Hi, I see you found yourself a new hobby to keep you busy. ;-)
Here's my two cents. I seriously doubt that we will see a 'major' offensive anytime soon. I believe that Russia will continue with its strategy that has served it so well so far with regards to the demilitarisation of the Ukraine. This has been an artillery war, and I suspect that the Russians will do their best to keep it that way.
What they will do though is to intensify the conflict. You mentioned the 'death by a thousand cuts' approach. What has been happening so far could be characterised as 'death by a thousand PAPER cuts'. With the recent Russian attacks all along the frontline (except for Kherson), it is turning into 'death by a hundred knife cuts'. And it may well grow further in the near future, into 'death by a dozen sword cuts'. But I don't think we will see that single rapier thrust to the heart to finish it in one strike.
Recently Russia hasn't just been attacking in many different places, they've also halted or slowed down many of those attacks after a few days, and in some case, like Vuhledar, even pulled back again. I believe they do so because the objective of those attacks had been achieved. Those objectives were never geographical in nature though. They attacked locations that the Ukrainians 'must hold'. (Often a result of their own propaganda and the need to continue to appear 'victorious' enough to keep western aid coming in) to draw their reinforcements in.
The Ukraine lacks enough capable troops to hold the line everywhere, especially with the Bahkmut black hole having sucked in so many forces. Before the recent Russian attacks, the front along the Zaporozhe line was held almost exclusively by poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led, and poorly supplied territorial units who were also understrength. The few regular formations in the area were heavily depleted from fighting elsewhere, and send to the 'quiet' front to rest and recover.
But the Russian attacks changed that. Those weak territorial forces were relatively easily swept aside, and the Russians threatened to take locations the Ukrainians couldn't afford to lose. So what did they do? They send in reinforcements, regular formations with much better equipment and training. And I believe that that was the Russian objective all along. Their attacks are forcing the Ukrainians to commit their best brigades into the frontline, instead of keeping them back as mobile reserves. And by putting them in the frontline, they are now exactly where the Russians want them to be, within range of their artillery. I repeat, this is an artillery war, Russia is demilitarising the Ukraine by forcing them into a never-ending Verdun-like slaughter.
And it makes sense. We've all seen clip after clip of fresh and barely trained Ukrainian conscripts put in the frontline trenches doing little more than await death or injury from artillery, drone or missile strike. If, as the Ukrainian commander, you have the choice of putting your best troops, which are also your most mobile forces, in those trenches or your worst, if you're smart you'll pick the latter. They'll be blown up anyway, so you might as well sacrifice your lower quality troops and save the better ones.
And as long as the Russians kept back their ground attacks, or advanced only very slowly, the Ukrainians got away with it. But not any longer. Now Russia is forcing them to commit their better formations to the front. At Vuhledar itself there's now a mechanised brigade, and a tank brigade (in name at least) directly to the east of it, instead of a single understrength territorial brigade covering the whole area. And those two brigades are being whittled away by long range strike after long range strike. And it's happening along most of the front.
That's what the increased Russian manpower is allowing them to do. They are putting the Ukrainians in a catch-22 situation. If they keep the cheap cannon-fodder up front as they have been doing, they will lose vital ground (such as Vuhledar) all along the frontline, again and again. But if they commit their more capable formations to hold back the attacks, then the Russians will simply hang back and take their time to annihilate them with artillery. Earlier I said that as the Ukrainian high command was choosing to sacrifice low-grade troops rather than their best. Well, they no longer have that luxury. Russia is taking it away from them. And there's no way that the Ukrainians can keep regenerating units and manpower and acquire more weaponry fast enough to make up for those losses (of quality formations).
I believe that the Russians will continue with the strategy of demilitarising the Ukraine in the east of the country for a while yet. That's where the supply lines are the shortest for them and the longest for the Ukrainian forces. That's where Zelensky keeps pouring in troops, despite the advice of his generals, and that's where the Russian artillery already is. They will gradually intensify the pressure (from a hundred knife to a dozen sword cuts) and the amount of destruction that comes with it, but I don't really see the need for a fast and deep mobile advance anywhere.
As to that last remark, the point of a 'cauldron', or cutting of a large group of enemy forces, is to create battlefield circumstances that make it relatively easy for you to defeat that enemy force, by creating more and much larger difficulties for them than the pincer movement itself creates for you (the attacker). That's often overlooked, but those pincers to surround enemy forces have some serious risks and drawbacks for the attacker too, for one the losses they'll incur while attacking. Often those risks and drawbacks are worth it, but does that also apply to this conflict? As I pointed out above, the Ukrainians are already, and quite willingly, putting their troops where it is relatively easy for Russia to decimate them, with little risks and fairly low losses for themselves. So is there enough added benefit to create those cauldrons, with all the costs involved for the attacker, if the end result is going to be pretty much the same?
It is a valid question to ask if a 'big arrow' offensive aimed at encircling a large number of Ukrainian troops, with the costs and risks involved, is actually worth it, or if it is even a smart thing to do, given the specific circumstances of this conflict. Wouldn't it be better to finish of the Ukrainian armed forces east of the Dnjepr once and for all, rather than risk having them flee to the west of the river, and having to go and fight them there at a later stage?
At some point in the not so far away future the whole house of cards that is Ukraine will come crumbling down, militarily, politically and economically anyway. So why make it harder for yourself by forcing the Ukrainians west of the river BEFORE that societal collapse?
Very good analysis. I have to wonder about the ability of Russia to keep Ukrainian artillery far enough away to prevent bombardment of Russian territory and in particular I am thinking about the newly annexed territories. It would seem that Russian forces would have to be permanently stationed far enough into non-annexed territory to push the artillery back 150+km from Russian territory. This could amount to a significant and constant drain on military resources eventually becoming untenable. The only real option is to replace the Kiev admin with a more neutral or Russia friendly regime and I am not sure that would even work. There needs to be either a complete annihilation of Ukrainian forces or such a dire threat that the regime in Kiev capitulates to whatever demands Russia may have.
I had a thought about the possible origins of those extra 200k men of the so-called 'stealth mobilisation'. Back when the original 300k reservists were called up, they weren't the only ones to show up. About 70k additional reservists reported for duty voluntarily. I rarely see those extra 70k men mentioned any more, and almost never in western media. Back in september or so, at the start of the mobilisation, the Russian authorities declared that they would gladly accept the 70k into their forces.
So right there you already have 70k extra troops, on top of the 300k. And that was months ago already. Sure, there was a peak of volunteer reservists when the 300k were mobilised, but I'm willing to bet that in the months since then, many more reservists have come forward to rejoin of their own accord (and without media attention). Probably enough to double that 70k, and maybe enough to triple it. So I can easily see an extra 150k to 200k reservists in total activated in addition to the 300k that were formally mobilised. But as they came forward voluntarily, they've technically not been mobilised, but rejoined the service under special circumstances.
Fantastic article, I really enjoyed your writing style. I have been following developments in this war since it began now, and I think that your analysis is very accurate and realistic. As for where the big arrows will point, my theory is that it will be a smaller more narrow version of your third scenario.
A large section of forces will go down both sides of the Oskil River front all the way to Izium and mainly restore the area that was lost in September. I don't think that Russia will do anything significant on the Sumy and Chernihiv directions, except maybe a smaller incursion to draw away the AFU and stretch the line. I also think that they will start a big front from the west side of Kharkov to isolate the city by linking up with the forces that will go down the Oskil River, however I don't think that Kharkov itself gets captured in the next offensive. The other big push will clearly be from the southern front in my opinion, that part is of vital national importance for Russia and there's already some activity in the Orekhov and Ugledar sections.
Essentially, my theory is that one "new" front will be established, west of Kharkov City all the way to the sensitive road and rail junctions in Lozova Raion. Then two "old" fronts will also be massively reinforced. One is a push from the north down the Oskil all the way to Izium and then west towards Lozova as well. The last push is from the south also towards the Lozova Raion, bypassing Pavlograd and Zaporozhye City.
Such a scenario would isolate and slowly reduce the role of the second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkov, while also putting it on the path of annexation. It would also cut off Zaporozhye without a costly urban battle. Supply and general logistics will be kept quite simple here without any costly detours through Belarus. And the most important gain is that the remaining parts of the Donbass will be encircled. Supplying cities like Kramatorsk would be borderline impossible and the AFU would slowly negotiate a withdrawal. The push would be less than 200 km from each side, which should be more than manageable for such a large force in mostly friendly territory and with good logistics.
The best analysis I have read so far. My guess is that you are totally right about Odessa. I cant see how the Russians can stop that. So, the most likely is the big cauldron scenario, something which will crash the remains of the AFU and will force to some kind of treaty to give time to NATO to put up another wider army of Baltics, Polish, Rumanians and worldaround mercenaries in order to suffocate Russia by endless assault waves. Meanwhile, the US will start something against China.
Off topic, but I'd like to thank you for your efforts to provide a steady stream of news on your bitchute channel and PLEASE can you point me to a resource where I can hear the whole of this tune!! https://www.bitchute.com/video/s1xJz7I52ZKQ/
I dont think they need a plausible excuse to stage a nuclear provocation. MH17 or Nord Stream were open air daylight false flags and they got away with it. Easy. But I think Russia is very much interested in procastinating and putting off things. The western fascist Titanic is sinking. So, why hurry? Russia is in its best all times strategic position, with solid stepholds in Africa, South America and the Mediterranean, direct access to the Indian Ocean through Iran, best terms with China and a loaded gun on Israel headside. This is obviously driving the empires thinking heads crazy. All their Ukranian businesses and investments are now gone forever. Why hurry. Russia just need to see the iceberg melt.
Nice work. In the offensives of 1943-1945 the Red army tended to start offensives all along full fronts. They had plans to pour offensive reserves through at specific points/goals. But it did a lot of the shaping you’re describing by forcing the Wehrmacht to shift defensive reserves. Sometimes the red army acted opportunistically regarding breakthrough. The mask deception was similar too. A lot of shifting offensive reserves around, fake armies, etc because the Wehrmacht had a pretty good idea of the front line but not much beyond that. Those games are obviously harder now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have value.
Great text, and a lot of new info and aspects of looking at stuff. Couple of items to add that could maybe broaden your views as wall:
1) McGregor's route does not really need to go all the way into Moldova. if it was 150-200km deep, rest of the corridor could be threatened by vast array of missiles and artillery at RF AF disposal. As it stands, supply lines are not threatened at all.
- I would actually avoid taking any bigger cities like Zhytomyr, and choose the route bypassing it.
- As a child of Bosnian war, it always puzzled me when I saw civilians staying in the area where opponents army advances. We (all 3 sides in the war) always moved before enemy's army came. Same can be done in this wedge area. Who doesn't want to move, gets forcibly evicted. Which solves civilian population related issue. Russia used what happened in ex-Yu as precedent before, can use it again
- If there is no plan to annex all of Ukraine tip of this salient would be a nice area to set up a large Russian military base, like US has Bondsteel in Kosovo. This is the only way to assure that there will be no funny business in the future. Additionally, any piece agreement between UA and RU would most likely forbid Airforce and Air defence for Ukraine. It would be Russia's responsibility to provide air policing in the future.
- Finally, it is my firm belief that without cutting supplies there will be no end of the war. If you cut them, UA has 3 months to live at most. In addition to this, I would land a task force to close the corridor to Romania. This would be tricky, but necessary. In my view, this would not be adventurism, but only actual way to end the war, and worth the risk. Banging your head on the Donbas wall would eventually produce far more casualties.
2) I think that you attribute MORE resilience to the bridges than they have :D . Example you made was a military bridge leftover from WW2, designed to be resilient. While bridges of similar construction (meaning no overhead support) as the one on the Dnipro example and comparable in size, fell after only 2 Tomahawks.
- You don't need to destroy these, just damaging them not to be usable is enough. Then after one or 2 strikes on the bridge repair crews, Ukraine will give up. This was the exact scenario for Antonovski bridge after all.
Great text, and a lot of new info and aspects of looking at stuff. Couple of items to add that could maybe broaden your views as wall:
1) McGregor's route does not really need to go all the way into Moldova. if it was 150-200km deep, rest of the corridor could be threatened by vast array of missiles and artillery at RF AF disposal. As it stands, supply lines are not threatened at all.
- I would actually avoid taking any bigger cities like Zhytomyr, and choose the route bypassing it.
- As a child of Bosnian war, it always puzzled me when I saw civilians staying in the area where opponents army advances. We (all 3 sides in the war) always moved before enemy's army came. Same can be done in this wedge area. Who doesn't want to move, gets forcibly evicted. Which solves civilian population related issue. Russia used what happened in ex-Yu as precedent before, can use it again
- If there is no plan to annex all of Ukraine tip of this salient would be a nice area to set up a large Russian military base, like US has Bondsteel in Kosovo. This is the only way to assure that there will be no funny business in the future. Additionally, any piece agreement between UA and RU would most likely forbid Airforce and Air defence for Ukraine. It would be Russia's responsibility to provide air policing in the future.
- Finally, it is my firm belief that without cutting supplies there will be no end of the war. If you cut them, UA has 3 months to live at most. In addition to this, I would land a task force to close the corridor to Romania. This would be tricky, but necessary. In my view, this would not be adventurism, but only actual way to end the war, and worth the risk. Banging your head on the Donbas wall would eventually produce far more casualties.
2) I think that you attribute MORE resilience to the bridges than they have :D . Example you made was a military bridge leftover from WW2, designed to be resilient. While bridges of similar construction (meaning no overhead support) as the one on the Dnipro example and comparable in size, fell after only 2 Tomahawks.
- You don't need to destroy these, just damaging them not to be usable is enough. Then after one or 2 strikes on the bridge repair crews, Ukraine will give up. This was the exact scenario for Antonovski bridge after all.
Odessa is important to the us as cargill owns the grain elevator there and probably makes a lot of money and campaign donations.
Keeping Russian border regions safe from attack is difficult, moving the border might be the easier option. I can imagine the meeting.."so what if we just move the border to here?" *intern takes pencil from Generals hand and draws on map*
We are all forgetting what we learned from Crimea. You dont need to stealth mobilize, you put conscripts to work doing the non fighting rear work and that frees up the contract soldiers. Theres no point in having contract soldiers loading grad boxes in Tula. Heck they can ask me to do that, ill figure out the numbers on the side quick enough.
If Russia takes Nikolaev and Odessa, and as a result the Ukraine ends up landlocked at the end of the war, Nato would simply pester Russia in the Black Sea, by instead building their base at Costanta.
Hello! I read with great interest your substack multi part series, they are very good. Now comes my "point of view": From what I "see" on the Internet, Ukraine's strategy at the moment is to send to the front lines, in the vast majority, only recruited soldiers and in the "second line" are the elite soldiers and "so-called mercenaries" (NATO troops). I am sure that this Ukrainian "second line" is very well informed and organized in order to counter-attack any big offensive from the Russian Federation - very careful here. A great offensive on the part of the Russian Federation must be prepared for the destruction of the "second line" of the Ukrainian NATO forces. I am a supporter of a major offensive by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, but it must be thoroughly prepared and take into account the evolution of many different scenarios on the battlefield. And this coming "great offensive" must solve the problem of supplying Ukraine with weapons and NATO soldiers. But at the moment the Russian Federation is doing great with the applied tactic called 'death by a thousand cuts' - the only disadvantage of this strategy is that it allows the supply of weapons and NATO troops to Ukraine, which leads to the prolongation of the conflict and the increase in the number of victims on the part of the Russian Federation. From Romania I send good thoughts to the entire Russian Federation. VICTORY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION!
Can you post if you know if Ukraine mobilized on the 23rd? Wiki says 24th, the article says 25th, both say it was a response to Ru invasion on the 24th. But the article is published on the 23rd, then edited on the 25th. So it looks like Ukr mobilized on the 23rd then Russia attacked, which would be reasonable. But I don't read Russian or Ukrainian/
Hi, I see you found yourself a new hobby to keep you busy. ;-)
Here's my two cents. I seriously doubt that we will see a 'major' offensive anytime soon. I believe that Russia will continue with its strategy that has served it so well so far with regards to the demilitarisation of the Ukraine. This has been an artillery war, and I suspect that the Russians will do their best to keep it that way.
What they will do though is to intensify the conflict. You mentioned the 'death by a thousand cuts' approach. What has been happening so far could be characterised as 'death by a thousand PAPER cuts'. With the recent Russian attacks all along the frontline (except for Kherson), it is turning into 'death by a hundred knife cuts'. And it may well grow further in the near future, into 'death by a dozen sword cuts'. But I don't think we will see that single rapier thrust to the heart to finish it in one strike.
Recently Russia hasn't just been attacking in many different places, they've also halted or slowed down many of those attacks after a few days, and in some case, like Vuhledar, even pulled back again. I believe they do so because the objective of those attacks had been achieved. Those objectives were never geographical in nature though. They attacked locations that the Ukrainians 'must hold'. (Often a result of their own propaganda and the need to continue to appear 'victorious' enough to keep western aid coming in) to draw their reinforcements in.
The Ukraine lacks enough capable troops to hold the line everywhere, especially with the Bahkmut black hole having sucked in so many forces. Before the recent Russian attacks, the front along the Zaporozhe line was held almost exclusively by poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led, and poorly supplied territorial units who were also understrength. The few regular formations in the area were heavily depleted from fighting elsewhere, and send to the 'quiet' front to rest and recover.
But the Russian attacks changed that. Those weak territorial forces were relatively easily swept aside, and the Russians threatened to take locations the Ukrainians couldn't afford to lose. So what did they do? They send in reinforcements, regular formations with much better equipment and training. And I believe that that was the Russian objective all along. Their attacks are forcing the Ukrainians to commit their best brigades into the frontline, instead of keeping them back as mobile reserves. And by putting them in the frontline, they are now exactly where the Russians want them to be, within range of their artillery. I repeat, this is an artillery war, Russia is demilitarising the Ukraine by forcing them into a never-ending Verdun-like slaughter.
And it makes sense. We've all seen clip after clip of fresh and barely trained Ukrainian conscripts put in the frontline trenches doing little more than await death or injury from artillery, drone or missile strike. If, as the Ukrainian commander, you have the choice of putting your best troops, which are also your most mobile forces, in those trenches or your worst, if you're smart you'll pick the latter. They'll be blown up anyway, so you might as well sacrifice your lower quality troops and save the better ones.
And as long as the Russians kept back their ground attacks, or advanced only very slowly, the Ukrainians got away with it. But not any longer. Now Russia is forcing them to commit their better formations to the front. At Vuhledar itself there's now a mechanised brigade, and a tank brigade (in name at least) directly to the east of it, instead of a single understrength territorial brigade covering the whole area. And those two brigades are being whittled away by long range strike after long range strike. And it's happening along most of the front.
That's what the increased Russian manpower is allowing them to do. They are putting the Ukrainians in a catch-22 situation. If they keep the cheap cannon-fodder up front as they have been doing, they will lose vital ground (such as Vuhledar) all along the frontline, again and again. But if they commit their more capable formations to hold back the attacks, then the Russians will simply hang back and take their time to annihilate them with artillery. Earlier I said that as the Ukrainian high command was choosing to sacrifice low-grade troops rather than their best. Well, they no longer have that luxury. Russia is taking it away from them. And there's no way that the Ukrainians can keep regenerating units and manpower and acquire more weaponry fast enough to make up for those losses (of quality formations).
I believe that the Russians will continue with the strategy of demilitarising the Ukraine in the east of the country for a while yet. That's where the supply lines are the shortest for them and the longest for the Ukrainian forces. That's where Zelensky keeps pouring in troops, despite the advice of his generals, and that's where the Russian artillery already is. They will gradually intensify the pressure (from a hundred knife to a dozen sword cuts) and the amount of destruction that comes with it, but I don't really see the need for a fast and deep mobile advance anywhere.
As to that last remark, the point of a 'cauldron', or cutting of a large group of enemy forces, is to create battlefield circumstances that make it relatively easy for you to defeat that enemy force, by creating more and much larger difficulties for them than the pincer movement itself creates for you (the attacker). That's often overlooked, but those pincers to surround enemy forces have some serious risks and drawbacks for the attacker too, for one the losses they'll incur while attacking. Often those risks and drawbacks are worth it, but does that also apply to this conflict? As I pointed out above, the Ukrainians are already, and quite willingly, putting their troops where it is relatively easy for Russia to decimate them, with little risks and fairly low losses for themselves. So is there enough added benefit to create those cauldrons, with all the costs involved for the attacker, if the end result is going to be pretty much the same?
It is a valid question to ask if a 'big arrow' offensive aimed at encircling a large number of Ukrainian troops, with the costs and risks involved, is actually worth it, or if it is even a smart thing to do, given the specific circumstances of this conflict. Wouldn't it be better to finish of the Ukrainian armed forces east of the Dnjepr once and for all, rather than risk having them flee to the west of the river, and having to go and fight them there at a later stage?
At some point in the not so far away future the whole house of cards that is Ukraine will come crumbling down, militarily, politically and economically anyway. So why make it harder for yourself by forcing the Ukrainians west of the river BEFORE that societal collapse?
Very good analysis. I have to wonder about the ability of Russia to keep Ukrainian artillery far enough away to prevent bombardment of Russian territory and in particular I am thinking about the newly annexed territories. It would seem that Russian forces would have to be permanently stationed far enough into non-annexed territory to push the artillery back 150+km from Russian territory. This could amount to a significant and constant drain on military resources eventually becoming untenable. The only real option is to replace the Kiev admin with a more neutral or Russia friendly regime and I am not sure that would even work. There needs to be either a complete annihilation of Ukrainian forces or such a dire threat that the regime in Kiev capitulates to whatever demands Russia may have.
Hi,
I had a thought about the possible origins of those extra 200k men of the so-called 'stealth mobilisation'. Back when the original 300k reservists were called up, they weren't the only ones to show up. About 70k additional reservists reported for duty voluntarily. I rarely see those extra 70k men mentioned any more, and almost never in western media. Back in september or so, at the start of the mobilisation, the Russian authorities declared that they would gladly accept the 70k into their forces.
So right there you already have 70k extra troops, on top of the 300k. And that was months ago already. Sure, there was a peak of volunteer reservists when the 300k were mobilised, but I'm willing to bet that in the months since then, many more reservists have come forward to rejoin of their own accord (and without media attention). Probably enough to double that 70k, and maybe enough to triple it. So I can easily see an extra 150k to 200k reservists in total activated in addition to the 300k that were formally mobilised. But as they came forward voluntarily, they've technically not been mobilised, but rejoined the service under special circumstances.
Fantastic article, I really enjoyed your writing style. I have been following developments in this war since it began now, and I think that your analysis is very accurate and realistic. As for where the big arrows will point, my theory is that it will be a smaller more narrow version of your third scenario.
A large section of forces will go down both sides of the Oskil River front all the way to Izium and mainly restore the area that was lost in September. I don't think that Russia will do anything significant on the Sumy and Chernihiv directions, except maybe a smaller incursion to draw away the AFU and stretch the line. I also think that they will start a big front from the west side of Kharkov to isolate the city by linking up with the forces that will go down the Oskil River, however I don't think that Kharkov itself gets captured in the next offensive. The other big push will clearly be from the southern front in my opinion, that part is of vital national importance for Russia and there's already some activity in the Orekhov and Ugledar sections.
Essentially, my theory is that one "new" front will be established, west of Kharkov City all the way to the sensitive road and rail junctions in Lozova Raion. Then two "old" fronts will also be massively reinforced. One is a push from the north down the Oskil all the way to Izium and then west towards Lozova as well. The last push is from the south also towards the Lozova Raion, bypassing Pavlograd and Zaporozhye City.
Such a scenario would isolate and slowly reduce the role of the second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkov, while also putting it on the path of annexation. It would also cut off Zaporozhye without a costly urban battle. Supply and general logistics will be kept quite simple here without any costly detours through Belarus. And the most important gain is that the remaining parts of the Donbass will be encircled. Supplying cities like Kramatorsk would be borderline impossible and the AFU would slowly negotiate a withdrawal. The push would be less than 200 km from each side, which should be more than manageable for such a large force in mostly friendly territory and with good logistics.
The best analysis I have read so far. My guess is that you are totally right about Odessa. I cant see how the Russians can stop that. So, the most likely is the big cauldron scenario, something which will crash the remains of the AFU and will force to some kind of treaty to give time to NATO to put up another wider army of Baltics, Polish, Rumanians and worldaround mercenaries in order to suffocate Russia by endless assault waves. Meanwhile, the US will start something against China.
Off topic, but I'd like to thank you for your efforts to provide a steady stream of news on your bitchute channel and PLEASE can you point me to a resource where I can hear the whole of this tune!! https://www.bitchute.com/video/s1xJz7I52ZKQ/
I dont think they need a plausible excuse to stage a nuclear provocation. MH17 or Nord Stream were open air daylight false flags and they got away with it. Easy. But I think Russia is very much interested in procastinating and putting off things. The western fascist Titanic is sinking. So, why hurry? Russia is in its best all times strategic position, with solid stepholds in Africa, South America and the Mediterranean, direct access to the Indian Ocean through Iran, best terms with China and a loaded gun on Israel headside. This is obviously driving the empires thinking heads crazy. All their Ukranian businesses and investments are now gone forever. Why hurry. Russia just need to see the iceberg melt.
Nice work. In the offensives of 1943-1945 the Red army tended to start offensives all along full fronts. They had plans to pour offensive reserves through at specific points/goals. But it did a lot of the shaping you’re describing by forcing the Wehrmacht to shift defensive reserves. Sometimes the red army acted opportunistically regarding breakthrough. The mask deception was similar too. A lot of shifting offensive reserves around, fake armies, etc because the Wehrmacht had a pretty good idea of the front line but not much beyond that. Those games are obviously harder now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have value.
Isn't Zircon able to destroy these bridges?
Great text, and a lot of new info and aspects of looking at stuff. Couple of items to add that could maybe broaden your views as wall:
1) McGregor's route does not really need to go all the way into Moldova. if it was 150-200km deep, rest of the corridor could be threatened by vast array of missiles and artillery at RF AF disposal. As it stands, supply lines are not threatened at all.
- I would actually avoid taking any bigger cities like Zhytomyr, and choose the route bypassing it.
- As a child of Bosnian war, it always puzzled me when I saw civilians staying in the area where opponents army advances. We (all 3 sides in the war) always moved before enemy's army came. Same can be done in this wedge area. Who doesn't want to move, gets forcibly evicted. Which solves civilian population related issue. Russia used what happened in ex-Yu as precedent before, can use it again
- If there is no plan to annex all of Ukraine tip of this salient would be a nice area to set up a large Russian military base, like US has Bondsteel in Kosovo. This is the only way to assure that there will be no funny business in the future. Additionally, any piece agreement between UA and RU would most likely forbid Airforce and Air defence for Ukraine. It would be Russia's responsibility to provide air policing in the future.
- Finally, it is my firm belief that without cutting supplies there will be no end of the war. If you cut them, UA has 3 months to live at most. In addition to this, I would land a task force to close the corridor to Romania. This would be tricky, but necessary. In my view, this would not be adventurism, but only actual way to end the war, and worth the risk. Banging your head on the Donbas wall would eventually produce far more casualties.
2) I think that you attribute MORE resilience to the bridges than they have :D . Example you made was a military bridge leftover from WW2, designed to be resilient. While bridges of similar construction (meaning no overhead support) as the one on the Dnipro example and comparable in size, fell after only 2 Tomahawks.
- You don't need to destroy these, just damaging them not to be usable is enough. Then after one or 2 strikes on the bridge repair crews, Ukraine will give up. This was the exact scenario for Antonovski bridge after all.
I hope I provided some additional insight :)
Great text, and a lot of new info and aspects of looking at stuff. Couple of items to add that could maybe broaden your views as wall:
1) McGregor's route does not really need to go all the way into Moldova. if it was 150-200km deep, rest of the corridor could be threatened by vast array of missiles and artillery at RF AF disposal. As it stands, supply lines are not threatened at all.
- I would actually avoid taking any bigger cities like Zhytomyr, and choose the route bypassing it.
- As a child of Bosnian war, it always puzzled me when I saw civilians staying in the area where opponents army advances. We (all 3 sides in the war) always moved before enemy's army came. Same can be done in this wedge area. Who doesn't want to move, gets forcibly evicted. Which solves civilian population related issue. Russia used what happened in ex-Yu as precedent before, can use it again
- If there is no plan to annex all of Ukraine tip of this salient would be a nice area to set up a large Russian military base, like US has Bondsteel in Kosovo. This is the only way to assure that there will be no funny business in the future. Additionally, any piece agreement between UA and RU would most likely forbid Airforce and Air defence for Ukraine. It would be Russia's responsibility to provide air policing in the future.
- Finally, it is my firm belief that without cutting supplies there will be no end of the war. If you cut them, UA has 3 months to live at most. In addition to this, I would land a task force to close the corridor to Romania. This would be tricky, but necessary. In my view, this would not be adventurism, but only actual way to end the war, and worth the risk. Banging your head on the Donbas wall would eventually produce far more casualties.
2) I think that you attribute MORE resilience to the bridges than they have :D . Example you made was a military bridge leftover from WW2, designed to be resilient. While bridges of similar construction (meaning no overhead support) as the one on the Dnipro example and comparable in size, fell after only 2 Tomahawks.
- You don't need to destroy these, just damaging them not to be usable is enough. Then after one or 2 strikes on the bridge repair crews, Ukraine will give up. This was the exact scenario for Antonovski bridge after all.
I hope I provided some additional insight :)
Odessa is important to the us as cargill owns the grain elevator there and probably makes a lot of money and campaign donations.
Keeping Russian border regions safe from attack is difficult, moving the border might be the easier option. I can imagine the meeting.."so what if we just move the border to here?" *intern takes pencil from Generals hand and draws on map*
We are all forgetting what we learned from Crimea. You dont need to stealth mobilize, you put conscripts to work doing the non fighting rear work and that frees up the contract soldiers. Theres no point in having contract soldiers loading grad boxes in Tula. Heck they can ask me to do that, ill figure out the numbers on the side quick enough.
If Russia takes Nikolaev and Odessa, and as a result the Ukraine ends up landlocked at the end of the war, Nato would simply pester Russia in the Black Sea, by instead building their base at Costanta.
Hello! I read with great interest your substack multi part series, they are very good. Now comes my "point of view": From what I "see" on the Internet, Ukraine's strategy at the moment is to send to the front lines, in the vast majority, only recruited soldiers and in the "second line" are the elite soldiers and "so-called mercenaries" (NATO troops). I am sure that this Ukrainian "second line" is very well informed and organized in order to counter-attack any big offensive from the Russian Federation - very careful here. A great offensive on the part of the Russian Federation must be prepared for the destruction of the "second line" of the Ukrainian NATO forces. I am a supporter of a major offensive by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, but it must be thoroughly prepared and take into account the evolution of many different scenarios on the battlefield. And this coming "great offensive" must solve the problem of supplying Ukraine with weapons and NATO soldiers. But at the moment the Russian Federation is doing great with the applied tactic called 'death by a thousand cuts' - the only disadvantage of this strategy is that it allows the supply of weapons and NATO troops to Ukraine, which leads to the prolongation of the conflict and the increase in the number of victims on the part of the Russian Federation. From Romania I send good thoughts to the entire Russian Federation. VICTORY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION!
https://globalnews.ca/news/8641948/ukraine-russia-putin-war/
Can you post if you know if Ukraine mobilized on the 23rd? Wiki says 24th, the article says 25th, both say it was a response to Ru invasion on the 24th. But the article is published on the 23rd, then edited on the 25th. So it looks like Ukr mobilized on the 23rd then Russia attacked, which would be reasonable. But I don't read Russian or Ukrainian/