Weapons, strategy, duration, negotiations: all there is to know almost five months after the war in Ukraine

Russia is willing to recruit prisoners to compensate for troop losses in Ukraine. A not too traditional method. And the mercenaries of Wagner, a private military company linked to the Kremlin. Some sources even estimate that around 37,000 soldiers died in the war.

Russia has her the staff is exhausted and his weapons, friend. But the Russian president Vladimir Putin He claims that Ukraine has not yet started its campaign and threatens more brutality. Keep advancing with the artillery on the Donbas, especially on the civilian population.

The doctor alex Crowther He has extensive experience as a strategist and political advisor to the American government during the Cold War, post-war, and post-9/11. He was counter-terrorism advisor to the US ambassador to Iraq and special assistant to the Supreme Allied Command in Europe. Politologist, specialist in strategy, cyber security and rebellion, he is today National Security Professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies, a think tank of the US Army.

This was the dialogue with Clarione On his assessment of the war in Ukraine and the attitude of Vladimir Putin.

Does Russia have an advantage in this war against Ukraine? And if so, why?

-Russia is a much larger country. Its gross domestic product is 8 times higher than that of Ukraine. It also has more weapons because the Russians received the weapons from the former Soviet Union.

-What does Ukraine need to reverse course?

-They need more weapons. Their population is mobilized, so they have a lot of soldiers at their disposal. But above all they need armored vehicles and artillery systems. For example, the United States has supplied eight high-mobility rocket artillery systems, and four more are en route. And the UK and Germany have both promised their multiple rocket launch system. And those systems have a greater range than the systems used by the Russians. Then they will give the Ukrainians an advantage.

-What is the reality on the ground? What is Russia’s strategy in Ukraine? Will you think beyond Donetsk or not?

– That’s how they’ll go on. They wanted to destroy the country, Ukraine. Putin thinks that Ukraine is neither a country nor a culture: he says they are Russians. So they tried, at the beginning of the war, to do the same tactic they used in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1979, to behead Ukraine. But they weren’t successful.

So now they are using a attrition or reduction approach to the number of available Ukrainian soldiers. They use artillery, rockets and missiles against their target and, after defeating it, occupy it with armored vehicles. But this is an approximation of friction. And they lost thousands of soldiers.

How far does Western support go?

– Do you think there is really definitive Western support for Ukraine? Or is it more of a symbolic medium?

– Both at the same time. For example, the United States supplied eight missile systems with four others. Slovakia, a country very close to Ukraine, will deliver its attack planes and also the tanks, which are former Russian tanks. So some countries, like Poland and Finland, are really giving support. But there are other countries that are only supporting with words and nothing more.

-Russian troops are discouraged and with old material. But with what Ukraine has today, how long can the war continue?

-Putin is mobilizing the Russian economy and they have changed the rules of integration of the people. They have not made a total mobilization of the population because this is a sign that Putin has not been successful. So he doesn’t want to do it. Then they are at the “completion point”, when you can no longer do offensive operations. I’m on operational hiatus now. Because they have to integrate more soldiers and more vehicles, because they have lost 20,000 vehicles. It’s awful for them. The approximation of him is not valid for the 21st century.

What does Ukraine need?

-When listening to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, claims not to have received enough weapons. What weapons did Ukraine really get to make a difference with Russia? And what do you need?

– You recently received these rocket artillery systems from the United States. This will change the combat characteristics because they have a greater range than Russian systems. Now Ukraine is targeting Russian supply areas, which are either in the occupied area or in Russia. So everything is changing.

They need more. They need bullets and more bullets, more ammunition, because that type of attrition requires a lot of ammunition. The problem is that Ukrainian systems are ex-Soviet. So the ammunition is different from that used by NATO. NATO countries are providing Ukraine with new systems and can help it with more ammunition.

-Now, European cities have started to know that there will be a strong rationing of energy for heating in the coming winter. Do you think this emergency will somehow reduce solidarity with Ukraine or not?

-Oh sure. It’s possible. In Sri Lanka we are now seeing demonstrations against the government due to inflation at the expense of fuel and lack of food. So we start with the least developed countries. But in the fall, Europeans will have problems with lack of electricity, lack of fuel.

Now the Germans are reopening the coal plants. And they don’t want to do it because of the impact on the environment. But you have to survive. They are mobilizing more sources of fuel, for example gas from Qatar. President Biden will go to Saudi Arabia to seek greater fuel production.

Europeans in particular are looking for more sources of energy. They have six months, four months to catch them. If they can get enough energy, they won’t have much trouble. But it is always possible that they will not be successful in their quest for energy. Then they will have a lot of problems.

-And when it’s time to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.

-It is very difficult because Vladimir Putin thinks that Ukraine should not exist, it must be a colony of Russia. And 89% of the Ukrainian population said last week that they will not give up any of their land. About 75% said they want to reoccupy the Crimean peninsula and the Don River area. So they don’t want to negotiate with the Russians.

Paris, correspondent

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