Ukraine Blog 64 – Barbarians
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
It
has been a while. In part because I was occupied with other stuff, in part
because of a lack of data and in part because it was not really clear on where
to put the focus. A lot of stuff is happening in the world. I was first
thinking about an update on Sudan, which is quickly but silently emerging as
the main front against Russia in Africa. However, a lot is happening in Ukraine
that we return to this country where we happen to learn so much about in the past
three years.
A
lot of high profile events have happened, but they become footnotes in the main
story that all started with the replacement of Ukraine’s iron general Valerii
Zaluzhnyi with Oleksandr Syrskyi. The whole milblog community, including
myself, were quite alarmed by this. Personally I really liked Zaluzhnyi’s
pragmatic approach and willingness to try new approaches on the battlefield. He
was the first Ukrainian commander in chief without a Soviet Red Army
background. Syrskyi on the other hand, who functioned as the commander of the
ground forces until being appointed as commander in chief, has a solid red army
background and was even born in Russia. Syrskyi received a lot of criticism
over his decisions in the battle of Bakhmut. Accusations range from burning a
lot of valuable Ukrainian resources that could be used in the marginal
successful counteroffensive of 2023 to outright sending Ukrainian forces into
storm assaults that usually the Russians do.
Two
months after his appointment it becomes clear to me that the fear of Syrskyi is
largely unfounded. The decisions that he takes are absolutely the only right
ones now that the biggest Western nation is openly abandoning Ukraine from both
the Republican side (Mike Johnson) and the Democratic side (Jake Sullivan).
1.
All indications are that the
situation with regards to Ukrainian artillery shell stocks is quite dire. With
sufficient artillery stocks, Ukraine can not only disable Russian artillery
positions with counter battery fire, but it would also enable it to strike the
staging areas where the Russians prepare their assaults. This is no longer
possible and the Russians can amass their armour and infantry without much
danger, prepare the assaults and start the advance in relative quiet circumstances.
2.
The only way to destroy Russian
assault groups, is to let the Russians advance until they become exposed and
then hit them in the following sequence
a.
Prepare some lines of TM-62
landmines to disable the first wave
b.
Take out the last vehicles with
Javelin missiles (of which Ukraine still has plenty of)
c.
Take out the vehicles in between
with First Person View (FPV) drones
d.
Finishing of the remainder with
drone dropped 30 EUR hand grenades.
3.
While the Russians have been
taking many pieces of terrain, they incurred absolutely eye watering losses.
For the first time since the battle of Kyiv, I have seen footage of column
after column of completely destroyed Russian armour.
4.
This is really the only
thing Ukraine can do to stop this army of what looks increasingly more like
barbarian hordes (but we will come to that later). And yes, that includes
giving up some land.
By
employing this tactic Syrskyi has reportedly managed to mitigate Ukrainian
casualties while inflicting maximum losses to the Russians.
While the Ukrainian position is absolutely very precarious, the Russian position is not much better. I know a lot of you guys are falling for the statements that “mighty” Russia is producing a thousand tanks and 2500 APC’s per year. I already was pretty sure that Russia is producing nothing new, but I had no data to back this up, since most Google Earth imagery of Russian deep storage facilities is now two years old and still shows full storage bases. I even considered ordering commercial satellite imagery, but for high resolution imagery that’s already going into a couple of hundred Euros per base. Then yesterday an article was published that finally provided all the data that I needed to make the point that while Ukraine absolutely needs critical help from the West, 2024 will also be the final shot for Russia. The article below (in Ukrainian) shows that every major Russian deep storage base has become significantly more empty with the 22nd, 111th and 1295th central tank storage facilities being almost empty. It’s accompanied by excellent high resolution imagery, exactly the imagery I craved for so long.
https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok_ta_analiz_tankovoho_potentsialu_moskovii_na_pochatku_2024
Amazingly, it’s again Forbes that’s the only mainstream media channel that picks this up:
To
me it’s clear that the high intensity phase of this war is finite. So what are
the reasons the Russians are pushing so hard that by next year they no longer
can equip an army?
1.
By making sure that speaker Mike
Johnson blocks the 60 billion USD aid package for Ukraine, the Russians feel
that they have a crucial window of opportunity to push for decisive gains and
maybe even a breakthrough on the front.
2.
Under the leadership of Czech
president Petr Pavel, 1,5 million 155mm artillery shells have been gathered
from various nations (including from Russia friendly nations like Serbia,
South-Africa and India). Once these shells are on the battlefield, there will
be at least artillery parity (and most likely Ukrainian advantage) for close to
a year. The Russians know that when these shells arrive, they will be in big
trouble and the fun will be over. First shipments will already arrive this
April.
3.
Ukraine is slowly but steadily
upgrading its deep strike capabilities. France has been seriously stepping up
its game in Ukraine and is providing Ukraine with a guaranteed supply of 50
powerful Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (HAMMER) bombs per month. In addition
Ukraine finally received large batches of GLSDB bombs that can be launched from
HIMARS launchers. Especially the GLSDB is currently causing havoc among Russian
artillery units while the HAMMER’s are being used against Russian fortified
positions. The Russians know that once the F-16’s will arrive (and I do believe
they will), Ukraine’s aerial battlefield coverage will significantly
increase.
4. With a very high chance of Trump returning to the White House, the Russians thought that Europe would lose its nuclear umbrella. I think slowly but steadily European leaders realize that this might very well become a reality. And this is where France is stepping in. It’s not only reassuring that Europe can count on France’s nuclear protection, France is also openly stating that sending troops to Ukraine is on the table. However, the most important move has to do with logistics: From now on all French surplus military equipment will go to Ukraine. In the next year this will include 2000 VAB vehicles. Exactly the multi purpose vehicle Ukraine needs on such a large frontline. France is also the first country that hints towards shifting to a war economy (an absolute necessity in my opinion).
Russia
is really giving everything they have to maximize battlefield gains. Besides
throwing a lot of infantry as “meat” and vehicles as scrap, they actually for
the first time managed to score some high precision deep strike hits on
valuable military equipment and critical infrastructure. Russia has managed to
improve this capability in two ways:
1.
Russia’s newly built
cruise-missiles and hypersonic missiles seem to be able to fly a deviating fly
path and are equipped with decoys, making their interception far more
difficult. This is especially a problem now that Ukraine seems to run out of
Patriot missiles.
2.
Russia scored a couple of very
important hits with guided drone attacks. The most dramatic one where two
Patriot launchers being taken out that Ukraine used for shoot and scoot attacks
against SU-34 bombers launching glide bombs. I noticed that this coincided with
the Russians for the first time having large-scale access to Elon Musk’s
Starlink system. I think it’s plausible that the Russians connected their
guidance units to Starlink terminals just as the Ukrainians did before.
While this is all very painful to watch, I expect the coming three months to be very difficult. It’s really frustrating to see that at this stage the Russians can easily be defeated with the existing military hardware we have available. According to the new data I’m absolutely sure that the Ukrainians will be able to stop the Russians from advancing, but it will be at a tremendous unnecessary loss of life on the Ukrainian side.
The
next question is: will Ukraine be able to retake the land occupied by the
Russians? Under the current circumstances absolutely not. The Russians have
laid millions of TM-62 anti-tank mines. We saw during the Ukrainian
counteroffensive how much damage they can do and in some sections of the
frontline there are multiple anti tank mines per square meter. The lines also
don’t have to manned by armour. Light infantry with machine guns and anti-tank
weapons are enough. Ukraine needs hundreds of Leopard/Abrams and Challenger
tanks. All of those are available, but none of us is willing to give them to
Ukraine.
For
Russia the medium to long term impact of these suicidal offensives will be
devastating. I still get the comments that the Russian economy is doing “so
well.” This impression is entirely logical since a lot of the workforce is
employed in the refurbishment of the equipment from deep storage facilities and
the production of new ammunition. This of course generates revenue, but this will
not contribute in any way to economic growth. What we are seeing now is the
total disintegration of Russian public facilities. After the complete collapse
of the heating system during the winter, critical infrastructure like railway
bridges and multiple dams start to collapse.
This is entirely logical when you send your experienced workforce to the frontline (only to be killed) or to factories for military production. Russia’s infrastructure is collapsing and there’s no one with the proper know-how to fix it. The Soviet-Union’s collapse will be a walk in the park compared to the upcoming collapse of Russia.
The question I get a lot is (and I also asked it myself a lot): Why does the Russian population continues to walk this path of doom towards suicide. I don’t think they have the answer themselves, but I started to understand their mentality a bit more after I watched the movie “The Chekist.” It’s a Russian movie from 1992 in the short period that cinema was free in Russia. It’s banned in Russia now, but can still be found on Youtube. Be careful, only watch it if you’re not in a depressive mood and yes, it will make you depressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_RSDqBn0bA
I’m
not going to detail the movie, you have to watch it for yourself. But the Bottomline
for me is: the Russians that didn’t left or haven’t been neutralized by the
Putin regime are a nation of slaves that do everything their Tsar orders them
to do, even if it results in the death of themselves. You do something, just
because the Tsar tells you to do it. This explains why Russians during the
floods don’t ask for help from public services, but from their Tsar, why they
kneel during Putin’s speeches. These people look European, but this mindset
originates from the steppes of Asia where the Mongols once roamed.
Thanks to Ukraine that keeps on fighting, a bearded Czech president that “found” 1,5 million shells and Russians that keep following the orders of their Tsar into doom, the rest of Europe might just crawl through the eye of a needle…
Depressing right? Well, next time we are going to talk about Sudan. A fight that’s just as important as Ukraine is being fought there and important good successes are booked there against Putin. It’s going to be a wild story. I promise it will have everything: British history, genocide, tribes, warlords, oil, Ukrainian and Russian expeditionary forces and dictators. Only difference with Ukraine: nobody knows and cares what’s going on there: it’s the future of Africa and the World...
"Slava
Ukraini!",
Niels
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