Austrian military strategist Philipp Eder sees signs that there is a motivation problem in the Russian army. The Russians had been sent to a foreign country. “The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are fighting for their country. The annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces by the Russian President should also be understood in this sense,” Eder said in an interview with ntv.de.
ntv.de: The Ukrainian offensive has been going on for more than a month now. Is Ukraine still advancing in the northeast and south, or is it another trench warfare?
Philipp Eder: No, it’s not trench warfare. Let’s take the Northeast first: Ukraine is still advancing there – more slowly than two or three weeks ago, but it is steadily taking town after town. In the south, in the Cherson area, the Ukrainians have advanced about 30 kilometers in the past few days. According to our information, the Russians are attempting to carry out counterattacks there, but they fail.
What is the main reason for the current success of the Ukrainian army?
There are many reasons. One important factor is weaknesses in the Russian army, which the Ukrainians are keen to exploit. If they see that a spot is weakly defended, they take advantage of it immediately. They are helped by the reconnaissance support of allies, especially the USA and Great Britain. They also do their own tactical reconnaissance on the battlefield, and they combine both into a situational picture. Since the beginning of the war, we have observed that the Ukrainians have a very good picture of the situation as far as the movement of Russian troops is concerned. They also know where deep down there are logistical installations that they need to hit so that the soldiers up front run out of supplies and ammunition. Most of all, they can, and that’s another factor since they have long-range western artillery systems. Another point is the western deliveries of ground-based anti-aircraft defenses. They ensure that the Russian forces cannot achieve air superiority. This is really amazing: the Ukrainians hardly have their own air forces anymore, but the Russians cannot use this advantage.
Do you think it is possible that Ukraine will manage to liberate the city of Kherson?
That depends on the supply situation of the Russian armed forces. A few weeks ago, the Ukrainians destroyed the bridges over the Dnipro, or at least damaged them so badly that supplies cannot reach the troops on the west bank in the necessary quantities. The explosion on the Kerch Bridge certainly plays a role in this context. If the Russian troops in Kherson run out of ammunition, fuel and food, then it is certainly conceivable that the Ukrainian armed forces can continue their offensive here.
The question is also how well equipped the fresh forces coming with the partial mobilization are. In the medium term, the Russians might also be able to repair the bridges. At the moment, however, the Russians are concerned with strengthening their defense there. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, want to urge the Russians to give up Cherson, maybe even without a fight, by cutting off supplies.
Belarus and Russia want to set up a joint troop association. Does this have consequences for the war against Ukraine?
The Russians have already used Belarus, for example, as a launching base for rockets. There are reports that Russian troops are being transferred to Belarus without equipment, presumably reservists. In doing so, Russia is creating a threat and forcing Ukraine to also bring troops to the border with Belarus. With the help of Belarus, the Russian side is expanding the battlefield. After the Russian army withdrew from the Kyiv area, I wondered why Russia did not leave troops in the region, either north of Kyiv or across the border in Belarus, in order to tie up Ukrainian troops there. Russia now seems to want to catch up. We don’t know whether an attack will ever come from Belarus – there are currently no signs that offensive potential from the Russian Federation will be sent there.
How sustainable do you think Ukraine’s current offensive is?
Since the beginning of the offensive, it has been evident that the Russian armed forces currently have nothing to oppose. As long as the Russian armed forces are unable to take the initiative themselves again, the Ukrainians can take advantage of this. Further development depends heavily on how far the Russian armed forces succeed in bringing personnel and equipment to the north-east and south-west with this partial mobilization. At least tactically, the initiative clearly lies with the Ukrainians at the moment.
The first soldiers from the mobilization are said to have already arrived at the front.
You can’t see any episodes at the moment. I think that the first soldiers from this wave of mobilization are mainly used to compensate for losses. At the moment we are not yet seeing so many fresh troop formations entering the battlefield that it is enough to set up a new offensive. That may still happen, but at the moment it looks more like the reservists are filling gaps that have arisen in recent months.
How do you assess the morale of the Russian troops?
It’s hard to tell from afar. However, reports suggest that there is obviously a problem with this. I think this will vary greatly from association to association. There are likely to be units that are highly motivated and others that are made up of soldiers who signed their contracts before the war and didn’t expect to be sent to Ukraine. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are fighting for their country. The annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces by the Russian president should also be understood in this sense: Putin sees that there are problems with the morale of his troops. With the annexation, he says, the Russian soldiers are now also defending their homeland and are no longer conducting operations on foreign territory.
How long can Ukraine hold out this war in terms of personnel?
You can’t estimate that, because we don’t know exactly how many failures there have already been. The Ukrainians have already carried out several waves of mobilization. In the end it depends on the strength of the Russian army: the weaker the Russians are, the fewer forces the Ukrainians need. In the long term, the lower potential, both in terms of personnel and material, is of course Ukraine’s greatest strategic weakness.
What do the Iranian drones bring to the Russian army?
They are an interesting means of strengthening your own operations management – interesting because they are not Russian drones. It’s a sign that an army like Russia’s needs to buy Iranian drones. There is obviously a capability gap that the Russians are closing in this way.
And can you already see if the drones offer an advantage?
I’d say it’s similar to the Turkish drones deployed by Ukraine: they are important assets that play a role in the battlefield, but they don’t achieve a strategic turnaround. Drone warfare is now a normal part of the so-called combined arms battle. Drones are used in order to have to use unmanned aircraft in a very well secured airspace.
How big is the Russian missile arsenal? How much longer can they shell cities in Ukraine?
This is an interesting question to which unfortunately there is no answer. No army in the world announces such inventories – not even to allies. There has long been speculation that the Russian armed forces are running out of precision weapons. But in the past few days they’ve put quite a few back in. So there is something else. On the other hand, it is certainly the case that the Russian armed forces are holding back a certain reserve because they do not want to completely expose their forces to other potential adversaries – NATO, maybe China too. But how long Russia will still have missiles cannot be reliably predicted.
Do you have any theory as to how long this war will last?
no One thing is clear: both parties are a long way from achieving their war goals. Nor is there any indication that either side will come anywhere near their war goals this year. As long as there is the political will to continue this war, no change can be expected at the strategic level. The Russian Federation has problems, you can see that. It remains to be seen to what extent the partial mobilization will help her. And the Ukrainian armed forces, they don’t keep that a secret either, depend on the West not only for weapons, but also for ammunition and other means to be able to continue this war.
In Vietnam and Afghanistan, nuclear powers fought wars for years and ended up losing. If you compare these wars with the war in Ukraine, where are we now? Rather at the beginning or rather at the end?
I don’t think you can make that comparison. You are implicitly raising the question of whether Russia will use nuclear weapons. There is one difference: unlike the war in Ukraine, the nuclear powers involved in Afghanistan and Vietnam were never concerned with their homeland. There were other strategic goals at stake, and that’s why no political leader even thought of using nuclear weapons at the time – thank God. For Putin, however, Ukraine seems to be about a kind of “homeland”. But that’s a question only he can answer, anything else would be speculation.
Russian military doctrine stipulates that nuclear weapons may only be used when Russia’s survival is at stake. We are still a long way from that. But that’s a rational approach. I don’t know what the Russian President thinks about it.
Hubertus Volmer spoke to Philipp Eder
