Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment — 10 March 2022
More on Putin’s Folly:
· Here is the ISW assessrep for 10 March ’22.
· The Russian Ruble is currently worth 0.0085 USD. That’s 117 rubles to $1. Just prior to the invasion 76 rubles = $1. That is a 35% drop over two weeks. I’ll add this to the daily assessrep as it is going to be a critical factor in how Russia prosecutes this war… and probably will drive a great deal of Chinese support.
o It will be interesting to see how our trade relations are affected with China since US purchase of Chinese goods will be likely to partially float Putin’s war expenses.
o Also, early figures about the daily operating cost of the war stated “20 billion” with no currency unit attached. A Military Times article late last week clarified this figure to be $1 billion per day. As with the casualty figures, the expenditure amount is not quite as important as the additive effects of the sanctions and the plummeting value of the ruble”. As John K noted yesterday, the Russian Army’s incompetence does not necessarily translate to Naval incompetence. What this does mean is that as war costs mount, capital assets dry up and the value of the ruble is turned to rubble, this will weaken the Russian Navy’s readiness and maintenance status.
o The Congressional Research Service (CRS) assesses the status of Russian offshore assets and the likely impacts of sanctions.
· The 40-mile convoy of targets Russian armor has started to disperse off the road to Kyiv. It is not clear yet if this is a defensive measure that sub unit commanders are taking to protect themselves from small units of Ukrainians looking for target practice, or if they are actually beginning to organize for a renewed push against Kyiv. What is clear, however, is that if they are still running low on gas, then they can’t idle their vehicles, and this means that Russian soldiers are at risk of freezing to death while waiting for orders. This prophetic article, published by War on The Rocks back in November, detailed the challenges of Russian operational logistics and even predicted the use of “operational pauses” to resupply units. This makes the Russian decision to mount an offensive in late winter even more baffling.
· In February, The Atlantic published an article about Putin’s motivations for war, and two days ago, offered another think piece about defeating Putin and the future of US strategic objectives to counter Russia and China. Given these two articles, it would be easy to go off on a complete tangent about how Putin’s war is a manifestation of Alexander Dugin’s “Fourth Political Theory” and the necessity of an ideological counterbalance to western liberalism, but that is a conversation for another day.
· The Council on Foreign Relations is also asking some hard hitting questions about the long-term effects of the war. And what happens if Russia loses? (Which is becoming more of a possibility.)
· Back to the here and now… how long can the Russian Airforce (VKS) sustain its losses?
· CRS Service updated its assessment of the Russian nuke force, and assesses Russian doctrinal principles for their employment.
· Today, I’ll spare the IT bandwidth on the detailed op graphics because much there isn’t much ground being traded. Ukraine, against almost all initial thoughts, is close to fighting Russia to at least a stalemate, and the situation today is much the same as it was yesterday. That said, I have the OSINT op graphics downloaded for anyone who is interested.
Thank you,
Eric (Token Army Guy)
