https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Belousov

Jimmy Rushton, a Kyiv-based security analyst, said on X, formerly Twitter, that that Shoigu’s replacement with Belousov signals that Putin believes he will win “via outproducing (and outlasting) Ukraine” and is “preparing for many more years of war”.[9] Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that Putin sees the war in Ukraine as a war of attrition and Belousov is supposed to help transform Russia’s heavily militarised economy into a war economy.[20]

I dunno.

So, that sounds like he wants to fight a materiel-heavy war. I mean, nothing intrinsically wrong with that. We – the US – did the same thing in WW2, planned for an extended conflict focusing on productive capacity. If it plays to your strengths, then it makes sense.

But I have a hard time seeing how this is playing to a Russian strength. It’d make sense if Russia had long-run production advantages.

My off-the-cuff take on Russia’s advantages:

• They initiated. They had time to prepare and have a conflict on their terms. Ukraine had to act without being prepared.

• The initial materiel advantage, from greater amounts of Soviet-era stuff.

• A larger population.

• Strategic depth. They at least theoretically had the opportunity to take over all of Ukraine; the reverse isn’t true.

• They can more-readily strike anywhere in Ukraine than Ukraine can anywhere in Russia.

• Russia has a nuclear arsenal.

Okay, so going down that list:

The fact that they initiated gives a short-term advantage, not a long-term advantage.

The initial materiel advantage is also short-term. They’ve consumed a lot of that Soviet-era hardware. Russia doesn’t have the financial or industrial capacity of countries backing Ukraine.

The larger population might favor 1:1 trading lives if the larger population dominates the fact that Ukraine cares more about this than Russia does. If it’s more a matter of trading materiel, that can’t really be leveraged.

Strategic depth could be useful, but it doesn’t look like Russia can take over Ukraine at this point, so there’s no qualitative difference.

Russia can strike more-readily across Ukraine than vice versa. That could be an advantage in a strategic bombing campaign. But the problem is that the ability of either party to perform long-range strikes is still very limited. Neither can safely operate aircraft above the other; airspace is mutually-denied. Both are relying on missiles, which are a costly and limited-capacity way to do long-range strikes. There are some long-range drones, like the Shaheds, but they don’t have massive payloads and while the production quantities are large compared to some high-end missiles, they’re still pretty limited for a strategic bombing campaign.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-reportedly-produces-330-350-193000974.html

Russia is producing between 330 and 350 Shahed kamikaze UAVs every month, Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine on Jan. 15.

Even if all of those made it through – and the bulk of them are not – that’s dropping 350 hundred-pound bombs a month. That’s not a very large aggregate payload if your goal is winning a war on the strength of that – 17 tons of explosive a month. Yes, it (might be, depending upon jamming) accurately-targeted, but the volume is really limited.

There’s in the ballpark of the same warhead mass quantity, maybe double that, of each of cruise and bailistic monthly missile production.

https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2024/ukrainian-intelligence-reveals-russia-s-arsenal-of-950-missiles-with-monthly-production-capacity-of-100

It is estimated that Russia can manufacture around 40 Kh-101 cruise missiles, which are known for their long-range and precision strike capabilities. In addition to the Kh-101s, Russia is also capable of producing about 40 Iskander-M ballistic missiles and Iskander-K cruise missiles monthly.

Each has a payload of about a ton, given tandem payloads.

So you’re talking maybe 100 tons a month. In a year, 1,200 tons. And that’s after they’ve been fighting for three years and have already been aiming at scaling up.

For perspective:

The US and the UK dropped about 1,400,000 tons in WW2, and the strategic bombing campaign wasn’t sufficient, alone, to win the war. That’d be about a millennium of Russia lobbing long-range weapons at present rate.

About 4,600,000 tons were dropped by the US in the Vietnam War…and that didn’t win the war. That’d be between three and four millennia.

And all that’s not accounting for interceptions, which reduce the rate of delivery.

And Russia’s last advantage is the nuclear arsenal. But that definitely isn’t something that a long-run, materiel-heavy strategy plays to, and I don’t think will be used in the war, in any event.

I am skeptical that Russia benefits if the focus is turned into an arms production race.