Grave Nation: Ukrainian Cemetery Mega-Project Reveals Dimming Military Hopes
A new Le Monde article sends spider cracks through the facade of Ukrainian losses:
Right off the bat, they reveal that cemeteries throughout Ukraine are full, requiring a national project of building a large-scale network of new military burial sites:
The squares reserved for the soldiers are full. Everywhere, teams of architects are working on memorials that tell us as much about the scale of the slaughter as they do about the ongoing reflection on the idea of nationhood.
They visit one of the first under construction, which already has a main square of plots for 10,000, eventually to be expanded to 160,000 graves:
In the village, only a brand-new brown sign, the color reserved for national sites, currently marks the road leading the trucks to the construction site. It reads: “National Military Memorial Cemetery”. A first square of 10,000 graves, already partially dotted with wide, light-colored granite paths lined with benches and lime trees, will welcome the first “heroes” this summer. Eventually, however, “130,000 or even 160,000” deceased will be laid to rest on this future mortuary site, explains architect Serhi Derbin, wearing khaki linen pants and a straw panama, in the bright Saturday sunshine of July.
Rightly, the Le Monde staff turn to the issue of “official” Ukrainian casualty statistics. In a growing Western trend, they admit that the number of dead is likely “much higher” than Zelensky gives credit for. Of course, pro-UA zealots will ignore the fact that there is no such project in Russia, no inordinately exceptional outgrowth of military cemeteries anywhere. They’ll make excuses, pointing to the cliche of “Russia’s size” as somehow ‘concealing’ such markers of losses, ignoring that Ukraine itself is the largest country in Europe and remains oddly unable to ‘conceal losses’ in the same way.
In the same circles, there are increased talks of Ukrainian collapse by end of year. Le Figaro’s new article making the rounds offers such a prediction. The writers spoke to French military officers who believe the situation is turning dire:
A French military source:
Moscow's “thousand cuts” strategy is intensifying. The front is not set in stone. Offensives are localized in a multitude of small battles fought over a few kilometers. The cuts are getting deeper, even though the Ukrainian army is already weakened. It is stretched over a front of more than 1,000 km. Lacking sufficiently frequent replacements and human resources, the units are becoming exhausted.
“The Russians are multiplying offensive sectors to disperse enemy reserves,” explains a French military source. Russia has deployed nearly 700,000 soldiers in Ukraine, more than the Ukrainian army. Patiently, it continues to nibble away at territory, at the cost of colossal human losses: up to a hundred dead a day; some 40,000 casualties (dead and wounded) a month. The Russian army has adapted its tactics, preferring to launch assaults with small infantry units or units mounted on motorcycles, in order to advance faster and more lightly.
They slip in the usual sop about the “costs” Russia is incurring, but then critically add:
But the army, the Ukrainian, it also lost some of the material she had received from Western for the past three years. Time plays against it with the risk of a break in a part of the front. "Forces of Ukraine are in [dire straits]... Can they last six months? A year? In reality, the war is already lost", continued in the military source. In this war of attrition, the time changes everything.
And in another even more erudite offering, Figaro interviews French historian Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, who is particularly a leading expert on the First World War.
Utilizing his expertise on the Great War, he makes some fascinating parallels to the current Ukrainian conflict that are worth a deeper look.
First, he notes that in his opinion the Ukrainian war is only the third war of its particular type in recent history—the type being ‘siege warfare, but in the open country’:
You note another similarity between the First World War and the Ukraine, as both were wars of position...
There are few historical examples of this very recent form of warfare, as it requires armaments that only became available at the end of the 19th century. Structurally, it is siege warfare, but fought in open country over hundreds of kilometers. There have only been three conflicts of this type: the Great War (from late 1914 to spring 1918, not beyond); the Iran-Iraq war (from 1980 to 1988); the Ukraine war (from April 2022, not before).
He goes on to draw further parallels:
What are the invariants of such a war?
The main point is the superiority of the defensive over the offensive. Had this not been the case, Ukraine would have been beaten long ago. Already during the First World War, it was necessary to cross a “no man's land” saturated with barbed wire, one of the most effective weapons of the early 20th century. Then there were the minefields we saw in Iran-Iraq and now in Ukraine. They are an extraordinarily compact barrier. The Ukrainians came up against it in the summer of 2023 during their failed counter-offensive, and the Russians since 2024. As a result, it's impossible to break through dozens of kilometers wide and break the enemy's front line.
He notes that due to these peculiarities, there is a kind of obligatory “regression” in each conflict, where previous means are no longer workable:
There is a kind of regression in all three conflicts. In Ukraine, helicopters and airplanes fly very little above and beyond the front line. Nor are there any major armored offensives. We've never seen anything like the Battle of Kursk in 1943. As a result, the battle is heavily infantry-based.
And at the same time, firepower...
Yes, that's another invariant of this type of warfare. Initially, this firepower was linked to artillery, with the cannon dominating the battlefield during the First World War. This overwhelming dominance of the cannon can be seen again in Ukraine, until 2024. Unfortunately, Russia has always had very good artillery and, unlike the Ukrainians, has had the means to supply it, where the latter ran out of ammunition well into 2024.
But the point in setting the stage above, is that by analyzing these parallels, this preeminent historian has reached a final decisive conclusion: that Ukraine has already lost the war:
It was by considering these invariants that you came to a radical conclusion, set out at a Senate hearing in April: in your view, Ukraine has already lost the war...
Indeed, as we speak, Ukraine unfortunately seems to have lost the war, probably as early as the summer of 2023, when it became clear that its long-awaited counter-offensive had failed. One could imagine a spectacular turnaround, but it's not clear how. Of course, when you say this, people are shocked because it's unbearable to think that Ukraine has lost the war. It's unbearable for me too.
He adds to the list of peculiarities of the war the fact that even Ukraine’s now-certain loss is not overtly visible:
But here's the thing: there's no point in remaining incantatory, we have to get out of a new denial, that of defeat, after that of the possibility of war itself. For I would add another characteristic of the war of position: defeat is not immediately discernible when it looms. It takes a long time to appear. It's not like Stalingrad, where the vanquished leave the battlefield and the victor occupies it. It's not like the blitzkrieg of May-June 1940. In a war of position, it's two bodies in battle, slowly wearing each other down. Only in the end does it become clear that one has worn out faster than the other.
He hits the nail on the head, but likely in a way even he doesn’t fully understand—or at least not in a way he’s ready to admit. You see, the reason such a shroud of occlusion wears heavy over the outcome of the war is because the West has done their utmost in hiding Ukrainian losses. His final pithy admonition that only in the end does it become clear who lost the war of attrition inadvertently bears testament to this: only those of us who truly care about facts and uncovering the truth—not dogmatic reasoning and propaganda—are able to demystify the more-than-obvious signals that Ukraine is taking ungodly and unsustainable losses comparative to Russia.
He goes on to demonstrate his cause with an example:
Was that the case in 1918?
Let's do a little thought experiment. Let's imagine that in early October 1918, a group of military experts, journalists and historians were gathered in a neutral country to ask their opinion on the situation. And now suppose someone had then suggested that Germany had already lost the war. Well, everyone would have cried out! At that time, the Reich was still occupying immense territories in the east at the expense of Russia, since the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It occupied the whole of Belgium and large parts of France. It's true that the German army has been retreating since the summer, but nowhere has the front given way. The Germans are inflicting heavy losses on the Allies, since it is the Allies who are on the offensive and therefore taking the greatest risks. So where is the German defeat?
In reality, German defeat has been certain since July-August 1918. It has happened, but it is not yet apparent. Since the summer, the German General Staff has been well aware of this, and has called for negotiations to be launched. Except that the political powers don't understand it, nor does German public opinion, and never will. This failure to understand the defeat of 1918 was one of the reasons for the rise of Nazism.
The interviewer lightly pushes back, stating that the Ukrainians are not yet visibly collapsing despite Russia’s slow-moving gains:
Here again, let's think back to the First World War. When the Allies launched their counter-offensive in July 1918, it was a general one, but apart from the Americans, the soldiers were no longer capable of attacking. They were so used to throwing themselves on the ground at the first danger that everyone was extremely cautious. But we could have imagined that part of the front would be breached, in which case... Germany had no more reserves to plug the holes. That's why I'm worried about the risk of a Russian offensive in Ukraine this summer: given the disproportion of forces, could it break through the front? We would then be entering a different configuration, as any break in the front would risk producing a powerful moral effect on the Ukrainian armed forces, on political power and on public opinion.
He concludes by stating that the right question is no longer whether Ukraine has lost—which is rhetorical at this point—but how far Ukraine will lose:
The right question is not whether Ukraine has lost the war - that seems all too obvious to me - but how far it will lose it. On the basis of the current balance of power, or on that of an even more unfavorable balance of power? This will determine whether or not the Ukrainian defeat represents a strategic victory for Russia.
On that note, Russia again launched one of the largest attacks of the war last night—at least according to frenetic Ukrainian commentators who, admittedly, could be playing things up for dramatic effect to curry sympathy:
There has been a surge of such attacks the last few weeks, particularly ones targeting Ukrainian recruitment centers operated by the notorious TCK (Territorial Recruitment Center). Farsighted Ukrainian officials have ‘brilliantly’ concluded this is a Russian effort to cripple Ukraine’s ability to round up meat for Zelensky’s conveyor belt of horror.
Likewise, Russian strikes have been completely erasing Ukrainian weapons industries. Many people watch the endless parade of explosions in a detached manner—at this point it has become passé to the point that people assume these strikes do little, or are just carrying out some vague ‘background work’. In reality, they have been neutering Ukrainian industries, halting many of the farfetched Ukrainian weapons ambitions which were at one point widely talked about.
For instance, a recent hit was said to have destroyed the Grom-2 production line, a big Ukrainian ballistic missile that was meant to be their answer to Russia’s Iskander. There’s a reason you don’t see much of the weaponry constantly talked about and billed as the next “wunderwaffen”: it’s because these ongoing, systematic Russian strikes are wiping out their industries, leaving Ukraine with no ability to produce anything other than small quadcopter drones in tiny boutique workshops which can be hidden anywhere. The larger facilities which were meant to produce more prestige-level systems, from mobile artillery, to various analogues of Russian air-to-ground and ballistic missiles, to artillery shell production lines, etc., have all been extirpated by these relentless systematic strikes.
More and more, top Ukrainian figures are panicking over this and concluding that if it continues on this way, Ukraine will have nothing left. Listen to the Ukrainian officer below, who states that “at this rate, Ukraine will be returned to the stone age”:
‼️🇺🇦The chair under Zelensky is starting to shake more and more. After all, allowing such statements on the air of pro-Kyiv media was previously unimaginable👍
➖Apparently, the recent report about the production of Geran-2 drones and their quantity, along with massive attacks on Ukrainian military infrastructure, really forced the top officials of Zelensky's office to activate the "brown" alert.
➖Because the Ukrainian deputies who still have some brain left understand that with the current state of affairs in Ukraine, the country will soon cease to exist. All the Ukrainian "partners" who were verbally ready to fight for Zelensky's regime have now completely "frozen" and don't even want to contribute money. Support is dwindling, and stealing is becoming difficult. The people fully realize that Zelensky will shout about VICTORY from his bunker or Europe until he is hoarse, while Ukrainians rejoice at the Geran-2 strikes on the TCC.
He’s referring in particular to the new videos showcasing Russia’s Geran (Shahed) drone production at the Alabuga factory in Tatarstan where hundreds of the drones are produced each day around the clock:
The full episode where the above excerpt is from, which deals with many other drone types being used in the Russian Army, can be viewed here.
One of the reasons, by the way, that the French historian, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, saw Russia winning the war despite parallels to ‘stalemated’ conflicts like the Iran-Iraq war, is because in previous examples he believes the industrial capacities and general capabilities of the combatants were likewise roughly static. But in the case of the Russo-Ukrainian war, he admits that Russian capabilities are growing each year, far out-pacing Ukrainian ones. This goes toward things like the previously-talked-about manpower gains of 100k per year—while Ukraine’s manpower shrinks—as well as the industrial growth of the arms industry.
That being said, there’s one last important point to be made. Many point to Russia’s “growing economic problems” as a counter-argument for why Russia could begin “losing” in the future, despite its seeming present dominance. I even saw one Western publication spin Putin’s announcement that Russia would be reducing its military budget next year as an “act of desperation” which means Russian military capability is finally “weakening”.
On the contrary, the signals here are the complete opposite: Putin’s plan to begin slowly reining in Russia’s military spending is the acknowledgement that Russia has finally reached a total equilibrium in the war, where current production levels are stable and sustainable indefinitely in relation to the losses. That means further inordinate military expansion is unnecessary, and Russia sees a successful path in defeating Ukraine at current levels.
This is obviously in conjunction with the fact that Russia has now attritioned the AFU to such an extent that it no longer requires the same disparity levels in military spending—as Ukrainian capabilities shrink, Russia likewise settles its war-making into a manageable level by taking things from overdrive to simply ‘autopilot’—if the analogy makes sense. Once again, dogmatic Western analysts incapable of impartial reasoning fail to pick up on this obvious cue, which totally spoils their analyses.
Here’s someone that gets it, though:
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To leave off, here’s a typically comical new “threat” issued by beltway bugger Lindsey Graham against Putin. He boasts that Trump will “put a whoopin’ on your ass”, but then veers to say Trump will “punish” not Russia, but countries buying Russian oil:
This again proves the US has no cards against Russia, and must desperately punch Russia’s friends on the arm as a substitute threat. The problem is, this hurts the US and its relations with key foreign powers more than it does anything to Russia.
More and more Ukrainian commentators and political figures are cottoning on to the fact that “sanctions” were always nothing more than a desperate and hollow performative act:
Commenting on the video of Russian Geran drone production in Alabuga, another commentator grieved:
I disabused the misguided soul of his brainwashing thusly:
No, there's something clearly wrong with your model of the world. You have been brainwashed to believe the "West" is the entire world. Now more than ever, it's obvious to anyone with a brain that the "West" comprises only a small, increasingly irrelevant moiety of it.
The West, with its illusory economies, fraudulent GDPs based on hyper-financialized and leveraged debt, and miserably deteriorated industrial capacities has worn out its ‘sanctions’ cudgel—at least for anything more than performative stunts.
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Much as I am thankful Russia is winning, the loss of over a million Young Ukrainian lives is a terrible tragedy, and the fact that the USA couldn’t give a toss, makes me ill.
On the topic of some lurid western threats against Kalingrad, Russia does not escalate beyond what is necessary according to the realities on the ground. A NATO upscale in provocations of this order will prompt decisive strikes against the Baltic nations. This is not revenge so much as what is necessary to rescue Kalingrad. If the west continues down this path of risking its own far limbs in order to sound 'strong' it will find itself the dismembered one.
Then the bellicose little fascists on the periphery will discover just what NATO support really means. Bye bye Estonia. Your day in your ludicrously bigged up sun is coming an to an end.
More importantly, Poland knows it is dispensable in this reckless testing of Russia, too.
FAFO, as they say.