A few observations about this war

Russian convoy bunched-up along wooded road in Ukraine.

One: International support for Ukraine matters. It matters a lot. I’ve been getting emails and messages from readers who have friends or relatives in Ukraine. The Ukrainians know what’s going on in the rest of the world. They know about the demonstrations of support in Moscow and other capitals around the world. They are in contact with with their soldiers and tell them about the support they have around the world. This is clearly affecting the morale of the Ukrainian military, and you can see it on the battlefield. Morale really, really matters in an Army. If you have any doubts, think back to our experience in Vietnam. The morale of the U.S. military in the later years of the war, say after 1969, was terrible. Part of it was the leadership of the military, part of it was the sense that the “mission” there was a misbegotten one, part of it was the knowledge that an increasing number of people back in the U.S. didn’t support the war. By the time U.S. combat operations ceased in 1973, American forces were a dispirited fighting force. Morale matters. A lot.

Two: Russian operational security is piss-poor to non-existent. I saw a report on CNN this morning from their correspondent on the ground near Belgorod in Russia. He has been there since before the war reporting on Russian forces gathering for the invasion, and then covering the invasion itself. He reported that Russia was moving more heavy weapons into Ukraine, including tanks and rocket launchers. The night before, he was standing alongside the road as Russian tanks and other heavy weapons passed on their way into Ukraine. You can be absolutely certain that (1) the Ukrainian military i watching his report, and (2) that they have their own spies on the ground inside Russia reporting on troop and armored movements, including the numbers of tanks and rocket launchers, the numbers of fuel tanks, all of the stuff the Russian military is moving toward Kharkiv. This enables the Ukrainian forces to be ready for them and to prepare ambushes. By the speed of the convoy, they can estimate the time of arrival on the front lines near Kharkiv and position their forces accordingly.

Here is a CNN report of Russian forces moving from Russia into Ukraine at night with no operational security: https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/02/26/russian-tanks-ukraine-video-pleitgen-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/russia-ukraine-military-conflict/

Of course the Ukrainian military is probably receiving intelligence from the U.S. about these same troops and equipment movements as seen by satellite surveillance, which can spot military movements on the ground in daylight or at night, rain or shine, even through cloud-cover. I don’t know how they’re getting this intelligence to the Ukrainian military, perhaps through third parties, but it’s happening. Russia is invading and moving its forces around inside Ukraine “in the clear,” right out in the open, which could be because they realized they are being surveilled by satellites, or because they’re just operationally sloppy and incompetent. I don’t know which, but it’s extraordinary that they are not even attempting to keep secret or to obscure their troop and armored movements.

Three: Russian “convoy discipline” is terrible. I saw footage yesterday of a very long resupply convoy moving down a wooded road in daylight. The trucks were right on each other’s bumpers. It’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the military to maintain 30 yards or so between vehicles as a convoy moves through enemy territory. I saw other footage that showed a drone strike on another Russian convoy which hit a rocket launcher with a guided missile from the drone. It was another bumper-to-bumper Russian. When the missile hit the rocket launcher, there was a massive explosion, which included explosions of the Russian rockets, that engulfed the rocket launcher carrier and vehicles ahead of and behind it. The RPG attack I reported on yesterday showed damaged vehicles on a street, and they were bumper-to-bumper. The Ukrainians had hit the lead vehicle and the others had nowhere to go because they were bunched up behind one another and the Ukrainian soldiers apparently easily picked them off with RPG’s.

I don’t know if the Russian’s lack of convoy discipline indicates poor training or an arrogance that they calculated they weren’t going to face strong resistance. Either way, it’s tactically stupid and it’s costing them dearly when their forces clearly need resupply from these convoys that are being hit by the Ukrainians.

Four: The Ukrainian military I’ve seen in action on CNN and MSNBC appears to be well-trained and operating like they know what they’re doing. The squad that attacked the convoy near Kharkiv yesterday did it perfectly. They had one guy, apparently their best RPG shooter, backed up by three or four other guys who were reloading the RPG’s and handing them forward to the shooter. He didn’t have to do the reloading himself and could just crouch there firing round after round at the Russian vehicles. The squad had good cover next to and behind a wall, and at least one of them was concealed behind a destroyed Russian personnel carrier. This is standard conceal-and-fire-and-move tactical operations. The Ukrainians certainly appear to be better at what they were doing on foot than the Russians were in their convoy, or the Russians wouldn’t have gotten hit so badly and lost so many vehicles.

I think what the Russians will do in the coming days is stand back and use artillery and rocket launchers to shell Kharkiv and Kyiv from positions outside the cities because they are taking fairly heavy losses attempting to move into and through them. But that doesn’t guarantee them either safety or success, because the Ukrainians will know exactly where they are and can ambush their positions outside the cities almost as easily as they can within them.

The Russians have the upper hand because of their superior firepower and larger numbers of troops. But the Ukrainians have the tactical advantage on the ground because they live their, they know the neighborhoods inside the city and the terrain outside them. They can move quickly and stealthily in their own environment, whereas the Russians, coming from the outside, must move in groups and convoys. The Ukrainians are employing guerilla tactics to their advantage.

I think the Russian strategy was supposed to be “shock and awe” that they figured would lead to a quick surrender by the Ukrainian military and government. They were wrong. Their arrogance is costing them in both blood and treasure as the war moves on.