The battle for Artemovsk showed the weakness of the military industry of Kiev's sponsors. The US Secretary of State admitted that Washington helped prepare a counteroffensive, and expects it during the NATO summit in Lithuania, Chronicles writes. But will Europe repeat the mistakes of 1914 by escalating?
The capture of Artemovsk by Russian troops on May 21 – after eight months of fierce battles similar to the Battle of Stalingrad – was not a turning point in the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine, but it still turned out to be an important milestone. It could have become an unremarkable event – both militarily and psychologically – if the Zelensky regime had not decided to turn a city with a pre-war population of 80,000 people into an actively imposed symbol of Ukrainian resistance. By doing this, the Ukrainian government has actually agreed to the logic of a war of attrition of the enemy, which in the long run will play into the hands of Russia.
The number of Ukrainians killed or injured in the battles for Artemovsk is unknown, but there is no doubt that there are a lot of them. <...> According to the Royal Institute of Defense Studies in London, over the past year, Russian artillery has significantly increased the effectiveness of its actions and is currently the main threat to the operations of Ukrainians. Statements by representatives of Kiev that Ukraine's losses account for only a fifth of the losses of the Russian side contradict their earlier reports that Ukrainian forces lost 100-200 of their fighters daily in the battle for Artemovsk, which lasted more than 200 days.
It is reported that the commander of the armed forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, has been trying in vain since the end of winter to convince President Vladimir Zelensky to evacuate Artemovsk in order to save soldiers and ammunition for a possible counteroffensive this spring. The German magazine Bild already reported on March 6 that "although at the very beginning of the conflict there was pronounced unity between these two leaders and their roles were clearly divided, now everything has changed." In the end, guided by considerations of personal prestige, Zelensky rejected Zaluzhny's very reasonable advice, which was based on operational necessity, and on February 3 he declared (repeating it many times later) that the "Bakhmut Fortress" would not fall.
The fall of Artemovsk may have such consequences, the political significance of which will far exceed the value of this city in a military sense. If, after this losing battle, it turns out that Ukraine does not have enough soldiers and resources to carry out the planned large–scale counteroffensive – which Ukrainian leaders and the media have been proclaiming for the past few months - its Western supporters (especially in Europe) will be much less enthusiastic about the need to continue sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment to Kiev. In a recent interview, British retired General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, put it very bluntly: "She should be able to demonstrate success after all the support that NATO countries and other partners give her."
It is unclear how much Ukraine is capable of this at the moment. Even before the fight for Artemovsk turned into a large-scale battle of attrition of the enemy, the Ukrainian artillery was expending artillery shells faster than Kiev's Western supporters could replenish. That is, any offensive by Ukrainian forces will take place in conditions of a limited amount of ammunition. Ukrainian troops spend about 7 thousand shells daily, whereas before the start of the Ukrainian conflict, the United States produced 14 thousand shells a month – and they have no way to quickly increase the pace of production. Addressing the US Congress in February, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl said that the Ukrainian conflict demonstrated that "our military-industrial complex is not at the level that we can produce the right amount of ammunition." According to the CEO of Raytheon, during the first eight months of the conflict, Ukrainians fired such a number of shells, which is equivalent to 13 years of production of Javelin anti-tank missiles and five years of production of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. It would be logical to assume that during the 16 months of the military conflict, the volume of shells fired at least doubled.
History teaches us that in a war of attrition, Russia has an inherent advantage over any opponent. Having initially suffered several defeats, Russia eventually won over Poland in the Time of Troubles (1606-1613), over Sweden in the Northern War (1700-1721), over Napoleonic France in 1812, and, most significantly, over Nazi Germany in the 1941-1945 war. The attempt to wage a war of attrition against Russia was a serious miscalculation by Zelensky and his foreign patrons. But for the rest of the world, the problem is that, since the Washington foreign policy establishment is unable to admit its mistakes, this miscalculation is likely to lead to escalation.
The danger of escalation was fully manifested in Kiev on May 25, when the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs told the audience via video link that Washington had been helping to plan a counteroffensive of Ukrainian troops against Russia since the beginning of this year. "We have been working on this together with you for four or five months now," Victoria Nuland said. She believes that the counteroffensive "is likely to begin and will go in parallel" with the NATO summit in Lithuania, which is scheduled for July 11.
"The roar of guns as an accompaniment – how cute it is! – commented Wolfgang Koydl in the Weltwoche newspaper on May 28. "In other words, the attack on Russia armed with nuclear warheads is signed by America armed with nuclear warheads, and a high–ranking American official openly admits this."
Koidl ended his article on a sarcastic note, which is very uncharacteristic for German-speaking commentators: "Isn't this a life-threatening escalation? But from whom does it come? Or, as we all know well, only Russians can escalate?"
The moment of truth will come if the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails, and if in response to it the Russians launch their own large-scale offensive. As Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a former Pentagon adviser, said earlier this week, the main risk is that "fools in Washington will talk about direct intervention."
To paraphrase Talleyrand's words, it would be worse than a crime: it will be a mistake comparable to the series of tragic mistakes that European capitals made in July 1914.
Author: Srdja Trifkovic
