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Russia Commits 97% Of Military To Ukraine As Fund Managers Worry
If you were wondering just how pot committed the Kremlin is to Vladimir Putin's imperialist fever dream in Ukraine, the answer is... well, suffice to say Moscow is all-in.
Or at least according to UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who on Wednesday told the BBC that 97% of the Russian army is estimated to be in Ukraine.
Whether that's strictly accurate doesn't really matter. Even if Wallace (who denied reports he threatened to resign over a defense spending row) is off by 20pp, that'd still lea
If western countries deliver equipment and support to Ukraine, as promised in the spring/summer timeframe, it’s very likely the Russian armies will still occupy the same Ukrainian land that they hold today in the eastern and southern oblasts: Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk. But with western tanks, Stryker vehicles, and Bradley fighting vehicles, the Ukrainians will make life for the occupiers extremely uncomfortable. The Russian tendency to run away from the fight will continue to embarrass the Russian leaders.
More importantly, Ukraine has also expressed a strong desire to retake Crimea, which strategically will be very difficult for the Russians to defend. With longer range western missiles, recently slated for delivery to Ukraine, the Kerch Bridge will be no more. Ukraine is very well likely to take Crimea this summer. By cutting off supplies to Crimea, it will be easier to occupy, while the provinces in the southeast will have more capacity for resistance. If I was the Ukrainian defense minister, I’d want F-16s to assert air dominance going into late 2023 for those southeastern provinces.
I expect the southeastern provinces to be returned to Ukraine by early next year, probably by force, not by Russian surrender. For me the bigger question is not the timing of the return, but the state of affairs in Russia itself. How will they swallow and digest such a spectacular loss? How long will Putin remain in power? Will they finally play the nuclear card? These choices and possibilities are a lot to digest.
The country will be, needless to say, a messy place. How will the Russian people react to losing the war and possibly facing the demise of their country? Will they pick up the thread of democratic thoughts they had in 1991? Will they try do it better this time?