SITREP 8/14/24: Zelensky Doubles Down as His Front Collapses
Things have ebbed again into a slight lull—or at least seeming one—as Iran reportedly stepped back from its intention to launch major strikes, as well as Ukraine’s Kursk adventure having ground to a halt and transitioned into the typical positional warfare.
As a quick aside, for those who’ve accused Iran of cowardice for potentially backing down, new reports indicate Iran may have been persuaded by some desperate quid-pro-quo on the U.S. side in exchange for Iran not carrying out the massive strikes, which would humiliate the U.S. and force it into a war on Israel’s behalf which it cannot win, and which would likely end the U.S. empire for good:
Back to Ukraine: Many pro-UA analysts and Western regime media outlets continue to express bewilderment at the precise goals of the Kursk operation. Others have resolved to consider it a major destabilizing operation:
NYT’s new article delivered some startling revelations:
First the article proposes its idea of the objectives:
Then it goes on to admit that Russians are not really redirecting many units to the Kursk front:
And there is little indication so far that Russia is redirecting frontline forces from eastern Ukraine. Instead of pulling those brigades, Russia appeared to be redeploying lower-level units to the Kursk region, according to a briefing on Sunday by the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based research organization.
I reported last time, roughly 20% of Kursk reinforcements are being pulled from other fronts. Politico corroborates this:
As does FT reporter Christopher Miller:
This was further confirmed by many other high level sources, including former US Army officer Daniel L Davis:
A new WSJ article further elaborated, partly answering one of the biggest questions on our minds—where did Ukraine get the troops, and how did it stage the offensive under Russia’s nose?
It turns out one of the secrets is that it was a secret even to the Ukrainians themselves. Numerous AFU soldiers that were interviewed have said they only found out about the offensive one day before hand, and many were pulled from their Donbass brigades a few days prior. Thus, many of the incriminations about Ukraine building up a massive force “under Russia’s nose” on the border, are not entirely accurate.
From the WSJ piece above:
This was corroborated by another NYT article:
Lastly, another NY Times article sounds the alarm:
And shockingly admits:
The New York Times writes that victory for Putin is now "definitely within reach."
"His [Putin's] latest peace proposal, under which Russia retains the occupied territories and Ukraine is banned from joining NATO, has been rejected by many Western leaders. However, in fact, this is the most realistic scenario for how this war will end," the newspaper writes.
That’s not to mention the grudgingly rosy picture it paints of Russia’s economic outlook:
Nor has the West managed to cut off the sources of Russia’s economic might, despite rounds of sanctions. The economy is growing healthily, and the assets of Russian oligarchs remain safe in the West, even if frozen. Most important, Russian oil is being bought and sold with minimal difficulty around the world as Western leaders can’t seem to decide what they want more: to meaningfully punish Russia or keep things as they are. Tellingly, the U.S. Treasury’s proposal to impose penalties on tankers that help Russian oil evade sanctions has stalled over the White House’s fear that higher gasoline prices won’t play well at the polls in November.
This is something else underscored just days ago by the Economist:
From the article above:
This year Russian gdp is expected to rise by over 3% in real terms, faster than 95% of rich countries. In May and June economic activity “significantly increased”, according to the central bank. Other “real time” measures of activity, including one published by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggest the economy is accelerating (see chart 1). Unemployment is close to an all-time low; the rouble is doing fine. True, inflation is too high—in June prices rose by 8.6% year on year, well above the central bank’s target of 4%—but with cash incomes growing by 14% year on year, the purchasing power of Russians is rising fast. In contrast with almost everyone else, Russians are feeling good about the economy.
Now we get to the real meat and potatoes of the situation.
Again we’re forced to ask: why such grave urgency from Zelensky in the Kursk operation?
Russian forces continue making such major gains in the Donbass region that the answer becomes self-evident. It’s literally coming down to multiple settlements per day now being captured; but what has not been openly discussed is the wider strategic danger this poses for Ukraine’s entire front.
This tweet sheds some light on the grand play:
What he’s correctly suggesting is that Pokrovsk controls the region’s final main supply route to the entire all-important Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration:
Red arrows show the main road, and blue arrows show the only remaining supply line after that, which feeds from the Izyum direction.
But even more importantly in the short-term, it would cut the supply route to Konstantinovka, which would only have one MSR remaining to its north, toward Druzhkovka.
The problem is, after Russian forces take Chasov Yar, that final northern MSR would be under increasing fire control of various kinds:
Thus, the current domino collapse of Ukraine’s defenses in the Pokrovsk direction will lead to a much greater snowballing that will lead to the collapse of the entire Konstantinovka cauldron, which would then set up the final showdown with the Kramatorsk agglomerate.
Furthermore, Pokrovsk is the main hub of supply to the entire front southeast of there. Capturing Pokrovsk and cutting its main roads would pretty much atrophy the entire vast region to the southeast:
There’s also the fact that Pokrovsk is the main railway hub of the entire region for the AFU:
It receives large shipments and distributes them to the whole region’s settlements, like a major artery feeding hundreds of capillaries. Thus, it’s vital for the resupply and logistics of all AFU units in the vast region.
In fact, what’s most interesting about this, and proves that the railway is the foremost strategic consideration of the entire ongoing operation there, is the fact that Russian troops are literally advancing along the railway.
You see this yellow line going from Ochertino west of Avdeevka, all the way through Prohres/Progress down to the new advances near Zhelanne made just today, then curving up to Pokrovsk? That’s the railway:
Zooming in on Google maps you can see:
Thus, once Pokrovsk is captured, all those interior settlements to the southeast would come under immense pressure with dwindling supply routes, and their own collapse would be accelerated greatly.
This is likely the reason for Zelensky’s desperate urgency in Kursk. His command likely understands the dire nature of what’s soon to come, as the entire front on this region stands to collapse after Pokrovsk falls. Zelensky needed a way to divert Russia’s attention somewhere else, but so far no slow down has been recorded for Russia’s advances in this area.
Today alone, there have again been several major advances.
As I mentioned, another huge swath of territory around Zhelanne has been taken, moving closer to Pokrovsk:
It was only a day or two ago that Zhelanne itself was even entered.
And just to the north of that, Grodovka/Hrodivka has been entered for the first time and is now being slowly taken:
Further to the north New York is reportedly being chewed through:
Ukrainian channels write the following about the Ugledar direction nearby:
And Pokrovsk:
Up north in Kursk there are some interesting things happening, but the truth is, it’s all fairly irrelevant compared to the above. Why? Because despite whatever minor temporary successes Ukraine metes out, there’s very little chance it will actually go anywhere. No, the Kursk bulge is just Kiev’s ‘Battle of the Bulge’ or more aptly, akin to the Khrynki diversion, which means after stalling it will likely fall to the background as something Russian conscripts will grind out for a few weeks or months while the real strategic checkmates go down in Donbass.
The only semi-interesting news confirms to us how utterly desperate Zelensky is to expand his flaccid bulge. After being stopped much farther south than anticipated, there are now reports that Zelensky is attempting daring air-assault helicopter landings behind Russia’s rear to desperately capture something near Lgov:
For reference, Lgov is right next to Kurchatov where the Kursk nuclear plant resides:
Russian commander Apti Alaudinov confirmed earlier that based on POW confessions, the Ukrainian forces were meant to capture Kurchatov by August 11th in their operation. If that’s true, it can be seen that they’re way behind schedule and thus must now resort to desperate measures.
It became known from the captured airmen that the capture of Kurchatov and the Kursk NPP from the enemy was planned for August 11. After that, Kiev wanted to negotiate with Moscow and issue an ultimatum.
Sure, the AFU ended up capturing a couple new settlements south-southeast of Sudzha after being rebuffed from the north:
But these are all utterly pointless territories to hold as they don’t lead to any compounding objectives whatsoever. There’s nothing strategic or even operationally significant about holding random, abandoned tiny settlements directly on the border. All it shows is that they were rebuffed from the actual area they wanted to go—which is north of Sudzha—and are now merely ‘poking about’, desperately looking for any small crevices to push themselves through in strategically unfavorable directions.
Now, there’s reports on Ukrainian channels that the two main brigades of the 80th and 82nd are being pulled due to their losses:
Units of the 80th and 82nd brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being withdrawn to the Sumy region - huge losses in equipment and personnel. Marches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Kurchatov did not pass without a trace - the forests are littered with burnt-out and damaged armored vehicles. The crews and amphibious units of the mobile groups were destroyed or scattered through the forests.
Anyone who hasn’t seen the nearly unprecedented losses they’ve been suffering in Kursk just work your way over to this channel and check the last few dozen videos, which are too graphic to post here. And there’s much more, with a whole photo collection posted today on Telegram showing dozens of KIA Ukrainian troops in gruesome fashion in Kursk.
One analyst’s concluding thoughts:
Everyone who posts about "Ukrainians taking territory in Kursk oblast" or "Russians retaking territory in Kursk oblast" is either really stupid or lying to you for clicks. That is not the kind of fighting that is occurring there. It's mostly small teams trying to spot each other and then hunting each other with drones and artillery, or trying to ambush each other. There is no frontline, and most of the map painting for either side is based on a 5 man team driving through an empty villages and snapping a pic while pursuing the enemy. The truth is that we simply don't know who has fire control over what village at any given moment, and it's not the kind of positional warfare where that matters. The Ukrainians are trying to find places where they could dig in and establish supply lines; the Russians are consolidating a defensive perimeter and gathering reserves from where they won't weaken the actual strategic battlegrounds. The actually important questions are whether/when the AFU can establish supply and when the RuAF can coordinate the resources for a sweeping purge of the afflicted area. Russians driving through a village and not seeing the Ukrainian DRG team in the woods nearby does not matter for the overall situation; neither does Ukrainians posting pics from villages they drove through four days ago. Neither of these is newsworthy or has strategic impact.
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In fact, things are getting so down to the wire that Russian SVR believes the U.S. is getting ready to replace Zelensky:
Press Bureau of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service:
➡️Ukraine is slowly but surely turning into a "black hole" of Europe. The head of the Kiev regime has moved to feverish actions, since he is mainly concerned with preserving his own position of power, which has been shaken since the expiration of his presidential term on May 20.
➡️Discontent with Zelensky is growing in the American elite. In both the Democratic and Republican parties, the voices of those who doubt the targeted spending of billions of dollars of military aid that Kiev receives are becoming increasingly loud. Zelensky is taking crazy steps that threaten to escalate far beyond Ukraine.
➡️Replacing Zelensky, according to the United States, will allow the West to better prepare for negotiations with Russia on a settlement. Former Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is currently being considered as a suitable candidate. The Americans consider Avakov's strengths to be his continuing contacts with the leaders of European countries. The US has already been instructed to work out a scenario for Avakov's rise to power in Kiev; the issue is being discussed with Tymoshenko, Poroshenko and the Servant of the People deputies.
Some last sundry items:
Not a joke: Germany has finally issued an arrest warrant to a man named Volodomyr Z. for the attack on Nord Stream:
From the Sky News article above:
Poland has confirmed that it had received a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man from German authorities related to the attack on Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Police believe the man, last known to have lived in Poland, was one of the divers who allegedly planted explosive devices on pipelines running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea in September 2022, according to German media.
The surreal part is that there is not a single peep from German government or society as to the question of how it’s possible they’re militarily backing a country which carried out the worst economic terrorist act in German history unto them.
However, there are whispers that there is significance to the timing of this development, particularly given earlier rumors that the West is getting ready to dump Zelensky:
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Taras Chmut, head of Ukraine’s largest state-run military charity, Come Back Alive, says that Ukraine won’t win the war, and the conflict will most likely freeze:
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But how could that be when Russian political figures are signaling more and more that Ukraine has crossed the Rubicon and killed all chances of negotiations? Putin appeared to say so himself at his briefing:
Putin, by the way, also said that ever since the Kursk incursion, rather than demoralize Russians, voluntary sign-ups to the military have again surged:
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There was also an interesting figure given yesterday by Moscow’s mayor Sobyanin:
23 thousand Moscow residents will volunteer to go to the SVO zone under contract this year, Sobyanin said.
Currently, 43 thousand Muscovites are taking part in the special operation.
23k Muscovites will sign up to the SMO this year. That is 0.17% of the population of Moscow, which is around 13m. If we extrapolate this to the entire population of Russia: 144,000,000 x 0.0017 = we get 244,000, which would point to how many signups for the entire 2024 year there should be from all regions. However, since we know urban regions like Moscow likely get a bit under sampled compared to rural regions where a higher proportion of people are said to sign up to the SMO, we can skew this up a bit into the 300-350k range.
And that is roughly where numbers confirmed even by Ukraine get us, given that Russia is said to be doing 30k per month sign ups, and 30k x 12 = 360k.
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Meanwhile, Budanov made a very interesting statement on Ukrainian troop counts.
If Ukraine mobilizes everyone over 18, it can fight on until 2033.
Indulge me for a moment:
Ukraine already mobilizes 25 and up, so Budanov can only be referring to the ages of 18 to 24, which represents 7 actual years’ worth of bodies.
Interestingly, we know that Ukraine’s birth figures for the cohort aged 18-24 is somewhere around 400-500k per year for both males and females, which would mean 200-250k for males for those years:
For those that don’t follow, that’s because someone who’s 18 today was born in 2006, and someone who’s 24 was born in 2000.
However, out of those remaining 200-250k men born each year, upwards of an estimated half will flee from service, or have already done so. This brings us down to about 100-125k men for each of those years. Recall Budanov gave 7 total years, so multiple 7 by 100-125k, and you get about 700-900k.
That means Ukraine may have 700-900k men worth of total mobilization left in their entire pool; and furthermore, it can be argued that Budanov is telling us this will take to 2033, or 9 more years, to attrit.
If Ukraine currently has around 300-500k men on the front, we can add that to an average of the above, 800k, and get 1.1 to 1.3 million. Now divide that by 9 years, and you get about 133,000 killed per year.
Divide by 12 months, you get 11,000 per month. Divide that by 30 days, you get 369 daily hard casualties, which is actually pretty on point. Many believe Ukraine suffers at least 30k casualties per month or more, however, recall that I’ve also recently pointed out how thousands per month flee and even go AWOL or desert (code 500), which could make up the difference.
Either way, though this is a very speculative calculation, it’s interesting how it fits decently well into current known losses—though I realize only the numbers autists will truly appreciate it.
Of course, it doesn’t take into account the potential for parabolic increase in losses as the troop quality (morale, etc.) gets lower and lower down to the dregs. Nor does it take into account the likely collapse and surrender of the AFU long before it gets down to the cinders like that.
Another interesting angle by another analyst on TG arrives at 400-500k dead for AFU:
Where did the 500 thousand losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine come from?
As of January 1, 2022, about 4.3 million people were registered for mobilization from among those subject to conscription - 406 thousand officers in this number. By July 20, 2023, 770 thousand were called up, including 62574 officers. Mobilization peaks were in spring 2022 and winter 2023. As of February 24, 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine numbered 300 thousand people, by September 2022 there were already about 700 thousand heads. Accordingly, after deducting losses, the first mobilization in the spring of 2022 gave 400 thousand and then in the fall-winter of 2022-23 about the same amount.The rate of recruitment was under 300-350 thousand for the first half of the year, and then about 600-700 thousand more were recruited. Since May 2024, recruitment has accelerated again and you can add another 150 thousand. Thus, the total number of conscripts is 1.8-1.9 million people. But at the moment, there are about 700 thousand people in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to official data, so where did 1 million go?
200 thousand, judging by the open cases, are deserters. The ratio of losses: dead, wounded, wounded with disabilities-1/4/1 it turns out that the dead are 400-500 thousand...
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In light of the above, Zelensky continues dipping down into the dregs for his mobilization drive. Here’s what’s up next:
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Excuse the auto-translation hiccup somewhere in the first half of the video, but listen to the second half—Apti Alaudinov states he thinks the war will end in Autumn 2024:
I don’t really agree, but it’s always interesting to hear perspectives of those on the actual frontline—and as with everything, though unlikely, it is possible.
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Zelensky’s 4th Reich has revealed its true face in Kursk. Watch as Ukrainian men wearing SS helmets from WWII accost a Russian “Ivan” in the Kursk region, while literally calling him a swine in German:
“Du bist ein Russisches Schwein!”
Of course, it’s all calculated to get Russians’ blood boiling, to stir that ancestral memory, fill them with rage and disgust, and spur them into overreaction. But it does confirm a lot of things about the military and cultural ethos driving this NATO-Wehrmacht continuation war against Russia.
Retired German general Wittmann can't contain joy over Ukraine's invasion of Russia "I know what role Kursk played in the Great Patriotic War. And that's where they're hurting Russia right now! And that's just great!" he says.
It’s no wonder then, that in his latest council with Syrsky, Mr. Z has adopted a familiar new look:
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Is this a comprehensive analysis and presentation of the available information? Yes, I'd say it is.
But at the same time, I'm about sick of this horseshit. Palestinians are still dying en masse, and Iran is okay with having a Mossad team eliminate their honored guest because... they got the Mossad team's contact info? WTF?
And Ukraine not only sends 10k or more soldiers into Kursk, but also shells and attacks the Belgorod region yet again, while Russia does... what? Fights off the invaders? That's the bare minimum. Where's the knockout blow to the energy grid? Where's the dagger strike on the presidental palace/GUR HQ? Why not just just blast this critical railway hub instead of forcing infantry to capture it?
And on and on. Ukraine cuts off Hungary's gas, but Hungary keeps selling Ukraine electricity. Ukraine blew up Nordstream but Germany doesn't say a peep. Ukraine is destroying Romania's and Poland's agricultural base. Etc, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum.
Meanwhile, good luck hearing about the REAL wars going on in Libya, Mali, BF, Sudan (massive loss this week for RSF), Pakistan (esp Gwadar!), India (Kashmir), and Myanmar (I mean holy cow, it's intense with Tatmyadaw losing entire cities and yet crickets).
Frankly, everything feels like a cheap bit of entertainment while "behind the scenes" everything is arranged without anyone's consent or input. Are there no values at stake here?
Is everything just a show? You know, like the Ukrainian and Russian guys working side by side at the Sudzha metering office, which monitors how much money Russia needs to pay Ukraine every month? I feel like I'm losing my brain.
Well I am up early so here are my thoughts on the Kursk Operation and also the casualty levels and implications.
In my opinion it is becoming clearer that the Kursk Operation was a strategic, operational and tactical surprise.
Strategic because it appears to have breached the back channel agreed red line that Ukraine won’t attack Russia proper. Ukraine cannot do anything without western ISR and orders so we must believe that NATO is neck deep in the planning and execution, despite denials. This is not a Z frolic but a NATO operation. However it provides a convenient excuse to remove him. It was an operational surprise because units managed to be assembled before the Russians could react properly. This does not mean that it was a total surprise, just that the UAF got inside the Russian OODA loop. Finally for the troops on the ground it was clearly a tactical surprise, though one from which they appear to have recovered.
The UAF were able to concentrate regular armoured forces with spearheads it seems of foreign mercenaries (rebadged NATO regulars including special forces) who faced what we keep hearing were conscripts. Why would this be? Conscripts can be deployed under Russian law in Russia but not “abroad” [though the Donbas is now Russia??]. These seem to have been lightly armed para-military border guard types. No wonder they crumpled. Nevertheless reading the tea leaves I suggest that STAVKA realised too late what was coming, recognised the risk to the Kursk NPP and let the UAF advance into a fire sack whilst protecting and securing that objective.
Whilst the optics of all this are bad for Russia the original Ukrainian/NATO objective of taking territory, and holding hostage the KNPP and many civilians has failed. This is being spun in the western MSM as a bold gamble and a huge embarrassment to “the Putin” but in reality is a desperate and maybe last throw of the dice to try to secure conditions for a negotiated peace on favourable terms. Good luck with that now it has been characterised s a “terrorist operation”.
It seems to have involved so far c 12,000 troops from the UAF, maybe half in the first wave or say 6,000. These will have had a combat strength of c 3,000 to 4,000. With losses reported at c 400 per day in this direction, half of the fighting troops are already in hospitals or graves. There appears to be a view that this has been a success and requires reinforcing. So more reserves are being fed into the fire sack. The UAF/NATO would calculate that Russia will try to pinch out the salient at the sides and counterattack. So they would try to create a fire trap of their own, placing a concentration of scarce air defence, missile and artillery systems in range of achieving this objective. In all cases it forces the UAF to put its mobile reserves and fire support assets in the “open” rather than hide them in reserve where they remain a latent threat. All this does in my view is accelerate the attrition of the UAF and bring its ultimate defeat closer.
Though the UAF is reportedly forming several new reserve brigades, these are under-armed, undertrained and must have less than stellar morale. They lack fire support, armour and air defence. In the early months of 2024 the UAF had around 100 combat Brigades, nearly all understrength. Their combat strength would have been at best c 60% or say 120,000 to 150,000 combat troops. Monthly losses were c 30,000 January through April according to Moscow, and have since doubled to 60,000. By the end of August losses will be c 300,000 to 400,000 if the Russian figures are anywhere near accurate. This means that the UAF combat strength will have been burnt through 2 or 3 times in 8 months. Of course they have received new recruits and returning wounded as well as combing out rear area types and transferring paramilitary police and the like. However no army can sustain this level of losses. It begs questions about the veracity of Russian claims and the continuing resistance of the UAF suggest some exaggeration.
I had predicted that a full scale UAF collapse would be seen by the late summer, end of August at the earliest. Well that looks to have been wrong but the trajectory has not changed in my view. The Kursk operation will help expend what few mobile reserves and firepower reserves the UAF has left. Meanwhile the Donbas front is collapsing. Russia blood is up and Z looks like he may get regime changed by its allies for “unauthorised escalation”. Maybe. Nothing good is on the horizon for Ukraine and its NATO backers.
Watch the spin however. Western publics still believe their MSM tells the truth about the war in Ukraine so subtle changes in narrative will help highlight what the various establishment are now admitting to themselves in private. And in any case, some coalition of interests is now pursuing some unknown and possibly divergent objective in all this, as clearly the White House has totally lost control and is now not directing events. I mean, if Russia was minded to negotiate then with whom?