|
2021-11-19 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
|
|
Russia is mobilising its forces, but much more covertly than in the past
|
by Gustav Gressel
Senior Policy Fellow
[EuropeanCouncilOn ForeignRelations] On 10 November, US secretary of state Antony Blinken publicly warned Russia not to make a “serious mistake” by escalating its war against Ukraine. The warning came after Russian troops were reported to have massed on the border with Ukraine.
Continued from Page 4
Russian deployments are ongoing, and open-source reporting alone can only capture a fraction of the actual military moves. This makes it difficult to establish what exactly is happening. But there appear to be several moves taking place at once, and they are not necessarily related. Some seem to concern Ukraine alone, while others may pose a danger to the European Union and NATO at large.
Part of the problem with this analysis is that the Russians keep large swaths of their ground forces at a lower classification, meaning a combat unit consists of one third of its strength, while the rest is officers and cadre.
One major issue relates to the movements of the 41st Combined Arms Army. The 41st Army’s headquarters is in Novosibirsk in Siberia, and it was previously based in the Central Military District. In March this year it moved to Russia’s Western Military District, which stretches from Finland to most of the way down Russia’s border with Ukraine. The army remained there and took part in this year’s Zapad 21, a four-yearly large-scale military exercise that rehearses an attack on NATO’s eastern flank.
Zapad 21 was a joint Russian-Belarussian exercise, planned and conducted in conjunction with Putin's Union State plans.
The 41st Army was deployed first to the Pogonovo training range in the Voronezh region of Russia, next to Ukraine. But by October most of its assets were located in Yelnia in the Smolensk region, next to Belarus. Both of these 41st Army locations are around 250km from the Ukrainian border, although Yelnia is considerably further west.
Missing from the analysis is that units deployed in the Western Military district are there to protect Putin's capital. Even then units there are at a lower readiness level.
That being said, despite being "based" at Yelnia, military movements appear to be constant, with troops leaving the camp and later arriving again (or different ones, potentially even from other armies, being deployed there). This makes them hard to track.
But it would suggest that troops are taking part in military exercises, although there is no publicly available information about their exact nature. A Ukrainian source acquainted with the situation told the author in early November that at least some parts of these exercises are happening in Belarus.
Putin and Lukashenko planned for these exercises last summer as part of Putin's Union State plan.
This seems likely from a military point of view: if the 41st Army stays in the Smolensk region – which it almost certainly will – it would fill a gap between the 6th Army, which is in the north (headquarters in St Petersburg) and the 20th Army, which is in the east (Voronezh).
A completely reasonable deployment for the Russians.
Previously this broad location was only covered by the Belarusian Army, which effectively (from within its own country) filled the gap between the 6th Army to the north and the 20th Army to the south-east.
Putin's and Lukashenko's army chiefs of staff are trying to work out defense plans.
If Russia did start a war with NATO in the west, the 41st Army's task would be to lead the advance from Belarus towards the Suwalki gap.
The analysis ignores Russia's fifth service branch, the airborne infantry, much more likely to be deployed first than any of the Russian deprecated ground forces.
This is the Poland-Lithuania border area that separates Belarus from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The 41st Army would likely advance in conjunction with the 11th Army Corps in Kaliningrad; its aim would be to crush the Polish and Lithuanian defences.
The 1st Guards Tank Army (based around Moscow), which was previously assigned to these tasks, would now be free as an operational reserve to exploit the advance of the 41st Army and further push the initial offensive towards the Oder river at the Polish-German border.
Russia has to cross the Dnepr first. They won't leave a large exposed flank through ground operations alone.
Alternatively, if a major war were to be sparked in the Black Sea region rather than in Russia’s west, the task of the 41st Army would be to push down on Ukraine from the north, predominantly through Belarus. It would seek to quickly cut Kiev off from any reinforcements and would take up positions on the west bank of the Dnieper river, which passes through the capital and bisects Ukraine. Because the 41st Army needs to be ready to serve two operative directions, its deployment and preparatory schemes are more complex than that of other armies, which would explain the need for the current exercises.
Russia won't split their operations among geographic regions. Russians will move their forces in large maneuvers, supported by combat aircraft and army and front level artillery. None of which has yet to be mobilized.
Importantly, another set of military build-ups accelerated at the beginning of November. These are clearly targeting Ukraine specifically. The number of military assets in Crimea has increased; parts of the 1st Guards Tank Army have been deployed to Maslovka close to the border with the Ukrainian city of Kharkov in the country’s north-east; and a further concentration of military vehicles appears to have assembled around Rostov (just east of Ukraine).
Russians will put everything on their one card, Crimea.
This last move is presumably to enable Russia to infiltrate Ukraine’s Donbas region, an intention strongly suggested by the high numbers of military transports arriving at the airport in Rostov-on-Don.
The mobilisation of the National Guards Units is a sign the Kremlin is at least considering incursions into Ukraine.
Alongside these build-ups, Russia has mobilised its paramilitary security forces, the National Guards Units, and also sent them to Rostov. Following an invasion of Ukraine, it would use these to control conquered territory, suppress dissent, and install puppet administrations.
Their mobilisation is a sign that the Kremlin is at least considering the option of further incursions into Ukraine. Compared to the situation in March and April 2021, when it last moved troops close to the Ukrainian border, Russia seems to be making much less effort to ensure the current assembly is visible. This may hint towards a significantly more serious intention than simply a wish to appear threatening.
Hostile Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine has increased over the last year. “Reintegrating” Ukraine – the whole of Ukraine, not Donbas alone – into the Russian Empire is a declared aim of the Russian president. The impression of a weak West, underlined by the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, may convince Moscow that now is the time to wrap up its “unfinished business” with Kyiv.
The Kremlin may have been emboldened in this by its interpretation of the American position on Ukraine, particularly since senior US diplomat Victoria Nuland’s recent visit to Moscow. That trip likely left the impression that Washington would subscribe to Moscow’s interpretation of the Minsk agreement.
This is a fundamental error on the Russians’ part, because this is not the US policy. Yet this perception may combine with Moscow’s longstanding misinterpretation and twisting of the provisions of Minsk.
On 01 November, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of provoking further military reactions by leaving the Minsk agreement. He suggested that Russia will intervene if the Ukrainian government presses ahead with its plans to adopt a law on transitional administration.
Moscow dislikes the contents of the draft legislation because they do not effectively allow it to retain the republics it set up in eastern Ukraine, instead promising to transition towards new authorities after elections under Ukrainian law.
Russia believes that, via the Minsk agreement, it has a say over Ukrainian domestic legislation – and, presumably, the right to wage war if that privilege is violated. No such stipulation, of course, was ever agreed, either as part of the Minsk negotiations or any subsequent format.
But Europe’s silence towards Russia’s revisionism, and towards the country’s ongoing and lasting breach of the very same agreement by continuously deploying occupation forces in Donbas, only encourages Moscow to think that Europe tacitly accepts its revisionism.
And, finally, current events around Belarus tightly connect Ukraine’s security situation with the rest of Europe. This relates not only to the immediate stand-offs with migrant arrivals at the Belarus-Poland border, but to these major Russian military redeployments whose full nature is not yet clear. Were it to take Ukraine, an enlarged and confident Russia would then turn its sights on influencing the activities of it new nearest neighbours: the EU and its member states.
The United States is already sending warships to the Black Sea as a signal of deterrence. In April 2021, it deployed fighter jets to Poland from nuclear-assigned squadrons of the US Air Forces in Europe. This was successful in its aim: two days later, Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the general staff, called off the “exercises” taking place close to the Ukrainian border. This is the only language Moscow truly understands. Unfortunately, most of Europe is yet to learn to speak it.
|
Posted by badanov 2021-11-19 00:00||
||
Front Page|| [11140 views ]
Top
|
|
09:27 Warthog
09:11 Mercutio
09:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
08:52 Matt
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
07:10 NN2N1
07:09 Besoeker
07:03 NN2N1
06:58 NN2N1
06:58 Besoeker
05:28 Whiskey Mike
|
