"So How Does Russia Win Now?" Topic

We are wargamers what are your ideas on how Russia could win this war with the current state of affairs as of April 2nd, 2022? What would you do if you were suddenly placed in charge of this debacle today? Winning is your only option, no retreats, surrender or march on the Kremlin and kill Putin scenarios.

I never thought taking over all of Ukraine was the plan, only portions for now. If front stalemate it becomes a occupation force in those areas.

Grind it out. Till you have enough territory for Putin to save face and take to the negotiating table. Shove anything in a uniform I can find over the border into the Donbass region with vehicle whose engine will still turn over and has half-a-tank of fuel.

Based on what little I understand of both the likely politics and logistical situation. Pulling back and having enough time to try to constitute something that looks and behaves like an army is out of the question.

The fundamental problem being a need to take and hold ground with too few men. The only hope is that the Ukrainian military in that region is equally exhausted and short of material. Zelensky has made it pretty clear he's not going to make territorial concessions unless he has no other choice.

Personal goal being to see if I can engineer a Mexican stand-off among any and all of the Russian intelligence agencies looking over my shoulder and disappear in the chaos and recriminations. Preferably before the ICC decides I've been in charge long enough to indict me. Only reappearing at the doors of a 'Western' embassy, in the nearest non-Russia aligned country I can get to, requesting political asylum. I figure a few months in de-brief, a subtle identify alteration, and then a cushy job at some strategic studies institute writing popular books about why the Russian army was such a basket case.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't sucked into jet engines…

I don't think they can win. They just need to gracefully withdraw. The only other unthinkable option is to go nuclear!

The plan, apparently, is to encircle and eliminate the Ukrainian forces in the east.

Getting to keep some portions of Ukraine, including that land-bridge to Crimea they have now.

Perhaps then make another attempt on Kiev or other areas of Ukraine later (Odessa), and/or continue to try to kill Zelenskyy and replace him and others with their hand-picked, Putin allies.

I'm surprised that Putin hasn't had his forces use chemical weapons yet, and will be even more shocked if they don't in the conflict, since he already did that in Syria with impunity.

I imagine he will not use nukes, since a NATO response to that is far more likely if he does. Not so on the chems, since there really isn't a good option for them to hit back at him over that, short of kicking off WWIII.

I imagine he's worried about the same, if/when he uses even tactical nukes.

Assassinating Putin now, or getting his generals to overthrow him in a coup are perhaps the best options for the Ukrainians.

IMO Russia is in a no-win situation. However, they may have to just fight a war of attrition as they do have numbers in their favor. And they may have to stop wasting ordinance on non-combat targets. Only military targets as they are the threat. And to continue the attrition.

Not a plan I would ever recommend in reality …

I think Bill is right. Focus on Donbas and continue to make slow progress in the south, then declare victory. There was a map circulating through the media the other day showing a potential peace deal with Russia taking everything up to the Dniepr, and the "new" Ukraine would have everything on the western side of the river. Not sure if that's going to fly, but it looks like that might be the plan.

There are a few options:
a)stalemate and negotiate from here (45%)
b)seriously damage/neutralization of the Ukrainian army in the east (35%) + apparent hold of Donbas region
c)semi-collapse through exhaustion of the Russian forces(20%?)

Option a) leads to a marginal victory while b) to a temporary victory for Putin

Option c) will see a face saving exit for Putin but probably an end to his regime in the longer term

Tactical nukes could do it. It also could cause a much bigger war too.

Maybe the question is can they? Can they win a war of attrition as long as they're fighting with their active only forces while Ukraine has mobilized? Russia could mobilize their reserves but that has serious domestic and international implications. The trouble is that redeploying to Donbas doesn't change all of the support deficiencies revealed so far.

As this video analysis (by Perun) puts it – All Bling, no Basics (i.e., on stuff that looks flashy, such as in Red Square parades, etc. but not on dull stuff like logistics and communications). The video is long (56 minutes) and from 5th March but because it focuses on longer term capability investment it's still applicable. The creator clearly knows something about defence investment / procurement. Highly recommend watching it:

YouTube link

Summation is that Russia hasn't invested in the force to do the job Putin has asked of it. But that's clearly Putin's fault – both in terms of investment and employment.

Destroy the Ukrainian army in the Donbas and try the Azov Battalion/Right sector for war crimes.

Only way to win is via propaganda victory announcement.

Shift troops in an obvious manner from Kiev to the Donbas. When the Ukrainians shift enough troops from Kiev to counter this threat have the Byelorussian army attack and try to seize Kiev.

…and try the Azov Battalion/Right sector for war crimes.

Have they credibly been accused of any? Not that I've heard of.

…have the Byelorussian army attack and try to seize Kiev.

That army, portions of which were conspicuously lined up in road columns previously, is reported to have returned to barracks. Their quality is believed to be even lower than the Russians, and their motivation unreliable as many have close ties to Ukraine.

If you read Clausewitz Russia has already lost.

There is no good way out for Putin now. His time in power is coming to a close and the clock is ticking.

1. Make a big show of withdrawing from N Ukraine, from the areas around Kyiv, back into Belarus and Russia. Have those units dig in for defense. Concentrate Russian air defense here.

2. Have the Ukrainian Separatist units pull back into their enclaves.

3. Wait for the Ukrainian conventional forces to retake the areas N of Kyiv formerly occupied by the Russians.

4. When the target environment is optimal, deploy 3 low yield (5kt) nukes N of Kyiv against Ukrainian troop concentrations.

This has the following benefits:
a) it hits the reset button on the war narrative. Slava Ukraini takes a bloody nose.
b) foreign volunteerism dries up.
c) there weren't many civilians left in these areas anyway.
d) Ukraine will be reluctant to mass troops again, blunting their counter offensive capability.
e) evidence of Russian misconduct gets incinerated.
f) Russia can crow at home that the nazis who were planning to invade have been stopped.

The west will want to retaliate, but NATO won't want the US to retaliate with nukes unilaterally. There will be a concensus to use numerous high yield thermobaric munitions, but where, against whom.

Hitting Russia will be unacceptable. The Separatists will be back in civilian areas. The Russians in the south are in high civilian areas. Hitting Russians in the East is a dice roll. Destroying the Kerch bridge would be a major blow.

In the chaos after the nukes, offer to return to the 2/24 start lines. No NATO in Ukraine. It can join the EU if Belarus and Russia can too. Ukraine agrees Donbas and Crimea are Russian. Transnistria is recognized as a Russian exclave.

Otherwise, Sumy and Kharkiv get the Mariupol treatment.

Chemical/nuclear would not be great options for Putin in Ukraine simply because the prevailing winds in Central Europe are westerly and all the nasty stuff would blow back in his face

Putin:

"So?"

During WWII the western allies supported Russia against Germany in much the same way we are supporting Ukraine now against Russia.

Churchill was unapologetic about his support of Russia, despite the UKs support of Finland vs. Russia in The Winter War.

At Yalta, Churchill proposed an agreement to Stalin without consulting the Americans in which Eastern Europe was subdivided into percentage spheres of influence. After a quick read, Stalin made a big check mark, approving the proposal.

There is another story about Churchill, tho I'm not confident that this one has ever been substantiated. When it became clear after the war that Churchill had no intention of trying to advocate for Poland under Russian subjugation, one of his aides expressed concern. Won't life in Poland be awfully harsh?"

Churchill's response was supposedly, "you weren't planning to live there, were you?"

And, of course, given the performance of his military so far, Putin has to worry. If he deploys nukes, what if they don't work?

China and India in the past signaled they are VERY strongly oppose using WMDs. China and India do not have so many WMD as Russia and West. Removing nuke taboo means lowering China and India status. Using WMD by Russia would mean a) loss of China/India support and b) postwar (after probably Russian economic implosion) international supervision of Russian WMDs.

I guess I'll throw my $.02 USD into the mix:

(a) nukes – agree with HMS Exeter, is Putin even sure that his nukes work? I'm definitely not an expert on nukes but how old are they? The missile silos were built in the 50s-70s? I know that the 'battlefield' nukes are newer but, with all the corruption in the Russian military – is he sure they will fly?

(b) there's been some talk going around that the idea of 'regime change' in Kyiv was smoke and mirrors and that Putin's real target was the natural-gas rich east and Ukraine's coastline. Since Russian forces appear to have had some successes in those regions, my guess is that Putin will take Donetsk and Luhansk and the coastline and secure a land bridge to the Crimea and call it quits. After all, securing a huge natural gas field in eastern Ukraine would go a long way in securing Russia's energy dominance in Europe (sanctions will have to end by next winter, as the idiot EU has bought into the 'Green' crap and it doesn't work – yet. The technology just isn't there to make it affordable or practical).

(a) Warheads have to 're-processed' periodically to remove unwanted decay products. Engines and guidance systems are a different matter. As some one else here noted – not sure I what to test that reliability theory.

(b) I don't buy the gas theory Russia isn't exactly short. It has the most proven reserves in world IIRC. It also seems a rather expensive way of knocking a relatively small scale potential competitor out (20 million cube a year versus nearly 600 million cube per year). Yes Ukraine has plenty of reserves but clearly a lot of slow and expensive development would be required. Gas may not be dead but its terminally ill and Putin may inadvertently be about to be given some kind of award for services to the planet!

Using nukes is a no-go for Russia. At that point there would really be no excuse for NATO not to intervene and respond in kind, and tactical nukes would escalate into strategic ones with great probability. At that point, it'd either the end of the world or the end of Russia, and none of those two choices benefit Putin.

I think if Putin even started to think of limited use of nukes, someone in his HQ would put a bullet through his head "by mistake".

@Swampking

I heard Russia has 6600 warheads. Of these, 1600 are deployed and ready for immediate use.

The remaining 5000 are either current warheads being held as "reloads," or overaged units awaiting disassembly.

Let us all hope that Putin's blood pressure soon results in an 8mm stroke.

Let us all hope his replacement is strong enuf to last for a while, and be able corral the oligarchs and kleptocrats, and the Mafia, yet not be so strong that he quickly morphs into Putin 2.0.

Russians don't know yet that they have already lost.

They discovered that the Ukrainian people did not support them.
So they continue with their evil master plan – to kill all the Ukrainians.
Butcha is only one episode, the same prepared genocide is taking place everywhere in the occupied territories. This is a usual practice of the Russians. They talked at the grassroots level about such plans for years.

As result – all accessible Ukrainian civilian infrastructures and residential areas will be carpet bombed and destroyed. This is how Russians try to "win". Because the goal of the Russians in this war is to exterminate Ukraine and the Ukrainians.

1) Mobilize the reserves – the manpower is needed
2) Restructure the BTG – currently they are a brigades worth of artillery with only one manoeuvre battalion and a battalion's C2 and logistis. Good as a siege busting unit but not good for manoeuvre warfare.
3) Invest in C2, communications, logistics (maintenance, ammo, etc.)
4) Agree to a cease fire while all of the above happens.
5) Up the propaganda / info war to ensure domestic support and to divide Ukraine and its allies.

The use of tactical nuclear weapons vs the Ukrainian forces has little return (i.e., there aren't really huge concentrations of forces that can't already be dealt with by Russian artillery) for a large political cost.

Russians don't know yet that they have already lost.

In the end no matter what that is … Putin and some of his followers will be charged with war crimes, in absentia. He & Russia will be even bigger pariahs than now. They will be out of the G20, etc. If they leave Russia they will be arrested, etc. They may only be able to do business, etc., with Iran, China, N. Korea, etc. This crime against humanity cannot be forgotten or forgiven.

I think some very thought out observations and predictions. We are wargamers here, so let's do a little wargaming:

First, the objectives of the Russians have to be set. Any existing ideas that there is an occupation or revival of the old Soviet Union is not correct. The true objectives are to
1) destroy the military capability of the Ukes, rendering them incapable of waging ongoing war.
2) Block the NATO Proxy Status of Ukraine,Stop NATO training facilities.
3) Create an Independent Ukraine, what ever is left.
4) Donbas is up for a vote, Crimea is Russian.
5) No more Western sponsored Bio-Labs, for whatever reason.

Turn 1:

Russia achieves air superiority
Fighting is intense, but not to the hysteria of Ghosts of Kyiv, Snake Island, and Airsoft Miss Ukraine.

Turn 2:

Massive casualties on both sides. Russians are using live battlefield training instead of simulated trainings. No doubt lot of hero's are being created.

Turn 3:

Logistics….Russians, damn, what the hell! Improvements needed! Ukes…..don't look here, our stockpiles of gas is normal, ready for offensive or defensive operations.

Turn 4:

Who Knows? But the Russians pegging the Ruble to a gold standard is quite game changing. Demanding the financial transition be done in Rubles is the fist chink in the old and now feeble Petrodollar.

And now this:
Pollsters Humiliated As 2 Pro-Putin Parties Win Avalanche Victories In European Elections
by Zero Hedge

Turn 5:

Putin sits on things as Germany experiences a 20% plus increase in prices because of inflation. Energy is a problem as Germany has not agreed to pay in Rubles. Looks like India is going to get discounted oil.

Russian forces in Ukraine sit and entrench. Now wait for the Ukes to surrender, advance, fight it out, or wait it out.

"3) Create an Independent Ukraine, what ever is left."

The goal of Russians is to exterminate not only an independent Ukraine but Ukraine as such.
So this can't to be an objective.
If Ukraine still exist, Russia lost.

I agree with Sho. A truly independent Ukraine or rump Ukraine is in compatible with the requirement it be "neutral", "de-militarized" and "de-nazified" – however one defines the latter term (ideas vary on that – from language laws to extermination of ???). Note that prior "de-militarization" efforts – e.g, Napoleon's terms in 1807 with respect to Prussian, Allied terms for Germany post-WWI (how did those work out). The only way to ensure these conditions on an "independent" Ukraine is through a puppet government favourable to Moscow or at least an ability for Russia to invade / intervene as they deserve. In essence, it will be a province, subordinate state or whatever of Russia. I can't see any other option.

Gold standard = a mirage. There's a reason countries abandoned the gold standard. Yes, it has an advantage re: inflation but only at considerable economic costs (i.e. possible deflation, constrained economy, economic instability, etc.). There's also a reason the USD is the international standard. Can't see any change to that – no matter how much some countries would wish otherwise. The USD is not a petrodollar – please take a closer look at the US economy.

Any objectives for the current war can only be considered in the context of the wider, geo-political objectives of which Putin has spoken very clearly many times – Russia as the centre of a greater Russian civilization with its superior values, etc. to the West; a multipolar world in which Russia is one of the leading powers; and a Russia with secure, defensible borders (note: Rome built an empire with because it needed security). If he says so, then I must believe him. In that context any objectives in the current war are intermediate ones.

Thanks War Scorpio for raising the level of analysis.

Russian forces in Ukraine sit and entrench.

No, they are supposed to be going on the offensive in the east, and taking Mariupol "any day now."

You left out the part about terrorizing the civilian population by blowing up random apartment buildings and kidnapping mayors.

The Russians have made it impossible for the Ukrainians to surrender any territory for peace at this point.

They are going to dig in and utilize the only semi competent part of their military. Hail Mary artillery and rocket attacks until Ukraine looks like Verdun in WW1.

This does not end until Putin is removed from power by the Russians.

Just playing devils advocate here but:

With the spent Russian northern force withdrawn back into Belarus and Russia, once the Ukrainians push up to the border, what's left to stop them crossing?

With the threat to Kyiv lifted and the supply lines secured, what's to stop the Ukrainian conventional forces in the western part of the country moving on Kherson?

@HMS Exeter,

Yes – not to forget that Ukraine has interior lines of communication.

With the spent Russian northern force withdrawn back into Belarus and Russia, once the Ukrainians push up to the border, what's left to stop them crossing?

Crossing into Belarus? That would just prompt the Belarus army to get involved.