Weekend Update #150: Range, Range, Range

Also: Russia Attacks Poland; The USA Unilaterally Ends Some Sanctions

Hi All,

Well, here we are at weekend update 150. I never could have imagined that when these updates were moved to Substack in November 2022 that I would still be writing them 150 weeks later. Its a sign of my errors in one way, I always believed that eventually Ukraine’s supporters in the USA and Europe would understand that defeating Putin’s Russia is very much in their own interest and would have aided Ukraine to do that (which they have had ample opportunity to do that). They clearly do not.

One of the key things that I thought/hoped (mistakenly as it turns out) that they would do is provide Ukraine with a real range advantage that would allow the Ukrainians to launch both attacks against Russian command and control and military logistics—so that the Ukrainians would not have to batter their heads against the wall by directly attacking Russian fortifications.

When it was shown that these hopes were mistaken, I wrote one of my first midweek Substacks, in March 2023, on the need to give Ukraine greater ranged capacity. The war was already bogging down at the front line and it was becoming increasingly difficult to mass vehicles. It was therefore imperative that Ukraine was given the ranged capacity to engage Russia at depth.

Though it was only over a year ago—many analysts were raving about the ability of the Russian army to supposedly move quickly, to overwhelm the Ukrainians with their mechanized forces and swiftly seize Eastern Ukraine. Since then Russian abilities to advance have grown smaller and smaller. Indeed for the last six months, the Russians have had to switch tactics to infantry heavy assaults, using groups of soldiers using foot-power to move forward, to take small bit after small bit of the front line. They seem to be unable to build up the mechanized forces near the front to do anything like a breakthrough and exploitation.

If the war has shown the enormous impact that giving Ukraine a small range and accuracy advantage can have, imagine how much more effective the Ukrainians could be if they had a larger one. That, however, seems something that the United States and major NATO powers seem unwilling to give it. Instead, much of the increases in military aid that has been offered to Ukraine over the last few months is shorter range systems, from Leopard tanks, to Bradley Fighting vehicles and even more self-propelled artillery. In other words, weapons that will be most likely to be used in a direct assault in Russian forces, and not weapons that will be effective in severing Russian communications.

Of course, the USA and major European states did not want Ukraine to have such an advantage, and so slow-walked ranged capacity to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians, however, decided that if they were not going to be helped to fight the war they needed to fight, that they would develop the capacity for themselves. Its taken years, but more and more they are showing that they have a plan to engage the Russians at range in strategically effective ways. Its a question now if they can develop enough effective systems and deploy them in mass—for they showed this week that their thinking is far more sophisticated than that of most of their NATO supporters.

Also, the Russians attacked Poland this week, and NATO’s response shows how the alliance is helping the Russians more than people realize. And finally, in a shockingly under-reported story, the US started unilaterally lifting sanctions on Putin (through Belarus) while throwing up roadblocks on any more sanctions on Russia. Trump is maneuvering with some skill to assist the Russian war effort now.

The USA Lifted Some Sanctions That Were Hurting Russia This Week—Though You Might Have Missed It.

Range, Range Range

Instead of jumping into the latest Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s energy system (the most important of which happened last night) I thought it would be more interesting to start with this attack on Russian command and control (C2) which occurred in Donetsk (here is a detailed story). This was not an attack on strategic depth like Russian oil production in Russia itself, but it was a ranged attack to cause a temporary debilitating effect on Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

As I’m sure most of you know, for more than 13 months (amazingly) the Russians have been trying to take the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Most western analysts said it was bound to fall either sometime between last September and November, and when it did fall it would be a major strategic blow by Russia against Ukraine.

Of course they were wrong on all counts. What we have seen is the Russians constantly build up new forces and throw them at Pokrovsk, making their small and bloody advances, but not take the town. The Ukrainians have engaged different tactics to disrupt these build ups, and last week they employed one of their most effective.

Using good intelligence, they tracked down a concentration of Russian C2 in Donetsk as part of the continual Russian build up. The Ukrainians then used homegrown systems to launch a coordinated attack on the concentration, killing many Russian officers and having a significant, if short term, impact on the Russian ability to organize their forces.

Area of Ukrainian Attack—from this article

This kind of attack is very important, not just for Ukrainian defense, but also for the time if/when they want to go back on the offensive. As I’ve said repeatedly, I would avoid any offensive action until Russian military capabilities have been seriously degraded through strategic airpower and logistics attacks. That could take a long while. But at some point, the Ukrainians might want to take the initiative again.

If they are to do that, at the start the operation they are going to want to cripple Russian C2 as part of the opening blows. Neutralizing C2 will keep the Russians from reacting quickly, giving the offensive forces time to shape the battlefield in the way they want. So seeing these attacks shows just how the Ukrainians are thinking—and its confirmation of their strategic and tactical sophistication.

Of course there were not just these C2 attacks this week, there were, especially yesterday, reports that the Ukrainian strategic air campaign was ongoing. The most important happened in just the last few hours. There were reports that the large Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Ufa was hit, and that fires had broken out. This refinery is approximately 1400 kilometres from the front line—so a whole different kettle of fish from the attacks on Donetsk. Just before this, reports came in that the Ukrainians had attacked Russia’s largest oil terminal, just outside of St Petersburg. This is the Primorsk facility, which is quite close to the Finnish border—thousands of kilometres from Ufa. Here is a map for comparison (note the closest map town to Primorsk is Viborg, a few kilometres away, so I put a box near there.

Now, we do not have any damage estimates yet and reliable ones will not come in for a while. My guess is that both facilities will be reparable in the short term, so the Ukrainians are going to have to come back repeatedly to hit them. But the good thing is that it shows that the campaign against Russian energy is continuing. Its now been six weeks since it started, and new targets are being added to the list.

Btw, the Primorsk attack shows some very important strategic thinking. Even if Russia can pump and refine oil, if it cant ship it out to customers its of little value (even a net negative for a while as it will need to be stored). So destroying distribution is in many ways as good, if not better, than destroying production.

So, the war is being more and more determined by ranged fires—and with the land war actually changing more slowly (another weak of the smallest of alterations) keep your focus here for a while.

Russia Attacks Poland

Of course the Russians kept up their own ranged campaign against Ukraine this week—launching one of their largest attacks of the war. As part of this attack a small number of Russian systems were also deliberately aimed at Poland—around 20 out of an attack force nearing 600. This map put out by the Ukrainians gives you some idea of what happened—the Polish attack is in the upper left and in a red box.

I wrote this piece a few hours after the attack started (its free).

NATO States Have Failed

Since then I think we can amplify a few points and add others. First, the attack was definitely deliberate—when I wrote that piece it was being stated that only 10 or so systems were involved—not its double that. Even with a high misfire rate, that is a number that would be almost impossible to see misfire.

Moreover, there remains the question that all of these systems went into Poland, and not Russia’s allies in Slovakia and Hungary (more on them below). And the fact that many of the systems were unarmed decoys also leads credence to the idea that this was deliberate. Russia does not want a war with NATO, however it wants to intimidate European states—and such a deliberate attack with decoys makes that point well.

Russia is saying you could not handle a small attack just with decoys; imagine being confronted with 500-600 armed drones nightly? That is what Ukraine is dealing with now.

And frankly, the Russians proved their point. NATO failed in this operation. It used incredibly expensive systems to shoot down only a small number of these drones, and moreover the Russians also impressed on the Europeans that the USA is not going to defend them. It was notable that neither did the US play a role in repelling the attack, nor has the USA played a role in beefing up air defense in the region afterwards.

Indeed, the US Supreme Commander of NATO forces (SACEUR), General Alexus Grynkewich, was left putting lipstick on a pig when discussing at a news conference whether the USA had played any role defending Poland or was going to increase its commitment to its NATO allies under attack. He had to say no, nothing had been done and nothing else was coming and he was left saying that he as SACEUR would be the sign of US commitment.

As far as US military assets. I'm right here, and I'm involved. And the United States commitment to the integrated military structure of the Alliance remains. For kinetic assets, the other day, there were not any. This is a function of the rotation of forces that we have to our different missions around the Alliance, though, and simply a matter of scheduling, more than anything else. As we look forward to your question on more details on the size and scope,…

And that press conference was a further sign of how NATO is continuing to fail. Secretary General Mark Rutte spoke about how this attack showed that NATO would defend every “inch” of NATO territory.

We have air defences – ground, sea, and air-based systems. Here, too, with contributions from Allies across Europe and North America working together every day. To ensure that we are prepared and ready to defend every inch of Allied territory.

And what happened the next time a Russian UAV overflew an inch of NATO territory you might ask? While that happened yesterday when a Russian drone crossed into Rumania, and guess what? NATO scrambled jets, could have shot the drone down, but allowed it to fly over NATO territory for 5o minutes, escorted it back to Ukrainian air space—and giving it another chance to kill Ukrainians (courtesy of NATO).

Its hard to think of a more decrepit response after this week’s attacks on Poland. NATO cannot only not defend its own airspace efficiently, its acting as an escort to Russian drones who use NATO airspace to attack Ukraine.

How is that not failure?

The USA Unilaterally Ends Some Sanctions

Trump has been itching to get back to business with Putin, and this week in a move that did not get nearly the coverage it deserved, he started to do just that. The USA unilaterally (so much for cooperation with its European allies) lifted airline sanctions on the Belarus national carrier Belavia. This should allow not only for the resumption of flights, but the importance of vital aircraft parts into Belarus. And Belarus is not an indepedent country—it is a Russian client state. Russia, btw, is desperate for airline parts as its own fleet of aircraft is getting increasingly decrepit.

The USA Getting Back To Business With Russia—Through Belarus

And this is just the start. The US special representative to Belarus, John Cole, as part of the lifting of these sanctions, said the US goal was to fully “normalize” relations between America and Belarus. When that happens, btw, it will lead to basically a full scale trading front door between the USA and Russia—and that is now stated US government policy.

At the same time that the US was actively ending some sanctions that were hurting Russia, Trump was throwing up some serious roadblocks on putting new sanctions on Putin. In a truly weird tweet Trump said once again that there would no new sanctions on Putin unless a condition were met—in this case a condition that will never be met. Here was the tweet.

The NATO mention is the great tell. That means not only does Slovakia and Hungary need to agree to not buy Russian oil (they are the biggest consumers of Russian oil in Europe) but Turkey must as well. Turkey is, I believe, the third biggest consumer of Russian oil in the world—and will not jeopardize.

Had Trump said the EU needed to make this move, then the EU could have acted and hoisted him on its own petard (and its a disgrace that European states are still buying oil and energy from Russia). However by saying NATO, he basically makes a European response irrelevant, as Turkey must be involved—and it never will be.

So what do we have this week? Trump ends sanctions that are hurting Russia and creates impossible conditions to add new sanctions that would help Ukraine.

On—and blaming the war on Biden and Zelensky is a nice “show” as well. Not only is he protecting and helping Putin (in a week during which the Russians attacked NATO) he will not even blame Putin for starting the war.

When I wrote that democratic states now must organize because the USA is a threat to their freedoms—I meant it.

A Strategy For Democratic Survival--And Fightback

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.