“Kill all the generals”, wrote an underground Russian blogger on Telegram, the messaging app, as the collapse of Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine gathered momentum. The information war is as hot as ever.
Ukraine has seen the biggest movement on the battlefield since the Russian invasion. Its forces have taken vital communication hubs at Kupiansk and Izyum, and driven out the Russians to try to build a defensive line east of the river Oskil. If the Russians can’t hold this line, the eastern region of Donbas is open. Vladimir Putin declared his special operation was to defend Luhansk and Donetsk. His troops didn’t succeed in Donetsk, and now look like losing Luhansk.
This is only half the story. This is the first major digital war in Europe, yet it is being reported from the ground in analogue. In the next 90 days, which President Zelensky believes will be decisive, the crucial moves will be in electronic warfare, communications jamming and deception, sophisticated targeting and surveillance.
The Ukrainians have proved more adroit than many of their backers anticipated. It accounts for them neutralising so much Russian air power. For the first time we may be seeing a major cyber offensive by a western ally.
“What we are now seeing is what was once a smallish Soviet-style army — Ukraine — adapt itself to the best Nato techniques and concepts against Russia’s large, slow and outdated Soviet-style army,” a senior Nato officer explained this weekend.
Ukrainian soldiers and officers coming to train in the UK — more than 10,000 of them — were instructed in the basics and how to manage what works in the British Army’s approach to commanding the modern battlespace.
They have learned, and brilliantly, mission command — devolving responsibility and initiative from commander to corporal. The Ukrainian commanders now have to consolidate their gains — and this is likely to be done in novel ways. They cannot afford great sieges.
After 200 days, the war is at a pivot. Ukraine is half destroyed but not losing. Russia’s morale is crumbling, and it is not winning. Zelensky is right to reach out to Emmanuel Macron to open talks with the Kremlin. But it is still not clear what the two presidents could talk about, let alone agree.
