Russia’s military is under pressure in Ukraine and refocusing on the east is likely to be a bloody campaign – ABC News

This week saw the first briefing from the Russian military on their "special military operation" in Ukraine.

Speaking in front of a massive screen showing maps and videos from Russia's Ukraine operations, Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi's short update provided several interesting pieces of information.

Of course, these should not be taken at face value. From long before this war began, the Russians have consistently misled Western observers about their intentions. Several aspects bear scrutiny.

First, Rudskoi noted that "the main tasks of the first stage of the operation have been completed".

This is true. But not because the relative halt in Russian operations was part of their overall operational design. The first phase is over because it is being enforced by the courageous Ukrainian defensive strategy, large amounts of Western military aid, and Russian military incompetence in their ground tactics, air campaign and logisticsupport to their troops.

As I described in my analysis last week, Russia's forces in Ukraine have culminated after just one month of combat operations.

Rudskoi noted in his briefing that "the combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced". I am almost certain that this is true. But, as Obi-Wan Kenobi once explained, this would only be from a certain point of view.

Ukraine has taken combat casualties, and it has had many of its civilians killed and maimed by Russian forces. But in a relative sense, the Ukrainians have not lost the same amount of combat power as the Russians. Indeed, with their superior leadership, strong sense of purpose and vastly better morale, the combat potential of the Ukrainian military has probably grown stronger as the weeks have passed.

The Russian general described how, when it came to Ukraine's cities, "we did not plan to storm them in order to prevent destruction and minimise losses among personnel and civilians". This is very difficult to credit. In Syria and Chechnya, the Russian military playbook has consistently featured attacks on civilians and urban areas. The Russians were also quick to implement this approach in Kharkiv, Mariupol, Sumy and beyond.

Rudskoi's update was a sanitised version of Russia's disastrous Ukrainian campaign so far.

Theinitial plan, to rapidly seize Kyiv and other centres in the hope the Ukrainian government and military (and the West) would acquiesce, failed. They thenhad to implement a Plan Binvasion that was focused on weakening and wearing down the Ukrainian armed forces.

This had some success, but primarily in terrain seized rather than reducing the combat power of the Ukrainians.

The Russian Plan C then became the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian cities, infrastructureand civilians to terrorise the Ukrainian people and their government into a political accommodation.

None of this has worked for the Russians.

Therefore, the Russian military high command, feeling the pressure from a frustrated Putin, is developing a revised plan for their Ukrainian debacle. The new plan (or an evolved Plan C) is likely to have three defining elements.

First, the Russians will continue to bombard the cities with artillery, rockets and dumb bombs delivered by reticent Russian Air Force planes. Despite the assurances of Rudskoi, the Russians will continue to do this because it is easier to lob massed artillery into cities than fight for them and because (in their world view) it places pressure on the Ukrainian government to succumb to Russian pressure in war termination negotiations.

Second, the Russians will continue to broaden the scope of the war to western Ukraine. This has been a desultory effort by the Russians so far. They have lobbed less than a dozen missiles at western Ukrainian cities. But the value in this western campaign is less military than political. Unless there is a ground invasion from Belarus in this region, this will remain the case.

While the Russians may destroy fuel depots or transhipment locations for Western aid, the military impact will be limited. However, it sends a message to Western governments that Russia will not tolerate the inflow of Western lethal aid or foreign recruits. This is why the attack over the weekend was timed to coincide with the visit of US President Joe Biden to Poland.

A final element of Russia's new campaign design for Ukraine featured prominently in Rudskoi's briefing.

He described an important part of the Russian mission as "the liberation of Donbas". He mentioned this at least three times in the briefing.

While this might well be deception for other Russian plans, there is a certain logic to this. Russian operations in Luhansk and Donetsk have made steady progress, although they have been very costly in Russian (and Ukrainian proxy) lives. Given the Russians now control most of Ukraine's southern coast, an offensive in the east might deliver a "victory" that Putin could sell to both domestic and international audiences.

For the last couple of weeks, Russian forces have attempted to advance from areas in the south towards Zaporizhzhia. At the same time, Russian forces have been trying to advance south from Kharkiv. The logical operational goal here would be the capture of the city of Dnipro. This would give Russia control over a large proportion of eastern Ukraine.

If the Russians were to pause their northern and southern operations, and reinforce their ground forces in the east, it is also possible that they might also be able to surround and destroy Ukraine's military forces defending this part of the country.

This would be a major loss for the Ukrainian military, and significant victory for the Russians. To achieve this, the Russians will need to improve their battlefield leadership, combined arms tactics, rear area security, logistics, communications security and a range of other basic military skills. But the Russians have showed the capacity to adapt in some areas of their campaign; we should not discount this possibility.

Therefore, in the coming weeks, look to the eastern theatre of this war. We may see a significant Russian offensive in this region. Not only might this be the military victory Putin has been seeking, but it would provide bargaining power to achieve a political settlement favourable to Russian in any ceasefire negotiations.

It is a region that is no stranger to war. In the second half of 1943, a massive Soviet Army swept across the eastern parts of Ukraine from their starting points in Western Russia. Part of this campaign was a battle in the Donbas region that saw 1million Soviet soldiers battling 400,000 Germans. Over five weeks, the Soviets lost nearly a quarter of their men killed and wounded.

The Nazis made the Russians pay for every kilometre gained.

The numbers of troops involved in any Russian offensive in the Donbas in the coming weeks will not be as large. Butwe can be assured that it will be an enormously bloody campaign.

As they have elsewhere in this war, the Ukrainians will ensure that any advance by the Russians is paid for in the blood of the young and inexperienced Russian reinforcements that will surely make up a large part of this assault.

Mick Ryan is a strategist and recently retired Australian Army major general. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. His first book, War Transformed, is about 21st-century warfare.

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Russia's military is under pressure in Ukraine and refocusing on the east is likely to be a bloody campaign - ABC News