This part gets really interesting when you realize Ukraine has (according to the last info I've seen ) 1.1 million men under arms. Russia has ~600 000 in Ukraine and this includes rear units. Ukraine still has a number advantage, but is complaining about insufficient forces, and lack of reserves. Let's assume for a moment both facts are true. What does it say when you have a number advantage and insufficient manpower at the same time?
By the way, I'm not sold that Ukraine really has no reserves. There is at least 1 Ukrainian Mech Bde riding M1 tanks that we haven't seen in combat. Also Ukraine's 82nd Para-Assault hasn't shown up on the front lines since Rabotino. Their very conspicuous Strykers and Marders are not being sighted. So Ukraine likely has some reserves, just not enough.
They have been providing different numbers for their millitary but keep calling it a “million men army” or something like that. Zelensky said there are 800 some thousand people in the forces. Podolyak stated that there are about 200-300 thousand actively fighting (quite a spread!). So they just have to find what the remaining hundreds of thousands do and where they are and then decide on the number required to be mobilized. Or something silly like that. I don’t want to spend my time looking for the UA or western sources on this, so I am going to provide a RU article that has links to basically everything mentioned above:
And a couple of quotes via google translate:
200-300 thousand people are actively involved in hostilities in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), said on February 9 on the air of the telethon, Advisor to the head of the office of the Ukrainian President Mikhail Podolyak. He noted that following the results of the audit, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky will have to conduct a fair rotation of the military.
"The President of [Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy] said another thing - for example, talking about the renewal of the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he says: "We have almost 1 million mobilized." And on the front line... it's 200-300 thousand. Others were very far from the war, but they are. Therefore, it seems to me that one of Syrsky's key tasks is to conduct an audit: where, how and who is. And after that to say what other additional amount [need]," the portal "Main in UA" quotes him.
Podolyak added that the mobilization should be constant, but not momentary, and Syrsky, in his opinion, should say where and how the mobilized people were or will be used.
The adviser to the head of Zelensky's office noted that at the front "someone is 24/7", and so that there is no break with those who did not fight, Podolyak proposes to build logistics correctly, to prepare people who will go to rotation and equipment. To do this, it is necessary for the military registration and enlistment offices to work differently.
"Mobilization, rotation and demobilization are problems that need to be solved," he summed up.
On January 28, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with the German TV channel ARD that up to 880 thousand people serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, calling it the "million" army of the country.
My opinion… there are, of course, lies being told. Which lies and to what extent, lol, we do not know. I agree with your assessment.
Yes, they have reserves, you are right. My apologies for the hyperbole (funny, because I hate hyperbole). At least two brigades that we know of, a total of about 5K people? Pretty sure I saw reports in the summer that the 82nd was about 2,000 men, however (un)reliable the reports were. Make it 10K in total of trained and equipped personnel. How many more, we do not know. Maybe they are honest and they have hundreds of thousands of mobilized men unaccounted for, lost in the country.
Given the opaqueness of the situation, we cannot discard the possibility that UKR is playing a deception game, and that they actually have adequate forces available to counter any serious RU advances. As Feanor said, several units are not firmly located on the front, along with some elements of western aid hardly being seen at all.
That might be a bit optimistic, but I havnt seen any hard evidence that UKR is about to crumble. Barring the deception possibility, I dont see them launching a serious offensive this year, either.
Funny because I had the same thought more times than I care to admit in the short past while. Why? Because something just doesn’t seem to make sense and “smells fishy”. But every time I come to my senses because:
A) If Ukraine had this secret sufficient force of trained and equipped men that were ready for battle, they would commit them (at least a good chunk of them) to their summer offensive because it was crucial for them to come up with result. Not only because they want to show their ability to achieve result to the rest of the world and the backers in particular, but also because they do not have the time or personnel/equipment to spare. Instead, put very lightly, they came up short. In other words, no one in their right mind would hold these reserves if they thought they could make a difference in achieving their goals. Therefore, these reserves do not exist or they are not nearly sufficient to make a difference in the crucial moment (we have been told that the RU defences were about to crumble if not today then the day after at the time).
B) Since A) strongly suggests that these reserves didn’t exist at the time or were not nearly sufficient, it leaves us 2-3 months for Ukraine to come up with these men, put them to training (likely outside of the country), and find equipment that is not readily available. That puts us into the realm of fantasy.
C) The analysts and experts I follow, all (with no exception) agree that Ukraine has a serious problem with personnel or lack there of, as well as average age, ailments, etc.
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the situation is what it looks like and what doesn’t add up or makes sense and “smells fishy” is the reports of the Ukrainian officials and Zelesnky in particular.
I agree, they aren’t currently crumbling. Well, I am not sure if we can state that with the absolute certainty either, depending on the definition of crumbling. I think the next few months will certainly be a good indicator of what is going to happen next. One of the issues I see, and I thought but hesitated to put it as C) or D) above, is that they are still constructing their defense lines and there has also been reported a shortage of men and equipment to do so. While, ironically, they have been trying to basically copy the “Surovikin line” that was laughed at by some (and Ukrainians in particular) last year, most experts agree that these lines would not be nearly as effective as they were for the Russians if the FABs aren’t taken care off and that is not likely to happen and quite the contrary would be a reasonable expectation - we may see more of these in the future.
Most notably, however, there have been reported talks among the western leaders and top brass for the past couple of months and these talks have been pretty pessimistic (perhaps realistic) about the future strategy. There was an article in the NYT in December (I think) talking about the Americans possibly shifting to an outlook that the best strategy is to hold the line and prevent the Russians from taking more territory and now that would be the upper hand for Ukraine to negotiate from. Here is the article:
President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington at a critical moment, both on the battlefield and on Capitol Hill.
www.nytimes.com
Some in the U.S. military want Ukraine to pursue a “hold and build” strategy — to focus on holding the territory it has and building its ability to produce weapons over 2024. The United States believes the strategy will improve Ukraine’s self-sufficiency and ensure Kyiv is in a position to repel any new Russian drive.
The goal would be to create enough of a credible threat that Russia might consider engaging in meaningful negotiations at the end of next year or in 2025.
Another interesting bit from that article and furthering the point I made previously:
Many Ukrainian leaders do not realize how precarious continued U.S. funding for the war is, American officials said. These Ukrainian generals and senior civilian officials have unrealistic expectations about what the United States will supply, they said. They are asking for millions of rounds of artillery, for example, from Western stockpiles that do not exist.
There is definitely more interesting stuff there, but I am probably running out of space (yet again) and still want to add a couple of things. In regard to the last quote, note how a couple of days ago in Munich Zelesnky called it an
“artificial shortage”, which further demonstrates his complete disconnect with the reality (though not the worst example by far).
Another thing I want to add here is this article from The New Yorker. I wish it was written earlier and I saw it earlier as it discusses a good chunk of I talked about in some of my recent posts but in a more coherent way. It is a very good read and I would recommend it to everyone:
As Congress continues to delay aid and Volodymyr Zelensky replaces his top commander, military experts debate the possible outcomes.
www.newyorker.com
This one finally touches on the subject of what winning may mean too. I am really “impressed” that we are here, a few days short of two years into this war and everyone still talks about winning without having any idea what it actually entails. Add to that the definition of “upper hand” as discussed in the NYT article cited above.
