Putin, Holding a Weak Hand, Raises the Stakes

Technological progress in the military in the 21st century is evident not only in weapons systems, but also in the way media accompany war and are used in war. The Ukraine war is probably one of the best documented wars in terms of journalism, photography and video. Every cell phone user can send information visually or textually from the war zone out into the world. So-called milbloggers (short for military bloggers) now provide more detailed and often more expert information about the war in Eastern Europe and other conflicts than the established media.

In the German-speaking world, the YouTuber “Militär und Geschichte,” whose real name is Torsten Heinrich, has made a name for himself as a military expert on the Internet. Hundreds of thousands watch his videos, and every week thousands tune into his situation report, which provides several hours of information on current war events as a livestream. How does he assess the situation in Ukraine and how much work is behind his YouTube channel?

The controversial question first: Who sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines? Different theories are circulating regarding the perpetrators. A former Polish defense minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, thanked the U.S. on Twitter in the context. Motive and possibilities would certainly have the Americans. In your opinion, what arguments are there against it and who else would come into question?

Torsten Heinrich: The political damage, should it come out that it was the Americans, would be too great. Attacking an ally’s infrastructure, which is important for security of supply, would smash far too much political china to be worth it. For that matter, the Baltic Sea is so well policed and American naval units operate mostly with ships from other NATO nations that the Americans would be a likely candidate for such an action.

It is currently impossible to say seriously who actually did it, since no evidence is known so far. However, it is striking that the blast took place within a week of the mobilization in Russia, where Moscow officially admitted the seriousness of the situation. At the same time, a pipe of Nord Stream 2 remained untouched. What serious military power would fail to leave a pipe untouched if it was not intended to do so? To this end, a pipeline to Poland running in the immediate vicinity was inaugurated at fairly the same time. Putting these things together, Russian authorship seems possible and probable to me.

The seriousness of the situation, proven by the mobilization, justifies more radical steps. A usable pipe, but of course of Nord Stream 2 , allows for forcing political concessions from Germany, while no contractual penalties are incurred in case of failure to deliver, since force majeure. Moreover, the blowing up can also be understood as a demonstration of capabilities and will as far as other pipelines and submarine cables are concerned. Whoever blows up Nord Stream 2 can also blow up the pipelines, power and communication cables coming from Norway. By blowing up “its” pipeline here, even directly in front of Danish territorial waters, Russia would not yet have committed an act of war against a NATO country, but at the same time would have sent an impressive warning.

This theory convinces me the most so far, especially when looking at cost-benefit of the other potential perpetrators. But, and this must be emphasized, it is and remains of course only a theory.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has ordered partial mobilization. Reports are piling up about disastrous conditions in the barracks of the draftees and the outdated equipment that the Kremlin is now distributing to its reservists. What effect can the mobilized have on the battlefield now, and what reactions do you expect from Ukraine and the West to this?

Heinrich: According to what we know so far, the mobilization is disproportionately concentrated on ethnic minorities and poorer regions. The first mobilized are already on the front lines, the others will probably be trained for only a month. Numerous videos suggest that morale is likely to be even worse than that of the soldiers deployed so far.

To this end, according to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, no new units will be created, but rather existing formations will be replenished. However, the veterans remaining in these units will not receive any rest, no furlough, even now.

On the whole, therefore, we can expect to see poorly trained, poorly motivated and poorly equipped soldiers who, in the face of major defeats they have just suffered, believe they are being sent into a war they are losing. The combat value to be expected from this will be far less than that of those soldiers who crossed the border on February 24. Ukrainian Supreme Commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi commented, “We destroyed their professional army, now we will destroy their unprofessional army.” I am inclined to agree with him. I do not see a general transfer of the strategic initiative to the Russian side coming with the mobilization.

What weapons systems of the West are proving most effective? What do the Ukrainians lack that the West could supply, for example?

Heinrich: Long-range precision artillery, especially HIMARS rocket launchers, but also Excalibur shells for NATO 155mm howitzers proved decisive. When Russia abandoned the war of movement after its defeat in front of Kiev and attempted a space-based advance with deep penetrations and breakthroughs with a systematic advance under heavy artillery fire, Moscow was able to disguise the effect of its soldiers’ low morale and fully exploit its superiority in artillery.

HIMARS in particular put an end to this, as they were able to destroy Russian ammunition dumps well behind the front. On Nasa’s FIRMS satellites, after the HIMARS mission began, it was clear to see how the number of fires triggered by artillery fire steadily declined. In the end, an artillery piece without ammunition is just a piece of scrap metal. The use of these weapons thus first destroyed the Russian ammunition dumps and then forced their relocation further back, which significantly reduced the incoming volume of ammunition.

What would the Ukrainians need? The simple answer is probably: everything. Almost no weapons system in a modern force has no raison d’être. The most frequently mentioned and least delivered systems are probably main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, where the stock of Soviet material is probably slowly coming to an end and therefore Western material will soon have to be delivered or nothing will be delivered. In this case, however, training had better have begun long ago.

More air defense would reduce the threat from drones and cruise missiles in the rear and push Russian planes and helicopters away from the front, giving Ukrainian forces more room to maneuver and the Ukrainian Air Force more operational options. More artillery, whether self-propelled or towed, in NATO calibers, combined with artillery tracking radar, would give the Ukrainian side a much-needed advantage in the artillery duel. But also drones, winter equipment, logistic vehicles, radios and much more. A military that has grown many times over with ongoing losses probably needs just about everything in fact, even more so if at the same time it is also intended to keep its losses low.

From time to time, German military officers and experts say that Russia has the “dominance of escalation. What options does Putin have should Ukraine recapture further parts of its territory?

Heinrich: Russia can go back to its tradition and declare general mobilization. It can try to crush the Ukrainians with an army of millions. In view of a reproduction rate of 1.5, this would be demographic suicide. But since it is now probably only a matter of maintaining the power of the clique in the Kremlin, this is not an entirely unrealistic option. Otherwise, there remains the threat of nuclear weapons, which Ukraine will not be intimidated by. Should the deployment take place, it should be expected that Russia will lose the last of the states as supporters, for example China, India and Brazil. The use of nuclear weapons in a war of aggression will also be unacceptable to most of Russia’s supposed allies.

What might Moscow hope to gain from the use of tactical nuclear weapons? Ukraine seems determined to keep fighting even in the face of nuclear threats.

Heinrich: Tactical nuclear weapons have very limited utility in this war. They cannot be used directly on the front lines unless one wants to destroy one’s own troops as well. Therefore, they would have to be used in the hinterland against traffic hubs, on deployment areas or similar. Here Ukraine can considerably reduce the effects by loosening its deployment. According to Soviet doctrine, this would be followed by a push through the area just bombed, but Russia now lacks the trained and appropriately equipped troops to do this.

Anyone who has served knows how uncomfortable and complicated it is just to put on the protective clothing, not to mention fighting and living in it. So I do not see any solution for Russia in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially since the use would be geopolitical suicide. Alternatively, Moscow could of course threaten and then carry out a strategic use of nuclear weapons, i.e. against Ukrainian cities. This would, of course, have to force Ukraine to surrender in the near future. However, it is currently completely unclear how the USA would react to this. This would not change the international consequences, it would only worsen them.

In the run-up to the attack on Ukraine, Russia was considered an almost invincible military power. The country cultivated a reputation as a military giant that would overrun tiny Ukraine within weeks. There were more than a few military experts and politicians who advised Kiev to surrender immediately. How could it be that Ukraine was so underestimated and Russia so grossly overestimated?

Torsten Heinrich: People believed the Russian propaganda, as the Russians themselves obviously did. In addition, there was the memory of 2014, when Ukraine had a carnival troop in uniform, but no army. Anyone who watched the reports of large-scale Russian exercises, which, however, are usually highly orchestrated and for the most part probably only with a fraction of the indicated troop strengths, who saw the data sheets of Russian military equipment and looked at the parades on Red Square, expected a powerful army. On the other hand, not much more than what had been seen in 2014 was expected by all who were unaware of the Ukrainians’ progress. Poorly motivated, barely combat-ready soldiers on barely operational equipment who would surrender at the first opportunity.

What problem areas are currently plaguing the Ukrainian army? In Kherson, progress seems to be slow, while in the east and northeast it is achieving successes.

Heinrich: At the moment, the army is refraining from calling up conscripts, which usually takes place on October 1. This shows how well staffing levels are now, but equipment remains a major weakness of the Ukrainian armed forces.

The Shahed-136 drones now being used by the Russians to attack are currently too rarely detected in time by Ukrainian air defenses and correspondingly too rarely intercepted. In themselves, they should be relatively easy to intercept thanks to their components, which come from normal trade and are not military hardened, but for this the Ukrainian armed forces need appropriate radars and EloKa equipment.

More artillery will be important to repel the crowds that are now coming, just as it will be for breaking through the defensive positions in the Donbass. For assault operations, they will need more vehicles, i.e. infantry fighting vehicles and battle tanks. Whether advancing in an attack in a barely armored transport vehicle with a machine gun without stabilization or in an infantry fighting vehicle with a machine gun and anti-tank missiles can mean the difference between success and failure – and the difference between survival and death.

The surprisingly good advance at Kherson increasingly suggests that Ukrainian forces probably have a realistic chance of retaking the city before the end of the year, which would be a strategic victory because it would largely eliminate the threat to Mykolaiv and Odessa.

Ukraine will now have to weather the coming human wave of mobilization while being careful not to burn through its limited armored equipment assets by launching an overly ambitious offensive. In general, however, I think Ukraine now holds the stronger hand, provided that supplies from the West do not stop.

The Russian army has been able to make significant land gains in the Donbass this summer. Why is it so difficult for it to repeat this now?

Heinrich: Were the Russian land gains really so substantial? At the beginning of the Donbass offensive, they were already in Izyum and in front of Rubizhne. From Izyum they advanced a proud 22 kilometers to the south, and from Rubizhne they were able to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, but were subsequently stopped after only 15 kilometers. After Popasna in the direction of Bakhmut, it was about 25 kilometers of terrain gained. This all adds up, of course, but is a maximum of 25 kilometers of land gains over several months really “significant land gains”?

Ukraine clearly had the discipline, after the initial repulse of the Russians before Kiev, not to throw its barely trained units en masse to the front to defend every single meter if possible, but to build up a strategic reserve at the cost of territorial losses. Large mechanized units were held in readiness instead of wearing them out in pointless attempts to hold insignificant places. These units are now available and are being deployed at focal points in a highly competent manner. Russia currently has nothing to counter this. Its sharpest sword since the Donbass battle, artillery, has now become considerably blunter due to the use of HIMARS and Excalibur.

What challenges will the coming winter pose for the armed forces of the two countries?

Heinrich: The question will be whether Russia can provide enough winter equipment for its soldiers. There are indications that this could be a problem, but one would inherently expect Russians not to be surprised by the “Russian winter.” Ukraine should not have this problem thanks to support from the West.

Otherwise, both forces should be more or less equally well prepared for the challenges; after all, both sides know the weather conditions and their requirements well. Western-supplied equipment can sometimes have a bit of trouble in the winter, that’s conceivable. A Bushmaster from Australia might not handle a meter of fresh snow as well as a comparable Russian-made vehicle, but this is more speculation, especially since it shouldn’t matter too much overall. The real challenge will be with civilians, who may be at risk of freezing to death in some places with ruptured gas and water lines in homes with windows shattered by blast waves.

Your YouTube channel now features hundreds of videos, some of which run for several hours. How do you research your video contributions and what options does an outsider now have to follow the events of the war? What sources do you draw on?

Heinrich: For me, this is currently a full-time job. I’m giving you this interview at 6:30 a.m. local time. Yesterday I was researching until 9 p.m.. This volume of time will be unfeasible for most, of course, but it allows me to read what are probably the 25 largest pro-Russian Telegram channels, follow hundreds of accounts on social media, and read analyses by think tanks and other analysts.

In addition to propagandists from both sides, I follow journalists on the ground, soldiers on the ground, politicians, press officers, think tanks, former general staff officers, and many more. In the end, I try to look not only at the Western perspective, but deliberately at Russian propaganda as well, since it too serves to complete the picture. Especially my ability of source criticism, which I learned as a historian, proves to be irreplaceable here, of course, in order to minimize the number of mistakes I make.

What experience and knowledge do you draw on in order to be able to talk about these topics as competently as possible?

Heinrich: I have had a fascination for the subject area of the military, military history, armed forces, weapons technology and geopolitics for 30 years. It led me to my studies, because of it I didn’t take the chance of being mustered out and at least for a while I considered a career as a professional soldier, even if it only remained with military service. In the end, I had a private library of over 4,000 non-fiction books on the subject in Germany. It is simply a decades-long involvement with the subject, but also with only conditionally related subject areas, that enables me to evaluate it today.

I once had a friendship terminated 15 years ago for my alleged militarism because I had posted on social media what books on military and military technology I had just purchased. This rejection of the subject area has, of course, also ensured that competent competition in the German-speaking world is not too numerous, because the stigma of militarism has prevented many others from even beginning to deal with it in a similarly long-lasting and comprehensive way.

Finally, one more question: What will a Ukrainian or a Russian victory look like in light of current developments? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that he also wants to take back Crimea. For Russia, on the other hand, the loss of Crimea would probably be the super-GAU.

Heinrich: Neither will Ukrainian troops liberate 100 percent of their territory and then march on Volgograd, nor will Russia reach the Ukrainian-Polish border. Thus, the war will not end with a surrender by either side, but with a negotiated agreement.

The willingness to compromise needed for this, however, will be generated on the battlefield. Where and when this will be achieved will depend primarily on domestic political factors and is therefore difficult to predict. What is clear, however, is that Ukraine must first crush the Russian armed forces as comprehensively as possible, which will be much more important.

Heinrich’s (so far) only Engl. vid
https://youtu.be/tNLOThOoDh4