The Russian army is successfully Sovietizing, weak Ukrainian defense lines, fears of May
A look at military analysis and prognoses by Ukrainian experts
The Ukrainian media space has been quite gloomy of late.
On February 29, former advisor to the President’s Office and self-styled military expert Alexey Arestovich gave an interesting analysis of the changing organizational structures of the two armies on the frontline. Analyzing the reasons for the loss of Avdiivka and the ongoing retreat there, he writes that Russia appears to be successfully transitioning to the organizational structure of the Soviet army:
“Avdiivka was stormed by three Russian armies + a tank division. These are units with unchanging personnel, with unified logistics and a management system. For us, in contrast, everything above a brigade is an assembled body that can be managed from elsewhere.
We saw elements of operational camouflage in the creation of a group/concentration of forces. Deception, cunning, disinformation - in the best traditions of the Red Army.
Massing of forces. The Russians are enhancing the artillery capabilities of their units and formations - up to the creation of artillery brigades within an army of combined arms units.
The number of guided aerial bombs used is increasing every month. In the defense area of Avdiivka, in one day, there were 250 hits.
The irretrievable losses of the Russian grouping in taking Avdiivka are ~30% of the grouping. Yet, they captured the fortified district. Soviet standards - 12-20% for an army operation.
Avdiivka is their first operational-tactical level success, associated with the drift towards the Soviet system. The deadlock on the front, which Valeriy Zaluzhny talked about in the article for "The Economist," was overcome not by technical means, but by organizational ones.
When they fully transition to the Soviet system - we can expect them to start achieving operational level successes, as it is ideal for this type of war - given their initial conditions.
For them, to make us lose all of the Left Bank [everything east of Kiev and the Dniepr river], they need about five such operations.
They are increasing capabilities and reducing the intervals between operations. A year ago they took up to six months for concentration of efforts and preparation. This will be reduced to four months or less, if there are no strategic scale black swans (planning should be based on the assumption that there won't be any).
Not only I have been saying from the start of the war that Russia's problem in this war is that they set Soviet goals without having Soviet capabilities. And now they are gradually pulling their capabilities up to Soviet levels, as much as possible.
All our (and theirs, by the way) dreams about Western structures, Western technology, and Western strategy - are complete nonsense. We currently have neither Soviet capabilities nor Western ones, and they are catching up to the Soviet ones.
What's our response?
Valeriy Zaluzhny was not allowed to form divisions and armies - units and formations of permanent composition, with their own logistics and permanent management bodies, capable of solving the task of breaking through long-term, echeloned defense of the enemy and creating/maintaining such defense.
It's against NATO standards!..
Idiots, instead of creating a national military school, tailored to our specific conditions, choosing the best from different systems, are killing the army under a concept that:
we will never see,
which is not suitable for large-scale wars on its own.
Soon we will fully experience these "…NATO standards". There are no fortifications at Chasov Yar, was it too much trouble to dig, it wasn’t standard? What about after Avdiivka - no? Kramatorsk?", writes Arestovich.
Yury Butusov, a Poroshenko aligned hyper-nationalist military journalist, also made worrying prognoses on Feb 27:
"No words. There's a disconnect: here in Kyiv, the Supreme Commander says one thing, but on the front line, something completely different is happening. I want to say: no field fortification lines have been built behind Avdiivka so far. I saw how our soldiers, in holes in the middle of a field, are attacked by Russian drones," said Butusov.
According to him, serious problems exist which cannot be overcome by the government’s constant appeal to intensify mobilization of human resources:
"If the authorities cannot find builders to construct at least basic rear defense lines, if they cannot find engineers to service modern technology, drones, sensors, communications, if they cannot find workers and technologists to produce ammunition, then there will never be enough assault troops," the journalist added.
Others combined their pessimism with a demand to mobilize more Ukrainians. Masi Naiem is part of a venerable family of Ukrainian euro-optimists, his brother, Mustafa Naiem, being the famous journalist that began the Euromaidan protests back on the 21st of November, 2013 (he subsequently became a not-very-successful board member of the state military industrial company). His brother, Masi, lost his eye while fighting the Russian army. In a 26 February interview, he claimed that Ukraine is likely to lose its statehood, especially if mobilization is not intensified, even of those who are ‘not motivated’ to fight.
"People [who worry about mobilization impeding their work-life balance] need to understand something very important. This is not a distant probability. These threats are so real that, figuratively speaking, the month of May does not seem Ukrainian to me, and, if certain things do not happen now, it is quite likely that by May you will need to plan to live in another country, if you are a patriot, because you will not be able to live here under the Russians. Now you can shove that 'motivation' and go live in Poland with those idiots who are now dumping grain. You now have to choose your motivation: either you take action yourself and defend this state, or go to the Poles."
May has particular significance - Zelensky’s presidential term will run out at that time, and lately he has been ringing the alarm about supposed ‘Russian plots to discredit our government’ through the use of this fact. Hopefully an upcoming rundown of recent news will go into that.