We will see, the AFU might be falling back faster than the RF forces had planned which would modify MoD plans.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 13 2024 14:11 utc | 289
If the Kharkov thing is a simple reaction to Belgorod strikes or a trick to attract Ukr troops from other areas, it does not matter for us, RF will retreat from there relatively quickly if that was the only reason. Which, as you can imagine, will be presented by nato as a Ukr victory and will be used as a nice reason to milk EU for more weapons, money, force them to send back all Ukr men in EU and eventually send their own soldiers. So you’ll have to wait and see what happens, the only clear thing is that all Ukros will be sent to the front line sooner or later, from inside and outside Ukr. Today I read some in Switzerland plan to send 11k Ukros back to fight ( http://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/die-ukraine-will-ihre-maenner-zurueck-ld.1829928 ) “We don’t want to accommodate de facto deserters”

Posted by: rk | May 13 2024 15:00 utc | 303

Currently, MoD reports about 1500 dead Ukr a day. Multiply by 365 and that eliminates over half a million Ukrainian combatants in a year. Still want to say “muh attrition” ? How about ‘muh extinction’?

Posted by: Eighthman | May 13 2024 15:26 utc | 305

Posted by: bored | May 13 2024 14:12 utc | 290
It’s not war/smo that doesn’t make sense, it’s the propaganda that, often, do not make sense.

Posted by: Mario | May 13 2024 15:37 utc | 307

History suggests how high a level of casualties are endurable by an army, and what conditions are necessary for a high level to be sustainable. Yadda yadda yadda, shared sacrifice should be there, with total support at home, and either victory being possible, or defeat existentially unacceptable.
Ukraine lacks the sacrifice being shared, support at home is just pretty good, and living under Russian governance is not seen by most as being hell on earth.
Using the American Civil War as a benchmark, the war in Ukraine is moving at double speed, and soldiers in the AFU have gone from mocking the competency of their foes, to grudging respect, to dreading the amount of sheer firepower they are able to bring to bear. Anger and contempt for the wealthy elites who are in charge, and those who got out of serving, is present. “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” is as true now as it was 160 years ago.
It’s 1864 in Ukraine, and the saving grace of foreign aid that was counted on isn’t actually present. The government is desperate, and pressuring its Generals to make ill conceived attacks, while the enemy has set upon a strategy of grinding down their opponent. Major towns and cities start getting taken or put under siege, with supply lines disrupted. And Ukraine has no General Lee.

Posted by: Babel-17 | May 13 2024 15:59 utc | 309

Plus a remake of Repo Man with V V Putin in the title role…
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 13 2024 14:43 utc | 299
404 as a radioactive chevy … that could work , also VVP already have Biopic : Брат. “Your brother has a great job in Petrogad !”

Posted by: Savonarole | May 13 2024 16:03 utc | 311

Putin was in charge of the Soviet archives of the 3rd Reich held in Berlin. His primary job was supervising access to the archives by historians. IE he was a librarian.
Posted by: badjoke | May 13
So the entire western establishment is having the stuffing beaten out of it by … a librarian?
Don’t know about you but to me this reflects well on librarians and really badly on the combined braintrust of the West …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 13 2024 16:27 utc | 313

June 1946:
Truman: “We landed on Omaha beach two years ago, and we’ve only moved a few miles inland?”
Eisenhower: “But just think of all the Germans we’ve killed. Muh …attrition!”

Posted by: Napoleon | May 13 2024 16:39 utc | 315

@Arch Bungle | May 13 2024 15:59 utc | 312
If you call me names: you will regret it.

Posted by: Nasir | May 13 2024 16:58 utc | 317

Posted by: Nasir | May 13 2024 16:41 utc | 318
Sorry to say but you watch way too much holliwood movies.
By the way, it was not the development of nuclear weapons that made the west win the WWII. German nazis where defeated before the nuclear weapons where developed, notably by the sacrifice of Russians that lost man in the range of the tens of millions, and the development itself required the ‘collaboration’ of nazis and fascist scientists. Bombing Japan with nuclear was unnecessary and it only served the purpose to let Soviet union know that Americans had the bomb.

Posted by: Mario | May 13 2024 17:14 utc | 319

“Arch Bungle | May 13 2024 17:10 utc | 320”
I thought so! Chicken 🐔

Posted by: Nasir | May 13 2024 17:41 utc | 321

“Posted by: Mario | May 13 2024 17:14 utc | 321”
You are not ready for prime time: I suggest working on learning spellings. It is English, and unlike Mexican, the spellings tend to be different.
These days it is easy: write it in Mexican and translate it into English.

Posted by: Nasir | May 13 2024 17:46 utc | 323

Don’t know about you but to me this reflects well on librarians and really badly on the combined braintrust of the West …
Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 13 2024 16:27 utc | 315
______
Or perhaps librarians are the real combined braintrust of the West!

Posted by: malenkov | May 13 2024 18:36 utc | 325

@ pessoa | May 13 2024 18:54 utc | 328
On the other hand, there’s Umberto Eco’s *The Name of the Rose*, in which the librarian is the bad guy…and messing with him resulted in the destruction of an entire monastery and a significant bit of Classical knowledge…

Posted by: malenkov | May 13 2024 18:58 utc | 327

by Tanger | May 12 2024 23:40 utc | 154
I will refrain in order to prevent converting this bar into Balkan pub.
Me too. I know what I am talking about and I am not interested in any discussion about it.
Easy.
Nice day indeed.

Posted by: whirlX | May 13 2024 19:10 utc | 329

I wonder if this appointment of an economics boffin to SECDEF is in line or counter to Dugin’s call for militarization a couple of months ago. (https://www.arktosjournal.com/p/total-militarisation)
Am under no illusion that Dugin is ‘Putin’s Brain’ but he is a leading Russian thinker so his musings provide a window into possible future developments. In any case, he strongly recommended that Russia now morph into a war economy and war society in order to bring everything together. (Fascism with Russian characteristics?) So will this appointment further or hinder that recommendation?
On the one hand, if the overall economy is harmonized to support a military hyper-power fielding millions, one might argue in the affirmative. On the other hand, maybe his job is to mitigate economic damage from the SMO, ideally ensuring they become an economic net plus.
It also might be a straightforward acknowledgment that war is mainly waged on economic, not kinetic, fronts. So the next phase may involve outflanking the West’s ability to interfere in both Russia and all BRICS+ nations’ internal affairs via the current international financial system. In such a war, a traditional military general may not be all that effective.
And for those interested, here is his latest piece from yesterday:
https://www.arktosjournal.com/p/enlightening-society-with-russian

Enlightening Society with Russian History
by Alexander Dugin
Alexander Dugin discusses the necessity of revising humanitarian education in Russia to highlight Russian civilisation’s importance, safeguard it from Western biases, and proposes legal measures against disrespect towards Russian identity.
You are probably aware that a very serious process of revising the core content of humanitarian knowledge has begun in Russia. This is a comprehensive initiative, as in the second year of the Special Military Operation, experts from the Ministry of Education and several other serious structures discovered that our education in the humanities is filled with Western-centric assumptions. These theories systematically underestimate the significance of Russian civilisation and Russian uniqueness, opposing Russia’s special path. We are dealing with methodologies built on the basis of the unconditional universality of the Western way of development, undermining the notion of Russia’s civilisational sovereignty. This situation was found in many, almost all, humanities disciplines.
The Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics played an active role in this research. In all humanities disciplines, we identified ‘minefields’ of Western-centric paradigms. Our socio-humanitarian science and education have been structured this way for the last three decades, possibly even longer, leading to a systemic issue.
As far as I know, when the research results were reported to the president, he reacted in a certain way. Interestingly, out of all the humanities disciplines, history is considered by the president to be of primary importance. Here we cannot wait; we must immediately take action. Because this is most important: historical identity, the continuity of different stages of our people’s development and the state-forming role of the Russian people as the core — all this is of fundamental importance now.
With this, we cannot delay.

Posted by: scorpion | May 13 2024 19:45 utc | 331

Posted by: Mario | May 13 2024 17:14 utc | 321
Perhaps you’ve watched too many Russian War movies, especially the modern dreck (nice vis-mods though). I don’t think the Manhattan project had any Nazi scientists, unless every emigre German is automatically a Nazi. Finally the death toll on the Eastern Front was often due to tactical incompetence and a brutal disregard shown for Soviet lives by their commanders.

Posted by: Milites | May 13 2024 20:03 utc | 333

Posted by: rk | May 13 2024 15:00 utc | 305
Looks like it’s a divisional advance to contact with possibly one regiment leading and attendant independent brigades, plus an army level artillery group in support. Don’t forget, the Russians built into their tactics this type of advance that only stops when its lead echelon hits a blocking force it cannot shift. Once one, or all, of the multi-axes advances stop they concertina into each other, sequentially, continuing till a large enough force is assembled. Each echelon has a specific role to play
1. Platoon or combat recce patrol (CRP) tasked with finding an unblocked route, provides march security for the following formation. If it cannot dislodge the enemy force it digs in, hinders enemy movement and wait for the…
2. Forward security element (FSE) reinforce company less a platoon, which will often deploy to the flank of the CRP and attack, backed by battalion artillery assets. If it cannot break through it will dig in and wait for the…
3. Advance Guard (AG). This is the remainder of the battalion, less the above units, it will conduct attacks with regimental fire support and dedicated CAS, both fixed wing and rotary. If this still is not enough it will wait for the…
4. Regiment, less the lead battalion that made up the AG. This will maximise any ground held, key terrain under direct fire etc to launch an attack with army level support, including heavy rocketry, and regimental CAS.
In the days of the Cold War this advance to contact was designed to take as minimum time as possible, with regimental involvement in hours; however it seems as though the Russian counter to ISR, and the concomitant dangers of massing forces, is to slow the whole process down, so that minutes are hours and hours days/weeks.
If this is true, then the Russians will keep extending until the forces reserved for this operation are unable to organically continue. What happens in the future all depends on the real combat mission of this grouping of forces.

Posted by: Milites | May 13 2024 20:41 utc | 335

From Dugin’s militarization article:
“[…] The issuance of rubles must become sovereign[…]”
Posted by: scorpion | May 13 2024 20:04 utc | 336

There’s a meme going around showing a 1 kg bar of gold, twice: “Ten of these bought a home in 1920” / “Ten of these buy a home today”. It even seems to be true for USA gold and average house prices. Gold is about 70k USD per kg, these days (curiously not far off the current Bitcoin value).
US dollars have been popular internationally, among other reasons because they never invalidated a note – unlike other currencies, where older notes from before a date are just waste paper. They still have inflation though, unlike very popular gold coins such as UK pounds or SA rands.
I’d be curious to see Russia peg the ruble to gold, sell it freely, allow anyone from anywhere to have a small savings account (say up to 2 kg gold), and sit back …

Posted by: pessoa | May 13 2024 21:43 utc | 337

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 13 2024 15:59 utc | 312
Agreed. What people often fail to get, is that Minsters of State are there to liaise between what a President and Parliament consider to be strategically and politically most beneficial for the country in that portfolio and other professionals in their fields of relevant expertise. Sometimes, being a good people-person is of more use to achieving goals (through others) than being a good technician in that specific field yourself. It’s why people employ builders!
From what I perceive, Putin is a brilliant delegator and strategic coordinator of national tasks. I believe he appoints all other officials in the same vein.

Posted by: Jake Blanchard | May 13 2024 22:04 utc | 339

RB @ 272
Thanks, I use to follow in hopes that politics in the West could change.
I think I saw a fleeting statement by Hillary about these being the last possible elections. There is also talk about allowing non citizens to vote in the upcoming elections.
Why not, after all, the whole reason for criminalizing whole swatches of the population is prevent them from voting.
The same is true for where I am, Labour or National party, makes no difference anymore (oh and the infiltrated Greens)
I still vote, but for ultra fringe groups with the silliest hobby horse.
My pathetic attempt at protest.
Corbyn’s character assassination in the UK was what killed any hope for me.
That’s why VVP, Xi and their councils together with the bastion of Resistance, Iran is why I’m hanging on for the future of humanity.

Posted by: Suresh | May 13 2024 22:17 utc | 341

Posted by: RB | May 13 2024 11:04 utc | 263
‘Don’t know the current statistics but before 2014 about 20% Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian at home. Whom are the Russians going to Russify?’
Most English speakers are not English.
Russification would involve the likes of ethnic cleansing, the settlement of ethnic Russians into Ukraine, rewriting the history books to propagate the Russian view.

Posted by: Mr B | May 13 2024 22:46 utc | 343

Posted by: HB_Norica | May 13 2024 13:33 utc | 282
‘I would ask you to cite a Russian source for the objectives of the SMO…’
Try the treaties proposed by Russia in December 2021. The treaties were to be between Russia and the US, and Russia and NATO.
The Russian leadership knew that many of the proposals – such as reducing the membership of NATO countries to the 1997 level – would not be acceptable to the west.
The proposals were, in fact, an ultimatum. The stuff about ‘liberation’, ‘denazification’, demilitarisation, etc, was just fluff for domestic consumption.
Interestingly, Ukraine is regarded as the first major war on the European continent in 80 years. “Major’ in this case being its geopolitical ramifications, not the volume of blood shed.
History sure does rhyme.
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/

Posted by: Mr B | May 13 2024 22:49 utc | 345

Posted by: whirlX | May 13 2024 21:22 utc | 338
Actually, they practiced these drills on the steppe, which made them quite unrealistic. If you watch the footage you’ll see the CRP’s with one tank three IFV’s, then three more tanks with 9+ IFV’s follow. The time frame though is so massively extended that the concertina of units happens over hours/days. All the time though the artillery sticks to the old schedule, meaning by the time the respective units have deployed they will have received fire-support for a considerably longer time. Russians have always blasted things with artillery, it’s why 2/3rds of their tank’s load out is HE/HEAT, and flat terrain favours such tactics, especially long range LOS systems, with elevation advantages.
Drones have, quite literally, added a dimension to leg infantry, and fixed defensive, but as has been shown are no substitute for the weapons they are replacing, and are vulnerable to counter-measures. Ukraine is rushing its fire brigades to hold the line, but what do they do when they get there? They are incapable of mounting anything more than individual brigade attacks, which will be totally insufficient to blunt a Russian division, and if they shake out as an armoured shield they will be attrited continuously, whilst being fixed. As I said before, Ukraine has two options, use it and loose it, or hold and hope the line doesn’t fold.
Final point, the Red Army certainly improved operationally, but the majority of their later war victories also came down to the Germans inability to adapt their earlier battle-winning tactics, similar to the Japanese problem in the Far East. The Ukrainians, it could be argued, are more tactically flexible than in the early part of the war, but are just as deficient in operational terms as they were, and wars are won by superiority in the latter discipline, not the former.

Posted by: Milites | May 13 2024 23:09 utc | 347

The [Russian] proposals [of Dec 2021] were, in fact, an ultimatum. The stuff about ‘liberation’, ‘denazification’, demilitarisation, etc, was just fluff for domestic consumption.
Posted by: Mr B | May 13 2024 22:49 utc | 346
Hmmm, a binary over-simplification. All politics have a declared purpose (for the onlookers everywhere) as well as a subtext to obtain bigger strategic goals.
The stated SMO goals were and still are perfectly valid and real. But yes, they are are just a small part of the bigger picture. Ha, imagine if Putin had declared “Well, actually our true goals are to take 4-6 of Ukraine’s Eastern oblasts; lock Ukraine/NATO from the Black Sea; kill up to 1M of your men; cause political and social calamity including a Kiev regime change; exhaust US and NATO ammo stocks; gear up our economy for 10+ years of weapon production; challenge the hegemony of the US dollar; get real pally with China and many other of our allies;
…. lol, you would have had NATO *plus US forces* burst through the doors from all 3 sides of Ukraine!!!
Well played, Vlad!

Posted by: Jake Blanchard | May 14 2024 1:33 utc | 349

Posted by: Jake Blanchard | May 14 2024 1:33 utc | 350
‘All politics have a declared purpose (for the onlookers everywhere) as well as a subtext to obtain bigger strategic goals.’
Sure. Luckily for the west, some people were on the ball about Putin’s strategic goals, including doddery old Joe Biden.
Or maybe not so doddery. Biden forced Putin to lie publicly in front of the whole world about his intentions. And not just a little lie, like the ‘denazification’ and ‘demilitarisation’ puff-talk. No, a great big lie, probably the biggest a head of state can make. Oh dear, there’s a blast from the past.
And with the new appointment to the Russian defence ministry, it seems that the economy will keep moving towards a war footing. A war economy. More rhyming.

Posted by: Mr B | May 14 2024 3:37 utc | 351

@Posted by: Mr B | May 14 2024 3:20 utc | 351
You conflate the Banderites, who have always been a small minority of the Ukrainian population and Ukrainians in general. In WW2 7 million Ukrainians fought for the Soviet Union and about 300,000 (from Bandera country) for the Nazis. The Ukrainian population generally would have been happy with the ethnic cleansing of the hated Banderites, and the extermination of the Nazi collaborators. As would have been the Poles. Unfortunately, the West rescued many of the latter rather than hand them back to the Soviet Union to be given the justice they deserved.
Since the Western-driven fascist coup of 2014 the country has been thoroughly propagandized with the Banderist ideology of hatred, right down to the brainwashing of school children that mirrors that of the Zionist regime. Heavily aided by the West that has fostered the Banderist fascism ever since WW2 and spread it across Ukraine from the 1990s onwards. In 1939 the Soviet Union was liberating the territories invaded by Poland in 1920-21. In 1944 the Soviets were once again liberating those territories from German occupation, just after the Banderists had massacred the Polish population in Eastern Ukraine, and after the Banderists had taken a very active part in massacring Jews and many others.
Once this war is over, and the Banderist scum have been removed/fled, the Slav brothers and sisters can get on with living together without the Banderist virus. Just like they did prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union. These lands will once again flourish without the oligarchs, the Western capitalist extractors and their Banderist henchmen. There will be a great deal of sadness about how many had to die because of the fascist regime and their Western backers. The vast majority of Ukrainians are not Banderists, a fascist belief system that resides in the North East of Ukraine. It is now pretty obvious that the vast majority of the people within the territories controlled by the Banderist fascist regime do not want to needlessly throw their lives away, and even with the punishment brigades in place there are 10,000s that have gone AWOL.
You do not speak for Ukrainians, certainly not those in the West and South that resisted the fascist regime and would be happy to be part of Russia. The same for the Crimeans. Once the others are disconnected from the Banderist propaganda and brainwashing, and enjoy increasing living standards and freedoms, many of the rest will quickly throw off the ethnic hatred that is at the core of Banderism. The Western elites, and the fascist leaders who escaped with teir ill gotten gains will not give a shot about the million plus needlessly lost.

Posted by: Roger | May 14 2024 4:31 utc | 353

@Posted by: Roger | May 14 2024 4:31 utc | 354
The East and the South, should have proof read it one more time!

Posted by: Roger | May 14 2024 4:51 utc | 355

Posted by: RB | May 13 2024 11:04 utc | 263
‘Don’t know the current statistics but before 2014 about 20% Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian at home. Whom are the Russians going to Russify?’
Most English speakers are not English.
Russification would involve the likes of ethnic cleansing, the settlement of ethnic Russians into Ukraine, rewriting the history books to propagate the Russian view.
Posted by: Mr B | May 13 2024 22:46 utc | 344
I guess you don’t know much about Ukraine and didn’t understand my comment.
Close to 40% of Ukraine citizens before 2014 coup were speaking Russian at home.
The American coup was necessary because the 20% of the population would never win an election. After the coup the new regime planned to make those Russians into Ukrainians by first terror and than forced cultural genocide: forced schooling in Ukrainian, propaganda in school books, fake history of Ukraine.
There is no need to Russify the Russian population in the East and south.

Posted by: RB | May 14 2024 12:59 utc | 357

Posted by: Roger | May 14 2024 4:31 utc | 355
‘You conflate the Banderites, who have always been a small minority of the Ukrainian population and Ukrainians in general.’
‘Banderites’? Please, we’re not in third grade. We’re also not living in the 1930s Soviet Union, when attaching ‘-ite’ to any name was a death sentence.

Posted by: Mr B | May 14 2024 17:59 utc | 359

@Posted by: Mr B | May 14 2024 17:59 utc | 361
Followers of Stephan Bandera are correctly titled “Banderites”, just as the followers of Hitler could be called “Hitlerites”. And stop misrepresenting my position, which was for exile not death. Your whole reply is an attempt not to acknowledge me catching you in your attempt to conflate a small extremist segment of the Ukrainian population with the whole, very much like the Zionists attempt to equate themselves with all Jews.
Your replies to others tend to follow the same structure of redirection and misrepresentation so I will not bother more with someone who does not engage in an honest discussion.

Posted by: Roger | May 14 2024 21:48 utc | 361