– It is a nightmare, says Colonel Terje Bruøygard to Dagbladet.
The commander of Norway’s Iraq force from 2017 to 2018 talks about an almost unreal scenario, which hour by hour moves closer: A ground war from house to house in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
– A city war of this type, where heavy weapons are used against an opponent who is in a city with civilians, is one of the most cruel. It will result in horrible loss figures, he says.
– Can not get by
Right now, Bruøygard does not see how the city war can be avoided.
Russian President Vladimir Putin only accepts victory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to surrender his fatherland.
– The Ukrainians have nothing to negotiate away, and neither does Putin. They have a condition that is so unacceptable to both that it must be solved by force.
BOMB ATTACK: Firefighters working after a fire in a department store caused by a bomb attack in the village of Chaiky in the Kyiv region. Photo: REUTERS / Serhii Nuzhnenko
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– Is there no way around a battle for Kyiv?
– We probably will not get around this battle about Kyiv, and about other main arteries, says Bruøygard.
The former commander of the elite force Telemark Battalion is today commander of the Planning Department for the Armed Forces’ main command.
– People crawled out
Bruøygard is one of the few Norwegians who have seen the horrors of the city war up close. Among other things, he is decorated with the War Medal for his efforts in Iraq.
In 2017, he was an adviser to the Iraqi force that recaptured al-Qaim at the Syrian border from the terrorist group Islamic State (IS).
– We were both shot at and shot back. I have seen aircraft and artillery and missiles up close. God better how much misery humanity can create, he says.
ADVISOR IN WAR: “While standing in columns like this, we were often attacked with bombers and missiles,” writes Colonel Terje Bruøygard about this image of himself during the battle of Al-Qaim. Photo: The Armed Forces.
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Now these memories are awakened by news from Ukraine.
– It’s a bit similar to what we see now. We surrounded al-Qaim in the same way that the Russians surround Kyiv. The department I was with also had artillery and aircraft. Houses became ruins before my eyes. Entire urban areas were laid in gravel. When the smoke had settled, people crawled out, he says.
But there are also some differences.
Major disorders
– When IS was defeated, the civilians came out with flags, and felt that they had been liberated, says Bruøygard.
He “definitely does not think” Kyiv’s people will feel the same way if Putin’s forces win.
Another difference is that while al-Qaim has just under 80,000 inhabitants, Kyiv is estimated to have around three million, many of whom have remained in the city.
It means suffering to an even greater extent.
CIVILIAN DISORDERS: The picture is from a suburb of Al-Qaim, where Bruøygard and the force he was with lived for a period during the battle of Al-Qaim. Most of the houses had been bombed. Photo: The Armed Forces
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Bruøygard finds it difficult to answer whether the attackers or defenders will get the biggest losses.
– The defenders have the opportunity to use hiding and cover. At the same time, the Russians have weapon systems that destroy entire cities, he says.
– The worst form of combat
Captain Amund Osflaten, a teacher in tactical cooperation at the War School, will not make any attempt to estimate how large the losses in Kyiv will be.
Of all possible forms of combat, this is the form of combat that leads to the greatest loss. Both for attackers, defenders and civilians, says Osflaten to Dagbladet.
LOST HOUSING: Natali Sevriukova despairs after her home in Kyiv was hit by a Russian rocket attack. Photo: AP / Emilio Morenatti
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He’s worried about the civilians still in the city.
– The Russians have already warned the civilian population and asked them to evacuate. There is no room for so much more warnings and waiting to give the civilian population time, says Osflaten.
He thinks it is unlikely that the Russians will be content to surround and isolate the city, and refrain from conquering it. Thus, there is a great risk that the civilian population will be caught in violent acts of war.
– It can quickly become the situation, he says.
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– The Ukrainians can win
Who will eventually emerge victorious from the nightmare this is set to be, is less obvious than many have thought – according to military experts.
“The Ukrainians have a real chance to win and get Russia to withdraw,” said John Spencer, head of the Department of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point Military Academy.
He says that “defense is the strong form of war”.
– It requires five times as much power to handle one urban defender, the retired major says Sky News.
In other words, five attackers are required to knock out one defender.
Although the Ukrainians are totally inferior in firepower and materiel, this gives them an advantage.
Amund Osflaten agrees that significantly more attackers than defenders are required to take Kyiv, but will not speculate on ratios.
Therefore, Russia can never win
– The Ukrainians can succeed
– The Ukrainians can well hope to succeed in the defense of Kyiv. It depends on how big a loss the Russians are willing to take. Historically, one must expect very large losses, and they must destroy parts of the city, says Osflaten.
The Russians’ advantages, such as greater firepower and better equipment, he believes can quickly be offset by short distances, and by the fact that the defenders know the city’s structures and can hide in it.
He does not see the choice of weapons as decisive for how big a disaster the battle of Kyiv will be.
– You can use traditional weapons that there is not much discussion about, and it will still be a terrible event. It is the total amount of force used against Kyiv that is the most worrying, says Amund Osflaten.
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Similarities with Stalingrad
When Dagbladet asks about similarities with a historical battle where the Russians were in the position the Ukrainians are in now – the battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43 – he says that “the differences are not so great”.
– The difference is that the forces involved today are much smaller in number and destructive power, he says.
This means that the extent of the losses will also be much smaller than in Stalingrad, which is perhaps the bloodiest battle in history, with loss figures of almost two million including civilians, missing and captured.
– But in principle it will be much the same: Use of artillery, great strike force and combat from building to building, says Amund Osflaten.
– The Ukrainians can win
When the actual city war begins, the fighting from house to house, the war of aggression becomes much more difficult than bombing from a distance as the Russians do now.
– There will be larger crowds to deal with, many large buildings, threats from the ground floor and from all the high-rise buildings, and from the underground system. The threat will be three-dimensional, explains Colonel Terje Bruøygard.
CITY WAR EXPERT: Retired Major John Spencer is a civil war specialist at West Point Military Academy. Photo: Modern War Institute
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John Spencer is in on the same thing Twitter:
– When they first enter the city, David can become Goliath, he writes.
The precondition is that the Ukrainians “fight smart”, and carry out the guerrilla tactics correctly.
– They have a real opportunity to win and get Russia to withdraw. Keep hope. Keep fighting, the American is Spencer’s call to the Ukrainians.
Locked inside
As an example of how difficult urban warfare is, Terje Bruøygard uses a tank column that travels through narrow streets.
– They can not raise their sights on their cannons high up on the floors, and it is difficult for them to see, he explains.
If the front carriage is stopped – by barriers or defenders – the whole column stops, and the defenders can take out the carriages that are stuck.
PREPARED: In Kyiv, anti-tank structures have been set up to prevent the advance of Russian forces. Photo: REUTERS / Gleb Garanich
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– Even if you have 500 tanks, there is only room to have one in front.
Although the Russians with their superior firepower would eventually succeed in conquering Kyiv, Bruøygard believes that in the long run they have an almost hopeless task.
Putins Rubicon
He thinks the Ukrainians’ fighting spirit is impressive.
– They will not submit. If the Russian forces win, there will be a war of revolt in Ukraine. They fight for freedom and peace and the right to be an independent nation, and that kind of goals mobilize enormous forces, says Bruøygard.
That means a long period of fighting, he fears. How long, he dares not say anything about.
– When Putin has crossed the Rubicon and the first shot is fired, it is almost impossible to know where the violence stops, says Terje Bruøygard.
(Rubicon is an Italian river, and a picture from Roman history at a point where there is no way back, editor’s note)
MAKING OBSTACLES: A man from a local construction company creates obstacles for Russian tanks to be placed on the way to the capital Kyiv. Photo: REUTERS / Carlos Barria
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