Thread by @WarintheFuture

A shocking series of Russian massed missile and drone attacks across #Ukraine. What does Putin & Russia aim to achieve, and what do the attacks tell us about the coercive power of strategic air, missile and drone attacks? 1/18 🧵

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1740648708591530139

2/ At its most simple, these attacks are a larger scale version of the type of attacks on civilian infrastructure that Russia has mastered during this war. They aim to terrorise, and degrade civilian morale.

3/ But they are also aimed at responding to the last couple of weeks successes by the Ukrainians in their strike campaign. Russian fighter bombers and naval vessels have been destroyed by the UAF recently. Gerasimov knows this hurts Russian prestige.

4/ The attacks were also designed to test the limits of the air defence system developed by #Ukraine over the past 18 months or so. It is far more capable than it was last Winter, and the Russians were testing to see if it could be overwhelmed. The adaptation battle continues.

5/ And of course, the Russians will not only be testing the capacity of this evolving air, missile and drone defence system. They will be testing Ukraine’s ‘magazine depth’ and hoping that Ukraine runs out of interceptors before Russia runs out of missiles and drones.

6/ Most importantly they are about creating additional leverage for Russia to freeze the conflict and then reconstitute. Putin has made clear again recently that he wants to subjugate Ukraine. To do this, he requires a pause to rebuild land combat power.
npr.org/2023/12/14/121…

7/ With some in the west wavering, Putin feels he is a good position to achieve this. The attacks contribute to Russia generating a sense of an inevitable victory, thus (hopefully) convincing Ukraine and the west to negotiate.

8/ We are not there yet. The resilience of Ukrainian people, and the efforts of their armed forces (supported by the west) to create a world-class air, missile & drone defence network, has provided political & military capacity to resist Russia’s strategic coercion & terrorism.

9/ But there are lessons here for other theatres. In particular, the possession of an advanced precision strike and supporting ISR network, provides an incredible tool for strategic and political coercion, through the balanced application of destruction and influence ops.

10/ The bar to developing such a capacity is lower than ever. Meshed civ-mil sensor nets are relatively cheap, as are lethal autonomous systems with decent range. The Houthis are demonstrating this now. (Image: @detresfa_)

11/ China also understands this well. They have spent decades building a huge missile force that is, first and foremost, designed to project an air of inevitable destruction of its adversaries in the event of a conflict. (Table: @CSBAdc).

12/ While ultimately a military tool of tactical and theatre utility, this missile force is primarily one that can be used to coerce neighbours - and even the U.S. - into accepting Chinese goals and denying interference in ‘their’ region.

13/ Their missile arsenal is part of China’s ‘win without fighting’ approach. It complements some of their other strategic coercion tools: economic coercion, misinformation, and paying off politicians and officials across the Indo-Pacific.

14/ There is an imperative to continue learning from how Ukraine has constructed their air, missile and drone defence network. Efforts by the U.S. in Guam, and the Japanese, are a good start. Europe will need to also improve in this regard.

15/ The better we are at air, missile and drone defence, the less coercive power we hand to the ‘authoritarian quad’ of Russia, China, Iran and NK.

16/ And, of course, this isn’t just about defence through ‘defensive’ capacity. Long range precision strike to degrade enemy ISR, launch and production capacity is also needed. Ukraine in particular is at a disadvantage here, and this must be addressed with western military aid.

17/ So, the massed Russian attacks yesterday are not just a demonstration of Ukrainian resilience or Russian barbarity. It is a lesson for the West (again) on the importance of a defence system to deny authoritarians the wherewithal to use air attack capability for coercion. End

18/ Thanks to the following for the images and links in this thread: @ZelenskyyUa @JayinKyiv @KyivIndependent @detresfa_ @CSBAdc @NPR