Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 30 December 2022. © Richard Kemp
Russia reportedly seeks to launch a major offensive in Ukraine in the coming months. Putin’s legacy, his power and even his life may depend on a decisive victory to justify the immense damage he has inflicted on his own country, not to mention on Ukraine, since the war began. He has caused an estimated 100,000 Russian military casualties so far: a devastating figure that grows by the day.
Given Russia’s size – and its history of fighting mass manpower conflicts, treating its troops as expendable – some seem to think that they can keep this up almost indefinitely. In reality, though, these battle casualties could be Putin’s Achilles’ heel.
His initial plan was to quickly vanquish Ukraine and cow the West by the act of invasion alone. The small size of his force – just 190,000 men – was clearly not intended for a protracted conflict against stiff opposition. As the war unfolded, his generals focused on killing as many Ukrainians as possible, mainly with massed artillery barrages and ballistic missiles, while being ready to give up territory to preserve their thinly-spread army; in effect, buying time to mobilise the number of troops they know they need to eventually overwhelm the country.
That mobilisation, however, has been fraught with difficulties, not least hundreds of thousands of Russian men fleeing the country to avoid fighting, accompanied by large anti-Kremlin protests. Estimates suggest around 100,000 of newly mobilised troops have been deployed so far – barely enough to replace the casualties sustained. Leaving aside the lack of training and equipment shortfalls of these new recruits, Moscow at present simply does not have the numbers to decisively overcome resistance from the depleted Ukrainian army.
We shall see how many of the remaining 200,000 that are claimed actually appear on the battlefield. Whatever happens, Moscow is evidently concerned about its ability to build up enough forces, even Continue reading