Ukraine Blog 24 - Losing Fear of the Paper Bear
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
Been out
for the Easter to take a break from this total madness that’s going on and to
clear my head (in which I succeeded very well). A lot has been going on. Most
notably the sinking of the Black Sea flag ship, Moskva of course, but also
Russia’s failure to capitalize on Izium, the Ukrainian counteroffensives in the
area and the Russians chickening out in their nuclear talk.
But first
the Moskva. I’m happy to have waited some time before I put it in the blog,
because now we have footage available.
Forget all
the Russian bullshit talk about an accident. I can clearly see from both the video
and pictures that the Moskva has been hit below the deck by at least two
projectiles. One hit the area around the main exhaust pipes. This is also the area
where the Slava cruisers have one of their main ammunition decks. You can
clearly see that the ship is burning heavily inside and I think it’s very
likely that the projectiles penetrated the ship very deep.
I don’t
know why they still tried to save at the moment when the pictures were taken. The
ship was already leaning heavily portside. This ship was already a total loss
at this stage. What’s also interesting is that the waters appear to be totally
quiet as opposed to the messages where the Russians spoke about a storm.
So what are
the implications for this? In terms of material, it won’t be that much of an influence,
but in terms of symbolism and morale, this loss is catastrophic and for the
following points:
1. We are talking here about the
sinking of a fleet flagship by a country that practically has no more navy (at
least with major surface combatants). I tried to look for historical parallels,
but I haven’t been able to find an historical parallel where something similar
took place. If you are able to find an historical parallel, you will get some Belgium
special beer or chocolates. I stated before that when the Ukrainians destroyed
the Saratov landing ship, the Russian navy could also be included in the
general Russian apparatus of incompetence, but the levels of incompetence show
here are mind-blowing. To let your fleet flagship operate so close to the enemy
coast without air and naval back up support shows that the Russians have absolutely
no clue how to conduct naval warfare (more on that later).
2. The Slava class cruisers are of
World War II proportion. They are armed with massive incredibly destructive P-500
Bazalt anti-ship weapons and a very large anti-aircraft component. You have to
realize that after World War II, almost all navies abandoned the philosophy to
rely on heavy battleships, battle cruisers and cruisers and focused instead on smaller
ships that are more maneuverable with a large long range missile component. As
of 2022 only the Americans operate 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers and the
Russians operate two more Slava class boats plus two of the even more massive
Kirov-class battlecruisers. So they are very rare nowadays. Never in my life I would
imagine that I would see the sinking of a World War II size warship. The only
post World War II occasion where this happened was the sinking of the
Argentinian cruiser the general Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands war.
And especially
the second point shows that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the Russian
navy. The United States navy for example operates in so-called carrier battle
groups. That means you have an aircraft carrier supported by cruisers,
destroyers, auxiliary and supply vessels and usually a complete amphibious group
with a couple of US marines battalions. This means that the Americans can assemble,
land, air and navel forces on the sea. Each of these carrier battle groups is
larger than most of the navies in the world and like I stated before, four of
them are sufficient to completely wipe out Russia in a conventional military
conflict. The Americans have eleven of them!
The
Russians, besides a large number of submarines, a couple of their large
cruisers and some destroyers, operate nothing even close to that. On top of
that, Russian ship rarely operate in coordinated formations. That’s why Russian
cruisers have those insane amounts of weaponry as opposed to much lighter armed
American warships. The only asset that Russia actually can use to exercise to
form of naval power projection, its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetzov,
has been in dry dock for years and continuous high impact accidents happen when
they are working on the ship. Her deployment to Syria was an embarrassment,
limping her way through the North Sea all to the Mediterranean. She was reportedly
accompanied by salvage ships, because of her instability. After a massive fire in
2019, she’s not expected to return to service till 2023. That leaves the
Russian navy as nothing more than a coastal defense force that can only be used
to defend their territorial waters. Russian propaganda touts that the sinking
of the Moskva shows that they are now “fighting equals (NATO).” To be honest,
with the structure of the Russian navy and that they are now confirmed to be
part of the incompetence culture, I believe any of the larger NATO navies will
absolutely annihilate the Russian navy within one day.
One more thing
about the Moskva. It’s a very small detail, but important. I consistently stated
that I absolutely believe the charts of Russian losses provided by the Ukrainians.
The biggest proof how correct the Ukrainian ministry of defense is creating
these reports, is the fact that the Slava crew was not included in the casualty
report of April 15th.
Judging by
the damage on the Moskva and the very direct missile impacts, I believe she sustained
massive internal destruction and I expect the amount of casualties to be high.
The normal staff complement of the Moskva was 510. On a ceremony welcoming the
Moskva’s crew back to base, less than 100 guys were present. It shows that the
Ukrainians only post verified casualties. Personally based on battlefield
intensity around Donbass and Mariupol, I think Russian deaths are far higher
than the 20600 deaths Ukraine reported today.
On the battlefield
Mariupol is now really close to falling. Azov battalion is now almost solely
confined to the giant Azovstal industrial complex. But it already has proven its
value. The idea always was to drain as much as Russian resources as possible so
that the Ukrainians could reinforce their positions in Kharkiv oblast.
Yesterday the Ukrainians went on the offensive in Kharkiv and managed to
capture many towns and destroy lots of Russian equipment. Mariupol bought time
for the rest of the Ukraine.
(7) C4H10FO2P on Twitter: "From battlefield SE of #Kharikiv city https://t.co/vOlJX17EVj" / Twitter
The failure
of Russia to capitalize on the gaining of Izium will be their crucial mistake
in this war. Russia has now two choices:
1. Get out and try to minimalize the
losses as much as possible.
2. Go all in with all remaining forces
they have.
Make no
mistake! We have now come to a point where it’s pretty clear that Ukraine will
survive as a nation and a state with a well-trained, experienced military. The
question is now whether the Russian military will survive. If they decide to
withdraw, Russia can at best limit the losses it suffered, reconstitute its
forces and licking the wounds. If they decide to go all in now, the future of
the Russian military as a viable fighting force comes into question. I think we
are really approaching that point fast and the implications will be massive. It’s
so important that I will spend an entire second special to this topic.
I also
notice that in the West we finally seem to really start losing the fear for the
Russian paper bear. Russia is threatening to deploy nuclear weapons in
Kaliningrad in response to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden. NATO’s
response in essence: “Ok, go ahead.” I would like to remind you that the
Russian threat is a significant tone down from earlier threats to actually use nuclear
weapons. And this is the thing: when the only asset you have to install fears
are nuclear weapons and you use those threats continuously, people in the end
will start lose fear. You can have a lot of nukes, but you have to have something
to back it up to capitalize on it.
So are we
all good in that aspect? NO! It’s said that in case Saudi-Arabia opens up the
oil tab, oil prices will significantly drop, causing a major headache for Putin.
My suspicion why the Saudi’s are not doing that is the following: and surprise:
I totally understand them.
The Obama
and Biden administrations have been very keen on pursuing a similar weak
appeasement strategy with regards to Iran. If you thought that Putin is a
monster, the Iranian regime is a far more bizarre, blood-thirsty and cruel
regime than Putin’s if given the space. The Obama administration made a
disastrous deal, called the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” with
the mullah regime deeply emboldening the Iranian posture in the Middle-East. This
was only halted when Donald Trump scrapped the deal and killed Iranian general
Qassem Soleimani. Since the Biden administration went back into office, they
have been very keen to reinstate the JCPOA, essentially continuing the same kind
of appeasement towards Iran that failed towards Russia. My knowledge about Iran
is extensive and I can create an entirely separate blog page to this country (perhaps
I will), but for now the only point I want to make is, that the Saudi’s are absolutely
keen on frustrating the American efforts with regards to oil in order to put pressure
on the Biden administration to abandon the JCPOA. Not that I think Saudi-Arabia
is an example of how a country should operate in terms of democracy and human
rights, but the Iranian people deserve to live in liberty and freedom, just as
much as the Ukrainian and Russian people do. The Iranian regime time and again
proved to be a very though nut to crack due to their absolute insane methods
and levels of suppression. Any measure that contributes to a demise of the JCPOA
is welcome in that sense.
Best regards, Happy Easter and "Slava
Ukraini!"
Niels
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