There will be no peace agreements, ceasefires or surrenders in Ukraine.
The next two months will bring what US defense officials have called “ a knife fight” in the area that the Ukrainian army calls “The Joint Forces Operation” (JFO).
It is the region that is known as Donbas.
For eight years, the two sides have fought there, in a scenario in which elements of the Russian regular army is supplemented by separatist units.
Now, after the defeat in kyiv, Russian forces are redeploying in the region to face the best and most experienced units in Ukraine.
The coming battles will be more like the maneuver battles of the Second World Warl than those fought in the cities of kyiv, Mariupol and Sumy in the six weeks that the war has lasted so far.
However, it is unlikely that the Russians will succeed.
After its recent defeat in the north, Russia has made some significant changes.
Most importantly a commanding general has been appointed .
The importance of this is not the identity or the individual experience of Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov , but the fact that the Russians will have a commanding officer to coordinate and try to achieve a single focused and apparently realistic operational objective, rather than three separate competing objectives in the north, south and east.
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Russia is desperately trying to replace its considerable losses, up to 20% of your strength.
New efforts will make little difference. The soldiers and the reactivated reserves that were recently summoned will not be ready for months.
Nevertheless, the force the Russians will amass will be formidable, and with supply lines shorter and better established in Russia, they may be able to avoid some of the appalling mistakes that have characterized their war so far.
Equally important , in theory, is that they should be able to use their air force to greater effect, by being closer to their bases and their air defense coverage area.
But recent events have shown that theory is a poor guide to what Ukrainian air defenses can achieve.
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In the end, the Russian army has always been and still is very strong in artillery, the weapon they call “the Red God of War”.
Battles of pockets
In this type of battle the forces are launched against the Ukrainian defenders deployed in various protruding points or “bulges”, which are areas surrounded by Russian-backed separatists.
Throughout military history, these battles have offered the possibility of trapping enemy forces in “pockets” .
Military historians will remember the Ypres Salient (1280-1918), Verdun (1916), Kursk (1943) and, of course, the Battle of the Bulge (1944-45) as the most prominent examples of this.
The Russians will seek to probe and break through the Ukrainian defenses, surround those ledges, trap the Ukrainians and annihilate them using their advantages in air and artillery power, or at least force them to retreat .
Russian-backed separatist troops successfully carried out such an operation on a relatively small scale at the Battle of Debaltseve in February 2015, where artillery was used with devastating effects .
U.S. military analysts report that they expect Ukrainian positions in the Severodonetsk Salient to , and especially around the city of Sloviansk, are the initial targets of an attempted encirclement by Russia, with an eventual attack on the city of Dnipro, an important communications and road hub, to secure the entire region east of the Dneiper River.
All this is very well known to the Ukrainian commander, the General Valerii Zaluzhnyi and his staff.
The Russians want quick battles of annihilation. What they will get is a war of attrition.
For their Bitter experience, Ukrainian commanders fully understand the risks of being surrounded.
They have demonstrated the qualities of agility and tactical innovation required for this type of battle.
Even better, they know what’s coming. NATO air and space reconnaissance and surveillance, as well as Ukraine’s own intelligence capabilities, will ensure that there are no surprise attacks.
A long war?
With continued and growing Western assistance, the Ukraine should be able to sustain a long war better than the Russians.
NATO assistance will be vital in reasserting the defenders’ armored units, giving them a much greater opportunity to counterattack and regain ground.
However, maintaining some level of air control is the most important factor, reason why retaining and strengthening anti-aircraft missile defenses is a top priority.
Despite Russia’s advantages in technology and equipment, Ukrainian forces will continue to exploit Russia’s acute and chronic weaknesses in logistics and supply.
Finally, one of the steadiest rules of warfare is that a successful attacker should enjoy a three-to-one s superiority.
Russia’s diminished strength does not have that superiority by a long shot. There are exceptions to this general rule of three to one, such as the Gulf War of 1991, where a well-led and well-equipped US-led coalition annihilated a larger, combat-experienced Iraqi army.
In such cases, attackers more than made up for the relative lack of quantity with quality training, planning, and the crucial moral components of cohesion and motivation.
In the spring battles of 2022, it is the defenders, not the attackers, who are in abundant possession of those factors against a Russian military beset by chronic problems of endemic corruption, professionalism, and training that have rendered them seemingly incapable of conducting complex operations.
These problems will not go away and will not be resolved with a change in command or operational focus.
Overall, the ravages inflicted by the Ukrainian military have reduced their manpower, equipment and morale.
The next battle will start within the next two weeks. Attempting to predict its precise course is ultimately useless, not even the warring generals know it.
It may well be that the fate of the Russian army is already sealed in what is likely to be a long war.
The only reservation for this may be that Russia opts for a escalation using “weapons of mass destruction” in one form or another, be it tactical nuclear warheads or chemical weapons.
Reports from Mariupol that the Russians may have already used them, if proven, would show that Russia is prepared to resort to something even more serious if they fear complete military humiliation in Ukraine.
Frank Ledwidge is Professor of Strategy and Military Law at the University of Portsmouth, England. This article appeared on The Conversation. You can read the original version here.
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