Putin's War, Week 103. Avdiivka Abandoned

By streiff | 8:53 AM on February 17, 2024
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
CREDIT: Freepik

We're closing in on the two-year point in Vladimir Putin's glorious, 36-hour rampage to Kiev. 

The big story continues to be political, though there was a military setback for Ukraine today as Avdiivka, which has been a fortified city for a decade, finally fell after five months of continuous meat attacks. The US Senate passed a standalone Ukraine aid bill that Speaker Mike Johnson declared he would not send to the floor for a vote even though it would draw a 300+ vote bipartisan majority. Why he's refusing to allow a vote on the bill remains a matter of speculation. What we do know is that his ploy of demanding that a Ukraine aid package accompany a border security package was just that. Johnson declared the Senate's border security bill "DOA" without allowing debate and amendment. By the same token, he has not offered a border security package of his own.

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BACKGROUND

Ukraine-Israel Aid Package Clears the Senate and Heads to the House

House Speaker Mike Johnson Effectively Kills Senate Supplemental Ukraine Aid Bill

The logjam may have been broken Friday, when Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny "died" in a Russian forced labor camp.

Alexei Navalny's Death in a Prison Camp Was a Message From Putin to the World and to Russia

Speaker Johnson released this statement.

“Vladimir Putin is a vicious dictator and the world knows he is likely directly responsible for the sudden death of his most prominent political opponent, Alexei Navalny. Putin has shown his willingness to use extreme measures, including the use of radioactive material, to attack his enemies and expand his power. 

If confirmed, this action is emblematic of Putin's global pattern of silencing critics and eliminating opponents out of fear of dissent. This is the latest attempt to send a message to those working to confront Moscow's aggression. 

In the coming days, as international leaders are meeting in Munich, we must be clear that Putin will be met with united opposition. As Congress debates the best path forward to support Ukraine, the United States, and our partners, must be using every means available to cut off Putin's ability to fund his unprovoked war in Ukraine and aggression against the Baltic states."

This might just be hypocrisy that results in no action. It isn't like the killing of Navalny revealed anything new about Putin, his methods, or his ambitions. It is incredible that Johnson could block critical aid one day and then issue this statement. Either Putin is dangerous, or he's not. Either Ukraine is worthy of support, or it isn't.

The task for Johnson is to find a face-saving way to allow a vote.

READ: House Foreign Affairs Chairman: Speaker Johnson Will Have to Move Ukraine Aid Bill

Here are some of my past updates. 

Putin's War, Week 102. Zaluzhny Is Out, Syrsky Is In, and the Ukraine Aid Bill Advances

Putin's War, Week 101. How to Not Fire Your Commanding General and the EU Approves Massive Aid Package

Putin's War, Week 100. Missing Prisoners, Hungary on the Hotspot, and Shell Hunger Returns

Putin's War, Week 99. Not All Battlefields Are in Ukraine

Putin's War, Week 98.

Putin's War, Week 97. The Missile War Continues 

Putin's War, Week 96. Blowback From a Sunk Ship as Russia Launches Largest Missile Attack of the War 

Putin's War, Week 95. The Russian Air Force Takes a Beating as Disease Rips Through the Russian Army

Putin's War, Week 94. Putin Makes Shocker AnnouncementUSnd the War in Washington Goes Into High Gear 

Putin's War, Week 93. General Winter Hits the Brakes, Offensive Postmortems and Funding Fights

For all my Ukraine War coverage, click here.

Politico-Strategic Level

Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for European Politicians

Russia has issued arrest warrants for Estonia Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and 59 of the 68 members of the Latvian parliament. Their offense is having Soviet war memorials removed. Read the whole story.

There is only one rational reason for secretly issuing arrest warrants for politicians in another country: you think you will be able to execute them. Estonia has a large ethnic Russian population, and it has the potential for Russia to create another bogus "separatist" movement as it did in Donbas. I'd say the arrest warrants are waiting to be delivered by "little green men" hellbent on carving a chunk off Estonia.

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Russia Suspends Membership in OSCE

Russia has suspended its own membership in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The greater question is why they were ever allowed to join. Russia seems to think that the self-isolation from international organizations and abrogation of treaty obligations will result in people begging them to come back. It won't. Since February 2022, a new "Iron Curtain" has come down in Europe, with NATO-EU finally realizing that Russia is an existential threat to several of its members.

The last time Russia did something like this was in the summer of 1950 when the USSR boycotted the UN Security Council. During their boycott, the Security Council passed UNSCR 83, creating a United Nations Command to turn back North Korea's invasion of South Korea.

France and Ukraine to Sign Security Pact

While most of the world was focused on the death of Putin gadfly Alexei Navalny in a Russian forced labor camp, President Zelensky was in Paris signing a bilateral security pact with French President Emmanuel Macron. This is the third bilateral security assistance treaty undertaken by Ukraine; the other two are with the UK and Germany.

Macron said the agreements also show Europe’s commitments amid concerns that former U.S. President Donald Trump might return to the White House and allow Russia to expand its aggression on the continent.

“Europe’s future cannot depend on the American election,” Macron said. “This is my idea of sovereignty and strategic autonomy.”

Both the French and the German agreements, valid for 10 years, underscore Paris and Berlin’s intention to provide “long-term” military support to Ukrainian security. They say Ukraine and its partners “will work together on ensuring a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring future aggression in the future.”

In case of future Russian aggression, Germany, like France, “would provide Ukraine as appropriate, with swift and sustained security assistance” and modern military equipment as needed, as well as seeking agreement on imposing “economic and other costs on Russia,” the agreements state. They go on to state that Ukraine “will continue to implement an ambitious reform program,” which is essential to its ambitions to join the European Union and NATO.

Bingo.

Russian UN Ambassador's Unfortunate Interview

Guys like Ukrainian journalist Anton Gerashchenko and Daily Beast reporter Julia Davis do great work finding clips, often in Russian, of Russian officials being themselves. In this case, we see Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, who is a f***wit on a good day, being interviewed by a journalist not named Tucker Carlson.

Operational Level

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Syrsky Takes Command

Last week, President Zelensky dismissed Commander-in-Chief Valeri Zaluzhny and replaced him with Ground Forces Commander Colonel-General Oleksander Syrsky. Syrsky's first interview gives a realistic appraisal of Ukraine's capabilities and strategy in the near term. As we've reported, the Russians have seized the initiative and are delivering attacks all along the front line. Ukraine is trying to attrit Russian forces. 

Syrsky is under pressure to rotate more units out of the line for rest and retraining, and there are persistent stories of shortages of artillery ammunition; based on Zelensky's letter posted last week, it seems that a lot of manpower has been bled off into headquarters and non-combat positions. All in all, he's moving into a very difficult situation. 

READ: Putin's War, Week 102. Zaluzhny Is Out, Syrsky Is In, and the Ukraine Aid Bill Advances

Caesar Kunikov Sleeps With the Fishes

The Russian Black Sea Fleet lost the Ropucha-class LST Caesar Kunikov to a swarm attack by Ukrainian USV  (oddly enough, its namesake, Naval Infantry Lieutenant Tsezar Kunikov, was killed in action on the same day in 1943, h/t to RedState member ronjon for the info). This is the Russians' third loss of a major ship in as many months. The Ropuchas are designed for amphibious operations, but since the Kerch Bridge has been damaged in attacks, they have been used to move ammunition, equipment, and supplies from Russia to Crimea.

READ: Russia Loses Large Landing Ship to Ukrainian Drone Swarm

The Starlink Saga Continues

Last update, I posted about terminals of Elon Musk's Starlink internet system being used by Russian troops. According to Newsweek, investigative reporting by the Russian site IStories shows how terminals are bought by the Russian military and routed to the internet via uplinks in Poland. Starlink says it will shut down terminals used by the Russian military; it remains to be seen if they are serious about that.

READ: Putin's War, Week 102. Zaluzhny Is Out, Syrsky Is In, and the Ukraine Aid Bill Advances

Replacement Transformers Arrive

Russia's war against Ukraine's electric and heating grid is underway, though not on the same scale as in 2023. Like last year, non-lethal aid to Ukraine has let them keep their grid up and running despite the attacks.

Intelligence Assessment

This is an interesting intelligence estimate from Estonia.

1. Russia can't produce new armored vehicles as fast as they are losing them, and are relying on obsolete/obsolescent vehicles from storage depots. Approximately four vehicles are needed to produce one operational one.

2. Russia started the war with about 20 million rounds of artillery ammunition on hand. They have used between 12 and 17 million rounds, and continue to use about 450,000 rounds per month. Russia produces about 600,000 rounds of artillery ammunition per year. 

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3. Some 3-4 million rounds of substandard ammunition were refurbished, but the stockpile of old ammunition will be exhausted in 2024.

4. The Estonian study predicts the Russian advantage in ammunition will extend into 2024. Open source data suggests that the gap will begin to narrow in late 2024 as US and German plants come online, and it will reach parity in 2025. Ammunition is only one part of the equation. The wear and tear on artillery tubes will greatly reduce the accuracy and availability of guns, as they must be sent to depots for rebuild.

New Weapons

Ground-Launched Small-Diameter Bomb (GLSDB)

The GLSDBs reportedly delivered to Ukraine two weeks ago have been used against Russian forces. The target was a Russian ammunition dump near Kreminna in the Kharkiv area of operations.


BACKGROUND:

Putin's War, Week 101. How to Not Fire Your Commanding General and the EU Approves Massive Aid Package

Putin's War, Week 91. Mud and Snow Beats Fire and Steel, and Tumbleweeds Are Blowing Through Sevastopol

Putin's War, Week 47. Gerasimov Shakes Up the Russian Army and the Russian Spring Offensive Looms

TAI TF KAAN

This is definitely premature as a "new weapon," but it gives a glimpse of how regional players are looking at the war.

Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey has announced the sale of an unspecified number of TAI TF KAAN so-called 5th generation stealth fighters to Ukraine. 

The TAI TF KAAN is domestically produced to replace Turkey's F-16 fleet, and is one of four 5th-generation fighters in production. You can read the background at the link.

 There is no word on when this will happen, but the official schedule calls for production to begin around 2028. Though this has no immediate effect on the war, it is presented to demonstrate that unlike the people mewling "Russia has already won," Ukraine's neighbors are sufficiently confident in its survival that they are willing to sell it a top-of-the-line fighter. Turkey, in particular, is sufficiently bullish on Ukraine's future that it decided to sell Ukraine fighters that will be more than equal to anything the Russians have...even if they are vaporware at this time.

Combat Operations

The big news tonight is that General Syrsky has ordered the evacuation of the city of Avdiivka. 

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Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city.

Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, and inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment.

We are taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions. The life of military personnel is the highest value. We will still return Avdiivka

Avdiivka has been on the front lines since 2014 and has been under heavy attack since early October. The loss has to be tough on the soldiers who have defended it because no one likes to lose a hard-fought battle, and as George C. Scott's Patton said, "I don't like to pay for the same real estate twice." 

The writing on the wall became plain earlier this week, when Russian troops were able to bring a key supply line under direct observation.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian Army is showing more maturity here than during the battle for Bakhmut, when it allowed the fight for an irrelevant city to be turned into a matter of national prestige. Syrsky caught most of the blame for that decision, though I'm not sure that was fair; it is good to see him "taking the L" now rather than digging in and running up the butcher's bill. It is also good to see a senior commander take responsibility. Without Avdiivka, the entire salient stops having a lot of purpose, and a better decision would be to abandon it and shorten the defensive lines.

Syrsky Makes Changes

New Ukrainian CINC General Syrsky has wasted no time in making some changes.

Drones From NATO

Ukraine is on track to produce approximately one million drones domestically. NATO has pitched in with another million.

Measure/Countermeasure

We've posted several times on how the Shahed-131/136 Iranian-designed and manufactured drones have become a mainstay of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities. If this report is correct, those days may be coming to an end.

The destruction of these drones by missiles was never financially sustainable. Using gun systems and mobile gun teams was more cost-effective but could never cover the area needed to create a protective shield. Mass-manufactured electronic countermeasures could render this system obsolete depending upon its effectiveness.

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Deep Battle Continues

This video of a HIMARS rocket obliterating a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile system is just a reminder of a larger theme. While the Russians are, according to reports, firing more artillery ammunition, they are targeting the front lines. The Ukrainians are sticking to the game plan of focusing on artillery, command and control facilities, ammunition and fuel dumps, surface-to-air missile sites, and electronic warfare elements.

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

No, You Moron!

Yep, Nazis Are Everywhere

One of the more ridiculous objections to helping Ukraine circulating is "they are Nazis."  There are probably some, but so much of the evidence, such as the use of Viking runes by various units, strikes me like the "OK" hand signal being a neo-Nazi/white supremacist sign. It's bullsh**. We know the deceased, second-in-command of Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group, Dmitry Utkin, had Nazi tattoos.

And so have a non-trivial number of Russian prisoners.

My view on Nazis is love 'em or hate 'em; you gotta admit they killed a sh** ton of commies.

You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

In my last update, I posted about a senior member of Russia's Duma complaining that the skies of Moscow and St. Petersburg lack defenses from Ukrainian drones. He wasn't joking.

File This Under "WTF??"

The Russian military has lined up about 2100 rail cars, end-to-end, on a 19-mile stretch of railroad in Donetsk. No one can come up with a cogent explanation for why this is happening.

Help me out here; I've got nothing.

Northern Front

Kharkiv

Kupiansk-Kreminna

After a couple of weeks of a lull in fighting, Kupiansk-Kreminna looks like it is about to become the focus of a local Russian offensive.

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Donbas

Bahkmut-Klishchiivka-Andriivka

There were no major changes in this area over the last week. Combat continued at a moderate intensity. Both sides had gains and losses.

Avdiivka

I covered the decision to abandon Avdiivka

Southern Front


Zaporizhzhia

Robotyne-Verbove- Novoprokopivka

Lines remain unchanged in this area. There are indications that the Russians are massing forces southwest of Robotyne for a push against that city.

Kherson

The Ukrainians made minor progress in this sector.

Rear Areas

Russia

Kursk Oil Depot Hit By Drones

What's Next

There is no denying that the loss of Avdiivka is a disappointment, but just as every victory doesn't bring about a successful conclusion to a war, neither does every lost battle mean defeat is certain.

Based on General Syrsky's interview, we can expect Ukraine to give more ground. The Avdiivka Salient will probably be abandoned, and there may be some Russian gains in the Kupiansk-Kreminna area. Syrsky seems more amenable to trading territory for force preservation and engaging in attrition only when the exchange rate is favorable. I don't think there will be significant lost ground, but territory will be lost. 

Macron's statement at the signing of the security pact with Ukraine is hopeful. The Europeans are coming to realize this is their war, and are beginning to make the moves they need to make. 

Streiff

Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus. Also an amateur historian (Colonial America) and a dabbler in historical fiction.
RedState member since 2004. "He would rather pinch off his own head than admit he's wrong" -- Daily Kos. Follow me on Twitter. 

Read more by Streiff
Tags: RUSSIA UKRAINE PUTIN'S WAR

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