Chinese Farm

(I wrote this a month ago, but I am only posting it now, after sharing it with a few people)

All this time, the West has been saying, "No shooting at Russian territory". If you do that, we'll cut off aid. We won't get into a shooting war with Russia. Etc, etc. This mantra has been said so often that it has become a "truth". But this is war, when truth becomes lies, and believing truths can get you in trouble. 

 

This is a war for the very survival of Ukraine. Russian forces are arrayed forward to the front lines, and the Russian high command knows (or assumes) that Russian territory will not be attacked meaningfully. The war is being fought and will be fought on Ukrainian territory (or "Russian territory" currently under the control of Ukraine).  

 

The assumption is that the coming offensive will be to retake Ukrainian territory, probably pushing south to the Sea of Azov and Crimea, busting through Russian well-prepared defences, line after line. Each one is a potential Somme waiting to happen. And for what, a few kilometres of advance while further eroding limited resources?  

 

The invasion has been halted, the Russian winter offensive has failed, and the positions are well established. Logistical lines favour Ukraine with shorter lines to any point on the front, while Russian logistics are stretched. The distance from Kviv to the farthest front line is around 500 kilometres. Realistically, however, forward positioning of materials will put the front lines no more than 150 – 200 kilometres at any point. Contrast this with the Russians' need to be able to deliver forces to any point along a 900+ kilometre front line.  

 

Will Ukraine repeat the Somme, or will they do something completely different? There are enough historical examples to follow, or that provide potential parallels to the current situation. And that has led me to think about what Ukraine may do. This is my "prediction".

If we want to see the future, we need only look at the past: the Battle for Chinese Farm and the two weeks following. I'll not review it in detail, you can look it up on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Chinese_Farm). 

 

What matters here is that the Russian military is exhausted, or they would continue their offensive operations. They've tried to take their own version of the Gidi Pass and Mitla Pass, and failed. Ukraine is contemplating how and where they will use the new Western armour and APCs, and how they will use their limited artillery resources. Western doctrine calls for the establishment of air superiority before engaging in ground operations, and the inability of either side to accomplish this has been a major talking point throughout.

In 1967, Israel had complete air superiority. In 1973 they were willing (or forced to) accept interdiction of all airspace by both sides, at a high cost. If neither side has air superiority, then the "air" just needs to move higher - space and satellite superiority, and Ukraine has that in spades through Western eyes.

 

They have eyes in the sky, and a massive amount of intel from the West, at strategic and detailed operational levels. They probably know the names of every commander on the Russian side, and probably know where each of them is to within a few hundred meters. They know how much fuel the Russians have, at a unit level. They know where the Russians are, how many they are, and probably what they will eat for breakfast tomorrow. How can I say this with confidence? Because this is the war that NATO has been planning for 70 years. The fall of the Soviet Union did not halt the continued development of Western electronic intelligence-gathering capabilities. 

 

I suspect Ukraine has been looking for the perfect "Chinese Farm" for the past three months or more, but one that will not result in the same desperate battle fought 50 years ago. And when they decide to attack, the objective will not be the Sea of Azov; the objective will be to push tens or even fifty or more kilometres into Russia before turning south and or north. They hope to puncture the front, and, using Israeli (and Soviet) tactics, run amok in the Russian rear, separating the front line and even reserve forces from their logistical bases in Russia, forcing Russian forces to look behind themselves as well as protecting their front.  

 

The frontline Russian forces will not even know that they are being surrounded until it is already underway. It is natural for commanders to limit the amount of information provided to front-line troops to avoid speculating about every piece of gossip or rumour. But this means that rumours will spread, will be denied, and will continue to spread.  

 

I'm going to go way out on a limb here, and suggest that anyone living west of the Russian M4 motorway (which is closer to Bakhmut than Bakhmut is to Kharkiv) may find themselves on the front lines or within the cauldron, with Ukrainian forces using that as the point at which they turn north and or south, aiming to cut off Russian forces from their rear positions and resources.  

 

From there, Ukraine can wait. Certainly, there will be intense fighting continuing all along the front, but that will be holding fighting for Ukraine, and breakout fighting on the part of Russian forces. The war will be over, and Moscow will face some very scary choices. But once Russian troops realise that their supply lines have been cut off, I do not expect morale to hold up for long. Those troops will be bombarded with propaganda more than shells. Breakouts will be attempted and will be stopped. The Russian air force will need to commit all that it can, and will lose the air. 

 

This will leave Moscow with few choices. Escalate to nuclear weapons or find a way to negotiate an end to the war that keeps Putin alive. China, Russia's only meaningful friend, has told Putin that nuclear weapons are off the table.  

 

We will know soon. 

(Since writing this, I've read that Russia is building defensive fortifications well back in Russian territory.)