Since the beginning, the Ukraine war has taken a familiar shape for those who know a bit of history.
It is mostly static, fought in ruined buildings and trenches. The dominant weapon is artillery. And most attacks are depending on waves of infantry, with most of them repealed by the defender with tremendous losses for the attackers.
This is of course the pattern of WWI.
This makes it by definition an attrition war. The first one to run out of fighting capacity loses.
Fighting relies on 3 components, each absolutely vital to the continued war effort: men, equipment, and ammo. Whoever between Ukraine and Russia runs out of one of these first will lose the war.
Manpower
Russia
On the Russian side, manpower has been insufficient since the beginning. The Russian army has so far been mostly a sort of expeditionary force, only a fraction of the total available.
This has severely limited their ability to attack or even defend the existing frontline.
It has also given the absurd idea to Western observers/propaganda that Russia is “out of men”.
Really, a rather autocratic and nationalist country of 150 million people cannot find more than 250,000 soldiers? 0.16% of its total population? Even Wikipedia is aware of 2 MILLIONS reservists.
With the recent mobilization of 300,000 (with volunteers, likely really 400,000), Russia will solve its manpower issues for a period of time.
Ukraine
Ukraine on the other side has been from day 1 in total war mode. Losses have been denied to an absurd point. Despite Ukrainian forces performing regularly suicidal assaults on heavily defended positions against superior firepower. Reminiscence of the deadly and pointless massacre of the World War 1 assaults come to mind.
Just recently, the EU leadership let slip the real, horrendous casualty number. For a country of 35 million people (40 if including occupied regions, out of reach from a recruiting perspective):
20,000 civilians
100,000 officers
unknown number of non-officers. The tweet below speculates it might be as high as 200,000 soldiers. Not sure if that is true, but the term “officer” in Von der Leyen speech implies indeed more than 100,000 total casualties.
No matter the exact number, this seems to indicate Ukraine is on the way to, as a US Senator gleefully noticed, “fight to the last man”.
The EU later explained it was not an accurate number, and included also the wounded, not just the dead. Hard to tell if true, and even then, pretty atrocious casualty/injured numbers. Once again, this gives horrific echos of WWI losses.
Considering Russia's larger population, the advantage goes strongly to Russia here. At least as long as NATO armies don’t get involved directly.
Equipment
Russia
Hard to tell about the status of Russian equipment. Helicopters have been hammered, and so have tanks. Modern man-held guided missiles like Stinger and Javelin have blocked Russia from using its air and armor in any decisive way.
Reflecting the need for mass production of cheap tanks, it seems the production of the newest model, T-14, has just been stopped last month. The tank was anyway absent from Ukraine, probably to keep the limited existing number in reserves.
It is also likely that the manufacturing chain had not been properly prepared for sanctions, and the scramble for alternative supply has hampered production.
This in itself could explain Russian extreme caution for its losses. It preferred bad political optics like retreating from Kherson over losing equipment or men.
Ukraine
Because Ukraine has access de facto to most of the NATO arsenal, equipment is less of an issue. They seem for that matter to have been generous with it, conducting plenty of attacks with vehicles, even when playing defense would have probably been better.
Ukraine's leadership is stuck in a paradoxical situation. It needs to show progress to keep receiving vehicles and weapons. But said “progress” is paid for in blood and in the very equipment they need more of.
Still, NATO is to send tanks like French Leclerc, German Leopard, and American Abrahams. Overall, Ukraine has a solid advantage on equipment like armored vehicles, tanks and artillery.
What is more problematic is the lack of enough artillery in an artillery war. But let’s talk about it in the ammo section.
Ammo
At some point in the summer, Russia was firing up to 50,000 shells PER DAY.
Just look at the image below, it’s a pile of weapons that have hit Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city
We have been told by “analysts” that Russia was running out of ammo in a few weeks since the start of the war. It might be true one day, but so far, it is NATO that is running out first.
Most likely, Russia has ramped up its ammo production steadily since 2014, as its military doctrine has always been hyper-reliant on overwhelming artillery capacity. Analysts that could not forecast that should be fired and find a new job!
As far as you can trust pro-Russian accounts, it seems the heart of the issue is the artillery caliber 155mm, which is the backbone of both sides’ artillery forces. Recent deliveries to Ukraine have been paltry hundreds of shells when they would need thousands or tens of thousands.
The problem seems to be BOTH insufficient stockpiles and insufficient production. 800,000 shells got provided to Ukraine in total, which at a rate of 2,000-4,000 a day, represents 200-400 days of consumption.
The war has been going on for 284 days. So indeed, Ukraine would need a LOT more very soon.
The problem now is that it appears that one of the largest American defense companies, General Dynamics, is only able to produce 14,000 a month = 168,000 a year… So it would take a current rate almost five years to produce what Ukraine has consumed in a half year.
We can assume there is some other ammo plant in the UK or France able to help a little, but overall, we should expect Ukraine artillery fire to fall to the level of real-time supply of 170-250k shells per year.
Even being generous with these numbers, it would collapse the Ukrainian rate of fire from 3-4k/day to 700-1000/day. Against the 10,000-50,000 of Russia …
US Allies are even more poorly equipped in ammo stocks. This is publicly acknowledged by the Financial Times:
The same holds true for Stinger and Javelin missiles and high-precision ammo.
For example, Ukraine used at one point 500 Javelins per day. Production is 2,100 per YEAR.
Stinger production has fully stopped (the last order was 16 years ago) and will not restart before 2024, maybe 2026.
This is really nothing short of disastrous. The disillusion of F-35 and nukes making industrial capacity obsolete has left the West naked in case of a “real” war against a ready industrial power.
The Pentagon has more budget than the rest of the world’s military COMBINED, and it could only win against Iraq and get a draw against Afghanistan...
In addition, intense usage is causing donated artillery pieces to break down. The NY Times tells us a third of the artillery canons donated are broken and need to be repaired in a scrambled-up repair facility in Poland.
Would advanced tanks be sent, the same maintenance disaster should be expected and it has been explained as a large reason for not giving those to Ukraine in the first place.
This CNBC title resumes it well:
The ammo & maintenance situation makes me wonder if NATO can really sustain its support to Ukraine. No ammo makes guns and cannon donations pointless. Failure would be terrible for US and NATO's credibility.
If they cannot sustain an industrial war effort against Russia, a much smaller economy and population than the NATO bloc, what chance would they have against China, the “factory of the world”?
“NATO allies' low ammunition stocks are the results of decades of neglect and could even be called "irresponsible"
"The past two decades in the national defense of NATO allies have been very much focused on the out-of-area operations where the ammunition requirements are not as large, which has translated into very low ammunition stocks,"
Kusti Salm, Estonian Ministry of Defense's general secretary
Drone, power, and logistics
There will be later a full article on new drones and missile tech and how the implications go waaaay beyond Ukraine.
Still, this assessment would be incomplete if not mentioning the bombing campaign on infrastructure.
Russia is using ultra-cheap Iranian design drones (essentially Western tech reassembled cheaply), at 20-40K a piece.
Basically, a sort flying moped with just enough sensors to find its own location and fly blind toward predetermined coordinates. Perfect for unmoving targets like infrastructure.
Most of the air defense missiles used to intercept these drones cost more than their target. High precision is not needed to wreck power plants and transformers.
These are $20,000 bombs able to bypass $10M air defense to destroy $100M power plants and inflict billions in economic damages. Spending 20K to cause billions in losses is a powerful asymmetry.
The war started with $100k Javelin wrecking $10M defenseless Russian tanks. Russia seems to have learned to do the same trick by now.
Loss of electric power will greatly damage Ukraine's ability to use trains to bring troops, equipment, and ammo to the front line. It also puts a terrible strain on the population's living conditions.
This a escalation in the war I had correctly predicted in “Ukraine War 2.0”. I wish I had been wrong.
Ukraine War 3.0 will be equally nastier than the previous iteration.
Forecast
This was and still is a war of attrition. How could it play out?
Russia retreats
On one side, Russia is clearly on the back footing regarding equipment like canons, tanks, helicopters, and armored vehicles. It suffered large losses from Javelins & Stingers early in the war.
This is why it seems to be retreating a lot. Any sign of possible encirclement is a reason to leave a position. This is the right tactical move, preserving limited and precious resources. This goes against the popular but incorrect narrative of Russia sending its troops senselessly to a meat grinder.
Nevertheless, this is now an existential war for the Russian state.
“This war is an existential choice, because if we don’t win, we won’t lose it, we will simply cease to exist. There can be no defeat in this war, because they will simply crush us”
“Victory will unquestionably be ours, or we will cease to exist“
Dmitry Rogozin in an interview with RT/Russia Today
(former ambassador to NATO & deputy PM of Defense and Space Industry)
Any expectation of Russia accepting anything but unconditional surrender from Ukraine is wishful thinking. At best, leaving alone the whole Western part of the country is among Russia’s preferred choices.
It would also indicate that contrary to popular opinion, Russian military commanders are mostly free from political interference. I doubt withdrawal from Kherson, what many considered a humiliating defeat (including for virulent pro-Russians) is popular in the Kremlin.
Ukraine weakening
While Russia retreats and prepares for a long war, attrition in ammo supply could spell the end of any offensive capability for Ukraine. It is suicidal to attack a reinforced position with no manpower advantage and a 1 to 10 artillery ratio in the enemy advantage.
There is also the question of how long will the Ukrainian people support the war.
In WW1, the breaking point for Germany and Russia was not from soldiers on the frontline, but at the people and government level. One surrendered with humiliating conditions (the Versailles Treaty), and the other fell into a bloody civil war.
I imagine Ukraine can hold on for ONE freezing winter with no power. But several? How many people will stay and how many will become refugees in Western Europe, depleting even further the manpower pool?
Without enough ammo, I see no chance for a rapid reconquest. Especially with the 300,000 mobilized Russians now arriving at the front.
Lastly, Belarus is kept as a wild card ready to open a new front if needed. The two armies are now unifying under a common command and training together (follow the link for more details), likely in preparation for the case Belarus’ reinforcement becomes needed, with a standing army of 62,000 and 344,000 reservists. Mixed battalions will also be more reliable from Putin’s perspective.
NATO intervention?
One of the reasons NATO is struggling to deliver enough supply is the unwillingness of the Pentagon to weaken its own forces too much.
The question might turn at one point into this: what is most risky, appearing weak with a Ukrainian defeat or getting into direct conflict with Russia? And which one is more likely to trigger China's aggressive actions?
In addition, at which point do “volunteers” become “national army entering the conflict”? With already more than 1,200 Poles killed in Ukraine, at what number does Russia consider Poland as a direct participant in the conflict?
If the conflict turns direct, NATO could use the one crucial advantage against Russia: air power.
This would likely require tremendous losses for NATO air forces. After all, Russian air force and air defense is exactly designed for anti-air fighting, much more than for bombing like NATO’s is.
But overall, it could be possible for NATO to manage to destroy most Russian air defenses and start hammering the ground forces.
This a dangerous escalation, as it could trigger a nuclear response and/or an intervention from China to save its most critical supplier of food, energy, metal, military and space technologies.
Conclusion
The war is far from over, and far from clear which side will win it.
Russia might be unable to move forward, and keep retreating, but will remain a functional fighting force, losing a lot fewer men than Ukraine at each engagement.
In an attrition war, the most patient one might gain the advantage. Essentially losing battles but winning the war. And Russia is convinced that its survival is tied to the outcome of this war.
Ukraine's determination might fail from NATO's abysmal industrial failures and ridiculously short-sighted military planning.
As a result, by the day, NATO's direct involvement might become necessary for a Ukrainian victory, something that carries its own dramatic risks.
Basically completely agree with your articles 2.0 & 3.0? (Haven't yet read the1.00)
How likely do you think is NATO's direct involvement and therefore clear and open WW3?