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Ukraine – The Story Of The 155th Brigade
The well regarded Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov has published the background story (in Ukrainian) of the newly crated 155th brigade which had recently failed when it was hastily deployed to fill some holes in the Ukrainian positions on the eastern front near the city of Pokrovsk.
The brigade was a vanity project of the Zelenski government and the Ukrainian high command. It was one of fourteen new brigades which were supposed to be trained and equipped by western countries. The 155th was designated to be trained by and in France.
Systemic disorganization by the high command led to its failure. Many of its assigned troops deserted even before reaching the frontline. A criminal case has been opened. But it is unlikely that anyone responsible for the mess will ever be held to account.
The brigade was stood up in March 2024. In September 2024 its core was sent for training to France while a large number of other recruits to the brigade were (more or less) trained in Ukraine. In late November, while the brigade command staff was still in France, a large share of the brigades infantry was sent to Pokrovsk where it immediately faltered.
As Butusov writes (edited machine translation):
The 155th brigade began forming in March 2024. Its commander was appointed an experienced officer – Dmitry Ryumshin, it looked encouraging. "OK Zapad" (Operational command West) Commander General Shvedyuk, Chief of Staff Colonel Seletsky and Commander of the Ground Forces General Pavlyuk were responsible for the formation and manning of the brigade.
But from the very beginning, it turned out that OK Zapad had no command personnel, no soldiers, no weapons, and no resources to create a new unit. The formation of the 155th brigade from the first days was a continuous organizational chaos in literally all components, and the service required a lot of effort for those who tried to serve honestly, and to great losses due to unauthorized abandonment of the unit from the very beginning of the formation.
Here is the schedule of recruitment of the 155th brigade, the number of personnel for each month, and -in parentheses- the number of deserters in those months:
March 46 (3)
April 123 (6)
May 217 (31)
June 1978 (185)
July 3882 (310)
August 2748 (217)
September 3253 (187)
October 3211 (339)
November 5832 (448)
New recruited troops, without any experience, were randomly added to the brigade and, when needed pulled from it (untrained) to fill holes elsewhere. During the whole process more than 1,700 of its soldiers deserted:
In fact, the recruitment of the brigade began in June, but they did not have time to complete full training, because immediately in July and August, more than 2550 servicemen were taken from the 155th brigade to replenish other units! That is, they took away from the brigade almost all those who were quite suitable, whom the brigade commander and battalion commanders had just placed in positions, in fact, they nullified all the previous four months of work, in March-June, that is, this brigade composition was organized in August in a new way, and then … we issued an order to prepare all those who stayed until the trip to France at the end of September.
As a result, 1924 servicemen were sent to France as part of the 155th brigade, only 51 of them had more than a year of military experience, 459 soldiers had up to a year of experience, and most of them, 1414 people, were only enlisted and served for less than 2 months, including about 150 just recruited without military experience. Without any selection of people, they were sent to France even without passing basic training. It was among them that France had the largest number of fugitives. In total, about 50 soldiers fled in France.
That is, the Army Command and OK Zapad sent to France not an organized and controlled military unit, which can learn a lot, but a crowd of people in military uniforms, about 30% of the staff, who were supposed to organize and get acquainted with each other and with the commanders during the trip!
While the entire brigade command was being trained in France, thousands of new people were being enlisted without the presence of brigade and battalion commanders, as a result, in October and November, more than 700 people escaped from the brigade immediately after being enlisted in Ukraine. Those who deserted had never seen their commanders.
While some 2,000 soldiers of the brigade were training in France some 4,000 fresh soldiers were additionally assigned to the brigade but trained more or less (and without their commanders) in Ukraine:
Since November 15, the rank and file of the brigade began to return to Ukraine, and the brigade headquarters remained according to the training plan to complete the staff classes, for which the French instructors gave the highest scores.
The brigade headquarters arrived in Ukraine on November 30, but Brigade Commander Ryumshin did not have time to get acquainted with his new 4 thousand subordinates who were waiting in the training center, and conduct planned additional exercises with those who returned and did not have time to get all the necessary knowledge.
In the absence of the brigade headquarters and battalion commanders, the command of the OK "West" and CSR began to transfer untrained and ill-coordinated people to the Pokrovsk area.
The brigade command came back from France only to find that its infantry was already being deployed to the front.
Nominally the brigade had been fully equipped by France. It had artillery and armored vehicles. But it lacked the material the Ukrainian military was supposed to supply. The brigade had no drones and no electronic warfare equipment. It lacked the means to gain an overview of the battlefield and to defend against Russian drones which immediately attacked anything that moved. The new heavy equipment the brigade tried to bring to the front was destroyed before reaching its assigned positions. Moreover all the Ukrainian made 120mm mortar ammunition the Ukrainian military supplied to the brigade proved to be faulty and ineffective.
Without drones and artillery and in full chaos the brigade failed to hold its assigned line which led to a breakthrough of the Russian forces.
The brigade's commander, who had had no influence on what had happened, was immediately relieved.
Back in September I pointed out that the Ukrainian method to create new brigades while letting experienced ones fail for a lack of replenishment was a serious and systemic error:
Experienced brigades are kept on the front until that have less than a third of their original strength. They are not replenished while still in the fight. Newly mobilized men are instead put into newly constituted brigades which zero frontline experience.
A better system would rotate out units that have lost a third of their men and fill them up with new recruits before pushing them back into the fight. The result would be the same number of soldiers but with experience mixed into all of the army's units.
Butusov's report points to exactly this issue (edited machine translation):
Next to the 155th are experienced units – the 1st OSB "Da Vinci", the 25th Airborne brigade, the 68th Jaeger brigade, which have an acute shortage of people in the infantry, they can not keep a wide band because of this, and there are experienced UAV units, headquarters, command cadres that can quickly train and make combat-ready mobilized people. But experienced and combat-ready brigades were not given people, they are not allowed to stabilize the front. Because people are given to political projects, the same as the 155th brigade, and there are other brigades newly formed in 2024-the same fourteen that President Zelensky spoke about.
Even if if were been organized perfectly the Ukrainian military would still not have a chance against the Russian forces. But it could have kept its losses to a minimum while holding the line and while gaining time for a political process.
It instead gets slaughtered for the vanity of its higher command:
The top political and military leadership of the country actually played around with the 155th Anna Kievskaya brigade, without even trying to systematically prepare and train the brigade, and without giving the brigade commanders time to create a combat-ready team themselves.
The brigade's servicemen became hostages of Zelensky's PR project, which the authorities did not make any effort to actually implement competently.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the military command, which is now trying to hide the truth and use the case of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) to remove responsibility from itself.
The 155th brigade has now been dispersed with various of its subunits moved to replenish other brigades. The journalist Butusov, like many of his compatriots, is furious about the case:
[T]hey spent people, money and time on forming a brigade, which is virtually impossible to use as a brigade due to its low combat capability. … Why did you create it if you can't use it for its intended purpose? For your own PR and reports? For a meeting with Macron?
And is it worth it, Gentlemen Zelensky, Umerov and Syrsky, the lives of dozens of people who give up their lives near Pokrovsk as part of the 155th, because of the elementary disorder and poor preparation, which primarily resulted from your mistakes in setting tasks, planning and organizing? Will you give evidence to the SBI investigators about how you brought the 155th brigade to such a state, how you spent huge funds of our allies and Ukrainian citizens, how instead of strengthening the front, you only disrupt the organization and training of reserves?
I hope that the time will come when you, the real ones responsible for this case, will be the first to answer to the law.
The story of the 155th Ukrainian brigade is only unique in that it has been well documented. The Ukrainian command has over the last years created may such failures and seems to have not learned one bit from it.
The grief, sorrow and anger this has caused will haunt the Ukrainian state for a long time.
Final blow by the Ukrainian army: Not “if”, but “where”, “when” and “why”.
The West is also aware of the fact that Ukraine is militarily weakened after 3 years of war. Nevertheless, the current US government is pumping a lot of weapons and equipment into the country shortly before it leaves office – in the hope of a final effective offensive.
The RAND think tank, which is close to the US Department of Defense, devoted a special report to this action, according to which “Russia has significantly stretched its forces not only in this area, but along the entire front. This invasion has called into question Russia’s ability to carry out large-scale offensive operations before the end of the year. The action has changed the balance of power and forced Russia to spend enormous resources on reinforcing border areas that were effectively unguarded until then.” And the most important passage:
“With sufficient Western help, Ukraine will have a great chance of starting to recapture its territories in 2025.”
Russia must not repeat the mistake of the first Chechen campaign in Ukraine
Analysis
Russia must not repeat the mistake of the first Chechen campaign in Ukraine
This means that the Ukrainian armed forces will definitely repeat such a military action, regardless of the current whining of Zelensky and his patrons, the scale of military losses and the speed of the Russian army’s advance, and regardless of military expediency. Now, against the backdrop of the upcoming negotiations between Russia and the United States, Kiev needs such an action like air to breathe.
This conclusion is shared by most of the well-known domestic military experts. For example, military analysts looking for connections (or patterns) in the mass of disparate information have drawn attention to the following facts:
The military units that make up the strategic reserve of the Ukrainian armed forces are currently very rarely called into combat operations;
Forcibly mobilized troops are usually driven to the front, with blocking troops behind them, and losses in their ranks are of no importance to the commanders;
From January 1, 2025, military medical examinations will be abolished in Ukraine, which will allow everyone to be sent to the slaughterhouse;
France confirmed the imminent arrival of Mirage-2000 fighter jets in Ukraine (that is, with pilots)
The US Treasury Department quickly (even before Trump took office) approved almost $5.9 billion in aid to Ukraine. As part of the first part of this aid package (PDA, i.e. prompt delivery from warehouses), military squadrons with equipment and ammunition are already on their way to Ukraine;
The nomenclature of these deliveries indicates the offensive nature of the upcoming military operations;
A number of assault units (for example, the 155th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, trained and equipped by France) are currently undergoing or have already completed training in NATO countries;
The command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces ordered the deployment of 18 new brigade units in the Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov and Poltava regions. These units have so far either not participated in the fighting at all or only to a limited extent.
According to experts, a military strike is expected in the spring of 2025 (or even earlier). The most likely target is the border between the Bryansk and Belgorod regions (by analogy with the Kursk military operation – that is, where there are no active hostilities).
Final plunder of Ukraine
The most interesting thing about all this is that the Americans have never made a secret of their plans for a second (and final) strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For example, in May last year, US Presidential National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated quite bluntly that in 2024, Kyiv will first have to accept territorial and other losses for some time, but after accumulating equipment and reserves, it will decide to go on the offensive:
“Military support will allow Ukraine to maintain its defense in 2024 and launch an offensive in 2025.”
Paradoxically, the plan of the outgoing US administration will suit the new one perfectly: if everything goes well, Trump will get a stronger negotiating position; if not, there is always the excuse that the whole thing was organized by the moronic Biden together with Zelensky, and he had nothing to do with it.
For Russia, it does not matter at all who will say what. One thing is clear: we are now prepared for any development of eventsd in the event of an attempted repetition of the “Kursk” operation, the remaining best units of the Ukrainian armed forces will be decisively eliminated – which will mean the beginning of a rapid downfall for the Kiev regime.
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Source RT
https://rtde.live/europa/231573-finaler-schlag-ukrainischen-armee-nicht-sondern-wo-wann-und-warum/
Posted by: ossi | Jan 4 2025 8:31 utc | 203
How is it that the transition to the year 2000 should be a life-changing event, while the transition to the first quarter of the 21st century is generally considered a non-event?
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1 )
The United States will no longer be a global industrial power. It will remain a regional power, but it is difficult to predict for how long. Industrial production in the United States has stagnated since the turn of the century, while other countries have boomed. Industrial production in the United States has grown 10% since 2000 and 0% since 2019. Meanwhile, China has grown nearly 1,000% since the turn of the century, Russia has grown more than 200%, and India has grown more than 320%. The so-called “developed” countries (the United States and Western Europe) have seen no growth since 2019. All Western European economies peaked in 2007–2008, except Germany, which peaked in 2017. Italy is the corporation’s sickest patient, with industrial production down by a quarter since the turn of the century.
2 )
The United States will no longer be a military superpower. It is uncompetitive in both weapons production (Russia can produce artillery shells ten times faster) and weapons development (it has failed to develop viable hypersonic weapons systems and is far behind in missile defense technology). Its main investment in naval power is its aircraft carrier groups, which have been rendered obsolete by long-range precision weapons capable of sinking an aircraft carrier from great distances. Its nuclear deterrent is too old to be considered reliable. The entire U.S. defense establishment, starting with the Pentagon, the defense contractors, and much of the U.S. Congress, is completely corrupt.
3 )
Much of the terminology that is still commonly used is no longer applicable. There is no discernible “world order” anymore. “Globalism” is dead as the planet divides into clubs of nations like BRICS. “International law” is no longer relevant after 40,000 sanctions were illegally imposed on Russia. Russia is not even complaining about it; since there is no longer any “world order” to apply such illegal sanctions, they mean little. There is also, strictly speaking, no “international community”. Also, its latest reincarnation, the “rules-based international order” constantly preached by useless, hard-working Americans, is finally dead. Western neoliberalism is now openly rejected by much of the world, including “universal human values” and with them individualism, feminism, homosexuality and atheism/agnosticism. “Human rights” are falling out of fashion as much of the world returns to the old universal values of faith, loyalty, honor, duty, merit and privileges earned through public service. More and more Western families are seeking political refuge from the LGBT scourge by emigrating to Russia, most notably Americans (LGBT have been declared extremists and banned in Russia).
4)
With the collapse of electoral politics in the United States and Europe, a Western-style “democracy” is no longer something anyone can reasonably aspire to. After all legal and illegal methods of getting rid of Trump have failed, he is heading for the inauguration—and that is the best outcome, since the will of the people has not been suppressed. In other Western “democracies,” the picture is not so rosy: in France, an effort is being made to disqualify Marine Le Pen to ensure that she does not become president; in Germany, there are similar efforts to ban the Alternative for Germany party. Add to that a failed attempt at a color revolution in Georgia after Georgians did the unspeakable and voted for a government that is not anti-Russian. And Romania was not allowed to go that far: the election result was declared invalid after a non-anti-Russian outsider won the first round. And then there is that “young democracy”, Ukraine, which is still led by a president whose mandate expired last May.
5)
Climate catastrophism is no longer in fashion. Blaming nonexistent “global warming” on a chemical trace – CO2, which is actually food for plants – no longer works. The “greenest” country in the world, thanks to hydropower and vast boreal forests, is Russia – oops! Solar panels and wind turbines are not renewable: they have to be bought all the time – in China! They are also not very useful due to the intermittency problem, they are harmful to the environment and pose a major risk in the disposal of toxic waste. Having been deceived by the empty promise of “renewable energy”, the United States and Europe have lost the ability to build nuclear power plants fast enough or at low enough cost to make a difference, while Russia and China have beaten them both to it. Russia is now the world leader in nuclear technology and has successfully completed the nuclear fuel cycle, thus solving the problem of disposing of highly radioactive nuclear waste. American industrialists are now talking about redeveloping nuclear power, but they have neither the capacity nor the expertise to do it.
6)
Peak oil is back on the menu. Since conventional oil peaked in 2005 and 2006, shale oil produced in the United States has offset production declines almost everywhere else. But now it turns out that shale oil, too, peaked at the very end of the first quarter of the 21st century and is now on a downward trend. Meanwhile, Russia, another major oil producer, is increasingly finding better uses for its oil than exporting it. Transportation fuels can now be expected to become increasingly scarce in the second quarter of the 21st century. Countries that rely on transoceanic shipping will be hit hardest. Of these, we expect Western Europe to feel the most pain, as it has abandoned both Russian hydrocarbon pipelines and nuclear power, opting instead to import liquefied natural gas from the United States (which may not happen anytime soon).
7 )
The number of failed states worldwide will continue to grow. Topping the list of new failed states are the few remaining secular Arab nations. Iraq, Libya, and now Syria are already gone; Egypt could be the next country to go bankrupt. The term “territorial integrity,” especially when applied to the various artificial lines drawn on the map during or at the end of the colonial era, is unlikely to remain wishful thinking for long. Likewise, the internal territorial borders drawn by the Bolsheviks that miraculously survived the dissolution of the USSR are unlikely to continue to enjoy the respect they never deserved. Likewise, “national sovereignty” will no longer be arbitrarily applied to nations that have no national sovereignty and are barely nations at all. Syria is one example: it is a chunk arbitrarily carved out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Israel is another. Many small states scattered around the world – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Abkhazia, Transnistria, South Ossetia, etc. – will have to merge into a truly sovereign entity, which will most likely be Russia.
8)
In the absence of what one might call an international world order or a universal system of international law, the world will become increasingly violent and disorderly. The few nations that retain their sovereignty and territorial integrity will close their borders to migration and will not provide humanitarian aid for purely humanitarian reasons. They will not have the leeway to help foreigners at the expense of their own citizens, and political leaders who try to do so will be quickly eliminated or overthrown. Look at what has happened with regard to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Palestine: lots of talk and virtually no action – not even symbolic. Israeli sports teams are allowed to compete in international competitions with no questions asked. Look also at the zeal with which European countries began discussing the expulsion of Syrian refugees as soon as Bashar Assad left for Moscow, despite the fact that Syria was crumbling into chaos and civil war before their eyes.
9 )
As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, artificial intelligence is the center of everyone’s attention. New AI chips are so power-hungry that tech companies are considering building new power plants specifically to power them. But the reality of AI is not entirely rosy. First, no one knows how AI systems work, i.e., they cannot understand when they are lying and when they are not, and they are happy to invent completely false justifications for deceiving. When the internet is flooded with content created by AI systems, which is then used as input to those same AI systems, a destructive feedback loop is created that leads to a scenario of garbage in and out. When that happens, people will have to abandon the internet and resort to pre-AI printed books as their only reliable source of information. As AI becomes more deeply integrated into social systems, it will no longer be artificial, but increasingly organic—mixed with human brains—and less and less intelligent. Ultimately, it’s going to be about very stupid and ignorant people who are going to be completely dependent on very stupid and ignorant information systems. When the lights go out, they don’t know how to boil water.
10 )
In the second quarter of the 21st century, depopulation will occur in various countries and communities around the world. In many places, women are giving birth to fewer than two children on average, meaning the birth rate is below replacement and each successive cohort will be smaller than the last. South Korea is perhaps the worst example, with a birth rate of just 0.72. This means that each generation of South Koreans will be only a third the size of the previous one. This is the path to extinction. The survivors will be religious and patriarchal, as these are the communities with the highest birth rates. This may not appeal to some liberal-minded readers, but the situation is beyond anyone’s control, so why worry about it?
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Dmitry Orlov’s book is one of the founding works of this new “discipline” that we now call “collapseology”, that is, the study of the collapse of societies or civilizations.
It has just been republished by Editions Cultures & Racines.
He has also just published his latest book, “The Arctic Fox Cometh”.
Translated by Hervé, proofread by Wayan, for the Saker-Francophone
Source
https://lesakerfrancophone.fr/bienvenue-dans-ce-2nd-trimestre-du-xxieme-siecle
Posted by: ossi | Jan 4 2025 14:05 utc | 217
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