I don’t care who is responsible, but the whole world would be a better place without Prigozhin or his ilk in it.
With luck, Prighozin gets nervous now and they both end each other in domestic battles.
End the war with Russia tearing itself apart.
Proxies and Puppets is an unusually thoughtful and perceptive analysis of the transition currently occurring in Western policy.
I think it should be read carefully to understand the subtle shift from an analysis of April 25 of the earlier transition from the initial defeatism via “weakening Russia” towards ensuring Ukraine does not lose.
Likewise it should be compared with a pledge concerning what I expect, perhaps prematurely, is the current transition from ensuring Ukraine does not lose to ensuring Ukraine wins.
That pledge was not endorsed by either Germany or the United States who were both still stuck at helping prevent Ukrainian defeat rather than accelerating victory.
Nine NATO members jointly moved ahead of the “leaders” in the Tallinn pledge of 19 January (less than a week ago).
The first paragraph merely repeated what a large majority of the UN and world opinion says about an illegal and unjust war. But then came the next two paragraphs that said something new and different about proposed coalition war aims and means to achieve them:
We recognise that equipping Ukraine to push Russia out of its territory is as important as equipping them to defend what they already have. Together we will continue supporting Ukraine to move from resisting to expelling Russian forces from Ukrainian soil. By bringing together Allies and partners, we are ensuring the surge of global military support is as strategic and coordinated as possible. The new level of required combat power is only achieved by combinations of main battle tank squadrons, beneath air and missile defence, operating alongside divisional artillery groups, and further deep precision fires enabling targeting of Russian logistics and command nodes in occupied territory.
Therefore, we commit to collectively pursuing delivery of an unprecedented set of donations including main battle tanks, heavy artillery, air defence, ammunition, and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine’s defence. This substantial assistance to Ukraine comes from our own national stocks, and resources illustrating the mutual understanding of the severity of the situation and our commitment to urgently increase and accelerate support for Ukraine. Having made this “Tallinn Pledge”, we shall head to the Ukraine Defence Group meeting in Ramstein tomorrow 20 January and urge other Allies and partners to follow suit and contribute their own planned packages of support as soon as possible to ensure a Ukrainian battlefield victory in 2023.
What followed made the pledge real by listing actual donations of the combined combat power needed for the stated goal.
But the only main battle tanks included were a single squadron of Challenger 2 from the UK and an expression of readyness from Poland to donate a company of Leopard 2 tanks together with a wider coalition.
Without America which had set the original policy prohibiting offensive weapons and Germany which produces the Leopards there was no wider coalition. But there was a clear declaration that the nine would push for it at the Rammstein meeting the very next day.
A major effort to derail that push had been launched the previous day by a story planted in the Wall Street Journal aimed at disrupting any agreement at Rammstein.
I think it is already clear there was an agreement at Rammstein of the precise choreography by which the US would, together with Germany, abandon its previous policy of merely prolonging the conflict by avoiding Ukrainian defeat and sign on to the new policy of accelerating Ukrainian victory.
The preliminary announcements to prepare the “opinion leader” hacks who had been stridently advocating the old policy for a reversal and shift to the new policy have already been made from both the USA and Germany. As usual, most of the hacks will get the message and shift smoothly to the new policy as though nothing had happened. Some won’t and will keep spluttering.
It hasn’t actually happened yet but I think it is clear the Leopards are free and the Abrams, which were securely locked up, will now follow. It remains to be seen how late the Abrams will be for the early battles and whether their armor will be weaker than than the versions for American troops. But they will be committed. So America no longer has a policy of merely prolonging the war.
That does mean the West has committed to victory for Ukraine, by “combinations of main battle tank squadrons, beneath air and missile defence, operating alongside divisional artillery groups, and further deep precision fires enabling targeting of Russian logistics and command nodes in occupied territory.”
Russia has received that message loud and clear:
MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Reflections on whether the West has crossed any red lines are a thing of the past, since the United States has openly declared its plans of defeating Russia strategically, the Russian Foreign Ministry has told TASS.
Commenting on Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky’s remarks that “not all red lines have yet been crossed” by the West, the ministry said: “A hybrid war is being waged against our country.”
“Reflections about red lines are now in the past. The United States has unequivocally declared its intention to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” the ministry continued. “It is impossible not to notice this reality.”
Polyansky earlier told US journalist Kim Iversen that NATO and other Western countries have de-facto become embroiled into the conflict in Ukraine, but not all red lines have yet been crossed.
Although the MFA has repudiated the view expressed by its representative at the UN, that is merely the same sort of incoherence as in Russian TV. The various hacks simply don’t know what the policy is because there isn’t one yet.
But the UN representative is right. Not all red lines have been crossed yet. There could be at least two further major policy transitions to go before this war ends.
- Western policy must make a further shift from the new (or imminent) Tallinn policy of achieving Ukrainian victory by move from resisting to expelling Russian forces from Ukrainian soil.
That’s a bright red line - the Russian border. If the Russian forces are expelled to return beyond it that may well be simultaneous or following collapse of the Russian fascist regime and establishment of a democratic regime willing to actually end the war by accepting the Ukrainian terms for a just peace - including actual justice - war crimes trials and reparations.
But if the fascist regime still holds power, then the war will not have ended. It will just be another retreat and another attempt to mobilize. Perhaps with long range rocket attacks. Perhaps with a temporary armistice like 2014. Perhaps the conflict could remain frozen again for as long as it did last time (8 years). Fascism means war. Meanwhile Ukraine and the rest of the world would be disrupted and only the arms industry benefited, waiting and preparing for the next hot war.
The regime would be more likely to survive if it was not completely expelled and still fighting on some smaller front line in Ukrainian territory.
So the shift required is to a clear policy of Russian fascist defeat and unconditional surrender to a democratic regime in Russia - not just expulsion from Ukraine.
That should also strengthen the war effort by affecting the main Center of Gravity - the Russian people. The incoherence of regime policy is demonstrated by its admission that it is facing defeat by superior forces and chest thumping about destroying the world. A clear aim to replace the fascist regime by a democratic one will energize the opposition and demoralize the regime supporters.
In the US civil war the North initially did not have a clear policy of abolishing slavery and feared that adopting such a policy would add to the resistance from border states and Democratic party. The emancipation proclamation itself was legally only a confiscation of enemy property. But the appearance of armed black troops under Union banners in the South demoralized the slave owners.
The slav owners in Russia will not be able to mobilize the slavs to defend slavery.
- Once that shift has been made there is no going back. If fascism is not defeated by Ukrainian forces using arms supplied by other democracies the war must still be ended - with additional armed forces by land, sea and air. That is “collective defence”. It is what the United Nations in the war against fascism established the United Nations Security Council to coordinate through its Military Committee.
Spelling out the future steps is of course “premature”. But in fact the main “arguments” prolonging the war at each step are precisely based on hesitation about whether there is actually commitment to carry through after escalation.
“Blessed are the cheese-makers.” The manufacturers of dairy products are always ready to explain that wars end when fighting stops and oppose “dangerous” and “provocative” moves aimed at ending the war by enemy surrender.
Clearly explaining that we really are determined to do whatever is required to win, by explicitly making “whatever” concrete, undermines hesitation and promotes enemy demoralization.
What next? Here’s my semi-informed conjecture…
It looks like 70+ Leopard 2s are going to be packaged up, providing 2 battalions. That’s a managable size for a new capability. Ukraine can get some potent combat power quickly while not overwhelming the maintenance and logistics teams.
14 Challenger 2 tanks and lets assume 14 Leclerc tanks will be donated by France. That’ll bring the total to 3 systems and close enough to 100 of the world’s best tanks.
As we’ve seen from previous donations of gear, new capabilities come in batches. HIMARS was delivered at 4 units per month. Bradleys at 50 per month. There’s a very good chance we see further deliveries of Leopards and Challengers, potentially at a battalion size of 35 units per month paired with 50 modern IFVs.
The UK Challenger 2 fleet is about to be 50% upgraded and 50% retired. They are upgrading only 148 tanks from their 213 remaining operational and 160 in storage. That leaves a huge number of tanks destined for retirement, so the downside of sending more is quite manageable. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the total donation grow to 35+ over time.
Abrams was a late announcement, likely designed to push Germany over the edge for the short term Leopard package. 30 US tanks have been hinted at, although this is likely to grow. These aren’t coming from the Presidential draw down authority using active US military equipment. Instead they are coming from industry, using a different funding stream. This is due to the customisation required in swapping depleted uranium armour with less secretive technology. Those donations will take a few months to start rolling in, although there’s no reason Ukrainians can’t start training on US vehicles earlier. As with the Leopards, I see no reason for the initial 30 to be the final total.
Abrams, Leopard and Challenger all have large fleets in storage. I expect we will see arrangments with industry to reactivate a consistent flow of mothballed tanks for Ukraine that doesn’t directly come out of active fleets. This is hugely important as a consistent and substantial forecast of supply becomes a factor in Russia’s war calculations. As Ukraine starts to run out of spare parts and ammunition for their soviet fleet, the shift to NATO equipment will be critical and inevitable.
Finally, there’s reports of Ukrainian pilots already training in the US on western aircraft. No announcement yet what type, F-16 is a good guess, A-10 could also be in play. This could be pure misinformation, but it would make sense for it to be true.
https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1618254072037150720?s=46&t=w_K4l2RcZ_f2e9QZpsW6sA
https://twitter.com/jenniferjjacobs/status/1618256603341557761?s=46&t=w_K4l2RcZ_f2e9QZpsW6sA
https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1618278803280912389?s=46&t=N4Jq8UyJOtv9arYXhouSAA
What happens next on the battlefield?
I’ll borrow this heavily off the recent podcast with Michael Koffman, along with a few other sauces.
It has been a very mild winter. The ground hasn’t frozen yet, although it still could over the coming 2 months. Any opportunity for a winter mobile offensive will either be fleeting or not happening.
Both sides are preparing for an offensive in the spring when the ground firms up. Likely Ukraine makes a play first, with Russia hoping to absorb that punch and wipe out Ukraine’s strength before returning the favor with mass instead of quality. Ukraine’s spring offensive will be fairly risky, if it doesn’t work they will have used up their strength and not be able to defend.
Reports of shell hunger on the Russian side are likely somewhat real, but limited Russian artillery is probably 2-3x what the west can consistently supply to Ukraine. The west is hoping that combined arms training and improved precision can result in more efficient Ukrainian fires that will be realistic to supply.
The Kherson offensive in 2022 was initially a costly mess for Ukraine. They weren’t ready for that style of combat and paid dearly. Weak logistics prevented Russia from taking advantage of that period. If that style of costly mistake from insufficient training and poor execution is repeated in the spring, then things could go very very badly, resulting in a successful Russian offensive. This upskilling and upgrading period is absolutely essential for Ukraine to have any success pushing up against Russian fortifications later this year.
Ukraine no longer has a manpower advantage since Russia has mobilised. They need to rely instead on a quality advantage. Battles like Bakhmut are very problematic as they are forced to attrit their quality troops up against lowest value Russian prison population forces. This could cause Ukraine problems going into spring.
That all looks plausible from my uninformed perspective.
It looks like the expected January mobilization wave isn’t happening and the regime and its armed forces are currently paralysed. So any attempted Russian offensives from the remnants of the partial mobilization of 300,000 that have been training may be held off by delivery of a battalion of 35 tanks per month.
But an opportunity for Ukraine to go on a Spring offensive that could end the war while the enemy are still in this state would be missed. Ukraine’s CinC says he needs 300 tanks to do it. 35 per month would take 9 months to get past 300 to 315 ignoring the certainty of attrition.
Meanwhile deep layers of fortifications are being prepared on both sides for a continued WW1 style war of attrition.
As Zelensky said at Rammstein:
The requirements is for HUNDREDS of tanks.
Delivering at 35 per month does NOT get there fast enough.
We STILL have to speed up.
A force flow of a tank battalion per week would get there in 9 weeks. That’s what is needed for a an offensive THIS Spring in a major war in Europe. 9 weeks from now takes till April. Northern Spring starts in March.
Very likely working at that speed would require deploying at least sustainment troops and probably tank operators along with the tanks and the sealift and airlift forces. Ukraine can eventually, but not suddenly, generate the specially trained forces required for the actual tanks. Experienced supporting motorized infantry and artillery troops are already fighting in Ukraine.
That’s WHAT THOSE STANDING AND RESERVE TANK STOCKPILES AND FORCES ARE TRAINED AND EXERCISE FOR.
Recent exercise in Lithuania of one German led NATO tank battalion group involved about 1600 soldiers.
The force deployed to expel a tinpot third world dictator from Kuwait included more than 3000 Abrams tanks and 950,000 troops, including 700,000 US troops.
One does not expect as much concern for democracy in Europe as for oil wells in Kuwait. With Ukrainians doing most of the fighting instead of Americans it could take less than one tenth the number of tanks to defeat Russia than it did for a large American led coalition to defeat a tinpot third world dictator.
But it should also take a tenth of the time to generate that force, yet the war has been going for nearly a year now while the Gulf war was less than 7 months of which 6 weeks actual combat from start of Operation Desert Storm to cease fire terms accepted by Iraq.
The disproportion is so grotesque that it should be feasible to make it too embarassing to continue this way for as long as they currently plan to.
Not exactly sure where you get the figures from but 700,000 US troops seems a bit much. All I have seen shows there were about 100,000 from US, and while I read that there were over 3000 fighting vehicles in Kuwait for the little excursion into Iraq, 3000 clearly includes not only tanks.
US military history site provides an account of what it describes as the first space war.
Operation Desert Shield of air attacks morphed to Operation Desert Storm of land warfare
We must form a tank fist of freedom whose hits will not let tyranny stand up again - President Zelenskky
NOËL 
on Twitter: “
s/Ukrainelive https://t.co/6uTBRmvfqE” / Twitter
Zelenskky’s birthday present 2023
Putin’s birthday present 2022
Slovakia donated much of their tank fleet at the start of the war in exchange for 16 Leo 2s. Those Leos are due to arrive later in 2033 after refurbishment. Slovakia won’t give up those Leo’s. They are willing to give the remaining T-72s if given similar western tanks. This is an example where Abrams could be provided in exchange for both Leo and T-72s, but it gets into the military supply politics between US and Germany.
And Abrams now official
According to Rheinmettall and media reports, the Leopards for Slovakia ( owned by Germany) will be available in 2-3 months.
They are the ring swap to replace tanks supplied to Ukraine - as with the Czechs.