Guest Post - Ukraine: Update from Poland

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky visits positions of armed forces near the
frontline with Russian-backed separatists in Donbass region, Ukraine, on April 9, 2021.
(Source)

The following update on the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 comes from our friend in Poland, Paweł Kasperek. Take it away, Paweł ...

Today it is 2 weeks into the war and a lot of things happened ...

First things first, Russian advance (with few exceptions in the south) got bogged down in spectacular fashion. It failed to be a thunder run in the Iraq 2003 style - hell it even failed to emulate German Poland 1939 campaign. For lack of better comparison, it reminds me of the WW1 or Russo-Japanese war - a slugfest where Russians are trying to crush enemy with pure numbers and fail at that too.  One of the aspects that seems to be highlighted is the extent of corruption where everything from food supply reports to training was falsified and/or embezzled by very officers of the armed forces. It seems Russia started to requisition civilian vehicles to carry out logistics... Which will feed into civilian discontent at home probably too. (More on that aspect later)

The monstrous traffic jam north of Kiev is still in place, and with every passing day is less of Ardennes traffic jam of 1940 and more of Winter War motti¹ in the making.

Everything that could go wrong for Russia, has gone so. Logistics, morale, they even failed to make total air superiority despite huge advantages in the air. Especially helicopter losses on the Russian side seem to be huge, with few dozens at least downed, mostly by ubiquitous MANPADS², some of them Stingers, some older ex-WARPAC Strelas (Even Germany scrounged up 3500 of them from old NVA³ stores!) and quite many Polish Pioruns which were major modernisation of Soviet Strela follow up, Igla. Russian habit of launching "Apocalypse Now" style air assault on enemy airfields did not help.

Talk about getting faceful of missile!

Either Stinger or Piorun, launched fully from frontal angle into Mi-24 and killing it instantly. (Some sources told me that it had to be Piorun since Stinger has safeties that won't let it engage below certain height - but as anything told on the net, take with grain of salt). About the only front where maneuver warfare went relatively well was assault from Crimea towards Odessa, with Cherson already taken and Mikolaiv under assault.

For 2 weeks of combat, Russia has taken maybe 10 percent of Ukrainian territory, and the hold is tenuous as they lack numbers to control the countryside. They have expended around 600 missiles, ballistic and cruise, and seem to turn to indiscriminate artillery and MLRS barrages against cities since they ran out of pre-planned military targets.

Moscow claims 500 KIA, Ukrainians over 11k, my estimate is 2-3k at least which is anyway big number for 2 weeks of operations where only 150k or so troops are involved, and attrition must be even more severe at tip of the spear infantry and tank units.

Speaking of tanks, 2022 Championship in Javelin goes to Ukraine ...

Already over million people from Ukraine fled into Poland, lesser numbers to Moldova and Romania, and unsurprisingly very few into Russia. Almost no one went into Belarus :P

There is great outburst of human help from people around me, welcoming refugees, gathering food and other necessities, even in my own workplace, local supermarket.

Some of my friends from tabletop wargames club are volunteering at Red Cross.

The global sanction regime seems to gather steam, though the most serious one, to decouple from Russian gas, oil and coal will take some time to implement. Still kudos to my government which regardless of party in charge for few years already built up LNG terminal (not far from where I live) and pipeline from Norway is scheduled to start operating this year, leaving us totally independent from Russia. 

If I can ask, send letters to your congressmen/women. Get rid of any red tape to oil and gas drilling, and make export facilities to Europe. Save friend in need and make a good $$, best of 2 worlds. Even Biden has committed to stopping imports of oil which will force him to ease up on local drilling.

There are some ill-advised pushes for no-fly zone, but I am with Salamander - and many other vets - on this one this would be highway to World War.

There has been talk of giving Ukrainians ex-soviet jets still in NATO inventories, Poland after some hesitation offered to transfer 28 Mig-29s to Ramstein for refit (removal of NATO IFF and comms?) and repainting, but US side seems to get cold feet after all.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian planes, and especially drones still roam the skies and occasionally down Russian plane, or bomb a column that was short on AD⁴.

What is interesting to me is how Russians themselves will react to stream of soldiers not answering calls anymore (it seems there will be no coffins returning because mobile crematoria were supplied ...) - and not getting anymore from cornucopia of global western market of the internet, fast food, utilities, or - horrible thought - returning to Soviet times food rationing.

Putin seems to double up on repression instituting penalties like up to 15 years of prison for even calling this war a war, not "military operation". Already few thousand of people were arrested for protests and this will get only stronger the more soldiers die, the more sanctions bite and the more people realise the truth is different from TV screens of propaganda machine.

Some more mobile Russians rush for exit - via Finland for example, no doubt realising they soon can get conscripted or mobilised into the meatgrinder. I wonder how this aspect will develop ...

The worst thing is, Putin has burned every off-ramp for himself. Now he is committed to total victory, regime change and all, but doesn't seem to capable of achieving it unless going total Stalin, and even then he gets huge insurgency and North Korea level isolation. And if he loses ... Remember fate of the last Romanoff?

¹ Encirclement (Finnish)

² MAn Portable Air Defense System, MANPADS

³  NVA = Nationale Volksarmee (East German National People's Army)

⁴ Air Defense