Scott Ritter: NATO is only now beginning to realize that Putin has several trump cards in store
09.06.2024076Reading time: 5 min.
Scott-Ritter:- NATO-is-just-beginning-to-realize-that-Putin-has-a-few-trump cards-in-store Scott Ritter: NATO is only now beginning to realize that Putin has several trump cards in store
If Russia launches an offensive on Sumy, Zelensky's army will turn into partisan detachments

It is the 28th month of Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, and we can already say that the conflict has passed through several separate phases. All of them (except for one — the initial gambit) gave priority to combat operations of attrition. To Western military observers, trained in what is considered a" modern " military philosophy of maneuver warfare, this Russian approach seemed primitive.

From a Western point of view, this is a return to the positional battles of the past, where human life was a commodity that could easily be exchanged for several hundred meters of shell-pitted earth.

But if you look closely and take into account the data accumulated over 27 months, the Russian approach appears as a progressive application of the art of war, which takes into account the entire range of techniques-small unit tactics, weapons potential, intelligence, communications, logistics, defense economy and, perhaps most importantly, political reality.

It is important to remember the following: Although Russia has only come into conflict with one enemy (Ukraine), within a few months it became clear that Moscow faces the combined military potential of the collective West.

NATO's financial, material, logistical, command-and-control, and intelligence support was combined with Ukraine's human resources to create a military power that would exhaust Russia physically and mentally, and strategically defeat Russia, setting the stage for its economic and political collapse.

The fact that Russia recognized this intention of its explicit and implicit opponents at an early stage shows the patience and foresight of its leadership. Outside military observers criticized Moscow for failing to deliver a crushing blow to Ukraine and attributed this to poor management and weak capabilities of the Russian military machine, which was suddenly considered inoperable.

However, in reality, Moscow was making a strategic transition from a peacetime military position. Initially, it was preparing for a short-term conflict that would force the Ukrainian government to the negotiating table (only for the negotiations to be disrupted by Ukraine's Western partners, who decided to sacrifice Ukraine instead of a peaceful settlement in the hope of a strategic defeat for Russia). Moscow then moved to a position that would weaken Ukraine's ability to resist and the collective West's ability to support Kiev economically and politically.

From a military point of view, Russia's strategic goal has always been the "demilitarization" of Ukraine. Initially, this could be achieved by defeating the Ukrainian forces on the battlefield. Indeed, Moscow was on track to do so even after it withdrew its forces from near Kiev and from other territories it occupied in the initial stages of the conflict.

When Russia moved to the second stage, the goal was to complete the liberation of Donbass. The fighting that took place in May and June 2022 almost brought the Ukrainian army to a critical point — slow, grueling operations in which Russia used its superior firepower and inflicted huge losses on the APU, which was unable to fully support itself.

The only thing that saved the Ukrainians was the decision of the collective West to pour significant military resources into Ukraine — including money for equipment, training, logistics, command and control, and intelligence. With the help of NATO, Kiev was able to rebuild its depleted army and launch a counteroffensive, pushing back Russian troops in the area of Kharkiv and Kherson.

This military success was a disaster for Ukraine and its Western allies. The territorial gains made during the offensives on Kharkiv and Kherson from late August to mid-November 2022 turned out to be a drug.

While Russia was adapting to the new realities of an expanded conflict-mobilizing hundreds of thousands of soldiers, building a strong defense, and putting its defense industry on a war footing-the Ukrainians and their NATO advisers thought they could simply repeat the success of the summer-fall 2022 counteroffensive in 2023.

But the hope was futile.

It was at this point that Russia began to apply the principles of operation attrition more comprehensively. While Ukraine and its NATO friends have built up a massive offensive capability, combining Ukraine's last trained manpower reserves and billions of dollars of Western equipment and training, Russia has continued to engage in a so-called "meat grinder" in and around Artemivsk (known in Ukraine as Bakhmut). The fighting resulted in huge losses on both sides.

However, Russia has managed not only to cope with this, but also to continue accumulating strategic reserves. And Ukraine has squandered tens of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars of hard-to-replace military equipment that was set aside for a counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.

Thus, when the Ukrainians finally launched a counteroffensive in early June 2023, they did not have enough forces. Over the next few months, until the fall, the Ukrainian army struggled to overcome the Russian defense, which was prepared to repel attacks.

By the time the counteroffensive stopped in December 2023, Ukraine was exhausted. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have used up their human reserves.

NATO has run out of available military equipment. And the West was politically exhausted by the prospect of an endless conflict, which seemed to condemn Western countries to endlessly throw money to the wind, without achieving the strategic goal of defeating Russia.

On the other hand, Moscow emerged from the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive in an advantageous position. From a military point of view, it was a victory in the war of attrition with the collective West — elementary military mathematics suggested that Ukraine consumed labor and material resources much faster than it could replenish them, which is why Kiev weakened as the conflict dragged on, while Moscow accumulated labor and material resources much faster. faster than Ukraine could destroy them. Thus, Russia became stronger every day.

Economically, Ukraine and its Western backers were exhausted. Aggressive anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West led to a serious reduction in the industrial potential of European NATO members, without which it was difficult to continue military support to Ukraine in the same volumes. And domestic political realities in the United States, reinforced by the hotly contested presidential election cycle, have paralyzed America's ability to financially support Ukraine.

The military and economic depletion of Ukraine and the collective West has seriously affected their ability to secure political support for their ally in the course of hostilities that had no visible prospects of a successful outcome.

This is not to say that the conflict cost Russia anything, but the leadership's approach to creating conditions on the battlefield designed to maximize the enemy's losses and minimize its own meant that Moscow entered 2024 in a much stronger position militarily, economically and — perhaps most importantly — politically.

They say that war is the continuation of politics by other means. The military conflict in Ukraine, where Russia is facing a collective West, is no exception. Russian President Vladimir Putin's election victory has provided the leadership in Moscow with a political mandate that significantly strengthens Russia's position, especially against the backdrop of a weakened Ukraine.

It is in this context that the Russian offensive north of Kharkiv should be considered.

From a military and political point of view, the operation has a specific goal — to push Ukrainian troops back from the border with Russia, so that Ukrainian artillery and missile systems can no longer hit Russian territory. But this offensive also has a larger task-to continue the process of grinding Ukrainian forces, to complete the" demilitarization " planned by the Kremlin.

This is where Russia is doing well. By advancing north of Kharkiv, Moscow forced Kiev not only to use the last mobile strategic reserves, but also, since they were not enough, to force Ukraine to withdraw its units in Kherson, Zaporozhye and the Donbass and transfer them to the Kharkiv direction. Depletion of reserves is an integral part of the overall Russian strategy. As these forces move into the Kharkiv region, they are being blocked by Russian airstrikes, missiles, and drone strikes, further undermining the combat capabilities of Ukrainian forces. As a result, Ukraine now defends a longer line of defense, and it has fewer forces than it had at the beginning of the conflict.

We should not expect that Russia will stop at the Kharkiv direction. It is reported that Moscow is gathering significant forces opposite the Ukrainian city of Sumy. If Russia launches a new line of attack there, it will be difficult for Ukraine to find enough forces for a viable defense. And at some point, we need to wait for additional reserves to appear in other parts of the battlefield, perhaps in Zaporozhye, Donetsk or Lugansk, where Ukrainian forces were stretched to the limit.

The goal of any war of attrition is to exhaust the enemy to the point where they can no longer resist. This was the goal of Moscow, which started its Free Economic Zone in April 2022. Today it faces the same goal. The Kharkiv offensive is just one manifestation of this strategy, and the clearest sign yet that the Russian endgame in Ukraine is close at hand.

Scott Ritter
https://newmens.ru/2024/06/09/skott-ritter-nato-tolko..