Ukrainian Pulse #6

A conversation with Mykola Bielieskov

A bit of a different issue this week—I had the chance in late September to do a long interview of Mykola Bielieskov, a well-known and highly insightful Ukrainian military analyst working as a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as an analyst for the Come Back Alive foundation, an NGO raising funds for the Ukrainian military.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. We talked about the factors limiting Ukraine’s actions in this war, the importance of social cohesion, why Ukraine had to go on the offensive and why historical analogies—from the French Revolution to World War 1 and 2—often don’t work when it comes to understanding the war. I hope you enjoy this conversation—if you do, please consider subscribing or upgrading to a paid subscription!

As the summer offensive winds down and we get closer to 2024, what do you think is now the dilemma for the Ukrainian general staff as well as for Western countries?

First, the important thing is that people have finally started talking about the 2024 campaign. There were many hopes pinned on this summer offensive, unduly hopes I think, no matter what the result would have been. And when I asked foreign colleagues earlier this year what they thought would come next, there was a complete cognitive void, people only had this offensive in mind. They would even be afraid to use this term, “2024 campaign”, thinking that Ukraine would go on the offensive in 2023 and everything would be settled.

Now, the first thing is that a lot will depend on what mode of action the Russians choose, be it strategic defense or strategic offense. That’s one unknown fact. Another important thing is of course that time is needed for our partners to start producing artillery shells, and that’s a big constraining factor. Yes, we’re improvising with FPV drones and other things like that. But this war remains an artillery war first and foremost, making the supply of ammunition a very important factor. And as we know, the US will only reach the proper level of production at the end of next year, in early 2025. That’s a constraining factor for Ukraine. And then of course there is the challenge of sustaining this ad hoc international coalition, it is more of a political-strategic challenge than a strictly military one, but it is very important. All this is very well understood, and there are already a lot of discussions going on as to how to sustain this international coalition.

I’m optimistic as long as Ukraine can preserve its social cohesion and willingness to fight. And as long as Ukrainians continue to stick to a position of no territorial compromise, Western partners will have little room to maneuver, they can only support Ukraine—because imagine a scenario where Ukraine is openly pushed to negotiate while Ukrainians are still ready to fight, it is unimaginable. 

And how do you assess this willingness to fight? I know that, in the past, you’ve mentioned the French ‘Levée en masse’ as a historical example of popular mobilization. What makes this an interesting example for you?

I usually use this example to demonstrate that, in every war, there is a period of national enthusiasm during which people readily join the ranks of their army—that’s France in 1792. But then, naturally, this readiness and this enthusiasm decline, and then you’ve got conscription—the 1793 levée en masse. So, when people make a big thing out of the fact that the enthusiasm of Ukrainians to voluntarily join the ranks of the military has decreased, I provide this example to show that it’s natural, something to be expected. It’s not unique to this war.

With regard to mass mobilization, as far as I understand the main task right now is to sustain the grouping of forces that we have, and not to create a preponderance of forces. You don’t need a major mobilization for this, you don’t need the kind of mobilization we saw in the first six months of the war.

The most important thing here is preserving social cohesion and the readiness to fight. That’s why it is very important to improve the drafting process and the treatment of wounded—and here I don’t mean the medical treatment, I mean that they need to receive the proper legal status and to be correctly discharged from the Armed Forces. Because humans are also resources, valuable resources, and the way you use these resources is crucial.

Kyiv in late September // Picture: Fabrice Deprez

One issue with social cohesion when it comes to drafting is that, while someone can be drafted, someone else can find a way to avoid being drafted, and that’s a problem. There needs to be fair treatment of everyone during the drafting process, and the same fairness after someone is wounded in action. You can only partially alleviate this situation of course because, no matter what you do, war is about the threat of death, and that’s a threat you can never fully remove. But you can make things better, by making sure people are drafted fairly, then directed to the proper position, that they receive the right training before being assigned a role. And let’s be honest—there are also Ukrainians who feel like the deficit in heavy weaponry is compensated with their own health. That’s why all these deliberations about Western weaponry, on what to send, how much, when, to what extent, all this also have an impact on Ukrainians’ willingness to join the ranks. The two most important things to sustain that willingness are good training and weaponry. 

Would you agree that we are in the ‘middle game’ of the war, as analyst Lawrence Freedman put it back in September?

It’s the most difficult thing to answer. Last year, when there was this joy after Ukraine progressed in the Kharkiv region, and Russia was also on the verge of leaving the Western Kherson region, some people made the major mistake of thinking this was a 1944 moment. At the time I used this Churchill quote about this being the end of the beginning. But there is a problem even with this quote, because when Churchill said this in 1942, the Axis countries were indeed at the peak of their advances, and the ally’s military-industrial complex was starting to produce, so full mobilization was ongoing. But we can’t transfer that logic to today, because alternative history is not history.

The World War 2 logic, whether it’s 1942 or something else, doesn’t work. Because, first, there is no mobilization of our partners’ military-industrial complex on a similar scale. And second, we allow Russia to regroup, and in doing so we’re not following the lesson of major industrial wars, which is that you need to decimate your opponent quicker than he is able to regroup. There was a chance to do that, if Ukraine had been provided with HIMARS earlier, if two army corps had been created in the spring and summer of 2022, but that chance was missed. We allowed Russia to regroup and to stabilize the frontline. And right now, we cannot destroy Russians quicker than they are able to recover, which is precisely the story of World War 2.

Same with the World War 1 analogy—Russia isn’t fully isolated, like Germany was at the time, while Ukraine doesn’t have the resources to stick safely to defense and finally create this moment when the enemy is exhausted, both on the front and on the home front, and starts to crumble. That’s why those analogies are misleading, and they move us away from earnest analysis and earnest policies.

It was Pétain I think who said that his plan was to “wait for the Americans and for the tanks”

Yeah, and Ukraine can’t do that.

I had this conversation back in March, we were already discussing the upcoming counter-offensive and one man asked me, why do you want to switch to offense so quickly, why can’t you stick to defense, treat Russians the way it was during World War 1. And I answered that, while I’d like to do that, the war is unfortunately happening on Ukrainian territories. This means that Russians can almost freely conduct economic activity, regroup and increase production of their military-industrial complex. There’s an asymmetry that isn’t in Ukraine’s favor and means it wouldn’t be right, or fair, to stick to defense.

The second thing is that we were sent weaponry, with ammo and training, and people expect results. And unfortunately, we live in times where people have short attention spans and expect quick returns. And that’s why we had no choice but to switch to offense, and that’s why the World War 1 analogy doesn’t work.

Another thing is that Germany was isolated at the time, sanctions were working let’s say. At the end of 1916-17, the situation was already dire for Germany, they understood that they needed to find a solution quickly or they were doomed. The Russians aren’t feeling a similar pressure, unfortunately. They still are able to procure semiconductors and other components necessary for the production of weapons, and unfortunately, we have evidence they still manage to smuggle western subcomponents. That is the most tragic development for me.

You’ve mentioned how, in your opinion, neither Ukraine nor Russia has the strategic initiative right now. What should Ukraine do to gain that strategic initiative?

I can’t think of any conventional, interstate war that was won without at least partially gaining this strategic initiative. You can look at World War 1 which ended without any Entente troops on German soil—and that’s why there is this hypothetical scenario where Russia, for a number of military and non-military reasons would decide that they’ve had enough, the war is done, let’s negotiate while still controlling some parts of Ukraine. But to even get to this point, you need to at least regain initiative. Because, looking back at World War 1, by 1918 we’ve got a failed German offensive and a string of allied successes. It was at that point obvious that, first, Germany could not sustain this war anymore and, second, that it wasn’t able to regain the initiative. There was also a consensus at home that it was enough of this war, but offensive action was still necessary.

I think that’s why some people pinned as much hope on this offensive. They thought that, if Ukraine is really successful, if it can nullify the Russian gains since February 24, if it can cut off the land bridge to Crimea, we might get to a situation where Russia decides they’ve had enough. And again, that’s why strategic initiative is necessary, and that’s why offensives are necessary.

Because Russia might now decide that it is fine for them to stick to defense and improve their bargaining position. And if they can defend those facts on the ground, they might decide that it is enough to stick to defense and Ukraine will negotiate sooner or later. That’s why offensive action is necessary—not simply a counteroffensive, not simply taking advantage of Russian mistakes. People made this major mistake last year when they looked at the two Ukrainian counteroffensives and thought that Ukraine had gained this strategic initiative. But that was nonsense—we just took advantage of Russian mistakes.

In theory, it’s all very simple. You combine defense and offensive action, you change the correlation of forces, you mobilize at a tempo that allows you to destroy the enemy, to produce more, and to prevent the enemy from regrouping. But of course there are lots of constraints and limits when we talk about how Ukraine can partially regain this strategic initiative. Russia is a nuclear-armed country, which means in the minds of our allies they always balance this need to aid Ukraine with escalation management consideration. There’s also the problem of how to decrease production in Russia because, if you look again at the example of World War 2, there is no strategic bombing campaign this time.

But if you look at the map and imagine there are no constraints on Ukraine’s ability to fight… the best place to strike is beyond the limits of Ukraine. This would be the best way to move beyond this very challenging positional fight—striking to Voronezh and then southward! First to Voronezh, then to Rostov, and the Russian grouping of forces would then become fully dependent on the Crimean bridge. It would be an almost full encirclement, if we’re talking about this grouping of forces in Eastern Ukraine. But we can’t do it. And that’s the problem.