Ukraine FlagUKRAINE (Times Media Service) – The situation in Ukraine is a constantly evolving one. Through multiple different fronts, the largest ground deployment in Europe since the Second World War, and the international interests that have aligned, the war is a confused and complicated ball of information, unconfirmed intel reports, propaganda, and much death and destruction.
Between all of the information streaming out of the area, we can divide this into three categories: the true, the unconfirmed, and the fabricated. Russian propaganda measures, and the tight control the state has over all media, most, if not all, Russian information about the war itself can be considered part and parcel to the lattermost category. Indeed, the Russians won’t even acknowledge the war IS a war, insisting that it’s a “combat operation”. The obvious deception doesn’t fool anyone who knows anything about the war itself, but these aren’t the people Russia cares to convince.
First, of course, is the largest question: namely, how is the war itself going? In truth, better than expected, though not so much as to be miraculous. The economic, industrial and material reality of Russia means that the nation has large amounts of equipment and troops to throw into the proverbial meat grinder, echoing the Soviet strategies of the past. However, with what we know from the conflict itself, even this time-tested method seems to be doing poorly against the peoples of Ukraine. If casualty estimates from the Ukrainian government are to be believed, Ukrainian losses are a mere fraction of their enemy’s, to the order of more than thirty times. While Ukrainian deaths supposedly stand somewhere below two hundred in total, the Russian tally is reported to be somewhere between three thousand five hundred and four thousand, and mounting by the hour.
The aforementioned Soviet tactics employed by the Russian forces appear to be not serving them in the slightest in other ways as well. Convoys of armoured vehicles left without fuel or support have surrendered to Ukrainian forces, entire armoured platoons have been destroyed, have surrendered or have simply deserted. Russian armoured vehicle losses are upwards of five hundred and fifty, billions of US dollars in armour either destroyed or captured for the use of their Ukrainian adversaries. Videos from the cities the fighting is centered around show Russian vehicle operators panicking, running over civilian vehicles, and being destroyed by Javelin weapon systems gifted to the Ukraine from a wide variety of nations.
Russian air forces have failed to gain aerial dominance within the first couple days of the conflict, and with MANPADs and Javelins flooding Ukranian cities and the Ukrainian air force still not disabled, they are unlikely to. However, this didn’t stop the Russians from losing over ten combat aircraft and seven or more assault helicopters, even more strain on the struggling Russian warfighting capability.
Videos from the cities the fighting is centered around show Russian vehicle operators panicking, running over civilian vehicles, and being destroyed by Javelin weapon systems gifted to the Ukraine from a wide variety of nations. Russian air forces have failed to gain aerial dominance within the first couple days of the conflict, and with MANPADs and Javelins flooding Ukranian cities and the Ukrainian air force still not disabled, they are unlikely to. However, this didn’t stop the Russians from losing over ten combat aircraft and seven or more assault helicopters, even more strain on the struggling Russian warfighting capability.
However, despite all of this, Ukraine isn’t necessarily winning. For a nation state with as little regard for the lives of its troops as Russia, Soviet tactics are as effective as they have been in the past. While the Ukrainians win victories and prevail against overwhelming odds, it’s only just enough to halt the advance of Russian forces, with the positional battles being fought in the same regions they began. In all likelihood, the best hope for Ukraine is holding out long enough and destroying enough Russian equipment and highly valuable trained pilots that Russia is forced to negotiate from a more even stance.
Ukraine has, of course, taken its share of losses. As previously mentioned, casualty counts somewhere between one hundred and fifty and two hundred, with twice that wounded. While Ukrainian losses are far outweighed by the losses they’ve incurred on the Russian forces, they have still taken them: while the number of lost Ukrainian combat vehicles is unknown, at least four combat aircraft and one helicopter have been downed.
However, the largest singular vehicular loss again belongs to Russia. Two Russian Il-76, superheavy strategic and tactical transport planes, were downed by Ukrainian forces, with an unknown amount of Russian equipment, munitions, and soldiers lost in the crashes.
This is a symptom of one of the largest problems the Russian forces are facing: the rapid and prolific deployment of antiaircraft, both vehicular and man-portable, among the Ukrainian forces and civilians has made any sort of aerial logistic support for Russian ground forces an incredibly thorny prospect. No aerial logistics means that food, ammunition, fuel and replacement equipment is hard to come by for Russian forces in the field, while their Ukrainian counterparts work off of either existing stockpiles or supplies shipped in from various NATO affiliates. Russian armoured convoys are scrounging for fuel among civilians, who have been dosing said fuel with all manner of engine-damaging substances.
NATO, and some countries outside of the defensive alliance, have gone as far as to directly and openly support the Ukrainian defense effort, shipping supplies in by the truckload. Millions of dollars have been funneled into the Ukrainian forces, either through equipment, or through donations. Over four million USD has been donated through cryptocurrencies to official wallets, set up for the use of the defense forces. American and British volunteers have been seen operating in combat zones in tandem with the native defenders. Deployment of troops foreign to the area has been avoided thus far, owing to a desire not to escalate the situation farther, but any other aid or support that can be rendered is being given in spades.
Days into the war, not having achieved their goals and finding themselves stalled by the efforts of the Ukrainians, Russia is resorting to more and more desperate measures to attempt to break the Ukrainian resistance. They have not shied away from openly committing warcrimes and violating the Geneva conventions, and seem entirely unapologetic about their actions- or have totally ignored them. Offenses include purposefully targeting civilian residencies for missile and artillery strikes, disguising ground troops with captured Ukranian army uniforms, attacking hospitals and medical transports, not even mentioning the fact that the military action in and of itself has been condemned by the UN as a violation of international law. Many of the strokes Russian forces have delivered against civilian structures and areas have been relatively random, owing to a shortage of munitions. Russian stocks of ballistic missiles are close to dry, and Russian command is attempting to sow as much panic and fear with the limited munitions they have in a desperate hope to break the Ukrainian defenders.
With Russian forces bearing down on them, and with them making it clear that they see little to no distinction between civilians and military personnel, Ukraine has gone to desperate measures for its defense. Within days, Ukraine has passed an ad-hoc second amendment style law structure, issuing tens of thousands of firearms to Ukrainian civilians and giving basic training. Molotov cocktails, ironically first invented and deployed by the Finnish against Soviets during the Winter War, have been made legal, to the point that their production has been taken up by alcohol manufacturers, who are making the firebombs en-masse for the government to distribute.
Many engagements between Ukrainians and Russian armour have been so successful, despite the lack of comparable Ukrainian deployments, because of the American FGM-148 Javelin antitank weapons system. The missile launcher has allowed Ukrainian troops on the ground to hard-counter Russian tank deployments, and even down Russian helicopters. Russian forces, equipped with tanks not built with Javelin missiles in mind, have performed horribly against them in the field. One particular engagement had a Ukrainian force reduce a column of fifteen Russian T-72 tanks, near a Ukrainian town called Hlukhiv. In an even larger engagement, during the ongoing fighting over the Hostomel airport, Ukrainian forces elminated 56 tanks and, reportedly, a Russian general.
While news of Russia’s losses has been highly filtered by the tight state control of the Internet and media, the Russian citizenry have been widely protesting the fighting. Thousands of Russian protestors have flocked to the streets of various cities across the country, hundreds of whom have been arrested by the Russian government. Protests will only intensify, however, with newer developments.
In response to the actions of Russia during the Ukrainian conflict, the countries of the EU have agreed universally to block Russia from SWIFT, the process used for secure large-denomination monetary transfers, and something vital to the economic health of a nation. With Russia already strained economically, attempting to supply an incredibly money-intensive war that it didn’t expect, the Ruble was being sustained by Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves. Having been blocked entirely from the usage of SWIFT, Russia no longer has the capital to prevent the drastic and ruinous fall of the Ruble’s value. As of the writing of this article, the exchange is one hundred Rubles per USD; the issue will only worsen as time goes on.
However, there will be severe drawbacks for European nations. Large amounts of Europe’s energy is supplied by Russian industry: Germany, in particular, receives half its coal from Russian mines. With the European countries freezing Russia out of their economic exchange, there’s little doubt that they’ll have to find other sources for their energy in very short order.
These and other socioeconomic ripples, common to wars of this scale, are quickly spreading throughout the economies of the world. The death and destruction caused by the invasion may be more local, but the effects of it will be felt by Ukrainians for generations. We can only hope that future generations in Kyiv will be able to call themselves Ukrainians.
Alexander Murphy / Tech Writer (Times Media Service)
amurphy@timesmediaservice.com
