by Richard Martin
- The consensus of open sources is that the Russian offensive has “culminated.” That means that it has run out of steam. Some news outlets are calling that a “stalemate.” If by that they intend to mean that nothing more will happen, then not really. The Russians are preparing a new campaign, and that could take days to weeks to prepare.
- The consensus is that the Russians appear to be digging in on their current positions. They have failed to achieve their operational objectives. See the attached map (Map 1) of 26 Feb by “Jomini of the West” (@JominiW on Twitter). That was his assessment of Russian objectives at the start of the campaign. I’ve also attached his assessment as of yesterday (20 March 22), so you can see for yourself how the Russians are doing (Map 2).
- I did my own assessment of Russian campaign objectives a few weeks ago before I was aware of @JominiW’s one, and it corresponds pretty much to his (Map 3).
- It appears that the Russians are conducting a massive ethnic cleansing campaign in the E, SE, and S of Ukraine. The aim would be to expel as many civilians as possible from the major cities of Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol and others. That is the purpose of all the destruction, to make the cities uninhabitable. This is essentially what the Serbs did in Bosnia back in 1992-93, e.g., Srebrenica, Sarajevo, etc.
- Once most of the civilians are expelled, the Russians will claim a fait accompli on the ground, with a view to “negotiating” a ceasefire or a peace treaty with a rump Ukrainian state. In other words, Putin wants to turn Ukraine into another Belarus.
- Speaking of Belarus, things have been happening there that probably aren’t being reported by the media. For instance, about 3 or 4 days ago, there were major explosions in Belarus corresponding to known airbases. It also appears that Belarusian railway workers are sabotaging switching stations and engaging in consequential civil disobedience and job actions as part of widespread refusal to support operational movements into Ukraine.
- There are some who believe that Putin is trying to provoke Lukashenko to commit Belarusian forces to the ground war in Ukraine by staging false flag attacks. Most seem to think now that it is resistance in Belarus (see previous point), possibly even revolts or mutinies in the military.
- The Kremlin apparatus is threatening to thrust into W Ukraine, but I believe that is not realistic or probable at this stage.
- I would treat any claims by Russia of use of Wunderwaffe (e.g., hypersonic missiles) with a lot of skepticism. Also, claims of large numbers of foreign volunteers from central Asia, Libya, and Syria. They’ll probably get some, but nothing like the 20K that Ukraine is claiming have already joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.
- For the latter, the Ukrainian legion is telling foreigners to volunteer only if they have actual combat experience. That means that if the 20K figure is to be believed, then it’s mostly actual fighters, not rear area people.
- Final point, the Ukrainian Information Operations campaign is putting out mostly accurate information. The consensus is that it is mostly believable.
© Richard Martin
Richard Martin was an infantry officer for over 20 years in the Canadian Army. He is currently an entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and information warrior focusing on extracting valuable information and signals from chaos and noise.
