Wars Are Won by Economies

We started to look closely at the suspicious movements of the Russian army in March 2021. By analysing the situation, we came to the conclusion that it was merely a demonstration of force as their numbers would not be sufficient to occupy Ukraine. It looked like stretching troops along the border rather than a serious operation. We knew the operating principles followed by the Russians; after all, we had studied at the same academies...

So you know how they think.

Yes, because we studied the same stuff, and nothing has changed for them. It was only in the second half of January 2022 that some movements began, suggesting that they were planning something. The alarm rang when they formed second-line troops in the Belgorod region, near Kharkiv, but on the other side of the border. Another signal was the increased activity of reconnaissance and diversion groups. However, there were no signs until 23 February in terms of the numbers, quality and composition of troops that the Russians might start a war on such scale. This is why I see their attack as a kind of brawl. Let me elaborate: on 23 February at 11.30 p.m., I contacted friends in the Special Forces. They said that something had started in the east of the country and that a decision had been made to withdraw their men from there. I asked them to confirm by 2 a.m. that they were no longer in Mariupol or Severodonetsk. They did so and I went to bed. I was convinced that, given the circumstances, such a brawl was not possible. The Russians stood no chance. It was laughable! After all, not a single city with a population of one million had been taken by force since World War II. When I arrived in Lviv after the invasion began, as ordered by the leadership, I asked how many strikes there had been. They said, 186. I asked: Is this a joke?. The answer was no, because even they did not understand what that attack had to do with the theory of offensive operation.

Strikes?

Massive fire strikes using, among other things, air force and missiles. For a territory like Ukraine, there should have been 400‒600 strikes all at once. And there were 186 in the whole country. Our command system was not destroyed, nor were airfields or troop concentration points. The Russians hit and all they achieved was making people angry. Besides, there are objective measures of the number of forces required for an offensive operation. Such an army should be double or triple the size of the defence force. As such, they should have concentrated an army of about 600‒700,000 men, but they only had 200,000. What was the outcome? Did they capture even one critically important point? They took Kherson, but Kharkiv, Sumy or Chernihiv were not occupied even for a moment. Their logistics were ill-conceived; medical security, ill-conceived; technical security, ill-conceived. They advanced as long as there was enough fuel. Then they ground to a halt. On 2 March it was clear that they had lost.

I have come across the explanation that the Russian operation was only expected to seize the Donbass and Kharkiv and the south of Ukraine, but someone squeezed Kyiv in as well for political reasons at the last minute.

Look at the map. [Hrabski pulls out his phone and launches a map app - ed.] Let me explain why the alarm rang with the concentration of their forces in the Kharkiv area. The Ukrainian forces were mainly deployed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and here you can see the shortest distance between the border and the Dnieper River...

You are showing the section between Kharkiv and Kremenchuk.

From Kharkiv through Poltava, Kremenchuk, Horishni Plavni. It would have been logical to strike here, it would have torn Ukraine into three parts. It would have been impossible to withdraw from left-bank Ukraine as there is a cascade of lagoons on the Dnieper. Forces in the Donbass and in the south, squeezed in from the Crimea, are also blocked. All of left-bank Ukraine is in their hands. You can then try to force Kyiv’s hand. An attack from the Polesia and Volhynia in Belarus was rather unrealistic.

Marshes?

Yes, and a limited road network. This is what we were thinking: the Russians are concentrating troops in the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions to launch a perfectly logical strike. They would have needed twice as many forces, but they could have tried. Whatever their plans were, some incomprehensible political factor was at stake. As a military analyst, I will not analyse it.

Some articles and books published in the US claim that the Americans knew everything and warned you but you didn’t want to believe them until the end. If that had been the case, the head of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov would not have described these plans publicly as early as November 2021. But I am interested in your opinion.

You have to consider the capability of their intelligence. The Americans have the full picture, they know the colour of the toilet paper in the Kremlin. They knew about the project under the name “Conquest of Ukraine”. The Americans are bold now, but at the time they shared their knowledge with great caution, which is understandable from an operational point of view as they did not want to burn their sources. Ukraine was penetrated by Russian agents. I have no doubt that they knew. I also have no doubt that they were suggesting to us what was going to happen. And I have no doubt that the Ukrainian Armed Forces reacted. Playing by the book, if a potential enemy carries out massive manoeuvres in the territory of a neighbouring country, you have to respond with the same. Our army was deployed to its destinations on 14‒16 February. The main strike groups were deployed to new dislocation points on 16‒18 February. The Russians did not believe it, just as they did not expect our nation to be so united. They did not consider how many people had gone through the ATO [the anti-terrorist operation conducted in the Donbass since 2014 - ed.] and that there was a huge buffer called operational reserve. For some reason they thought that it would take us days to respond, while we were ready to fight within hours. The operational reserve had been developed according to the new standards, so the Russians were shooting blanks.

What was decisive to the successful defence of Kyiv?

The resistance of the population. The enemy thought that the attack would shock everyone. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of rifles were distributed to the people in the first few days. Even the local gangsters began to rally to defend the country. Everyone did the right thing. A friend recounted how eight of them set a trap for Russians. When the enemy column reached the ambush site, it came under fire from 20‒30 positions. And they knew there were only eight of them. Once the column was torn to shreds, they saw expensive jeeps scatter in different directions. Others had joined them. The Russians could not have foreseen something like that. They measured everything by their mentality of subjugation. They didn’t know that everyone in our country would stand up for themselves. Besides, there are well-established rules of operational warfare. A tank brigade can enter a big city. So can an infantry brigade. But the Russians operated with battalion tactical groups until the last moment. What are 800 men? They can enter the city, but what next?

Since 2014, analysts have stressed that Russia’s long-term goal is to control the land corridor to the Crimea. This has happened. While the defence of Kyiv was a victory, you seem to have suffered a defeat in the south.

Indeed. I have studied the situation of the Crimea for a long time. If you look at the maps of Pyotr Wrangel’s 1920 operation, the maximum range of his troops overlaps with that of the Russians in 2022. They reached Kakhovka, Huliaipole and Orikhiv. And that was that. They couldn’t move any further because there are only two supply routes there. It is possible to concentrate a large number of troops, but it is impossible to push them simultaneously through the bottlenecks connecting the Crimea with the Kherson region. Moreover, the triangle in the Kherson region, where the Russians are now stationed, is untenable. The same was true of the Ukrainians. Our people were in the steppe with no supply routes. Whatever resistance points they set up, it would have been difficult for them to withstand a first strike. The task of the Ukrainian troops was to hold back the enemy, and they succeeded. The Russian strike was also stopped thanks to the steadfastness of Mariupol. Let us not forget the Russians’ absolute advantage on this section of the front. A third of Ukrainian troops were concentrated in the Donbass. The Russians had little success there. They had successes where they did not encounter organised resistance and where geography allowed them to do so. And the Chernihiv, Kyiv and Sumy regions are forests and roads. The limited number of supply routes and the inability to hold on to towns meant that the advance stopped on its own. The Russians then became a target for our anti-tank defence.

It seems that it was also impossible for them to occupy Odessa.

I spoke to guys from the Military Maritime Forces about this. Even at the height of its capabilities, the Russian Black Sea Fleet could have carried out a landing of two and a half brigades. What is 10,000 men against a city like Odessa? Such a landing has a chance of success in combination with a land operation, which would have been possible if they had broken through in the Voznesensk area. Which they did reach, but their overstretched supply routes, together with the heroic defence of Mariupol, prevented them from pressing on towards Odessa. Mariupol itself was our terrible defeat. We suffered colossal losses including people killed, wounded and captured. There were 1,200 captured alone. But this terrible sacrifice meant that the Russians did not have the strength for a further offensive as they had to bring 12,000 troops down to Mariupol. Then we got the missiles, ships were fired upon, and the attack on Odessa was thwarted.

The turn of March/April came, and the liberation of the Chernihiv, Kyiv and Sumy regions. Did you force them to retreat or did they make the decision themselves knowing that they could not achieve more there?

They realised that they encountered genuine resistance. They were not able to enter Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy. They reached Brovary near Kyiv and stood down. They stretched out their columns. Just count how much tank fuel they needed. And the Ukrainians switched from attacking armoured mechanised columns to attacking logistics columns which had no cover. The Russians could have left garrisons and waited for reserves, but by the time they had arrived, the garrisons would have been eliminated. Since their advance to Kyiv had failed, they had to withdraw.

They then redeployed part of their forces to the Donbass, captured Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, but nothing more.

Their problem is that, unlike the Ukrainian army, which is still somewhat infected by the Soviet bug, Russia has elevated the canons of Soviet operational art to the status of absolute truth. The mentality of Russian commanders has not changed for a century. On top of this, the pressure exerted by politicians deprives commanders of initiative. We like to say that a Russian sergeant is merely a private with habits. And so on up to the rank of general. They are serf peasants. It doesn’t matter that you have trouser stripes and general’s stars, you still operate in a rigid vertical structure. The whole army is waiting to be told what to do.

It’s very archaic.

They have loads of equipment but they are not able to operate like a modern army.

The Ukrainian army also goes back to Soviet times. How was it possible to make commanders unafraid to make decisions?

The army that remained in Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR was dismantled with the virtual extinction of Soviet officers. Few bearers of the Soviet banner have remained. There are still some of them but they do not have a decisive influence. The mentality has changed. Ukrainians are individualists. The two Maidan revolutions have taught us to self-organise. This was reinforced by the message planted by the American military at the Yavorov training centre, through which all brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have passed. This helped create the phenomenon of the Ukrainian military under the name of “Mr Sergeant”. Unlike the Russians, our Mr Sergeant is a manager who decides on his own. I sometimes follow Russian broadcasts, and I once came across a conversation between a war correspondent and a military officer who said that a Ukrainian sergeant can ask for artillery support himself. In the Russian army, not even a captain can do that. This combination of new methodology, experience and mentality has allowed us to carry out offensive operations with smaller forces than military science predicts.

Too much autonomy does not hurt good coordination?

It does happen. As they say in our country: where there are two Ukrainians, there are three hetmans [a high ranking military commander]. One of my colleagues, who comes from the Caucasus, says that he has always been amazed by the complete lack of respect for the leadership in our country. And this sometimes does harm. Some people make decisions without taking into account the overall situation, which the operational command knows. And then there is the heterogeneity of the troops. It is difficult to compare regular troops with, let’s say, semi-regular troops with a slightly different ideology and a different level of autonomy. As I said, there are strengths and there are weaknesses.

Let us return to the chronology of events. In the early autumn, the front near Kharkiv was broken in an impressive manner. Is this the greatest victory of the war?

There are two such victories: Kharkiv and Kherson. There was a moment when the enemy brought all the troops they could to the Donbas to achieve the strategic objective of seizing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and left the rear troops at Kharkiv. And we did not play by the book. The Russians did not expect the less numerous Ukrainian troops to try to attack here. But given the Russians’ lack of initiative and the overstretched front line, we decided to do so. The Russian positions were stretched so much that it was not even a front line. You could go picking mushrooms between them. Nor did they have a second line of defence. Points were selected in advance through which we could try to break through. We knew that by hitting a command point, we were turning their army into a hapless mob. The Ukrainian forces were later accused of allowing the enemy to retreat. This is not so. The enemy was running away. Ukraine captured enough tanks to cover its own losses and regain the strength from before 24 February. At Kharkiv we saw a kind of, as the French say, courage. At Kherson, it was completely different.

How was it different?

When the enemy realised that they could not break through to Nikolaev, they began to dig in at Snihurivka and Davydiv Brid. They built three lines of defence. That is why the Ukrainian troops employed tactics involving the methodical destruction of supply routes, fortifications, and command points. This operation may not have looked audacious but it testified to the high degree of organisation of the Ukrainian forces, which destroyed the Russian troops in an asymmetrical manner. It would have been possible to use scarce HIMARS systems to destroy defensive points but the enemy would have rebuilt them anyway; meanwhile, we were hitting so that the enemy was unable to do anything despite the large number of men, tanks and artillery. After all, people need something to eat, drive, and shoot. Those steady efforts caused the enemy to flee to the left bank of the Dnieper. This operation is continuing, the same is happening on the left bank of the Kherson River. The section towards the Crimea is practically closed. The enemy can replenish supplies through only one route from the Crimea. Russian control of the left-bank Kherson region is purely symbolic. They occasionally fire, but that’s about it.

What’s next? Crossing the Dnieper?

Out of the question.

An offensive on Melitopol?

No one seriously considers crossing the Dnieper, especially at this point. It is almost sea. There are not enough resources in the world to force through such a water obstacle. The Russians cannot do it, but neither can we. It is necessary to focus on Melitopol, because if we manage to liberate it and reach the Sea of Azov, the Russian southern front will fall apart. They will not hold it, they will probably leave all the way to the border of the Donetsk region.

Nevertheless, after the liberation of Kherson, the front stalled, and in January you lost more territory than you recaptured. Are there reasons for concern?

Yes and no. Initially we were dealing with an army of commissioned ensigns. When the Russians realised they were in trouble, they started quietly mobilising new forces in May. But there’s the English term “gap”. At one point they were so weak that they could not react when Ukraine took a chance and pushed them out of the Kharkiv region. Early in the autumn, private military companies entered the game on their side. They are colloquially referred to as “vagnerovtsy” but these companies number around 10. Their numbers exploded but their quality declined catastrophically. Between 1941 and 1943, Stalin threw prisoners who were not even dressed in uniform at the Germans. They were called black coats. Their purpose was to stop the enemy’s march at any cost. Incidentally, during the Kharkiv operation, the Russians came up with a function that we called “trench bodyguard”. They would send a soldier into a trench, give him a rifle, and that was it. If there’s one trench bodyguard sitting opposite you, you blow his head off and that’s it. If there are a hundred, you need a thousand bullets to eliminate them. And if there are a thousand? As my grandmother Yanina used to say, a bigger floe melts more slowly than a smaller one. So the Russians started flooding the Donetsk section with Wagner stormtroopers so that we would waste our resources on them. At Bakhmut, the two sides were clamped together like two bulldogs. Neither one can bite the other or walk away. When Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in December 2022 that a new offensive would begin in early January, he spoke on the following assumption: mobilisation was announced in Russia on 21 September, training began around 1 October, and deployment in units began three months later. Objectively speaking, the enemy has doubled in size compared to how they started. Even if we put 10 Abrams tanks there, they will just get bogged down in a pile of cannon fodder and turn around in circles in that bloody mass.

Which means that the mobilisation in Russia has been a success.

What’s more, the Russians have returned to their traditional way of waging war. They don’t know what to do with a professional army. You can hammer nails with a microscope, but it’s ineffective. That’s why they did what they always do. They have mobilised a mass of guys who subserviently go to be killed as they are told. As my uncle, a former frontline soldier, used to say: “forward march, forward march, storm company, in front awaits you glory, in the back, rifles”. Nothing has changed except that now the Chechens are doing the job of the Soviet agents. So those mobilised troops will obediently press on. And there are a lot of them. There are not enough bullets or equipment for them. We need reserves. We are also suffering very heavy losses. It is different to fight against a 200,000-strong grouping and against a half-million-strong grouping.

Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi says he needs 300 tanks.

These numbers are pulled out of thin air. It is difficult to estimate how many tanks are needed for a specific operation. Besides, do you know what an Abrams or Leopard can do on the streets of Donetsk?

What?

It can burn.

The same goes for Russian tanks on the streets of Kiev.

If we think about liberating Donetsk, do we really need that many tanks? I don’t think we do. My tanker brothers in arms will kill me, but to my mind, the tank is a 20th century weapon. We only need it because there is such a concept as a tank duel. The Russians have plenty of them, so we need more too.

What is the military significance of Bakhmut?

From a military point of view, it is contingent. Bakhmut is one of the forts of the Donbass fortress. It has attracted a colossal number of Russians, but it has been pointless. If you see that you can’t achieve a thing in six months, why do you keep on trying? Even Genghis Khan left if a city didn’t surrender after six months. For us, Bakhmut is important because it is like a meat grinder: as long as the Russians’ losses exceed ours, it makes sense to hold the city. I emphasise the word “city” because, for example, continuing to hold the place that was once the town of Soledar was pointless. There was not even anywhere to dig in there anymore. There is a limit beyond which further defence is pointless. This was also the case in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. Up to a certain point it made sense to defend them. When it made no more sense, our guys retreated. The Russians came in but so what, they could move no further. They won a Pyrrhic victory. Bakhmut makes sense because it attracts enemy forces that we grind down. In December 2022, everyone was hysterical about a strike from Belarus. Meanwhile, the Russians first had 12,000, then 6,000 troops there. Later, the “Belarusians”, that is, Russians who were trained in Belarus, appeared on the front. Bakhmut plays a strategic role in destroying resources and thwarting Russia’s offensive plans. Just as Mariupol at one time saved Odessa and Moldova, now Bakhmut is tying up the enemy’s forces. This does not mean that it will continue to do so as it is less and less imperative to hold it.

How will we sum up the situation in a year’s time?

The situation will improve, but what will be decisive is not the military factor but the economic one. I learned in NATO schools that wars are won by the economy. The military’s task is to endow the victory with meaning. During World War I, the German army never fought on its own territory, but it lost, even as the best army in the world. Ukraine enjoys the support of the civilised world. There will be losses, we may retreat. But the army delivers as expected. The purpose of manoeuvring defence is to inflict maximum losses on the enemy even when it is difficult to think of a counter-offensive. They have not been preparing for such a war, their capabilities are shrinking. But it will still be very hard. The losses are frightening. I am afraid to go to Lviv. When I go to the Lychakiv Cemetery... [longer silence, tears] Finland also suffered huge losses during the Winter War, but they survived. Poland smashed the Russian army in 1920, but did not deal it a mortal blow. After 19 years, the Russians brought a terrible tragedy upon you. That is why you and the Balts understand us so well. And you give us everything you can. There is no other choice.

Can Russia reach for nuclear weapons when it is losing?

Early in my career I had a little to do with the nuclear component of the USSR Armed Forces. Hence my categorical conviction that it cannot. Fortunately for us all, the global community has created a universal system of control over these weapons that precludes their unsanctioned use. Look at the nuclear arsenal of the Russian Federation. When you test combat capability, you test practical use. Has the Russian Federation ever conducted a nuclear test? No. Does the Russian Federation have anywhere to conduct such a test? No. The USSR conducted them in Semipalatinsk [now Semey in Kazakhstan - ed.], and in the 1960s in Novaya Zemlya. After 60 years, I have serious doubts about Russia’s ability to bring this training ground back into use. One more argument: the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency could not access it until word came that two radiation control counters had stopped responding to central station queries. After a week, the head of the IAEA got the green light and entered the plant. Moving on, everyone knows where tactical nuclear missiles are stored. These stockpiles are being watched. If anyone notices any anomaly, if four people arrive one morning instead of three, immediately the whole chain will be set in motion until the word reaches the top brass. The reaction will be immediate: “Guys, what are you doing up there?” ©℗