Do not be distracted by the Russian missiles and
drones bombarding Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian civilian casualties are in single
digits most days, and the local power outages rarely last more than half a day.
These attacks are more a Russian temper tantrum than a strategy because the
Ukrainian electricity supply system is among the least vulnerable in the world.
It was mostly built in Soviet times and was therefore designed to remain
functional even during a full-scale nuclear war. The substations are spread
over huge areas and even the individual transformers are widely separated. A
single missile strike can never take out all the transformers in a substation,
and they are quick and easy to repair.
Ukraine is so energy-rich that it was selling electricity to Moldova, Belarus
and even the European Union in pre-war times. The missiles the Russians are
using cannot do much damage to big generating stations – and at least 80% of
them are now being shot down.
Moreover, most of Ukraine’s power plants are either big dams (practically
invulnerable) or nuclear plants (untouchable unless the Russians want
fallout on their own territory). If the ‘energy offensive’ is the worst thing
Vladimir Putin’s regime can do to Ukraine’s civilian population, they haven’t
got much to worry about.
So, then, where will the next big Ukrainian ground offensive hit? It will
definitely happen because Kyiv feels obliged to show it is making progress in
the war in order to keep its Western supporters committed.
Talk of the fighting being stalemated, like Ukrainian military intelligence
chief Kyryko Budanov’s remarks to the BBC last week – “The situation is just
stuck. It doesn't move.” – is merely diversionary. It’s just part of the
psychological war before the attack.
Ukrainian generals have about a thousand kilometres of front to choose from,
and enough artillery now, including fifty HIMARS long-range rocket systems
(counting some equivalent non-US systems) to isolate almost any bit of the
Russian front from its rear support. They will try to take another big bite out
of it, and the likeliest choice is Melitopol.
The goal would be to cut Russian road and rail links across the
Russian-occupied stretch of Ukraine’s south coast and roll up the Russian
forces west of there. Barring a wholesale collapse of the Russian army, it
would not culminate in the reconquest of Crimea, but it would bring Ukrainian
forces to the peninsula’s northern border.
An alternative would be an attack to retake the parts of Luhansk province that
were under Ukrainian control until the Russian invasion last February. The
Ukrainians have been hacking away at the Svatove-Kreminna line for a while
already, and it may be ready to crumble.
This was where the Ukrainians had their first big victory last September, and
although it’s of little strategic or economic importance it would serve well
enough as a demonstration that their army is still making progress.
Or the Ukrainian attack could fail, of course: this is a war, not a movie. But
they are past the point where one defeat would be decisive.
The constant journalistic speculation about how long the West, and in
particular the United States, will be willing to bear the cost of this war
utterly misses the point. The war in Ukraine is a very low-cost solution to a
problem the Americans didn’t even know they had.
Until last year, Russia ranked fourth or fifth on Washington’s list of foreign
policy concerns. Putin’s regime was unattractive and sometimes aggressive
towards its immediate neighbours, but it was a de-industrialised minnow
(smaller economy than Canada’s) with a lot of nuclear weapons and legacy status
as a great power (‘Upper Volta with rockets’).
Putin’s astonishingly foolish invasion of Ukraine rapidly promoted Russia to
second place (after China) in terms of getting Washington’s strategic
attention. But it still wasn’t a major military threat to NATO Europe or the
United States, apart from the nukes – and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
created its own antidote: the Ukrainian military resistance.
The United States doesn’t have to commit a single American soldier to combat to
keep Russia fully occupied and drifting towards bankruptcy. US military aid to
Ukraine so far is less than the annual cost of its long war in Iraq, and about
one-tenth of the current US defence budget. This is the best bargain in
American military history.
Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
![](/img/placeholder.png)
“The war in Ukraine is a very low-cost solution to a problem the Americans didn’t even know they had. (…) The United States doesn’t have to commit a single American soldier to combat to keep Russia fully occupied and drifting towards bankruptcy. US military aid to Ukraine so far is less than the annual cost of its long war in Iraq, and about one-tenth of the current US defence budget. This is the best bargain in American military history.” – That 1rst sentence? Biden decided to provoke Putin to start this war so he could distract people at home from his domestic failures, which would be evident in his Sate of Union Speech. It seems to me Biden was brazen in his provocations, so it´s only fair he should foot the bill for that which he willingly provoked. (Sorry, US citizens. It shouldn´t be US´s job to wipe European a**, normally, - but no one in Europe wanted this war, hence me saying this. It´s not my fault Democrats are hypocrites in their own right, and throw their voters under the bus without delivering on so many electoral promises.) The US has been the biggest contributor to Ukraine´s war, and had it not been guilty of starting this, I would say Joe Biden should have spent his energy and resources addressing his problems at home, where people need it. But hélas, he made that (cowardly, manipulative, self serving) choice, now he should bear the costs of everything that ensues.
By guida from Lisbon on 04 Jan 2023, 05:06