September 1, 2024:
A major weapon employed against the Russian war effort in Ukraine has been sanctions imposed by NATO countries. That’s because the combined GDPs of NATO countries is $46 trillion. That is nearly half the global GDP of $105 trillion. The combined peacetime armed forces of NATO are more than three times that of Russia. There is also a qualitative factor. NATO nations have superior weapons and better trained troops than Russia. The only protection Russia has against NATO is that it is a defensive organization. NATO will not attack unless someone attacks a NATO member first. Russia admits it attacked Ukraine because the Ukrainians were preparing to join NATO. Once it is a member, Russia will not attack Ukraine because the combined military power of NATO is far more than Russia can handle.
One offensive weapon NATO can wield against Russia is economic sanctions. Given how much of the global economy NATO nations possess, sanctions by the NATO alliance have materially damaged Russia’s economy. While Russia can continue to produce weapons and military equipment in the short term, the cumulative impact of the sanctions decreases the Russian ability to manufacture the most effective weapons. These are the systems that depend on components imported from NATO countries. After 2022 Russia had to get by on stockpiled components and the few it could smuggle in. By 2025 Russia will be out of items needed to keep its war time economy going. Russia doesn’t plan on withdrawing from the war in Ukraine but will have to continue with fewer and less effective weapons and military supplies. Since Russian military efforts in Ukraine have been stalled for nearly a year, the looming shortages mean sustained stalemate.
The Ukrainians have already started to take advantage of this with their August 2024 invasion of the Russian Kursk region. This is not only a major embarrassment to the Russian leadership, but the Ukrainians are also doing substantial damage to the Russian war effort in Ukraine because they have captured critical parts of Russia’s north-south railroad network. This greatly lengthens the rail distance Russian supply trains must travel to the southern and southeastern portions of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces. This means more of those supply trains, locomotives and rail cars are needed to carry the same supplies a greater distance. At the same time Russia now has a desperate need to move existing troops from near and far to fill the gaping hole in its lines at Kursk. At this point Russia just doesn’t have enough locomotives and rail cars to move everything it needs to move immediately.
At the same time Russia now has a desperate need to move existing troops from near and far to fill the gaping hole in its lines at Kursk. At this point Russia just doesn’t have enough locomotives and rail cars to move everything it needs to move right now! One result of this is that the Russian 7th Guards tank division is being moved by its own vehicles from the Kherson area in southwest Ukraine 900 kilometers to Rostov and then another 900 kilometers north to Kursk. Given Russian truck drivers and roads, the 7th Guards will be incapable of combat when it arrives. But it will likely be immediately thrown into combat and lose most of its combat vehicles for lack of the fuel and ammunition which its clapped-out trucks can’t immediately deliver.
The destruction of several Russian bridges also makes it far more difficult for Russia to move supplies or armored vehicles into Ukraine from the Kursk region. Now that Russia knows what Ukraine is capable of, they fear Ukrainian incursions into other Russian regions that border Ukraine.
Russia will cope, but they won’t win and because of the impact of sanctions on their economy, the Russian people will soon face a situation where either the war stops or Russian civilians begin to suffer from catastrophic shortages.