Russia needs a spring offensive

Hello,

In this video, I discuss Russia's upcoming spring offensive that is likely to begin in the coming weeks. In fact, some Ukrainian sources say that it has already begun. I discuss why it makes sense for Russia to do this, but also how Putin is caught in a spiral where the Russian army has to keep advancing to support his war narrative. That might become a problem for Putin because the trends on the front line indicate that it will be harder and harder for Russia to keep advancing.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

There is a lot of talk about an upcoming Russian spring and summer offensive. According to the Ukrainians, they can see that there are preparations for this and the message is that we should expect it to begin within the coming weeks. In this video, I want to talk about why it would make sense for Russia to do that and also about the bigger perspective and what it says about where we are in the war. So let's talk about it.

Over the last few months, we witnessed two seemingly contradictory developments at the same time. On the political scene, there have been talks between the United States and Russia, and Donald Trump has given a range of concessions to the Russians, and it looks like American aid to Ukraine is slowly waning out. This has given the Russians a lot of optimism that things are developing in their favor, and Putin, frankly, appears to be full of self-confidence and determination right now.

But at the same time, on the battlefield, the Russian progress has slowed down. The amount of territory that they have managed to take has declined significantly month by month since around November. It looks like the Ukrainians have managed to stabilize the front line very well. This creates a bit of a paradox for the Russians because on the one hand, they have this feeling that things are moving in their direction and there is optimism about the strategic position that they have. But on the other hand, it is actually not materializing into progress on the battlefield. In fact, the trend on the front line is in the wrong direction.

This is obviously not an acceptable situation for the Russians. So they must find some way that they can reenergize their offensive, because what they interpret as a strong strategic position, must be translated into military progress. So when the Ukrainians talk about how the Russians are now preparing for a new spring offensive, then just intuitively, that makes sense because Russia has to be on the offensive. And the timing also makes sense because right now it's the mud season in Ukraine, but that's going to end in a couple of weeks. So that would be good timing for a new offensive push.

But that leads, of course, to the obvious question, how many resources do they have for such a push? Russia has been on the offensive for about a year and a half now since the fall of 2023. And it takes a lot of resources to do that. And normally during an offensive campaign, you will reach what's called the point of culmination when you don't have the force to move ahead anymore. To keep progressing, you'll need either an operational pause or you will need access to more resources that you can put into the fight.

And I would like to point to three challenges for the Russians now that it looks like they are about to restart the offensive. The first one is that the Russian army that is fighting in Ukraine today is very different from the Russian army that was there just a year ago, or when the offensive started in 2023. It's an army that is heavily affected by attrition and lacking the types of equipment that they used to have. So we're seeing less and less armor on the front line and more and more just attacks with dismounted infantry. That indicates that Russia is approaching a point where there is a shortage of armored vehicles that they can use for these attacks.

So the first challenge is the effects of attrition that are evident now that we are into year four of this full-scale invasion. This makes it difficult for the Russians to assemble forces for maneuver warfare.

The second challenge is that the front line has become very long over the last year. Just in physical terms, it's longer today than it was a year ago. This is the result of some of the developments that have happened in 2024. First, the Russians actually took a step to make the front line longer when they launched the Kharkiv offensive back in May. And then in August, the Ukrainians expanded on that because they made the Kursk offensive, which also made the front line longer. So there is a longer front line with active fighting.

The fact that the front line is longer is an advantage for Ukraine. I've made videos about this in the past where I explained that it was actually a problem for the Ukrainians when the front line was very compact because the Russians could focus on specific sectors of the front line where they could concentrate their forces. But the Ukrainians had to spread out more because they could not leave any sector unguarded. They had to guard the entire front line, the border with Russia, the border with Belarus. So it's been a goal for the Ukrainians for a long time to extend the front line and make it longer and forcing the Russians to spread their forces over a greater area. This is now a reality, and it eases the pressure on individual parts of the front line and makes it more difficult for the Russians to achieve breakthroughs.

The last challenge I will mention is that the Ukrainian defenses benefit from the developments in drone technology because they favor the defensive fight more than the offensive one. This means that while there are these effects of attrition, where it's becoming more and more visible on the Russian forces and they have a shortage of armored vehicles for attacks and those things, the trend is also moving towards stronger defenses on the Ukrainian side.

So that's another negative for the Russians. And it indicates that this trend towards more, a more stable front line, which the Ukrainians are able to hold, might be the new norm due to these developments in drone warfare.

I'm not in this video going to get into the whole question of what it will mean for Ukraine if the American aid stops. But I will say that I don't really see that this specific dynamic on the front line is going to change substantially.

So I think it looks difficult for the Russians to re-energize their offensive. They might be able to throw some more resources into it for a while, and that can maybe create some territorial gains. But I think the overall trend is toward it becoming more and more difficult for them to make progress on the front line. And most importantly, the fighting on the front line will become more and more manpower intensive because it is dismounted infantry that spearheads these attacks. So the Russians will need more and more soldiers and there will be a higher and higher casualty rate in terms of manpower requirements for taking each additional square kilometer.

But the thing is it's not actually optional for the Russians if they want to make progress or not. The whole war narrative is built around the idea that that they make progress, and they are a great power that can beat the small state, and that things might be difficult but victory is inevitable. It's waiting out there for them. So the moment they stop making progress it seriously challenges Putin's whole war narrative. That's why he will be willing to throw almost whatever resources that are necessary into the war just to make sure that the Russian army keeps advancing.

But of course Putin's problem is that he doesn't actually have endless resources. The Russian economy is struggling. It was stagnating already and now due to the trade war that Trump has started, the oil prices are suddenly dropping and that's really bad for the Russian economy. So it's also becoming harder and harder for them to just keep the economy going and they are also struggling more and more to find the volunteers that are willing to go and fight on the front line.

But in the short term I think it looks like they have the resources that they can throw into a spring or summer offensive. So I think it's very likely that this is going to happen. It's something that Putin must do because the story about Russia making constant progress is very important for his war narrative, and it's also crucial to try to turn the strategic advantage that he believes he has right now after the negotiations with Donald Trump into military realities on the front line. So he will be willing to throw significant resources into re-energizing the Russian offensive.

Alright I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative then please give it a like. And also remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications when I upload new videos. If you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter at www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.