If Putin had what it takes, he’d attack Kiev

Por Karin Silvina Hiebaum Publicado hace 6 meseshace 6 meses Categoría :

by Karin Silvina Hiebaum

A year and a half ago, his troops took refuge behind the border to shorten the frontlines, and now he prefers to extend them even as far as Kiev, if he can.
Geopolitical analysts describe situations analytically and without taking sides. The citizens are not responsible for the actions of the executives.

As a journalist I worked for many years for RT and it is a media where I met great colleagues and great personalities at that time both from Russia and Ukraine and other territories of the former Soviet Union.

Ukrainian multiple rocket launcher fired at Russian positions in the Kharkov region.
Ukrainian multiple rocket launcher fired at Russian positions in the Kharkov regionRoman Polipey / AFP
On 10 May, Putin’s army again crossed the border into the Kharkov region of north-eastern Ukraine. To be rigorous, it should be remembered that, unlike the first time, the return of Russian troops to a territory from which they had been expelled a year and a half ago came as no surprise to anyone. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previously announced it; and the Kiev authorities had repeatedly warned of the build-up of up to 50,000 troops in the border region of Belgorod.

Since the first days of the new offensive, Russia has been gradually gaining ground in an area that Kiev says was a grey zone where no military forces were deployed. To avoid continuous shelling from Russian territory, the defensive fortifications of Zelensky’s army were located more than ten kilometres from the border, a distance that the invaders have been unable or, by their own account, unwilling to reach.

If Putin himself is to be believed, the attack had no other objective than to create a buffer zone to protect Belgorod. On this occasion, the mendacious president’s words seem to coincide with what we see happening on the front line, where the Russians have destroyed some bridges that would be necessary for a hypothetical Ukrainian counter-attack… or for their army to make further progress.

What all analysts seem to agree on is that 50,000 men are not enough to take a large city like Kharkov. The purpose of the attack is therefore limited. Nevertheless, it has aroused unusual interest in the Western media. After months of Russian pressure on all fronts with hardly any noticeable advance on the maps, a new, small but separate and clearly visible stain is now appearing.

Spanish public opinion, alarmed by news reports that almost always focus on the trees and not the forest, is wondering whether Ukraine is losing the war. At least I have been asked this question more than once in recent days. To reassure readers as much as possible – no one has a crystal ball that shows the future with certainty – we will try to shed some light on what is happening on the ground and try to anticipate what we can expect to see next.

The tactical explanation
The relative ease of the Russian advance on Kharkov is not explained by the collapse of the Ukrainian front, as some would like to think, but by the strange rules of the game that the West imposes on Kiev. One of the most unfair of these rules is the consideration of the Federation’s borders as sacred. Western weapons are not allowed to shoot down planes dropping their bombs from Russian territory. Nor is it possible to return enemy artillery fire, even in self-defence.

As long as this red line is maintained, defence of the terrain near the border becomes impossible. It is yet another disadvantage in a war of the strong against the weak, but one that Kiev has to accept as the price for the help it needs.

If these conditions do not change, Ukraine will have to withdraw from the small town of Vovchansk, five kilometres from the border, where fighting continues at the moment. The front will only be able to stabilise a few kilometres further south, and this will be necessary to keep the long-suffering city of Kharkov out of range of Russian guns.

The operational consequences
What are the operational consequences of the Russian attack? The obvious answer is that the threat to Kharkov may force Ukraine to reinforce the northern front to the detriment of its ability to contain the invaders in places like Chasiv Yar. This small town does have high strategic value as it lies on the road between Bakhmut, occupied by Russia a year ago, and the belt of free cities in the Donetsk region.

If that were the purpose – or at least one of the purposes, perhaps not the main purpose – of the new invasion, it would have to be assumed that Putin is now more confident in his army’s capabilities. At least in its ability to maintain its numerical superiority in the long term. A year and a half ago, his troops took refuge behind the border to shorten the fronts, and now he prefers to lengthen them. Is he winning? If he has 50,000 men available and is unable to manoeuvre them along the front to break through the Ukrainian lines, perhaps. But in return he loses the advantage given by the peculiar situation of a border that, until a few days ago, Ukraine had to defend and Russia did not.

Is Putin likely to do the same with the other stretches of the international border where he retains the advantage that only his forces can fire? Can he order his troops to cross the Ukrainian border at Sumy or Chernobyl? But there is little point in lengthening the front for either side unless there is an objective that compensates for the loss of the advantage it now has on the border.

What could that target be? Kiev? Of course! That is where it can win the war. And, entering through Chernobyl or Belarus, with the Ukrainian army concentrated on the front lines, there would be no impregnable obstacle left to prevent it from doing so. It seems obvious that, if Putin had the means, he would attack Kiev. And – this should reassure the reader – the reciprocal is also true: if he does not, it is because he cannot.

The strategic reasons
In the Kremlin, strategy and politics are almost the same thing. That is why I tend to believe Putin when he says that what he wants to achieve with the new invasion of Kharkov is to prevent further attacks by Russian dissidents on the Belgorod region.

The military relevance of such attacks was nil, and everyone knew it. But Putin must have found them humiliating. Indeed, it is likely that they served no purpose other than to annoy the dictator. However, both these dissident groups, with their sonorous names – the Russian Freedom Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps – and their small numbers, and whoever in Kiev authorised their rampages should have realised that they were killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Hopes and fears
What will happen in the coming months. The Russian forces that have entered the Kharkov region will most likely do the same as the others. They will soon be pinned down between trench lines, drones and, now that Ukraine is once again receiving US ammunition, artillery duels.

The fighting on the front line shows no sign of ending. It took 1.5 million German soldiers and almost a million additional Soviet troops to defeat Poland in World War II. Since then, new technologies and international humanitarian law – there is a limit to what Putin can do that did not affect Hitler or Stalin – have made the invader’s task even more difficult. There seems to be nothing at the moment that can change the stalemate. Neither can Russia conquer Ukraine with what it has, nor, on the contrary, can Ukraine drive Russia out of its territory. Even less so if, having reached the border, it no longer has US authorisation to engage its enemies.

However, the blow that Ukraine has received in recent days might be more sensitive in the domain of information, where soldiers count less than hopes and fears. It is possible that the Russian advance on Kharkov will have a demoralising effect on Ukrainian society just as Zelensky begins to call for a greater effort. It is also possible that the Russian people’s reluctance to put on the uniform will diminish if they become convinced that the war can be won in short order.

This is bad news for Ukraine. And, in large part, it is our fault. The US – and many European countries’ – ban on using their weapons against enemies firing from the Russian side of the border is so absurd that it gives Zelenski reason to wonder whether we really want them to win the war or whether it is enough that they do not lose it. I really wouldn’t know how to answer him.

The war in Ukraine could last more than ten years.
Unfortunately, there is no light at the end of the tunnel and the blood of the two peoples that Putin calls brothers will continue to be shed in a war waged solely on lies.
For many months now we have been hearing more bad news than good from Ukraine. Bad news for both sides, even if it may not seem so to some. Everything that is happening on the front, in the rear and on the international stage points to a very long war. Perhaps that was an understatement when, two years ago now, I wrote that it could well be ten.

For Spaniards, war has become background music. Unpleasant, but so monotonous that it seems as if nothing is happening that could interest us. And yet hundreds of soldiers, Russian and Ukrainian, are dying every day.

How long will this go on? Unfortunately, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Years will pass and, in a war waged only on lies – that Ukraine does not exist, that it is Nazi, that it is an existential threat to Russia – the blood of the two peoples Putin calls brothers will continue to be shed. I assume he is referring to Cain and Abel.

Why is it so difficult to dream, if not of an end to the war, then of a Korean-style ceasefire? Because no one seems to be wavering. Moscow does not, but neither does Kiev. And, despite the erratic hoaxes spread by the Kremlin – which, with its customary consistency, would have us believe one day that we are tired and the next that we want to fight to the last Ukrainian – neither do the leaders of the nations helping Ukraine to defend itself seem to be flagging.

The Russian perspective
In the military, we call the element on which the military power of each contender depends the centre of gravity. That is where we can do the most damage to the enemy. I know that physicists reading this will think this is a misnomer: a trip is better than a push. But we are all entitled to professional jargon. Footballers, for example, call corner kicks strategy plays.

Putin already hailed as emperor

Russia’s centre of gravity is its president. Unfortunately, we no longer see clear vulnerabilities in him. Putin is not ill. He has suppressed all freedoms in Russia and, after the assassinations of Prigozhin and Navalni, his position is stronger than ever. That is surely what he hoped for when he decided to pursue the war after the Kiev fiasco. And, make no mistake, he is succeeding. On Telegram channels, where the temperature of Russian nationalism is measured, he is already hailed as emperor.

In Western democracies, the centre of gravity usually lies with the people. But whether out of fear, habit or enthusiasm, Russians allow themselves to be drawn into the adventure of conquest even though the casualties on the battlefield must be staggering. How many? The Kremlin says it recruits a thousand new soldiers every day and, by almost everyone’s reckoning, it has about half a million in Ukraine today. The 200,000 men who began the invasion and the 300,000 forcibly mobilised reservists already added up to that number.

Where are the rest? There have been no discharges – that, at least, is what soldiers’ families complain about as far as the regime will let them – and no large reserves have been created. A simple subtraction will tell us how many are missing on their side of the front. Assuming a ratio of one dead for every four casualties, it is likely that more than 150,000 Putin’s soldiers have lost their lives.

In exchange for what? It is a bad sign – I wrote as much when it came to assessing the Ukrainian counter-attack – that the Russian defence ministry measures its advances in square kilometres. The little more than 500 that, according to their own figures, they have conquered in the last four months seems a lot, but its square root does not impress us so much. It is an area slightly smaller than that of the Doñana park and has cost, between dead and wounded, around 100,000 casualties.

But casualties – the reader will rightly say – are a Russian problem. What interests us is whether Russia can replace them. And, at the moment, the answer is yes. The quarry will eventually dwindle but, for the moment, it can hold its own for a period of time which, although no one can say for sure, does not invite optimism.

And the same goes for the material. There are still old armoured vehicles stored in depots which, at the cost of a loss of quality that is not very noticeable on a front like the Ukrainian one, can replace the losses for several more years.

The Ukrainian perspective
Ukraine’s centre of gravity is the morale of its population. As long as it holds out, Russian victory is impossible. Even if it were to defeat Zelensky’s army at the front, Putin would still have too many Groznyis left to raze to the ground. He has neither the ammunition nor the manpower to finish the job. Think of the Gaza Strip, multiply its size by 20, and you will soon come to the same conclusion.

And if everything depends on it, how is the morale of the Ukrainians? There is nothing easy about the situation they are in. There are far fewer of them than the Russians and, even if they take better care of their soldiers, it is to be expected that the casualties they have suffered in this war will be proportionally much higher. And all for what? The 500 square kilometres the Russians have conquered are not an excessive booty but, from a morale perspective, they sound much better than having lost them.

It is impossible to assess the morale of a people from the outside. Polls do not help us much. When the question is whether one is willing to give one’s life for one’s country, the only answer I find credible is «I don’t know». Did Agustina de Aragón or María Pita know that they were heroines before they were heroines?

What we do know is that in most historical cases, from Numantia to Gaza to Mariupol, the defenders endure the unspeakable. Why? Because the cocktail of hatred and fear that drives them often works like Obelix’s magic potion, cooked in a cauldron into which almost every human being has fallen as a child.

The elites of Ukrainian society are fighting back. The Russians are not.

There is, however, one thermometer of people’s morale that few have noticed. Very often one can read in the Ukrainian press that Olympic athletes, journalists, actors and even Ukrainian politicians have died on the front lines. Such stories are never reported in the Russian press. The elites of Ukrainian society are fighting. The Russian ones are not. As long as that is the case, I would not bet on Ukraine giving in.

The Western perspective
One last centre of gravity remains to be analysed: our own. Will Kiev continue to receive from the West the weapons it needs to defend its citizens? The latest outbursts by the Kremlin clowns, the dictator’s renewed threats and the resumption of shelling Ukrainian cities lead me to believe that Putin thinks so. For once, I agree with him.

In Europe, things are quite clear. There is fear of Putin, true. But instead of taking a step backwards, most leaders have realised – history is a great teacher and we have already experienced the same situation with Hitler – that it was necessary to take a step forwards.

And in the United States? After months of holding the will of the House hostage, Speaker Johnson finally allowed a vote on aid to Kiev, which passed with a large bipartisan majority. Zelenski, who knows what is at stake in Washington, must have rubbed his hands together when he saw the booing that the ineffable Marjorie Taylor Greene received from both sides of the chamber when the congresswoman, a Russian planner if ever there was one, proposed the speaker’s dismissal for having taken the step.

And what does Trump say? The former president, who needs to create majorities if he wants to be re-elected – just look at his growing ambiguity on abortion – has changed his tune. He may have been helped to do so by Russia’s ally Iran’s attack on its ally Israel. As well as giving Johnson the support he needed – the speaker would never have dared to challenge him – the Republican candidate’s latest statements sound different. Trump is no longer denying aid to Ukraine, but making it conditional on aid from the European Union.

It is good that Donald Trump is beginning to distance himself from Putin. There is one less dark cloud in the Ukrainian sky. Even if it costs its citizens, who are paying dearly for their freedom, a few more years of war… at least they have hope.

https://actualidad.rt.com/video/510179-analista-legitimidad-zelenski-externa-exogena