Blowing Hot and Cold
Heat speeds up decomposition. But in the military, it is cold that corrodes. As the temperature drops, it takes more effort to move about and you get hungrier more quickly. If supplies fail to match needs, morale sinks. Desertion, surrender, looting, and mutiny all start looking more attractive. Actual fighting, less so.
In the past, General Winter was Russia’s great ally. But now the cold months are helping Ukraine. Its soldiers are better equipped, better trained, better led, better treated, and therefore more highly motivated. Russians, by contrast, are paying the price for their system’s endemic incompetence and corruption. When you are wearing the wrong clothes, the cold bites hard. Just ask the Germans and the French, who invaded Russia wearing their summer uniforms. Modern technology makes things worse: the thermal signature of vehicles, and even human warmth, is more conspicuous to infrared cameras. Russians suffered from that at the tail-end of last winter, nine months ago. Now it will hurt them again.
Russia badly needs a pause to regroup and refit but has little chance of enjoying one: Ukraine is on the front foot now and will press home its advantage. Long-range strikes are having a devastating effect on Russia’s already-flimsy logistics. The longer this goes on, the higher the chance of a Russian military collapse. That will raise the stakes in the power struggle that is already going on in the Kremlin. It is bad to lose a fight in Ukraine. It is even worse to lose one in Moscow.
Putin’s options are narrowing. On the battlefield, Russia is redeploying the forces it withdrew from Kherson to reinforce its defensive positions and continue its costly attack on Bakhmut. Newly mobilized forces are arriving. But that is not the real frontline. Modern urban societies cannot survive without water, sewerage, and electricity. The Kremlin hopes that their systematic destruction will force Ukraine’s leaders into retreat. I hope our generosity when it comes to supporting Ukraine now, and rebuilding it in the future, matches the easy words of praise uttered for the country’s astonishing resilience.