Ask HN: Is Russia winning the war in Ukraine?

[TurkishPoptart]

I have noticed that lately, Ukraine is less frequently appearing in the headlines as this war continues. Judging by the latest update from the ISW [1], Russia is still controlling a large swathe of the southeast of the country. It may very well be that the longer this war goes on for, the more likely the US & NATO (who are providing materiel and logistical support to Ukraine) will gradually get more distracted and lose funding and interest. So it may be in Russia's favor to have a multi-year campaign in Ukraine. But can they really sustain it? And are tactical nuclear weapons still on the table? With someone as crazy and power-hungry as Putin, I assume that, sadly, they still are.

[1]: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-30

[slater]

As I see it:

1) they've "held" the south-east (and donbass etc.) for a while, now

2) nukes were never really on the table, that was just some tedious "russia strong man!" nonsense

3) Sanctions are starting to bite

4) Morale among Russian troops is (allegedly) basically non-existent

[TurkishPoptart → slater]

>1) they've "held" the south-east (and donbass etc.) for a while, now

Yes they have. You put "held" in quotation marks, why? I think that Russia is going to make this into a 3rd "separatist"/breakway republic.

>2) nukes were never really on the table, that was just some tedious "russia strong man!" nonsense

U.S. intelligence allegedly failed to predict this invasion, which makes me think they underestimated Russia's goals and intentions here. Why wouldn't an irrational, paranoid dictator consider nukes? To consider him using weapons in his arsenal "nonsense" is wishful thinking or pulling wool over one's eyes

>3) Sanctions are starting to bite

Maybe, but maybe not enough to stop an irrational, paranoid dictator from accomplishing his goals.

>4) Morale among Russian troops is (allegedly) basically non-existent

This is true. That is why Russia is pulling troops from Syria, PMCs like Wagner, and using Chechen forces.

[_kbh_ → TurkishPoptart]

> Yes they have. You put "held" in quotation marks, why? I think that Russia is going to make this into a 3rd "separatist"/breakway republic.

I don't see Russia even conducting as referendum in Kherson anytime soon, outside of the current offensive the office that as conducting the referendum exploded the other day and pretty much every week collaborators end up dead in multiple ways.

> U.S. intelligence allegedly failed to predict this invasion, which makes me think they underestimated Russia's goals and intentions here. Why wouldn't an irrational, paranoid dictator consider nukes? To consider him using weapons in his arsenal "nonsense" is wishful thinking or pulling wool over one's eyes

The US was shouting from the roof tops that this invasion was going to happen and where off by less then two weeks about when it would happen, I fail to see how that is 'failing to predict the invasion'/

[genman → TurkishPoptart]

1) Ask yourself, if Russia makes Kherson "Russia" now and Ukraine takes it back then how does it look like? There is your answer - they will going to do any "referendums" there.

2) What are you about? US predicted damn well the start of the invasion, give or take a week.

3) That dictator may want to go to the Moon but to do that you have to actually be capable to do it.

4) Not much has been seen of these Chechen forces lately and they have been used as behind the line terror force anyway. Hard to say anything about mercenaries at this point of time.

[superchroma]

I would not consider the number of lives spent there to be winning no matter how you spin it. Additionally, being a stone's throw from the capital and being repelled as they were is also not winning by any metric you care to choose. Whether russian propaganda claims the campaign to be a success is another matter, but the bottom line is that the expense has been spectacular and the territorial gains do not justify it.

[TurkishPoptart → superchroma]

Did you happen to look at the map in the link? Inconvenient truths on politically-neutral war analysis sites are not the same thing as "russian propaganda".

[superchroma → TurkishPoptart]

Don't patronize me. It's a stunning amount of money, equipment and lives lost for a small amount of meaningful land (otherwise quite empty) in a country that the USSR used to entirely control at one point, and that they can easily deploy forces to, right in their backyard. It's a terrible outcome for a "modern war".

In Vietnam, America's prominent 'disaster' of a war, roughly 58,000 american soldiers died over 20 years, in awful terrain. Russia has managed to achieve similar numbers on a relatively flat, unwooded country, without achieving much of anything, in under one year. If russia had a functioning media and democracy, this would be the end of an elected government.

[Normille]

My prediction is that "something" will happen to move the conflict towards resolution within the next couple of months.

The energy crisis in EU and UK is becoming unsustainable. Energy bill price rises are going to see huge numbers of people plunged into absolute poverty. Every day there are tales on the news of people's gas and electricity bills going up by 100s of percent.

This is only going to get much, much worse, as we head into winter. When the dead bodies of pensioners who died of hypothermia, because they couldn't afford to turn on the heating start piling up. When businesses [already barely recovering after Covid] start going to the wall in their thousands [their energy costs are not capped, so their bills are going up by astronomical amounts]. Those same western governments are either going to have to reach into their coffers and pay out billions to subsidise gas and electricity prices to help their economies [and populations] survive ...or they're going to have to back-pedal on this suicidal sanctions war with Russia.

Since we know how governments hate having to give money out, I predict that the rhetoric on the war in Ukraine is going to change over the next couple of months. I've already seen a couple of opinions expressed in the media along the lines of 'Ukraine should negotiate a settlement, as they can't win' and I expect this opinion to be expressed more frequently as winter draws near.

In fact, this could explain why the Ukrainian side seem to be mounting a bit of an offensive at the minute. Maybe their leaders also realise that their supporters in western governments are starting to lose the will to keep up their self-harming sanctions.

It's funny really; we hear a lot bout how Russia's battle plans are a huge failure because they thought they'd steamroller Ukraine into submission in a couple of days. But the same could be said about the western response. It seems clear that western nations thought that this massive sanctions campaign would destroy the Russian economy in a few weeks and force their withdrawal from Ukraine. In fact Russia seems to be weathering the storm and now the sanction-imposers themselves are starting to suffer the backlash.

[h2odragon]

Considering the widespread opinion that they'd have won by the end of the first month, tops; I'd say no they're not winning. They might yet but I suspect the cost would be too high anyway. The only way Russia gets out of this is as the Evil Empire and enemy of all Europe+, or a broken nation needing new government. Be that internal revolution or they get to spend time as a client state of another power.

Longer term I think Russia loses no matter what, the question is how, exactly; and what rises from the ruins.

[t-3]

Winning is a matter of perspective. Are they succeeding in their stated objectives? Unstated?

Stated would be something like:

- "denazification" - debatable meaning, but destruction/capture of Azov probably meets it.

- "Liberation" of ethnic-Russian-majority areas from Ukraine - This won't be settled until the fighting stops, I think it's far too uncertain at this point to call in either direction, but if Putin can hold what he currently has he may be able to claim this. I suspect Russia would suffer if they try to take too much, hubris often seems to lead to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Unstated: - Destroying Ukraine as a viable country/functioning economy, and/or installing a puppet government

- Damaging American global authority and accelerating the push towards multipolarity

- Gathering domestic public support and distracting from domestic politics by uniting against an external enemy

Ukraine has failed to make significant headway in driving the Russians out, but I don't know if that means they're losing or if their strategy just needs more time. As the defender, most successful scenarios require great sacrifice and possibly territorial concessions, so the line between victory and defeat is blurrier than for the attacker, who presumably has defined objectives before moving militarily.

UA still has great public and institutional support in the West, and in a fight for survival will undoubtedly push harder for victory than RU. They still have far greater total available manpower - AIUI, as long as Putin does not formally declare war he is greatly restricted in the number of troops he can field. The Ukrainians seem to lack in equipment and haven't been able to destroy enough Russian artillery to push them back, but sabotage operations may change that.

[superchroma → t-3]

There is truly no point to try and evaluate russian progress against their stated propaganda goals, it's a fool's errand - they're mercurial in nature depending on what the russian public should believe that day. With respect to "denazification", one day it's eliminating nazis who have infiltrated all levels of Ukraine's government and the next it's satisfied by just killing some soldiers. If russia hypothetically attacked poland or some other nation, I'm sure the excuse would be trotted out again.

[Comevius]

There is a attrition warfare right now, and both sides are dug in. Russia has a non-existent morale and questionable logistics, so it is doubtful that they will end up winning. NATO will never lose interest, providing Ukraine with what they need is the cheapest way to keep Russia at bay, and there is an arms race with China. Putin's rule can't last forever. Ukraine also wouldn't allow Russia to hold onto any of the terrories it gained, worst case they can wage an asymmetric war making the occupation exceedingly costly. Russia will run out of steam, because this war is both unjust and unsustainable.

It is doubtful that nuclear weapons used for their psychological effect could weaken the Ukrainian resolve. The tactical advantages would be negligible, and Ukraine would end up gaining more support from the world.

[ghostwriter → Comevius]

> Ukraine also wouldn't allow Russia to hold onto any of the terrories it gained, worst case they can wage an asymmetric war making the occupation exceedingly costly.

Once the population of the gained territories begins to get paid for recovering their own cities [1], it becomes exceedingly more difficult for the other side to sell the idea of any military resistance on that land. It worked in Korea [2]. It will work in former eastern Ukrainian territories that have been looking for alignment with Russia even before 2022.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%83%D0%...

[2] https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/an-un...

[PaulHoule → Comevius]

Russian logistics are very good when they are good. Within their rail network they have this service

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Railway_Troops

If they have logistics in place you have the siege of Mariupol where they can fire an astonishing amount of rocket artillery, but if the logistics aren't in place you have the abortive attack on Kiev that the war began with.

[strangattractor]

Too early to tell IMO. The Ukrainians have done a great job with innovation and PR. They repelled a Russian invasion of Kyiv and forced them to retreat from an area as large as Denmark. They will likely have trouble handling a prolonged engagement and recovering the rest of their territory. But it is not impossible.

The Russians are clearly not even the second best army fighting in Ukraine. They will likely attempt to turn this into a prolonged event which seems to be their only advantage. However the longer this goes on the more domestic resistance will materialize. Putin is worried about this since he did not increase troop numbers by conscription. The sanctions are beginning to affect the average Russian so that is a problem regardless of their propaganda.

[PaulHoule]

Hard to tell.

So far as the news is concerned they work on a 24 hour cycle and on a lot of days there isn't much news. Ukraine is disciplined about information so you aren't hearing anything about the Kherson offensive right now. On the other hand, Russia has been astonishingly undisciplined about information so every time the Antonovsky bridge is hit we see ground level cell phone video where you can count the holes. Historically preventing the enemy from knowing what the outcome of a bombing campaign has been a central concept in counter-intelligence as bomb damage assessment is pretty hard.

Russia's best hope for a "win" would be to keep the territory it has occupied if Ukraine is ready to give up. That's only likely to happen if it gets cut off from Western weapons. The most likely scenario I see is that Germany decides to throw in the towel since Germany is highly consistent in pursuing short-term economic goals to the exclusion of anything else in foreign policy. Other European countries including the UK are under high pressure too (the UK is talking about possible 22% inflation) but some will never give up (Poland.) I think the US is also unlikely to give up because the US is not feeling that much pressure and it's a very good situation for us to send weapons that can be used by highly motivated local troops.

Russia's wildcard possibility would be an attack on Odessa which would cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and cripple Ukraine's economy (very limited industrial and agricultural exports without Russian cooperation). One of the reasons why the Ukrainians are fighting hard to take back Kherson is that controlling Kherson makes it much harder for the Russians to attack Odessa.

As for tactical nukes...

Robert Jastrow wrote a book titled "How to make nuclear weapons obsolete" in the 1980s which focused on Reagan's SDI initiative but at the same time there was a movement to replace tactical nuclear weapons with advanced conventional weapons that I later got some insight into when I was talking to a former defense contractor who retired to become a chicken farmer.

Back in the 1970s there was an expectation that a Russian invasion of Europe would be countered with "neutron bombs" that would kill tank crews effectively. The idea that infantry could counter tanks was barely developed at the time and the early weapons like the Dragon were probably more harmful to their users than their targets but once you've got systems like the Javelin tactical nuclear weapons seem less attractive for that role. Similarly precision guided munitions are orders of magnitude more effective per pound and sortie than what we had before so conventional weapons have grown in power.

Thus, a handful of tactical nuclear weapons would not be decisive in the war. Mariupol was flattened with rocket artillery, tactical nuclear weapons could accomplish this more quickly, but it's not really a new level of destruction.