Weekend Update #75: The Russian Campaign to Kill Kharkiv
Also: Johnson delays (again), An impending Russian offensive?
Hi All,
There has been a great deal happening in and out of Ukraine this week—so I will try to cover a number of different topics this week. However, the continuing Russian campaign against Kharkiv might be the most poignant, as it reveals a great deal of why Europe needs to make sure Ukraine wins. It also reveals the hollowness underlaying the US policy that Ukraine should not make attacks into Russia.
The Russian Campaign to Kill Kharkiv
Its been apparent for a few weeks now that one of the highest priority campaigns that the Russians have been waging has been to make Kharkiv basically unlivable. For those who dont know much about Kharkiv it was the second largest city in Ukraine, with a population of almost 1.5 million before the full scale invasion. (I dont know what the population of Kharkiv is now—so it might be that Lviv has passed it in population). Its also supposedly a beautiful city and, along with Mariupol, was arguably the Ukrainian city with the greatest ties to Russia. And. like with Mariupol, having ties to Russia means nothing to Putin, as he is trying to destroy it as a habitable place.
Kharkiv is also very close to the Ukrainian border with Russia, which makes it realtively easy for Russia to attack. Here is a map which includes Kharkiv and the Russian city of Belgorod (and a distance indicator). Its about 20 kilometres from the border to Kharkiv.
Now Kharkiv was an original target of the Russian ground invasion, but the Russians were never able to take the city. Since then, the Russians have bombarded Kharkiv regularly, but what they have done in the last few weeks has revealed something much more deliberate.
The first thing the Russians did, a few weeks ago, was devastate the power system of the city. In, unfortunately, one of the most well planned Russian strategic operations of the war, the Russians both seemed to draw as much Ukrainian air defense as possible to Kyiv, then spread the rest out around the country with a series of attacks. And then, when they had basically reduced Kharkiv’s air defence to as small as possible, they launched a mass attack against Kharkiv’s power.
From what has been said by Ukrainian sources, they basically destroyed most of the power generation close to Kharkiv—and they actually plunged the whole city into darkness for a while. According to Kharkiv’s mayor, the Russians destroyed a thermal power plant and all the electrical substations in the city. It means that from now on Kharkiv’s power (and heat) are in constant peril and with the limited ability of Ukraine to build a whole new power generating system around the city in the middle of war, its going to remain that way
(The only bright spot in this situation is that the Russians were unable to wreak such damage until the end of winter—had it been in September/October, the situation would be more bleak.)
Having decimated the power system, Russia is now trying to terrorize the population of Kharkiv by killing civilians and destroying support services. This was shown in all its brutality two days, when it was revealed that the Russians had executed a double tap operation to kill Ukrainian rescue operators. A double tap operation means that you hit a target and cause a response by emergency services. Then you follow up a while later (in this case it was around 30-45 minutes) to try and destroy the support services who leapt into action after the first attack.
And this will be the future of Kharkiv—unless Ukraine is armed to push Russian attack options further back from the border. Kharkiv reveals the ludicrous and unworkable nature of the Biden Administration’s policy of arguing against Ukraine striking targets in Russia. The flight time from the Russian border to Kharkiv can be measured in seconds for some of the fastest Russian systems, and just a few minutes for relatively slow systems like Shaheds. Using the earlier max speed of a Shahed of 185 kms per hour (there are reports now that the Russians have increased the max speed) means it would take about 6-7 minutes for a Shahed to move from the border to Kharkiv. Assuming the Russians attack in mass, it will be extremely difficult for the Ukrainians to ever shoot the down if they wait until they are over Ukrainian air space. For instance, if the Ukrainians stationed anti-air capabilities close to the border to give them maximum time to engage targets, they will leave them more exposed to Russian fire.
Moreover, the Russians can fire almost anything from within Russia itself and hit Kharkiv. Stories from this week have described how Russia seems to be using extremely powerful glide bombs to now hit Kharkiv. These bombs make up from a lack of great accuracy by being extremely destructive, and thus would be a perfect weapon to terrify a civilian population.
So Ukraine will either have to be able to try and strike Russian systems at launch or in flight over Russia (or indeed in their place of production in Russia) if they are going to adequately protect their second city. The only other option will probably be to move out a significant part of the population of the city. So US policy, if followed, might lead to the sacrificing of Kharkiv as a living place.
This, btw, is the kind of message that Europe needs to listen to repeatedly. What is happening to Kharkiv could be repeated with any city close to a Russian occupied border. If the Russians could do it to the most “Russian” of Ukraine’s cities, they would not hesitate to do it to others.
Johnson delays (again)
The only real question left to be answered about aid to Ukraine and the US House of Representatives is whether Speaker Johnson is a coward or a dissembler. Just two days ago, after dropping hints for a while in public and private that aid to Ukraine would soon receive a new vote in the House, Johnson (once again) sought delay. In a maneuver that the word shameless cannot do justice to, the Speaker, having first asked for Ukraine aid to be bundled with border changes, then decided to separate the two, decided to once again say that Ukraine aid cant be approved without more concessions by the Biden administration on the border. His exact words were.
“Any funding of the President’s supplemental request should be premised on meaningful policy … at our southern border.”
Its a transparent attempt to delay any vote. There is not going to be another major negotiation session with the White House and Senate on this—and it might indeed spell the end of any attempt for the Congress to approve aid to Ukraine before the November election.
At that might very well be the point of all of this. Perhaps Johnson was always planning on more delay. As such, he sent out the earlier signals that he would soon have a vote to string along Ukraine supporters (and make a discharge petition less attractive). However, all the while he might have been planning to delay a vote when the time came. As it is, there is no vote scheduled on any aid bill for Ukraine, not timeline to consider a vote, and no plan to negotiate a new bill. Either Johnson will have to backtrack again and drop his new red line—or aid to Ukraine is dead.
It also points out that it is always unwise to think the Republican Party has the ability to do anything but serve Donald Trump. Trump doesnt want aid to Ukraine under any circumstance, and that is the reality. The only way to get aid to Ukraine is to defeat Trump.
Btw, like with Kharkiv, this has to be another clarion call to Europe. The USA remains unreliable as a defense partner. Right now the US government is being manipulated by a pro-Putin wing of the Republican Party, and after the November election this could get 10 times worse. European states need to plan on supporting Ukraine on their own—the US cannot be relied upon. Its no longer a contingency to plan for—its the reality.
The next Russian offensive
There were a number of mentions this week about the Russians starting to accumulate force for their next large offensive. There was one story saying that the large offensive could come in August. Another statement by Ukrainian authorities was that a large Russian offensive could come as early as May/June and even that it might be directed towards Kharkiv.
It only makes sense. With the cutoff of US aid, Ukraine really has no scope to consider offensive operations at present. President Zelensky has come out and said that Ukraine does not have the material to go on the offensive, and its no surprise that what Ukraine has been spending alot of effort on lately is strengthening its defensive lines.
All this war has shown is that if Russia decides it wants to continue to make large attacks—that is probably not a bad thing for Ukraine. Its noticeable how dangerous it is to go on the offensive. For the last month, for instance, Russia has been on the offensive, and photographed losses for the Russians have been running at 3-1 compared to that of Ukrainians.
This week, if there needed any evidence, once again showed how hard it is for the attacker to move forward. The Russians in this case actually tried a number of times to launch large vehicle-led assaults in a number of places across the line. The result, as was seen in this Russian assault near Avdiivka, hsa been the heavy loss of armored vehicles.
The results of these assaults were basically what we have come to expect. Even with their reduced firepower, the Ukrainians were able to disable enough of the tanks and APCs to make the assaults break apart. In some cases only a relatively small amount of defensive firepower was needed to stymie them. There has also been some interesting footage released of a Russian armored column being very quickly decimated by cluster munition fire.
If the Russians are going to break this pattern, they are going to have to have a massive numerical advantage and attack where Ukraine is particularly weak. Otherwise, it will be very much in Ukraine’s interest for Russia to attack and risk the higher losses.
As it is clear that Ukraine will not be going on the offensive anytime soon—maybe for all of 2024. US aid being cut off means that Ukraine will have enough to do holding their defensive positions, rather than planning offensives that can accelerate Ukrainian losses. As such, Ukraine will want to use 2024 to attrit Russian forces as much as possible, and that is a process that will be greatly accelerated by Russian offensives.
So, having the Russians attack is probably a good thing for Ukraine. Particularly if they are relying with hastily trained soldiers with refurbished military equipment.
Have a good rest of the weekend.
Targeting civilians, and double tapping first responders is a Russian tactic a Christian like MJ should be rushing to defeat, not running and hiding from.
Thanks for this very sobering assessment. My heart goes out to all those valiant and resilient people still in Kharkiv. It seems now that we shall have to say goodbye to any US aid and hope that Europe can get its act together - and fast ! From what I hear and read, the message is finally getting through. The only question now is how quickly the Czech initiative, for instance, can deliver shells to the front line, when the F16s will finally arrive and, on the Ukrainian side, how soon fresh troops can be effectively mobilised.
Meanwhile, you are certainly right to approve the active defence strategy the Ukrainians are now putting in place. If they can hold out for the rest of this year, step up the campaign to attrit Russian fighting capacity and maybe do something spectacular like take out the Kerch bridge, the situation could look a lot different at year end.
Can’t wait to see Johnson and Trump , but also Scholz, to be shown up for the craven and despicable cowards they are!