fight with dignity, not as meat, in frontal attacks.”

The close combat in Bakhmut is “hell” for Ukrainian forces, but it’s worse for Russia, Ukrainian war veteran Yevhen Dykyi recently told Ukraine’s First Western TV channel. “This amount of Russian losses hasn’t caused an explosion in Russian society yet, but it resonates a lot inside the Russian Army,” he said. “And the longer these crazy losses — unjustified in the opinion of lower- and middle-rank soldiers — go on, the lower the morale of the Russian Army will be at the time of our counteroffensive.”

Business Insider

300,000 new troops couldn’t get Russia’s big offensive to work, and sending more to the front probably won’t help, war experts say

Jake Epstein – March 20, 2023

• Russia mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in Ukraine and fuel a spring offensive.
• But these new soldiers have been unable to turn Russia’s advances into a major success, war experts say.
• Ukraine now appears positioned for its own push, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian troops called up to fight in Ukraine have been unable to turn Moscow’s new offensive into a battlefield success, war experts said in a new analysis. And throwing more soldiers into the fight most likely won’t help.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilization in September 2022 to fight off a personnel shortage, and 300,000 reservists drafted. These soldiers — many of whom were sent into battle poorly equipped and with limited training — have since been committed to Russia’s ongoing spring offensive, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a Sunday assessment.

But Moscow’s offensive is “likely approaching culmination” because advances along several fronts in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region have so far failed to yield more than “incremental tactical gains,” the assessment said. ISW noted hostilities around the war-torn city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has raged for months, and cited Ukrainian military officials in its analysis.

“If 300,000 Russian soldiers have been unable to give Russia a decisive offensive edge in Ukraine it is highly unlikely that the commitment of additional forces in future mobilization waves will produce a dramatically different outcome this year,” ISW wrote in its assessment.

“Ukraine is therefore well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counteroffensives in critical sectors of the current frontline,” it added.

Experts, NATO officials, and Western intelligence agencies concluded in February that Russia had started its much-anticipated offensive in eastern Ukraine. On February 20, just days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Britain’s defense ministry said Russia was pursuing advances along several fronts around Bakhmut, Kremina, and Vuhledar.

This push by Russia marked a pivotal moment for Ukraine’s military, which was tasked with blunting Moscow’s assault and stopping its numerically larger force from advancing long enough to allow for the delivery of advanced Western armor, such as tanks, artillery, and infantry fighting vehicles, and other weaponry.

The massive influx of Russian troops into Ukraine was aimed at overwhelming the Ukrainians with numbers, even if it meant accepting a high casualty rate, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last month.

“What Russia lacks in quality, they try to compensate in quantity, meaning that the leadership, the logistics, the equipment, the training, don’t have the same level as the Ukrainian forces, but they have more forces,” he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Russian forces sent to fight in Ukraine have taken a beating. Western intelligence and US officials estimate Russia has likely suffered up t0 200,000 casualties in Ukraine. Over 60,000 soldiers alone may have been killed, according to a brief from the Center for Strategic & International Studies.