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The biggest question hanging over the battlefield in Ukraine in the first three or four months of this year is whether the Russian invaders or Ukraine’s defenders will launch a major and possibly premature offensive. Both belligerents are under different kinds of pressure to do so.
Militarily, Russia is likely to benefit from slow development. It is the larger country with large but often untapped internal resources. It needs time to increase military production, provide the electronics needed for modern weapons, train and properly equip the hundreds of thousands of soldiers mobilized since last September — and correct the chaos in the mobilization system, a problem that General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian commander-in-chief of the invasion admitted in a rare interview. It also requires time to clarify its muddled propaganda narratives: many Russians are still unclear about what they have to fight for in Ukraine and what the ultimate goals of the war are. Although the initial propaganda line – that Ukrainians are “fascists” – seems to have failed, no new one seems to have generated mass enthusiasm.
One of the most consistent emerging lines of propaganda aims to prepare Russians for a long-term conflict.
“Our most important task is to move our industry on a military path as quickly as possible,” pro-military blogger German Kulikowski wrote on his Telegram channel, which has more than 620,000 subscribers. “We have a decade of wars ahead of us, and these wars will boil over in different parts of the globe. The special military operation [in Ukraine] is only the first hot stage of World War III.
Russia’s case for strategic patience is aided by the somewhat counterintuitive idea that Ukraine’s main financial and military backer, the US, may feel it is benefiting, or at least not suffering too many adverse consequences, from a protracted conflict. According to a recent Rand Corporation report titled “Avoiding a Long War,” the potential benefits of a long conflict for the U.S. include the weakening of Russia, as well as the reduced dependence of U.S. allies on Russian energy and higher defense spending. These must be weighed against costs such as an increased risk of nuclear war, more Ukrainian deaths, and adverse economic effects, including higher inflation. The report assessed the possibility of Russia seizing more Ukrainian territory as a “minor” cost.
Depending on how cynical you are—and Putin and his cronies are very cynical—you might conclude that the Biden administration’s calculations dismiss the threat of nuclear war, care little for Ukrainian casualties, prioritize weakening Russia, and underestimate its combat and military industrial potential. Such an assessment would suggest to Putin that he should grit his teeth and bury himself.
The counterarguments are psychological, but since in Russia the final decisions are made by one person, they are not unimportant.
Any growing perception of Putin’s weakness – both at home and, more importantly, in the non-Western world, which he considers his ally in what he describes as an existential battle with the West – creates an element of pressure that he must to feel. A series of military defeats last year led the leaders of India and China to show irritation and impatience with Putin; once always late for official meetings, now he is the one who is forced to wait for even the once docile post-Soviet leaders. Asian customers are now buying Russian oil at deep discounts brought on by the Western embargo: a barrel of Urals oil is about $31 cheaper than benchmark Brent, the biggest difference since August. Russia’s reputation as a global power is at its lowest point since the post-Soviet period. A weak strong man is an oxymoron.
Ukraine’s Western allies also did everything in their power to stoke the fire under Russian strategists, who had refused to prepare grimly for a long defense of territory already captured. Ukraine has overcome one Western psychological barrier after another, most recently securing supplies of tanks. Now warplanes are not out of the question as Poland tries to break through this new level of Western involvement in the war. This increases the temptation for Gerasimov, the reckless planner of the failed initial attack on Ukraine, to act preemptively — and for Putin to approve such action.
Whether it will do so in the near future is another question.
Ukrainians have been warning for weeks that a major Russian offensive is coming. The latest such warning comes from the head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, who says Russia will attack near the anniversary of the invasion – simply because the Russian leadership is so thoroughly Soviet that everything they do is tied to significant dates. This notion is not based on the reality of the current conflict: there were repeated rumors that Putin would launch attacks on one anniversary or another, but the attacks never materialized. Ukrainian officials, however, have consistently used talk of an impending Russian offensive to boost their chances of prompt shipments of Western weapons and to try to sow panic in Russia, where a major military buildup would almost certainly mean a new wave of mobilization.
Russian military commanders seem to realize that they cannot start anything big with the forces at their disposal. In January, regular Russian units tried their luck with tactical offensives near Orichov in southern Zaporozhye Oblast and parts of Donetsk Oblast, but met with little success, encountering a strong second line of Ukrainian defenses. Without decisive air and infantry superiority, the Russian generals could hope for no more. However, air superiority is elusive and the Ukrainian military still has more boots on the ground than the Russian invasion force. The only Russian success in January – the capture of the salt-mining town of Soledar – was achieved by the private military company Wagner, which fed the prisoners it was allowed to recruit from the prison camps for brutal, bloody frontal attacks on Ukrainian fortifications and city blocks.
Putin’s “partial mobilization” decree from last September is still in effect, and while there is no public provision on the number of troops to be mobilized, it has a classified section that likely allows for multiple waves of calls. Those Russian men who did not escape or volunteer watched the news with alarm; a popular Android phone app called Mobilization 2023 even aggregates mobilization news and tips. So far, however, things have been quiet, with no recent reports of renewed recall efforts. This is surprising if a major offensive is in the immediate plans – but an irrational order by Putin to launch one with existing forces cannot be ruled out, especially given his past reluctance to worsen the domestic situation by committing too many men to arms .
Ukraine, for its part, is under more pressure than Russia to attack first. Danilov – he of Russian advance warnings – predicted on Facebook that 2023 would be the year of a Ukrainian offensive using newly delivered Western equipment. Ukraine simply cannot afford a protracted war. Each week of the war brings more devastation and each month millions of Ukrainian refugees in Europe settle further into their new lives. A full-scale mobilization campaign has been underway for months, and on paper at least, Ukraine’s human resource pool is far shallower than Russia’s. Western military aid is effectively dependent on further victories — Ukrainians can see this in the increased flow following their military successes in the fall of 2022. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s massive popularity is a limited resource, especially given recent corruption scandals. frontline forces expect a Ukrainian offensive soon. Pro-military Russian Telegram channels say the Ukrainians will try to invade Russia’s Belgorod region. Western military experts write about the need to liberate Crimea to minimize the risk of another war. This ambitious objective required a major southern offensive towards Melitopol and Mariupol to cut the “land bridge” from Russia to Crimea captured by the invaders at the start of the campaign. A successful Ukrainian push to the south would result in a blockade of the peninsula and perhaps make it unviable for Russia.
And yet any Ukrainian offensive would now run into freshly fortified Russian positions manned by more experienced soldiers. Since the attacker always risks greater casualties than the defender, Ukrainians need more security in the face of potential losses. As both sides accumulate resources to attack but hesitate to take the decisive step, the delicate balance of the field becomes increasingly unstable. Something, soon, will have to give.
More from Bloomberg Opinion:
• Forget “autonomy” — Europe needs the US: Andreas Kluth
• Western tanks will give Ukraine a fighting chance: editorial
• Sending “dumb” weapons from Israel to Ukraine is smart: James Stavridis
This column does not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Leonid Bershidsky, former Bloomberg Opinion columnist for Europe, is a member of Bloomberg News’ automation team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s 1984 and Franz Kafka’s The Trial.
More stories like this can be found at bloomberg.com/opinion
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