The Ukrainian Military Is In Bad Shape
Erik Kramer and Paul Schneider are two former U.S. special operations soldiers who have been in Ukraine since 2022 to train Ukrainian troops.
At War on the Rocks they paint a dark picture of the state of the Ukrainian military. Their intent is to get money for more training, thus the real picture may be less dark than they describe. But even if one takes that into account it is still a sad state for an army that has been at war for more than a year. Some excerpts:
Based on our nine months of training with all services of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to include the Ground Forces (Army), Border Guard Service, National Guard, Naval Infantry (Marines), Special Operations Forces, and Territorial Defense Forces, we have observed a series of common trends: lack of mission command, effective training, and combined arms operations; ad hoc logistics and maintenance; and improper use of special operations forces. These trends have undermined Ukraine’s resistance and could hinder the success of the ongoing offensive.
What ongoing offensive?
Under mission command, the German Auftragstaktik, the leader disseminates his intent ("to attack through the northern woods to take town x") and authority to subunits that is passed down with the mission to empower subordinates at all levels. Each subunits can make its plans to coordinate and execute the mission as best as possible. The contrast is an order command where every detail of execution is ordered from the top down. Both have advantages but to have a mixed system, as Ukraine currently has, is the worst of all places.
In our experience, across many units and staffs, the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not promote personal initiative and foster mutual trust or mission command. As Michael Kofman and Rob Lee recently discussed on the Russia Contingency podcast, elements of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have an old Soviet mentality that holds most decision-making at more senior levels. Amongst military leaders at the brigade level and below, our impression is that junior officers fear making mistakes.
But to use mission command down to the lower levels of a Platoon one needs noncommissioned officers (sergeants) to run the show. Those the Ukrainian military had are by now probably dead:
Having trained every component of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we have continually seen a lack of an experienced noncommissioned officer corps. It is common to see field grade officers running around during training counting personnel and coordinating for meals. In the United States, it takes years to develop just a junior noncommissioned officer.
The next big lack is combined arms training and use. Tanks protect the infantry, the infantry protects the tanks, the artillery covers the battlefield to allow tanks and infantry to maneuver, command takes care that all three coordinate their actions.
The armor/infantry relationship is supposed to be symbiotic, but it is not. The result is that infantry will conduct frontal assaults or operate in urban areas without the protection and firepower of tanks. Also, artillery fires are not synchronized with maneuver. Most units do not talk directly to supporting artillery, so there is a delay in call for fire missions. We have been told that units will use runners to send fire missions to artillery batteries because of issues with communications.Most of the military’s operations are not phased and are sequential. Fires and maneuver, for example, are planned separately from infantry units — and infantry units plan separately from supporting artillery. This mentality also carries over to adjacent unit coordination, which is either nonexistent or rare and causes high rates of fratricide. Unit commanders have concerns about collaborators and thus are hesitant to pass on critical information that can be used against them to sister units.
These issues are compounded by unreliable communications between units and with senior leadership. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have a hodgepodge of radios that are vulnerable to jamming. Further, battalion missions are mainly independent company operations that do not focus on a main effort coupled with supporting efforts. The armed forces do not combine effects, so operations are piecemeal and disjointed. The separate missions are not supporting each other, nor are the missions of lower level units “nested” under a higher level mission. Sustainment is not synchronized with operations, either.
Due to the wild mix of weapons and for lack of trained mechanics logistics and the maintenance of equipment are a mess.
This lack of coordinated maintenance and logistics also translates into medical care. Medical evacuation and care are haphazard. Experienced Ukrainian combat medics have repeatedly stated that many of the evacuees would have survived it they had reached definitive care in a timely manner. The Ukrainian Armed Forces can solve this issue with a systematic logistics process.
Ukrainian special forces are mostly used as infantry even as they should be used for more demanding missions. There also are gimmick missions:
Ukraine special forces units comprised of international volunteers shop around their services to conventional unit commanders without a mission being tied to a strategic or operational goal. One example of a mission was a conventional brigade commander who had reported to his command that he had occupied a village taken from the Russians. When he realized that the information he had was mistaken and they had stopped short, he asked the international special operations forces unit to go into the occupied village and take a picture of a Ukrainian flag placed on top of a building in the center of the village.
A suicide mission to hide the commanders false reporting ...
The authors claim that most of the above problems could be fixed by more 'western' training which they are more than willing to sell. However, what has become of the last armies 'western' forces have trained in Iraq and Afghanistan? Both fell apart. An army must reflect the local society and culture. It can not be formed top down by outside forces.
Since 2015 the Ukrainian army has been build up and trained by U.S. and British forces. What the WotR authors describe is the result of that.
Posted by b on June 3, 2023 at 17:01 UTC | Permalink
next page »Zelensky just said that Ukraine is now ready to launch a counteroffensive.
I will bet anyone any amount of money that THERE WILL BE NO COUNTEROFFENSIVE. NEVER.
Posted by: Anton Gorbatow | Jun 3 2023 17:33 utc | 2
The West “winning” was never going to happen, nor the goal. The goal is to have boatloads of dead bodies, create a “humanitarian crisis”, insinuate “war crimes” and show the “global community” what savage genocidal beasts the Russians are.
Training?? Meh, who cares, dead bodies is what we want. Oh, and lots of laundered money. After enough dead poorly trained, poorly equipped dead Ukrainians, surely the “global community” will see things our way and “isolate” Russian!
Posted by: Trubind1 | Jun 3 2023 17:43 utc | 3
I could be wrong, but the organizational shortcomings make me think that the gangsters back in Kiev like it that way. Fear of a coup? Which brings me to the great mystery of this war. If Zelenskyy is overthrown, the war will end in days if not weeks. He has broken far too much porcelain to talk peace. If a general could muster the troops,peace will be at hand. Send Z,Kuleba and Budannov to Moscow for trial.
Posted by: Stierlitz | Jun 3 2023 17:44 utc | 4
von clauswitz said there are: strategy, tactics and logistics.
us marines say amateurs neglect logistics. lots of amateurs in the pentagon!
zelensky orders tanks arty, shells, anti missile [pork] systems, and gets them from amateurs!
us army says: strategy, operation, tactics.... taking that draw a triangle with a word at each angle.... they all touch!
you send a tank you need to send combat/direct support services, general support services and depots! same for f-16, and a lot of those are civilian contractors in usa stuff where the overruns cut reliability and unit repairs.
as to combined arms i lack confidence sof guys have a clue. or with natostani staff have a clue about shifting from ww i warfare to modern warfare against a locally bigger enemy.
to get ukranazis up to par would require iron mountains from natostan that dwarf what rhe us put in the persian gilf in 1990. and 3 to one manpower versus russian forces.
Posted by: paddy | Jun 3 2023 17:45 utc | 5
What we need to see now is....
A bunch of rich fat Americans dying in their home town, in their own country.
I'm sure the rest of the world would agree with me.
We're sick of seeing Russian speaking people die.
What we want is dead Americans.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jun 3 2023 17:50 utc | 6
You can't force untrained men off the streets in rural Ukraine that have Russian ties and expect them to ever be an effective force. These Ukrainian men are not fighting for a love of their heritage. These men are fighting for a NATO future idea to destroy Russia that they have never been a part of.
Posted by: Dferg | Jun 3 2023 17:51 utc | 7
Slavyangrad has a post suggesting that possibly Budanov was killed.
It seems to me that the trend is that Ukraine will run short of capable men long before it runs out of western junk weapons - it appears a charade somehow.
Which brings to mind: Where would US get people to fight Russia and/or China? People could get hurt.
Posted by: jared | Jun 3 2023 17:51 utc | 8
«However, what has become of the last armies 'western' forces have trained in Iraq and Afghanistan? Both fell apart.»
Two completely different cases: the iraqi army did not and does not have a nation behind them, like in large part Saddam Hussein's army. and the afghan army was *designed* to fail in case of USA withdrawal, it was just a number of "sepoy" auxiliary regiments, with logistics, pay, air support, C&C entirely by the USA.
Some NATO officers thought that even so they could have continued to fight for another 6 months before the inevitable defeat, but why do that, if the defeat was inevitable? Why die for nothing? The same happened to the italian when the USA invaded in 1943, it simply dissolved.
It did not happen to the german army in WW2 because they trusted their high command to have a good reason (e.g. being able to negotiate an armistice) to continue fighting even if Germany was being attacked on 3 fronts and was certain to lose. But they were wrong, their high command was just trying to postpone their own executions by a few years. The japanese case in WW2 is even more extreme: their high command were certain of losing the war and being executed, but they regarded surrender without fighting as worse than death.
Posted by: Blissex | Jun 3 2023 17:58 utc | 10
It would be interesting to understand what the role of these Nato officers (who are supposedly hit multiple times recently) has been in this decision chain. Are they there to relay orders from Nato high command? Or are they there to act as top decision makers themselves? Or are they there to coordinate other issues, like attempts of standardizing equipment, maintenance and training?
We heard since quite early SMO that there were UK "specialists and experts" on the ground who were actually designing the more important operations at some level. The British designed the Snake Island attacks, Kherson attack, probably even the Kharkov-Balakleya offensive, more recently they designed and supported Belgorod border raids and attacks. All these attacks designed by British have been very costly.
It's doubtful that Ukraine army would had too much Soviet originated doctrinal influence any more. By now, Ukraine's army must be mostly operating under Nato doctrines. It can be witnessed by these piecemeal small infantry group attacks everywhere. Doing the same thing over and over again.
During the battle in Lyman (during Balakleya-Kharkov offensive) the Russian said that they could see a new group of Ukrainians popping up every few hours in the exact same place. So they may well have been drugged up, they receive no information what happened to the last attack, commanders just order them a route to go by.
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 18:00 utc | 11
Blinken, Rachel, MSNBC-CNN & Co, said Ukraine is winnng and hitting the Russian big, so which is it ?
Posted by: expat | Jun 3 2023 18:02 utc | 12
I've seen this situation with other US imperial wars. US trains the subject nation's troops and they fail and fail and fail and fail over and over and over again. It never works because the whole point of the "training" is to make money if they are contractors or gain power if they are part of government. Whatever it is, it is a job with lots of benefits. The US Empire is, if nothing else, a great jobs program.
I'd like to see a similar report on the Russian military--I suspect there are many problems there which is why they are using Wagner, Chechen, and Donbas forces for the most dangerous jobs. If the Ukrainian forces stage an offensive it will remains to be seen how well regular RF forces will stand up to the Western trained forces. One thing you can say about Ukrainian soldiers is that they are still brave and motivated and that can count for something. The West seems to think that once the Russians face a powerful attack the Russians will panic because, so the thinking goes, they are not highly motivated to fight. We'll see.
Posted by: Chris Cosmos | Jun 3 2023 18:02 utc | 13
Zelensky is running around like a headless chicken, he knows his time is over and that's the only reason why under the orders of the empires of lies (US and Britain) he continues prolonging this lost proxy war. In the meantime, Ukraine has been disintegrated and more than 300000 servicemen including foreign mercenaries have died.
Posted by: AI | Jun 3 2023 18:05 utc | 14
Again, more evidence that the narrative is being challenged, this time for a previous cheerleader WoR, whose podcasts painted an increasingly rosy picture of Ukraine’s chances. The article might also be seen as expectation management and a distancing exercise as realisation grows that the SMO is now threatening the reputation of Western military competence. The greatest threat now to the Nuland clan is a lack of results, always a perilous condition in any mafia-like organisation, which is what this and the controlling Obama administration elements have turned the executive into.
Posted by: Milites | Jun 3 2023 18:08 utc | 15
Reading russian correspodents I have have seen a few months ago several cases of failed Ukrainian company-sized "recon in force" in the Zaphorizhia region, including video evidence. There was one assault that left at least 4 M113 "gavin" destroyed captured on footage. That correlates that Ukrainian assaults are company sized.
Posted by: A200 | Jun 3 2023 18:13 utc | 16
Thanks b, this obviously confirms what we know.
Did Zelensky ever make it back to Ukraine after Hiroshima? Is there any government at all in Ukraine beyond NATO?
The tribe that runs the Money Power is much more practical than the tribe of zealots who believe in their supremacy over reality. The Blackrock folks want to settle while the smug-mongers want to twist the world into a nuclear black-mailed knot.
If not for the 'crazies in the basement' peace would be at hand.
Posted by: gottlieb | Jun 3 2023 18:24 utc | 17
reposting Bevin’s find here: very relevant
Another despatch from Dmitri Kovalevitch in Ukraine. It is hard to believe that the country is not on the verge of a new civil war within the war. Only the Gestapo funded, trained and empowered by NATO stand between a revolt of the cannon-fodder against the corrupt and cynical psychopaths running the state. This is a syotu written by a Ukranian still in the country. And it reads that way.
"...The other day in Odessa, the head of the military registration and enlistment office, Yevgeny Borisov, was detained. He is accused of corruption by the State Bureau of Investigation for giving instructions to subordinates not to touch certain people, ie those who had paid bribes to avoid military service. Earlier, regional media reported that Borisov owned a car worth $250,000, imported to Ukraine under the guise of humanitarian aid and that his retired mother has purchased a residential property worth more than $3 million in the Spanish resort town of Marbella. She purchased the property last December. In fact, many Ukrainian military commissars are becoming like landlords, collecting tribute from enslaved Ukrainian men.
"Many wealthy Ukrainian celebrities, including famous actors and singers, regularly pose for photos in military uniforms, but we hardly ever hear of such people being injured or killed. Rather than directly serve, most of them are assigned to raise funds and other aid to the AFU, where their status is more useful. Thus we see that having a high social status as well as high income earned from theatre performance, musical recordings and music concerts more or less automatically exempts a person from being drafted into the army. Some celebrities have also been able to illegally evacuate their children from Ukraine by paying large sums of money. For example, the grandson of People’s Artist of Ukraine Sofia Rotaru was detained last year while trying to cross the Dniester River by boat to Moldova. Despite being detained, the grandson still managed to end up in France, having found a different way to escape Ukraine.
"Full-time students are also exempt from conscription, as are students of European universities. In Ukraine, however, only the middle and upper classes can now afford to send a son or daughter to university..."
https://socialistincanada.ca/class-and-nation-in-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
Posted by: bevin | Jun 3 2023 16:58 utc | 233
Posted by: Exile | Jun 3 2023 18:26 utc | 18
Anyone know what Col. Andy Milburn is up to these days?
Doubt he'll be invited to do a commentary for War on Rocks like these two - all US Ops have significant 'training budgets' - [so these two are making a few dollars] but what these two describe should not surprise - notwithstanding their attempt to lay 'blame' on soviet era training of the older cohorts ... a couple of armies have already been more or less wiped out and one doesn't 'train an army' on PowerPoint demonstrations - and more so if the 'forced conscripts' are more interested in survival than tearing into the RF or going on suicide missions while their commanders are corrupt ...
What is being done to these people in the name of US/NATO is an abomination ....
Andy Milburn here:
‘The Crazy American’: How Col. Andy Milburn’s drunken antics torpedoed top US mercenary group
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/02/03/crazy-american-andy-milburns-drunken-mercenary-group/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Jun 3 2023 18:27 utc | 19
Ukraine has about 70,000 "Western trained" soldiers available, any offensive will simply facilitate the destruction of those men by the Russians. Then the Ukrainian army will simply be a lumpen mass of little-trained conscripts. That point would be the perfect time for Russia to launch a mass offensive, as it should meet little organized and effective resistance. In the mean time they can focus on taking the strongholds of Maryinka, Toretsk/New York agglomeration, Avdiivka, Ugledar and Seversk to make their coming campaign much easier.
The Ukies will probably throw themselves at the South, desperate for a big win - seems that Russia has about 250,000 men opposing them in well constructed defences and fully trained, heavily armed, well supplied and backed by overwhelming artillery and aerial superiority - it will be a bloodbath.
TOS-1A flamethrower system has doubled the range of rockets, increased accuracy and efficiency by 70 % per official calculations. It has been an invaluable weapon during SMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkyU7Haqs-8
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 18:36 utc | 21
Zelenski is done. Too much coke, too much printed American money. And only a small percentage of the Ukrainian People behind him.
As with the USSA, the big, dirty money doesn't want to do the fighting themselves.
Pity the poor Ukrainians, forced to the front like the Soviets often were in WWII. It wasn't the bullets coming from the front but from the back.
The USSA has now gotten themselves into Afghanistan II. They might not leave this year, maybe not next year, but they will leave.
Leaving Europe a confused mess, energy poor, divided and chaotic.
Hopefully for the Americans, they might be able to cloak their retreat and get back to American LaLa Land on some of that vaunted wonder-weapon Stealth troop carriers.
Posted by: kupkee | Jun 3 2023 18:36 utc | 22
@Posted by: Dferg | Jun 3 2023 17:51 utc | 7
You can't force untrained men off the streets in rural Ukraine that have Russian ties and expect them to ever be an effective force. These Ukrainian men are not fighting for a love of their heritage. These men are fighting for a NATO future idea to destroy Russia that they have never been a part of.
That's a great point, as things start to fall apart I think that the Ukie leaders will rue the day they decided to try to force ethnic Russians to fight other ethnic Russians and the Russian army (same with the ethnic Hungarians). It may greatly accelerate a collapse as they take revenge on those that forced them to fight their own, or just simply surrender and join their Russian brothers. The only question is how much the 8+ years of Bandera propaganda have affected men of fighting age.
Controlling the narrative is trumped by reality every single time. You can lie right up to the moment reality asserts itself, then you have to deal with the consequences....
Posted by: JustAMaverick | Jun 3 2023 18:46 utc | 25
Basically the authors advice to throw more money on a problem that can't be solved by more money.
Money being the one and only solution of the neoliberal world.
Posted by: w | Jun 3 2023 18:51 utc | 26
Your conclusion, b, says most of what must be said:
"Since 2015 the Ukrainian army has been build up and trained by U.S. and British forces. What the WotR authors describe is the result of that."
Since the 2014 coup, NATO's been training Ukies. Furthermore to the narrative being sold, no NATO force ever faced a Soviet force, so there's absolutely no way commentary can be made on Soviet performance as attempted. The closest was NATO's wars on Yugoslavia and Serbia, where NATO attacked civilians to gain the desired political outcome.
During the years 2014-2022, NATO ran the Ukie terror campaign against Donbass and was humiliated into having to sign two Minsk agreements to save their surrounded troops. In other words, NATO failed twice before being confronted by genuine Russian forces and their capabilities. And NATO's failing a third time. The failure isn't in training or force structure, the failure comes from within NATO, which has its own doctrine that it has yet to try and introduce to Ukieland because of the lack of two critical components--Air Defence and Air Force--which NATO allowed to be wiped out at the outset of Russia's SMO.
Yes, Zelensky's crazed orders to hold every inch of Ukieland continues to be detrimental, but where was NATO telling him he was crazy to do so? The Outlaw US Empire clearly runs the show, or does it really? It may hold the purse and the armory, but it still declined to tell its pimp how to employ his whores! What sort of Mafiosi does that?! And don't answer Biden. This is all on the Empire's military and its NATO hired guns.
What does NATO have that's been shown to be proficient? Satellites and related IFR is all I can count. AT, AD, Art, Comm, EW, logistics, are all poor or worse. Old Soviet gear has proven to be superior in most cases. The failure to logistically plan for an intense Industrial War is very apparent, while NATO had almost 8 years to plan and build industrial infrastructure. It's as if NATO was so accustomed to keeping Russia at bay with its massive duplicity that it was thought Russia would never respond as it has. The bullshit that Russian military equipment was no good, that its troops were worse than NATO's, that Russian society and its economy would collapse at the imposition of sanctions all reflect the inner corruption of NATO and most especially its #1 the Outlaw US Empire--The Worst Military Money Can Buy. And that military-political structure wants to take on 1.4 Billion Chinese!
IMO, nothing at this point can improve NATO for its problems are deep-seated and mired within a cult of corruption that must first be ousted before anything meaningful can be done to improve it.
Anger eats intelligence. The anger of the Zjonists at being rejected by God causes the to align themselves with Nazis who are their enemies.
The failure of Nazi racism to defeat Russia causes them to ask for help from European liberals who despise them.
Breaking the rules of human existence is thecsport of psychopaths. Butvwevshould never forget thst after our psychopathic leaders have finished destroying the Ukranians , we are next. And what are we currently doing about that? Nowt.
Posted by: Giyane | Jun 3 2023 19:07 utc | 28
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 3 2023 18:59 utc | 27[...] Yes, Zelensky's crazed orders to hold every inch of Ukieland continues to be detrimental, but where was NATO telling him he was crazy to do so? [...]
Implying there is someone powerful enough in Ukraine to really run the show. I see now the regime as various factions having each one a specific interest and acting on that behalf with the minimal interaction with the others.
Zelensky is the salesman travelling everywhere for gibs, but is he still taking the decisions ? Has he took them already to begin with ?
I see Kiev regime as anarcho-liberalism - paid for by US and EU taxpayers. They know that their only source of income stops when the war stop, so they all agree on something: keep the war going up to the last Ukrainian
Posted by: w | Jun 3 2023 19:09 utc | 29
Posted by: sejmon | Jun 3 2023 17:56 utc | 9
Zelensky is a man without a country. He cannot return to Kiev for fear of fragging. The Holiday Inn touring gets old after awhile; living with no fixed address and different hotel rooms every night or two.
Posted by: Ghost of Zanon | Jun 3 2023 19:11 utc | 30
Ukraine would have to mass men and equipment for any combined arms "counteroffensive" and that mass would then be destroyed by aerial attack and indirect fires. That makes a conventional assault imposible. It might be possible to use smoke and/or darkness to cover the men & eqiuipment, but that isn't certain nor lasting.
What Ukraine does apparently have for their counteroffensive is a huge inventory of drone aircraft. . .from War on the Rocks. . .
In preparation for its upcoming offensive, Ukraine went on a buying spree, scooping up first-person-view drone components from global suppliers. Some estimates place the total Ukrainian buy between 50,000 and 100,000 units. Russian Telegram channels indicate extreme worry about an impending swarm attack and a race to procure a similar capability to deploy against Ukraine. Russia has used first-person-view drones to attack Ukrainian positions in the past. Chief among Russia’s concerns is the apparent ineffectiveness of its current air defense systems against small drones, especially when launched in large numbers and outside the range of jamming systems.. . .here
So Kyev could conduct its counteroffensive, blow its wad, and then (in effect) surrender having done what it could with what was provided to them. It's then up to Russia to conduct its own offensive, if it can.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 3 2023 19:12 utc | 31
The situation is no better for the Russians, initiative and ingenuity are punishable there, a terrible bureaucracy with constant paper reports and other unnecessary garbage. Any sortie of a drone allegedly needs to be reported, Russian artillery could work more successfully and quickly if decisions were made on the spot and not through the General Staff and old farts. In the Russian army, the bureaucracy even interferes with the analysis of Western-made captured weapons, if it were not for the volunteers, the situation would be much worse.
Posted by: Crazy chump | Jun 3 2023 19:15 utc | 32
Acknowledgement to @Don Bacon, who posted a link to the War on the Rocks piece in an earlier Open Ukraine tread. I clicked on the link and my jaw gradually dropped as it slowly unveiled the utter shambolic chaos of (dis)organisation and incoherence in the Ukrainian armed forces. The article also had several detailed training recommendations, to which my gut response was “You‘ve had 8 years of planning, near enough 18 months of actual engagement. WTF have you been doing, apart from submitting invoices to your funding providers?”.
~~~
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 3 2023 18:59 utc | 27
Hear, Hear!
Posted by: West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 19:24 utc | 33
Question: why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized? I think it is a legitime query.
Posted by: fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:29 utc | 34
why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized?
Posted by: fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:29 utc | 34
The underlying assumption in your question is that Russia is in a hurry to wrap things up and is failing.
The flip side of that coin is: Russia is not in any particular hurry to wrap things up and is conducting matters at a pace that meets operational, strategic and tactical objectives as it sees fit.
Posted by: West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 19:39 utc | 35
All very nice. Nowhere is mentioned the political dimension. Ukraine is just a bit short of being a secret police state where neutering potential and actual political rivals of the current puppet is priority number one. Zal and Syr, after all, must develop plans to fit the hopes/wishes/fantasies of renowned military geniuses such as Danilov, Zelensky, Yermak, etc. IF there are any gains, it's my bet that Petraeus, Hodges and the rest of the Clown Chorus will be more than happy to claim credit.
A curiosity: as I remember, the old Soviet ground forces had an NCO gap -- but most of the personnel who most matched the description were Ukrainians.
And the 'western' journos and 'experts' STILL believe that ex-Soviet material is crap and any Uke successes owe all to 'western' equipment.Remarkabnle. Until yoiû consider the groupthink encouraged and fostered by stink_tanks.
Posted by: DilNir | Jun 3 2023 19:43 utc | 36
fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:29 utc | 34
Answer: which I think you already know is Russia is letting the UAF destroy itself. It will make them easier to 'roll over'.
Posted by: dh | Jun 3 2023 19:45 utc | 37
"Why are the Russians having such a hard time to roll over them" - excellent question! Of course, I don't know for sure. But I suspect that the key to the Ukrainian defense is the superb western intelligence. Any time the Russians try a "big arrow" maneuver, the west passes the coordinates on to the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians just dial in the coordinates and decimate the Russians. You don't need a lot of skill to type some numbers into a computer and push "Fire." In the early phases of the war, Javelin missiles and Bayraktar drones got a lot of press - but that appears to be misinformation. What really stopped the Russians was apparently conventional artillery strikes, and conventional tanks firing from ambush, that was massively effective because the Ukrainians knew where every Russian unit was and where they were headed. Of course, for Ukraine to launch a major offensive of its own into prepared Russian defenses is another matter entirely...
"When he realized that the information he had was mistaken and they had stopped short, he asked the international special operations forces unit to go into the occupied village and take a picture of a Ukrainian flag placed on top of a building in the center of the village." - Indeed, but one is reminded that in the Kherson counteroffensive, Ukrainian light units would rush forward and take selfies of themselves deep behind the Russian lines, with the idea that the Russians would think they had been overrun and would panic and withdraw - which seems to have worked, for a bit. So maybe (maybe) not quite as pathetic as it sounds at first.
Posted by: TG | Jun 3 2023 19:45 utc | 38
@34
“When you are strong, appear weak to the enemy” All the better to get them into a “fire bag”.
Why go to the enemy, when he will come to us? Drawing out a force from fortifications to destroy them in the open is a very old tactic, and if they work, why not use them? Taking the doctrine to try to save as many of your own soldiers while destroying the attacking enemy is prudent in this case, but it takes a ton of discipline and fortitude to execute without getting careless. When the Russians become careless, then they have an episode like losing a couple jets or tanks, they then try to analyze and fix the issue.
As the Russians figure out what will work and mass produces the most useful weapons, they will inexorably move forward in kilometers per week, then kilometers per day, until the end of Ukraine.
If thats the strategy of this “race”, I think they are on target for the Bear “turtle” to be at the finish line, the pig and eagle left in the dust, crushed trying to stop them.
Unless your just some NAFO troll, then stuff it.
Posted by: Fudup | Jun 3 2023 19:45 utc | 39
Classic concern troll: "...why are Russians having such a hard time...
Who says they are having a hard time? They seem satisfied with the number of Nazis being destroyed per day, and the Nazi to Russian death ratio remains delightfully (for the Russians) high. Why go looking for Nazis to kill when they are still coming to you?
Sure, there will come a point when NATO starts running out of Nazis and the Russians will have to go looking for them, but we're not there yet.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 3 2023 19:47 utc | 40
@34 Question: why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized? I think it is a legitime query.
I was just about to ask. The worse the Ukrainians are painted, the more mysterious it is that the Russians are still fighting on the outskirts of Donetsk after well over a year while civilian areas are continuously shelled.
Posted by: abel | Jun 3 2023 19:47 utc | 41
abel | Jun 3 2023 19:47 utc | 41
Do you and fanto share a cubicle?
Posted by: dh | Jun 3 2023 19:52 utc | 42
Blissex | Jun 3 2023 17:58 utc | [email protected]
the parallel is more with vietnam including the cold war theme and the corruption of the us puppet regime.
us advisor from the start us disinformation and blowing sunshine throughout the 20 odd year debacle over indochine.....
and the us is again talking about a permanent bulwark of empire next to the enemy.
with the sec state more rabid militarism than the pentagon, but more money for the militaary industry complex.
to the last ukraine
Posted by: paddy | Jun 3 2023 19:53 utc | 43
West of England Andy @ 35
Thanks for your comment, you are correct about the implied assumption in my question. That assumption is based on the initial attempt by Russia, to get it over quickly, by moving against Kiev (at least that is what I have understood from sources analyzing the initial conduct of SMO). It seems to me that Russia's long term objectives would be to make this war short. One can also speculate that long term objective has changed now and it is to get the NATO alliance economically and militarily weakened to the point of disintegration.
Posted by: fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:56 utc | 44
Blinken in Finland:
President Biden told President Putin that we were prepared to discuss our mutual security concerns – a message that I reaffirmed repeatedly – including in person, with Foreign Minister Lavrov. We offered written proposals to reduce tensions. Together with our allies and partners, we used every forum to try to prevent war, from the NATO-Russia Council to the OSCE, from the UN to our direct channels…Over those fateful weeks in January and February of 2022, it became clear that no amount of diplomatic effort was going to change President Putin’s mind. He would choose war…
The United States – together with our allies and partners – is firmly committed to supporting Ukraine’s defense today, tomorrow, for as long as it takes…we believe the prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine, capable of deterring and defending against any future aggression…
Today, America and our allies and partners are helping meet Ukraine’s needs on the current battlefield while developing a force that can deter and defend against aggression for years to come. That means helping build a Ukrainian military of the future, with long-term funding, a strong air force centered on modern combat aircraft, an integrated air and missile defense network, advanced tanks and armored vehicles, national capacity to produce ammunition, and the training and support to keep forces and equipment combat-ready…
Investing in Ukraine’s strength is not at the expense of diplomacy. It paves the way for diplomacy. President Zelenskyy has said repeatedly that diplomacy is the only way to end this war, and we agree. In December, he put forward a vision for a just and lasting peace. Instead of engaging on that proposal or even offering one of his own, President Putin has said there is nothing to talk about…
https://www.state.gov/russias-strategic-failure-and-ukraines-secure-future/
Much in this speech has a factual deficit, but the takeaway is that the United States (Biden admin) wants the war to continue indefinitely until realizing a “just and lasting peace” - which, as described, correlates exactly to Ukraine’s “vision” expressed in December i.e. full Russian capitulation. This rhetoric will eventually prove to be a trap for EU officials when the next step on the escalation ladder requires direct military involvement.
Posted by: jayc | Jun 3 2023 19:57 utc | 45
the fiction of 'maneuver war' is strong among the nazis, and their financiers......
'counter offensive' indeed, as sensible as field marshal elenski demanding ever more weapons that do not fit in any scheme of war......
good money pillaged from eu and usa taxpayers at good profit.
and blinken lead schill for the pentagon profit machine
Posted by: paddy | Jun 3 2023 19:57 utc | 46
Zelenski, like the kings of old will don armour and a sword to lead his people to glorious victory .
not
Posted by: timothy murray | Jun 3 2023 19:58 utc | 47
Few excerpts from BMA/Aleks's analysis.
"Why am I not sure that Ukraine is already in the lowest combat effectiveness level? It has something to do with the alleged 70,000 western trained troops who are prepared for the Ukrainian offensive. I believe that Ukraine now has some 200,000 combat ready troops left, of which 70,000 are western-trained. The rest are mobilized, untrained or poorly trained troops, directly caught on the street and briefly prepared and sent to the front to hold the line....
What I certainly can say is that Russia is actively trying to do everything in its might to destroy the accumulation of Ukrainian offensive potential while it is still in the rear. No offensive is better than even a weak offensive. As I described earlier, every force-on-force combat brings unfortunately also Russian losses, which should be avoided as much as possible in a SMO.
Hence, there is a real possibility that we will see no further big offensive moves by the Ukrainians at all, since the Russians are actively bombing Ukraine’s rear and staging areas.
And if we see an offensive, it is highly likely that it will be so weak that it is more a mass suicide due to lack of weapons, ammunition, equipment, people, etc. than a real offensive. This is the reason why the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK is whining on TV that we should expect nothing big from the offensive and that they are being forced/pressured into mass suicide.
...
As long as the western-trained guys are around we can’t talk about a collapse in full swing. We will come to this point in a few weeks/months.
An estimated 70,000 NATO-trained Ukrainian troops. They are highly motivated and ideologically confused. We remember the stated political goals of the SMO.
Denazification.
Demilitarization.
Other goals that are not important for this section.
These people are well trained and highly motivated fighters for the Ukrainian side. Denazification and demilitarization both apply to them. What now follows does not represent my opinion, my wishes, or hopes. It is a dry analysis of the facts on the ground.
There is no way on earth that anything resembling the end of the SMO or similar could happen before these guys are all dead or have fled abroad. None whatsoever. Russia can’t let them back into the (then Russian) Ukrainian society since they are highly toxic and a multiplier of the nationalistic ideology. As long as they are part of the population of the future territory of Ukraine, there can be no real peace and reconciliation.
Everyone knows that. The Russians, the Ukrainians, the West. Before anything significant can happen, these guys need to die. And they will die soon. In fact, they are dead men walking, doing now some last activities of their lives. This is one part (of many parts) of the denazification and demilitarization effort."
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/war-analysis-1f3
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 19:59 utc | 48
Posted by: West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 19:39 utc | 35 “The flip side of that coin is: Russia is not in any particular hurry to wrap things up”
It seems risky to let a war drag on if you can end it. Unexpected things can happen. The West has continued to pump weapons into Ukraine and Russians are being killed. While I don’t know what the ratio of Ukraine to Russian dead and injured is, Russians are being killed.
What happens if the first step of the ’great’ Ukrainian offensive is to take Transnistria? Strip it for weapons and hand it over to Moldova.
Posted by: Tim2 | Jun 3 2023 20:00 utc | 49
fanto @ 34
Question: why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized? I think it is a legitime query.
Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. Yes, just more stuff on social media but sounds correct enough and I'm buying it:
280 new units have been formed from the 300,000 mobilized last Autumn.
It is described as the largest such callup in Russia’s history since WW2.
Some thoughts on this, as an often asked question in chat has been, “where are the mobilized men?”
At this point I think the answer is clear: they have been training and working behind the line of contact.
That is, Russia did not simply scoop up 300,000 men and throw them to the front as Ukraine has been doing some 7+ times now, but actually formed an entirely new, professional Army with them
It’s worth noting that the size of the entire U.S. Marine Corps is around 180,000 in total (including admin, clerical, maintenance, etc).
This is yet another sign that Russia is in no hurry and is quite comfortable taking the time to properly re-train and equip these men and form new units proper.
It should also be noted that this new army is cohesive. Same uniform, same training, same language, same communication, same doctrine - and a training regimen born from experience in the SVO.
Meanwhile Ukrainian units are being trained in multiple countries by different instructors with multiple incongruent programs, doctrines, and kit.
Ukraine itself is aware of this problem, which is why they have allocated Leopard tanks to one unit and Bradley IFVs to another and so forth, instead of mixing them up across the board.
The problem for Ukraine nonetheless remains: a lack of consistency in doctrine and kit across units. There is no “universality” in such, and as such, Schroedinger’s Offensive remains in the box because these units cannot effectively coordinate together.
Meanwhile, Russia now has a second modernized and cohesive Army formed in addition to the small portion of it’s existing Army already dedicated to the SVO.
Where and how this new Army will be employed (defense in depth, counter offensive operations??) I can not say.
But that MOD now makes this statement inclines me to believe the mobilized Army is increasingly ready for work. Source: RT News/MOD
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/48944
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jun 3 2023 20:00 utc | 50
b, are the Russian armed forces any more able to use Auftragstaktik? My impression is, as your authors say, that the Soviet army was not and the Ukrainian army inherited it from them. So did the Russians.
Posted by: Susan Welsh | Jun 3 2023 20:01 utc | 51
Blissex@10
The USA did not invade Italy in 1943, although many of its troops were involved in the Allied landings. Ask Roger Waters.
Posted by: bevin | Jun 3 2023 20:04 utc | 52
Fresh U troops have been trained. A start. But not the be-all and the end-all. They also need experience. This must be why portions of these new units were put in Bakhmut and elsewhere. And how can they use mission command to undertake manoeuvre warfare without actual real-life practice is a mystery. Which brings us back to the political decison-makers.
Posted by: DilNir | Jun 3 2023 20:04 utc | 53
re: Erik Kramer and Paul Schneider are two former U.S. special operations soldiers who have been in Ukraine since 2022 to train Ukrainian troops.
What do military assassins know about combined arms training? . . .Nada.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 3 2023 20:12 utc | 54
in my mind the elephant in the room, that is not being discussed.
The wounded? if as suggested 200.000 to 300.000 have been killed then using a low ball ratio of 3 to 1. then over half a million have had to use medical centres. pre war the entire country had about 200.000 thousand beds available, cottage hospitals being shut down. Main hospital's being used for general purposes. As was shown during covid the systems across the western world could not cope with just a few extra thousand, so how is Ukraine coping ? The wounded going back from the front line are not suffering from minor injury's. Do they even get to the field hospitals ? it used to be said that for every 1 injured it needed 7 to support. As said before LOGISTICS.
Posted by: duggie | Jun 3 2023 20:14 utc | 55
Western trained mean badly trained. When was the last time any "western" army won a ground battle in Europe? When was the last time the US Army won a ground battle anywhere in the world? Western trained mean badly trained. And, the Russians know that!
Posted by: ostro | Jun 3 2023 20:19 utc | 56
That assumption is based on the initial attempt by Russia, to get it over quickly, by moving against Kiev (at least that is what I have understood from sources analyzing the initial conduct of SMO)
Posted by: fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:56 utc | 44
A fair enough reply. I’ve picked out the above partial quote, simply because it reads as containing another assumption about Russian forces pace and locations of approaches during the early stages of the SMO.
Barflies far longer-established than myself did some sterling work researching the correlation between Russia’s initial moves and the known locations of biological and nuclear research establishments in eastern Ukraine. So, the view remains valid that the early days of the campaign were not about occupying Kiev, or overthrowing the regime. The moves were about securing/neutralising these establishments as a priority.
Posted by: West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 20:20 utc | 57
What needs to be understood...
The AFU suffered monstrous losses at Artyomovsk. The 72,000 Ukrainian (and not only) military personnel dead includes not only enlisted personnel, but all - tankers, artillerymen, reconnaissance personnel, signalers and all those who fought in this area and were liquidated. It is not yet clear how many of them are mercenaries, even approximately.
For the 72 thousand killed there are about 200 thousand wounded of varying degrees (with a ratio of one to three). Most of the wounded will never return to action, and therefore will not be able to increase the combat effectiveness of the AFU.
Ukraine's entire pre war army numbered about 230,000 men, and Artyomovsk destroyed its asset, its best personnel, which cannot be replenished in the foreseeable future.
Together with these cadres, the reserves that the AFU was preparing for an attack in the Donetsk direction were burned. Without a grouping of 200,000 men, no large scale offensive is possible.
Now another problem has arisen: a shortage of junior and mid level commanders, without whom combat management, even under current conditions, will be seriously hampered.
This does not include losses incurred during the battles of Mariupol, Luhansk, and elsewhere...
Posted by: bakhmut copy pasta | Jun 3 2023 20:20 utc | 58
Too bad ChatGPT was only programmed with history up to 2021 or it would be fun to make it spit out up-to-date descriptions of Ukraine's armed forces.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2023 20:20 utc | 59
It is „Führen mit Auftrag“.
Not in a single regulation it is called „Auftragstaktik“.
It is a famous term, a germanism, but it is not a tactics, but a way to lead.
Posted by: Schmidt | Jun 3 2023 20:23 utc | 60
Posted by: duggie | Jun 3 2023 20:14 utc | 55 "then over half a million have had to use medical centres"
It is thinking like that makes the claims of 200,000 to 300,000 KIA suspect. When thinking that, I also know that some Ukrainian wounded have been treated in the West. Some have even been flown to the US. The claim of 200k dead Ukrainians with 600k wounded seems pretty thin when you trying to back into it by measures like that.
The Military Balance lists the size of the Ukrainian Army at 145,000 in 2021. Throw in the National Guard and Border Police and it totals 250,000.
Posted by: Tim2 | Jun 3 2023 20:27 utc | 61
Thanks, Exile@18, I think the report from Ukraine makes a very important point.
The incredible truth is that we are seeing the ending of a ridiculous war, conceived and financed by the idiots who run both the US Empire and its various satrapies, scripted by children dizzied by the sudden onset of puberty which only ever had two possible endings (the other being a nuclear war in central europe).
Like the Second World War the enormous cost of lives and wasted resources is only exceeded by the extravagance of the drug fueled dreaming from which the silly strategy, bound to fail, emanated.
If Zelensky has indeed come to understand that the end is imminent and that the time has come to throw up his hand he can hardly be blamed. The real blame belongs to the Trudeaus, Scholtzes, Macrons and Johnsons of this world.
They all knew that the neo-cons in Washington were light minded sociopaths, for whom a broken nation and a million dead here or there is of less importance than a municipal election. And they went along for the ride because they didn't object to their own countrymen being added to the bloodbath either.
Posterity will note Russia's scrupulous restraint and refusal to be provoked into barbarism, as an explanation of why Europe so suddenly disappeared from prominence in the world's view in 2023.
As to north America- a terrible fate awaits it. God is not mocked.
Posted by: bevin | Jun 3 2023 20:28 utc | 62
William Gruff | Jun 3 2023 19:47 utc | 40--
Thanks for providing the absolute correct answer. There was once a laxative brand called Correctol that many need to use--for their brains.
Once again. Russia experienced three huge apocalypses that decimated its people during the course of the 20th Century--once at the beginning with WW1 and Russian Civil War; again in the middle with WW2; and again at the end during the Neoliberal Rape of Russia from 1990-2000. Without those three calamities, Russia would have a population similar to that of the Outlaw US Empire--330 Million--but it has perhaps 150 Million today. Since he became Russian President, Putin has done all he and the government can to deal with the demographic crisis by providing ever increasing levels of monetary, community and infrastructure support to promote an environment conducive for planning and having families bigger than 2 children. Essentially, Russia offers a bounty to those who have more than two children, while every death of a Russian child is decried.
In my above critique, I note NATO targets civilians deliberately to force political surrender of those it targets, and the same policy is applied in Ukieland--the Ukie attacks on Russian civilians have zero military value, meaning they're done for 100% political purposes and are thus War Crimes--the Genocidal conditions that prompted the SMO to begin with.
Unfortunately, the go-slow to conserve Russian troops creates the ability for Ukie attacks on civilians, which as I pointed out was discussed months ago. Some improvement has been made; but as predicted with the escalation in drone use and their increase in range, the need to push back the FEBA escalates, and you can be sure that's discussed at every Security Council meeting. In several speeches Putin gave last year, he anticipated such tactics by reminding Russians that NATO had already used its Terrorist Foreign Legion against Russia during the Chechen Wars, that Russian security forces would do their best to prevent such tragedies but to anticipate their happening and to thus remain vigilant.
IMO, the pertinent question is: At what point does Russia change its strategy--where's the tipping-point? Many of us can guess what that might be, but none of us knows. Meanwhile, the slow push Westward along the FEBA continues. The effort to eliminate the remnants of Ukie AD I see as preparation for the next move that would involve more CAS beyond a more fluidly moving FEBA, while also shaping the ground for air-to-air combat when F-16s arrive.
West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 20:20 utc | 57
Two ways of looking at the Russian move on Kiev. They thought Kiev residents would be pleased to see them and didn't expect much resistance. Or....it was intended to draw UAF away from Donbass. It didn't work out too well so they withdrew.
Russian strategy has evolved to what it is now....weakening the UAF (and NATO) without incurring too many casualties. Could be a slow process.
Posted by: dh | Jun 3 2023 20:31 utc | 64
"What ongoing offensive?"
The Ukraine counter offensive has been going since they splashed fecklessly against the flanks of Bakhmut. It's just hard to notice.
Posted by: Figleaf23 | Jun 3 2023 20:34 utc | 65
Posted by: Tim2 | Jun 3 2023 20:27 utc | 61
I have seen a video filmed inside one of the ambulance flights to either Germany or Poland, full of either AFU soldiers or mercenaries (guessing latter). Mercs always receive priority for treatment. The passenger aircraft was stacked full of sick beds in 2 layers.
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 20:34 utc | 66
jayc | Jun 3 2023 19:57 utc | 45--
That's 100% pure unadulterated BullShit by Blinken as I just finished reviewing all the docs during the Nov 2021-March 2022 period. No answer was ever given to Russia's specific security proposals which prompted Lavrov to send an additional letter to all OSCE NATO members on 1 Feb, which again were unanswered.
Erik Kramer and Paul Schneider are two former U.S. special operations soldiers who have been in Ukraine since 2022 to train Ukrainian troops.
Those two 'soldiers' had never fought a ground war in Europe, so they simply cannot 'train' the Ukrainians. They think in/with the US terms, so you can see the results. None of the US/NATO armies had fought a ground war in Europe (since WW2). This is the first one, and they are losing.
By the way, since Putin is in power he and RF never lost a war. Even, when Medvedev was in power, he too never lost a war.
Posted by: ostro | Jun 3 2023 20:38 utc | 68
As was shown during covid the systems across the western world could not cope with just a few extra thousand, so how is Ukraine coping ? The wounded going back from the front line are not suffering from minor injury's. Do they even get to the field hospitals ? it used to be said that for every 1 injured it needed 7 to support. As said before LOGISTICS.
Posted by: duggie | Jun 3 2023 20:14 utc | 55
Some months ago there were indeed news that the rules in Ukraine for wounded personnel were amended. "Lightly wounded" may be sent to the front. Later on it extended to wounded of a slightly more severe degree. Murder basically.
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 20:41 utc | 69
Also, Russia knew that US/NATO would step in, once the SMO is started. It was expected...so, the damage to to US/NATO forces and weapons. The Ukraine is just a cat's paw.
Posted by: ostro | Jun 3 2023 20:42 utc | 70
«Putin has done all he and the government can to deal with the demographic crisis by providing ever increasing levels of monetary, community and infrastructure support to promote an environment conducive for planning and having families bigger than 2 children. Essentially, Russia offers a bounty to those who have more than two children, while every death of a Russian child is decried.»
That's the classic neoliberal thinking which is stupid: most women have children either as pension assets, and then they invest heavily in them ("tiger moms"), or as hobbies, and often they are not willing to invest much in them (so lots of childless/one child women) given alternatives like nicer holidays, a better car, a bigger house.
The only countries that have pensions for women yet have relatively high natality rates are those that make the hobby of having children very cheap and easy, by providing free and time saving services (at the very least nurseries) to mothers.
That may yet happen in the Russian Federation, but it is out of question in Ukraine, and most young ukrainian women with some sense have anyhow emigrated, and will get married an stay abroad.
Posted by: Blissex | Jun 3 2023 20:43 utc | 71
As I posted a week or so ago, Russia cannot use more than 20% at most of its forces in central Ukraine. There is that Finnish border not to mention the far East to protect.
Russia has always conducted this war with the fear/expectation that it would morph into a full on war with nato. This is what was intended by nato. A foolish Russia would deploy all its forces and spend all its money and when weak or in turmoil attacks would start all along the borders. Colour revolutions in Belarus and Kazakhstan would expose the nation.
Russia has not yet fallen into the trap but it is being dragged in reluctantly.
Posted by: watcher | Jun 3 2023 20:44 utc | 72
Posted by: dh | Jun 3 2023 20:31 utc | 64
Hmm.. I still remain to be convinced that Russia intended to take Kiev in the early days of the SMO. Sure, if the opportunity presented itself then carry on , but the priority was to deal with the clandestine laboratories, some of which happened to be in the Kiev region.
Posted by: West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 20:45 utc | 73
karlof1@27, it's been my belief that russia nurtured empire's delusions, whilst she masterfully scrambled (without drawing attention to herself) to perfect her weapons & financial defences. russia in the early 2000s was not ready, by 2014 she was still vulnerable but if confrontation was unavoidable she would've been able to protect herself but it would've been bloody. russia practised patience & worked full on for two decades to repair, recover & prepare. with all fronts behind the scenes on fire, it was the job of the foreign ministry & diplomats to encourage empire to hold fast its delusions, never to doubt their convictions. china practised much the same policy.
Posted by: emersonreturn | Jun 3 2023 20:52 utc | 74
The situation is no better for the Russians, initiative and ingenuity are punishable there, a terrible bureaucracy with constant paper reports and other unnecessary garbage. Any sortie of a drone allegedly needs to be reported, Russian artillery could work more successfully and quickly if decisions were made on the spot and not through the General Staff and old farts. In the Russian army, the bureaucracy even interferes with the analysis of Western-made captured weapons, if it were not for the volunteers, the situation would be much worse.
Posted by: Crazy chump | Jun 3 2023 19:15 utc | 32
According to your CIA/NSA/MI6 Source????
BULLSHIT ! !
B U L L S H I T T ! ! !
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 3 2023 20:52 utc | 75
What needs to be understood...
The AFU suffered monstrous losses at Artyomovsk. The 72,000 Ukrainian (and not only) military personnel dead includes not only enlisted personnel, but all - tankers, artillerymen, reconnaissance personnel, signalers and all those who fought in this area and were liquidated. It is not yet clear how many of them are mercenaries, even approximately.
For the 72 thousand killed there are about 200 thousand wounded of varying degrees (with a ratio of one to three). Most of the wounded will never return to action, and therefore will not be able to increase the combat effectiveness of the AFU.
Ukraine's entire pre war army numbered about 230,000 men, and Artyomovsk destroyed its asset, its best personnel, which cannot be replenished in the foreseeable future.
Together with these cadres, the reserves that the AFU was preparing for an attack in the Donetsk direction were burned. Without a grouping of 200,000 men, no large scale offensive is possible.
Now another problem has arisen: a shortage of junior and mid level commanders, without whom combat management, even under current conditions, will be seriously hampered.
This does not include losses incurred during the battles of Mariupol, Luhansk, and elsewhere...
Posted by: bakhmut copy pasta | Jun 3 2023 20:20 utc | 58
They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery.... Plagiarism is nearly as good!
Thanks for reminding everyone!!
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 3 2023 20:56 utc | 76
As to USA training in Ukraine some quotes which I think are pretty clear:
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-saker-interviews-dmitry-orlov/
«After some amount of effort by NATO instructors to train the Ukrainians, the instructors gave up. The Ukrainians simply laughed in their faces because it was clear to them that the instructors did not know how to fight at all. It was then decided that the “road map” for Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO should be set aside because the Ukrainians are just too crazy for sedate and sedentary NATO.
The trainers were then replaced with CIA types who simply collected intelligence on how to fight a high-intensity ground war without air support — something that no NATO force would ever consider doing. Under such conditions NATO forces would automatically retreat or, failing that, surrender.»
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/?s=09>
«In 2014, when I was at NATO, I was responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we were trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels, to see if Moscow was involved. The information we received then came almost entirely from Polish intelligence services and did not “fit” with the information coming from the OSCE — despite rather crude allegations, there were no deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia. The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Agreements. [...] The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state.
[...] The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help make its armed forces more “attractive.” Having already worked on similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was asked by NATO to participate in a program to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But this is a long-term process and the Ukrainians wanted to move quickly.
So, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially composed of foreign mercenaries, often extreme right-wing militants. In 2020, they constituted about 40 percent of the Ukrainian forces and numbered about 102,000 men, according to Reuters. They were armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There were more than 19 nationalities — including Swiss.
Western countries have thus clearly created and supported Ukrainian far-right militias. In October 2021, the Jerusalem Post sounded the alarm by denouncing the Centuria project. These militias had been operating in the Donbass since 2014, with Western support.»
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html
«The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials [...] “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.” [...] the CIA and other U.S. agencies could support a Ukrainian insurgency, should Russia launch a large-scale incursion. [...] “We’ve been training these guys now for eight years [...]”. [...] If the Russians launch a new invasion, “there’s going to be people who make their life miserable,” said the former senior intelligence official [...] “All that stuff that happened to us in Afghanistan,” said the former senior intelligence official, “they can expect to see that in spades with these guys.”»
Posted by: Blissex | Jun 3 2023 20:57 utc | 77
West of England Andy | Jun 3 2023 20:45 utc | 7 "I still remain to be convinced that Russia intended to take Kiev in the early days of the SMO."
Me too. The Russians had multiple objectives I think. Anyway sending all that stuff to Kiev didn't work out. It certainly went badly for anybody who welcomed then. Crossing the river at Kherson was a step too far as well. Basically I think they underestimated UAF resistance and Western support. Live and learn.
Posted by: dh | Jun 3 2023 20:59 utc | 78
If these two were really smart they leave ukraine before they die.
Posted by: jo6pac | Jun 3 2023 17:23 utc | 1
############
I presume they are making too much money to pull up stakes and retreat. Kudos to them for taking risks. They may find those decisions to be fatal in the end. Dead men can't enjoy their wealth.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jun 3 2023 21:00 utc | 79
reply to 12
The Hill publishes absolute certainty of Russia's coming defeat. That it is simply a question "of when". I have never seen such delusion in my life, not even with regard to the war in Vietnam.
As for Zelensky, he can just become the West's version of Lukashenka. Cancel upcoming elections and ban opposition. Even with a broken, freezing, starving Ukraine, he can hang on while the US/EU promises overcoming Russia. I mean, once "rational" people embrace delusions and fantasies, why does that have to end?
Posted by: Eighthman | Jun 3 2023 21:05 utc | 80
Indonesia goes Korean Armistice:
. . .from KyivPost:
Indonesia Proposes Russia-Ukraine Peace Plan, Draws Immediate Criticism
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the plan as “a peace of surrender”, adding it had to be achieved on “just” terms.
Indonesia’s defence minister proposed a plan Saturday to end the war between Russia and Ukraine at a defence summit in Singapore, an initiative that drew quick criticism from attendees.
“I call on Russia and Ukraine to embark on an immediate cessation of hostilities,” Prabowo Subianto said, noting that the more than 15-month conflict had a severe impact on Asian nations’ economies and food supplies.
In a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue defence summit, Subianto proposed a ceasefire “at present positions”, and demilitarised zones that would be guaranteed by observers and United Nations peacekeeping forces.
He also suggested an eventual “referendum in the disputed areas” organised by the UN.
“Indonesia is prepared to contribute units to a potential UN peacekeeping operation,” he added.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who was attending the two-day summit, flatly rejected the proposal.. . . .here
The Kremlin has said that a cessation of hostilities is only possible if SMO goals are achieved another way.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 3 2023 21:05 utc | 81
The situation is no better for the Russians, initiative and ingenuity are punishable there, a terrible bureaucracy with constant paper reports and other unnecessary garbage. Any sortie of a drone allegedly needs to be reported, Russian artillery could work more successfully and quickly if decisions were made on the spot and not through the General Staff and old farts. In the Russian army, the bureaucracy even interferes with the analysis of Western-made captured weapons, if it were not for the volunteers, the situation would be much worse.
According to your CIA/NSA/MI6 source????
BULLSHIT!!!!
B U L L S H I TT
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Jun 3 2023 21:09 utc | 82
Blissex | Jun 3 2023 20:43 utc | 71
"most women have children either as pension assets, and then they invest heavily in them ("tiger moms"), or as hobbies, and often they are not willing to invest much in them (so lots of childless/one child women) given alternatives like nicer holidays, a better car, a bigger house."
That sounds pretty neoliberal too, children as instruments - rather than passing on the baton of life as it was passed to you by your parents, another link in the chain. Or was that your point?
We have a well above replacement family because we liked children and we'd done enough partying. My wife stayed off work til the ypungest was at secondary school. We were lucky that we could afford that, although in say 1960 pretty much EVERY working family could afford that. Another way in which living standards have declined for working people.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Jun 3 2023 21:11 utc | 83
Russia knows who is its arch enemy, that is the US, and that the US is using NATO defeat Russia. Only, the US had never fought a ground war in Europe (since WW2). This SMO is also to defeat NATO, which I suppose finally the politicos in the NATO understood. So, they ar enow trying hard to bring about demilitarised zone in the Ukraine...but, it will not happen. The SMO will go on until the capitulation of the Ukraine...and the NATO.
Posted by: ostro | Jun 3 2023 21:14 utc | 84
Eighthman | Jun 3 2023 21:05 utc | 80
"The Hill publishes absolute certainty of Russia's coming defeat. That it is simply a question "of when"."
Exactly the same in the UK, the level of ignorance in Ye Olde General Public is unbelievable, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the Guardian:
or the Daily Mail
They all
a) believe Ukraine are winning
b) seem completely unaware of the wider global BRICS+ vs NATO/Japan context, de-dollarisation, Belt and Road, and all that – in other words the strategic issues of The Grand Chessboard”. Quite a few Guardian commenters are relying on Xi to “bring Putin to his senses”, little knowing that this is existential for China, too.
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Jun 3 2023 21:16 utc | 85
The situation is no better for the Russians, initiative and ingenuity are punishable there, a terrible bureaucracy with constant paper reports and other unnecessary garbage. Any sortie of a drone allegedly needs to be reported, Russian artillery could work more successfully and quickly if decisions were made on the spot and not through the General Staff and old farts. In the Russian army, the bureaucracy even interferes with the analysis of Western-made captured weapons, if it were not for the volunteers, the situation would be much worse.
Posted by: Crazy chump | Jun 3 2023 19:15 utc | 32
#################
I think there is an acknowledgement of this in Russia, as seen by the liberal use of PMCs, which have a lot more autonomy than regular forces, more room for creative solutions. I believe the Chechens also have similar tactical independence.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jun 3 2023 21:17 utc | 86
thanks b...
your last statements are so true, they are worth repeating...
"An army must reflect the local society and culture. It can not be formed top down by outside forces.
Since 2015 the Ukrainian army has been build up and trained by U.S. and British forces. What the WotR authors describe is the result of that."
expect the narrative makers to continue the bullshit about russia starting this war in feb 2022... most ordinary people are not willing to go down the rabbit hole to see the truth of what has happened here... the msm is an accomplice in keeping them dumbed down... freedumb and dumbocracy ya know...
Posted by: james | Jun 3 2023 21:18 utc | 87
Question: why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized? I think it is a legitime query.
Posted by: fanto | Jun 3 2023 19:29 utc | 34
##############
Are they having a hard time? They need to allow the Ukrainians and the West to deliver the troops and equipment to the front line to be destroyed.
From a particular perspective, the SMO has been the largest disarmament operation since WW2, and by the time this is done, perhaps in all of history.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jun 3 2023 21:19 utc | 88
Meanwhile the ludicrous and pathetic Canadian Broadcastink Corporation tells its captives that Russia is "cornered" and "isolated".
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-cuba-ukraine-putin-missiles-1.6863359
Unreal. Literally.
Posted by: Figleaf23 | Jun 3 2023 21:23 utc | 89
@Eighthman | Jun 3 2023 21:05 utc | 80
re: The Hill publishes absolute certainty of Russia's coming defeat. That it is simply a question "of when". I have never seen such delusion in my life, not even with regard to the war in Vietnam.
Take a deep breath. This is from an opinion contributor, who has a right to harbor an opinion.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 3 2023 21:29 utc | 90
Posted by: ostro | Jun 3 2023 21:14 utc | 84
Britain manipulated the entire WW1 through massive media and political manipulation, they are doing same today.
Posted by: unimperator | Jun 3 2023 21:29 utc | 91
I see posts above that attempt to insinuate that there must be (have to be, probably are, just got to be, doncha know) similar problems with Russian forces, posts that maintain Chechens & Wagner folks are there precisely because of these (nebulous & never specified) problems in the RF ranks. I'm getting a little tired of seeing this high octane bullshit on the Internet and of seeing it explode in smelly flames every time Ukrainian forces are allowed to gain 2 kilometers of ground for any reason at all. The amount of sheer ignorance built into these kinds of posts makes me angry -- angry that I wasted the five or ten seconds necessary to read them. What they demonstrate, the ONLY thing they demonstrate, is that the authors are themselves still wasting considerable time reading propagandistic rags like the NYT, rubbish published by the ISW, fresh CIA info at WaPo, lunatic ravings at The Guardian, or other mendacious bunk spewed daily by Western "sources" and the dimwits who work for them.
Posted by: Jack Gordon | Jun 3 2023 21:36 utc | 92
34
- Question: why are Russians having such a hard time to roll over them - if the Ukrainians are so poorly organized? I think it is a legitime query.
Because they can. They are entranched, they are better in defensive, and they are not in a hurry. Every day they wait, ukraine loses a few hangars full of ammunitions, some infrastructure is destroyed, a plane is blown up, and infrastructure is destroyed... on the other hand, ukraine must attack and actually "win" at least a bit, or the west will stop sending money and weapons, so for ukraine it's either wait and lose, or attack and lose.
Posted by: Mikic | Jun 3 2023 21:38 utc | 93
Fanto @ 34:
I recall seeing an article that (I think) Andrei Martyanov may have reposted or at least linked to on his blog, which stated that in the early days of its SMO, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south of the latter country to confuse the Ukrainians and their NATO advisors and confound their plans and strategies.
Ukraine and NATO may have been counting on a swift and massive, brutal attack and conquest by Russia from the east (Donbass), after which Kiev would start a long-term guerrilla or insurgency war that could be portrayed in Western MSM outlets as a fight for freedom and independence. Being attacked from three sides by Russia threw Ukrainian / NATO plans into confusion. The Russians were then able to attack and seize or destroy as many of the 40+ military biolabs in Ukraine as they could: that attack was one of the aims of the SMO. Having achieved this aim, the Russians did not need to hang onto Kiev or other cities and withdrew to the areas where their forces were most needed. Thus the expectation of a swift blitzkrieg war of invasion overwhelming Ukraine, against which the Ukrainians would fight back with guerrilla tactics, was dashed.
The Russians know the terrain well in Ukraine, having fought there in World War II, and they have figured that the most effective war to be fought there is one of attrition in which the enemy is encouraged to throw forces, equipment and ammunition into one giant sucking hole while the Russians themselves do no more than play whack-a-mole with the enemy. Of course, British fighting strategies unchanged since the Allied disaster at Gallipoli in 1915 help give the Russians additional advantages of time and in conserving their own troops and equipment.
It is likely also that the goals of Russia's SMO have changed over time but the Russians are not likely to advertise these changes, any more than they are likely to blare out new moves or counter-moves the way the Ukrainians do.
Posted by: Refinnejenna | Jun 3 2023 21:39 utc | 94
But…..but…….Blinken said the Russian military isn’t the second best military in the world, it’s the second best military in Ukraine!
Posted by: John G | Jun 3 2023 22:03 utc | 95
Re: This recurring notion that Russia is "having a hard time."
Firstly, it usually gets stated in as a generic of a manner as possible. Like why haven't they "won" yet? - Well, they certainly haven't "lost" any meaningful territory have they?
Wasn't it "supposed to be a 3-day war"? - No. But it *could* have been a 1.5-month war if the Ukrainians weren't immediately brought into line by the US and a visit by Bojo to prevent any negotiations in March/April of 2022. That said, the Russians - whether through naivete or being disorganized temporarily at the beginning of the SMO - probably weren't prepared for the depth and breadth of NATO interference on behalf of Ukraine. That mindset was quickly rectified and one of the main goals became to attrite Urkaine of its military and to destroy as much NATO supplied weaponry as possible, while also learning as much as possible about NATO systems, tactics and capabilities. By definition this kind of war isn't quick.
But to the whole thing in general: THIS IS WAR. Wars do not follow a Hollywood-esque script and no American alive today has witnessed the US military or any NATO military taking on a peer level opponent. In fact, Ukraine's army was the largest in Europe at the time the SMO commenced and it has been ground down to a shell of its former self. Russia's has increased in size along with their ability to manufacture modern weapons while NATO stocks have been eaten through causing shortages for the actual NATO countries' militaries. And in many cases without the manufacturing capability to ramp up production any time soon. Whoops.
To a one, every American I talk to about this war seems to have fallen hook line and sinker for the official Washington narrative. There is an almost childlike grasping for easy to digest, simple explanations and a constantly moving set of goal posts for what is considered a loss for Russia. In every case, Russia is an imperialist aggressor led by a madman bent on world domination and therefore deserving of every possible curse. Russia is strong but weak. Rich but poor. Winning but losing. On schedule, way behind schedule. Brutally and unilaterally attacking and destroying Ukrainian capabilities but also comically inept and teetering on the verge of total defeat. IOW, everything you are allowed to read or think in the US about Russia is utter bullshit ala "flooding the zone" with mutually conflicting garbage-and-noise messaging designed to make frank, analytical conversation about this war and its' various meanings utterly impossible. Like the invasion of Iraq in the early part of this century, you're best off communicating in guttural memes because that's how most Americans think about it, whether they understand this (i.e., NAFO trolls/concern trolls) or not (your typical NYT or WaPo reader).
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2023 22:07 utc | 96
«In every case, Russia is an imperialist aggressor led by a madman bent on world domination and therefore deserving of every possible curse. Russia is strong but weak. Rich but poor. Winning but losing. On schedule, way behind schedule. Brutally and unilaterally attacking and destroying Ukrainian capabilities but also comically inept and teetering on the verge of total defeat.»
It is a standard operating procedure, described at least since 2001 (or since the roman concept of "justum bellum" arguably):
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/1/12/683319/-
«In 2001 (before 9/11), Belgian historian Anne Morelli published a book analyzing the basic principles of war propaganda. Unfortunately and as far as I can tell, it was never translated to English (only in German). She credits the work of Lord Ponsonby, an amazing and unfortunately somewhat forgotten character. He stood, largely alone, in the Commons opposing WWI before it started, predicting not just the massacre it was going to be, but more interestingly for our purpose, how it was going to be sold to the masses. Morelli enumerates it as the following principles:
1. We don't want war, we are only defending ourselves
2. The other guy is the sole responsible for this war
3. Our adversary's leader is evil and looks evil
4. We are defending a noble purpose, not special interests
5. The enemy is purposefully causing atrocities; we only commit mistakes
6. The enemy is using unlawful weapons
7. We have very little losses, the enemy is losing big
8. Intellectuals and artists support our cause
9. Our cause is sacred
10. Those who doubt our propaganda are traitors»
Posted by: Blissex | Jun 3 2023 22:14 utc | 97
Posted by: John G | Jun 3 2023 22:03 utc | 96
TEHNAFOBROS say that Russia's military is the 2nd best military in RUSSIA!
https://walterhimself2.substack.com/p/thursday-may-25
sICk BURn!!!
Like I said in my previous comment, As Russia continues to advance and destroy the Ukrainian military, the level of discourse regarding this war here in "the west" has quickly sunk into nothing more than idiotic meme-ing and a proud denial of reality. It's happening according to a linear relationship. The worse things go for Ukraine/NATO, the stupider and more incoherent the "conversation" gets. I'm reminded of the movie "Idiocracy."
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 3 2023 22:14 utc | 98
jared @ 8
Slavyangrad has a post suggesting that possibly Budanov was killed.
One wonders who gets the bank accounts he left behind
Posted by: circumspect | Jun 3 2023 22:16 utc | 99
As I posted a week or so ago, Russia cannot use more than 20% at most of its forces in central Ukraine. There is that Finnish border not to mention the far East to protect.
Posted by: watcher | Jun 3 2023 20:44 utc | 72
Correct, if you rule out using nuclear weapons as a way to defend your territory.
Posted by: Passerby | Jun 3 2023 22:18 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
If these two were really smart they leave ukraine before they die.
Posted by: jo6pac | Jun 3 2023 17:23 utc | 1