Tag: Russia winning

Ukraine: The War That Went Wrong

Guest Post by Chris Hedges

NATO support for the war in Ukraine, designed to degrade the Russian military and drive Vladimir Putin from power, is not going according to plan. The new sophisticated military hardware won’t help.

Everything Must Go – Mr. Fish

Empires in terminal decline leap from one military fiasco to the next. The war in Ukraine, another bungled attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony, fits this pattern. The danger is that the more dire things look, the more the U.S. will escalate the conflict, potentially provoking open confrontation with Russia. If Russia carries out retaliatory attacks on supply and training bases in neighboring NATO countries, or uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will almost certainly respond by attacking Russian forces. We will have ignited World War III, which could result in a nuclear holocaust.

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Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat

Guest Post by The Saker

Tactics without Strategy is the Noise Before Defeat

The title of this article is a quote by the famous Chinese general, strategist, philosopher, and writer Sun Tzu who lived 2500 years ago.  And while it is true that warfare has dramatically changed over the past millennia (for example, operational art was added as an intermediate level between tactics and strategy), the fundamental logic of Sun Tzu still applies.  To grossly oversimplify this issue, you could say that tactics are the means towards an end which has to be defined and the definition of that end goal is strategy.  Again, this is ridiculously oversimplified, but for our purposes that is good enough.

The above is highly pertinent to the situation in the Ukraine.  But first, a crucial reminder: the Ukrainian military was pretty much destroyed in the first month of the war. Both Andrei Martyanov and myself have written about this many times, but if you want to hear that from another source, I recommend this article by Big Serge on Substack (a good website which I recommend to all).  Or listen to the Macgregor videos.  And there are plenty more out there (Moon of Alabama is another good one).

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Ukraine SitRep – No Southern Push Yet, Kiev Government Trouble, Tanks And Escalation

Via Moon of Alabama

Last week, following two days of heavy fighting along the southern front in Ukraine, I concluded that the expected push from the south into the back of the Ukrainian forces at the Donetzk frontline, was finally happening.

Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front

I was wrong. I, and other analysts following the war, had been deceived by the sudden rush of news from that frontline. It said that Russian forces made progress in a large number of towns. But nearly as soon as I had published my peace that news died down. In the following days nothing happened but the usual exchange of artillery fire and minor local clashes.

I am not sure what happened. But the Ukrainian army also seemed to have believed that something big was coming as it had rushed an additional mechanized brigade to that line.

While the big one has not happened yet there are several probing attacks in the area with some successes around Vuhledar.


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Dima of the Military Summary channel noted (vid) a Russian report which said that two Ukrainian officers had crossed the southern frontline and surrendered to Russian forces. He speculates that the whole fluff up in the news was created as a diversion to allow for a secure extraction of those officers. We have no evidence for that but it may well have happened that way.

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Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front

Guest Post by Moon of Alabama

The long expected Russian offensive in Ukraine has begun.

The Ukrainian army, egged on by its U.S. controllers, had put most of its resource into the static defense of the Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) – Soledar sector of the eastern front. An insane number of Ukrainian brigades, though many partially depleted, were concentrated on that 50 kilometer long front. This left other sectors nearly empty of Ukrainian troops.


Source: Military Land Deployment Map – bigger

I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces.

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Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump

Guest Post by Big Serge

Gradually, and then Suddenly

Since Russia’s surprise decision to voluntarily withdraw from west bank Kherson in the first week of November, there has been little in the way of dramatic changes to the frontlines in Ukraine. In part, this reflects the predictable late autumn weather in Eastern Europe, which leaves battlefields waterlogged and clogged with mud and greatly inhibits mobility. For hundreds of years, November has been a bad month for attempting to move armies any sort of significant distance, and like clockwork we started to see videos of vehicles stuck in the mud in Ukraine.

The return of static positional warfare, however, also reflects the synergistic effect of increasing Ukrainian exhaustion along with a Russian commitment to patiently attriting and denuding Ukraine’s remaining combat capability. They have found an ideal place to achieve this in the Donbas.

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Revisiting Russian objectives in the Ukraine

Guest Post by The Saker

Revisiting Russian objectives in the Ukraine

Check out this list of headlines, all from one source only, RT and all from the past week or so:

Some are only “more of the same” (like the Ukronazis making the Aussies ban Russian flags at the Open), some are rather disgusting (like the Ukronazi blogger who wants to exterminate the Russian people), some are revolting (like the French warning 5000 Russian graves that “their concession is expiring”!), some are hilarious (like the idea of bust of “Ze” at the Capitol building), some are outright crazy (like the idea of a “Ukraine peace summit” without Russian participation).  Some are weird but encouraging (like the Kentucky gubernatorial candidate, a Democrat, calling for an impeachment of Biden for war crimes).  But some are very, very serious indeed (like the increase of the size of the Russian military to 1.5M or the fact that both the General Milley and Defense Minister Shoigu visiting their troops at the same time.

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The city of Soledar has been liberated by the Wagner PMC

Guest Post by The Saker

The city of Soledar has been liberated by the Wagner PMC

This “news” was weeks in the making, but this time it is official: the city of Soledar has been liberated by the Wagner PMC (with Russian Airborne Forces blocking the city from the North and South).  Why did it take so much time?

First, just as the regular armed forces, the Wagner PMC engages in economy of force tactics, meaning that they try to keep their own casualties to the absolute minimum while trying to degrade the enemy forces.  In this case, the Ukronazis threw battalion after battalion into the Russian meat grinder with the hope of being able to maintain their control over Soledar.  It is quite clear that the Wagner PMC and the Russian military were more than happy to keep that going on.  Some sources claim that NATO lost 14 battalions in a desperate attempt to avoid a Russian liberation.  So even if we take only half of this figure, that is still seven battalions lost on the NATO side (note that the 14 battalions is a Ukie, not Russian, claim!).

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Ukrainian Defense Lines And What Happens When They Are Breached

Guest Post by Moon of Alabama

Soledar has fallen to Russian troops. Bakhmut (Artymovsk) will follow soon.

This constitutes the breach of Ukraine’s second defense line within the Donetzk and Lysichansk oblasts. I will discuss those lines with the maps below.

The first map shows the range of land taken by Russian forces by April 1 2022 (Kiev region not shown).

Russia had invaded with a small force of some 100,000 soldiers supported by some 50,000 soldiers of the Donetzk/Luhansk Republics. The opposing forces were 250,000 regular Ukrainian army troops which quickly grew to 450,000 and then 650,000 by mobilization of reserve  forces plus the Territorial Defense Forces. During the first weeks the Russian forces had taken a huge amount of land that they barely had the numbers to hold.

At that point Russia was still hoping that the negotiations held at that time with Ukraine in Turkey would have a positive outcome. As a confidence measure it had already started to pull back from around Kiev. However, after phone calls from and a visit by the British prime minister Boris Johnson the Ukrainian government ended the negotiations by suddenly adding demands the Russia would never agree to. The troops from Kiev were pulled back anyway and moved to the east of Ukraine where they started an attack on the first defense line (yellow) of the Ukrainian forces.

April 1 2022

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Belarus’ Lukashenko Visits Russian Troops, Declares “Common Cause”

Via ZeroHedge

Ever since President Vladimir Putin’s Dec.19 visit to Belarus, there have been persisting fears of a major new offensive on Ukraine being readied from the north with Belarusian army help. This as Russian heavy equipment has continued to be transferred to Belarusian territory.

“Minsk’s defence ministry says a train carrying Russian troops and equipment has arrived in Belarus,” as cited in international reports. “Belarus, who is a close Moscow ally, said it would receive more weapons and equipment from Russia on Thursday as the two boost their military cooperation.”

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Ukraine – The Big Push To End The War

Guest Post by Moon of Alabama

Over Christmas I had a short talk with a relative about the war in Ukraine. He asked me who would win and was astonished when I said: “Ukraine has zero chance to win.” That person reads some German mainstream news sites and watches the public TV networks. With those sources of ‘information’ he was made to believe that Ukraine was winning the war.

One may excuse that with him never having been in a military and not being politically engaged. But still there are some basic numbers that let one conclude from the beginning that Russia, the much bigger, richer and more industrialized country, had clearly all advantages. My relative  obviously never had had that thought.

The ‘western’ propaganda is still quite strong. However, as I pointed out in March last year propaganda does not change a war and lies do not win it. Its believability is shrinking.

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Propagandists Have Created a False Picture of the Conflict in Ukraine, Leaving the West Unprepared for the Outcome

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

For some months I have been perusing David Johnson’s “Russian List,” a daily collection of newspaper and journal articles written by commentators and alleged academic experts.  I must say for the most part the articles are highly unrealistic anti-Russian propaganda.  I have concluded that Russian experts are few and far between in the Western world.  During the 20th century cold war there were intelligent and informed discussions of disagreements about US and Soviet policies.  Today there is propaganda, some of it so absurd that it is laughable.

Moon of Alabama agrees with me.  On Johnson’s Russian List for January 2 is an article by Moon of Alabama titled, “Lack of Good Analysis Contributes to the Decline of the West.”  It begins: “What really hit me last year was the dearth of correct analyses in main stream media and in politics with regards to the war in Ukraine. Little if anything is based on facts. More than 90% of the published output is propaganda.”

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Lviv & Kiev Plunged Into Darkness After ‘Massive’ Missile Attack; Ukrainian S-300 Lands In Belarus

Via ZeroHedge

Ukraine has been hit with a “massive” attack of over 120 missiles across the country Thursday, its military and presidency’s office said. “December 29. Massive missiles attack… The enemy is attacking Ukraine from various directions with air and sea-based cruise missiles from strategic aircraft and ships,” Ukraine’s air force said in a public statement.

It marks the largest barrage of missiles since there was weekend talk from both sides of mutual ‘openness’ in getting to the negotiating table. Ukrainian leadership floated the proposal of UN-brokered talks by the end of February, but its insistence on Russian officials facing a war crimes tribunal first was seen in Moscow as not serious and a non-starter.

Social media footage showing missile contrails over Kiev.

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Ukrainian Narrative Continues To Morph Ugly

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

If the “Ukrainian narrative” was not ugly enough, it continues to work its way farther to the dark-side. It is debatable how long the American people will buy the line that funding the war in Ukraine will result in a good outcome. Someday, what is happening in Ukraine may be looked back upon as a horrible blunder, lie, and misstep largely orchestrated by America and the “Obama/Biden political machine.”

Sadly, US senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday agreed, due to fairly intense pressure from the White House, to withdraw the so-called ‘Yemen War Powers’ resolution from a vote in the Senate. The crucial bill would have restricted US military involvement in war-torn Yemen and reasserted Congress’ war-making authority. As a footnote, the word was put out that President Joe Biden would most likely veto the bill passed if it passed. White House officials said the bill “could complicate the effort to back Ukraine in its war against Russia.”

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Fresh Missile Barrage Leaves Cities Across Ukraine Without Power Or Water In Sub-Zero Temps

Via ZeroHedge

“Another wave of massive Russian attacks on energy infrastructure,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko announced Friday, describing a large Russian barrage of dozens of missiles across major cities. “There will be emergency power outages,” he added.

Air raid sirens have been blaring throughout the day in this latest wave of strikes, which resulted in electricity and water outages in multiple cities and towns amid sub-zero temperatures.

Commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi tallied that Russia launched 76 missiles at critical infrastructure throughout the country. He then claimed that national air defenses were able to intercept and down a whopping 60 of the missiles.

Result of prior October strikes: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service via Reuters

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Satellite Imagery Shows Extensive Destruction Of Ukraine Power Grid

Via ZeroHedge

It was only a matter of time.  The recent Russian pull-back of troops clearly indicated a broad shift in tactics, and the one thing that the Kremlin avoided for several months seemed like the next most logical step – Full spectrum strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.

Initially, Ukraine’s media spin suggested that the precision strikes were “ineffective”, with western news outlets showing only a handful of images of craters in streets and some scarred apartment buildings.  There were limited admissions of damage to the power and water grids, but Ukraine claimed that these systems would be back and functional within days.  This did not happen.

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It Seems Russia Won’t Require a Winter Offensive to Win the War

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

Moon of Alabama has proven to be a reliable source of reporting on the conflict in Ukraine.  The posting of November 23 indicates that some part of the Russian government or military has finally realized that Russia is at war.  You can read the account here:  https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/ukraine-lights-out-no-water-and-soon-no-heat-.html

The eight-month old Kremlin policy of protecting Ukraine from attack, thus helping Ukraine to conduct war against the Russian forces, seems to have come to an end.  The infrastructure–power, transportation, water–of Ukraine is being shut down.  The real war Russian attacks on Ukraine’s ability to function have gradually escalated, resulting in wider and more serious damage.  It seems that the Russians don’t want to destroy everything unless the West and its puppet Ukraine government fail to come to their senses.

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