The Ukraine conflict is now entering a new phase. What follows is an aggregation of analysis from Scott Ritter and Colonel Douglas MacGregor to serve as a checkpoint that can be backtested to assess the quality of their analysis versus Western mainstream commentary.
Putin’s statement
Full English transcript of Putin’s statement is here.
Some key points with supporting excerpts:
Referenda to determine whether DPR and LPR will be annexed and reabsorbed into Russian territory.
The parliaments of the Donbass people’s republics and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have adopted decisions to hold referendums on the future of their territories and have appealed to Russia to support this.
I would like to emphasise that we will do everything necessary to create safe conditions for these referendums so that people can express their will. And we will support the choice of future made by the majority of people in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Commencement of partial mobilisation of 300,000 Russian armed forces reservist personnel to reinforce the back lines of the fighting force.
Today our armed forces, as I have mentioned, are fighting on the line of contact that is over 1,000 kilometres long, fighting not only against neo-Nazi units but actually the entire military machine of the collective West.
In this situation, I consider it necessary to take the following decision, which is fully adequate to the threats we are facing. More precisely, I find it necessary to support the proposal of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff on partial mobilisation in the Russian Federation to defend our Motherland and its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to ensure the safety of our people and people in the liberated territories.
As I have said, we are talking about partial mobilisation. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.
Additionally, the Executive Order on partial mobilisation also stipulates additional measures for the fulfilment of the state defence order. The heads of defence industry enterprises will be directly responsible for attaining the goals of increasing the production of weapons and military equipment and using additional production facilities for this purpose. At the same time, the Government must address without any delay all aspects of material, resource and financial support for our defence enterprises.
Express statement that all forms of the Russian arsenal can be employed in the conflict in line with Russian military operational doctrine.
[Washington, London and Brussels] have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.
I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.
Ritter’s parsing of Putin’s statement
Ritter revisits the US doctrine of permanent suppression of Russia via NATO expansionary policy, against the agreement made by James Baker, which is backed up in National Security Archive declassified documents recording the conversations between Baker and Gorbachev. US NATO policy as always been the use of Ukraine as a proxy by which to bleed Russia dry, since 2014’s coup onwards, made concrete in overt US NATO supply of military resources since the invasion, which Russia has known and understood and tried to de-escalate, most notably through the two draft schedules it provided in December 2021 to achieve Ukrainian neutrality without conflict, but which was rejected by US NATO.
A reabsorption of DPR and LPR into Russia profoundly changes the nature of the conflict because it would mean that any attack on that territory by Ukraine/US NATO would then be a direct attack on Russia itself, not the independent territories of DPR or LPR, meaning that the consequences of such an attack is to face the full might of Russia when under existential attack. This is a means to change the nature of the conflict from a contained Special Military Operation into a broader defence of Russia against Ukraine. Any attempt to disrupt the referenda will be met with result in the destruction of national infrastructure and national decision-making centres.
Partial mobilisation of 300,000 of a claimed possible total of 25 million, meaning that this draft is a fraction of the possible total manpower. NATO cannot mobilise and field equivalent manpower. The way this 300k will be used is in the backlines to free up combat ready forces in the original fighting force which has been constrained so far. Of the original circa 200k invasion force, only about 60k were employed in frontline combat over a 1000km long front, although that 200k was largely all combat capable. This additional 300k when used in the back line will, by Ritter’s reckoning, more than triple the frontline Russian force in Ukraine by freeing up the original 200k for full combat.
If the referenda pass, US NATO must now consider whether it is willing to engage with the entire Russian arsenal including nuclear by virtue of attacking actual Russian territory. Russia’s established doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons has two scenarios: direct nuclear attack by another state; an existential threat against Russia. This stance means that sufficient attack against the expanded Russian territory would satisfy the second scenario. This serves US NATO with an ultimatum: back off or be prepared to face the full consequences.
All of the above can be measured by NATO’s public statements. He points out that Jens Stoltenberg is little more than an Administrator of NATO and has no actual power. In contrast to Stoltenberg’s statements, NATO has said that it is not at war with Russia, which Ritter says demonstrates that Stoltenberg is speaking out of line with NATO’s formal position.
The reconfiguration and reinforcement of Russian forces will result in an operational shift from tactics of a Special Military Operation to full scale doctrinal warfare on a combined arms basis. To date, Russian forces have waged limited and constrained war under the SMO. Once a doctrinal approach is employed:
That means that when the First Guards Tank Army comes online it’s not going to be piecemeal, it will be what doctrine tells them to do, which is to blast a hole into Ukrainian lines, penetrate into their rear, spread out and annihilate everything… they’re going to have four combined arms armies online and there ain’t nothing that can stop it. To be frank, if they wanted to go to Berlin, they could go to Berlin and NATO’s got nothing to stop it short of nuclear weapons. Now, fortunately for NATO, they don’t want to go to Berlin.
A switch from SMO to full demilitarisation would see the destruction of the entire Ukrainian army (note: of 169k Ukrainian ground forces, 61k have been killed, 49k injured - source Russian MOD)
Politically, this means that the Zelenskyy government will be removed and replaced. All the political infrastructure associated with the extreme right an Nazi units and political entities will be removed.
MacGregor’s observations
Territory now occupied by Russia is 95% of Ukraine’s GDP. Economically, there is nothing else directly worth holding. The natural gas field under the DPR is larger than Norwegian gas reserves. These territories are historically and predominantly ethnic Russian and are the natural and intended limits of Russia’s SMO. The progress of the war has been determined by its original intent to minimise civilian casualties under the SMO in the hope that negotiations would be possible.
Russian casualties have recently been light. Like Ritter, MacGregor points out that Russian deliberate pullback manoeuvres from Kharkov to minimise losses while re-establishing a defensive line are what Ukraine capitalised on when re-taking territory in their advance towards Izyum. Once in range, Russia inflicted heavy losses on the advancing Ukrainians in the vicinity of Izyum.
Ukraine is running out of manpower.
Russian offensive operations will focus on consolidation in the South and the taking of Odesa, leaving the remnants of Ukraine landlocked. Then Russia will retake Kharkov, which will be the total of the territory that is of interest to Russia.
The US and UK completely and deliberately crushed the chances of a negotiated settlement that was being discussed up to April. The war has progressed too long and morphed too far for any negotiation to now be possible.
US NATO has run down its war stocks and this is a major profit-making opportunity for the arms industry and all those who are connected to it throughout the administrations.
Sanctions have not hurt Russia. Europe is bearing the brunt of the sanctions it helped impose. US and Europe are “three meals away from chaos” and political turmoil and turnover is coming. The biggest mistake that could be made is failure to end the war and feed citizens.
Zelenskyy will be removed, the West will, like Afghan, Iraq and eventually Syria, eventually walk off and just stop talking about the conflict.
Ritter vs. MacGregor
Both men recognise the same reality. Ritter is more emphatic about the severity of the phase change and speaks with greater detail and fervour on how the changes will manifest. MacGregor is more restrained in his language but they both share the conclusion that it’s not possible for Ukraine/US/NATO to win.
Ritter believes this is approaching seconds to midnight but NATO is already showing signs of backing down in its rhetoric.
In due course, according to their analysis, once forces are established in circa a month Russia will commence massive and unbridled combat operations. In the meantime, defence of the present line will be maintained. The recent Ukrainian territorial gain will be undone.
Compare to current Western narrative
Compare the above for yourselves with your preferred Western outlets. From what I have scanned, the Western narrative does not explain issues around Ukrainian manpower and total capability, how and why Ukrainians could recently retake any territory, whether they can hold it and who is supposed to be operating the Western supplied weapons (the ones that haven’t been stolen or sold on the black market).