It may be a sign of my inability to escape map thinking. But despite accelerating progress on the battlefield and more and more Ukraine bucking under relentless Russian pressure, Russia may not be as close to a resolution as its military overmatch suggests. The question is how Russia achieves its Special Military Operation goals, which all Russian officials ritually maintain will be achieved in full. The one that seems most problematic is denazification, as we will discuss.
Because the kinetic war is the most visible and resource-consuming aspect of this conflict, commentators have tended to focus on that as what will determine when the war is over. We have been trying to look at this in an analogy to good old fashioned chemistry: what might be rate determining steps or processes? In chemistry, the rate determining step is the slowest and winds up determining the rate of the overall reaction.
Of course, real life with human agency is a lot messier than chem labs. Here, political considerations that are (for obvious reasons) not fully transparent are having a big impact on the way this war is being conducted and therefore its speed of resolution. So while it is impossible to work out exactly what processes where might be extending the timetable for this war, thinking this way may lead to considering the situation in a more integrated manner and identifying key leverage points and impediments.
The pace and manner in which Russia subdues Ukraine is not purely military. Russia follows Clausewitzian thinking and Clausewitz stresses that war is an extension of politics.
For instance, Russia has held back on taking steps the US routinely inflicts on its enemies early in battle, such as taking out its comms (internet, phone, broadcast) and electrical supply. That appears to be the result, at the outset, of Russia seeing the war as being conducted against a fraternal people, as Putin is wont to point out; indeed, many Russians have relatives in Ukraine. So Russia had the contradictory aims of wanting to bring Ukraine to heel yet at relatively limited human costs to both sides. That contradiction seems less nutty when you realize the SMO was intended, not to take territory or achieve regime change, but simply to force Ukraine to get real and enter into a serious pact to end Ukraine’s war on the Donbass and scuttle its plans to enter NATO. And in fact, that plan was on track until Boris Johnson and other Western officials told Zelensky to abandon the talks, that the West would back them fully in beating back the Russian invasion.
Russia was slow to adapt militarily to the failure of Plan A. It is an open question as to whether they have yet fully grasped the political implications of the West, having invested way too much in credibility and an awful lot in treasure and materiel, rejecting possible solutions that would recognize Russian concerns with prejudice.1
In other words, Russia did come up with a military plan B and is executing on it. But even though Russia also recognizes that the US and NATO remain implacably hostile and that they are highly likely to use any negotiations once again merely as a ruse to try to shore up their positions, Russia still does not seem to be engaging with the resulting big issue we have kept hammering on: what does it do about Western Ukraine?
To achieve its goal of improving domestic security, as we sketch out below, it seems the least bad option is to occupy most of Western Ukraine, which is not a trivial task
In particular, the original denazification goal depended on having a cooperative government in Kiev implement it. The plan likely would have included at a minimum getting rid of Bandera statues, re-writing textbooks to end demonization of Russians (yes, that’s in them post 2014) and return to teaching that shows respect for Russian culture, ending discriminatory practices towards ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, barring neo-Nazi parties and publications, and restoring the rights of the Ukraine Orthodox Church and its members, and returning land and property seized. Russia will have to implement these steps itself or install a puppet regime to take that on. But a project that puts a new government at odds with a big swathe of its population that is dominant in a big part of the country reduces further any hollow claims to legitimacy.
Back to the evolution of the military Plan B. Recall that Russia did not decide it needed to engage in a more aggressive campaign until pulled back in Kherson and Kharkiv rather than lose many good soldiers. That retreat alarmed residents of the Donbass, since it raised the specter that Russia could abandon them too, US-style, exposing them to Ukraine reprisals. So Russia launched its partial mobilization, ramped up arms production, and constructed enormous fortified lines to protect the land bridge to Crimea. Ukraine similarly sought to intensify the conflict and land a decisive blow against the occupiers via its super duper failure of a summer counteroffensive.
Many sources, including some Western ones, are reporting an accelerating Russian advance on many points in the front line. Alexander Mercouris notes that Russian forces have advanced into Toretsk much faster than they have previously with any other fortified city so far. Ukraine surrenders, which once were unheard of, are now beginning to happen.
Even though Ukraine forces are running out of men and short of weapons, it may still be some time before the military can no longer hold the Russians back. Mark Sleboda contends the Ukraine forces are still fighting hard despite their losses, and that the war will thus go into 2025. Its neo-Nazi stiffeners assure they will hold out as long as possible. Before the bitter end, Zelensky may flee or be assassinated, with Banderite-led and military-dominated government taking over. A related scenario is moving the seat of government to Lvov, a solidly pro-neo-Nazi enclave.
At the moment, the Russian leadership appears willing to continue with its current plan of attrition until things on the Ukraine side break in some big way. But Russia is oddly moving slowly with its showstopper of taking out electric power entirely. Russia has been relentlessly destroying more and more components of electricity generation in addition to its destruction of transmission assets. Perhaps it does not want to be in “You broke it, you own it” mode, meaning not just the grid but the entire country. Some updates, first from TCH:
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has attacked “DTEK Energy” facilities over 180 times. The most destructive shelling occurred in the spring and summer of 2024.
DTEK is not the sole but the biggest power company. Aside from the shut-down Zaporzhizhia Power Plant, Ukraine’s other nuclear facilities are operating. In the story, DTEK makes brave noises that perhaps it can make some repairs by the fall but pointedly warns about being unable to anticipate what happens in the winter. In keeping, the press has reported that in many cities, scheduled outages are so frequent as to make it hard to impossible to keep food refrigerated.
From the top of the July 28 report from Ukraine’s Energy Ministry:
As of today, it is planned that hourly outage schedules will be applied only during peak consumption hours – from 18:00 to 22:00. Restrictions will apply to the extent of one queue.
For information on changes in the schedules, please visit the official websites of the regional power distribution companies in your region.
There will be no blackouts for critical infrastructure companies and companies that import more than 80% of electricity for their needs in accordance with a Government decree.
A significant capacity deficit in the power system remains. As a result of massive hostile attacks on the energy sector, 9 GW of production capacity was lost. There is constant shelling, especially in the frontline and border areas. Substations and power transmission lines are often targeted. As a result of missile and drone strikes, there are restrictions on the transmission of available electricity.
Another fresh story describes how Ukraine is pressing its communications providers to develop plans to handle outages of 10 hours a day, up from the current level of 4 hours.
Now again, even here the “slower than possible” pace may have some design. By putting citizens (and business) in a very difficult but not totally untenable position in the summer, it gives them the opportunity to leave Ukraine (assuming that actually can be done; we have posted reports that Ukraine has sealed its borders hard to prevent desperately-needed workers from decamping). Fewer civilians reduces the cost and complexity of any occupation and rebuilding. It does not take a lot in the way of powers of perception to see that the mere arrival of winter, with its much greater energy/grid demands, will on its own force longer daily outages and probably system breakdown.
A noisy minority of Russia society argues should be prosecuting the war more aggressively. The arguments against that are operational effectiveness (going faster results in more loss of life and trained combat personnel cannot be replaced quickly) and not causing undue harm to civilians.
But perhaps another reason for the continued cautious pace is the lack of much indication that Russia is readying itself for an occupation. Perhaps Russian readers can correct me, but I have no sign from the Western commentators that this topic has gotten meaningful discussion among Russian pundits or officials. That does not mean the General Staff and top Russian officials are not looking hard into this matter, but you’d think they would need to prepare civil society at some point if this were a serious plan. For instance, in a recent press conference, Putin remarked, faux casually, that he didn’t see any need for further conscription2 but that might change if Russia decided it needed to take Kiev.
It is not only less costly in terms of manpower and materiel to keep grinding slowly; it also makes for an easier “liberation” process to chew up Ukraine bit by bit.
However, Russia looks set to exhaust this approach. At a bare minimum. Russia has committed itself to take all of the four oblasts that it officially integrated into Russia in September 2022. That means all of Kherson and Zaporzhizhia. The map below is dated; it’s as August 2022. Nevertheless, I have yet to hear of Russia making any meaningful incursions into Zaporzhizhia since then, so it would appear to be useful even as of now. The yellow section is the part Russia does not control:
If I were Putin, I would insist on securing all the now-Russian oblasts before making bolder undertakings. That means securing Zaprozhizhia city, which had a population of 750,000 before the war. Contrast that with Mariupol, which had about 450,000 residents then.
Zaporzhizhia, like Kherson City, straddles the Dnieper. Russia marching up to the Dnieper alone would focus Western minds, as in make it very hard for Western leaders to deny that the Ukraine defenses were crumbling.
And even in the event of Russia merely taking what it now deems to be part of Russia, we have the wee problem we have taken to regularly pointing out to readers, thanks to PlutoniumKun. Russia will need to control the entire Dnieper river basin if it liberates any sizeable cities on the Dnieper. A hostile power on the same system can wreak all sorts of havoc, from creating floods, as we saw with the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, to dumping raw sewage.
Now of course I am ignoring the possibility of a true military collapse happening in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps Russia has intel that indicates that that is probable. But in that event, it would seem to force the question of how to occupy and stabilize the country. The normal rule of thumb for combatting insurgencies is about 11 soldiers for every 1,000 residents. That would suggest 440,000 servicemembers, assuming 20 million in not-already-Russian-held Ukraine.
But Ukraine is very large country, and would seem to have many more infrastructure vulnerabilities than the above mentioned watershed problem (as in I wonder if the old normal assumes the classic guys in sandals with AK-47s in underdeveloped countries). So I suspect the typical assumptions are too low.
And an occupation would seem necessary given the hostility to all things Russian in many parts of Western Ukraine. An occupation would seem a necessary precondition to installing a puppet interim government (where Russia actually has a pretty good legal fig leaf3) before Russia figures out how to roust the (potentially many) Banderite sympathizers and win enough hearts and minds via competent restoration of services. But this is hard and costly even if Russia executes extremely well.
And that’s before getting to the fact that Ukraine was and is fabulously corrupt. Even if Russia were to succeed in making it a Belarus-level friendly, it will still have to exercise a lot of hard and soft control for quite some time. How does it get that intimately involved and not have some of that Ukraine corruption prove infectious or necessary? For instance, Russia is going to have to rely on many current Ukraine officials and other personnel to administer the place.
John Helmer’s solution, of a great big de-electrified DMZ in Western Ukraine seems a lot simpler, even if it could be depicted as ethnic cleansing.
In other words, Russia has some very thorny problems to solve and there’s a weird lack of much visible consideration of them. Again, the risk remains that Russia will win the war and lose the peace.
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1 Please do not tell me of various press and pundit mentions of negotiations or negotiation feelers. Well-intentioned moves by Viktor Orban, merely to try to open up communications, have generated a vicious response from the EU. The last NATO summit earlier this month featured all members signing a declaration that Ukraine was on an an irreversible path to membership. Deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, commented:
The conclusion is obvious. We have to do everything to make sure that the “irreversible path of Ukraine” towards NATO ends with either the disappearance of Ukraine, or the disappearance of NATO. Better, both.
Zelensky has been giving lip service to peace talks of late, while not having indicated any retreat from his earlier peace plan, which included Russia going back to Ukraine’s 1991 borders and paying reparations. And in any event, neo-Nazis have threatened him if he does negotiate.
2 Keep in in mind enlistments are still at a healthy pace.
3 The Maidan coup violated the then-current constitution. Former prime minister Yanukovich’s opponents did not secure enough votes in the Rada to remove him. They just did it and changed the Constitution too, again violating the required procedures. So Russia could reinstall Yanukovich as the last legally-elected prime minister. Zelensky continuing to remain in office after his term expired makes that easier.
