Ukraine Blog 22 - The Mariupol Meatgrinder and Putin's Terror Babushkas
Dear Friends, Family and Colleagues,
At the
moment of writing, the stage is being set for the grand battle of Donbass. If
you’re appalled by the images of Mariupol and Bucha, I have some sad news. The worst
is yet to come and it will get a whole lotta worse. Russia is emptying its
depots of old equipment and finally started mobilizing 60.000 reservists (of questionable
quality). The whole Russian army is essentially going to the Donbass region. I
expect that we will start to see artillery and MLRS volleys of World War II Battle
of Berlin levels. If you want to know how incredible destructive the East Front
of the Second World War was: there’s a ton of history books about it.
The
Russians right now seem to have picked their guy for the Central Command
position. It will most likely be Alexander Dvornikov. A four star general, that
was previously in command of Russia’s Southern military district. And with this
guy, they picked the only guy that I seem fit for the job. Dvornikov has led
the Russian effort in Syria, seems to possess some skills in tactical maneuvering
and he’s the only Russian general that’s really popular with the troops. I attribute
the initial success of the Southern front to Dvornikov’s command.
Having said
that: if Dvornikov was given central command on February, 24th, the
war perhaps have gone in an entirely different direction. Most likely Russian
efforts around Kyiv wouldn’t have been so chaotic. I don’t think that Dvornikov
can fix the current mess.
1. More and more reports are coming in
that the Russians do not even control 30 percent of Mariupol and the Russian
loss rates there are absolutely insane. I knew that Azov battalion would give everything,
but six weeks into the siege they are still operating armored vehicles across
most of the city and killing absolutely insane amount of Russian and DNR
soldiers. A couple of weeks ago I gave up Mariupol in my head, but since yesterday,
for the first time since the siege, I see a glimmer of hope that the Ukrainians
will be able to lift the siege. A couple of videos of what the Russians face in
Mariupol.
Alert: Bodies not bloody!
These guys all suffer from the symptoms of shellshock
The confirmed losses based on videos that according to their metadata are actually from yesterday are way higher than what the Ukrainian ministry of defense published this morning in their daily Russian losses report. I never before saw in a conflict that my own counts were higher than that of an official source. I followed the Ukrainian casualty reports in the eight year static war on the Donbass front and I always found Ukrainian casualty reports extremely accurate. I know that the Ukrainian put great effort in verifying the losses they inflict via analysis of radio communication and actually confirm them via BDA on the battlefield. Most likely the Azov guys have better stuff to do than contributing the tally of the Ministry of Defense.
In addition: although Russia captured Izium, they are not able to advance South of the city. I’m pretty confident that this has to do with my earlier statement. Russia is not capable of conducting large maneuvering warfare beyond 150 kilometers from it’s border. With Izium, they reached that limit. Their logistics can’t keep up and I’m pretty sure Ukrainian partisans are hammering the supply columns as well.
2. I see Dvornikov as the only Russian general capable of changing tactics. However, even in units that are better trained and consist of professional soldiers, this is difficult. Russia’s best units have now been completely wiped out. They now need to replenish manpower with very poorly trained reservists, equipped with ancient equipment. We are already seeing the old camo from the nineties on their uniforms
Very poor reserve units from Tuva
I don’t think Dvornikov will be able to coordinate these reservist units at all. First of all, you need to make combat effective units out of them (impossible) and you need to change their tactics (impossible in this universe). Essentially these guys will be fed to the meatgrinders in Ukriaine. We are now rapidly approaching the critical mark that I set of 30.000 deaths on the Russian side. Now that Russia started to deploy reservists, it’s very likely we will reach this milestone. Like I said in my earlier blogs, this will be devastating for the survival of Russia as a nation state in the long run. With these casualty numbers, Russia’s population will decline even faster than the most previous pessimistic prognoses. And this gives a very dark undertone to the reports that Russia is deporting Ukrainians to Russia. This has a very simple reason: Russia needs people to breed new Russians.
I stated before
that the appointment of a central commander is the most tangible indication
that Putin didn’t lose it. Two days ago there was another indication that Putin
is still very much a rational actor. His Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov acknowledged
that Russian casualty numbers have been high and called it a tragedy. This has
nothing to do with Russia suddenly becoming honest. The reason is that Russian propaganda
fell victim to its own success. It managed to galvanize support for the war
against Ukraine and larges segments of the Russian population now demand a
total victory over Ukraine. Within the Kremlin everyone understands by now that
Russia need to fight over every house in Ukraine in order to achieve only a
limited victory and a defeat is becoming more likely by the day. Peskov’s
announcement is nothing more than an instrument to decrease the appetite among
the population for a full blown victory. In Russia it’s very dangerous when the
public demands more than the Kremlin can achieve.
The segment
of the Russian population that is most problematic is exactly the Russian
boomer generation of Putin. I generally have the impression that something is
really wrong with this generation. Personally I think it has to do with being
traumatized by the aftermath of the Second World War, Stalin, being spoiled by
Breznjev and being traumatized again by the nineties. It’s utterly disturbing
to see those terror Babushka’s going crazy from their shithole villages and threatening
the world with nuclear weapons,
'It's Fake,' 'It's Horrible': Mixed Reaction In Russia To Alleged War Crimes In Bucha - YouTube
I think
Russia can only change after this entire rotten generation dies over the next
20 years. Exceptions there, I don’t think anything can be done to change their
minds. Putin is the perfect representation of all of them. Nevertheless, Peskov’s statement is important.
It shows that Putin realizes he can not realize a compete victory. It very much
shows Putin is still a rational actor. Every day I’m more convinced that Putin
will definitely not lead us to nuclear Armageddon. See it like this: Putin
(like Trump) runs Russia like a big CEO. He makes his decisions based on what’s
presented to him on the dashboards. Like the dashboards I make for the senior
management of my company, the management doesn’t know about all the nitty
gritty details further downstream in my company. They make the high level decisions
based on the dashboards we present to them. Putin is no different. His major
problem is, that the information he received so far, is really distorted. Only now
(when it’s too late) he starts to understand more and more what’s really going
on and he adjusts his (from his point) rational decisions to it.
All Russia’s
actions are no focused on finding a way out of the Ukraine situation. This is
currently being exploited by Finland and Sweden. This is their moment to make
use of the situation. It’s very likely that by next month Finland is a NATO member.
Sweden will likely follow soon after. Russia is simply in no position to even put
some limited forces on the Finnish border. Two months ago they were threatening
Finland with nuclear annihilation in case of NATO membership, but now they don’t
go further than “increasing the force posture on the Western flank.” And let’s
be clear, Russia is not going to attack NATO. In case they would, they would
have done so by now. NATO’s main supply point at Rzeszow has not been targeted so
far and with Russia’s defeat in Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, this is even less
likely to happen.
So Putin
achieved what many Western politicians failed to do. Expanding NATO and
establish more unity in the alliance. I say “more,” not full unity. Besides
Hungary, there are still two major troublemakers in the West: Germany and Canada.
The Germans still don’t want to cut of energy supplies from Russia, because they
don’t want a situation where “Germany suffers more than Russia.” This statement
is so disgusting that I would call it betrayal. Germany and Russia? Where’s
Ukraine in their assessment? Germany is still willing to accept blood goods
from a party that has now openly committed war crimes. For Canada, it’s a
different problem.
Where some Western
leaders finally managed to gather some strengths over the past couple of
months, Justin Trudeau is still trembled by fear for Russia. In my assessment
he was always the weakest link of the Western leadership and in the first three
months of this year he has proven twice what a weak man he is. First with the Freedom
convoy and now refusing to stand up against Russia. I would like you to
remember that this is the man that shook hands with Iran’s foreign minister
Javad Zarif after Iran shot down an Ukrainian (what a twist of fate) airplane
carrying 63 Canadians from Iranian decent.
Trudeau criticized over meeting with Iran's foreign minister - YouTube
In the next
months, critical decisions, courage and strength, cowardice and weakness will
determine how the world will look like in the 21st century.
Best regards and "Slava Ukraini!"
Niels
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