Russia’s Losing a Constant as Its Ukraine War Settles into Predictable Alternating Phases
By Brian E. Frydenborg Twitter @bfry1981 February 1, 2023
It has been some time since I have put out a major overall analysis here on the Ukraine-Russia war because there is not a whole lot of new stuff to chew on: yes, Winter Is Here (and I did put together shorter analysis noting winter will hurt the Russian military far more than the Ukrainian military, giving Ukraine another distinct advantage in the winter months), but overall, we are seeing two main phases being repeated, exhibiting dynamics that I have discussed in great detail before and that are overlapping at times to various degrees.
The inputs can be adjusted—a wave of ill-trained, ill-led, and ill-equipped (and thus oft-doomed) recently-mobilized Russian troops here, additional HIMARS units or some new weapon for Ukraine (and occasionally for Russia when it comes to drones from Iran, drones that have apparently been somewhat defective) there, but the dynamics in their main essence remain unchanged. And those dynamics nearly all operate—almost mathematically—in a significant net favor for Ukraine, and keep moving along the track of Russia losing more strength, capability, and territory while Ukraine gains more strength, capability, and territory. We can see some milestones here and there that stand out or portend certain things, but the mechanics are fairly set.
Since Russia’s rapid collapses on three fronts outside Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy from the end of March through the first week of April, there has been a lot of repetition, but the general pattern is clear:
Phase A:
- After massive, rapid victories by Ukraine, Ukraine takes time to rest, refit, redeploy, and figure out where and when and how to strike next
- As this is happening, Ukraine is simultaneously using advanced Western-supplied weapons and daring raids to target Russian positions on the front lines and deep behind them to soften up the Russian positions and inflict serious casualties, which also helps to limit its own casualties as Ukraine carefully advances until an opportunity for a breakthrough presents itself (as I termed it, “Ukrainian prudence meets Russian limitations”)
- Concurrent to all this, Russia keeps up ineffective, essentially suicidal assaults that make little to no progress, only Pyrrhic yet territorially victories at best (and often make little to no sense, hello Bakhmut!) until, lo and behold…
Phase B: The next big breakthrough(s) for Ukraine come(s) and the cycle resets (indeed, the Pyrrhic nature of Russia’s offensives do much more to set up these Ukrainian counteroffensives than to establish any lasting control over significantly large areas of Ukrainian territory for Russia).
The major changes that occur here are that Russia significantly increases it losses in men, territory, and matériel (depleting Russian manpower, logistics bases, ammunition stocks, and Russia’s best weapons systems) while Ukraine gains that same territory Russia loses while receiving more advanced—and new and increasingly superior—weapons systems from its Western allies, significantly increasing its capabilities over time and its overall comparative, qualitative advantages over Russia.
Specifically, the way this has played out has been for Russia to lose catastrophically on multiple fronts, first outside Kharkiv; then in Izyum, Kupiansk, and Lyman; then in Kherson. Before, during, and after these successful counterattacks, Ukraine has been able to sink the Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva (which I seem to have been the only person to predict in an article that Ukraine would sink, just days before it happened) and conduct other attacks on the Russian Navy without even really having a navy of its own. Ukraine has even shown that it can strike major Russian bases and logistics hubs in Crimea (including the Crimean/Kerch Strait Bridge in October, which I predicted would happen all the way back in April) and other parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine.
But Ukraine has also demonstrated it can attack several major bases far into Russia, including, rather spectacularly, the Dyagilevo base in Ryazan—just some 100 miles from Moscow—on December 5 and another base deep inside Russia, the Engels Air Base, the same day; another Ukrainian strike the following day was against Russian fuel tankers near an air field in Kursk, Russia; and the Engels base was just hit by Ukraine again yesterday even as I was writing this! All these strikes in Russian territory were carried out not with Western-supplied weapons but with some of Ukraine’s own Soviet-era drones that it had repurposed and upgraded: Ukraine continues to surprise and impress (there is also not unreasonable speculation that Ukraine may be behind some dramatic accidents throughout Russia, especially those concerning key utilities).
Conversely, Russia only continues to be predictable and unimpressive. It has been able to reinforce itself, yes, but primarily with the pitiful newly mobilized Russians, sometimes-defective Iranian-made drones—those drones terrorizing Ukrainian civilians but having little effect on the battlefield—and, increasingly, mercenaries from Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s private Wagner Group (a de facto extension of the Russian military), which is increasingly recruiting desperate men from Russian (and even Central African Republic) prisons; in its military efforts—now particularly focused on Bakhmut—Wagner is thus far failing miserably, even with rockets and missiles it has purchased recently (and embarrassingly) from North Korea.
While Russia’s pool of reinforcements and “improvements” grows increasingly pathetic, Ukraine is set to receive top new Western fighting vehicles and heavy battle tanks—including a relatively-large number of German-designed Leopard tanks from a range of Western allies and, much later, even a not-insignificant number of elite U.S. M1A2 Abrams tanks—as well as much longer-range GLSDB artillery ammunition that will have a devastating effect on Russian lines and logistics.
Phases and the Big Picture (and Why Belarus Should Not Be a Problem)
As my existing work already well explains the aforementioned dynamics and phases in detail, and that the current Ukrainian advances in the south and the east, though paused, will quite likely be the ones to eject Russia out of Ukraine, I have not felt a great need for some time to produce a major new analytical piece on the current situation in Ukraine. But that very absence of the need for any new sweeping analysis is telling in and of itself and merits some discussion, so that has inspired the piece you are reading now along with the requests of many a faithful reader.
Right now, we are in one of those phases in which Ukraine is poking and testing Russia while defending stalwartly against costly but ineffective Russian attacks. Even though this is the less intense of the two major phases, Russia is still taking huge, Pyrrhic losses in men and equipment—both from its unproductive assaults and from precision Ukrainian strikes—if not territory, but those territorial losses will be added into the mix as the other losses intensify when the next of the alternating phases opens with whatever will be the next major Ukrainian offensive or offensives.
And if Russia is stupid enough to try to reopen a front near Kyiv, there is no chance it will fare much better now than in the opening days of the war, when Russia threw its best troops and equipment at Kyiv against far-less-well-equipped and far-less-experienced Ukrainian troops. Indeed, any Kyiv assault from Russia would either be a horribly reckless and wasteful feint or an even more horribly reckless and wasteful genuine assault.
As to the question of Belarus joining in such madness, if Belarus’s hapless, buffoonish President Alexander Lukashenko is dumb enough to do anything other than bluff and host Russian forces but tries to actually invade Ukraine with Belarusian troops, he will likely see the implosion of his regime. After all, Lukashenko has had a precarious grip on power since a profound and massive protest movement erupted against him in Belarus in 2020-2021 when he stole an election from the opposition and persecuted his opposition. Unlike Putin, he is deeply unpopular in his own country and was so even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is also deeply unpopular with Belarusians, some even sabotaging at great personal risk Russian efforts to supply its military in Ukraine from Belarus, other Belarusians—hundreds—even going farther and volunteering to fight in Ukraine against Russia, which has used Belarus as a staging area for its invasion. Large swathes of both the Belarusian people and military would likely refuse to fight or rise up at the same time rather than stand by quietly or face a clearly well-trained-and-equipped and highly motivated Ukrainian military, respectively. Belarusian forces would also be facing off against far more experiences Ukrainian forces and have been able to see how badly Russian forces have fared, with thousands of wounded Russians filling Belarusian hospitals and dead Russian bodies moving into and through Belarus.
And it would be fairly easy for Ukraine to arm Belarusian rebels if Belarus invades (as noted, Ukraine is already arming some to fight with it against Russia), which would only be fair game at that point. And while it would be problematic for Western nations to directly arm Belarusian rebels, they can sidestep that issue if they give extra weapons to Ukraine and then Ukraine arms them.
Lukashenko knows all this, which is why even Putin’s pseudo-BFF he has staunchly resisted actually sending any of his troops into Ukraine: he knows that would likely be the death knell for his regime and possibly even his own death, and Russian forces based in Belarus could likely be easily ejected by rebel or defecting Belarusian units. All of which is very unlikely as it is, again, very unlikely Lukashenko will have his small army invade Ukraine with Russia.
*****
Thus, a heavily-sanctioned Russia stands pretty much alone and losing ground, with only rogue and pariah regimes offering tepid support, and Ukraine advances backed by many of the most powerful countries in the world. Against this backdrop, the dynamics on the ground in this war have been lopsided for most of the war so far against Russia, this trend only increasing over time. It is Ukraine setting the pace and tone of the combat, and Ukraine that will choose when and where to successfully strike. Even now, it is prepping and inflicting massive casualties on the front line in places like Bakhmut, behind the front lines with HIMARS, M777s, and other precision distance weapons, and even striking deep inside Russia repeatedly just last month. Ukraine’s battlefield achievements grow more impressive as Russia’s behaviors grow more pathetic and desperate, and the writing is on the wall. Whatever “spring offensive” Russia has planned, you can bet that its gains will be Pyrrhic and minimal or temporary at best and that it will be setting itself up for yet more Ukrainian breakthroughs that are significant and lasting. Freedom-loving people around the world can thus be sure there will be more massive breakthroughs coming for Ukraine and that Ukraine will do plenty of damage to Russia in the run-up phase, which we are seeing now.
There are no indications to seriously think that Russia will win this war or that Ukraine will lose. In fact, Ukraine is as good at winning as Russia is at losing, which is very, very good, indeed.
2023 is going to really, really suck for Putin and Russians.
Russian “progress” in Bakhmut over much of the past 4 months; click here to zoom in on Brian’s map collage and also see Brian’s explanation of the collage and his discussion of the Bakhmut/Soledar situation being Pyrrhic for Russia
Brian’s Ukraine analysis has been praised by: Mykhailo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; the Ukraine Territorial Defense Forces; Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army (Ret.), former commanding general, U.S. Army Europe; Scott Shane, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist formerly of The New York Times & Baltimore Sun (and featured in HBO’s The Wire, playing himself); Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the only Republicans to stand up to Trump and member of the January 6th Committee; and Orwell Prize-winning journalist Jenni Russell, among others.
This article is an adapted and updated excerpt from a much longer article previously published on Brian’s news website Real Context News on December 26 under a different title: Russia-Ukraine War Settles into Predictable Alternating Phases, But Russia’s Losing Remains Constant; see all Brian’s Ukraine coverage here.
Also see Brian’s related eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (preview here).