Brian M Downing
With the failure of the Kyiv and Donbas offensives, Putin is thought to be shifting to a long-term strategy. This could mean a nonstop military campaign or continuous fighting with intermittent formal or informal truces, though Ukraine is unlikely to grant any respite. What will the impact be on the Russian army, economy, and state? Can they hold up? It doesn’t bode well for Russia.
The army
Less than three months into the special operation, the army has performed astonishingly badly. Equipment is inferior to NATO’s and inadequate maintenance worsens matters. Soldiers are poorly trained, if at all. They have no knowledge of basic tactics and show little discipline under fire – or in towns and villages for that matter. Nor have they learned the skills around Kyiv or on the steppes.
The Russians have been pushed back in the north and are now stalemated in the east. Casualties are difficult to assess with certainty, however Western estimates are about 20,000 dead and three times that wounded. (Ukrainian estimates of enemy casualties are about 20% higher.) Over a thousand tanks have been destroyed or captured. BTGs have to be combined to maintain functional units.
Offensive operations have ground to a halt. Defensive positions are giving way. Ukraine is using newly-acquired weapons to hammer away on increasingly demoralized troops. At the present level of fighting, which will continue as long the Russians are on Ukrainian soil, the invading army will be ineffectual by summer.
The economy
A long war requires a strong economy and arms industries. The American economy grew rapidly during World War Two and unemployment fell sharply. War is Keynesian economics by other means. That won’t be the case in Russia today. Sanctions, a dearth of capital, and export losses will see to that. The World Bank predicts a 10% fall in GDP by year’s end. Unemployment will reach double digits, food and many necessities will be expensive and increasingly scarce.
Many European countries are ending Russian oil and gas contracts and turning to the Mediterranean and N America. Many will be investing in the transition to renewables, signaling the coming decline of fossil fuels. Russia is unlikely to regain its European market share, regardless of the war or who’s in the Kremlin.
Arms industries are reducing output and laying off workers. It’s as though in 1942 US Steel and Ford were packing it in. Modern weapons require semiconductors and other hi-tech but with sanctions piling on, they’re hard to come by. Hard-pressed war plants are taking chips from household appliances and putting them into jerry-rigged weapons – resourceful but unpromising.
Without more tanks, missiles, drones, helicopters, and the like to replace losses, the war cannot continue long. Thus far, China is unwilling to pick up the slack with equipment and resources, as the US did for the Soviet Union in WW2. It’s unclear if this is because of concern with sanctions or disenchantment with Moscow.
The state
Over the last twenty years Putin has positioned his people throughout the state and business sectors. They predominate and probably remain loyal. Many others are more convinced with every passing day that Putin and his loyalists are gravely weakening the country and resorting to Stalin-era methods. Each faction will blame the other for the Ukraine disaster and its consequences.
Loyalists have the FSB on their side. The bloodhounds will hunt down opposition in the state and public as well. Opponents will be branded agents of foreign powers, just as Bukharin and Zinoviev were in the 1930s. A Russian spokesman recently called for a new Beria. In a sense, the Russian national security sense, he’s right. And Putin may already have found one. Several oligarchs in major industries have met mysterious, often gruesome deaths in recent weeks, many with their families.
The state will be paralyzed by purges and fear of purges, by alleged foreign agents and scheming opportunists, by rumors and accusations. It will be unable to manage the economy, the war, or even ordinary government affairs.
©2022 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.