If the flow of material from NATO stopped completely as of today, I think Russia could probably overwhelm Ukraine from strictly a military perspective in … maybe a year. More likely 18 months to two years.
My reasoning: Russia has literally millions of Cold-War era (and probably WWII-era) artillery shells, and their military doctrine for this conflict has devolved to their WWII “sweet spot”: Stay back and bomb the crap out of territory with shells, then move up and occupy the blasted land. Rinse and repeat. With no continued influx of war material, Ukraine wouldn’t be able to resist that military version of an unstoppable force.
However, there are several problems with that scenario:
NATO support is likely to increase as Russia moves west, not decrease. Several NATO countries (most notably Poland and Turkey, but others as well) will see the Russian advance more and more as an existential threat, and will ratchet up their support accordingly – especially as Russian artillery begins to move within striking range of their borders.
Russia’s economy will begin experiencing serious issues, if not collapse completely, if the war continues for that length of time. Many folks have complained about the myriad array of sanctions not having an effect yet, without understanding how such sanctions work. The monetary bite (freezing billions of dollars in foreign accounts) was immediate, but could be offset with fairly predictable moves by the Russian economic leaders. The long-term effects in areas like technology and infrastructure will take a little more time to be felt, but once they really start to kick in they’ll create a cascading effect, e.g. the lack of maintenance and repair material for Russia’s oil / gas industry will begin to significantly impact what the amount they can deliver to the few countries who would even consider buying it, which will further drive down their gross national product. Hyperinflation is a very real possibility in this scenario, which will be exacerbated by Russia’s inability to borrow money internationally (because they’ve defaulted on bond payments).
Along with the domestic economy, Russia’s military economy will fracture. Morale isn’t great right now among Russian soldiers anyway, but if the state begins to have issues with paying them (or their families), desertion – and, one hopes, open rebellion – in some areas will seriously degrade their ability to wage war.
Insurgency in occupied Ukrainian lands will grow. Not only will this cause logistics issues for Russia, it will also impact their ability to continue their advance. Soldiers who have to patrol and guard key military sites / equipment in rear areas are soldiers who can’t be used at the front. Not to mention the debilitating effect such guerilla tactics have on morale.
Russia cannot maintain its fiction that things with the war are “going according to plan” domestically as the scale of their losses becomes more and more apparent over time. Russia has simply stopped reporting the number of troops killed or wounded, and the amount of equipment it has lost, to its residents. This subterfuge can be maintained for some time, but even now cracks are beginning to show in this approach. As more and more Russians are killed – and as Ukraine begins some limited counterattacks in the south – the ability of the Kremlin to maintain their fictional view of the war within Russia will be lessened, if not entirely broken.
Russia’s status as a major exporter of military hardware is going to nosedive. Leading purchasers of Russian weapons (notably India, and to some extent China) have seen how poorly the equipment has fared. Future orders for such items (particularly jets and other high-ticket weapons) will be negatively impacted – creating further disruption in the Russian economy.
Russia is bleeding assets and skilled labor. Ukraine is being fed better equipment from sources that are better funded. Chechnya may enter the fray on a second front.
I don’t think Russia can sustain this into Winter.
UK armed forces minister James Heappey and Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Volodymyr Havrylov have visited the soldiers and sailors training…in Scotland, the MoD said.
Mr Heappey said: "The intensity with which the Ukrainian soldiers and sailors are training is something to behold.
“They work with the focus of troops who know they’ll be fighting in a war in just a few short weeks’ time.”
Ignore that this is Fox, it’s a good analysis of the new developments in Chechnya and the potential impact on Ukraine.
The short version is, Chechens have been chafing under Russian rule forever, with simmering tensions breaking into periodic warfare over the decades, and Russian soldiers brutally stomping out any resistance. At the moment a Putin-approved strongman is in charge (the son of the original strongman appointed by Putin), and the resistance has retreated to the fringes. But some of the Russian-backed military that was holding the status quo has been shifted to Ukraine, and the resistance leader is saying he’ll take advantage of this as an opportunity to attack the Russian puppet government. Some analysts think this may be something like a feint, that it’s intended to distract Moscow and force them to bring their Chechen fighters back home to keep the peace, making the fight easier for Ukraine, with a Russian loss there ultimately destabilizing Putin’s regime and serving the interest of Chechen independence in the long run. But if Moscow doesn’t take that bait, the Chechen resistance could make good on the bluff and attack the weakened puppet government, creating a second huge headache for Putin.
Grain deal sounds promising. The checks and monitoring will be cumbersome at first. It should quickly become routine.
I see they’ve agreed the ports loading grain won’t be targeted. But Ukraine has to get the grain to the port. The crop has to be harvested and shipped. None of that route is protected.
I expect that Russia will try to get maps of the corridor through the minefields.
“This is all you have to know about “agreements” with the Russians. Explosions in the seaport of #Odesa. One day after the agreement with #Turkey and #UN was signed re export of #Ukraine’s #grain under which #Russia has committed not to shell the port,” Ukrainian parliament member Solomiia Bobrovska tweeted…
“That’s all you need to know about deals with Russia,” Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas added on Twitter.
You have to wonder how much a diplomatic arrangement with Russia means to anyone outside the Russian foreign service. I’m pretty sure the military forces give zero fucks. Nothing changes on the ground until the order is given, and I don’t see Putin being in any hurry.
Russia isn’t even smart about it. I thought they’d bomb the crap out of the trains and highways carrying grain and still follow the agreement. Don’t bomb the ports.
They’re too stupid to use their own negotiated loophole.
Unless it’s some attempt to play 4D chess by Putin I suspect this just highlights the poor discipline and awful communication within the Russian armed service.
Based on the resignation letter from Boris Bondarev, the Russian diplomat who resigns in May, my guess is that not even their own diplomats think their arrangements mean anything.
According to Voice of America, there are reports the Kremlin has ordered an internal review of its diplomatic corps and has a list of “questionables”. VoA cautions it has not been able to confirm that report:
He’s playing Russian Oligarch except that only works within Russian borders. The might of his military is primarily nuclear. The amount of money consumed by mega weapons has left him with a combination of large numbers of outdated equipment and a handful of high-tech assets that can’t easily be replaced. With the sanctions against Russia the time to replace those assets will take longer. In short, time is against Putin and an army of cannon fodder new recruits.
Every day that passes he loses good assets he can’t replace against an enemy that is getting newer/better precision assets with better range. At some point Ukraine will establish control of the skies that is sufficient to deny Russian troops any coverage and that will be the end of it.
It’s crazy how effective they are considering how few we sent. Last I saw (a week ago?) we had promised to send another four to raise the total from 12 to 16.
I wonder how many HIMARS are in the US arsenal. Do other countries make them?
Ukraine has received some M270 MLRS units from the UK and others as well. The M270 is the precursor to HIMARS. It has double the rocket capacity (uses all the same ammo types) but is tracked and somewhat slower. Still has a max speed of 64km/h, though, so not immobile by any stretch.