by GH Eliason for the Saker Blog
The tragic murder of Alexandr Zakharchenko solidified Ukraine’s intent to retake the Donbass region by force. We know the attack on Donetsk Republic leadership was meant to throw the fledgling nation into an emotional and political turmoil and cause a crisis in succession for the Republic
Ukraine gravely miscalculated the response Poroshenko received which was both deliberate and dignified by Donetsk Republic leadership and LNR’s interim president Leonid Pasechnik.
The murder was possibly to set up the conditions for a September 14th assault.
Donetsk People’s Republic Operations Command spokesman Daniil Bezsonov notes Ukraine is making a lot of noise but doesn’t have the fuel or munitions on hand. To make an assault from Mariupol possible they need to resupply. Donetsk Intel says Ukraine is trying to remedy this for the 14th and Ukraine has over 12,000 troops ready.
It’s common knowledge US and NATO trainers have been hard at work training Ukraine’s new and improved army. The problem with the army is that even with new and improved weaponry, tactics, and equipment, it still remains essentially what it was in 2014-2015.
In reality, it fits right into the outlook of Ukraine’s civil and military leadership to mount an attack without the supplies for the tanks to make it to the battle lines.
At Ilovaisk, Ukraine hoped to celebrate their victory in the civil war in August 2014. Instead, Ukrainian leadership got a lesson in how deeply layered ineptness was ingrained across Ukraine’s military leadership.
Not being able to deny this, even the Kiev Post laments the fact that Ukraine’s officer corps was so poor, its inherent strength lay in its ability to snatch victory out of Kiev’s hands and deliver it to Donbass militia forces it was fighting time and again.
In a crushing article by Andrew Higgins for the New York Times, Petr Poroshenko is described as the perfect kind of partner NATO should be seeking right now. Even though Ukraine’s military budget has jumped from 2.5 % to 5% of the national budget, Ukraine’s corruption is using the extra bonanza money to set up plush accounts for Poroshenko’s friends and business associates.
In Jan 2018, Ukraine announced it was purchasing 100 new ambulances for use on the front lines of the conflict which was music to the ears of Ukrainians on the front lines. The no-bid contract went to Poroshenko’s good friend Oleg Gladkovsky and the ambulances came pre-broken down. Ukrainians on the front lines will be stuck using wheelbarrows for the casualties again because corruption is so rabid in Ukraine. They will be lucky not to get paintball body armor like they did in 2014.
According to the Times article, “There is no proof that he influenced purchasing decisions, and there never will be. It is all secret,” said Victor Chumak, an independent member of the Ukrainian Parliament and deputy chairman of its anticorruption committee. “The merging of politics and business is our biggest problem.”
What Chumak describes is called Corporatism or Fascism. It is going on in real time in 2018 Ukraine. Are reforms possible under this type of government? They never have been anywhere else it’s been tried.
So, with all the new training and all the new weapons the Ukrainian military in 2018 must be much better prepared than in 2014, right? Wrong.
If that was the case, Ukrainian soldiers and officers would not be suffering a moral and morale crisis so great, they are voting with their feet and retreating from Ukrainian armed services.
According to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak, 11,000 servicemen and officers left service because they were demoralized by the conditions. The soldiers paid less than low paid citizens. Another 18,000 are leaving this year.
This type of officer corps attrition alone precludes any sane government from mounting an armed campaign. Replacement officers don’t have the training, experience, or temperament for the command positions they will be tasked with.
According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the same top brass that is responsible for Ukraine’s military degeneration is not capable of making many of the reforms that are necessary. Remember, before 2014, if you joined the Ukrainian military, there was no guarantee you would ever touch a rifle or receive hands-on training for equipment.
While some may have excelled under foreign trainers, leadership from the field to the Defense Ministry remains inadequate. Compounding this, they have even changed the language of the military from Russian to Ukrainian. Ukrainian as a language didn’t modernize and lacks basic terms for modern technology, social, and political expression.
This means either inventing new words on the fly which will take time to spread and learn or borrow terms from other languages. All of this leaves the command effectiveness wanting.
When Ukraine starts the assault on LDNR, I expect it will be conducted in a similar fashion to 2014. The reason for this is simple. Unless they bought an airforce or large scale surface to surface missiles, the terrain and layout hasn’t changed. Trying to blitz in will only go so far before your troops are decimated. The Ukrainians started pounding Donetsk and Lugansk in 2014 to get the republics to defend the cities and then tried to roll in around them.
The first targets to take are the two main roads connecting the cities. Next, Ukraine will probably try to roll in overland and avoid contact as much as possible on the way to the border. In 2014, they had guides taking them across the open land.
The 12000 troops and equipment in Mariupol are there for two reasons. One is to serve Ukrainian propaganda with possibly a feint to draw DPR resources away from where Ukraine wants to be. The other reason is to roll up the entire border while the contact line troops engage DNR and LNR defenses. In 2014, Ukraine did not allocate near enough resources to do this even though other than key border areas the borders were relatively unprotected. This led to Ukrainian Diaspora volunteers sniping locals that were trying to flee the conflict.
Ukraine’s strategy now is probably similar, for the same reasons. There is no reason to get caught up fighting in the cities with a strong opponent. If they cut off both republics from access to supplies from Russia, they will be able to starve the cities out. The two governments ability to reinforce each other is a large multiplier when it comes to defense they need the connector roads clear to do so. The opposite is also true and losing control of the connector roads will be difficult, especially to Donetsk.
There are some large and glaring differences today that didn’t confront the Ukrainians in 2014. The majority of Ukrainians know exactly what’s going on inside their country today. They’ve had to suffer under the post-coup leadership and decaying conditions throughout the peaceful regions of Ukraine.
Most don’t see differences between themselves and the people of Donbass that didn’t exist before 2014 and like the people in Donbass, they want the war to end.
The inadequacies Ukraine faced in 2014 and display today show how quickly inept, bumbling leadership can turn to vile criminality. The Ukrainian Diaspora volunteer battalions like Donbass, Kiev1, Dniepr, Azov, etc, almost immediately turned to rob, raping, murder, and torture in the towns and villages they came across. They weren’t fighting forces but they had military weapons and hardware with no real leadership and a very cultivated drunk and drugged up nationalist perspective.
With the combined inherent conditions, it is doubtful the Ukrainian army will be able to survive its lack of command very long. Nationalist aggression in war might be helpful in remote situations but more often helps Donbass unintentionally. Just ask every nationalist volunteer punisher battalion commander that got shot in the ass or other soft tissue in 2014. Oh wait, that was nationalist volunteer punisher battalion commander that saw combat like Dimitry Yarosh.
“It’s common knowledge US and NATO trainers have been hard at work training Ukraine’s new and improved army.”
Let me add a few more words to this statement, it’s common knowledge US and NATO trainers have been hard at work training Afghanistan’s, Iraq’s, the Kurds, and the Syrian Democratic forces new and improved army. This “training” has left all these groups in far worse shape than when they started, and Ukraine will be no different. If the “US and NATO trainers continue to be hard at work,” Ukraine is guaranteed to splinter into bits and pieces. If only they would stop working so hard everyone would be better off including themselves.
You might have included the Georgian and South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) as outstanding examples of US trained but essentially useless in the heat of battle. There is no substitute for morale and fighting on your own land for your own country.
Let us add Finland here too. US is training here in Finland and training Finns at the moment. I have heard rather hilarious stories of their know-how from some trainees. Russia will be pleased when the war starts in NATO-SCO border of Finland?
Ukraine is a joke.
A sorry corrupt bankrupt joke.
The only saving grace for Ukraine is that Porky Poroshenko will soon be out of power. Likely deposed from within.
The Porkster has no local support and its only a short matter of time before he is taken out in a coup. Porky is living on borrowed time.
Tick. Tock. Porky.
Several problems in the article. All told, it was like reading something about 9/11 composed by someone who’s never heard of a controlled demolition.
First, the Anglos don’t want a hot war. Why do you think there’s a Minsk agreement? Who was advancing when the Minsk agreement came about? Do you think there’d be a Minsk agreement if the proxies had been advancing? Why do you think there’s an agreement?
Weapons deals are payoffs, different kinds of money laundering, trafficking. It’s not about building a war machine. It’s that Joe-blow Biden’s retarded nephew wants to steal his own fortune using, of course, the family connections.
There is no plan to build up the Ukraine. The government is an illusion. The population is dropping. That’s the plan. It drops in Estonia and Latvia. Why? That’s the plan. Ukrainians are no use to the Anglos in the Ukraine. In Toronto, they can be made into Russophobes who exist to hate Russia. In the Ukraine, they’d sooner or later become practical, perhaps Orthodox. Latvians are useful in London. The Natives can’t be bothered to hate Russia. Transport a Latvian, give him free stuff, tell him Putin’s Stalin and Stalin kills Latvians like Putin: you’ve got a brainless zombie ready for war. It’s a recipe. Understood? Moving on.
The use of the Ukrainian language is short term. The goal is to have them all speaking English. The author seems to be say “ha, Russian is better than Ukrainian.” This is a waste of time. This territory is now an anglo satellite. Some dumb people were told they’d get the Third Reich; so what. The Ukrainian territory has become an anglo satellite. Repeat. The Ukrainian territory has become an anglo satellite? Repeat? Repeat? Until blue in the head?
The Ukrainian army is unnecessary. “Ha, it’s falling apart. Ha, they’re drunk. Ha, they shoot each other in the buttocks.” Irrelevance! NATO needs the Ukrainian army like it needs an army of Hobbits. Like it needs Estonians, or Latvians, or any of these other people from lands far, far away.
Special forces, who will commit terrorists acts happily and endlessly, are trained and ready to operate. An army is unnecessary for terrorism.
The Ukraine, the very idea of it, the idea that it is Russian borderland, is being erased from thought. The land itself is being destroyed. It will be used for more excessive, unnecessary production, “trade surplus”, stuff that sits in big box stores, just to sit there. The Ukrainian language is to be erased. The Ukrainian music, dance, folkways/wears . . . what else? All of it. Those who remain will receive genital surgeries and bottles of coke. Also, cell phones.
There is not to be a Ukraine or a Ukrainian. Ukraine might only remain as something printed on a frozen food box, “Ukrainian potato cakes,” something like that. That’s the plan. Not the future, mind you. That’s the plan. Got it? Wish this could have been said in 3 words or less. It’s not understood is it. People aren’t getting what a controlled demolition is any better than they did 20 or so years ago. The controlled demolition of the Ukraine. Got it?
Seems to be correct assessment. There is no accident that there never been an independent state on these territories.
Excellent comment by Stephen, which gets it completely right.
The de-population of Ukraine (throughout) is indeed deliberate (and long-planned) and takes many forms, not just of flows outward, but also geronticide – the killing off the elderly and rural, by wittholding or withdrawing aid, services and care. The Ukrainian lands are earmarked for vast food factories run by Bayer-Monsanto, Dow, et al.
Just one thing not mentioned. Kiev has no intention of re-taking or settling the conflict in the far east, because it suits Kiev, as much as it suits Moscow, for the conflict to freeze (though for different reasons, of course). For Kiev, it provides a plausible excuse for explaining away the vast sums of funds (mostly from USA/IMF/WB) being skimmed off by Kiev politicians and businessmen. Everyone in Ukraine knows what is happening, and that “war in the east is costing XYZ” is just a cover for theft. This situation is unlikely to change, whoever wins next year’s PE.
I´d say it will be done to every nation/nationstate, anglos included.
LOL.
What are you talking about? Russia won the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and its Western masters lost. They LOST. Bigtime. They are hopeless. They had to run away with their tails between their legs in disgrace!
The silly Westerners thought they could wound Russia and all they ended up with was a whole lot of nothing and redfaces for the self-inflicted disaster!
A similar disaster to their abject defeat in Syria.
Their little pet Porky Poroshenko is so hated by everyone in Ukraine he will soon be deposed in a coup. And then what will they do?!? LOL.
They are stuffed. They lost and they don’t know what to do.
It’s laughable. They’re done.
There is no plan to build up the Ukraine. The government is an illusion. The population is dropping. That’s the plan.
Maybe ex-Ukraine is intended to become New Israel, to house millions of Khazar refugees returning to their ancestral homeland, after Old Israel collapses in flames, under the weight of its genocidal racist psychosis.
http://desip.igc.org/holo_lysson.html
Those who remain will receive genital surgeries
New Israel confirmed. Harsh measures are required for the maintenance of psychopathic death cults.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCuy163srRc
The assassination of Alexandr Zakharchenko was meant to destabilize the DPR prior to a possible Ukrainian attack against which, according to one source, is planned for September 14. We shall see if it materializes.
The assassination was certainly conducted by Kiev in conjunction with NATO, both hoping that this act would demoralize the DPR. It did not, only increasing the resolve to prevail.
Kiev and NATO better think twice about attacking. The Ukrainian Army, made of conscripts, is demoralized, as it is a personification of the civilian sector, which is now more impoverished than it was in 2014. The high tech which NATO gave Ukraine means nothing, as the Russians in the Donbass are dug in while the Ukrainian military will be out in the open during the attack. Another defeat for the Ukrainian Army can well provoke a Maidan in reverse. Worse, it could lead to the breakup of the country into three parts, as predicted by analysts since last year.
Even so, these facts probably mean nothing to the neocons in the US. Poroshenko is a puppet, who does as told. ISIS is facing defeat in Idlib, and the neocons want to provoke a new war in the Donbass, so that Russias attention will diverted away from Idlib. This will not work.
An article on RT from two days ago:
https://www.rt.com/politics/438137-communist-zyuganov-donbass-accession/
Communists are voicing for recognizing the two republics. This will mean to retrocede from the Minsk table, so it’s probably seen as ultima ratio, yet it would still prove effective. After all, the west is non-agreement capable, so why keeping the Minsk table open unilaterally?
Also, no doubt because of the pensions affair, but there may be other reasons, Communists did go well in the last elections in russia:
https://kprf.ru/party-live/cknews/178829.html
It’s crucial that this kind of support is canalized into pro-government support, and anti 5th column support. I’m pretty confident this is the case already.
Anonymous
The current Russian Communist Party is making some highly suspicious moves. Before the Presidential elections in Russia, it removed Gennady Zyuganov as it’s leader and installed Pavel Grudinin, a businessman accused of having five Swiss bank accounts. Why was this move made ? It is now calling for the integration of the two Donbass republics with Russia. Why now, at this delicate moment, and not later on, when Russia can reunify the two republics any time it wants ? To give Ukraine and NATO a pretext for attack, and in the process cancel the Presidential elections in Ukraine, which Poroshenko has no chance to win ? All of this leaves an unfortunate impression that the communists are under foreign control.
LOL.
Porky Poroshenko won’t even be President by the time the elections come around.
Porky will be deposed in a coup in the very near future. It’s doubtful he’ll be President by the end of 2018, let alone later on in the year.
The muppet has no support in his own country.
He’s finished.
Most likely this new threat to Donbass is intended to try to distract Putin from the final battle in Syria’s Idlib. In other words, it is a CIA provocation.
It will, of course, fail. Russia will not allow Donbass to fall any more than it did in 2014.
I have long advocated that, unlike in Syria, where there is a risk of escalation with the US, Russia needs to be more direct in Ukraine. If Ukraine attacks Donbass, Russia should invade Ukraine, wipe out the neo-Nazi battalions, execute the oligarchs, depose the Ukraine government, install a puppet regime – then immediately withdraw and go home. Oh, and recognize Donbass and Donetsk as either part of Russia or at least a “Russian protectorate.” NATO and the US would be able to do nothing in time to prevent this operation from succeeding. It would allow Russia time to deal with other matters without being distracted by Ukraine for the next few years. It would give the US neocons a propaganda victory, but Russia doesn’t care about that as long as it changes the facts on the ground.
As long as Russians failed to control at least Donetsk and Luhansk, since 2014, chances to reverse the events are almost impossible.
Pulling back И́горь Все́володович Ги́ркин, (instead replacing him with a more competent commander), and surrendering Sloviansk, on 5 July 2014, was the beginning of the end of Novo Rossia.
Russian failed to take the Mariupol on 2014 too.
Now the Hegemon is harassing Russian in Donetsk and Luhansk (murdering civilian and active leaders) as Motorola, Givi and lately Zakharchenko, and tenth of thousand innocent civilians, and Russia is unable to do anything about it.
People should never make the mistake of thinking that just because Russia doesn’t react loudly and visibly to a provocation, that it is not responding effectively.
Andre Martynov sees a robust Russian response to the murder of Zakharchenko and the deteriorating situation in Ukraine –
” Russia is on the move. In fact, things are getting in the open very fast. Such as the situation in Donetsk after the murder of Alexandr Zakharchenko. As Andrei Babitsky noted from Donetsk–there are no vacancies left in any more or less decent hotels in Donetsk–all occupied by FSB people. This is not to mention some other interesting developments which need to be verified, but it looks like Moscow is moving in big time and openly.
That is why this report, about Russia’s Uragan systems being deployed, as MoD said “just in case”, near Russian and the LDNR border. The message is clear:
There will be no UAF “victory” under any circumstances and it seems that Russia is about to openly (before that it was hidden by a fig leaf) take charge in defense of the republics with all that follows, which is, well… turn on your imagination. ”
https://russia-insider.com/en/russia-working-overtime-beef-syrias-air-defenses/ri24735