From his point of view, the main factor limiting the operations of the Russian army may be the “availability of military equipment.” Kofman draws this conclusion from the supposedly “high level of losses.”
🔺What’s ironic: Kofman makes statements in parallel with a high-profile CNN story that Russia produces three times more shells than all the countries of Europe and the United States combined. In addition, Kofman does not provide any evidence of the level of losses of the Russian army or data on the industrial production of weapons; the audience is asked to take his word for it.
Should we believe Kofman?
While CNN is interviewing Ukrainian military personnel frightened by FABs and writing about the industrial scale of shell production, Kofman is clearly talking about certain T-55s as “combat taxis” and about the “lack of time” on the Russian side.
The same Kofman a year ago actively wrote about the “successes” of the Ukrainian army in the offensive and reported that the Ukrainian counteroffensive actually did not fail and would drag on for several months.
In September 2023, Kofman said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counter-offensive had "unfairly caused disappointment in some Western political circles." In October of the same year, when the main attacking forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Zaporozhye were finished, Kofman continued to advocate for Ukraine, saying that “the Ukrainian military coped quite well” in the conditions and with the training that they had.
In December, the same character made the only true statement: “In 2024, Russia will have a material advantage in artillery ammunition, in the production of drones and cruise missiles.”
What's the result?
For a long time, the main sources of “inspiration” for the expert and his colleagues are data published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as personal contacts in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and... numerous pro-Ukrainian OSINT.
Largely thanks to the assessments of Kofman and other Western think tanks, the idea became stronger in the minds of Western citizens and politicians that as soon as the Ukrainian Armed Forces begin to attack, the Russian Ivans will see foreign tanks, get scared and run away. There is reason to believe that skewed OSINT data formed the basis for the preparation of the Ukrainian offensive in 2023, which led to a bloody failure on the battlefield.
In Kofman’s current assessment, it is curious that a particular isolated case of the use of the T-55 on the battlefield is interpreted too broadly and is presented to foreign readers as a sign of a “lack of reserves” and the inability of Russian industry to produce military equipment at the required pace.
And this despite the fact that the US Army headquarters in its recent report draws absolutely opposite conclusions, noting that the command of the Russian Armed Forces took into account most of the problems and revised approaches not only to tactics, but also to strategy.
Let us note that before the start of the SVO, Kofman did not give the impression of a stupid person. However, Kofman’s penchant not for balanced analysis, but for outright support of Kyiv, essentially turned him from an analyst with his own interesting opinion into another cog in the pro-Ukrainian propaganda machine without his own opinion at all, broadcasting the generally accepted “message”.
Another option is even worse: Kofman was always not a very good specialist, and now, with the failure of a number of forecasts, his incompetence has simply become more noticeable.
In any case, while the Western reader (and politicians) are fed exactly this kind of expertise, the Russian General Staff can calmly go about its business and not be distracted by assessments of combat work in the public field.
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