Editor TLN
It has always been said that it is not good to change horses in the middle of the river and it is even less good to change the person in charge of a military operation twice in less than three months. The appointment of Valery Gerasimov as the new head of the Russian troops in Ukraine, replacing Sergei Surovikinwho in turn had replaced Alexander Dvornikovwas received with genuine astonishment by military experts around the world, although in reality the nuances between them are scarce: the three have in common their taste for brutality and their experience in the war in Syria. The three made their debut in office with criminal bombardments on the Ukrainian civilian population.
In this sense, one cannot speak of drastic turns, but of a continuity with different names. The Russian opposition media already stated in October jellyfish that Putin did not want any general to stand out or become particularly popular. For him, that would pose a serious danger. The army must understand that it only depends on it and only to it does it owe allegiance. As if it were imperial Rome, Putin’s fear of a charismatic military man appearing to expel him from the Kremlin is palpable.
Besides, the Russian president has to deal with the fierce internal wars around him. In principle, the appointment of Surovikin was interpreted as a transfer to the wing of the falcons, headed by Prigozhin (owner of the Wagner Group) and Kadirov (leader of the Chechen People’s Republic)… but also as a litmus test: Surovikin had to reverse the course of a war that was increasingly twisted for Russia or else he would pay the consequences. In the 12 weeks that he has commanded the army, Russia has not advanced a single kilometer. On the contrary, it has lost Kherson, the only provincial capital in its power.
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So desperate has Surovikin become during this period that practically He has left everything in the hands of the Wagner Group and his gang of serial killers pulled from Russian prisons. This blind trust in the band of mercenaries has only served, in practice, to turn Bakhmut’s environment into a meat grinder. The recent takeover of Soledar has been sold as a huge victory when it comes to a city of 11,000 inhabitants before the start of the war with very limited strategic utility.
The complete Donbas, for March
It is possible to think that Surovikin was asked for the impossible precisely in order to be able to later emphasize his inability. Just as Stalin purged high command of the Red Army, to the point of turning it into a puppet in the hands of the Nazis during the 1941 invasion, Putin continually tests his generals so they can take credit for their successes and throw them to the lions when failures come. Perhaps for this reason, according to Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian intelligence, Putin would have imposed a new impossible goal on Gerasimov: to take over all of Donbas by March.
Military vehicles drive towards Donbas.
Reuters
Although, obviously, this is information from a party that must be questioned, it squares with Putin’s way of acting. Surovikin left in oblivion, and with him, the demands for change in the Defense leadership by his ally Prigozhin, the Kremlin does not hurt to put one of their own in the shootingto the chief of staff, no more and no less, the most important position in the military structure behind Sergei Shoigu, Minister of Defense. Since Shoigu is a close friend of Putin, it cannot be ruled out that all these movements only seek to strengthen him in the face of the fierce criticism that he has received in recent months.
The fact is that, if Putin really has asked that the Donbas – that is, the entire Donetsk and Lugansk regions – be in Russian hands by March, Gerasimov has it almost impossible. There is nothing to indicate that the eastern front can move in favor of Russia.. With the current balance of power, the best that can happen to Russia is for the Svatove-Kreminna-Lisichansk supply line to hold up against the Ukrainian stakes. Otherwise, another collapse similar to the one we saw in Kharkiv or south of Kherson is possible.
The unlikely Russian alternatives
What would have to happen for the situation to change so drastically in just two months? To begin with, a massive mobilization that would allow more and more men to be sent to the front. The problem is that this decision would not only be very unpopular in Russia, but it would also not solve much in such a short term: those mobilized would have to be trained and equipped, one of the traditional problems of the Russian army since the beginning of the conflict.
Besides, that superiority in numbers would have to be accompanied by an increase in the weapons deployed. The problem for Russia is that the trend is reversed: no matter how fast the Russian arms factories work and no matter how many drones Iran sends them, the feeling is that Ukraine has more room to rearm because it is enough to reach agreements with its allies of The West, which sends them the best technology instantly available, ready to use, and which, in addition, is training, in Germany and the United Kingdom, tens of thousands of elite soldiers, ready for combat.
[El sadismo se instala en las filas de Putin: 500 civiles “sobreviven a un baño de sangre” en Soledar]
It may be that Putin understands that the fall of Donbas will occur as a side effect of a new invasion attempt from Belarus. It is strange because he has already seen how this strategy failed when it really had a chance of success, that is, when Ukraine found itself isolated and militarily in its underwear. As much as Shoigu himself has announced the expansion of the Russian army, no measures of immediate effect are in sight that bring about the end of a war that, in Donbas, lasts not 11 months but eight years.
To get an idea of the enormous task that Russia has ahead of it, it must be emphasized that, since February 2022, progress has been minimal and a large part of it has ended in withdrawals. In these two months, Gerasimov, his army and their allies would have to drive back the Ukrainians from the vicinity of Kreminna, recapture Liman, take Bakhmut once and for all, test a clamp that would end the resistance of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk nucleus and advance towards Oleksandrivka, next to the border with the Zaporizhia region.
One of the last Russian attacks on the Donbas, in the city of Bakhmut.
Reuters
It’s a very unrealistic goal. that the Institute for the Study of War itself ruled out in one of its reports last week. A goal doomed to fail. Perhaps, precisely, what Putin is looking for as an excuse to maintain a constant war that allows him to control his citizens even more.
