Bombings on kyiv, a mired front and two camps that are sure: 2023 will be “the year of victory”. But to achieve this, Russians and Ukrainians will have to go back on the offensive after weeks of stagnation. Both enemies have specific strengths to play.
“We have entered a new cold war”, assures General Jean-Paul Paloméros on BFMTV on Monday. “Season 2 of the conflict”, estimates our military consultant General Jérôme Pellistrandi. One certainty: if, after ten months of fighting, the Russian invasion of Ukraine drags on and the two enemies seek the test of truth.
In the wishes they sent to their respective compatriots, Russian Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky promised to make 2023 the year “of victory”. But the logic is formal: they cannot both be right.
To triumph over the opposing camp, each of the belligerents must take a strategic turn. And while the front is frozen, everyone thinks of only one thing: to resume the offensive. It remains to be seen how, and who will take the initiative.
Russia will go all out
On the Russian side, we started the year as we had finished the previous one. By bombings. This Monday, kyiv woke up from a second consecutive night of strikes.
“These are bombings that have no military impact because the targets have no real strategic value. Nevertheless, it creates a real climate of tension because there are civilian casualties,” explains General Jérôme Pellistrandi. “And that will continue for the next few weeks.”
Sébastien Lecornu went to get an idea of this immediate future on site. In duplex from Lebanon, after visiting the Ukrainian capital last Wednesday, the Minister of the Armed Forces claimed on LCI on Sunday evening: “The first quarter of 2023 will be decisive.” According to him, Russia is preparing to play its all out to win the decision. “It is clear that we are going towards a moment of massification where the Russians will throw all their forces into battle”, continued the minister.
Russian “massification” raises questions
This was also the content of the video released Friday by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. As pointed out The Parisian, the latter said he expected from this month of January the establishment of martial law in his attacker and a new mobilization.
Remarks confirmed by information proclaimed by the Russian agency TASS which warned that a decree issued by the Kremlin last August was about to come into force. It should allow Russia to raise 137,000 additional soldiers.
Projection which is not really gospel. It would even tend to leave observers skeptical. “There will probably be men in addition to the 150,000 mobilized currently in training, but it is clear that the Kremlin is going backwards because the involvement of civilians is eroding the support of the population”, for example countered Ulrich Bounat, expert in geopolitics, with the Parisian Sunday.
Belarusian abscess
But if the effort threatens to be too burdensome on the local population, Russia may consider relying on auxiliary forces. Since the start of the conflict, the degree of involvement of its Belarusian ally – and its possible entry into the war – has been one of the great unknowns of the crisis.
Here again, however, the danger quickly hits its limits. The state of the Belarusian troops does not seem likely to upset the situation. It would rather be a question – always in the event of a worsening of the engagement of Minsk in the conflict – to create an abscess in order to retain the Ukrainians. “The objective of this threat is above all to keep thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the north to prevent them from fighting elsewhere”, analyzed the founder of Aviation NXT, a consulting firm for companies in the aviation and defense sector, Xavier Tytelman, with the Ile-de-France daily.
The offensive with the thaw
Anyway, the Russian and Ukrainian armies are for the time being fixed by force of circumstance. The weather is currently at “rasputitsa“, Russian expression referring to the “time of bad roads”. “Ukraine is not immune to global warming so the temperatures are relatively mild, and with the humidity, it’s slush, the ‘big mud’ for everything the world”, pointed out our columnist for foreign policy, Patrick Sauce, on our set.
And this war of positions turns out to be particularly deadly. “There is no real progress, it’s carnage on both sides,” lamented General Jérôme Pellistrandi. But the status quo which should not last long. “A priori, temperatures are expected to drop. Ukrainians are used to saying that February is the coldest month of the year,” noted Patrick Sauce.
This is why Sébastien Lecornu is counting on “a rather terrestrial (Russian, editor’s note) counter-attack on the February-March horizon”, as he asked LCI, adding that the Kremlin offensive should focus “on rather specific places of the Ukrainian territory”. That is to say in eastern Ukraine, according to the opinion of Ulrich Bounat. “If we stick to the speeches of the Russian general staff, the war is supposed to be concentrated in the Donbass, hence the relentlessness in trying to take Bakhmout. We can assume that these efforts which have been going on for months will continue,” he told the Parisian.
Ukrainian options
However, Russian optimism could well be dampened by the local freeze because it “would be to the advantage of the Ukrainians”, according to the analysis of our editorialist Patrick Sauce. It must be said that before the immobilization of operations by bad weather, they were the ones who took the initiative. Moreover, they have no interest in the rotting of the conflict along an inert front.
“It is not in the Ukrainian interest to let this front be established”, assured General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Supreme Allied Commander ‘Transformation’ of NATO, in our studios on Monday.
“Vladimir Putin continues his attacks in depth, mobilizes his reserves, he regains control, while the strength of the Ukrainians was to be very offensive, to take the initiative, thanks to their courage but also their innovations”, a- he argues.
Admittedly, the Ukrainian army must get back on the move, but it must first choose its direction. The French officer took over from the strategic debates in progress at the top of the Ukrainian state.
“We recently saw a reflection between the Ukrainian president and his military leaders who posed the debate very clearly, saying: ‘It is not a good option to let ourselves be locked up, but if we want to either attack from the north – which would be a good option because it would cut the Russians’ logistics lines, which would destabilize them – either from the south, and descend on Melitopol which would bring them closer to Crimea.”
Mourning a total victory
Problem: a maneuver of such magnitude requires the support of fighter aircraft, which Ukraine does not have. A gap which is not prohibitive, however, according to General Jean-Paul Paloméros, provided that kyiv’s Western partners meet its most pressing needs: “What is needed is to continue to provide means of strikes on the theatre. What the Ukrainians are asking for is more artillery pieces, more drones”.
The increase in Ukrainian firepower could then defeat the Russians… only to a certain extent. Also, the former NATO executive called on the Ukrainians to mourn a total victory. “Recent experiences show that absolute victory does not exist,” however tempered General Jean-Paul Paloméros. He continued: “There are victories on the pitch – the Ukrainians have shown examples of that this year – and an overall victory.”
A global victory that he defined in these terms: “It restores the strategic autonomy of countries wishing to live together, around common values”. It is this relative success which must serve as a compass and form a horizon for the Ukrainians from now on. On pain of having to think of other strategic turns next year.
