Earlier this month, the U.S. intelligence community gave its assessment of the war in Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict, during which he still intends to achieve strategic goals beyond seizing the country’s southeastern Donbas region.
This assessment, announced by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines during congressional testimony May 10, is based on two main factors: One, the conflict is transforming into a grinding war of attrition, with both Moscow and Kyiv believing they can continue making military gains, but with no clear winner likely to emerge in the near future. Two, Washington believes that Putin’s strategic goals have probably not changed, suggesting he regards his decision in late March to refocus forces on Donbas as only a temporary shift to regain the initiative after the Russian military’s failure to quickly capture Kyiv and prevent the United States and NATO from providing meaningful military aid to Ukraine.
While Russia has made slight progress in Donbas, the line of control has hardly moved and the Kremlin’s campaign has largely stalled. According to Haines, this means that Putin is facing a “mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities” that will likely see the conflict move in a “more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory” over the coming months.
A prolonged war of attrition could see Putin resort to more drastic measures, particularly if he feels Russia is losing the conflict or his own government is coming under threat. Although the risk is low, such a trajectory could see a cornered Russian government deploy tactical nuclear weapons to offset military weaknesses.
Lessons learned from 2014
There are various reasons for the slow, grinding nature of the current phase of the war.
First, the Russians were met with more resistance from Ukraine than they expected. According to Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for Military Aerospace Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Ukrainian forces have put up an unexpectedly resolute and effective defense, significantly delaying the advance of Russian forces and inflicting a heavy toll on their armored units.
“Ukraine appears to have learned lessons from 2014 when its ground forces struggled to cope with Russia’s ‘covert’ involvement in the Donbas,” Barrie said. For instance, Ukrainian troops appear to be using small-unit tactics to avoid giving Russian forces large targets of concentrated units. They have also fortified their defensive positions, including through the use of extensive trench systems and fortified revetments.
Ukrainian Air Force fighters and missile defenses have also contributed by denying Russia air superiority and the ability to fully exploit its air force, noted the expert. This has been an important factor in halting the Russian advance as air superiority is often considered essential for a military campaign to succeed.
If Moscow were to gain control of the skies, that would enable Russian fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters to support the Russian campaign in the Donbas region. It would also enable Russia to deploy more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft over other parts of Ukraine and increase its ability to identify and attack supply lines, convoys, and storage areas that are vital for Ukraine’s defense.
Moreover, Kyiv’s success in attacking Russian Navy ships has hampered Moscow and dealt an operational and symbolic blow to its Black Sea Fleet.
International support for Ukraine
Another important factor in Ukraine’s robust resistance has been the comprehensive international campaign to prevent a Russian victory. These efforts have spanned diplomacy, economic sanctions, intelligence sharing, military training and the provision of weapons, military platforms and other key supplies, both civilian and military.
According to Ben Barry, a senior IISS fellow for land warfare, the U.S. and U.K. are playing a leading role in an informal coalition supplying Kyiv with hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and ammunition. “This depends on successful transfer which presumably occurs on Ukraine’s western border. Reports also point to Ukrainian military and civilian transport aircraft flying all over Europe to collect supplies,” Barry wrote in an analysis published in April.
Of particular importance have been man-portable systems such as the NLAW and Javelin anti-armor weapons and FIM-92 Stinger air-defense systems. The West is also supplying both Soviet-built and Western equipment such as heavy artillery, tactical drones, small arms, body armor sets, tanks, and other armored vehicles to Ukraine in an effort to blunt Russia’s advance.
Moscow has likely used a combination of signals intelligence, reconnaissance satellites, long-range drones, special forces, agents, and informers in attempts to detect and disrupt this effort, Barry wrote, adding that these factors have likely driven missile attacks on barracks, ammunition bunkers and fuel installations in eastern Ukraine.
Actionable intelligence
Another important aspect is that the U.S. is reportedly providing real-time, actionable intelligence to help the Ukrainian military select high-value targets, such as the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva, which was sunk on April 14.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby has not formally confirmed that the U.S. provided intelligence on the Moskva but acknowledged that Washington is providing Ukraine “with information and intelligence that they can use to defend themselves.”
Samuel Cranny-Evans, a military analyst at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said U.S. intelligence appears to also have been pivotal in Ukrainian efforts to target Russian officers. “The U.S. would not confirm how many officers have been killed because of their intelligence, but they did state that it had been provided in the lead-up to the war and that it had also been used to indicate the Russian war plans in Donbas ahead of time so that the Ukrainians could anticipate and prepare for it.”
Cranny-Evans argues that this development shows that, in modern warfare, it has become almost impossible to achieve strategic surprise against an opponent with capable electronic intelligence resources.
Through satellites, both commercial and military, as well as electronic intelligence gathered by surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, the U.S. and its partners have been able to “build a good picture of what the Russians are trying to do, intercept their communications, and provide intelligence at a very high, granular level, meaning that that information and operations can be disrupted,” Cranny-Evans noted.
Low morale, reduced combat effectiveness
While Ukraine’s fierce resistance and Western support have played a key role in the war, so has the poor performance of the Russian armed forces, which have revealed a number of significant internal challenges that have forced them to adjust their initial military objectives.
“Russia’s expectation of a very short war, its poor execution of the initial unrealistic plan, and lack of an immediate backup plan when its initial plan failed, have all contributed to prolonging the war,” Barrie said.
Barrie noted that the combination of inadequate tactics as well as poor intelligence and logistics have led to greater equipment losses numerically for the invader than the defending force, hampering Russian advances.
Logistical problems were also critical for Russia’s inability to gain momentum and achieve its aims during the first few weeks of the war, according to Cynthia Cook, senior fellow and director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Long, fast pushes, which stretched Russia’s supply lines, meant that forward-deployed units had neither adequate force protection nor key supplies such as fuel and food. Moreover, older, less well-maintained equipment did not perform well, as evidenced by the many pictures of broken-down Russian vehicles abandoned by the roadside.” These issues were likely compounded by the lack of professional noncommissioned officers, as the conscripted troops did not have the necessary experience and leadership to troubleshoot problems, Cook said.
Heavy losses
According to a May 15 intelligence update by the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence, Russia’s Donbas offensive has “lost momentum and fallen significantly behind schedule.”
Despite small-scale initial advances, Moscow has “failed to achieve substantial territorial gains over the past month whilst sustaining consistently high levels of attrition,” the ministry said, noting that Russia “has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February.”
The update also said that Russian forces are increasingly constrained by continued low morale, reduced combat effectiveness, and “degraded enabling capabilities,” such as bridging equipment and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drones. Many of these capabilities, it said, cannot be quickly replaced or reconstituted and are likely to continue to hinder operations in Ukraine.
“At this stage, both sides are seeking to inflict punishment and pain on each other, striving to frustrate the opponent’s military strategies and convert military success into potential leverage in the peace talks,” Barry said.
He said Ukraine’s anti-armor and anti-air capabilities will be vital to repelling Russian ground attacks in these regions, as will any capacity that provides counter battery fire against Russian tube and rocket artillery. Given the recent likely utilization rates, recapitalizing Ukraine’s inventory of man-portable anti-tank and point-defense systems is therefore an immediate priority for Western allies, he added.
U.K.-based defense consultant Peter Felstead said Ukraine's Western allies have become increasingly conducive to supplying Kyiv with weapon systems — and not only those that are purely defensive in nature. “If the conflict drags on into one of attrition, Ukraine's war materiel will be replenished, while Russia's can only be depleted without foreign support, which could indeed lead Putin to adopt more radical measures,” he said.
A renewed push?
According to Haines, the next month or two of fighting will be significant, as the Russians will attempt to reinvigorate their efforts in Donbas. The U.S. intelligence chief assessed that Putin’s current near-term military objectives are to capture the two oblasts (administrative divisions) in Luhansk and Donetsk with a buffer zone, as well as encircle and crush Ukrainian forces that are fighting to hold the line in the east.
The Kremlin will also try to consolidate control of the land bridge Russia has established from Crimea to the Donbas region, after having occupied the southern city of Kherson and captured a vital canal supplying water to Crimea, she said.
Haines said there are also indications the Russian military might want to extend the land bridge to Transnistria – a Russian-backed region of Moldova – to control all of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. Cook said this would be especially problematic for Ukrainian exports of commodities like wheat, where shipping is the most cost-effective option.
While Russian forces may be capable of achieving most of these near-term goals in the coming months, “we believe they will not be able to extend control over a land bridge that stretches to Transnistria without launching some form of mobilization,” Haines said.
She also said it is “increasingly unlikely” that Moscow will be able to establish control over both oblasts and the buffer zones it desires over the coming weeks; an assessment that appears to be shared by London. “Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days,” the U.K. Defence Ministry said.
In fact, the latest intelligence from Washington and London suggests Russia might have to narrow its objectives after all. With Ukrainian units even reaching the Russian border north of Kharkiv, Moscow simply does not have enough units to accomplish the goals it had even a few weeks ago, Felstead said. “The land bridge to Crimea might now be difficult to secure and Russia might reduce its goals to taking what constitutes the Luhansk Oblast/administrative region,” he added.
Likely flashpoints
On May 13, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, for the first time since Feb. 18, urging an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Austin’s plea, however, is likely to fall on deaf ears.
The U.S. intelligence community believes that Putin thinks Russia has a greater ability and willingness to endure challenges than his adversaries, and that he is probably counting on U.S. and E.U. resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy prices worsen.
The most likely flashpoints for escalation over the coming weeks could involve increasing Russian attempts to impede Western military assistance and retaliate against economic sanctions. The West could also escalate threats against Putin’s government.
Russian warnings over bids by Finland and Sweden to join NATO could play a role in escalating the conflict. Russia had said attempts to join NATO would be a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences and that the Nordic countries should not assume that Moscow will not respond. The two countries formally submitted their bids to join the alliance on Wednesday.
The nuclear option
Should the conflict drag on, Haines believes that Putin could resort to more drastic measures, including imposing martial law, reorienting industrial production or escalatory military production to free up the resources needed to accomplish his objectives.
Moreover, Moscow is likely to continue to use nuclear rhetoric — and possibly conduct military exercises featuring nuclear-capable assets — to deter the U.S. and its allies from increasing the provision of lethal aid to Ukraine.
Commenting on whether Putin would follow through on these nuclear threats, Haines said the Russian president would probably only authorize the use of such weapons “if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime.”
Matthew Kroenig, the Atlantic Council’s director of studies and a nuclear strategy expert, said that Moscow’s military strategy is to threaten and, if necessary, use nuclear weapons to offset Russia’s conventional military weaknesses.
“While the risk is low, using a nuclear weapon is more attractive for Putin than losing this war in a humiliating fashion,” he said.
And the longer the war drags on, the greater the risk of a miscalculation with unforeseen consequences.
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