By Rich Lowry
Wednesday, April 06, 2022
Lawrence Freedman has a good
post on what Russia, having lost the first stage of the war, will
attempt next:
Taking Slovyansk would be a first
step to a more ambitious objective of cutting off Ukrainian forces in eastern
Ukraine, but to encircle the Ukrainian forces they will still need to meet up
with Russian forces advancing from the South. Slovyansk is preparing for the
battle, and many of its civilians have been evacuated. As the ISW note:
If Russian forces are unable to
take Slovyansk at all, Russian frontal assaults in Donbas are unlikely to
independently breakthrough Ukrainian defences and Russia’s campaign to capture
the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts will likely fail.
If this analysis is correct this
new stage of the war could be critical. Another Ukrainian victory will not see
the Russians pushed out of Ukraine but will make their position more difficult
for the stage after that. . . .
Yet even if Russia does acquire the
territory it seeks in the Donbas and prepares for a climactic defensive battle,
there still remains the perplexing question about the nature of Putin’s end
game. From the start the most baffling aspect of this war has been the
incoherence of Russian strategy. The gap between stated aims and available
capabilities was wide enough when it started but it has now widened even
further, especially after being defeated in the war’s first round.
Putin no doubt wishes to avoid
being seen as a loser. It is possible that the ideas developed by the Ukrainian
government for it to abandon NATO but rely instead on security guarantees might
provide some consolation, but it would not be much. He is left with the worst
of both worlds….Taking over the Donbas now would mean oppressing a hostile
population, reconstructing shattered towns and cities, and guarding against
future Ukrainian military action.
Maybe he will soon lose interest in
a land grab but satisfy himself with a de-industrialised and impoverished
Ukraine, its people traumatised and its infrastructure broken.
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