Western Pressure for Ukrainian Offensives Off-Sets Optics of Anticipated Big Russian Offensive

Major Takeaways from Alexander Mercouris Broadcast for February 15, 2023 (Mercouris 02.15.2023)

Kharkiv

Not many reports from the battlefields. Information flows throughout this war are given to swings from plentiful to sparse. There are, however, reports from the northern part of the battlefront around Svatove, Kreminna, Liman and Kupiansk that the fighting there has become heavier. Russia is claiming some sort of breakthrough. The Russian appointed administrator for the areas of the Kharkiv regions that are controlled by Russia says that Russia now controls about twenty communities in this region, together with some other communities in the “grey zone” that are not securely controlled by either side, and says that Russia will gain control over all the terrorities in Kharkiv region that they lost during the Ukrainian counter-offensive last September. He says that Ukraine is constantly bringing in reserves for the fighting on the contact line. Only two weeks ago this same source was describing the situation in Kharkiv region for Russia as “difficult.” It seems that Russia has now regained the initiative and is pushing forward.

Ukrainian Fortifications and Redeployments

A further report, from TASS, says that around Liman the Ukrainian forces are building new multilayer defense fortification. This does seem to confirm that Russian forces are close to Liman, that they are pushing incrementally towards Kupiansk, and that Russians intend at some point to take back all the territories they lost in the September Ukrainian counter-offensive, including Izium (west of the Oskil) and Balikliya. A Russian official of the Russian areas of Zaporizhzhia region says that Ukraine has redeployed another 5,000 troops to that area, bringing the total size of Ukrainian forces there to 25,000

Bakhmut

The Pentagon spokesman yesterday conceded that Russia had been making what he called “small” advances in Bakhmut area. He reiterated that the fall of Bakhmut would make no strategic difference [which, of course, as Mercouris and other commentators have consistently argued is false]. There will almost certainly be a lot more news from this area very soon.

Brussels

The Ammunition Crisis

A high level meeting of NATO defense chiefs has taken place in Brussels. One day in advance of this meeting the chiefs were addressed by NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, a speech in which he admitted that the west is unable to keep up with Ukraine’s demands for ammunition.

In an article in the British conservative newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, today, Dr. Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute explains the ammunition crisis faced by the west. The current rate of ammunition consumption by Ukraine is many times higher than the speed with which the west can produce and replace it. Stoltenberg has proposed seemingly inadequate remedies such as working extra shifts. Ukraine is not using an excessive amount of shells compared to previous conflicts of this kind. Its shortage of shells is a stark demonstration of the hollowing out of NATO since the end of the Cold War.

Lifting munitions production cannot be done with an on-off switch. It requires resolution of several issues concurrently. There are 5 processes involved: forging shell cases (simple), production of explosive energetic (whose raw materials are in high demand, and expensive; Ukraine uses 17 artillery types of both NATO and Soviet legacies, which greatly complicates things. There are challenging regulatory criteria, and there must be very high quality control), charge manufacture, fuse manufacture, and filling (a demanding process requiring a facility protected from climatic variation).

Shells have to be cheap because so many are required and consumed in war. Manufacturers make only a small margin and are not therefore incentivized to maintain manufacture of shells in peace time when much smaller numbers are needed. They can be stockpiled (shells have a shelf-life of around 20 years) so it can be wasteful, and in the meantime, the relevant factories have to stand idle but yet usable and ready for reactivation, perhaps for decades, which is in itself a significant cost. Western producers cannot justify absorbing such costs, so munitions factories have been shrunk or closed, which is the root cause of the entire problem.

The west has scaled down its capacity to produce shells since the Cold War. Shell production is not a high priority, is not profitable for arms manufacturers who can profit much more from the high end of sophisticated weaponry, and does not meet the requirements of “just in time” philosophy of modern manufacturing. The manufacture of shells simply makes no economic sense. One would have to completely change the entire way in which the west conducts manufacturing. One can keep factories mothballed, but they still have to be periodically checked and kept in good condition, and one also requires access to a trained workforce that can be redeployed from other things when necessary. Arms manufacturers prefer sophisticated artillery such as advanced howitzers, using expensive materials to achieve very high maneuverability, range and speed. The way of war thus starts to be structured around such expensive weapons. The nature of our economic industrial system is almost inevitably going to push arms manufacturers towards the most sophisticated, complex weapons that are also the most profitable for manufacturers. This leads to production of relatively small numbers of guns, with small numbers of shells - all very high end and expensive - which in turn determines the nature of fighting on the battlefield.

The west has reorganizedand diluted its military for the fighting of small, local wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The western way of war has been degraded from conventional war to local, anti-insurgency type wars. These are the kind of wars that our economic and industrial systems are most effectively geared to waging. We do not have the capacity to fight heavy, attritional, industrial wars of the kind that is being fought in Ukraine.

Watling seems to suggest that the Russian industrial system has also had to be reorganized, incorrectly claiming that Putin has put the entire economy on a war footing, but correctly noting that arms production in Russia is not subject to the same commercial constraints as in the west. He also incorrectly asserts that Russian producers are not inhibited by considerations of safety.

In practice therefore, Russian arms production remains state-owned, so Watling is correct in saying that it is not subject to the constraint of having to produce profit. Russia has the capacity of allowing vast factories to remain idle until they are needed, making it possible to ramp up production at short notice. Russia has fought many land wars and there have been instances in which they have faced shortages of ammunition, most famously at the start of World War One.The Russian General Staff’s calculations as to the numbers of shells that would be needed, proved to be too low by orders of magnitude, which is why in the first year and a half of the first world war Russia lost considerable ground. Even though the ammo shortages were resolved, the ground had been laid for a political revolution, and collapse of the Tsarist regime.

Russia has since then prioritized production of ammunition, stockpiling of ammunition, and retention of production capacity so as to produce ammunition at short notice, in ways that no one in the west has been able to do. The same is true of tanks, turbo engines, etc. The Russian educational system ensures the availability of large numbers of available manpower. The Germans in World War Two were astonished by the amount of Russian weaponry, the speed of production, and Russian flexibility in transitioning factories from one part of the country to another.

Ukraine is using 5,000-6,000 rounds of ammunition a day; Russia averages 20,000 a day, and it sometimes uses up to 60,000. The discrepancy will grow. As NATO talks about producing more shells, Russia is already doing it. If NATO manages to ramp up production by five times in the next few years, then Russia will have increased its own production several times more.

Decline in Weapons Supply

In Brussels it became clear the Ukraine is not going to get new artillery any time soon. It does not seem to be getting fighter jets. Some tanks, yes. Some Bradley tanks are arriving in Poland. In the Pentagon there are competing factions. One wants Ukraine to conserve its forces and equipment; another faction is urging Ukraine to become more active because by mid-summer congressional willingness to allow more funds for weapons deliveries to Umay have atrophied. It is likely that those urging restraint are primarily military types, whereas those pushing Ukraine towards new offensives tend to be political appointees and civilian.

A nationalist Russian newspaper published in Smolensk for a Russian audience says that in the event that Ukraine were to launch an offensive over the next few weeks it be unprepared and bloody. Two months’ training is insufficient. It notes that western pressures on Ukraine to attack are growing. Western politicians are in hurry. Yet they cannot supply the necessary equipment, particularly beyond the summer when their own stocks will be depleted, even as western analysts say that the west’s capacity for conflict with China is greatly diminished. It is not a matter of money but rather that supplies are going to be excessively stretched. In the latest US arms package for Ukraine, the figures are either vanishing or becoming very vague and, in some cases, like thepromised glided bombers, they are not even being produced yet. Yet factions in the west are saying to Ukraine that it has to turn things around right way.

Preparing for Ukrainian Offensives

Russia is planning for the possibiity of a Ukrainian offensive in the next few weeks and may hold off its own plans for a major offensive until after that. Berletic speculates that Russia is maintaining its major forces along the Russian border in wait for the major Russian offensive, but Mercouris consider that a long wait for an army of hundreds of thousands of men is not a good idea, and de-energizes, de-skills, leading to all kinds of problems with the soldiers as they wait. It is more likely that this newly mobilized army will be deployed in various offensives againt Ukrainian lines.

In the meantime, western talk of supplying fighter jets, providing long-range drones, or ATCMS, etc is waning. NATO is becoming increasingly concerned that Russia might capture NATO’s more advanced weapons and build their own versions. It is growing increaingly alarmed by the fact that Russia has its large airforce still intact. It might well use this force for bombing Ukrainian fortifications. Ukraine’s own air defenses are being degraded by Russian missile and drone attacks. There are no signs of Russia running out of cruise missiles.

[What does it all mean, if the west is pushing Ukraine to launch offensives now, against a newly mobilized and very large Russian army which it itself poised for a large offensive of its own with a minimum aim, I would guess, of taking the entirety of the Donbass, even in advance of provision to Ukraine of all the weaponry that Ukraine says that it would need to do so, and in anticipation of a possible cut-off of supply to Ukraine from mid-summer? I suspect this is an assessment of very tough choices, none of them particularly good, except for the US arms industry. The recent addition of Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia may suggest there is life still in the idea of trying to cut off Russia’s landbridge to Crimea, although 25,000 men does not sound especially large given the presense of significant Russian forces nearby. But perhaps it would sufficiently complicate things that Russia would find itself fighting on more fronts than it can comfortably manage, would be less well able to control the entire Donbass, and, given the threats to Crimea, more flexible than it otherwise might be in negotiations, creating a situation less humiliating for the west and more draining for Russia].

Oil

Russia has said that in March it might reduce oil production by half a million barrels a day, and other OPEC countries have said the same. Within hours, the US administration decided to release another 26 million barrels from its strategic reserves for the international market. In other words a relatively small cut of Russian production has led the US to reduce its strategic reserve, not long after it said that it was going to replenish that reserve.