Russia has trouble paying its soldiers as it launches an uncertain offensive on the Donbas

The Ukrainians are preparing for a Russian offensive northward from Mariupol and southwards from around Kharkiv. A month of hard fighting awaits them. Russian units are going to concentrate in that area of the heart of the Donbas. The artillery will have the most intensive support of aviation, which, in many cases, will remain within Russian airspace and fire its missiles from there. The objective will be to surround Ukrainian troops in the area of operations of the joint forces established since the Russian invasion in 2014 and with the creation of the separatist enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk. Although the Ukrainian generals think they have a great chance of resisting the onslaught. They know that the best option is the small, permanently moving units that have already been successfully used in Kyiv. A tactic of “guerrilla artillery” with light tanks, shoulder missile launchers and mobile batteries. This should impose a strong rate of attrition on its opponents. It will be a fairly even, exhausting and bloody fight.

The Russian army suffers from the same problems of supply and low morale of the troops that led to the failure of the seizure of Kyiv. He continues to regroup these forces in the Russian cities of Belgorod and Voronezh, but these soldiers will not be able to return to combat for at least two more weeks. The Ukrainian General Staff reported yesterday that among the retracted units were the 41st Combined Arms Army and the 90th Russian Tank Division. “Ukrainian reports suggest that morale and willingness to fight remain low in some Russian units and areas,” says the latest progress report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

One of the problems that Russian commanders are facing in disciplining the troops is that soldiers are not receiving the proper salaries. “The promised financial incentives to engage in combat in Ukraine have not been given to some units as promised. The soldiers of the 47th Tank Division of the Guard of the 1st Tank Army did not receive the additional payment expected for participation in operations in Ukraine and the military leadership ignored calls for payments,” commented the ISW.

And the Intelligence Division of the Ukrainian army, the GUR, stated that “Russian troops refuse to participate in the fighting due to the number of bodies returning to Russia from Ukraine” and that the Russian military is sending the bodies in smaller batches to avoid causing panic in local communities. The most conservative estimates put Russian casualties at 20,000 and some organizations that counted soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq speak of more than 30,000.

A report by the BBC service in Russian collected information about 1,083 soldiers and officers killed in action in Ukraine. He found that the vast majority of them were preventing from the most economically depressed areas of Russia. In particular, the Dagestan area, with unemployment (15 per cent) four times higher than the national average. These servicemen charge $500 a month when a basic salary in the region is $400. But in this “special operation”, it could be increased to $1,200 per month for ordinary soldiers and to 1,600 dollars for corporals and sergeants.

This brings us back to a rather particular battlefield. Even if it solves the problem of payments and casualties, by the end of the month Putin's forces will face a turning point. He could be winning the Donbas war, but arriving with exhausted, demoralized troops and without any incentive to stay there. Nor will Ukraine have any incentive to accept a ceasefire that would be tantamount to allowing Russia to progressively annex its territory. It will be the time when the Russian generals will have to decide whether to continue the war and whether the goal will again be to take over the Ukrainian capital.

In that situation, Russia will need to rotate combat units. He will no longer have fresh or rested troops in the rear, he will have to mobilize reserves and retain his last flow of recruits. This is how the circle of its problems would begin again: serious deficiencies in infrastructure and supply, low morale, non-payment of salaries. Something that would delay a new Russian offensive for at least another two months while the new units are being equipped and prepared. And all this, if economic sanctions do not decidedly cut the war budget.

By then, Ukrainian units will also be severely depleted and exhausted. At that time it will be seen whether the West will be willing to do what it has not yet dared and takes a much more proactive position to prop up the forces of Kyiv. It will have to equip and train Ukrainian soldiers - along with the international brigades that will reinforce them - in record time. “That will require training in new systems and the reconstitution of some Ukrainian units, as well as the replacement of key equipment. If Ukraine's allies do not start that process now, they risk being caught once again between what Ukraine needs and what their army can absorb in time,” the specialized website warontherocks.com explained in an analysis of the military situation.

So far, what the Ukrainians received - at least in public - such as a dozen T-72 tanks from the Czech Republic, 10 Switchblade 600 drones from the United States or 120 armored vehicles from the United Kingdom, is not enough to change the military balance. It will be imperative that more planes and missile batteries arrive, such as the MIG-29M fighter-bombers that Egypt has to send in a triangulation through which the United States delivers more modern F-16 aircraft to Cairo.

But all this takes a complicated process. Most modern Western aircraft are fitted with communications and navigation equipment with sensitive information that NATO is not willing to hand over to Russia in any way. Removing them from the aircraft that will be sent to Ukraine will take time. This was one of the main obstacles that prevented the shipment of the Polish MiG-29s that Warsaw offered at the beginning of the conflict. “These aircraft have improvements to NATO equipment (mainly communications and avionics) that should be eliminated to avoid compromise. And keep in mind that the airframes themselves are of an older and less lethal model, to begin with, and they are also very worn,” said Jack Watling, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.

Wars are extremely complex organisms. Each element causes an action and its reaction to infinity. The delay in paying a salary or the improved navigation system of an aircraft can be substantial to the outcome on the battlefield. The Donbas is no exception. It is the new open-air war, social and political laboratory whose experiments will affect the entire planet.