Ukraine's Remarkable Advances

... And why it may not do them any good.

It’s hard to blame bad outcomes on bad cheerleading - but the defenders of Ukraine just may have an argument. The narrative from its allies has been bleak from the start: From the assumption that Kyiv would fall in the first three days to being a little too surprised that the country managed to defiantly hang on. With friends like that on the sidelines, little wonder that moral is down.

The reality is that Ukraine’s lackluster army and non-existent navy have managed, against very long odds, to neutralize what had been billed as the number two military on the planet. “Russia isn’t the second best army in the world,” one analyst quipped, “Russia is the second best army in Ukraine.” A remarkable feat achieved with Western arms, not cheerleading. Even more remarkable is how everyone is ignoring it.

Yet “neutralize” is not a headline. The Western press wants to root for Kyiv, but Western taxpayers want victories for their investment (It seems that the average taxpayer doesn’t understand that most of that money comes back to the US. I assume most of congress does understand this, they just don’t care).So the narrative is framed within Russia’s “grinding” advances – expensive, bloody, minuscule – but still a win. This is what analysts call a “narrow-context” assessment. Like buying a car based on a single variable: say gas milage, or that it has cupholders. A recent appraisal by the British military reckoned that at is current course, it would take Russia another 4.4 years and roughly a million more casualties for a decisive victory in Ukraine. That’s probably accurate, but focuses on a single variable: territory. It ignores Russia’s eroding capacity to fund, or supply its war-machine.

A wide-context calculation would include Ukraine’s use of drone swarms “stacks” to overwhelm Russia’s air defenses across a 500 mile arc that is home to tens of millions of people. The strikes on energy and military infrastructure are strategic to the point of being surgical, resulting in about 20% of Russian oil refining capacity being off line. Some of it is being repaired, but sanctions are biting and some components are just unavailable. When you can get it, gas prices are up 55% this year with rationing in some areas. Crucially, Russia is having troubled producing aviation fuel. Meaning that its sub-par air defenses aren’t likely to improve anytime soon. Moscow has halted exports of refined products, but still ships crude at a discount to China and India.

As for its black market “shadow fleet”, six tankers have been disabled this year with either external limpet mines or internal devices after leaving Russian oil terminals. The Ukrainians are the main suspects for investigators, but there is also evidence that points to Libyan non-state actors. War makes strange bed-fellows. There is no reason that it can’t be both.

All of which is sapping state revenues with the QED being that neither the Russian economy, nor war machine, has got 4.4 years in its current pinch. And those million men will be even a larger problem. I asked a Russian national about the state media and Putin’s claims and justification for the war, “Oh we all know he’s lying.” He said flatly, “But what can we do? No one supports the war, we’re just ignoring it.”

In the more elite circles, a shocking number of oligarchs and government officials have fallen out of windows around the world. And the “suicide” by gunshot is also on the rise among the rich and powerful, hollowing out the people that have kept Putin on the throne for 20 years. The state is nationalizing any profitable concern it easily can. In short the old system is eroding. It also means that full Russian mobilization is more likely. Less certain is the affect this will have on put-upon population. It’s hard to ignore a war once you’re in uniform. So we can’t discount the Ivan on the Street going full 1917 on the regime. It’s happened before.

The bad news is that in a war of attrition, the larger rival - the one with the larger stockpile – has one massive advantage. Right now that is still Russia, but it is now sourcing its weapons to other sanctioned countries. Fortunately for Ukraine, the West’s industrial capacity in better than it’s cheerleading. The weapons supply chain has suffered demand spikes, capacity limit and the fickle whim of popular politics, but the lifeline remains. Russia’s probing of Polish airspace that caused it and the Netherlands to scramble fighters (we’ll get to that tomorrow) will likely only serve to strengthen it.

As the United States proved in World War II, stockpiles don’t win wars. The ability to replenish them does.