THE POTENTIAL FUTURE DANGERS AND PATH TOWARD VICTORY FOR RUSSIA IN THE DONBASS AND UKRAINE

The primary dangers for Russia in Ukraine, in my opinion, are in the areas of containment and overreach.

If we take both the Russian high command and Putin at their word the primary goal of the military operation underway is to wrest control of the Donbass region that currently resides within Ukraine. This to protect the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions who have been under siege and occasional bombardment for eight years now.

The sub-goals of course are;

1) to ensure the Ukrainian authorities present now and in future years never join the NATO alliance. (Russia has protested the stated intent of NATO and both Ukraine and Georgia to achieve NATO membership since it was first stated as a goal at the Bucharest Summit of 2008.)

2) to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine rendering it a far lesser threat to both the people of the Donbass and those of Russia itself. (There can be little doubt that the Donbass region of Ukraine will transfer as a whole to the Russian Federation once the present conflict reduces sufficiently to allow a referendum to take place in each of the two republics, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic.)

So, having covered the primary goals of Russia’s ‘special operation’, what might the risks going forward be from the situation as it now stands?

Given that Russia will not and indeed cannot abandon the first goal of its operation mentioned above, to make safe and secure the Donbass region, I will take it as a given that no matter how long it takes Russia will attain this goal by ejecting or otherwise removing the remaining Ukrainian troops from the region.

Currently we have the near capitulation or elimination of all Ukrainian troops from the port city of Mariupol. When complete only large groupings will remain, those in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. I would foresee mass surrenders to be likely in the case of the Ukrainian troops in these locations. The situation in Mariupol was more protracted due to the more extremist and ideologically-driven nature of the ultra-nationalists embedded there.

Meanwhile, in central and western Ukraine Russia continues daily to target fuel dumps and various military targets. In recent hours what Russian sources have described as a ‘missile manufacturing site’ near Kiev was attacked and presumably destroyed.

So to the dangers; those as I see it emerging from the new tactic deployed by the Ukrainian military of conducting attacks in Russian Federation territory. Russian military defence have now issued two separate warnings on this, threatening to attack decision-making targets in Kiev, presumably the offices and/or homes of the Ukrainian political elite.

By taking the war to Russia the Kiev authorities may have a morale boosting strategy in mind. It is undoubtedly the case that they are being given advice/direction from foreign (mainly American) advisors and presumably this has been the case all along.

The dangers as I see them for Russia in this situation, as I have said at the outset, are those of containment and overreach. Naturally Russia will wish to contain all aspects of violent aggression against their troops and citizens alike. The response so far has been relatively muted but has the potential to go into an ever higher gear if this new tactic of Ukraine is continued and perhaps even increased in scope. Then the decapitation of the regime will undoubtedly be considered as a solution.

The U.S. way of war consists of such a decapitation which Russia may eventually feel driven to initiate. A shock and awe barrage of attacks across a capital city such as Baghdad will certainly tend to knock out a high proportion of the central command of any nation. Of course, if adequate preparations for war have been made with the distribution of command functions elsewhere, far from the capital, this will not be the case. The destruction of the administrative centres of Kiev would be a huge step for Russia to take in any case.

What would result from any partial or complete decapitation of Ukraine’s central control functions? The likelihood is that military divisions in the field may feel isolated enough to surrender. This would certainly be to the great advantage of Russia and would greatly speed up the progress of the war and no doubt spare many lives.

On the other hand, such an occurrence may simply distribute and exacerbate the lawless nature of the many disparate groups who could then mount a West-backed guerrilla war with command and control being exerted from outside sources, perhaps even the same sources if a contingency in the event of such a decapitation has been foreseen and planned for.

An extended guerrilla campaign is very likely what the U.S. political elites would like to see occur in future months whereby Russia becomes ever more weakened by the financial and human costs of such a protracted war of attrition where the enemy melts back into and among the civilian population making strikes on an ad hoc basis of opportunity.

These are the risks I foresee for Russia.

What might limit the effect of these?

Restraint and reinforcement are the two options I would recommend.

Firstly, on succeeding in taking the entirety of the Donbass speedily reinforcing it massively, bringing military manpower and equipment to the border between the Donbass and what is left of Ukraine. Perhaps even creating a permanent barrier in the medium to long term. Then, full withdrawal of manpower from central and western Ukraine but using air and land-based missile attacks on remaining fuel/transport/military targets, especially concentrating on targets that have most recently mounted any offensive attack on Russia or Russians (both republics having by this time having joined the Russian Federation). In this way, by gathering within a defensive unit within a fully secured location Russia can still make its demands and achieve containment without overreach becoming a problem. 

The tactical retreat into a robustly defended position where all resources needed can be used to create maximum security but advantageous ability to hit targets at will and make demands backed by the threat of further attacks if submission to them is resisted, seems to me the best move Russia could make once the Donbass is fully and securely in its hands.