Ukraine Blog 25 - Ukraine: The Warrior Nation
Dear friends,
family and colleagues,
We have arrived
at a point that I can say with confidence that the war will result in an absolute
strategic defeat for Russia. This might be hard for the mainstream media
follower to see this, but the moment is actually very close. Let me explain why.
1. Yes! Russia is still advancing in
Luhansk and around Izium. However, Russia should focus on consolidating what it
has already conquered in Ukraine and the last thing they should do right now,
is to advance further. The Russians have to fight incredibly hard battles for
even the smallest village that they want to conquer. Everywhere in the area of
the “Joint Group of Forces” (the Ukrainian army formation responsible for the
defense of Donbass) is deeply entrenched and the Russians are losing dozens to
hundreds of casualties for each village or city they conquer. This is absolutely
draining the last operational reserves of the Russian army. After this, there
is no more available manpower (more on that later). The village of Kreminna was
finally taken by the Russians against dozens of casualties. And the village of
Popasna further south still hasn’t been taken in two months of fighting and
hundreds of casualties. The Ukrainians on the other hand still have quite some
reserve units available that haven’t seen combat yet. The 5th Reserve Tank
Brigade that was positioned to defend Odessa against an amphibious invasion and
hasn’t seen any action yet, is now deployed in Kherson against a band of very
worn-out Russians. Now that the Moscow cruiser has been sunk, the threat of an
amphibious assault has really diminished and the Ukrainians can comfortably
deploy this unit on the battlefield.
2. The Ukrainians on the other hand
know how to very skillfully perform tactical withdrawals, regroup, resupply and
execute counterattacks from new positions. This, in combination with special
forces and partisan actions behind enemy lines, ensures that the Russians have
to fight from a 360 degrees angle. It shows that Ukraine is very strong in tactics
and that will be help them to win the war. I don’t think the Russians will
actually be able to encircle the Joint Group of Forces, since the Ukrainians
are able to make very fast incremental tactical withdrawals.
3. However, the biggest game changer is
the insane amount that the Ukrainians will start to receive from the West. And
we are not talking about a couple of artillery guns here, but the German PzH-2000
and French CAESAR self-propelled howitzers. These systems are the most modern
artillery guns in service today. Ukraine can operate them from locations more
remote from the battlefield. Even when firing unguided ammunition, those howitzers
are extremely precise. The PzH-2000 has an insane firing rate of 10 rounds per
minute. In case it fires rocket assisted projectiles, the firing range is close
to 70! Kilometers. Ukrainians have already proven to the world that they are
the best artillery gunners around. Giving them this equipment will make them absolutely
annihilate the Russians. What’s still not clear to me whether they will
actually be owned by Ukraine for use right now and its future army or that they
are part of a lend-lease agreement, like the one that the allies did with the
Soviet-Union in World War Two. The Soviet Union received tens of thousands of
pieces of heavy weaponry.
Ukraine
will very soon achieve battlefield supremacy. They already determine in many
places where the fight will take place. They launch very effective counteroffensives
around Kharkiv and Kherson. In both areas they gained a lot of territory in the
past three days. The battle around Kherson will be a blueprint for the battle
in Donbass: Draining the Russians until they are exhausted and then
counterattack. I expect the Ukrainians north of Kharkiv to go for Kupiansk and
cut of the main Russian supply line there. Also in the air the Ukrainians grow
stronger and stronger. Consistently for the past week they shot down two to
three Russian fighter jets a day. These are totally unsustainable losses. I suspect
the British Skystreak missiles are in particular responsible for a lot of the
damage.
Last night the
Ukrainians struck an oil depot (responsible for supplying the West with oil)
and a military base in Bryansk. This is a major city 100 kilometers from the
border with Ukraine and only 380 kilometers from Moscow. Both targets are still
burning at the moment of writing.
(3) IgorGirkin on Twitter: "ะััะฝัะบ, 17:30 https://t.co/Dp1ERdMvKH" / Twitter
Russia is
still able to lob a couple of cruise missiles per day on the North and West of
Ukraine, but it absolutely doesn’t have the capabilities any more to execute
long range high impact strikes.
And let me
be clear about this. Regardless whether or not Russia will come out as a winner
in the last offensive: this will be the last offensive action the Russian army for
a long time. It will take them many years to completely reconstitute, train and
equip meaningful units from scratch. Even national mobilization will not give
Russia victory. I simply don’t see how millions of untrained, badly equipped
and motivated conscripts will win against a country with high morale and
motivation that has very soon some of the most advanced equipment in existence.
On top of that
we start to see a hint of a strategic goal that I wrote about in my special a
couple of days ago. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for the first time gave
a very clear indication of the main strategic goal. “We want to see Russia
weakened to the degree it cannot do the kind things that it has done in
invading Ukraine.” This is in line with the delivery of very modern heavy
weapons to Ukraine. One would only deliver these kind of weapons to Ukraine
with the aim of giving a knock-out blow to the Russian army. I’m convinced that
the collective Western leadership has decided to remove Russia as not only a major
global player, but also regional player. Russia should be deprived of exercising
any malign influence on its direct neighbors so that they can really start to
develop into meaningful independent states. Like I said in the special: never
thought this would be a realistic scenario. Although still very small, its
likelihood continues to increase per day.
So is
Russia completely out of military cards? I think they have one more small card
to play from a military perspective. A couple of days ago the Russian military
leadership hinted towards establishing a land bridge to the Russian controlled
region of Transnistria in Moldova. Suspicion has always been that this was one
of Moscow’s goals. At the moment of writing there are very clear indications
that Russia has executed some kind of false flag attack there.
So, false
flag or not: will involvement from Transnistria make a difference? I really don’t
think so. There are only 1500 Russian soldiers in Transnistria and the
Transnistria army itself is only 5500 soldiers strong. The Transnistrian army
is stuck even closer to Soviet doctrine than the Russian or Belarussian army
and would simply not stand a chance against Ukraine’s military. It’s
demographics are even more problematic than Russia’s. Over the past 20 years,
Transnistria’s population decreased by fifty percent and most of its remaining
residence consist of pensioners. Although still unlikely, I think it’s
plausible that we are going to see some action in Moldova, but not against
Ukraine, but against the country of Moldova. The Moldovan army is very weak and
under equipped and it would be very good opportunity for Russia to draw away
the attention from its debacle in Ukraine and cause more chaos elsewhere. Again,
although I think the likelihood of an attack on Moldova is low, I think it’s of
the uttermost importance that we start to arm the Moldovan army in the same way
as we are doing with the Ukrainian army. The government of Maia Sandu is not
eager to mobilize and militarize the country, but it’s time to at least reserve
and pre-position some weapons for Moldova in close proximity to its border.
Although I would hate to see another armed conflict, I think a conflict with Transnistria
would also present a giant opportunity. We finally can get rid of this small unrecognized
state which only exports were arms and criminality. It’s time to clean up a lot
of problems Russia created after the fall of the Soviet-Union. The time is NOW!
Best regards and "Slava Ukraini!"
Niels
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