Today I will keep it very short using my favorite bullet-style points:
- By most credible accounts, the recent Ukronazi+NATO attack in the Kharkov area was even more costly in KIA/MIA, wounded and lost hardware than the attack towards Kherson. The combined losses from these attacks are staggering.
- Yet there are all the signs that the Ukronazi+NATO forces are preparing for even more such attacks.
- The Ukronazis+NATO seem happy to trade human lives for territorial gains, no matter how small or how irrelevant that territory is.
- The Russians seem happy to trade space and time to protect the lives of their soldiers and equipment.
- We could say that the Ukronazis+NATO are trading bodies for shells.
Let’s remember the two goals set by Putin for the SMO: denazify and demilitarize. Both of these goals are human-focused, not terrain-focused. In other words, if a tactical-level withdrawal allows the Russian to kill scores of Ukronazi+NATO personnel and destroy their equipment, they will gladly accept the trade.
The other goal was to protect the LDNR. Kharkov is not part of the LDNR.
Territory can be reconquered, equipment is hard to replace, especially complex weapon-systems.
And soldiers cannot be resurrected.
It is absolutely clear that Ukronazis+NATO are “betting the farm” into these offensives. Not only is the coming winter a major threat for them, but the political chaos in the EU and the US this fall and winter means that now is the time to try as hard as possible to conceal the magnitude of the disaster for the Ukronazis+NATO.
So, most of what is taking place now can be summed up in this simple question: who will run out of resources first: the Ukronazis+NATO in terms of manpower and equipment or the Russians in terms of firepower (mostly artillery, missiles and airpower)?
I think that the answer is obvious.
Andrei
It is gratifying to know in advance what the tactics of the adversary will be. No question.
One aspect of whatever war theatre in modern times is the try-out of new weapon systems by each side. When the SMO began in February I didn’t have any notion about the battle quality of the arms arsenal on the NATO side which is being exposed to direct comparison with the arms arsenal on the RF side. This comparison is also being made by all the potential buyers of arms around the world.
At present the arms arsenal of NATO is being depleted to such critically low levels, that this fact must be in itself already a cause of alarm for the potential arms buyers: suppose you want to buy some kind of US weaponry, what will happen to the ‘aftercare’? Howitzers are in need of a continuous resupply of ammunition, so are all other arms. The SMO not only exposed the inferior quality of US weapon systems in real battle circumstances, but even more the critical weakness of keeping supplies up to a sustainable level. This failure on the US side to keep arms supplies intact is something that will dismay potential arms buyers even more than the battle tested quality of US weaponry. The hegemon is failing miserably in real battlefield conditions
First, Ukraine currently does not have a population of 30/40 million. Second, 3 or 4 million soldiers are not trained with quality in 3 months or even 3 years. Third, the western arms stock will soon be at its limits and the production capacity of new equipment is very limited. Fourth, there is a critical point concept, that is, soon most Ukrainian army units will not have enough manpower to go into combat. Fifth and last, the Red Army has practically not yet used its modern equipment, tanks, etc. Your best units are still resting or have been on vacation.
Scott Ritter : Why Russia Will Still Win, Despite Ukraine’s Gains
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/12/scott-ritter-why-russia-will-still-win-despite-ukraines-gains/
admits he got it Phase 2 wrong, and did say the $40 billion was a game changer.
“There will be a fourth phase, and a fifth phase … as many phases as necessary before Ukraine either exhausts its will to fight and die, NATO exhausts its ability to continue supplying the Ukrainian military, or Russia exhausts its willingness to fight an inconclusive conflict in Ukraine. ”
“Russia was no longer fighting a Ukrainian army equipped by NATO, but rather a NATO army manned by Ukrainians.”
“In the end, I still believe the end game remains the same — Russia will win. But the cost for extending this war has become much higher for all parties involved.”
A very sobering, and similar analysis.
There is a RAND report flying about (picked up by RTD https://de.rt.com/meinung/148665-ist-olaf-scholz-fremdbestimmt-geheimpapier/ ) with a devastating analysis from Jan 2022 of Germany. It is good to see that Larry Johnson takees it up here :
Is the War in Ukraine Part of a U.S. Strategy to Weaken Germany? RAND Says, “YES”!
https://sonar21.com/is-the-war-in-ukraine-part-of-a-u-s-strategy-to-weaken-germany-rand-says-yes/
A devastating precise profiling, done by Pentagon fanatics, best described by Thierry Meyssan as the Straussians :
The EU brought to its knees by the Straussians
https://www.voltairenet.org/article217976.html
The Ukraine war cost for Russia, and NATO is rocketing, but the sheer economic destruction of the EU being the RAND objective.
Of course this RAND report fits the Straussian objective (Straussian Paul Wolfowitz the Pentagon’s Soul) , being the first, not the best, the first, means destroying economic compeditors.
This closely matches M.Hudson’s thesis here often cited.
As the UN economy tanks every surging economy is seen as a compeditor – to be flattened. Being industrialized is no cover, just a bigger target.
Glazyev’s surging EAEU and China must be driving Straussians to chew the carpet!
That RAND report clearly identifies why the German Green’s are so useful.
Anyway RAND reports have dutifully scripted foreign policy for 30 years (and long before). Straussians use intervention, fake war’s to push free-market policies. Because of this expect a London hand . To be followed up!
Got it ! Here it is : The Return of Industrial Warfare
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare
About the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
For two centuries RUSI has engaged in forward thinking and careful reflection on defence and security matter
Might explain why some say the RAND report uses British turns-of-phrase.
Speaking of running out of resources, on the hydrocarbon front:
Germany has seized Rosneft’s assets in Germany. I guess the rule of law has dissolved in the EU.
What good are they expecting to achieve? Being able to suck the gas from out of Russia? I’d like to see v.d.Leyen, Barbock and Lamprecht take a joint effort at that.
Breaking. Bloomberg reports
Germany Seizes Assets of Russian Oil Giant Rosneft
Takeover of Rosneft unit marks escalation of standoff
Berlin aims to secure operations of key refinery in Schwedt.
Are they really dumb, or they are sure the refineries in question will obtain the oil from some other supplier? And of course the seizing of such large assets is non-friendly act from German partners one would think, Mr Lavrov.
All for optics. US/EU/NATO/Ukraine elites, they are a horde of PR specialists, good at hoodwinking their citizens and bad at the world. The non-Anglosphere world values hard knowledge, the Anglosphere world values soft financial gimmickry.
they hope to supply schwedt with oil from asserbaidschan, a great ,trustworthy and democratic nation :)
in a twisted world overwhelmed by evil
the mass sacrifice of Ukronazis (and NATO mercenaries) by the West will ultimately lead to the depopulation of Ukraine
which makes perfect sense for the ZioNazis, who in their millennia-long battle with the forces of good covet the Ukraine (Zhazaria and all of the Pale-of-Settlement) for themselves, ONLY.
so, for the ZioNazis, maybe the short term plan is not working, but the long term plan is just fine
It’s an application of American “double-down” thinking. When it runs out of gas, it collapses.
The goal of de-nazifying might be way off over the horizon. First, the really Nazi cadres are from what I hear not taking part in the meat grinder. They are second-line posted, to lash the Ukrainian mopes forward, to terrorize them into attacking or cowering in trenches and dugouts until mowed down by the Russian war machine. (I saw a sad video a couple of days ago, of feral pigs eating the corpses of Ukie troops abandoned by their brethren— little left but skeletons held together by tough connective tissue.)
And posing more difficulty, even if Russia “conquers” all the Ukie territory to the whole western Ukie border, there will remain a “seed stock” of Nazis, many having fled to Poland and many as fifth columns left behind the high water mark of the Russian advance, with their supremacist purity views. These pathogens will, as they did after the fake de-nazification post WW II, rise again to infect the fertile thinking of the new generations struggling with the sorrows the “Free World” rulers have dropped on them.
Some human failings are very difficult, nigh on impossible, to rectify.
Latest Interview with Scott Ritter was actually quite balanced although he did state that if Russia wants to achieve complete demilitarization and denazification they will have to occupy the whole country and for that to occur Russian will have to commit 100k-200k more men
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=08qRsf0UmJo&t=1090s
There’s an interesting question at the core of all this, which is:
How long can Ukraine sustain this level of casualties?
It’s already amazing to me how willing these poor sods are to die for the glory of Bandera, but it seems to that there must be some point beyond which the system collapses, and it seems like it will be a very sudden collapse when it comes.
Interesting times!