heeft op Reddit een samenvatting gemaakt over de laatste podcast (Russia Contingency) van Michael Kofman en Rob Lee. Net als Perun eigenlijk verplichte stof wil je iets meer in depth gaan over de oorlog.
Kofman and company just returned from yet another field trip to Ukraine (they try to go every 3 months), and he was joined by Rob Lee to discuss some of their findings on Kofman's member's only podcast The Russia Contingency. As I've noted before, you can actually find these episodes for free on the "Podcast Player" app available on the Google Play store and it is well worth a listen.
Below are some key takeaways.
Kofman briefly explained that on these trips they try to speak with some of the best equipped and worst equipped units and everyone in between they can get in touch with, and that they don't report on things they hear that aren't corroborated by other sources.
Ukraine's 3 primary issues today are the same that they were from the last trip, and have only gotten worse since then. They are in order: manpower, fortifications, and ammunition. Each one of these issues compound the others, so fixing one doesn't make the others go away.
Kofman and Lee agree that the Ukrainian offensive went on for far too long, exhausting Ukrainian ammunition supplies and manpower, especially infantry, which they say Ukraine has effectively run out of. Infantry assaults were still being conducted in November (emphasis mine, this was after Russian Avdiivka offensive began in early October) using ad hoc units made up of drivers, drone operators, and other non-assault forces with predictably poor results.
Ukraine's manpower problems remain critical right now, but there's been no progress on the new mobilization law. These delays will be felt more in the coming months as it will take time to train new recruits even if it passes today. Next 2-3 months especially will be hard, but the longer manpower isn't addressed the worse things will get. Manpower will be the decisive factor for Ukraine in 2024.
Ukrainian battalions have a few hundred men on the books, but infantry have been suffering disproportionate losses, leading to some 300+ men battalions only having 50-60 capable infantry.
As disproportionate infantry losses lead to a breakdown in unit cohesion, Ukriane has started running into a problem these days with the fragmentation of their forces. Individual battalions from a single unit are being sent to multiple different fronts, which is leading to situations where local commanders are in charge of a motley assortment of forces similar to what the Russians were dealing with in 2022.
Russian mobilization in 2022 and recruitment efforts in 2023 have provided it with enough manpower to not only sustain and replace heavy losses, but build several new combined arms armies. The financial incentives offered by Russia allowed them to recruit somewhere around 300k volunteers last year, remains to be seen how it will shake out in 2024 but it appears to be sustainable for the time being.
Russia is using corporeal punishment including execution and the threat of execution to maintain discipline in its infantry units even despite extremely heavy losses. Multiple sources told them that Russian squad leaders are empowered to execute any Russian soldiers who break and flee or refuse orders, and that so long as those squad leaders are alive, their units will continue assaults.
Russia has both an artillery and manpower advantage on key parts of the front, which combined with prodigious use of glide bombs, has allowed recent Russian battlefield advances.
Kofman admits he was wrong about the effectiveness of Russian recruitment efforts, acknowledging that Russia was able to replace losses, build new formations, and conduct major offensives without needing to conduct another wave of mobilization. He also suggests he thought Russia would focus on building new units in order to rotate their exhausted frontline forces, especially mobik formations, but that hasn't happened.
There was a major question about the morale of Russian forces in late 2022 and throughout 2023, with many noting that it was poor. But there have been many examples of Russian units fighting to the death after being encircled, and not just elite units like VDV but motorized rifle divisions and mobik units too. Morale isn't great, but Russia has been able to keep its forces from breaking.
Russian use of glide bombs is major new development, they're dropping 30-40 per day and on peak days a lot more than that. They're also being launched from longer ranges now too (40-50km last year, now more like 60-80k). Still not particularly accurate, but they are very effective at suppressing forces and lowering morale.
Ukraine has seen some success against Russian aviation in recent weeks, notably against the crucial A-50 aircraft, but its unknown how many Su-34s they actually shot down. Not enough to cause a significant decrease in glide bomb strikes though.
They noted that small mobile Ukraine air defense teams of guys in pickup trucks with HMGs and MANPADS are a hugely important part of their defense network, especially CUAV, and a topic they'd like to do a deep dive on at a later time. These units have a deficit of interceptors however, much like the military is suffering from shell hunger overall.
As they have noted previously, unlike Russia, Ukraine doesn't have dedicated engineering units and its a brigade-level military. Therefore, while brigades build decent fortifications close to the front, they often have no fallback positions as no one is building behind them. This lack of depth is what led to the fall of Avdiivka.
Ukraine is making some progress, belatedly, on the fortifications front. They've run into issues with getting permission to build on private property and from local governments that they're working to address.
New Ukrainian defensive positions are unlikely to look like Russian Surovikin Line, with its continuous lines of fortifications, but instead be more localized around key defensive features and less fully cohesive due to the structure of Ukrainian military. Should still be a major improvement over current lines however.
They repeatedly pointed out how difficult (and diplomatically pointed out how stupid) a Ukrainian fall offensive would be considering Ukraine's deficit of munitions, lack of manpower (which still hasn't been addressed), and the poor results of the last offensive.
Lee: "My concern right now though is that the trajectory is not positive for Ukraine. And if the manpower issue is not fixed, there are significant risks later this year... I don't want to be alarmist here, but it's possible that a similar situation that Russia faced at Kharkiv in September 2022 is something that Ukraine could face a few months from now. Maybe in the Summer, maybe in the Fall if these issues are not addressed."
Kofman tried to sound a bit more upbeat in response, noting that Ukraine's leadership is aware of the problems, that Ukraine has new military leadership and that there are significant new changes on the horizon including changes to command structures and brigade commanders as well as the Ukrainian military writ large. He says he walked away from the trip with "a relatively balanced picture" with significant concerns, but more knowledge on how Ukraine is looking to tackle its problems.
Part two of the discussion will focus on logistics, maintenance, and the drone war as well as a continuation of the conversation.
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Dit topic is gesloten.
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