Day 6
Please Note: Early editions of the Ukraine Daily War Update may not fit later formatting standards, and their primary purpose is to act as an archive for my coverage of the conflict. Some editing is done to the original text to make it more formal and readable, but no details are altered, and incorrect claims are noted as often as possible.
Overview
The West
A Ukrainian working aboard a Russian armsdealer’s luxury yacht docked in Spain attempted to sabotage the ship, partially sunk the vessel, and was arrested before admitting to what he did and saying he didn’t regret it in the slightest. The judge ordered him released, and he is now flying to Poland so he can join the fight for Ukraine.
Most Western companies have seized exports to Russia. Many companies are also separating from the Russian market and cutting ties as the Moscow Stock Exchange remains closed in order to prevent it from collapsing further. Meanwhile, the company overseeing the Nordstream pipeline project that made Germany beholden to Russian natural gas has gone bankrupt.
Russia
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has claimed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is justified on the grounds that Russia had to prevent Ukraine from getting nuclear weapons. There was no possibility of such a thing happening nor any effort to develop such weapons.
Ukraine
Over half a million women and children have fled Ukraine in less than a week. Males of military age are banned from leaving the country due to the potential for conscription.
Russia is increasingly resorting to indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas: hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, supermarkets, TV stations, and more have all been hit, and targeted deliberately.
Ukrainian lawmakers continue to work amidst Kyiv’s bombardment, often joining civilians in the metro stations underground. According to Alyona Shkrum, a member of Ukraine’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, “We were told the first obligation is you have to stay alive; the second obligation is you cannot be captured by Russian forces, because if the Russian forces have MPs under their control, we will be forced to vote at gunpoint for some kind of capitulation. The second order is more important.”¹
Russian troops continue to face widespread resistance in the cities they have managed to occupy, and are often being accosted by dozens or hundreds of Ukrainians openly defying Russian soldiers.
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 1, 2022
Battlefield Updates
Russia has likely deployed the vast majority of combat power Russia positioned on Ukraine’s borders on the eve of the war has been deployed and crossed the border, giving Russia serious advantages in all conventional spaces. These units will likely begin operating more intelligently in the coming days as they readjust to the fact that their “thunder run” tactics are not working. The era of quick victories for Ukraine and embarrassing defeats for Russia is likely nearing a close if the Russians do learn their lessons, and the war is almost certainly about to get more bloody.²
There are widespread reports of Russian vehicles or even entire convoys being abandoned for lack of fuel and supplies, often without sustaining any damage. Other vehicles appear to have been simply deserted, left in fields with fuel still remaining but no drivers in sight. The low morale of Russian soldiers, who were not informed that they would be invading Ukraine, has been widely noted.
Kyiv is being shelled once more as the city anticipates another Russian attempt to storm it within the week. Urban battles can take months to resolve with stiff enough resistance. Even if Russian forces manage to break into the city, they make continue bleeding there for weeks, and every week Russian armor and infantry are stuck in Kyiv is another month they are suffering and unable to take more towns as Western weapons flow into the country. The delaying action around Kyiv appears to be working for now, as the Russian convoy heading for the city now appears to be 40 miles long and largely stalled, with no major assault yet materializing.
Russia has reportedly begun making mass, indiscriminate use of non-precision artillery and air strikes on urban areas, including the use of cluster munitions in Kharkiv. At least four apartment complexes and a supermarket on every side of the city have been hit so far. The city itself is likely soon to be surrounded and besieged by advancing Russian forces.
The Ukrainians will soon have to pull forces back from the eastern Line of Contact towards Dnipro if they don’t want to be surrounded by Russian advances to the north and south. Unfortunately, once they pull back, they will likely face heavy air attack, though heavy losses are certain whether they stay or go.³
The city of Mariupol, famous for its resistance during the 2014 war, has likely been surrounded by Russian forces.
Russia appears to be making progress in taking Kherson, a regional capital on the southwest along the Dnieper River. It seems likely that it is already or very nearly in Russian hands, or in the process of being surrounded.
Daily Conclusion
I will say it again, because we should not get high off our supply of copium: being outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded, Ukraine is still likely to lose this war. There is a chance for Ukraine, but it remains slim. This war will likely grind down to a bloody, destructive insurgency, and the question to be answered is not likely to be “Can Ukraine defeat Russia?” but “How many thousands of soldiers and tanks can Putin afford to lose in a prolonged insurgency before being forced to pull back or enter into peace talks?”⁴
So, as pessimistic as I am about Ukraine’s chances of winning against Russia, I am increasingly doubtful that Russia can win against them. Zelenskyy’s approval rating is over 90%, videos abound in even the most Russian-language-heavy regions of Ukrainians telling the Russians to leave, and there appears to be absolutely no appetite for any sort of surrender.
Faced with this, what is Russia going to do? Occupy the entire country? Occupation will require hundreds of thousands, even millions of soldiers, and there will still be a massive (and porous) border with the West to contend with, creating a steady supply of arms for any insurgency. It seems impossible that Russia has the soldiers to effectively occupy and police the entire country, and that is without mentioning the possibility, even in a worst case scenario, of a Ukrainian rump state surviving in the west of the country.
With some luck and will, it might just be possible for Ukraine to persevere long enough to send the Russians packing, but it will be a long, brutal affair.
1 – To which a friend of mine (correctly) replied, “Unrivaled patriotism.”
2 – I tend to view events like these in a pessimistic light, in part because I lean towards pessimism, and in part to avoid getting my (or anyone else’s) hopes up. At the time, it seemed obvious that the “second army of the world” would adapt, learn from their mistakes, and increasingly grow more competent. That turned out to not be the case.
3 – Reports of Russian gains in the northeast and southwest were greatly overstated at this point, giving a false sense that Ukrainian units on the Line of Contact were in danger of being imminently surrounded. Most analysts agreed this was a possibility or even likely, before Russian forces found themselves bogged down fighting for Kharkiv and Mariupol.
4 – No such insurgency, as it turns out, would be required. My initial pessimistic outlook assumed that Ukraine would mostly falter as a polity, perhaps being reduced to a rump state west of the Dnipro that could act as a hub for insurgent activity, which would hopefully bleed Russia dry and eventually lead to Ukraine’s liberation. Thankfully, this prediction was utterly incorrect.
