STRANGE TIMES

Sorting out the real situation in the Russo Ukrainian war
https://billkerr1947.github.io/ukraineWar/

“Artillery Conquers, Infantry Occupies” and drones are the new artillery.
Sorting out the real situation in the Russo Ukrainian war.

Most observers (both casual and well informed), at the ‘restart’ of this war, had a dismal view of Ukrainian prospects including the US Biden Administration that offered Zelensky a personal rescue plan. Whatever his personal views were Zelensky iconically replied; ‘I don’t need a ride I need ammo’. This attitude, from their charismatic leader, set the Ukrainian mainstream tone, they would fight regardless of the eventual outcome and so fighting age men were forbidden to leave the country and the widespread fighting was underway.

With ubiquitous cameras and social media, the world saw the very big columns of Russian troops and heavy equipment heading towards Kyiv, and other targets like Bucha. The western world recognised the just cause, saw the obvious courage of the resistance and began the process to take millions of women and children refugees; but the usual view was that the much larger Russia would simply overwhelm the Ukrainian fighters.

Within days however, there were obvious signs of widespread logistical bungling on the part of the Russians; their columns stalled and the ‘timetable’ to the predicted victory unraveled. It still appeared to the vast majority of ‘informed’ commentators that Russia would eventually win this war and still reasonably quickly, only now they had shifted their view and thought the win would now come by ‘eventually’ grinding down rather than quickly overwhelming the smaller Ukraine. But the Russian plans were for a ‘lightning war’ and this war had now been lost!

There was clearly no plan for the war that was now underway and there were nowhere near enough troops to fight THIS war and those troops that were deployed were often in the wrong place. Russia was thus humiliated with a massive withdrawal required and abundant evidence of their war crimes exposed in the process.

Still the underlying thinking from the majority of commentators was that ‘time was on Russia’s side’. 3 years into this war there is good evidence to doubt this 2nd thought. A small number of observers had the opposite view from well before the war restarted. Our view was that time would be on the Ukraians side!

After the battle for Kyiv despite the visuals of massive quantities of ‘hardware’, and many thousands of troops it was also apparent to some more commentators with a military mindset, that Russia did not have sufficient troops deployed to occupy all of Ukraine, without at a minimum a large-scale insurgency immediately developing and that this insurgency would ultimately prove fatal to the Russian project!

Indeed an insufficiency of troops for the job was the big reason why many informed and supposedly informed commentators were convinced that an invasion was just not going to happen in the first place. When it did only a few drew the logical conclusion that Putin had catastrophically blundered. The west had both the interest and the capacity to ensure that Ukraine prevailed. The west did not mean the US and others. The west ultimately would prove to be NATO and others even without the US!

There were those of us (like Anders Puck Neiilsen and myself) who said 2 things at the time. First, that the Russians WERE going to invade and second that yes we agreed they did not have the forces deployed to win; so there was then a tiny voice that declared time was on Ukraines side. I even predicted that this would take 5 years.

One reasonable explanation for this contradiction from within the mainstream could be an assumption that Putin after this lack of troops became apparent and as supreme leader would soon after organise a large-scale mobilisation to generate the required numbers and dispatch them in a timely manner. But despite a biggish ‘minor’ mobilisation effort he never did this to anywhere near the level required. So consequently day by day the quality of his available troops began to deteriorate.

Putin led Russia works more like a mafia run state than even the older pre WW1 and WW2 imperialisms that bestrode the modern world and brought such misery and development to humanity. Gangsters are involved at every level but as gangsters they have zero concern for the well being of the masses. A gangster regime’s willingness to sustain heavy casualties, begins to work like an unseen cancerous growth. Later, when the rate became unsustainable (stage 4 cancer) from a training and material production perspective Russia did not have the trainers and the training flow required to maintain the former quality of troops. By 2024-25 the Russians were sending virtually untrained cannon fodder and refurbished T62 tanks to the contact zone. The Russians are not able to replace like for like. Korean troops as cannon fodder, ought to have been a flashing red light that the Russians had lost this 2nd attritional war as well. Both lightning war and attritional war in Ukraine is proving to be beyond the ability of this gangster state. Enter war plan 3 for an end to the war with more limited war aims for some territorial gains and some face saving ‘agreements’. Russia is now desperate.

Many casual observers have just over 3 years in become bored and moved on, holding to their original views and social media bias as they did so. The European political leadership has not done so but rather adjusted to the new reality. These leaders have grasped that time is on their side. Trump is an unpredictable and unwanted disturbance in the current political situation but the end result for this Europeen war can only be further delayed but not altered by his actions.

Earlier -in 2022- the direction of the war turned sharply against the Russians and the world watched the spectacular Khakiv and Kherson liberations. The more positive minded supporters of Ukraine were being proved correct. The Russians did not have a sufficient force deployed that could do the original task so that was forgotten and the secondary goal was slowly established of securing all of the additional 4 oblasts and Crimea. The war aims were altered and still now 37 months into this war not 1 of these additional 4 oblasts have been fully occupied! The reformulated war aims are also proving impossible to achieve.

In early June 2023, the world watched the damage done to the Kakhovka Dam. This desperate action was taken to prevent the Ukrainians crossing the Dniepro and deploying in mobile warfare manner behind the Surovikin defence line. So the Russians themselves destroyed the recently restored water supply to Crimea. This event was a major indicator of just how desperate the Russians were. It was for them the best of a bad set of choices. There was now obviously zero prospect of taking all of the Kherson Oblast as well as solving the water to Crimea issue without a very long term military or political solution.

Upon reflection, some 37 months into the full scale war those that predicted a quick Russian victory were evidently not paying attention to the basic numbers. The Ukrainian armed forces had been fighting back against the Russians, and their ‘separatists’ (at a low level) since 2014. While doing so they were also building defence in depth and preparing to fight back against the next ‘bite’ that the Ukrainian leadership saw as ‘inevitably coming’.

During 2021, it became apparent that neither the new European focus and consequent more democratic political arrangements, nor his 2014 informal invasion borders suited the new Czar of all the ‘Russian speakers’. Putin having paid such a small price in 2014-15 evidently drank his own kool-aid for 2022 and the old ‘Soviet’ style takeover plans were essentially dusted off for a replay. But these old style plans were woefully inadequate for a country the size of Ukraine that had been preparing for 8 years and was now armed to some extent by western technology and doctrine.

At the beginning, the battle for Hostemel Airport (for example) demonstrated how out of touch Putin’s planners were. As the war spread out over the vast territory of Ukraine, anti-tank mines and missiles started to do their job. The ‘stingers’ and other anti-aircraft weapons stopped the Russians from gaining air supremacy and imperceptibly a new war fighting paradigm was underway.

The real power of drone war was about to be discovered by the Ukrainian leadership.

By the end of April 2022, 190 aircraft and 155 helicopters had been claimed by the UAF. These numbers could be an exaggeration but whatever the losses were, they were such that the air war over unoccupied Ukrainian territory was soon altered and then abandoned. Airspace over unoccupied Ukraine had become a no fly zone for Russians.

By February 23 2023, the number of aircraft claimed had reached 299 and Helicopters 287. 2 years later only an additional 71 airplanes (= 370) and 44 Helicopters (= 331) have been added to the tallies and these air assets were not destroyed over unoccupied Ukraine but on the other side of the contact line.!

Recently there has been a serious proposal called Skyshield, calling for a 120 airplane European manned active air patrol defence system to operate in Ukraine air space, sufficiently far back from the contact line as to not be targettable by the Russians yet able to destroy the UAV’s and CM’s that they send towards the contact line or that come across it.

This proposal is IMV a thin edge of a very big wedge and I don’t believe it will be adopted for at least the next year of fighting but it will IMV ‘seep in’ without fanfare and be underway in the summer of 2026 and beyond.

As of 28/03/23 a top level COW British/French military mission is being dispatched to Kyiv to establish the detailed requirements for a just approved combined ‘reassurance force’ that could be deployed if Ukraine and Russia were to agree on some sort of ‘deal’ however unrealistic that thought is. The ‘reassurance force’ preparations are also useful without an agreement.

European countries three years ago feared the Russian military, while nevertheless feeling safe behind the US and NATO protective shield. Both Sweden and Finland drew the logical conclusion and applied for NATO membership. This dramatic NATO expansion provoked nothing from the Russians! The notion bandied about that NATO expansion provoked Putin is both widespread and actually absurd. Some important players in the Trump Administration however appear to believe this and even (ridiculously) that Zelensky and the Ukrainians brought this war on themselves. The Europeans have been scrambling since Trump was inaugurated to build the alternative support structure that can win this without the US and they currently show every indication of doing so. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/26/what-we-know-about-thursdays-coalition-of-the-willing-summit-for-ukraine-in-paris

The indications since Trump’s inauguration is that European countries NOW (in 2025) collectively do not currently fear the Russians that patently have more than enough on their plate just trying to overcome the western backed Ukrainians. The West Europeans leaderships led by Britain and France rightly believe they have a sufficient window of opportunity to establish their broad European collective rearmament program that is on a realistic scale to ensure that they will now collectively but without the US leave a broken Russia in their military dust.

The war is not in a stalemate but it is protracted.

This change in attitudes happened season by season so that the fear slowly diminished but it has now in essence evaporated. The policy changes came country by country led by (disregarding the minnows and Poland) Britain and France until, after Trump’s treachery was clear these changes became a stampede and are only now being revealed as a new European defense structure based on budgeting a more than sufficient amount to ensure that ‘self’ reliance. The Germans have come on board.

Most of Europe understands they are now in a hybrid war of Russia’s making. Hybrid war is a state of war. The very test of the adequacy of the measures taken to collectively defend Europe is IMV going to be the success of Ukraine in recovering its territories and defeating Russia.

Trump’s interests, whatever they are, do not currently align with a strong Europe. Plainly he is quite prepared to shake up any issue that crosses his path and as we saw in his first term he can also change direction if he notices something is not working out for him. For Trump, it’s all about him! The world is stuck with Trump for the next 4 years, and with Vance in a case of out of the frying pan… possibly to follow.

It may be the case that so many of Trump’s policies dismally fail and are not corrected quickly enough AND that the Democrats reform from their woke twaddle sufficiently to be competitive and we are spared J D Vance as POTUS, but all indications are that this Ukraine war will have been fought out and won or again frozen by then. Democratic Europe does not want a frozen conflict still waiting for resolution in 4 yrs time. The developing COW wants Putin defeated and his army at home; with or without, the US being involved in the result. If these trends keep up, the US will at some point become irrelevant and will be sidelined. This result would not suit Trump so we can expect a change as this result looms.

In reality -in accordance with the drain the swamp policies of furthering both democracy and an anti imperialist stand- US interests do align with the current Europe NATO mainstream. Trump is blundering but the end result is much greater effort from Europe and that is undoubtedly a net good.

The following is a reminder of this type of effect; ‘England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.’

Trump is objectively NOT acting in the US national interests, nor even in the direct interests of it owning/ruling classes. He is behaving in a vile manner. Nevertheless, Europe is at last standing up and creating a regional security structure and war fighting capacity independent of the US and that is all to the good.

NATO Europe will almost all now spend 3%+ on their military and this is very significant especially as they are more focussed on material and systems that are currently working well on the battlefields and the supply chains and coordinating and the training that goes with it.

The European leaders know this does not mean buying US ‘stuff’, but rather building their own and in large enough capacities. They clearly have a window of opportunity while Russia is in trouble and they are not bluffing in planning to get this done. These changes are due exclusively to Ukraine’s observable successes in this war. The Coalition of the Willing (COW) is how western Europe intends to build on that actual strength and bring Ukraine fully into the democratic fold.

Trump said “Zelensky has no cards”. Musk has said that Zelensky sends young people to die for no good reason and labels people who support Ukraine as “traitors” and calls the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski “a little man”. The motivation of these two, who claim to be the correctors of fake news, is both unclear and irrelevant. Prior to the election Trump and Musk made legitimate mileage in excoriating MSM on a host of issues but now when it comes to Ukraine they have openly joined the fake news purveyors. Europe is neither listening nor following them but rather getting down to the task of defeating Russia.

Why Russia is really losing the battles and the war.

Russian casualties and equipment losses are unsustainably high. What was once a huge inventory of all manner of fighting equipment is often now nothing but scrap metal. Tanks are a great example. Currently on average 10 are lost per day and 3 replacements are delivered so the stockpile drops by an average of 7 on every day of the week. Clearly if this keeps up, something’s gotta give. So something will give.

There is no chance of the Russian economy that’s currently in a dire condition and under strengthening western sanctions reviving under their own efforts. The following figures come from The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. So ‘all the usual caveats apply’, but as of late March 2025 over 900,000 Russians are now reported as dead, and injured.

For the latest both daily and cumulative figures see
https://onedrive.live.com/edit?id=E33161B435D127BA!157482&resid=E33161B while this war rages on. 435D127BA!157482&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=!AHy27V-_Woq340I&wdo=2&cid=e33161b435d127ba[here].

Are these figures even reliable?_
https://onedrive.live.com/edit?id=E33161B435D127BA!157482&resid=E33161B435D127BA!157482&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&authkey=!AHy27V-_Woq340I&wdo=2&cid=e33161b435d127ba[source].

Some of the data there, e.g. Warships / Boats, Aircraft and Helicopter categories, can be reasonably readily checked by outside observers, but when considered from the change of use perspective alone appears to be accurate. The Russians stopped using this equipment over or even close to the contact line. It’s a small step to conclude that all of the data if not accurate down to the unit’s column is nevertheless in the realistic ball-park range. The data appears to be sufficiently reliable – especially in the trend lines that they establish to be useful.

The figures point to a Russian army and society that is being smashed. They have lost their invading army and don’t have the training capacity to rapidly reconstitute a comparable force. While it is correct that ‘quantity has a quality all of its own’, nevertheless the Russian military is, 37 months into this disaster, a shadow of what for many decades terrorised Europe and the US. But it did so because it wasn’t used. In reality, it was riven with corruption and so was partially an apparition. When used, Putin the petty gangster has been revealed in Wizard of Oz like manner as nothing like running the advertised ‘great power’! The reality is far closer to the John McCain quip that ‘Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country’ https://youtu.be/r5LyDd4vQPk

After being put to a severe test the Russian armed forces are shown up as the corrupt wreckage wielding the often outdated residue of a long dead USSR ‘superpower’.

The Russians lost tens of thousands of their best quality troops in the first year when for example they tried to take Hostomel Airport etc and failed dramatically at the very start of the war. The graphs show the trends are solidly working for the Ukrainian forces.

The Russians were even overrun on Russian soil in Kursk and suffered tremendous losses over the next 7 months trying to regain their own territory and have still not regained it all. Instead, during this period when Trump cut off vital US intel to the Ukrainians and was repeating Russian scaremongering talking points, the Russians have also lost a small amount of territory in the adjacent Belgorod Oblast. But most people don’t notice because they are kept ignorant of the facts as the MSM often fail to get at the truth after breathlessly reporting on Trump. Worse still the social media is very often guided by the abundant Russian propaganda efforts.

Russian Armed forces have employed ‘meat grinder’ tactics and financially induced recruitment. When the reality of the first became more widespread knowledge within Russia the recruitment started to collapse with targets not now being met. Additionally, inflation is very high and all facets of Russian society are now acutely aware – through shortages and inflation- of the impact of this ‘special military operation’ on their lives.

Those who can, now send their sons away to international schools and such before they become eligible for the army. The impact on the Russian people has been slow in coming but is now unfavorable to the Putin regime, which has no choice now but to continue to rule or die. Currently, there is no prospect of regime change in Russia. Rather than point to these problems Trump has disgracefully spoken of Zelensky as a dictator and spread more Russian talking points. Trump and Vance have turned the issue of democracy into an issue of confusion for the MAGA masses.

However, it is the current US Administration who have lost support by doing so. In Ukraine and the rest of Europe, (including Hungary and Slovakia) the Zelensky government is very well supported by the people. Trump carries on as if the Bucha massacre for example, never happened and is not the type of issue that this war is all about. But it is.

Europe’s leadership and the peoples they lead will not buy what Trump is selling to the MAGA audience and probably ⅓ of them won’t buy it either. Both Putin and Trump are now trapped in the mountain of lies of their own making. They are known quantities being dealt with by the new Europe COW.

The US however is distracted with the Trump debacle. The west has nevertheless not lost any troops and has for these years put a large number of trainers at the disposal of the Ukrainians (now even within Ukraine). The training troops and western military structure and doctrine are superior to what the Russians have, as are generally the western weapons systems.

Currently Russian troops are of very low morale and quality; that is to say poorly motivated. Often young or old, poorly trained they are reluctantly in an army with an inferior doctrine to that of current NATO standards with officers who are careless of their well being and more corrupt the higher the rank. Blocking troops (often Chechens who are consequently hated) are often used to ensure they move forward in often strategically pointless attacks.

Legacy media has covered the demonstrably 2nd rate North Korean troops being deployed on Russian soil. Apparently the Koreans were lied to as to their mission and instead thrown in on the front line without having suitable methods to deal with the current realities and consequently they were slaughtered. It may be, that we have seen both the first and the last of the Koreans. At any rate there are currently no reports of any further Korean activity on any stretch of this long and deep contact zone.

This is still primarily an artillery war and the contact line is where the hand to hand infantry fighting takes place as ‘infantry occupies’; it’s further into the multiple zones where the majority of the fighting occurs and where ‘artillery conquers’. The artillery zone is where the remarkable turnaround in this war has happened.

Russia began this war with a huge advantage in artillery. Ukraine has overturned that advantage and now is demonstrating that it has the upper hand. Among other things drones are ‘tubeless’ artillery and this has become a drone war. Drones first replaced the forward artillery spotters, then the mortar bombing squads and are now ubiquitous. The expensive NLAWS and Javelins are now a rarity on the battlefield and the cost of delivering a high explosive to a precise target (even one that is actively moving to avoid the attack) has fallen dramatically. Importantly in Ukraine with the mud seasons drones are now in this respect almost business as usual! Only the wind, rain, snow and fog hinder the work otherwise 24/7 the Ukrainians go to work hunting Russians in the various occupation zones. The evidence is abundant that attrition rates for the Russians are growing in the process.