Russia-Ukraine Flash Report 11 JAN 2023 13:15 PST - General Sergei Surovikin Is Out

Our assessment that General of the Army Sergei Surovikin was under increasing pressure to deliver a victory on the battlefield in Ukraine was correct. Surovikin has been demoted. Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, is now responsible for the military mission in Ukraine.

Surovikin's tenure was three months, surviving longer than any of his predecessors in the role. Our subscribers and listeners shouldn't be surprised as we have maintained that Surovikin almost certainly made a deal with Putin to allow a retreat from the west bank of the Dnipro to allocate those forces to fight to victory in another location. While others are declaring Surovikin didn't do anything wrong (morality aside), we disagree.

What did Surovikin Get Right

• When Surovikin was given command of all Russian forces in Ukraine in October, he was handed an untenable situation west of the Dnipro in Kherson. His ability to convince the Kremlin to retreat and the efficiency that the retreat was completed was the right military decision, and it was well executed. Ironically, a retreat and information space management may be his leadership high point in Ukraine.
• His attempts to be more "honest" in assessing the situation on the battlefield within the Kremlin and the information space were clearly not well received by the Russian Ministry of Defense, which continued to release fan fiction reports. It is critically needed, but the sycophants with whom Putin has surrounded himself don't want any bad news. Surovikin was able to gain Putin's ear to an extent, but that crumbled in December.
• Surovikin's alignment with Private Military Company Wagner Group's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin made sense in October, and Prigozhin welcomed his ascendency as the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, as did Kadyrov, multiple Russian milbloggers, and our favorite FSB Colonel, convicted war criminal, Kremlin pariah, and failed mobik, Igor "Girkin" Strelkov. In November, sharks appeared circling Russian Ministry of Defense Sergei Shoigu. In December, when the Kremlin announced its realignment plans for the Ministry of Defense in 2023, and Putin gave Shoigu a blank check to make it happen, it was clear that Shoigu wasn't going anywhere. What started as a right bet turned into a wrong one.
• Implementing programs that kept conscripts and mobiks busy doing busy work may seem like Military 101 to Western nations and veterans. Surovikin implemented command decisions that dramatically reduced idle hands and improved discipline within the ranks of mobiks. Russian military discipline did improve in Ukraine under his tenure.

What did Surovikin Get Wrong

• The attacks on Engels-2 and Dyagilevo airbases in Russia, with the latter located only 100 kilometers from Moscow, were completely Surovikin's fault. Prior to his "promotion," he was the commander of the VKS and air defenses of Russia, which failed - miserably. We had reported that in an emergency Security Council meeting after the drone strikes, Surovikin was eviscerated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who allegedly told the general in a virtual meeting if there was "one more f*** up," the consequences would be dire. Post-attack, it was revealed that Russian air defenses and airbase security were in a deplorable state. Not all of this is Surovikin's fault. For example, the S400 air defense system is far less capable than advertised, and modern Russian air defense systems don't integrate into Russian airbases' radar and early warning systems. That's corruption and ultimately leads back to Shoigu.
• It was our assessment that Surovikin was permitted to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnipro (which ultimately saved tens of thousands of Russian troops and thousands of Ukrainians) in exchange for a victory in the Donbas. President Putin, for right or wrong, has never set reasonable expectations on his generals, but it was clear by offensive actions on the Avdiivka and Soledar-Bakhmut axes that there was tremendous pressure for a "win" by New Year's. In Russian culture, New Year's is like western (Catholic) Christmas, Thanksgiving, your birthday, and New Year's rolled into a single holiday. Putin didn't care that Surovikin was already given an impossible task and planned to achieve victory with undertrained and underequipped light infantry. The Russian Ministry of Defense and its proxies in Luhansk and Donetsk engaged in massive disinformation campaigns in mid-December, claiming the capture of Marinka, the failure to fully capture Pavlivka with a near-open mutiny by elite forces of the 155th Naval Infantry, false claims of penetrating to the center of Bakhmut and taking the southern parts of the city, false claims that Vulhedar was in a technical encirclement, and attempting a significant counteroffensive in Luhansk to push Ukrainian forces back to the Donetsk administrative border, which failed.
• We were surprised to see Surovikin make the decision to take the troops that withdrew from west of the Dnipro and spread them along the entire battlefront from Vuhledar to the Luhansk-Karkhiv border. We had expected these forces to be concentrated into a single area and used for offensive operations (we had expected Avdiivka as a force of 25K would be sufficient to encircle the city west of Donetsk). It remains unclear why he made this decision or if he made it.
• It is yet to be proven, but we believe the massive amount of resources used to build a network of static defenses will, ultimately, be ineffective. While static defenses add complications to battle plans, history has shown for 90 years that combined arms maneuver warfare, introduced as "Blitzkrieg" by the Germans in the 1930s, is only delayed. Currently, in Luhansk, Russian forces are struggling to hold Kreminna, which is a gap in the Wagner line.
• The mass terror attacks on Ukraine's civilians and civilian infrastructure started on October 10 and mirrored the same strategy Surovikin applied in Syria. over 1,000 cruise missiles and Iranian-sourced Shahed-136 drones have been used in the last 90 days. An accident in Belarus and the drone strikes on Engels-2 and Dyagilevo airbases cost the Russian VKS four to seven strategic bombers, with Ukraine not engaging a single aircraft directly. What are the results? Power is difficult but operating in Ukraine, as is critical infrastructure and the trains. Ukrainian air defenses are significantly improved and will be even more dense by the spring of 2023 due to massive western aid, including the largest networks of NASAMS and IRIS-T air defense systems deployed on the planet. Today, Russia needs to fire ten missiles or drones to score one or two hits, and Ukrainian air defenses have mostly figured out how to down the Shahed-136 drones economically. The attacks did nothing to break the Ukrainian will; they only galvanized it while increasing western military aid. While Surovikin could not have anticipated the beginning of winter, December was historically warm in Europe, including parts of Ukraine, blunting the impact of the loss of power and heat. The operational tempo for missile attacks has slowed, starting in December, supporting the intelligence that Russia is running out of precision munitions and is tapping its strategic reserves. It will take years for Russia to replace the missiles used in the last three months, even under the best of circumstances, and they have almost nothing to show for it. As a sidebar, if the United States or China had expended 1,000 cruise missiles and drones in three months, it would also take years to replace them. We maintain the cynical view that every cruise missile, every drone, and every SRBM that targets civilians and civilian infrastructure represents soldiers and their hardware that get to fight another day. Attacks will continue as a matter of Russian military doctrine, but the plan to bring Ukraine to its knees by plunging it into darkness was almost certainly hatched by Surovikin as the Russian Ministry of Defense has consistently taken the approach of "it worked in Syria, it will work in Ukraine." Surovikin executed this plan in Syria to greater effect not because of Western or Middle-Eastern indifference but the complexities of all the factions fighting within Syria and the nation led by a Moscow-aligned dictator.
• The conservative approach of the VKS in Ukrainian air space and the lack of proper maintenance and training pre-war falls squarely on Surovikin's shoulders. The doctrine of terror attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure has complicated VKS air operations further due to the strengthening of Ukrainian air defenses.

What Hobbled Surovikin

Surovikin inherited a Russian army in Ukraine that remained combat ineffective during his tenure. The introduction of 80,000 plus mobiks and the largest military presence of the entire war (an estimated 200K Russian troops plus up to 50K mercenaries and volunteers) have had a smaller impact than it should due to a lack of Russian armor, artillery, and mortar ammunition, and the degradation of artillery pieces.

The Russian rout in Kharkiv cost Moscow hundreds of pieces of equipment that can't be replaced with modern equivalents. While Russia has thousands of T-62 tanks and BMP-1s, they can send into the field, and tanks are tanks, and armor is armor, the BMP-1's main gun is functionally ineffective in 2023, and the T-62 is little match for even the T-64BVs that Ukraine is fielding. Russian forces are estimated to be firing 5,000 to 6,000 shells and Grad/Smerch rockets daily, with Ukrainian artillery units now reaching parity theaterwide. While Russia scrounges for ammunition from Iran, North Korea, and Belarus and attempts to repair up to 1.1 million tons of unusable munitions, Ukraine is manufacturing 152mm and 82mm ammunition at scale with foreign partners, while former Warsaw Pact nations are reviving their ammunition production. Never mind the increasing commitments to provide 155mm and 105mm artillery systems and the larger-than-expected impact HIMARS have had.

Surovikin may have planned a better strategy, but he lacked the tools to execute it, and the equipment that was successfully transferred across the Dnipro during Russia's retreat in November wasn't enough to make a major difference. 

What Does Gerasimov's Appointment Mean

The average tenure of the commander of forces in Ukraine is up to 33 days after Surovikin survived three months. Gerasimov has been almost invisible since he was wounded on April 30 north of Izyum and has survived repeated rumors of his imminent firing.

• While Surovikin is now been "demoted" to Deputy commander, who reports directly to Gerasimov, his influence has been greatly diminished with the Russian military taking a top-down approach to command. Surovikin may continue as an advisor, but he will almost certainly serve as little more than an additional layer of command with the battle plan coming from Gerasimov and likely increasingly influenced by Putin directly.
• Shoigu has a firm hold on his role as Minister of Defense in the Kremlin and the full support of Putin. Kadyrov and Prigozhin should take note that the return of Colonel General Lapin as the commander of all Russian army forces is an additional signal that Shoigu is winning the ongoing Kremlin Game of Thrones. Lapin was openly criticized by Kadyrov and Prigozhin (and others). While the loss of Kharkiv was Lapin's fault, Lapin owns one of two surviving Russian successes - the capture of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The only other significant victory Russia holds is the capture of Mariupol and the creation of the Crimea landbridge to the Donbas. Gerasimov may (we don't know) have influenced Lapin's return to command.
• Putin is almost certainly planning further escalation with the appointment of Gerasimov, and a renewed offensive is coming...somewhere. Making the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces personally responsible for the "special military operation" is a clear sign that the Kremlin does not plan to back down and is "all in" for 2023 and likely beyond.
• The social media war between the Kremlin and PMC Wagner will likely increase, and we already saw the opening shots with the false claims by Wagner's "news outlets" of the total capture of Soledar yesterday, which the Russian MOD and its proxies, including Rybar and War Gonzo undermined just hours later. Prigozhin and Wagner are dependent on the Russian MOD for significant portions of their artillery and close air support - Gerasimov could withhold resources under the banner of, "we need this for here," and it is almost certain that Shoigu will support the move. It seems unthinkable to a Western audience that military leaders would actively work to undermine each other, but history has plenty of examples of this type of activity - including within well-disciplined armies.
• While Gerasimov isn't at risk of being dismissed, he has been handed a metaphorical glass of wine brimming with poison - the Russian military situation in Ukraine is better than 90 days ago, but only incrementally. Less of an assessment and more of a hot take/opinion - Gerasimov will get four to six months to make something happen, and that is defined as the complete capture of the Donetsk oblast, at the minimum, before his career ends ingloriously. He does have multiple exit ramps, given his extended tenure in the role and the unknown extent of his injuries in April. Option one is "after a long career has decided to retire," and option two is "due to health reasons caused by the evil Ukrainians." Gerasimov is now in the hot seat and has been thrust to the forefront of operations after months of being a man behind the curtain.

Where and When Would Russia Launch a New Offensive

It is reported that Gerasimov wants to launch an attack from Belarus into western Ukraine, believing that if they can sever the GLOCs that are providing western military aid, Ukraine will press for a peace deal as their military collapses. There is no way to know if this is little more than speculation and rumor, and Russia continues to rotate troops, equipment, and ammunition into and out of Belarus. At this time, there is no indication that Russia or Belarus are preparing offensive forces along the border. Weather conditions with the historically warm start to winter aren't particularly favorable, and fighting in forested areas that have been fortified for almost a year would heavily favor Ukrainian forces. Simply put, it would be completely impossible for Russia to move 150K mobiks into Belarus without anyone noticing the movements.

The other possibility would be an attempt to push back into Kharkiv and retake Izyum. If the Russian MOD wants Bakhmut-Soledar to capture the rest of the Donbas, the attacks are pointless without Izyum. The terrain is not favorable for a Russian advance toward Kramatorsk-Slovyansk from Bakhmut alone, especially without armor support and mechanized infantry to keep up with their tanks.

The third possibility is "all the familiar places" of Avdiivka and Marinka, west of Donetsk.

In the Short Term

Historically, when we have seen these changes in command, there has been a vacuum of military decisions for 5 to 14 days. We expect that pattern to continue and expect to see a short pause in Russian operations due to the top-down nature of the command structure. A pause does not mean the end of the fighting, but a reduction in tempo as new orders and goals trickle down the ranks.