Ukraine won the battle of Liman today as Russian forces (yes, even the militia of Donbas and Luhansk are Russians now) withdrew rather than risk being encircled and captured. Champagne bottles are popping in Kiev and Washington. The Russians are really on the ropes now and this is a sweet punch in the nose in the wake of Moscow’s celebration yesterday of the four former Ukrainian oblasts becoming new members of the Russian Federation. At least that is the version of the story that Russia’s adversaries are telling themselves.
From a PR standpoint the “loss” of Liman is significant because it feeds the western meme that Russia is doomed in its quest to defeat Ukraine. After all, here we are 7 months after the start of the “Special Military Operation” and those pesky Ukrainians are hanging on. Meanwhile, back in Russia, hundreds of thousands of men eligible to be drafted are reportedly fleeing the country. And the Chechen Leader and General Ramzan Kadyrov is calling out the Russian General who commanded the Russian forces defending Liman for being absent from the field of battle and asleep at the wheel. Airing dirty laundry in public is an especially bad look for the Russian Army.
Kadyrov, to his credit, understands the importance of messaging when it comes to combat operations. Here is his blistering comment:
This kind of outburst would normally qualify as a court martial offense. But Kadyrov is a popular commander who won the battle of Mariupol and is one of the few who can get away with being this outspoken.
In the broader strategic picture, Liman is inconsequential. I encourage you to listen to my friend, Andrei Martyanov’s views on this matter:
Let me note some concerns regarding the military operations of Ukraine and Russia. First, Ukraine’s assault on the Russian position in Liman was carried out without any significant close air support. Ditto for Russia–i.e., no apparent close air support to fend off the attacking Ukrainians. Ukraine has an excuse–it no longer has a functioning air force. Russia does not. It has a surfeit of available air frames that could carry out that mission. Why are they holding back?
The second issue is the quality of battlefield intelligence and Russia’s ability to act on it. Let me present the options for your consideration and discussion:
Option 1–Russian intelligence knew the size of the Ukrainian force attacking Liman and the Russian Commanding General ignored the intelligence and did not call for sufficient reinforcements.
Option 2–Russian intelligence knew the size of the Ukrainian force attacking Liman and the Russian Commanding General believed he could hold them off.
Option 3–Russian intelligence DID NOT know the size of the Ukrainian force and the defenders were caught by surprise and unable to reinforce until it was too late.
Option 4–Russian intelligence knew the size of the Ukrainian force attacking Liman but Russia did not have the ability to resupply and reinforce the defenders.
Option 5–The Russians know Ukraine’s intention and allowed Liman to fall–effecting a tactical withdrawl–in preparation for a counter strike that will destroy the Ukrainian force who believes they have the Russians on the run.
If Russia was experiencing this kind of setback across the 1000 kilometer front then alarm bells should be clanging in Moscow. But that is not the case. This is one small geographic area and the Russians inflicted massive casualties on the Ukrainian attackers. Events during the next week will inform us whether this is an aberration for Russia’s Ukraine plan.
Yes, General Kadyrov is more than just a Hero of Russia.
Russia never ceases to jump into the propaganda traps with 2 feet. This is what happens when a lawyer is the commander in chief. Oh no , can’t take some troops to reinforce unless they were part of the SMO. What a joke. The day after the big speech and celebrations.
Putin told you this? What’s his number? I’ll call him up.
Why the sarcasm ? Paulv has a point.
Offer a different one if you disagree.
It’s one thing to defend your position as long as you can, as long as there is a plan for a safe orderly retreat to fight another day. It’s totally different when you are outnumbered 12:1 and are expected to die trying. This is exactly why Putin ordered the mobilization. The allied troops in Lyman did their job. Land can be re-taken while lives only die once.
Maskirovka, wait a little, we will see
Maskirovka indeedđ
I found a few links that might help those that do not know what it is.
Use yandex translate to read.
Bulletin of the Academy of Military Sciences2005OPERATIONAL CAMOUFLAGE IN OPERATIONS OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR LESSONS AND CONCLUSIONS
https://militaryarticle.ru/vestnik-akademii-voennykh-nauk/2005-vavn/10539-operativnaja-maskirovka-v-operacijah-velikoj
What tricks were used by Soviet tankers during the war
ĐŃŃĐŸŃĐœĐžĐș: https://novate.ru/blogs/310120/53275/
ps!
yandex browser translate pictures as well, makes it easy to understand Russian memes and documents.
Rope a dope perhaps.
“You’ve got know when to hold ’em.
Know when to fold ’em.
Know when to walk away
and know when to run.”
Kenny Rogers
Anyway you look at it, attorney Putin should leave fighting to the Russian generals! Putin’s SMO is a disaster since the start of the conflict, and especially bad for the people who voted to join Russia! While the ethnic Russians are being killed in the area where the Russians had to abandon their positions, they are celebrating and drinking champagne in Moscow! The Kremlin is psychologically defeated after the destruction of NS1&2 and it shows on the ground in the fall of Lyman! Who is compromised in the Kremlin? Few of us pointed out that this SMO will spell disaster for Russia! One have to wonder what’s going on?
And you know that Putin is running the military show instead of General Shoigu how?
Some critical comments bring to mind the words of Shota Russtavelli, a famous Georgian poet from medieval times: “Everyone fancies himself a hero watching the battle from afar.” They also remind me of a Jewish adage ” I wish I was as wise as my wife after the fact.”
It is unlikely that Russia, with its intelligence capabilities, was not aware of the Ukrainian plans. The lack of close air support to stop the Ukrainian action is striking. We can think of driving errors that led to this setback for Russia. My perception is that once Once the administrative procedure for the annexation of the new territories has been concluded, Russia will demand the withdrawal of the Ukrainian forces from these territories and, given the refusal by Ukraine, the Krenblin will declare a total war.
Sorry, this is a plain defeat. Russia has been on the defensive for at least two months. Ukraine has the initiative all along the entire front. If Russia does not SOON initiate and effective counter offensive, they might actually lose the war.
Yep. It’s pathetic. And on the day after the big speech and celebrations. Truly pathetic. And i was not a doomer until Kharkov. Now they followed it up with this. The bloggers were worried about Liman 3 weeks ago. Put them in charge.
WellâŠ.Krasny Liman is inconsequential from a strategic point of view. Alexander Mercouris also discussed it. I think, Larry, that the option 5 might be the closest to the strategic plan. One issue is, of course, that Russians are not very good at propaganda war đ.
All along the entire front? It took three weeks for the Ukrainians to take a small city. Not long ago the complaint was that Russia was losing because it wasnât moving fast enough. Ukraine only needs another 100,000 km2 to win; whatâs your timeline for that given three weeks to take liman?
Front lines are not static. If there is a attack in one place you have to move soldiers and that can weaken other places.
A small place means to that a big area around it has to change operations and becomes weaker in attack without serious reinforcement.
Enemy behind lines is never good unless trap. They may get in narrow and hit wide.
The point is this kind of attack is nothing Russia can’t counter so why didn’t they?
I think whatâs understated with this âwarâ, is that it goes far beyond the Ukraine battlefield. Economies are beginning to collapse on a global scale, The West is itching for an expanded European NATO war to hide the collapse behind, Russia repeats they canât hide âbehind their Oceanâ while Europe takes the blows.
Simply put, I think Russia & China are trying to âpaceâ the âwarâ to coordinate with the bond dollar collapse, we wonât see some âblitzâ on Ukraine by Russia, their systematic forward & retreat games are purposeful to coordinate with collapse to keep ( if possible, lunatics everywhere) actual battle and warfare contained.
Guess just saying that more than one battle here going on, when Russia does âblitzâ Ukraine, it will be coordinated, swift, but more economically needs to be accomplished. The dollar is so strong, that if other currencies arenât highly coordinated in their dollar dumps, it may soon end up the dollar being the only currency standing, as we see massively weakened currencies. Russia needs those other currencies still in global play, itâs one thing to âblitzâ a war, itâs another to take on 4 new territories, 5.5 million more citizens, and PAY to sustain it all. Financial coordination is as important as battlefield strength. No point in raging and blitzing just to collapse your own economy in the end.
The NATO plan has been to weaken Russia(Lloyd Austin). Russia under Putin keeps saying there is no timetable for them. The west has gotten weaker, elections in US soon, Europe gets colder. I wonder what US will experience if there is a brutal winter. Higher prices will weaken government and household budgets. Asymmetric war. NATO countries uses BS daily. The messaging could get old and hasten dissent.
I agree, pacing the economic and political response within impacted countries is major strategic requirement – so far, Putin has shown his mastery of chess!
“The point is this kind of attack is nothing Russia canât counter so why didnât they?”
Yes. That is the bottom line – and the answer is they didn’t counter b/c they can’t. Anything else is excuse making. If the enemy has emerged from his defensive positions and is out in the open where you can kill him, you kill him. There is no 4D mastermind plan that runs contrary to that basic concept.
Action which would force a strong NATO response now…or you can continue to drain the enemies economic and political reserves – which cause severe internal strife for your enemy to deal with, as opposed to a groundswell of citizen support for their beleaguered troops….just a thot
Yes. And it is also messaging/political defeat. More western arms and funding will be heading to UKR. Countries on the fence about partnering w/ Russia in economic aspects will be hesitating, concerned about if Russia is actually competent and worthy of trust and investment.
Andrie argues that it is merely a scratch; a meaningless little victory in a larger war. Well, there will be another scratch soon enough and then another. The FEAR will grow among potential Russia allies and the confidence will grow with UKR supporters.
No good way to spin this for Russia. Putin’s speech means nothing if it’s not backed up with force and success.
“More western arms and funding will be heading to UKR”
Meaning more resources will be drained from the west, while their economies continue to collapse.
There are 2 fundamental fronts to this war: kinetic & economic. Every Russian retreat (all 2 of them) cracks open the western economic floodgates to greater loss of its lifeblood. The home of wef is getting closer to exsanguination.
True, but Russia faces the same challenges. You have to look at both sides. I agree that this will be a war determined by both sides’ ability to produce armaments. We’ll see who runs out first. I have no insight into Russian production capacity. Do you? I’m sure Andrie would tell us that Russia has amazing factories 10 kilometers long and 50 wide hidden beneath the Urals cranking out super weapons fueled by Russian engineered cold fusion and part of their 4D chess is keeping it all secret until………I am skeptical. I agree that the US/NATO is going to experience serious challenges keeping up. Who knows about Russia?
IMO, it will be a race to the bottom, which is dangerous b/c whoever gets near the bottom first just might do something really crazy, which might not be negotiating for peace, if you know what I mean.
The nation that has real wealth and resources and productive capacity and is not squandering same with a crooked, janky, Ponzi-scheme, debt-based government will win every time.
I agree with you Eric. I don’t like saying such things so for entertainmental sake:
It’s frequently a side offering for breakfast. Buttered or dry. Wheat , white or rye.
And resembling a former Ally.
Though clicking your glasses while ogling lasses is usage we used to decry.
Five letters, beginning with: Tea
It ends with a common two letter abbreviation for a traffic thoroughfare. It centralizes in a high grade.
– Pi, raised to the from Mescalito power.
And thus in a roundabout way I say, that the Josephine Keeponandon About It is almost over except for the
dreaming.
Now for five letter words ending in a common abbreviation for a shorter, more minor thoroughfare.
The object of a military is attrition of the enemy, in other words to murder and degrade on an industrial scale the enemies forces with the least amount of casualties to your own forces in a given context, i.e. battle or war.
NOT the capture of some territory of little strategic importance for mere propagandistic outcomes, that’s the object of public relations.
Wrong. If there was any truth to your perspective, it ended w/ the referenda.
Stank is totally accurate in his assessment. You are missing the point. By the very act of decimating the opposing forces and keeping them occupied in mobile tactics, away from the area where the Referendum takes place, the result is precisely that the Referendum could progress without the Ukrainian forces threatening the situation. I am sure that the Russian General Staff know exactly how to manage Conflict.
Given Russia is mobilizing 300K troops, 100K+ more than double its initial force (<200K) in Ukraine, not counting DPR and LPR, it appears the Russians are just now getting ready to fight in earnest.
It's tough for Russia to "lose" when its footprint was so small at the beginning. Will be interesting (in the Chinese curse sense) to see what NATO does to counter this.
Easy to say Russia will lose when you are the one setting the timeline and determining what Russia should do.
Russia doesn’t need to initiate or conduct a counter offensive. The people of those regions which have voted to return to Russia are now part of Russia and will defend their homes and region against the invading Ukrainian forces. Since the people live there and are now part of Russia, they have no timeline, and all the resources which Russia can and will provide to defend themselves.
The people will be dead..in which case what is the point?
Not so sure about that. If you consider the defence of Liman as part of the Russian strategy for the more important Battle for Bakhmut, just 65 kms to Liman’s south, it starts to make more sense.
Thousands of Ukrainians have died for Liman. Total bloodbath.
PR win for Ukraine? Maybe. That won’t mean much in the coming weeks, though. The Russians don’t seem to care much about PR.
Deciding to hold territory or take territory at all costs has not worked out well for the UAF. Russia may have been preoccupied with protecting the referendum voting. The republics will not be officially part of Russia until the Duma ratifies it next week. After that the situation will become more clear. Plus, as noted the Russians seem to be rank amateurs when it comes to PR.
“Ukraine has the initiative all along the entire front.”
Really? So someone who willingly throws his troops into a meat grinder such as Kherson and suffers catastrophic losses without making significant gains has “initative”?
If so, let Ukropisstain have all the “initative” they want.
Old Russia would have been suckering the enemy in close so they could destroy them with their superior firepower. Would be interesting to find out how many Ukrainian casualties there are because of this âoffensive.â
It’s a tactical reshuffle in a tiny area of the front line, no more. 300 thousand reserves will soon be heading there, which will soon inhibit the success of tactical advances in the limited areas that Ukraine might be able to manage.
Your team are losing 25 to nil and you celebrate a single goal as if you were not already 25 nil down.
Goebbels would be proud of you.
Agreed. I totally support Putin but I get irritated when so called experts try to sugar coat this event with pretzel logic. Putin needs to get this sorted.
Let us look at it this way. Russia has more than 100,000 Sq Kms of the territory. So the Ukranians have recaptured say 2000 Sq Kms at a loss of a minimum of 200 (there are estimates of 500) troops after fighting for a week. Assuming that Russians will continue to loose at this rate, it will take 50 weeks for them regain the whole territory and you might say there will be a sunami effect so let us knock it down to 30 weeks. In the mean while the west is running out of ammunition to give and the general winter is knocking on the door. What would the west be able to do for Ukraine when they can’t even heat their own homes to stay warm? How would they be able to run their ammunition factories to make the weapons etc to give? Now if we are to assume that the Russians will have 300,000 soldiers ready to go in say next 12 weeks (after 3 months of training) do you really believe that Ukranians can maintain this onslaught against Russians? Last time I checked nobody won against the Russians in war (ask Napolean, Hitler) let alone during the winter offensive. Thanks
Sorry Bob but you are dead wrong. Wait and see buddy, wait and see.
Larry, do you know what the losses were for each side, and if there were many civilians left in Liman? This just sounds so much like Izium, inconsequential territory given up by Russia with very few Russian losses along with huge Ukrainian losses. Which goes a long way towards demilitarization of Ukraine. I’m guessing it is Option 5.
Correct Steven.
One of the striking features of circulating flag photos is that when Ukrainian soldiers put up a flag it’s just soldiers taking a selfie. When Russians put up a flag, there are civilians welcoming the soldiers. Whether it’s intentional or not, it’s great PR.
Thatâs a profound observation
I’ll pick two options: #2 and #5. Typical of many Commanders: “I got it.” They’d rather not ask for assistance. Option #5 now looms.
So Larry, quick question: Where do the DoD Flags stand? I will assume some dissension by now. The last Flag I listened to speak (USMC O-9) last June was doing his best to outwardly support the Ukraine thing. But I viewed that as typical USMC. I have also heard about the typical conflicts, getting worse now, between DoD and DoS, particularly about the Afghan withdrawal debacle. There’s gotta be some concern about dwindling supplies and the timelengths to produce replacements, particularly given supply chains.
DoD Flags seem rather split now, NATO types versus the rest. I watched the purge during Obamanable… ADM Fallon, who I knew earlier as C2F, was one of the purges. He wanted peace.
Not really looking for answers… just kindof lamenting where we are.
Glad you’re back in battery.
The fact that Ukrainians threw shit tons of foreign mercs and reserves into this tiny city disregarding all losses, and even so they took several days to finally take it over despite numerical superiority, and popping champagne bottles over it tells me they are really desperate for a PR victory.
And that says a lot.
It is a military victory.
No it isn’t, not if you consider it from a sustainability POV and consider the cost vs the actual gain. They won’t keep Liman (or Kharkov oblast) once Russia finally takes off the gloves and sends 300k troops with armour, arty and CAS into the fight.
Winter is coming, and the Ukrop manpower will be exposed once their mobility is impaired and the forest cover is stripped away. Their losses are going to be LEGENDARY.
Russia faces the exact same winter that UKR does. Neither are strangers to winter.
Well not âexactlyâ the same. The Russians will have all the fuel they need for keeping warm. Ukraine will have none and Europe will have none to give them. Maybe they will burn wood but that will invite artillery. Just sayin. The UkroNatoNaziâs will be âcolderâ. Itâs gonna suck for them.
Only on paper. Loosing so much men and hardware just to retake one town has no other significance than what Kalus said in my opinion too. It’s only PR. It won’t change anything in the bigger picture. Those lifes are lost and that hardware is gone forever.
“It wonât change anything in the bigger picture” is a statement based on faith. We do not know if Ukraine can repeat this at will. It will definitely change the bigger picture in that arms, funding and training will continue to flow to Kiev.
Remember, we all thought Kiev was on finished months ago. As much as the neocon crowd kept saying Russia was done for and had reached their “culminating point” we kept saying that the war basically over for Kiev. Clearly Kiev is not finished. While Kiev failed to make any advances for many months, the Russians also failed to make any meaningful advances in recent months.
The question now is whether or not Kiev can stay on the attack. I don’t know the answer; not sure anyone does. I will say that I think it is foolish to summarily dismiss the Kiev/NATO forces as incompetent and incapable, just as it is foolish to do the same for the Russian forces. Russia seems to think Kiev can continue attacking. Hence the [alleged] 300K troops being sent to the theater.
Travis,
Good point.
I’ve also wondered out loud here where UKR will get diesel. Where are they getting it now? is Russia stupidly still supplying it? I have no idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory
The LPR militia force defending Liman was actually small, however it was backed by heavy artillery support. Only after the LPR force was withdrawn did the NATO-Ukraine military enter the city. The NATO-Ukraine force lost thousands of personnel in this operation. At the same time, Ukraine conducted no offensive operations anywhere else along the entire front. That is a sign of a weakened force. What you have forgotten is that the LPR-RUS withdrawal from Liman was the same strategy the Russian Allied forces used in Kherson Oblast which drew the US-UKR echelons from the east and south across the Ingulets River before the dam breach. After the dam in Kryvyi Rih was blown, the rising water trapped them on the east bank in open fields of withering artillery fire causing massive casualties.
Tightening defense lines and stabilizing an active front is necessary when conducting force redeployments and equipment substitutions. The same tactic was carried out in the Stalingrad theatre by the Russian Army from mid-October to November 19th, 1942 prior to Operation Uranus which led to the encirclement and defeat of forces from Romania, Italy and Croatia and the entire German Sixth Army.
The Russian General Staff seem to be watching ice Hockey instead of fighting a war.
Putin talks like they finally mean business but they seem scared of doing anything drastic in case it breeds bad PR.
I follow this closely and have for a long time but whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it the hard way and just maybe, they’re actually failing.
Time may tell but they’ve already had 8 months and their advance and defence of territories hard fought for, seem stagnant at best.
It’s been a very long time (or so it seems) since anything like the RF overwhelming victory at Mariupol. We saw them bring massive air and missile power to demolish azovstal. I really haven’t seen anything comparable from the RF since then. Or maybe I just missed it?
NATO is just simply upping its bid in the Ukraine conflict from the initial lowballing back in February/March 2020 (hitherto enjoyed by the Russia).
It’s unlikely there will be a significant pushback from Russia, however — the SMO is now showing signs of “draining Russia” and it seems more “aggressive” tactics from the Russians will now be required.
But, note that I said, “aggressive” — not necessarily, “effective”. Russia’s original goals of “preserving Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure” may have to take a backseat in order to respond to Ukraine’s increased military strength, which also means any newly conquered territory captured by the Russians unfortunately may no longer be quite as “pristine”…
Also, it seems that the US has the Russians in a psychological bind.
With all of the West’s PR, distortion of truth and ability to fill the heads of most Westerners that Russia is evil, aggressive, and drunk most of the time, it seems the Russians are scared to defend their homeland in case they appear that way?
I can’t understand fighting a war with one arm tied behind your back while giving your opponents time to organise and allow them to be heavily armed. It seems the Russians can talk tough but are afraid or unable, to finish the job that’s required.
I may be very wrong but as a westerner, it’s very difficult to understand what their actual plan is or, tactics are?
When Kadyrov speaks out like he has, it’s because he knows that something is wrong and that his countrymen are dying for favourtism of certain Generals or nepotism.
Kadyrov may be outspoken but he has backed up his words with action. Most of the Generals he’s criticising have not.
It’s not hard to understand if you realize Russia’s intentions are not to force an unconditional surrender on the Ukrainian government and military forces. But to make the Ukrainian leadership, the US and NATO realize a military solution is not worth the cost and negotiate a settlement.
Unfortunately the US and NATO aren’t ready yet, so more Ukrainians will die in the futile attempt to take back regions in which the people in those regions don’t want to return to Ukraine and are willing to fight and die to defend their homes and families with the full support of Russia.
If your theory about Russia causing the US to realize a military solution isn’t worth it is correct, then these UKR victories are the last thing Russia should want. It drags out the war (the US won’t be “ready” to negotiate if they’re “winning”) and cost Russia more materially and in terms of risk.
The RF Grand Strategy for a Global War of Attrition argument does seem to have merit. Time does seem to be on the RF side ( so far )
If thatâs really the RF Grand Strategy, then drawing out the Ukrainian Civil War is desirable. Plus the big goals are continuing to isolate NATOland and keeping the other 87% on board. Weâll know if the RF Grand Strategy has any legs only after winter is over.
That’s one theory. But like most it’s an excuse. Why not go with the obvious answer? No army is perfect. Every army takes losses.
Russia was initially very impressive. It now looks weaker and not the threat it was.
It is also increasingly divided, indecisive and getting into political squabbles about this war. Top ranks of military had lots of assets and family in West. There are fractures.
Militarily when you concede the initiative you can be slapped around.
Russia has struggled heavily to make any inroads for a long time. This war is getting expensive and deadly for them and their enemy smells weakness.
Something is not adding up. What I hate is when people try to dress military defeats and set backs as clever 5D strategy. It is not. It’s a loss. Period.
This is not a clever strategy. This is a needless military loss that shows the enemy in and emboldens. The US is not stupid it’s in this as it is encouraged it can possibly get Russia.
Russia has the better advanced mega weapons that they are afraid to use and poorer on the ground cohesion than the UK and US. Ie. Get attacked, quick call for military air support, bomb opponent, use mines to slow attacks, use IUDs, drones.
As Kadyrov put it, Russia has an inferiority complex, they still care what the west thinks and they are not taking this as seriously as they should.
Eg why bother to rename Shahed Iranian drone Geranium? Just say they have good drones and we are using them. Why pretend these are Russian drones? It doesn’t make you look less. Iran has drones that Israel and US fear so why hide it.
Hopefully we will see them re focus after a month of stagnation and retreat.
This. If you remember what Putin originally said on February 24th – “We do not intend to occupy any Ukrainian territory.” The goals of this operation were originally much more limited than is currently assumed. This would be consistent with the “Istanbul Agreement” peace deal which was supposedly close to being adopted until the West told Zelensky not to agree it. I don’t know how much truth there is in it, but that would have supposedly seen Russia withdraw to the original positions in exchange for an agreement from Ukraine not to join NATO. I’m not sure how Putin thought he could get “demilitarization” and “de-nazification” by this route. I also can’t see that Russia would have got anything from such an agreement at all – after all, Ukraine isn’t officially a member of NATO, but effectively it is.
It seems to me Putin is an incurable optimist who can’t accept that his enemies want him dead and his people enslaved, and will stop at nothing to achieve that. Maybe he’s finally worked that out. Certainly so far he has been assuming people would “come to their senses” and a settlement would be agreed. But if shelling a nuclear power plant and blowing up several gas pipelines doesn’t convince him that’s not on the cards, nothing will.
The formal annexation of the 4 regions indicates that the plan has changed from February 24th, as does the “partial mobilization”. The suggestion was that it will take around 3 months for the freshly mobilized troops to be sent to the conflict zone. If that is the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were further “disappointments” in the meantime.
Combat is where the law is blurry, one man against five will save himself and his buddies first, then look into the law.
Putin, on the other hand, must and will follow the law first so that the law survives whether he does or not.
That’s all well and good, but once the shooting starts there’s one rule that overrides all others – don’t lose. If you lose, nobody will care about how honourably you fought and how well you kept to the rules.
Russia went forward with an SMO (c/w its many self-imposed restrictions) for a reason. Going in full on would make it look like a full scale invasion, rather than an operation to protect ethnic Russians. Russia NEEDS the political and economic support of the global south and specifically nations like China, India in order to be able to overcome the inevitable sanctions storm from the Globalist West. Any Russian militray response was ALWAYS going to be used as an excuse to unleash a sanctions blitzkrieg in an attmpt to crush Russias economy and force a regime change.
Russia needs allies to withstand this, and now she has them – ie other nations that can see only too well what the Wests true gameplan is, and who know that govern time, they will be the next targets of the Global Hegemony. Russia has now demonstrated that they have support of the liberated areas, and finally they can fully justify to their allies the need for taking off the gloves.
The storm is about to break. Everything will change.
Well said Gazza! Bravo!
I partially agree.
But lets look at the bigger picture.
Russia has won all the wars it was engaged in the past 22 years.
The U.S. has lost all the wars they were engaged in the past 22 years.
So lets wait and see, we cant do much.
Its not over till its over.
P.S. Im also on the same opinion that Lyman was a PR victory for Ukraine.
Was it avoidable?
Yes.
But fact is Ukraine lost thousends of troops.
While Russia suffered minimal losses.
Ukraine had to divert forces from Siversk and Bakhmut to finish the job.
And the town is small, 18,000 people, and was defended by 500+ allied troops inside the city and another 2-3000in vicinity.
Ukraine still needed close to 3 weeks to take it.
They are throwing everything in to gain as much ground as possible before Russia can deploy massive reinforcements.
They hope that western training and ukrop mobilization will beat Russian mobilization.
I dont think it will.
Russia can mobilize up to 25million troops, 2+million within 1-2months.
The 300,000 mobilized in my opinion wont be deployed to Ukraine.
That was a PR stunt by Russia.
They will be deployed inside Russia taking over the place of regular troops being sent to Ukraine right now.
That means change may be closer than most think, a lot closer, within 1-2weeks tops.
I could be wrong, we will see.
Your outlook is the flipside to my pessimism about Russia at the moment. I can completely see it happening as you say. It’s why I say Russia can turn this around. Time will tell. I also think the new troops will be in theater within a couple of weeks. Now, how about air and artillery? Armor? Ammo? Is more and better of all of that heading to UKR too? It better be.
Russia cannot mobilise 25mn. Those are fantasy numbers.
Realistically they could pull together and train 1-2 MN more men who are reasonably competent over 6-12 months without causing internal chaos.
If Russia can produce the arms/ordnance for them. A million men throwing rocks and wielding clubs won’t help.
Holding the line or carrying out delaying actions with minimal forces then counter-attacking in force with husbanded reserves after attackers expend cohesion and supplies was a typical WW2 Russian pattern. They did it in winter late 1941/early 1942 when the Germans almost reached Moscow. They did it prior to the encirclement and reduction of Stalingrad winter late 1942/early 1943.
This battle is comparatively penny ante stuff, but I’m betting the pattern holds true and that Option 5 is correct. I expect the winter offensive is going to see a lot of globalists, neocons, regime stenographers, and assorted riffraff wailing and gnashing teeth.
Would General Kadyrov be read in on what the RF general staff is thinking for grand strategy and how all these operational pieces tie into it? It seems to me that would be info that the RF would keep pretty damn tightly restricted given demonstrated American signals intelligence. Cell phones mean loose lips propagate vastly faster than during WW2 and I bet the NSA is sifting through phone and email of all family and associates of senior Russian officials and officers. They had to find out somehow that some UkroNazis were cooperating with the ongoing war crimes investigation in order to be motivated to missile their POW camp.
The way Kadyrov shoots his mouth in public, I imagine the top brass trying to change the conversation towards the weather at cocktail time in the Kremlin, when with him.
Judo competition rules fun fact:
A contest is awarded to one judoka instantly if an âipponâ is achieved, ie, a clean throw that makes the opponent land fully on their back with force, a textbook throw. What a KO means in boxing.
A âwazariâ is awarded if the throw is effective but less than clean, in this case the fight continues and the other chap can still win with an ippon or two wazaris. Bear with me.
One gets penalised for ânon combativityâ, not initiating attacks within a certain time frame but the points against you only count if there has not been any major action accruing wazari. Of course ippon clears the board there and then no matter what.
Think of the implications. I could be sitting back letting my adversary tire himself and notch up several penalties for myself, and on the last second. of fighting time floor him and earn me an ippon or wazari. I win.
Of course this is a very risky strategy that only works if I know 100% I have superiority overall but a tired and frustrated opponent makes it foolproof. If the throw doesnât come off I lose due to the penalties.
I think this could possibly be an analogy of what may be happening on the field in Lyman. Far fetched?
The purpose of the #SMO is to destroy Nazis – the amount of dead #banderite #NATO clowns in the mud at Lyman shows this was and continues to be successful.
The sad dirty media of the oligarchs hide the dead and screaming #banderite nazi Ukrainian scum and their American paid mercenary human shit. But the world knows the filth that is America and their grubby dirty filthy ukrainian regime of oligarch owned rats.
God hates nazis – make them scream like the 10,000 dead #NATO nazi slime of Lyman – dying for a dirty corrupt #wef Jew and grubby child sniffing perverted old American pig makes their lives worthless.
The people of Europe will soon be at the throats of the American war criminal scum. #WinterIsComing and Americans are despised and their dirty #WEF installed puppets are done.
Look at the clotted slapper #Truss to see what is coming for the pigs of the #wef oligarchy. #NoMercy to the vermin of the war criminal American scum.
Agree initial aim was de nazify de militarise.
East Ukraine is now part of Russia and Putin added defend homeland using all means.
From Afghanistan and Iraq one learns de militarise and defeat even a less than peer army is very hard if not impossible. You can only limit.
Strategically if Russia can push up and narrow border to half of what it is near dneiper then defense gets alot easier. It was on track to get there earlier.
Man, with that language youâre just at one degree of separation from nazis and sundry bigots.
Thereâs one thing you got really wrong: âgod hates nazisâ. I take it youâre a Christian. In the new dispensation it has been made clear that âgod love all his creaturesâ.
There is only one thing worse than secular, god-less hate.
Yes, you guessed right.
If the Russians are preparing for a major offensive as I suspect, they will not be distracted or bothered with minor village fights. Those will not matter when the big show begins.
I’m with Kadyrov, except for the nuclear weapons. If he feels nukes are necessary, then Russia truly is in trouble. Why does he call for nukes and not just merely to send in the reserve troops, armor and air, if those assets are really available in sufficient numbers to deal with the Ukro/NATO forces? I think the answer might be right there in front of us and we are a little scared of looking at it hard in the face.
There is no excuse for Ukros waltzing into Russian held territory after the referenda. I don’t care if its actual Russian combat troops or Donbas militia defending. If Russia has air superiority + drones + plenty of good artillery, then the Ukros should have been slaughtered as they staged for the attack on Liman (or well before). Period. Full stop.
IMO, the referenda – or at least holding them now – was a forced move and a desperate one. Russia wasn’t prepared to back it up. They had to do it now b/c the troops they have in country are unable to hold off the Ukros with their new NATO training and gear.
The SMO model is not how you fight a war. It was stupid. I suspected it would fail after the first three months initial gains. You don’t try new models of war fighting when you are claiming an existential fight. If it’s existential, then fight like its existential. You don’t fart around and give the enemy a chance to reconstitute, much less go on the attack. No. you attack, attack, attack and attack with all the force you can muster until the enemy’s forces are totally crushed and the civilians are begging for peace.
It’s time to start assessing if we have been wrong all along – or went wrong at some point (more the latter, I think). I keep going back to Ritter’s “game changer” comments. I think he was 100% correct and the game did change in a very material way and Russia failed to adapt. Now Russia is losing. The pro-Russia is unwilling to see it b/c they are deeply invested in the “Russia can’t lose” big talk that we all made.
I know Andrie is popular, but he’s a one trick pony. Rah Rah Russia and their superior 4D chess that’s imbedded in their very genetics. I don’t think he’d back away from that meme if the US and Ukros were marching right into the Kremlin itself. Same goes for Bernard at MofA, who just hates America so bitterly that he never could see straight for long.
Russia could probably turn this around, but they’re going to have to do so soon and in a huge undeniable way (without nuclear weapons). A while back I wrote that it was all giving me a headache and that the Ukro offensive that was jumping off at that time was a Tet Offensive type event. Actually, now I think it might be worse in that it’s not only a political Ukro victory, but an impending military one as well. I’ve been quiet, but watching. It’s now time to speak out (and get labeled a troll and god knows what else – which makes me laugh and demonstrates to my mind that many on the pro-Russin side are as childish as the Russophobe side)
I don’t think you are a troll, but if you were a military man, I wouldn’t be giving you any responsibility any time soon.
A good strategist does not just ‘attack, attack, attack’. They craft their response carefully and with flexibility, using a wealth of different options. It is imperative that they have the discipline to be patient; they should never assume they have a right to immediate results, particularly if this involves the needless sacrifice of human life.
M Scott Peck touched on military affairs when writing ‘The Road Less Travelled’. He compared the attitude of a general who is completely impervious to the knowledge of the power of life and death that he holds over his men, to that of one who takes full emotional responsibility for this power, and thinks carefully before committing his men to battle, to ensure he uses them to their greatest effectiveness. Who is going to be the better strategist, and will inspire more loyalty and effort from their men? Who is less likely to make catastrophic errors? Definitely not the former.
No serious strategist should ever pursue a cheap PR stunt at the expense of long-term interests. The Ukraine/West combo have made that mistake over and over since the beginning of the SMO. One would have thought that observers on both sides would have learned the lesson of this madness by now, but it seems not. It seems that the poor concentration and impatience of this generation are also playing out in their expectations of what success in war should be like, but that’s just not how it is.
If people are finding themselves frustrated and irate because the SMO is not matching up to the typical Hollywood war blockbuster, where conquering heroes drive all before them to the strains of Frank Zimmer or Ron Goodwin, I would suggest that they read some actual history about real military campaigns, and note how convoluted they invariably were.
You make a good point.
I am reading Dominic Lievenâs âRussia Against Napoleonâ. We forget in the west that Napoleon was defeated by Russia and that a military coalition she created then entered Paris.
They gave up territory constantly, and of course the French âcapturedâ Moscow. Russian doctrine is to defeat the enemy. Not fixate on map coordinates. The heirs of Zhukov, Suvorov and Kutuzov probably know what they are doing.
The west is good at PR war but Britain and America do not have such an awesome record of fighting major land campaigns, and have not needed to, despite the historical propaganda we are fed. Both countries built their empires on sea power.
Absolutely agree with your statements. The entire Anglo-American claim to world domination is essentially based on their sea power. The Royal and US Navy are very well positioned. If Russia (and China) really do have enough reliable hypersonic technology, it’s not enough for Anglo-Americans to dress warmly. Because there is the threat of annihilation within a few hours of all US aircraft carriers in the room. (The Brits have similar problems with their aircraft carriers as Nasa reliably launching a large rocket. A symptom of the decay of western/technological leadership because 47 genders and arctic ice rescue – which is growing so fast that media ignores it need – are more important than serious education and real competence?)
Conventional warheads are sufficient for the destruction of aircraft carriers, provided the precision of the hypersonic missiles is high. If the target accuracy has a radius of 20 m, then in many cases an expensive warhead can be dispensed with. The kinetic energy of impact at Mach 10 would simply disintegrate a carrier. This scenario does not seem unrealistic to me.
Russia “PR” shows the attentive observer, whose head has not yet been completely flooded with Western PR, that Russia deals with people and equipment much more responsibly than UKR/NATO. In order to start recognizing this, you have to put the propaganda films from the military academy “Hollywood Point” behind you or throw them in the trash.
Amazing! I’m reading it right now also. I agree about the aspects of strategic withdrawal and the delicate negotiations to tear Prussia away from its alliance with Napoleon. Strange parallels?
Exactly, itâs a long book so taking time to read! The Russians are fighting in line with their historical lineage. History always explains a lot. A big difference now is that in common with all militaries they are far less keen to take casualties.
The Ukrainians are heirs to the same tradition but seem to be fighting in a much more western style, no doubt influenced by all the NATO âtrainingâ.
All the evidence suggests that these âretreatsâ are well managed. Very few prisoners taken by Ukraine, not much equipment lost. History shows that all war is a giant cluster by both sides so pictures on Twitter of captured tanks without the broader context mean zero.
How do you.explain lack of air support?
very well reasoned.most of these pundits think of this war as if it’s the NFL.next they will be calling for an all out bayonet charge!
Nope. You press the attack when the enemy is in retreat. In fact, having achieved an objective, for a regimental commander on down, the next order is pretty much guaranteed to be to continue the attack.
Way too much imaging victory as coming from the clever plans of eggheads happening around here, in my opinion. Modern wars are won by grinding attrition and not so much crafty generals.
By not attacking in force, not pressing the attack, not fully capturing the 4 oblasts and then not reinforcing the defenses, the Russians lost the initiative and are now being pushed round by a reconstituted UKR military. This is simple stuff. Don’t overcomplicated it.
Sure. You can dismiss this lost as a minor one. But what is to prevent the next loss and the next? UKR doesn’t need to immediately re-take a major city. Pretty soon UKR is chipping away at supply routes and other key features and major cities become threatened that way.
There is still no excuse whatsoever for why Russian air didn’t break up this attack, if Ru air is what we were told it is. There is also no excuse for the continued shelling of the Donbas referenda areas if Russian air and artillery is any good. That not only looks bad; it IS bad.
Should have added that defense is overrated. You need it, but it should not be relied on. The enemy will find a way through or around it if you allow him enough time. This is even more true in today’s warfare with drones and other high tech that reduces the human cost of attacks against the defenses.
Also, we have to be careful with analysis of historical battles. Often it can be like a Rorschach ink blot test. We see what we want to and fill it in with all kinds of meaning that wasn’t really there when it was happening. Moreover, years later the interviewed characters involved, like generals and politicians, who survived will add all kinds of color that show themselves in the best light, some of that color being clever reasons for doing what they did that make them appear to be master tacticians and strategists.
A useful valuable take. My theory is the Ukrainians freely distribute amphetamines like the Germans in WW2. (And we did in WW2 and Vietnam) You can see this in the pictures and videos. Eisenhower insisted having it for morale. The Russian troops look normal sometimes tired — it is a boring slogging job.
According to a report by the House Select Committee on Crime, the armed forces used 225 million tablets of stimulants between 1966 and 1969. In addition to those amphetamines, which were used to boost endurance on long missions, sedatives were prescribed to help relieve anxiety and prevent mental breakdowns.Aug 29, 2018
Here is a lengthy article in the Atlantic about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-drugs-that-built-a-super-soldier/477183/
Putin may be some sort of war against drugs type like Gorbachev. I saw one recruiting video for Wagner where they are threatening them with instand dismissal if they are found with alcohol or drugs.
He may lose because of it. Gorbachev put in a prohibition for alcohol. All it did was annoy everyone and make criminal rich. It did not improve productivity because people now wasted huge amounts of time in lines trying to get a bottle. The criminals then used the cash to buy up things when privatization happened a few years later becoming oligarchs.
” The criminals then used the cash to buy up things when privatization happened a few years later becoming oligarchs.”
You missed the trajectory between alcohol kiosks and privatisation to what happened after they became “oligarchs” sometimes known as other “The second Times of trouble”.
It is unwise fighting various wars simultaneously, although implicitly you appear to not agree and attempt to obfuscate by resort to techniques Mr. Martyanov outlined in his video.
Lateral change is a constant and hence you may not be aware of an older observation which context has modified.
This was – If you want to make babies, virginity is not an option.
Like prohibition during the 1920’s in “The United States of America” prohibition of alcohol in “The Soviet Union” did increase “criminality” and primary accumulation – in English translation published at least by Charles Kerr and Co in the late 19th Century in “The United States of America” misinterpreted in Capital volume 1 as “primitive accumulation” perhaps in projection of the treatment of “Native Americans” and people of different hues.
However through various vectors these phenomena facilitated an acceleration of the ongoing process of the transcendence of “The Soviet Union” by the Russian Federation.
So what followed for afters to facilitate oligarchs becoming formers?
For the smaller oligarchs from 1993 onwards the oligarch of little import were advised that “our gang is bigger than your gang” encouraging some to prefer the sunshine in Israel whilst others including Mr. Potanin attained the age of reason and hence the unadvisedness of preening, whilst other preeners like Mr. Berezhovsky with the benefit of “blat” of his former “protege” Mr. Abramovich overcame his inherent stubborness and took the money and ran to London whilst still making forays to Riga in breach of contract, then sued Mr. Arbramovich since “manifestly” it was all Mr. Abramovich’s fault, but the Judge did not agree thereby undermining the protections Mr. Berezhovsky enjoyed with other “sharks” to such a degree that Mr. Berezhovsky, like a Roman Emperor he thought himself to be, retired to his warm bath and slit his own wrists.
In March 2000 oligarchs of greater import were advised to change their ways despite Mr. Khordokhovsky suggest that these ways were shared by Mr. Putin, a view that Mr. Khordokhovsky retains.
All other “oligarchs of greater import” recognised the errors of their previous ways and changed them: Mr. Khordokhovsky remaining stubborn.
During the 1990’s Russian business men tended to keep 3 books of accounts – one to show the tax authorities, one to show their wives, and one to show their “girlfriends”.
The grandson of a former head of the “Communist Party of the United States of America” who did not attend the meeting in March 2000 â I can’t rember his name but alledgedly his holiday was an act of unselfishness for his former accountant who had died to implore his âAmerican friendsâ to spank the Russian Federation, decided to take a holiday in “The United States of America” just in case anyway, whilst Mr. Khordokhovsky went to jail for tax fraud, apparently in part facilitated by recognition that perceived 5th,6th,7th, nth columns facilitated opportunities of useful fooleries, including but not limited to emotional reactions which continue to today, by “The Saker” and others who help increase the noise/signal ratio.
The afters course has not yet finished since the likely conditions before doing so will require continuing honouring of conditions of contract and other contemporary contexts.
What do you want ? truth or conjecture ? Ever ask yourself why we seek comfort through trying to understand man’s logic ? There is only one truth and one source for it. If we could only read God’s mind and know what His predetermined plans are. Oh, wait, we can. He wrote it all down in a book through His surrogate writers and gave us great detail to help us understand. For example in the last part of the last book (Revelation) which is one of the collection of books called the ‘Bible’ He told us about a war that is coming on the earth that will kill a third of mankind with ‘fire, and smoke, and brimstone’. His surrogate John whom God revealed this prophecy to 2,000 years ago through words and vision, tried his best to describe what he was shown. It sounds like what we would call ‘thermo-nuclear war’ today.
If there is a bible in your domicile, get it and turn to the book of Revelation, and go to chapter 9 and verse 18. There you will read about it. (for the full story of this war, also known as the sixth trumpet war read chapter 9 verses 13-18)
Do you think it is just a co-incidence that on September 13 Dmitry Medvedev issued an apocalyptic warning to the west in which he specifically mentioned the biblical scripture Revelation 9:18 !
What has happened to our world ? It’s been turned upside/down. God told us in the bible that the devil calls good evil, and evil good. What I used to think was good has now become evil. And what I used to think was evil (Russia) has now become good. When I fought the cold war against Russia in the late 1960’s I was very forthright and dedicated to the tasks assigned to me. And God even gave me an intelligence coup that was so unbelievable to the people above me that they finagled a way to bring me in from the Pacific theater to D.C., during which I was put through a drugged interrogation. At first I was puzzled, because the coup blessed our country. Just a seed planting for the future for me to help me keep my focus on the real source of truth and goodness- God. That was over 50 years ago.
May God bless you and keep you and your loved ones safe through whatever lies ahead for us.
Agree 100 percent.
Me too. There really isnât anything new under the sun. Many men throughout history have tried to bend other men to their will. Never works for long. We are creatures of a Creator and we have been given a nature and a will to follow a pattern – pattern laid out for our human nature – body and soul. See what happens when we force ourselves along paths that lead away from the right path. Beware. We might get what we are asking for.
I have marvelled more than once at the role reversal which sees the US now engaged in international subversion in pursuit of global domination just as Communism once was. Withstood by freedom loving Russians. Holy Russia against the godless West!
@Eric Newhill
I agree 100%.
Kadyrov may be blaming the wrong General, but his very public concerns show that recent setbacks were a debacle, NOT tactical retreats and 5D Chess.
There are incompetent political hacks in every organization, but those in the Army get soldiers killed. I hope that Russian MoD learns quickly and moves incompetent Generals to paper-pushing posts in Siberia while promoting battle-hardened field officers to senior leadership.
I truly hope that Putin and the RF can now end this WAR quickly and decisively, before some idiot in the West drops a tactical nuke somewhere.
As time marches on, I listen less to Martyanov and the Saker, and more to Larry Johnson, Col Douglas MacGregor, Scott Ritter, Alexander Mercouris, and even Paul Craig Roberts (who stated at the beginning that a limited SMO was a huge mistake). Playing rope-a-dope for the first 8 rounds to tire out your opponent doesn’t always end well, especially if your opponent keeps getting stronger (NATO weapons and reinforcements).
Larry is a breath of fresh air. He is open to reasonable ideas and reasonable discussion. He has his opinions, as do we all, but he is not inflexible. Rather he has a true intellectual curiosity and the background to guide it towards truth. I’m grateful for his knowledge, assessments and this forum. The discussion and debate here is excellent. It is the most diverse mix of intelligent ideas available.
Scott Ritter is also excellent and has a very good track record (his predictions come true). I wish I could hear more from MacGregor. He appears to be a reasonable man with ample background, but I’m not always clear as to the basis of his conclusions; more a fault with the platforms than his own.
Saker and Martyanov seem to me to be overly dogmatic and inflexible + big chips on their shoulders, though I would not summarily dismiss what they say. Moon of Alabama is a mixed bag too. Bernard’s hatred of America clouds his judgment and makes him an ideologue incapable of facing facts, sometimes rabidly so. I really despise his commentariat. They are hyper-socialist hateful Euro-trash that cheer for the downfall of the west and the rise of a communist “utopia”. Bernard plays to those dreams. The others listed seem to me to have perspectives worth paying attention to.
Just my own opinion for what its worth.
Or a combination. Iâd bet things didnât go according to to plan. While Iâve never been in the military, Iâve read a lot of history and I donât recall a lot of historical assessments that concluded âeverything went according to planâ.
With only a reported 500 Cossacks in Liman, perhaps it was mostly #5 as a method to delay Ukraine to establish a more secure defensive line. Given that the withdrawal appears to have been orderly and with minimal casualties, that sounds reasonable. Probably not the first choice but 6,000 against 500 is bad odds. (I discount the 20K number, maybe 9K)
What the propaganda victories do is give a serious sense of false hope to the west. Their stated goal is to take back all of Ukraine, thatâs 100,000+ km2. Every probing attack in the south gets clobbered. Nobodyâs paying attention to Bahkmut but it seems that Ukr forces are being methodically pushed back. And one has to expect that Russia has a major offensive planned. Theyâre just not timing it for maximum social media engagement and news cycle splashes.
If this was really a 1:15 battle, then those Cossacks are remarkable – 3 weeks holding out and then orderly withdrawl.
TBD
Admittedly, I donât know shit from shinola about any of this. But I do understand the zeitgeist of the West and how it operates. That little Annex party the Russians threw yesterday had to steam the Globalist Alliance to no end. Things like that make it damn near impossible for their media to lie. The thought of being wrong is almost too much to bear for them. So they look for something else quickly to deflect. Not just to distract the public but even more so themselves. I read Helmholtzâs piece and it makes sense. We here in the US are not smart and above all else we are not a serious people.
DT said last week âWe cannot win in a war against Russia.â Love him/hate him that bastard always had a way of delivering truth. Sometimes you have to read between the lines but I suspect heâs bringing to us again. Admittedly the vax shit still troubles me with him and maybe he should come clean on that.
Russia also reportedly took out NATO command office in Odessa with drones before attack.
When did this happen? And, before which attack? I hadn’t heard of this…
The primary purpose of war is to destroy the enemyâs capacity to fight, not to occupy a given piece of territory. The âlossesâ of a bit of land are completely irrelevant to the primary purpose.
As for those who wonder where the full power of Russiaâs military is, bear in mind that Putin is guided by legality AND the 4 oblasts have not yet been legally amalgamated into Russia. That will take place on October 4, 2022.
IF after that date, Russiaâs military is still hesitant, I will agree about its lack of competence and capabilities.
BUT, that wonât happen. Following October 4, you will observe what Russia does to those who attack her land.
No one knows whats on the minds of the Russian military. They have the might to snuff out this. They could be just waiting for the right moment or they set something up. Theres a lot of Ukraine forces in the north. Perhaps the south is a tasty target.
Russians are currently getting smashed in the Kherson region northwest of the river. The area which can no longer be supplied by bridge. The Ukrainian counteroffensive here was prematurely called a failure by many pro Russian pundits. The war has taken a turn and no one has made the case for why that happened.
IMHO, I think the Commanding General was told to keep a low profile until the formalities for formal accession are over (I believe by 4 th October) by which time, Russian regular army would be ready to roll to the battle front without bothering about niceties . That would be the mother of all PR: Mama Bear herself going after the tormentor of her cubs with bared teeth. They would simply overwhelm the Ukr forces currently in the theatre and march on to the border of Donetsk and beyond. That would a very powerful visual and practical message needed to reinforce Putin’s verbal one. Shock and awe anyone?
Quote â until the formalities for formal accession are over (I believe by 4 th October) â
I believe this is the critical factor given VVPâs predilection for the legal niceties.
If the gloves are off, why aren’t they carpet bombing Kyiv, or Lviv ?
Because US style civilian slaughter is not on the Russian agenda.
They consider Kiev to be a Russian city, and they will never carpet bomb it. They didn’t carpet bomb Lviv because there is no benefit to it (USA does stuff like that, but Russia is not trying to be USA).
Russia needs support of China and India, which is the reason why the recent events happend only after meeting with them. In order to keep their support Russia will continue to show restraint for as long as possible. Gloves are obviously not off yet.
I am an avid but silent follower of this Larry’s blog. Today, I couldn’t hold back. Kadyrov’s statement is mostly correct except for the low yield nukes. For Christ sake, how can the RF keep losing captured territory like this? Every time they come up with an excuse. RF war planners need to do a better job, and the RF should take those gloves off, and fight a real war. Take out the command and control, send special forces to take out leaders and key people. Raids should take place on special infrastructure, etc!
Ukraine keeps killing civilians fleeing in the Russian direction, obviously a whole bunch of people on the ground are not to thrilled with the idea of being or remaining on the western sponsored side.
I don’t know how you can PR Spin we are winning, but every one is leaving, and in the direction of the enemy.. its clear something is going to break really bad soon just how it goes no one knows, I assume knowing the Russia response is going to pick up soon, one would assume they are trying to gain as much back as possible before they loose the numbers advantage. however Russia does need to start taking the initiative and become more aggressive. They have signed the paper work and now the military has to respond on the ground.
I never would have thought in 2022 that you would see tank duels in open terrain with less than 300 meters separation with a follow up tank using the lead tank for cover (straight out of World of tank style game play).
I have followed Kadyrov for years. He is colorful but corrupt and likely has a white powder habit like Zelenski (rather explicit x rated videos surfaced at one point –that may explain the tweet or what ever it was) — he however is an important figure in the war. During Putin’s speech yesterday he was staring at the ceiling in a strange way. He has been grumbling for quite awhile and certainly his fighters would know exactly what the deficits of tactics and everything else are. I follow telegram channels and according intel slava z there were some supporting low flying attacks at Liman. I don’t know how many it didn’t say.
Every day that passes brings another day closer to winter…. tactically it tips the hand to winter proficient trained Russian forces and towards certain social and economic upheaval in NATO heartlands….with the referendum and annexation still not even complete I think Russia will consolidate it’s position while bringing up forces for a winter offensive….PR stunts or brutal false flag events are all NATO can do before sleepy Joe and the mentally ill democrats get gutted in November. Opinions are like assholes…. everyone has one but the fact of the matter is Ukrainian militias and minimal Russian forces have gutted a numerically superior and highly trained Western backed and trained army who were heavily dug in …in depth ……with minimal loss of life and that is the fact everyone is forgetting as they mutilate their own genitals with pruning shears over a few insignificant Ukrainian gains.
Well said!
Let us see how it plays out.
Don’t forget Ukranians are soviet too and can fight just as well in winter. The generals on both sides also all trained together.
I don’t buy that Russia will have a fighting edge in winter.
What they will have is an energy embargo that will put immense pressure on the enemy and may force them to act differently. But will Russia actually cut gas to Ukraiaine. It’s shown little appetite for infrastructure damage so far.
If West is serious they will need to supply Ukrainie with ready gas as a priority.
For Russia they need to understand that gas and energy lines to Donbass will be targeted ruthlessly and they will need to keep their own troops and people well-fed and warm. works both ways. Alot of engineers and back up energy supply considerations needed by both sides.
Firstly the climate of Ukraine makes it quite temperate and any army from those regions would have no problem dealing with winter combat…but fall/winter brings natural defoliation as all the deciduous trees lose their leaves and rain/mud …these will seriously affect offensive operations for the Ukrainian side who seem to be throwing everything into the offense recently….but even a temperate winter requires special preparations that interfere with the overall tempo such as conversion to winter diesel and low viscosity lubricants and hydraulic fluids etc…..so my point is still valid in my opinion….Russia just has to sit back and wait for the ground to harden up and European revolution. Russian arctic warfare trained troops from the far east or Northern districts won’t be critical but their skill sets can’t hurt… especially if there is a particularly bad winter. To be pulling a arctic tent group all day in snowshoes and assaulting in deep powder etc does seperate the men from the boys so Arctic or Alpine units are tough….and that doesn’t hurt either
Thank you for your open opinion and reporting.
In my opinion it is difficult to speak of a tactical move, not that you mention it, it is a battle lost for Russia, both territorially and PR.
A lost battle is not always at a disadvantage, except that another counterattack has to be carried out with possible heavy losses as a result.
With Russia so far suffering relatively few losses (material and manpower) against Ukraine, it can all but negate the disadvantage of a counterattack.
This setback for Russia is a reason for NATO and the US to increase the pressure and send more weapons, weapons from their active arsenal with the conviction that even if they are without defences they will have nothing to fear from Russia as the west will be the sole rulers.
The counter side is that if the West miscalculates and Russia bounces back and demonstrates significant potential at a time when the West is virtually unable to conduct a solid defence, we will enter nuclear warfare as it will be all the West will have left to defend itself.
Demilitarisation and denazification are just not out of possibility.
A useful valuable take. My theory is the Ukrainians freely distribute amphetamines like the Germans in WW2. (And we did in WW2 and Vietnam) You can see this in the pictures and videos. Eisenhower insisted having it for morale. The Russian troops look normal and sometimes tired — it is a boring slogging job. The Ukrainians look like they are wired for sound laughing talking exuberant and can keep going for 20 hours a day in a positive mood with the energy of 3 Russians.
According to a report by the House Select Committee on Crime, the armed forces used 225 million tablets of stimulants between 1966 and 1969. In addition to those amphetamines, which were used to boost endurance on long missions, sedatives were prescribed to help relieve anxiety and prevent mental breakdowns.Aug 29, 2018
Here is a lengthy article in the Atlantic about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-drugs-that-built-a-super-soldier/477183/
Putin may be some sort of war against drugs type like Gorbachev. I saw one recruiting video for Wagner where they are threatening them with instand dismissal if they are found with alcohol or drugs.
He may lose because of it. Gorbachev put in a prohibition for alcohol. All it did was annoy everyone and make criminal rich. It did not improve productivity because people now wasted huge amounts of time in lines trying to get a bottle. The criminals then used the cash to buy up things when privatization happened a few years later becoming oligarchs.
Drugs also given by doctors to British and US soldiers daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. Including pilots.
Everyday friends would wait at cafe and jump up to get pills from doc. It made you feel happy and powerful.
When they got back many had mental issues as you go from drugged adrenaline high war zone where you feel great to withdrawal taking out bins at home.
Suicides not unrelated to these drugs and cocktail of shit given.
Iâve read that most of the SMO contractors (Wagner) which fought the bulk of battles in the first 6 months reached their 6 month contract term in August and are now back home on a well deserved break. Since the SMO did not allow Russian regular conscripts to be used, during September the front lines are devoid of actual Russian army troops, and itâs the LPR/DPR troops manning the > 1000km front lines. That is why the SMO has been stalled for the last 6 weeks or so.
Logistically, Russian is planning to bring itâs entire army (including conscripts) to the 4 republics borders in the next week. This will be a mighty spectacle. They have been preparing to support this drive and this will be the main program for October, and have obviously chosen to accept a couple of short term losses of a couple of smaller villages/towns in September. These territory losses will quickly be restored in the next week, and regular Russian army will work on reaching the administrative borders really quickly.
The next question is when can we see the return of the recovered battle hardened experienced contractors to the war. In October they wont be needed since the main army is busy reaching the administrative borders, the regular troops can do that. What the regular troops cannot do is leave Russia proper, so operations in de-jure Ukraine will be a job for the contractors. So I dont expect the Wagner group to be active until November, when a push for Odessa starts.
I note that Liman is just 65 kms north of Bakhmut, the key strategic HQ of Ukraine’s operations in this area of Ukraine and some say the entire Donbass front.
There are major battle for Bakhmut, which has been ongoing for at least a week. Russia has been making advances there.
Therefore, considering Liman as a stand alone, singular battle may not be correct. Perhaps the best way of understanding the Russian tactics at Liman, is by seeing them as part of the Russian strategy to take Bakhmut.
Consider. Defending Liman created a diversion that lured Kiev, desperate for a PR success, to dedicate substantial numbers of Ukraine’s forces around Bakhmut – to capture Liman. The lure was a success – Ukrainian forces were not just redeployed from Bakhmut, but also from the north of Liman.
Again we need to ask whether the capture of Liman was a Pyrrhic victory. As I understand it, the slaughter of Ukrainians to capture Liman was horrendous. Waves of Ukes were sent in on suicide missions against the small allied force in Liman, who incredibly managed to hold out for at least a week, drawing in more and more Uke military assets. The.Russian allied force was withdrawn when it was no longer capable of holding the place.
Meanwhile, Bakhmut is slowly but surely being captured by the Russians.
I may be wrong, but this is surely a feasible explanation for the Russian tactics in Liman.
With the greatest respect, Russia is feeding America and Ukraine military strategic egos.
The Ukrainians are being used, encouraged, always forward movement, given every opportunity, even After being told by Russia, by the people’s referendum, it’s now Russian territory.
Said the spider to the fly.
As soon as the Duma, signs off, and all legal I’s and T’s are crossed, NATO officers and Troops, mercenaries, and Ukrainians an military are to receive in full, Russian might, the pain and horrors of war. War, as only the Russians and there military can and would deal out.
This was the same stories my father in WW2 pointed out and related to me from his experiences of the Russian military, from that western designed butchery.
I think people overestimate the loss of a town in comparison to what has been achieved. Ukrainian side has suffered far bigger losses in men and hardware trying to recapture it and the Russian side did hold their position until they saw it was enough and still safe to retreat. From a military prospective, this was still a good outcome for the Russian side and in compliance to their strategy/goals. Ukraine temporarily moved the front line in their favor. The referenda have changed the Russian strategy anyway. More troops and hardware will be used from now on. Ukraine has gotten new serious red lines.
Thank you, Scipio and Top Gun for your rational well grounded comments.
Allied Forces held a practically abandoned village with just 500 soldiers. The AFU was ordered by ‘Elensky’ to take it at ALL COSTS.
The AFU threw between 6 and 12,000 troops into RF artillery fires for Three Weeks!
They have suffered heavy losses in material and personnel by ALL accounts.
These forces were decimated instead of going south to Bakhmut where they might have actually been a Force Multiplier in battle that actually has meaning and impact.
You two are the only commentators to state this critical fact.
I have zero military training or experience but I am able to learn and these last 8 months have been very educational.
Soon, all the butt-hurt military fan boys are going to be taken to school, for real
No more SMO.
No more legal restraints.
Did you see the train of Iskander-M’s heading to Kherson?
Remember the 3rd Corps?
600+ aircraft around Kherson?
See all the trains of vehicles and troops going thru Rostov-on-Don?
The RF has been sending tens of thousands of troops into these areas for weeks. Way before the partial mobilization. Just like the Referenda groundwork. Weeks and months in ad be advance. It’s called planning, people. The RGS has a plan and none of us including Kadryov is told what it is.
Take a wild guess what is going to happen after Oct4/5 when the 4 Oblasts legally become part of the Russian Federation?
Personally, I think the Russians are going to destroy Ukie infrastructure, Command/Control and troop concentrations with Islanders, Calibers and aircraft.
After the fall rains stop and the ground hardens, they will roll up Nikolaiav and Odessa in short order.
Something Alexander Mercouris said is very important. The Referenda had sent a very powerful message to the people in Nikolaiav, Odessa and Kharkov. Russia welcomed the people of the 4 Oblasts home, forever. And Mother Russia takes care of her own. I think Odessa might fall from the inside out now.
Failing that, RF will surround it and starve the AFU out. They will try to take it with an absolute minimum amount of destruction.
If the AFU has any sense , they will flee these places before they won’t be able to.
Just my 2 cents
Just my opinion
I could be wrong
Blessings
Slava Russia
L
The failure to use airpower is the most significant. If the Russians are not making serious enquiry into this failure then they risk making the same mistakes.
I don’t see this as a one of. There appears to be a systematic problem in cohesion, equipment and support to DPR and LPR and communications. Ie. Not enough communication, support, equipment and authority given to leaders on the ground.
This may change with more Russian troops but this war is going to get very expensive and if they can’t coordinate and resource a basic defensive manouver it should raise questions of capacity.
The senior command obviously deliberately let this happen as everyone knew the situation.
Rumours are that planes heading there were pulled back to reinforce elsewhere on line. Is there sufficient air support? Clearly not.
If one is looking for straws one could argue the Ukraine reinforcing the north and heading in that way will open up the south to Odessa to a huge assault that can’t be easily countered. If Belarus enters war then the north can be whipped like an ice cream Sunday.
I am his inferior in matters military but I disagree with Martynov on this. Russia is being held everywhere, when the enemy is advancing you are losing. This issue is an opportunity for Russia to really look at chain of command, strategy, what went wrong.
Melitopol, Mariupol, Kherson, Lysychansk and Sevrodonetsk then four Ukrainian oblasts join the Russian Federation vs Ukraine captures Izyum and Krasny-limon.
All this despite running out of money, rockets, missiles, ammunition and courage. Vlad, you’ve done yourself proud!
Focusing on the past – what happened above Kiev – is the mistake the west analysts were making. Now the Russian analysts are doing it. Right now things are not looking good for Russia. HIMARS were used to destroy all the bridges to the part of Kherson on the other side of the river. Pro Russian analysts have declared the Ukrainian counter offensive stopped there twice. Now Ukraine is again on the move taking large amounts of territory in a day. The current shows the city of Kherson falling to Ukraine at some point. All the laughing at the Kherson counteroffensive that never came is now misplaced. Russia – given the vulnerability from the bridges – never should have take that area in retrospect.
Very mixed feelings. Yes, probably in the grand scheme of things the retreat from Liman followed as per Option 4: “Russian intelligence knew the size of the Ukrainian force attacking Liman but Russia did not have the ability to resupply and reinforce the defenders.”
Yet, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There’s probably a fair amount of truth to Kadyrov’s statements.
Putin appears to be moving forward only after much deliberation. He’s a true politician, and not necessarily a military strategist. He may be looking at many other (and very important) factors such ensuring critical support from China and India and allowing Europe to commit economic suicide all be themselves. Also if he pushes too aggressively then he may alienate the local Ukrainian population. If you intend to permanently occupy the territory, then the locals should welcome you as a liberator against the Ukro neo-nazi militants and not be seen yourself as another aggressive militant.
Additionally as some commentators have pointed out, until now Russia did not have the necessary manpower mobilized. This has now changed/is being changed. Also now Russia is in the process of finalizing the incorporation of four major regions from Ukraine. This is quite a significant victory.
Still, the Russian military might do well to pay heed to Kadyrov: a velvet approach has limits. Time to strike at all key infrastructure elements: all bridges, rails depots, fuel depots, HV transformers, warehouses, etc. But then again, Putin “the lawyer” might be concerned over being called to The Hague for “crimes against humanity” or some other charge. Quoting from Wikipedia” Article 23 (g) of the Hague Regulations forbids the unnecessary destruction of enemy property”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention
So many considerations. Not just military, but also geopolitical and even legal.
US UK Fr axis of destruction have never been held accountable for any crimes.
If Putin goes to Hague it will be because Russia lost, if Russia continues to fight like this it’s in trouble. Everyone likes a winner.. without a decisive win here China and India will not risk alienating West.
If he’s concerned about being called to the Hague there is only one way to avoid that – win the war.
The post-war war crimes tribunals will be epic. The International Tribunal will try civilian war planners such as Ned Price using the precedence of Hirota
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KĆki_Hirota
Journalists such as Christine Amenpour will be tried using the precedence of Julius Streicher
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
Most interesting will be those NATO generals and officers who will be tried for âcommand and controlâ failures of âtheirâ Kiev troops using the precedence of Gen. Yamashita
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoyuki_Yamashita
To evaluate the Kharkov and Krasni Lyman advances one as not only view the map but consider other things. The first is the objective of each side, the second is how sustainable is the approach.
The Ukraine objective is to conquer back its territory, so obviously they reached at this front their objective. One of the russian objectives is to demilitarize Ukraine, so if the territorial gains were paid by Ukraine with high losses, than Russia achieved parts of their objective. We do not have certain numbers for the losses yet but much hinds to very high Ukranian casualties. Ukraine had to use its reserves to conquer Lyman and even drew troops from other fronts, while Russia seemingly has not tapped into its operational reserve, which is a very strong indicator for high Ukrainian losses.
To really evaluate the outcome we have to wait a few weeks or even month. If Ukraine can pull off this trick again and again that we might have seen a shift in war. At the moment the trend does not point in this direction. When comparing the Kharkov and Krasni Lyman advance, we see that in Krasni Lyman the Ukranians spend more time and troops to take much less territory.
Some time ago Ukraine increased their draft age limit from 60 to 65 while russia is just starting to mobilize troops. It is difficult to see were Ukraine will get the additional troops needed if they conquer territory by not caring about high losses.
So altogether I would see the battle of Kharkov and Krans Lyman as a minor Ukraine victory, because Russia also achieved parts of their objective and I do not think that this approach is sustainable for Ukraine. But we have to wait a few weeks or month to see.
Larry – what is your opinion please on the five options for the reason (s) for the failure at Liman that you have outlined ?
Option 1 – Complacency
Option 2 – pride and arrogance
Option 3 – Incompetence
Option 4 – lack of resources through negligence
Option 5 – an astute plan
Russia and Ukraine can both fly planes since the Russians still announce that they have shot down a Ukrainian plane in their briefings. And while the Ukrainian planes are more likely to be shot down, the Russian planes also get shot down. I don’t think they can just fly over Ukrainians at any time they want and attack without fear of losing the plane. Don’t know the odds of a Russian plane being shot down but they may be high enough that it stops air attacks.
Krasny Liman is nothing in the great scheme of things. The Ukies are expending huge portions of their available manpower and resources to take Liman and other rather insignificant areas right now. Meanwhile, as time flows, Europe is literally falling apart being energy starved, people are becoming tired of the war and beginning to wake up to the fact that their elite have misled them and condemned them to poverty, Russia is significantly expanding its borders and whilst the Ukies are dying by the thousands in taking these PR gains, Russia is using that time to seriously build up its forces for a major counterattack to cleanse its newfound territory of Nazis.
Option #5 for certain. The Duma will act on the 4th to make the accession of the new territories official – and after that, we shall see reality hit.
The withdrawal of the Russians from four small towns in the face of a far superior enemy in the last month, in my opinion, shows what an incredible job the Russians did until the beginning of July. Simply put, with such a small force, by early July they had captured more than they could hold.
This became clear to the Russians after the liberation of Lisichansk. Putin then ordered to “send the army on vacation”, which to an outside observer was a sign of superiority, but was actually an order to stop offensive actions. The fact that the Ukrainians concentrated large forces for the defense of large cities, above all Kiev, suited the Russians for their previous successes. Although the Russians retreated from the vicinity of Kiev back in March, the Ukrainians still held considerable forces there.
In August, the Ukrainians concluded that there was no longer any danger to Kiev and sent a significant part of the 100,000 soldiers, who were supposed to defend the capital, to the battlefield around Kharkiv. Those forces, reportedly around 60,000 soldiers, attacked where the Russian forces are weakest.
Then it became clear to the Russians that they needed more soldiers, a partial mobilization was carried out, the army is being trained and will soon arrive in the territory that is now part of Russia. The loss of Lyman in the DNR is a bitter pill, it is the first occupied Russian city after 80 years and the Great Patriotic War, but it could not be avoided.
I send ahead that I do not know anything. Like many people, I try to understand. For this purpose, I have only the publicly available information. Preferably and exclusively from alternative media. I am German and I live in Germany. Our future is fucked. Betrayed and sold.
Many in Germany are hoping for a defeat of the US empire. We are waiting for a collapse of the empire. Because there is no inner force that can liberate us. German society has been riddled with the agents of the empire since 1945. In all the control centers of the state, the media, the judiciary, in the military, in the secret services, in the DAX-economy. We don’t even need to talk about the parties and politics. The only hope is a Russian victory.
Because I don’t know anything, that’s why I ask questions. Some rhetorical.
1. Can the USNATO win a conventional war against Russia? Even more so, if such a war would draw other powers into the war as well? Like China and North Korea, for example.
2. My answer is: “No! Would that make nuclear war inevitable? Is that a factor in influencing what Russia and China do? Is that why Russia is trying to avoid a clash with USNATO as much as possible?
3. Does this mean that Moscow hopes that the West will implode economically and socially? Is Russia Playing for Time?
4. I must admit that I cannot assess anything regarding Turkey. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are sticking points, both for the SOC and for USNATO. What is happening away from the public eye? The war is taking place on many levels. The military level is just one of them. I always tried to point this out in earlier comments.
5. Why doesn’t Russia destroy all Western supplies if possible? Would it have the opportunity to do so? I think so. So why not?
6. Is the Russian population psychologically ready for the big war? Let’s look at it apart from the propaganda.
7. And so on.
My greatest hope for the people in the world, also in the USA is, that the US oligarchy will not succeed in its “Great Reset”. And I hope that there is prudence and a plan in Russia to prevent nuclear war.
Russia will not liberate Europe. Its not their business. They want to live in peace and prosper. They will defend Russia and its allies, they will cooperate with every nation that wants to be its friend but they will not go around and play world police.
Up to now it was beneficial for Europe to be a part of the American empire. Being the small brother of Uncle Sam in a monopolar world meant to be number two in the world and all Europe had to do was supporting US policy. In a unipolar world it is attractive to be the monopols junior partner.
In multipolar wollt that changes. When India, Russia und China rise to peer competitors of the US, then being below the US means also to be below all the other major powers. This is not attractive, instead Europe could leave the US and be a peer competitor. So in multipolar world it is not attractive to be the junior partner.
It will take a while for the new realities to sink in into the European elites, but for them there is one thing more important than obedience to the master, and that is their own wealth and power. Once they realize, that the multipolar world offers much more to them than the US can, they will leave their master. The European people can accelerate the process by protesting and by voting fringe. And whenever the empire hits back, like they did with destroying the pipelines, they will damage the bond between the US and Europe further. The more the US hats damage Europe to keep it in line, the more attractive it gets to leave the empire.
The EU is increasingly hated by the multipolar world. They are in a frenzy of sanctions and cheating using pretend laws like anti dumping to violate WTO rules.
The EU should go down with the US. It can’t pretend to be any better. These are democracies. The people are not helpless. Only hardship will create the impetus to change the regimes and systems in those countries.
The EU has the same dilemma as the American empire. The existence of the EU is based on the premise that it provides benefits for ist members. When being an EU member becomes a burden, and at the moment the trend is turning in this direction, than the EU will have no future. If the EU wants to secure its existence, it has to reinvent itself as a servant for the member states instead of fighting them. But I don’t see that the EU will be able to do that. Nevertheless I think that a Europe after the EU will still form a loose block of trade and defense and this way form an own pole in a multipolar world. The EU has no own executive branch. It has no military to enforce membership, and I don’t think that any European nations will start a war to keep its neighbors in the EU.
Russia will not liberate Europe. Of course not. But Russia is fighting a battle against the empire. If the empire falls, if it is weakened, then there is an opportunity for Europe.
Lets hope that we then have a government that sees the opportunity and necessity to leave the empire and also has the balls to do it. I think Scholz does assess the geopolitical realities correctly but is to weak to stand up against the greens and the Americans. I think a move away from america can be driven by the French, who never really submitted to the American empire and macron is an ambitious man. Both Scholz and Macron want to end the war in Ukraine and understand that their is a time after the war were they have to reconcile with russia. Together the Axis Paris-Berlin could muster enough strength to shift Europe away from Washington.
No matter which politicians, no matter which parties, all are corrupt and discredited. A hopelessly decadent caste. The entire European society is riddled with transatlantic NGOs in all areas. Like metastases of cancer. Only when this encrusted system is eliminated, then progressive forces can take its place. But that can never work according to the rules of their system. I fear that everything must first collapse in on itself so that something new can arise from the ashes.
Mankind still has a completely different problem. All vaccinations are to be carried out in the future with mRNA technology. This is almost as terrible as a nuclear war. We must consider that in the meantime billions of people worldwide have these “gene bombs” in their blood. Add to that the problem of infertility caused by this. This will lead the whole human civilization into a catastrophe in the next 10, 15 years. This catastrophe will change all societies with a high vaccination rate beyond recognition.
When someone throws a stone into the water, everyone automatically looks there. That is the war. But in doing so, we do not notice what is happening behind our backs.
With the destruction of NS 1&2 and the LNG facility in Texas, an industrialised, economically powerful Germany has no future. It is too late to dream of freedom now – Europe and the UK are irrevocably on the road to being third-world areas now.
I can’t disagree with that.
Your thoughts are the same as mine.
I strictly separate what I would like to have from a sober assessment of the situation as it is. At the moment, nothing is sure.
All I can tell you: most people do not even come up to your level, and just happily live on.
I can tell you to read Goethe’s Faust: Da steh ich nun ich armer Thor, und bin so klug als wie zuvor. This say a man who had studied.
” I am German and I live in Germany. Our future is fucked. Betrayed and sold.
Many in Germany are hoping for a defeat of the US empire.”
You perhaps should remember that the lateral process from crossing the Oder to Stunde Null was informed by “Communist competition” not How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback.
One of the outcomes of “Socialist competition” was the resentments engendered facilitating fucking the future sometimes known as “The United States of America”, a slightly modified linear process in emulation of “The Treaty of Versailles” and its facilitation of “The Second War” which is a misrepresentation since the “World War” from 1855 onwards has never ended.
Hence to transcend the “United States of America” the ongoing lateral process is rendered possible through considerations of How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback, not restricted to Germany.
“The United States of America” of which Germany is a component â part of the reasons why you âlearnedâ English at school in modified reflection of General Plan OST – continues to be at war with the world including themselves, and that was understood well before December 2021, and hence sometimes come into my house said the spider to the fly becomes a more ascendent vector, whilst flys are sometimes nervous of visiting other’s house – in Russia during the 1990’s part of that was aversion to using local toilets outside “luxury hotels”- and part of the reasons why many do not have passports.
Larry, this may be fire-walled for most but do use the material …..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/30/putins-endgame-act-military-self-destruction/
Lord Dannatt: Col Blimp or mastermind of the British Army (retired)
Are you serious? The Telegraph… which has been reporting for days that the Russians have destroyed the Nord Stream.
Here’s a translation from Kadyrov about the Liman loss
I have always said: there is nothing better than the voiced truth, albeit bitter, offensive, but the truth. This is the only way to move forward. Therefore, I cannot remain silent about what happened in Krasny Liman. The defense of this section was led by the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin. The same Lapin, who received the star of the Hero of Russia for the capture of Lisichansk, although de facto he was not there and was not around. Lapin was also given over to the troops of the Western Military District. The colonel-general deployed mobilized fighters from the LPR and other units on all frontiers of the Liman direction, but did not provide them with the necessary communications, interaction and the supply of ammunition. Two weeks ago, Major General Commander of the Akhmat Special Forces, my dear BROTHER Apty Alaudinov, personally reported to me that our fighters could become an easy target. In turn, I informed Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, about the danger. But the general assured me that he had no doubts about Lapin’s leadership talent and did not think thatthen in Krasny Liman and its environs a retreat is possible. A week later, Lapin moves his headquarters to Starobelsk, a hundred kilometers from his subordinates, while he himself sits in Lugansk. How can you quickly manage units, being 150 km away from them? Due to the lack of elementary military logistics, today we have left several settlements and a large piece of territory. It’s not a shame that Lapin is mediocre. And the fact that he is covered at the top by the leaders in the General Staff. If I had my way, I would have demoted Lapin to the rank of private, would have deprived him of his awards and, with a machine gun in his hands, would have sent him to the front lines to wash away my shame with blood. Army nepotism will not lead to good. In the army, it is necessary to appoint people of a strong character, courageous, principled, who worry about their fighters, who tear their teeth for their soldier, who know that a subordinate cannot be left without help and support. There is no place for nepotism in the army, especially in difficult times. We didn’t have enough raisins? Even then I said: shoot at the militarythe accumulation of the enemy in the Raisins captured by the Nazis, especially since our artillery at that time had such an opportunity. They would have done away with the main Satanists and fascists at once. We must carry out NWO in the full sense of the word, and not flirt. Use every opportunity and every weapon to defend OUR territory. Donetsk is still being shelled. Residents of the joined 4 territories want to be protected. I don’t know what the RF Ministry of Defense reports to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, but in my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons. It is not necessary to take every decision with an eye on the Western American community – it has already said so and done a lot against us. Yesterday there was a parade in Izyum, today a flag in Liman, and what tomorrow? Everything would be fine if it weren’t so bad.
This war is not about Lyman, it is not about Donetsk, not about Ukraine, it is about the world dominance of the USA. It will be over when the USA gives up its hundreds of oversea bases.
Is Putin aware of this?
Discussion about Lyman is useless in this sense.
Disagree. This war is the only hope the world has of defeating neo cons and dark forces.
There is literally no counter if Russia fails. In fact things will accelerate.
US that dominates the world is a wording that nobody can dispute. This is the reason why I take these words.
When you write about a deep state, millions of people will stop listening to you, no matter whether you are right or not.
The problem therefore is the wording or branding.
The simple point is: There is a confrontation between the USA and Russia and China. All three of them have nuclear weapons. If people do not worry, then they obviously have not understood what is on the stake: Their life.
Correct
There is a lot of sense in this post by Russell Texas Bentley on his Telegram Channel
LOOK – HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT LIMAN – COMING ON THE HEELS OF BUCHA AND KHARKOV RETREATS AND THE DISGRACEFUL PRISONER SWAP, IT MAKES IT LOOK LIKE RUSSIA IS LOSING. AND THAT IS A STRATEGIC FUCKUP. BECAUSE IF RUSSIA ONLY _LOOKS_ LIKE IT’S LOSING, THE US NAZIS CAN AND WILL DETONATE A TACTICAL NUKE ON UKROP SOIL AND BLAME IT ON RUSSIA, SAYING “THE RUSSIANS HAD TO USE NUKES BECAUSE THEY WERE LOSING.” AND ALL THE IDIOTS IN THE WORLD WILL BELIEVE IT. THEN, US/NATO SAY “AND NOW WE HAVE TO RESPOND IN KIND (WITH NUKES) AND THEY VAPORIZE ALL 500,000 NEW RUSSIAN TROOPS BEFORE THEY EVEN GET DEPLOYED. AND OF COURSE, THE “RUSSIAN DECISION MAKING HQ IN UKRAINE” ALSO GETS NUKED – MY HOMETOWN, DONETSK.
THE TACTICAL NUKES ARE _ALREADY_ IN UKRAINE.
THE USA USING A NUKE FALSE FLAG IS ABSOLUTELY NOT JUST POSSIBLE BUT PROBABLE TO THE POINT OF INEVITABILITY. THEY HAVE THE MEANS, MOTIVE AND OPPORTUNITY, AND A LONG HISTORY OF FALSE FLAGS. IN FACT, IT WOULD BE STUPID TO THINK THEY WOULDN’T. AND IF RUSSIA LOOKS LIKE IT’S LOSING THE CONVENTIONAL WAR, IT MAKES THE USA FALSE FLAG MORE CREDIBLE AND MORE INEVITABLE.
AND THEN RUSSIA NUKES USA NAVY SHIPS IN THE BLACK SEA AND MED, THEN USA BASES IN GERMANY AND POLAND, THEN US/NATO HITS SEVASTOPOL, KALININGRAD AND ROSTOV. THEN RUSSIA HITS WASHINGTON AND USA HITS MOSCOW, AND IT’S ALL OVER BUT THE SCREAMING AND THE CRYING FOR ALL OF US.
AND THIS IS WHAT IS _GOING_ TO HAPPEN IF RUSSIA DOES NOT REGAIN THE MILITARY INITIATIVE AND START WINNING THE CONVENTIONAL WAR (IF IT STILL CAN) IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS.
AS GOES DONBASS, SO GOES THE WORLD.AND ONLY AN IDIOT CANNOT UNDERSTAND THIS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. AGAIN.
Bentley’s projection is entirely plausible – at least with respect to the FF part, and the manner in which the Russians have left themselves wide open to that scenario being enacted.
The psychopaths in DC (and London) have already proven, with the gut-shot they delivered to Germany via the NS1+2 demolition, and a countless stream of Ukrainians being fed into this meat-grinder, that they have no qualms or conscience – they are capable of absolutely anything. And they’ve had the MSM drum up the Russia-nuke narrative incessantly for weeks to prepare the masses for that eventuality.
If a nuke FF does go down, it will be in the next few days, while the Russian Liman defeat is still fresh, and either before the next phase (starting a minute past midnight on the 6th of October) begins in earnest, or at least timed to coincide with it’s rollout.
this is just pure nonsense , seem like it is coming from paranoid delusional mind.
and are we going to entertain every single doomer opinion ? doomer who have zero information on the real ground war ? doomer who pretend to know what happened to russia if this and that not done ?
i feel the concern trolls now morphed into doomer troll..
and there’s uptick of trolls in the sonar21 now
@buntalanlucu
We need to consider all eventualities. Nothing is certain. Actually I think Cutting Edge does have a point. And yes, you’re also right: some of us are getting very concerned to the point of paranoid delusion.
Let us be aware of all viewpoints. We may be sensible rational persons, but can we say the same about the current US administration? Who but a lunatic would blow up the Nordstream pipelines.
The unthinkable -unfortunately- cannot be discarded with certainty.
Agree. IMO, the destruction of Nord Stream was a warning message to Russia that the US/NATO has no constraints/restraints and will do anything, crazy as it may seem, to ruin Russia; even to the point of harming allies and itself – sure destroying Nord Stream has secondary benefits to certain parties, but I think the messaging is the key to understanding what happened. I would not take nuclear weapons deployment so lightly.
Thanks for that. Texas Bailey’s rationale hits closest to the mark. If it looks, or can at least be spun to look like Russia is losing, the window of opportunity for a successful false flag opens.
False flags are successful when a plausible narrative can be built to explain their occurrence that pins the blame on the target. The claim that “Russia blew up Nordstream” failed in the very same way that the claim that Assad “gassed his own people” failed. Simply, a plausible narrative couldn’t be built explaining motive.
The ante went up when Putin said/implied that loss of Russian territory would put nukes on the table. Liman will soon be Russian territory de jure. Had its fall happened a week later, it would have created a prime scenario for a false flag nuke.
That’s how close we are to the edge.
Oh yeah, Russell Texas Bentley. Give the man a nice cup of valeriana. Heâs American, isnât he, Texan too. It shows.
Highly unlikely. Using only caps is not exactly a sign of seriousness anyway.
The west has struggled with the conflict in Ukraine. Those little gains they made are not enough to change something. Russia will react and adapt to that. They do it always.
The west knows Russia is not to toy with. They will not make any wrong moves to spark a nuclear response. Simply because they have nothing to protect themselves with. Russia has a layered AD-system and they also do have working hyper-sonic weapons. An attack on Russia would mean a certain destruction to NATO and especially US. I said it many times. The US **is** the main problem of the world and especially the situation in Europe. Take out US and you have solved many problems at once. NATO is just a tool. They can’t even hold on to themselves when things get serious. Russia’s leadership made already sure the US knows what’s coming, if they ignite Europe. The response would take place in North America. Not necessarily Europe.
The speech of grandeur of Mr Putin immediately followed by fall of Lyman was a terrible thing and the offensive perhaps is still going. Things have been FUBARed. All this is a great blow the moral of Russians an their allies, which start really thinking.
This is from a guy who has been in Donbass trenches for about 8 years.
https://alawata-rebellion.blogspot.com/?zx=423b68639696d1b3
Hence, no armchair general such as Mr Saker nor Mr Martyanov with their religion-ideology constant ranting.
(z) elenski boasts that his army has taken 5,000 Russian prisoners
are there confirmations or denials to these statements
See https://ukraina-ru.translate.goog/20220930/1039246958.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=nui Stalingrad on the Seversky Donets. What do the actions of the RF Armed Forces on Krasny Liman show by Ischenko.
Here is a write-up of the MoD’s briefing for today about the withdrawal: https://vz.ru/news/2022/10/1/1180045.html The Ministry of Defense explained the withdrawal of troops from krasny Liman.
The first url has google translator embedded, you will need to do that yourselves for the MoD write-up.
Theme song: Stalinigrad. What actually happened there? Ischenko explains it. And he does it by going all the way back to the “withdrawal” from Kahrkov.
This is a perfect learning moment. Everyone who thinks the MoD/General Staff has made mistakes can enter that assessment on their calendars and just wait. When the assessment turns out wrong, honest people will remember their calendar entries and reexamine their assumptions. Trolls and the media will just shift the narrative.
It is more than interesting that field commanders in Russia have the freedom to speak their minds openly, and Kadyrov is not the only one. It may feed western troll farms, but the Russians seem rather unconcerned about that. Recently one of these commanders, of the Vostok battalion, also voiced criticism, and then a few days later he gave an interview where he said, “Look, I am responsible for my section. I only see what is in front of my nose. It is trench vision”. That is a crucial insight. Kadyrov will also learn.
There is an implicit cognitive dissonance in the idea that the Russians have been defeated at krasny Liman because that idea presumes that the Russian mission — as in “Mission command” — in principle is to take and hold ground. Doug Macgregor wrote an instructive article a short tme ago in which he explained why the Ukrainians are losing and will lose: they are trying to recapture and hold ground. So the Ukrainians, under US operational leadership, are inherently committed to doing what Hitler did when he lost Stalingrad. The Russian mission, as we know, is denazification and demilitarization, so, whatever happens at a local point on the battlefield, all operations have to be assessed in the context of that mission. That assessment cannot be made on the basis of holding this or that local point on the batlefield, but only on the basis of the movement and attrition of forces over time. That is what Ischenko explains.
The intellectual grasp of the connection between operations and mission is what enables field commanders to overcome “trench vision”. But, in a way akin to the old days in driving school before ABS, the instructor can tell his “theory class” that you have to unblock the breaks of your car before you try to quickly navigate around an obstacle you are about the crash into, and the students say, “ah, yes, got it”, they will go out and crash their car by instinctively blocking the breaks. Trench vision. It takes real on-the-road training, dozens of times, until the muscle-memory can get the maneuver right. It takes real battle to enable field commanders and their subordinates to understand what the General Staff is doing. There is no possible and valid critique of the General Staff from the standpoint of “trench vision”.
I’m so glad kadyrov is not running the war. All the excitement about Krasny Limon seems overblown. Win the battle, lose the war seems to be the motto of the Ukrainians. Good.
Option 5 is consistent with Kadyrov saying exactly what he said.
If you have never strapped on a pair of Army boots please refrain from judging a hugely complicated War Zone. War is like the tide, it comes in, it goes out. When the storm does barrel in, as with Hurricane Ian in Florida everything is ripped apart.
Russia is mobilising as America just shot both knee caps off, because it can. Germany got an eye opener. Winter will concentrate their minds on whoâs who in the zoo.
While France just decided Italy is the problem.
Liz Tosser is toast. Boris is ready for a come back. As jolly old Britain will be rampaging on the frozen streets of London Town with pitch forks and rope.
Meanwhile a shitty little town in Ex Ukraine will be surrounded by 10,00 dead untrained Ukrainians and long forgotten.
Do not get your knickers in a twist chaps! Just relax, âVlad the slayerâ, is riding in on a big angry bear any day now. Ask Larry!
PS
When one LPG tanker explodes in mid Atlantic = no more crews, no more Lloydâs insurance and no more gas. Norway will not want to get involved and the Middle East will be stuffing Russian pop corn.
China puts the icing on the Brandon Shit Show and the world turns. By the way for your peace of mind, you cannot eat $100 bills but you can use them to heat the house. You will need wheel barrow but!
“Many in Germany are hoping for a defeat of the US empire. We are waiting for a collapse of the empire. Because there is no inner force that can liberate us. German society has been riddled with the agents of the empire since 1945. In all the control centers of the state, the media, the judiciary, in the military, in the secret services, in the DAX-economy. We donât even need to talk about the parties and politics. The only hope is a Russian victory.”
Wow and wow! This is imo the most important comment of this thread.
I too hope for a Russian victory so we can reboot the European Union and the French-German partnership on **sane and healthy** grounds.
Lyman is a 20000 pop village. I live in a small town outside of Paris that’s bigger than that.
C’mon it’s a reverse of fortune but NOT a defeat.
Maybe it’s just a sign that all of this really is staged among them and that Russia in truth is all in on it and the Great Reset, as its Covid policies already showed. See Kit Knightly’s latest at offguardian, Tom Luongo and Henry Makow.
China and Russia COVID response was driven by the fact they considered COVID a biological weapon created by the US to damage them.
People forget that the biolabs in Ukraine were a major reason for the invasion of Donbass post COVID. And Russia has published on this and largely countered this.
War can be seen as
– bio threat
– military threat
– nuclear threat/ Long range missile
– economic and geo political threat
– protection of Crimea water supply (done)
– defense of people of Donbass
People have been killed in eastern Ukrainie for 8 years. Why would Russia attack now. Nothing to do with those people unfortunately. Everything to do with Russia’s own security.
It is cowbell.
It is war.
Its also more cowbell.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
There is the fog and the friction of war.
Looking at this in another light this battle is the first what barely could be called a defeat in battle for the Russian alliance.
From what can be acertained tactical withdrawal, in good order, is the case, just as with northwest Karkov withdrawal, being a large territory tactical one, but so too Lyman. It is a ferric victory for the ukies as the battle cost them inordinate men and material for relatively small tactical gains, the ratio is non sustainable no matter how much cannon fodder, how many non ukie soldiers and western weapons are shoved into Zputin’s meat-grinder. People forget it is strategically important the ukies and what backs the terror and reprisal regiment factory the globalist elite where using Ukraine for, be ground down and nuetered because of the threat to Russia that regiment factory posed. To wear it down, depleat its not easily nor quickly restored weapons and munitions stockpiles. To cost the globalists inordinate money. Never mind the strategic value of that kind of war winning strategy for the Russians and all of Eurasia, who are what the ukie regiment factory existed for. At minimum to be a military threat and political lever.
Give it a good think there, NATO is no longer a viable serious ground troop war fighting organization, the Eurolemmings spent the last few decades living iff the largess of US tax dollars, they faiked to provide troops weapons and material commiserate with their part in the maintenance of a militarily viable defensive posture force. A relatively small tactical special military operation in 6 months stripped NATO stockpiles dry. Against mostly Donbas Arc militia ground forces, assisted, by Russian military aviation and tube/rocket arty. At no point has the Russian’s waged an outright agressive strategic operation, all out war, they have waged highly restricted conservatively managed operation. Not even close to their war waging capabilities.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts there is another dynamic. Just my gut sense of things, hunts and allegations,
that is there are no small number of not Ukrainian soldiers now fighting on the frint edge if this battle, lots of video clips are showing whole squads of ukie flagged American speaking soldiers, i watched one V-clip yesterday of a squad of all obvious US soldiers inukie uniforms, armed with M4’s and ine fellow had a scoped M21 with a can, it was near Lyman, looked like three got nailed by Donbas militia, as they where getting sorted out to assault a Alliance position. Honestky, their tactical awareness looked horrible, they lacked serious live incoming fore situational awareness, they where clumsy and frankky did not have that look if seasoned combat soldiers, and they all bunched up behind a tin shed, many right out in the open, and they got nailed for it. 3 guys in one second, then in audio sounded like at least 2 more hit a second or two after.
But the thing is, regardles that squads combat abikities this development changes tge tactucal environment, these are merc’s, sheep dipped soldiers, outright US .mil troops etc, who are trained to entirely different standards and fight entirely different than the ukie army. And this may have introduced dynamics the Russian Alliance was not ready for, so being the wise highly experienced combat militia they are the Dinbas Arc militia pulled back, and saved themselves to fight another day. It is the tactical correct sound military smart thing to do.
The Russian and Donbas Arc militia’s standard tactic when it is a choice between ground and men, saving soldiers supercedes the need to hold tactically valuable ground. This is part of why they are successful warriors in the first place. Live to fight another day is a mighty fine and sound doctrine. If the ukies can not pin them down and defeat them in detail the ukies can not beat them, it is that simple. For the ukies, they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. Its more tactical cowbell. And we want more cowbell. Particularly for the Donbas militia when your fighting force are citizen warriors first. This is a very perishable, very limited, resource, you must inorder to sustain effective operations never squander men for tacticalky valuable ground. Or you soon do not have enough men. There is no other truth or fuction to this. Just look at our revolutionary war to secede from tyranny, at the end it came down to mere hindreds of citizen soldiers, warriors who won at Stone Mountain and set in motion the colkapse of British forces who where not able to counter Lee Senior and his men style of 4G warfare they brought to the enemy.
The Donbas Arc militia’s recieve scant recognition for their incredible fighting skill and ability to defeat the ukies in almost every way in battle since 2014. The only atvanyage the ukies have over them is numbers and endles supply of material. An army which has always outnumbered and outgunned these citizen warriors.
Another thing about the ukie army, it can not be overstated, it was created for pureposes not centered around strategic power inthe classical sense of most natuon state militaries. First it is an army of an ilkegitimate regime which is a vassal of the larger globalist regime. Say what you want, thats a truth, it matters, it matters because the ukie army was bred for a different ourepose and that is as a base for trained, at regiment size down to cell size, as a global terror and reprisal army, a regiment factory, because that could not be gotten away with using NATO as a mikitary skin suit for cove for such operations. And in it being such an orientated mikitary entity, when it came up against effective forces, such as the Donbas Arc militia’s it got its ass habded to it everywhere, then when Putin upoed the anty and moved to support militia forces with an entire array of a full on Russian state military it has dhown its true fighting capability colors. The much vaunted ukies fell far short and have only achieved what they have because outside forces have come in to save and bolster its poor performance, again, because tge ukie mikitary was/is a terrir and reprisal organ of a larger evil. No name required to know who the main evil one, cousin of a trumped up cabal asset and formor comedian.
Screw the yellow media poison. It is poison. Yet, in fact, as Larry made note of, it is a good thing they are lying and employing false narrative, its more cowbell, in the long run it helps cement in peoples minds, everything we are told to believe is a lie.
So what if NATO and its fools want to crow their fantastical thinking. The truth is its more cowbell. And, we want more cowbell!
I see this episode as a peace offer to Ukraine. Russia gave them 5 days of time to retreat orderly from Russian territory.
After that, and finished paperology, I expect the hell will lose on remaining UAF forces.
At the same time around, rain will start and leaves will fall, so all this area around Lyman will became muddy, open field area surrounded by wide, deep and fast river on two sides.
Bloody cauldron!
Have no doubt, that Russians will use that opportunity.
Alexander Mercouris pointed out that two weeks of fighting with a garrison of about 500 Cossack volunteers being hugely outnumbered by the UAF is no small feat. It seems that this garrison was ordered to hold the line until the outcome of the referenda was officially confirmed. Well, the final stage of the four oblasts becoming part of the Russian Federation will be concluded on October 4th. So it seems that the order from Moscow to hold the line at all costs was withdrawn before this deadline because of the overstressed situation on the battlefield. The UAF has piled up a horrendous loss of lives in order to achieve a PR victory.
It is possible that the command of the RF was counting with this PR victory of the UAF at Krasnyj Liman (so I choose for option 5), but the dissenter’s voicing of Ramzan Kadyrov over the RF commander Colonel-General Alexander Lipan’s handling of the Kharkov offensive is highly remarkable and almost for sure not orchestrated.
Alexander Mercouris points out that the number of contract soldiers on the RF side has dwindled since the end of the summer, all of a sudden causing a critical shortage of RF in the Kharkov oblast. Who is responsible for this? Lipan or Shoigu?
” Well, the final stage of the four oblasts becoming part of the Russian Federation will be concluded on October 4th”
You are conflating de jure with de facto.
Remember “Soviet times” – one hundred make the laws and 100 million, including/especially kommunalkas, find a way ’round them.
Possibly you did not enjoy matters hooliganski in previous days?
As the signs over factories used to say â Slava to the working classes of the Soviet Union â now in ongoing process of transcendence by The Russian Federation whilst retaining some traditions if deemed appropriate.
This is a bot on an algorithm I’m guessing.
” Iâm guessing.”
As Mr. Martyanov referenced in his video, believing, extrapolations on false premises, guessing, hoping, resorting to minutia, are always welcome.
Thank you for your service.
concur. the short sentences often have little relationship to each other, are generally not grammatically understandable and often non-sequitor:
“Possibly you did not enjoy matters hooliganski in previous days?”
Looked up Hooliganski. Russian (?) for football hooliganism.
!?!
or
“now in ongoing process of transcendence by The Russian Federation whilst retaining some traditions if deemed appropriate.”
which has a lot of big words, no information content, and thus is vaguely amusing.
Alexander Mercouris just devoted attention to Kadyrov’s rant against commander Alexander Lapin. Lapin was not responsible for the Kharkov area, he was the one who executed the retreat of the garrison in Krasnyj Liman. The responsible commander of the Kharkov oblast has been dismissed. Mercouris quotes many supporters of Lapin who state that he is actually a very good battle commander who is not hiding himself from the frontline (as he was depicted by Kadyrov). Mercouris notices frictions between the regular Russian army and the ‘irregular’ leaders of the Chechen & Wagner group.
Kadyrov sounded off after Kharkov, the Azov prisoner release, and now Liman. The first 2 were remarkable enough, but the 3rd is a frontal attack.
Attacking Lipan by name, charging him with cowardice and incompetence and then implying that Gerasimov indulged in “nepotism” (aka: “favouritism”?) to keep Lipan in place is so astonishing that it should raise alarms.
He’s not alone. Yevgeny Prigozhyn, “Putin confidant” and head of the Wagner Group that’s doing much of the heavy lifting on the front lines, suggested Russia needs to send some its leadership “barefoot with machine guns to the front.”
Others such as Andrei Gurulev, member of the State Duma Defense Committee, stated via his Telegram channel that 1.5M sets of uniforms slated for the mobilized troops have gone missing. He asks: “Where did the one and a half million kits that were stored at the points of reception of personnel go? Nobody is able to explain this in any way!”
These and others strike deep into the Russian power structure, so one assumes that someone even bigger than Kadyrov, Prigozhyn and Gurulev wants their opinion heard by those running the operations.
It also suggests that, however well executed the withdrawals were, Kharkov and Liman weren’t in the plan and somebody big is losing their sense of humour.
“IF PR COUNTED THEN RUSSIA AND PUTIN ARE TOAST”
Public interactions/relations are important so The Russian Federation” have “professionals” as agents, as was the case with Mr. Yeltsin’s election and services rendered bez platna apparently (free of charge).
The agents were/are “The United States of America” and the services remain bez platna (free of charge).
There`s lots of sayings out there Occam’s razor – one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions
In Engineering â If something doesnât look right it probably isnât right
If it walks like a duck smells like a duck it probably is a duck
Here`s some logical points to point to the conclusion that Russia is losing the war.
1. Feb â Aug â The slow grind, Ukraine is hiding behind civilians slowing down progress. Well look at a map of N Donbas & Siversk an essential town for the mission. Former pop 10,000 now probably hardly any civilians there! No progress
Look at Peski area, no civilians there, according to military summary the Russians were held up for several weeks & maybe still are by a road bridge fortification. I mean WTF do you honestly believe the US army would have been held up by such a thing, or would they have sent a B52 to do its job & then drive over it within a few hours?
2. The Ukraine offensive â Kharkiv Offensive Russia`s retreat was a trap. If this were so they would have encircled and cut off the forces early on, this was the optimal time to do this, they didnât do
The Liman Offensive â This went on for 10 days! So, it was not a surprise attack, not a âlook over the hill there`s 1000`s of them we`re out numbered retreat!â. They had many days to send re-enforcements who knows if they did? It was a battle with two sides Russia lost the town, which was now supposed to be part of RF itself.
3. Pride, Arrogance, complacency & Incompetence â
-Russia forces did not build fortifications along the way
-They did not mine the areas of the Ukraine offensive in Kharkiv
-After the fall of Lysychansk rather than pursue a retreating enemy Putin announced a pause he even said the troops need a âholidayâ
– Bridges, electricity etc. still running in Ukraine
4. Concern Trolls â Anyone who mentions this kind of thing is called a concern troll or paid troll. While I believe both types are out there, here`s the thing, The target is Russian people.
These are English language sites, hardly any Russians read them at all, the trolls are probably operating on Russian telegram / news comment sites not bothering with stuff written by anti-empire US bloggers
Source: https://www.kp.ru/daily/27452.5/4656146/
Departure from Krasny Liman: “If necessary, we would have remained there to die. But the command came”
Special correspondent Alexander Kots: Krasny Lyman had to be left so that a large group would not be surrounded
A column of trucks crouched sadly on the side of the road. Dirty peasants with empty eyes smoked thoughtfully, spitting through their teeth. They smelled of sweat and gunpowder. One of the units that had just left the Krasny Liman with a fight, breaking through Torskoye to Kremennaya. We had to leave this city so that a large group would not be surrounded.
âIf necessary, they would have stayed there to die,â the men from the 2nd Army Corps of the LPR in greasy uniforms tell me casually. Nobody thought to run. But the order came to leave. We left Liman for Torskoye closer to midnight. In Torsky, a part of the settlement has already been occupied by “dills”, but there is no other road. I had to break through. They came under small arms fire, but fought back at speed.
Why the decision was made to leave Krasny Liman
Krasny Liman was liberated by Russian troops in April. The fighting here was heavy, the enemy did not let us approach, clearly working with artillery on our orders, adjusting the fire from drones. Then the National Guard came to the rescue, who found a miracle device that detects not only drones in the sky, but also the operators who control them. Then our artillery entered the business, leaving the enemy artillery without “eyes”. The rest was done by infantry and special forces.
It was assumed that in the future, including from this settlement, it would be possible to develop an offensive against Slavyansk. However, after a massive offensive in the Kharkiv region, the enemy, having regrouped, redirected his forces with an eye on the Luhansk People’s Republic. It was obvious that somewhere would break through. Kyiv put pressure on the entire new line of defense. To the north of Kupyansk, on the eastern bank of Oskol, where the enemy managed to cross the river and gain a foothold in a couple of sections, in the area of ââLisichansk and Krasny Liman. Heavy fighting went on for several weeks along this entire line, but did not bring strategic success to the enemy. As a result, he concentrated his main efforts on the Liman direction, throwing everything he had into battle.
The Kiev command removed reserves from Slavyansk, pulled up tank units from near Seversk, Belogorovka. The strength of the Ukrainian army, which was advancing on Liman, âsqueezing outâ one settlement after another, exceeded the defenders by several times. Foreign mercenaries and “flying squads” were again thrown into the battle on high-speed lightly armored vehicles. First, they cut the highway to Svatovo, then took fire control of the artery connecting with Kremennaya.
All this time, Russian artillery did not stop, which hit the arriving enemy forces, aviation worked, but the reserves that came up were only enough to hold the corridor of life along which our units were withdrawn from Krasny Liman. The risk of encirclement and shameful captivity became too great, and the Russian command decided to withdraw. The last units actually broke through the blockade, with battles. There were no troops left in Liman.
“We will fight on, win back the lost”
I’m driving up to Kremennaya. The last column just enters the city from Torskoy. Combat aircraft are cutting circles in the sky, air defense is working on them. This air confrontation is indifferently watched by guys on an armored personnel carrier with the inscription “Bratsk”.
– Yes, everything, as always, – the men state. – There is really no connection between different connections. What is going on with the neighbors, no one can understand. By the time you interrogate the work of artillery on our targets through a multi-stage reporting system, the targets are already gone.
From the outskirts of the city, artillery and rocket artillery are being fired at the advancing formations. I meet acquaintances from the cannon division of the 2nd army corps of the LPR. They work non-stop.
– First, they cut off the columns that came from Seversk, then they hit the equipment near Belogorovka, – the gunners cheerfully report. – We tried to buy time for our boys to come out with the least losses. Well, yes, it’s a shame, first Kharkovskaya, then Liman. Well now, rip off shoulder straps and leave your wife under her skirt? We will continue to fight, to win back the lost. Cats scratch, of course, in their souls, but there is still no other way out. Why cry now. But while the boys held on to Liman with their teeth, they managed to mobilize in Russia. We are waiting for Our reservists, we will accept them as our own. They are their own. And we will feed, and dress if necessary, and teach. Don’t be afraid, everything will be fine. Together is more fun! Battery, runaway, consumption three, fire!
152-mm howitzers “Hyacinth-B” spit out shells to the ringing in the ears, enveloping the positions with a powder haze.
The Red Estuary garrison stood to the last
By the way, the idea that the Krasny Liman garrison fulfilled the task of containment was also voiced by the authoritative Donetsk commander, the creator of the Vostok battalion, Alexander Khodakovsky. In his opinion, on the wave of success in the Kharkiv region, the enemy planned to hit several directions at once, including Mariupol. âBut they ran into resistance in Krasny Liman and got stuck. In order to break our guys, they had to cancel plans and take resources from other directions, but the momentum had already been lost, the shock of the retreat had already passed, and mobilization began. If it werenât for the Krasny Liman factor, besides the Kharkov fiasco, many more problems awaited us … ”
This, of course, does not negate the typical reasons for what happened. They were talked about after leaving the Kharkiv region: this is a lack of forces, and errors of individual military officials in organizing defense, and the notorious “five hundred” (or “refuseniks” – contract soldiers who refuse to fight and leave the battlefield – ed.), who leave strategically important positions, and reserves that arrived late, and the lack of coordination between various units on the ground, and the lack of modern reconnaissance equipment … But last of all, we must look for the culprits among those who have heroically held the defense in Krasny Liman and the surrounding settlements for the past few weeks . He fought to the death and did not retreat, until the last.
âFor almost a month, the group corrected the fire of our artillery in the Stavkov area. The guys died in battle with superior enemy forces, including foreign PMCs. The men waged an unequal battle surrounded for days. They didnât come out … – Andrei Medvedev, a journalist from the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, wrote about one of the heroic episodes. – In general, the whole work of this special forces group was one huge feat. The guys were the eyes of our artillery. Correcting the fire, they thwarted a dozen offensives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this direction.â
Most of our units, which held the defense in Krasny Liman, withdrew only after the order.
Now the enemy will probably try to develop success on courage. He can move to Svatovo, and to Lisichansk, and to Kremennaya. This threatens to cut the already Lugansk People’s Republic, which, like Krasny Lyman, is now the territory of the Russian Federation.
In the PR war, two events reach public consciousness.
1) The US stabbed its allies in the back by destroying NS1 and 2, destroying Europeâs future.
2) The Ukrainians re took a small town which is strategically insignificant, with huge losses.
Who does the PR victory belong to?
Option 6. The intention was always to withdraw from Liman, but the casualties inflicted on Ukraine by Russian artillery as they massed around Liman were so high they kept Russia there for longer.
In fact surely Ukraine must be furious that the core Russian troops there got away. This is a Ukrainian failure.
BTW Russia’s low key approach to celebrating the huge numbers of Ukrainian casualties is I think certainly deliberate. Having Kadyrov show his anger is perfect reverse PR working to bring on the Ukrainian troops.
The last thing Russia wants is Ukraine troops on the run, hiding among civilians (pro-Kiev civilians at that) and using long distance shelling to kill newly Russian civilians.
That implies no advance on February 2022.
I don’t know who or why Ukraine is bringing this war to a close rapidly by spending the whole Ukrainian force so quickly. US November elections? Ukr military actually wanting this over. Most probably pure stupidity.
Never Interrupt Your Enemy When He Is Making A Mistake : Sun Tzu
They’re not spending their whole force. Before the start they had 260k troops. After the mobilizations they have maybe 700k. If you assume they have taken 200k casualties, that still leaves 500k. Add to that foreign mercenaries and quite possibly NATO troops wearing Ukrainian colours. That’s over 500k facing 100k Russian troops + 60k LDNR militia. They’ve got the troops for a few more of these “Zerg Rush” type attacks before they are spent.
Russia has mobilized 1% of its reserves, irf520. Please, stop with the 200k and 500k. This is not computer game mindset. Here is why. If Ukraine has an army of 750k, are all of them fighting men? Are there any cooks, medics, suppliers, etc. or are they all combat troops? Russia managed a 10 to 1 kill ratio with 200k man force including cooks, medics, suppliers, etc. So assuming the Ukraine has 750k available and half or 375k are combat troops. With Russia adding another 300k to the already 200k making it a total of 500k force of which half or 250k would be combat troops. Remembering a kill ratio of 10 to 1, with 250k combat troops Russia can eliminate 2.5 million Ukrainians or only 375k ukrainian for 37.5k Russians. Also remember, initially the Russians went in wearing kid gloves and were accused of being pussies. So now, the gloves come off and the new Fair World Order will be established and Davos and its US agent Biden, Soros, Ursula, the witch of the West, will realize, Russia is a fish they can never swallow and will revert to lies and sabottage as all communists end up doing.
As for Liman, an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere, the Russians indicate to me they have memorized The Art of War. Why loose men when the big push is eminent. Ukraine will retreat from Liman soon.
The quip about never interrupting your enemy while he’s making a mistake is most often attributed to Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. In fact, it has an older and more widely distributed provenance, and doesn’t appear in its modern form until the mid 1930s.
At any rate, though many of Sun Tze’s maxims add up to that and more, he never actually said it.
Kadyrov can get away with it because he could take his Chechens and go home and not a thing Putin could do about it. They follow him not the Russian state. He’s always been very mercurial but right in this case. Russia has been a 7 month embarrassment on world stage only taking a little land that’s full of Russians so little in the way of insurgency. PR is thick, but like stereotypes there is a bit of truth to them in this war. Needs less Putin more Stalin or they are toast.
Iâve noticed that certain pro-Russian Westerners on Twitter seem to be on pause for the moment. And Moon of Alabama appears to be down.
I come from a proud place – Yugoslavia won its own war against the Germans in WW2 – at a HUGE loss of manpower (by some ex-Yu accounts of up to 1.7 million). My uncle was the “first rifle to fire against the occupying force” in one of the ex-Yu republics. We were probably the only country in Europe that actually liberated itself from the fascists, without anyone’s intervention (yet the French who fired 3 bullets and got occupied for 4 years ended up on the Security Council as “winners”). The Germans were the overwhelming power in Yugoslavia, yet they lost, despite even having the help of the quislings from within.
At this point the Ukrainians have switched tactics – it would seem – “partisan” (guerrilla) approach to the rear in small, highly mobile groups from multiple sides – they are your prototypical bees attacking a (prototypical) slow-to-move bear. The question at this point is – how much does the bear want the honey, we know the bees will all die protecting their hive, if need be.
In Yugoslavia we used to joke with this line (about mostly the Russians and the whole “eastern way of thinking/education” vs the “pragmatic” Western approach): “Analysis means paralysis”. It is very possible that the Russians are playing so much chess in this war and so much positioning and planning, that they are now playing chess with themselves, unable to make a move. In my humble opinion, it is typical for them to do so – if anything does not go to plan, they tend to get lost and “stuck”.
The whole “It is an SMO, our hands are tied” thing is stupid, in my humble opinion. People say it is because of the “global south” PR image and to some extent because it suited Putin to drag the war on while the EU bleeds its economy dry but at this point Putin is looking weaker and weaker and more and more a strongman in charge of what the West has been mocking/hinting at all along – weak army armed to the teeth but stuck in doctrine/box. If you are in the “global south” watching this – you are starting to wonder about all this Russian “might” – driving trainloads of armaments around still doesn’t win a war.
It is also not good for internal cohesion – Russia today is not USSR that fought in Afganistan – back then nobody was allowed to complain, now people have Telegram, Rutube, blah blah – how long before the Russian army becomes the butt of _internal_ jokes and loses support internally? The fact Kadirov is mocking a Russian general publicly, you know a lot of people see Kadirov as a kind of a God… Russians should NOT be strategizing this late in the game, they apparently have overwhelming man/firepower – use it or get out and lick your wounds and apologize for only being able to fight “paper wars”.
I have been following all these blogs (like yours), the Duran, Brian Berletic, Col. Macregor, Ritter etc. Agree with everything said but lately it has been nothing but apologies and explanations (“so and so place is not consequential”…) and promises of the type “just you wait and see…” but towns are getting lost, progress is not being made anymore. Yes, Ukrainians are losing machinery and men but that’s what happens in war. You can only go so far “protecting your soldiers’ lives” – at some point you have to fight an actual battle and win. Bakhmut is a perfect example, even with overwhelming firepower and supposedly on the attack, the Russian approach is increasingly resembling the birth of the baby that just doesn’t want to come out of the womb….
Oddo,
So far, Russian intelligence has been quite effective. Do you think a partisan effort could succeed. In Syria and Chechnya it hasn’t – the go slow and do not destroy the infrastructure and excessive civilians appears to drain the Mao-ist sea the fish swim in.
Moreover, the partisan’s will need to operate in the overwhelmingly voting pro-Russian Oblasts. Would they not stick out like a sore thumb? An effective partisan network needs a “supportive” minority willing to fight for the central gov’t rather than flee to the west. The Germans believed the Nazis were for German betterment (at untermenschen expense). Do you think the average Ukrainian believes the same of Ukraine (outside Azov) – the “most corrupt country in the world” prior to the PR onslaught. Was there a S. Vietnamese partisan movement after the US withdrew (another most corrupt gov’t)?
As to you other points on PR, they are valid. But in the real world, the DPR/LPR Russian/Wagner “has fought” and “won” 85% of Ukraine’s economy.
ISL,
I am not sure what Russian intelligence knows vs what gets operationalized. It is the same thing with EU/USA – did their intelligence _really_ not know what the sanctions would result in or was it just not accepted/operationalized at the political level?
This is, IMHO, part of the partial (!) myth of Russian ever-presence and super-competence at planning long term games. For example, let’s not beat around the bush – they found themselves in a predicament in Kharkiv region, not enough manpower and not enough planning (which is weird for such amazing planners) so they left (even if it was a clean retreat it is still a retreat) due to what looks like having to allocate resources elsewhere (overall resource allocation planning failure?).
Who is to say that the referendums were not a way to appease the growing doubts in Russia about the commitment/combat effectiveness of the RFA? Could have been Plan B for the Kremlin – double down just like the EU with the sanctions….
We can always say they drew the Ukrainians out into the open but OK, now they are in the open and have been in the open for weeks – why were they allowed to take Liman and more? Where is that famous Russian air force, for example? Advanced jets, advanced helicopters… Maybe tanks and infantry need to be brought to the front and that takes time but aircraft can fly from Russian territory and already have trained pilots.
The same looks the case in Kherson, they are now under pressure there along the Dnieper river and had to retreat (even if temporarily) to save personnel. Yes, it could be another potential “boiler” trap but then again it might not be, the point is – why retreat from territory that is now legally Russia?
For excellent chess players, they seem to be a few pieces short on the board and a move late. We all know that eventually they will decide to commit (or at least we think they will?) but it is getting a bit old – this game of retreat to save soldiers. If they were such great planners, they would have planned for NATO involvement in prolonging the conflict, they would have prepared the troops to march in on Oct 3 (or Sept 15 if they were on time). Now the story is “wait until November maybe, we just now decided to mobilize even when it became obvious in August that we are short on manpower”…
And yes, you are correct, the partisan warfare requires a supportive population, which is why I think the Ukrainians succeeded in Kharkiv region. They have the numbers and the numbers are willing to die, there were no numbers to oppose them effectively from the Russian speaking population on the Izium-Liman-Kupyanks line, otherwise we would have seen thousands of Russian speaking Kharkiv region citizens armed and organized in DRGs themselves, fighting against the Ukrainian DRGs and sabotaging the depth of Ukrainian’s just like the Ukrainians were doing to the Russian force defending the Liman line (and Izium and…).
All in all, I think the whole “masters of deception, masters of planning” thing is wearing out. There is such a thing as incompetence, lack of motivation and projection of perfection and strength (kind of like the West in the economic sense – we look rich but we are drowning in debt and really have no tools left in the economic toolbox).
You are right about the operationalization of intelligence. As I do not have a connection in the Russian General Staff, I have no insight at that level. I can note that Russia has been very successful at targeting NATO accumulations of personnel, mercenaries, or equipment, which suggests an effective network of collaborators.
I try to avoid speculation, and analyze largely undisputed actualities to assess capabilities.
I also note that in Russian forces controlled areas, there has been little sabotage recently – UAF is quite good at drawing attention to such activities. This speaks to effective anti-terrorism police. We also could note the number of major shooting events in Russia compared to the US as an indication of Russian policing effectiveness.
As to what is happening in Liman, I can only speculate, and suggest we must wait and see. One possibility is it is a Russian legal thing, – the west seems more ready to ignore its own laws whenever inconvenient. That said, an orderly Russia retreat under fire with minimal losses is NOT evidence of a partisan force.
It is evidence of high quality detailed operational planning. A rout would be evidence of partisan forces – but if any, they were not given the opportunity.
So at the moment, there is evidence of effective intelligence which often is acted upon, and no evidence of a robust partisan network in what was the most corrupt country in the world before. The loyalty of Ukrainian citizens to the kelptocrats in Kiev is, IMO, suspect, particularly, if they get a better offer from Russia than the neo-liberal poverty they have suffered over recent decades from the EU, leading to massive emigration “before” this year.
From Putin’s speech:
“Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads prevail.”
So, what is better in your opinion: utterly annihilate Ukrainians storming Beautiful Liman, or withdraw and let cooler heads prevail? For a while..
Much of the commentary remains wholly focused on interpreting the events in Liman in military terms, as if this is the be all and end all, perhaps this is understandably so, but the conclusions are false.
The wider picture conditioning Russiaâs response over the course of the SMO is how it thinks the world sees its actions, especially what might be called the unaligned nations, that, and of course the views of those nations it wants to keep onside. It is vital then in making any judgement of its actions to assess the huge influence the west continues to exert on the world stage.
To all intents and purposes the west speaks with a single voice. Itâs control over the bulk of the national and international media and much of the web content has allowed the western world to leverage its historic domination over international finance. A position much strengthened because the US has been the largest single market.
The powers that be in Washington DC have used these advantages ruthlessly, combining soft power with intimidation to keep nations tolerant of it position. Should this not work they will destabilise via covert and not so covert action, and as we have seen in the Baltic, via warlike actions against what is vital to a straying nations interests.
The US and its collective allies bully, and it is effective. In contesting this hegemony Russia, China and others have set out to construct a parallel structure that will offer in time alternatives for countries who might prefer to deal with a nation that does not increase their vulnerability should they follow a path differing from that which pleases an overlord. The west will fight this danger to it power tooth and nail, not only militarily, but in every other way. This imposes constraints on Russia they only deliberately and carefully overcome.
The endgame approaches now the referenda has spoken. The coming month or three should resolve the matter one way or another, in the long run I doubt the campaign in Kharkov or Liman will prove significant.
If an observer starts with what RF’s overall objective is, then the operational events make much more sense. Do not forget that UKR is not the overall objective, but rather the overall objective (the strategic objective) is a new security architecture for Europe with RF participation (aka, USA out). I don’t know why this is so difficult for observers to remember – it’s been said publicly many times for decades by USSR/RF/DE/FR/IT leaders, it has been put in writing, it has been building world’s largest energy infrastructure connections (pipelines) since 1980s, etc.
USA at all costs does not want Germany independent of the USA or economically linked to RF. USA has built a cordon sanitarie (UK, PL, etc) between the two in order to control Germany’s energy supplies (the overland pipelines). USA has armed UKR to the teeth and run intel operations in it for 3 decades to turn it into a wedge to be used against RF. DE and RF tried to sidestep this by building NS1/2. RF tried to sidestep it by Minsk Agreement, and latest by Dec 2021 negotiations. RF has done everything it could to try to remove this US satrap in a peaceful manner so that DE and RF could consummate their decades (some say centuries) long embrace with minimal damage to European infrastructure. But USA held firm – it will not let its satrap go without inflicting as much pain as possible on RF and DE, regardless if the satrap gambit is futile.
Back to today’s battlefield – RF has done everything it could to remove the satrap without damaging European infrastructure and RF relations with DE – particularly hoping to demonstrate that RF is a responsible player and will be an excellent partner in the soon to be enacted new European Security Framework. Think of it as if RF is currently acting as a benevolent mercenary on behalf of Europe (particularly DE) as it removes the US satrap from their midst. What does removing mean? It doesn’t mean territorial gains, it means destroying the ability of the satrap to make war – and that is something RF has been enormously successful at. For example, look at the casualty figures, the number of times UKR has done mobilizations, the amount of UKR hardware destroyed, the amount of UKR fortifications destroyed, etc. This is the most civilian-sensitive demilitarization operation in human history (contrast with US-Iraq), and it demonstrates to Europe what a responsible partner RF will be in the new Security Framework. It also demonstrates to the lesser US satraps (PL, Baltic statelets, RO) what is in store for them once UKR is dealt with.
Objectively, RF has handled the entire thing brilliantly. I cannot see how USA will remain the overlord of Europe for much longer.
Another commentor linked to an essay by a Serbian journalist – I highly recommend you all read it. https://www.rts.rs/page/oko/sr/story/3315/lektira/4963422/metafizicka-glupost-ljudskog-roda.html
What is “DE”?
It is country code for “Germany” (DEutschland).
Cheeks, great post. People need to keep in mind that this is a war against the US (and side-kick UK). One really doesn’t attempt to go head-to-head with the US. EVERYONE knows how the US’s power can be smacked down: prying away its control over Europe; Germany IS the key. If the German people come to know that it was the US who was responsible for the attacks on the NS pipelines and that Russia is STILL willing to do business with them (despite them sending weapons and providing intelligence against Russians) then that says a lot- the High Road isn’t called the High Road for no reason.
Liman was a lightening rod. Russia was requiring things hold on until the referendums completed and it could then move regular forces in. Again, the High Road.
Lastly, never forget that Russia did NOT have to throw its own into this fire. Almost certain that the greater minds in Russia knew that things would escalate and that the fire would get MUCH bigger.
This is the last hurrah by the “Ukie” forces before they are permanently pushed back for good.
Deutschland = DE . Germany is the English word for the country, not the official name. DE is the official acronym for Deutschland. As ES is for Espana, PL is for Polska, IT is for Italia.
Even if one or even all of the first 4 options were true to some extend, in the long run, it will definitely be Option No. 5, because a. now the russian forces know exactly where the Ukrainian troops are, they know their composition, their strength, their equipment etc; b. because Russia cannot and will not leave Liman under Ukrainian rule whatever the cost; and c. because the recently mobilized Russian reserves of 300,000 troops and their equipment are to arrive in the old/new russian territory soon, and will gladly accept the task to clear it from any foreign invaders. So relax, gather more intelligence, and watch the facts on the ground unfold as they will.
Dear Sir
Your friend is ŃĐ°ĐżĐșĐŸĐ·Đ°ĐșОЎаŃĐ”Đ»Ń per se. This Clausewitz 2.O. didn’t see any real military service since 1992 or 1993 – 30 years ago! another epoch.
This Russian patriot glorifies the Bolshevik Revolution, works / worked for the US MIC, and has kids presumably in the US Army.
And this truth teller spreads fair tales about our Army as the best in the world, although the troopers almost have no drones or modern military communication.
Touched a nerve, huh? I really got your attention. You obviously have not read any of Andrei’s books. Erudite and informed.
I must confess I donât understand the notion that Liman is âof little strategic value.â My gosh, itâs deep in [now] Russian territory.
“I must confess I donât understand the notion that Liman is âof little strategic value.”
Don’t worry not many expected you to since you don’t have the facilities to do so.
That was part of the lateral process in facilitating forms of Taylorism/Scientific Management to increase the return on investments and the probabilities of 737 Maxes falling from the sky.
You were not alone “The Soviet Union” emulated that from 1928 until 1991, a component of why “The Soviet Union” is being transcended by The Russian Federation, since our reset was deemed to be better than your reset, as still continues to be the case.
To rectify this you need to firstly acknowledge you don’t know which you have done and hence âWe the people hold these truths to be self-evidentâ is a self-delusion, and use this doubt as fuel to facilitate your increasing understanding – sometimes called using scientific method not belief.
Enjoy your journey.
If the Russians are holding back their air power then all I can conclude is a bigger offensive is coming. They don’t want to waste any equipment and munitions on the loss of a region that will be encircled later. This is all speculation on my part.
“This is all speculation on my part.”
Let me suggest another non-speculation to consider.
Opponents are at their greatest vulnerability when they think they have “won”, to which the “armchair strategists” will tend to deem trollishness.
Your resort to speculation has been facilitated by “The United States of America” since telling the joke that “We the people hold these truths to be self-evident” so you don’t need to think – leave that to us.
After all that is what “education” and pledging alleigance to walls are for.
Look, we get it, you hate the collective west, this is why you reply to every post that questions Russia’s strategy with such disdain. To be honest, the collective West deserves it but not everyone in the west is stupid and saluting to the walls just like not everyone in Russia is smart and patriotic. There are many people on here that read these posts because they doubt what their media at home are parroting but we are allowed to ask questions and have concerns, no?
The fact remains that everyone is sitting around wondering when this advantage in firepower, training and manpower will actually be demonstrated – and every time a doubt is raised, the answer is always the same – this is a game of chess and Russia is great at playing chess and shut up, you don’t understand chess in the West.
If you are going to go on TV and talk about understanding all the colonies and their struggles and offering to fight for them, well, fight for them already, show progress not only in the economic war but also on the battlefield. You can say all you want about Liman but Bakhmut _IS OF CONSEQUENCE_ and has been a target for months and you can say all of the manpower etc. from Kharkiv region was pulled elsewhere, so – why is Bakhmut still Ukrainian? What about Avdiivka?
So far we have not really seen a serious engagement of RFA (apparently). We have not really seen the overwhelming airpower or even tanks being engaged in overwhelming numbers. I remember videos by Scott Ritter about the “fist” based on Russian tanks that can punch into the gut of the enemy fast and at high speeds and with great power, the 400+ jets and helicopters being parked somewhere on the border, the legendary 3rd core that we have all heard of but not yet seen.
I am from former Yugoslavia so no love lost here for the hegemonic West but I also look at all this and wonder what’s going on – annexing territory and then your army leaving it, the same army that supposedly had an ideological problem attacking foreign territory but no problem defending it. Well, defend it then. Even people like Kadirov are now publicly calling out nepotism and incompetence and don’t tell me this is a part of a PSYOP to draw out more Ukrainians and make them reckless.
“Look, we get it, you hate the collective west”
I don’t hate the collective west since hate is emotional response which precludes focus and assigns excessive significance to inept opponents.
So let me thank you for your service likely facilitated by your anger.
I value your useful foolery as do my associates since this aids the transcendence of “the United States of America” by most of the rest of the world, given that phenomena can exist without being perceived.
The notices of intent of December 2021 were notices of intent not ultimata, since ultimata assign some significance to opponents, and Presidential decree 355 of 2/06/20 is not a bluff.
We don’t care what you say or believe – apart from this response I will not tell you anything more, and hence I have sent my thanks to Mr. Johnson for my temporary
relocation to his postbox as normal protocol.
The offensive that I am speaking of is a massive Russian offensive…Two pronged Army Groups from the north and south. The Ukrops will be annihilated. And I am not just some arm chair strategist…but I will leave you to stew on that, NotRubbingSticks. By your responses, I think you are using Google translate or English is a second language.
Hi Larry / folks,
(1) Do you have any sources / references that might give some insight into whether RUS can sustain this long term effort? I mean, economically, EU is RUS’ largest trading partner. It is going to take a lot from the CIS countries and China to fill that gap.
Further, with Lend-Lease and EU plunged into an energy crisis- this thing can turn ugly very soon.
(2) What do you guys think is the German choice for their energy? Broadly, from an technical-operational standpoint, the GER’s maximum energy portfolios are:
a) Repair NS2 – this will take a year minimum. Will likely have to tolerate two winters
b) Pressure EU/NATO for gas from NS1 (repair the darn thing and lift the sanctions, if only on a narrow point):
c) Restart nuclear power- partial, if not all.
All of which requires a major political shift. If they don’t, then GER is effectively on its knees and dependent on US.
Would like to hear some viewpoints too
There is no technical solution. Whatever Germany does have to be accompanied by political measures. Germany has to find a balance between Russia and the US. Merkel was very good at this, she was able to both support the new Regime in Ukraine and to build NS2 without pissing off either the Russians nor the Americans. There are other ways to get Russian gas to Germany, for example as LNG. It just would take a few month for the Russians to install the necessary equipment. But for them to go with such a plan would mean to guarantee that this LNG trade will not be sanctioned. I do not see that Olaf Scholz has the balls to find a good solution, because he would have to stand up against uncle Sam. The Russians are not mad at Germany, they know that it is the Americans who force Germany to go align with their foreign policy, Putin even said so in his speech. Scholz has to keep up German Russian relations without pissing them off too much.
Germany will not turn back to nuclear power. Public opinion is not in favor of that. Maybe that will change after a cold winter or two. The only fossil source Germany has in big amounts is lignite. It is mined in surface mines, entire Landscapes and towns and villages have to be destroyed to mine it, it has a low energy content compared to hard coal and is high in sulfur. So lignite is a fuel source Germany wants to move away from for various reasons. Maybe that will change after a cold winter or two.
Different regions in Germany will be affected differently by the gas shortage. They differ in population density and Access to wind power. Northern Germany has abundant wind resources and a few thinly populated areas can utilize biomass in a useful scale. However the Ruhr-Area and the big metropolitan centers in the south of Germany are in a much worse position. So there are states that even today produce per year enough renewable electricity to power themselves (but not at the time when its needed) while other states have not even really begun to switch to renewables.
I live in the very north between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Here the long term plan is to use the abundant winds of the stormy winter season to drive heat pumps to heat homes. However the more we utilize our wind energy, the less we have to sell to southern Germany.
thanks for your comments!
lignite – hearing that for the first time.
yes, what you said abt huge political shift echoes my thoughts too- there are many technical solutions, but until the politics change and people realize they lost their sovereignty (or vice versa), all these technical solutions wont happen.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/30/scott-ritter-the-onus-is-on-biden-putin/
On the eve of destruction.
P.F.Sloan and Mr. Barry McGuire were mistaken in 1965 partly through the efforts of some in the armed forces of âThe Soviet Unionâ and elsewhere.
That likely remains the case through the efforts of some in The Russian Federation and elswhere.
It is a time of faites vos jeux (place your bets), but likely not the eve of destruction.
However if the opponents decide to lay their red chip on red that may become the case since it seemed wise at the time, some may emulate Mrs. Albright in thinking that it was worth it to eradicate cancers, whilst some may find solace in we all die anyway and sharing the experience is a less bad option, whilst some who believe death is reserved for others will likely whine â that’s so unfair.
I hear that “frightening rides” in the funfair are “exciting” to some by facilitating adrenalin rushes.
Enjoy the ride.
From the comfort of my arm chair…
If Russia does a peace deal now, given Minsk failure, NWO, WEF running Western gov’s unceasing designs, **a long term disaster is set up for Russia**?
If Russia gives these NWO nutters hope, no early peace can take place, Russia can wave the olive branches for the satisfaction of their trading partners, while it finishes fully removing future beachhead in Ukraine, maybe go border to border? Plus, a land connection to eastern Europe (Hungary, Serbia, others?) is secured, pipeline routes, etc. & finally, deNaxification can be accomplished.
So, it would seem to me that there may be more than military reasons for these Russian ‘losses’? Rear view analysis will be far better, & General Winter to come will play a huge geopolitical role (impossible to even guess).
You overestimate the ability of Russia and underestimate NATO.
Russia should have reinforced in June when their top general asked for reinforcements. It was obvious back then they were short.
Their army did well but the political class in Russia has let them down.
Still time to turn it around but people thinking Russia is somehow a superior force to NATO are foolish. This is a brutal peer -peer war and Russia has allowed NATO to get the upper hand at the moment by giving them too much time to counter and prepare.
Russia also can’t match NATO drone technology. They are over extended on the border and failed to reinforce sufficiently to hold the line or advance. They blew bridge in KLinman in retreat leaving a good bunch of soldiers to be massacred with no way out.
Reports of US weapons shortages ignore that what the US gives does not include it’s own military stocks of which they have plenty.
Not good.
Seems to me that Russiaâs disadvantage is having as few as 50,000 troops in theatre, not so much a big, bad NATO (which it is not). In fact, it is weak. And neither does the US have plentiful stocks.
According to Shukow’s memoirs, the autumn-campaign for the Donbass saw a number of local setbacks. While, as he states, that the central command, since Kursk wielded the high art of military command. Who can bar the possible ‘Kuliks’ in the current staff after 7 months war.
In the last litmus test between 6 . 22. 41 and KURSK laid 25 months.
And -Thank God for the lawyer’s Kadyrow!.
War is ultimative test.
Mundo
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-conservative-revolution-by-caesar.html
Sunday morning 09.00 National news, with a cup of tea.
Indonesia football crush death toll.
Damage and clean up from Hurricane Ian.
Canada East coast still effected from Hurricane last week.
People go to the polls in Europe including Bulgaria, Bosnia.
Brazil important vote.
Weather, sunny, high 20C.
Did someone say something about PR?
Time to walk the dog, nothing to see her.
Russian Forces Retreat From Lyman
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/01/world/russia-ukraine-war-news.amp.html
Point of view:
Russia silent on the western front, waiting for referendum results.
Referendum results are overwhelming.
Western establishment command center determines Ukraine and expanded military options in Eurasia are no longer viable strategies, therefore are moved further down on the drawing board. They realize the Russian military will no longer be fighting with one hand tied behind its back. A no win situation.
Geopolitics has to become top priority. However, without the military option, the US dollar and Euro dollar have no backing. Their first move is to put Nord Stream 1 & 2 out of commission. Success! What now Russia?
Russia’s next move: Geopolitical
Putin’s speech outlines the plan.
Key to the plan’s success: CHINA, India and all the Stan’s getting off the fence.
Captured Russians told who actually owns Crimea. A Video from social networks.
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1576224684068474881
Mr. Johnson
Let me thank you for enabling my temporary relocation into your postbox.
Although not disclosing the reasons, I have deemed throughout that having me as a cash donor could be a significant disadvatage to you and possibly to your efforts.
If you so deem and implement, I look forward to seeing your agora, since capitalism is the brothel where all the whores try to fuck one another, whilst agora are fish markets where “fuck off” can be said without resort of some to rosaries – perhaps to improve the perfume in the air.
I won’t wish you luck or have a nice day – these are for idiots including those “eating” at McDonalds who try to convince others that McDonalds is a restaurant.
As some may have recognised alongside alleged trolldom, I don’t mind if you hold me to be an arrogant ignorant bastard, whilst arrogant is a word for those whose lexicon does not include confident, and ignorance widely displayed.
I think it’s Option 5 because reports now says that Russian Aerospace forces are pulverizing the ukronazis who are now in the open with FAB and other heavy ammunition while artillery forces continue to chop up the foolish souls who were chasing after the so called retreating Russian army – This is the third time if I recall correctly that Russia is baiting the ukronazis and they still doesn’t seem to learn not to chase – Maybe because they are so indoctrinated in Western warfare doctrines that they think that holding landmass whether it’s valuable or not equates victory – Hitler also thought the same and we all know what happened to the thousand year reich – Nato still seems to be a fan of the Reich’s tactics though
So if I were a “Great Commander”, I would simulate for the enemy a totally divided, incompetent, military leadership …
The Russians are supposed to be “masters of deception”.
But maybe this is a bit far-fetched … and who am I …
So…wassup in Balakleya and Izyum? What is the Ukraine army there doing? Surely there must be some sort of ‘roadmap’ for them.
What is the purpose of the Ukraine army being there? Toasting marshmallows in the cool autumn evenings?
Same question for Liman.
“What is the purpose of the Ukraine army being there? ”
Some have come to be killed to enhance the public relations activities of “their” government.
That is not an uknown practice by the opponents, in 1944 many died at Monte Casino because their “commander” Mr. Clark wanted to appear in history books as the liberator of Rome.
Late to the party, but option 4 and 5 can both be true.
WRT air frames, given Russia artillery (and drone spotting), would it have added much? Russian artillery made the salient very expensive for Ukraine as it.
Perhaps the air attack slowdown was for maintenance and to ensure the maximum number for the war’s next phase (starting this week), with artillery (and drones) doing the heavy work in the meantime. Seems Iranian drones are effective at neutralizing UAF mobile artillery (HiMars, etc.) – which otherwise requires “manned” airplanes and helicopters.
If the proclaimed Mariupol assault doesn’t occur soon, we can surmise Russian capability can chew through 6 months of NATO weapons and training in a few weeks. Given challenges in UAF re-supply in wintertime, this forebodes poorly for a springtime UAF offensive (maybe late summer if there is a Ukraine)
There is something amiss after Lysichansk and no one has clue. I have following theories
1. Top commanders of Russian army have been bought off
2. Putin has lost control of army
3. Russia is collapsing financially
4. Ran out of artillery ammunition manufacturing capability
5. Preparing for larger NATO conflict
This is Russia fighting woke war. Claiming to be victim and hoping it will get it success instead of taking responsibility to win. If the trend does not stop Putin will be overthrown. Someone is just handing over charitable gains to UA. Stop fantasizing everything is OK. The traitors have to be weeded out and reciprocate the war effort of opposite camp. The weather is pleasant next 10 days and no end to losses of Russia.
6. Russian political leadership, largely corrupt and bloated, accustomed to luxury and Western holidays, does not have the stomach for this fight and just wants it to stop.
If Russia takes significant losses the population will turn on Putin and those handshaking with enemies will then sit on the throne.
Forget military strategy. If you lose the public you are pretty much done for and there are open signs of dissent and frustration with Putin’s approach to this war from those known to have military experience and be patriots.
Ash,
Agree. What would replace Putin would instantly unleash WW3 proportioned attacks on the Kiev regime and it forces – and perhaps beyond.
But what you said works across the board. NATO is at risk of losing its populations too as they become broke, cold and hungry.
Could happen here in the US as well. Biden could declare some emergency and either suspend elections the democrats are slated to lose or introduce some hinky voting scheme even more obviously corrupt than 2020. That on top of suspending freedom of speech and further declaring swaths of the population to be enemies of the republic. Far fetched? I’m not so sure.
Pat Lang, now with full blown insanity on public display, and his deep state idiot sidekick TTG, have declared Tucker Carlson to be a paid Russian agent and a traitor; pretty much did the same regarding Tulsi Gabard, who he used to lust after and wanted to vote for as a POTUS candidate – all b/c they think the war is dangerous and not in the US’ interests. So even old school conservatives who understand well the Constitution and the words of the founders that created it, are so caught up in Russia Derangement Syndrome that they are willing to join the left in scuttling the laws and spirit of the country.
Most Americans, whoever is left, will be living like the Amish in a very short while. Your main problem is that your mental hubris so deeply embedded in every chromosome in your body that it can not allow you to think two steps in front of your noses. The uneasy discomforting truth is that the US was slated for destruction long before most of you were even born. At this juncture, you are all experiencing its final death throes. Don’t believe me, just look at the Deagle population figures for the US in 2025!
Who to believe is so confusing these days. On the one side you have the US government, which lies about everything but every now and then is truthful. On the other hand, you’ve got the alternative media. Your gut tells you the alternative media is more right than the liars who have hijacked our government, but it’s still hard to ignore mainstream propaganda.
I’ve picked my side, it’s the alternative media side. What they say rings more true than the lying US government does. I’m sticking with my side, but we shall see.
Les prises de positions des “zĂ©lites” europĂ©ennes en faveur de Zelinsky, en fermant les yeux sur la corruption et la dictature, montrent qu’ils sont d’accord avec les pratiques dans ce pays. La dĂ©nazification devra inclure tous ces acteurs. Cela fait du monde sur plusieurs continents. Alors seulement nous respirerons et travailleront en bonne intelligence avec nos voisins.
Les europeennes se perdent dans un grand folie Ă plusieurs deux ou trois fois pour ciecle.
Maintainent, Les Americaines font la mĂȘme chose
President Putin mentioned ‘the Anglo-Saxons’ during his last speech. According to ‘Vesti’ ( https://www.vesti.ru/article/2969794 ) Putin was making a literary reference to Mark Twain.
“Putin is talking about the Anglo-Saxons. In the modern sense, if in a simple way, then the Anglo-Saxons in the collective sense are the Americans and the British, a sweet couple. The nature of the Anglo-Saxons at one time was accurately represented by the classic of American literature Mark Twain. More than a hundred years ago, Twain wrote a short story, which is called âWe are the Anglo-Saxonsâ. Yes, right from the very beginning: âI donât know for worse or for better, but we continue to teach Europe. We have been doing this for more than 125 years. Nobody called us to be mentors, we imposed ourselves. After all, we are Anglo-Saxons. Last winter on At a banquet at a club called “In the Far Ends of the Earth,” the presiding officer, a high-ranking retired military man, proclaimed in a loud voice and with great enthusiasm: “We are Anglo-Saxons, and when an Anglo-Saxon needs something, he goes and takes it.”
They clapped in delight and literally in ecstasy for more than two minutes, while Mark Twain, meanwhile, thought about something else: âIf you translate the declaration I cited (and the feelings expressed in it) into simple English, it will sound like this:â We are British and Americans – thieves, robbers, pirates, which we are proud of.” Of all the British and Americans who were there, there was not a single one who would have had the civil courage to stand up and say that he was ashamed to be an Anglo-Saxon, that he was ashamed of a civilized society, since it suffers in their Anglo-Saxon ranks, this disgrace to humanity.”
And further from the classic – a bitter confession: âOur motto isâ In the Lord we believe. âWhen I read this pious inscription on a paper dollar, it always seems to me that the piece of paper trembles and whimpers in religious ecstasy. This is our official motto. we see, quite different: “When an Anglo-Saxon needs something, he goes and takes it.”
And now think, how much has changed in more than a hundred years? Yes, indeed, now the Americans and the British are shouting louder than others: “Stop the thief!” But one of the calculated and desired effects of sabotage will be that in the conditions of the physical liquidation of the Nord Streams, the load on pipes through Ukraine and Poland should increase, and with it Russian transit costs. Loquacious MEP and ex-Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski is already there: âThe damage to Nord Stream narrows Putinâs room for maneuver. If he wants to resume gas supplies to Europe, he will have to negotiate with the countries that control the Druzhba gas pipelines and “Yamal”.”
President Putin is a “de jure” kinda guy.
I expect Russia will do nothing substantial regarding the four oblasts (including blowing away any remaining Ukrainian military forces therein to a fairtheewell) until both the Duma and the Fed Council approve their accession.
Don’t you see?? They are giving Ukr and the West something to hold on to so they don’t do something really stupid regarding escalation etc.
If you want to understand the “offensive” ukrainienne in Kharkov is usefull to listen to Jacques Baud ex-officier of counter intelligence in Swiss. Unfortunatelly for only english understanding, is in french. Is accurate on informations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KFHirvlFxs
“This is one small geographic area and the Russians inflicted massive casualties on the Ukrainian attackers.”
Beautifully expressed in an accurately concise nut shell.
Is that a direct quote from the interview? I hope so!
It seems even Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was more successful against small Serbia. However, the monarchy also lost its statehood as a result its aggression eventually in 1918. OK, that Empire had no A-bombs, I know.
Ah, a drop in visit from the Good Soldier Ć vejk. I like it!
You know, the Ukrainian cannon fodder could learn a few valuable pointers from you. Will they, though? But you know, those Ever-dutiful Germans could stand to do the same. But, again, will they? Well, Josef, one can never be too cynical about the motivations and perspicacity of one’s “leaders” can one?
Just UA has a lot of cannon fodder, really? Under the Great Chess Player, another Peter, the Great and his highly educated and competent generals it is just a lovely war, Dulce et Decorum est? Just for an invasion, err, special something thingie?
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had to be helped by Germany, is the North Korean cavalry coming fast enough to help a mediocre gas station manager known for smart speeches in unproper times?
You are mixing up apples and oranges by mixing up Slavs and Anglo-Saxons. You should compare NATO to Napoleon and Hitler, and Russians to, well, Russians. Both Napoleon and Hitler managed to go all the way to Moscow before the winter came. This NATO summer/autumn offensive will manage to go all the way to Lisichansk. I wonder what are your prediction for winter.
This a Russian psyop on Ukraine. Let them think they are winning by giving them small victories, get them “all in” and then whammo! nobody with more than 2 brain cells seriously thinks Ukraine is a threat. Once war is declared its game over and Kiev will be obliterated in the first 10 minutes. Zelensky will want to talk peace, you will see.
Russian long term aim could be to turn the Donbass into its buffer zone by design or by necessity. The newly incorporated Russian citizens of Donbass can be relocated.
Just UA has a lot of cannon fodder, really? Under the Great Chess Player, another Peter, the Great and his highly educated and competent generals it is just a lovely war, Dulce et Decorum est? Just for an invasion, err, special something thingie?
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had to be helped by Germany, is the North Korean cavalry coming fast enough to help a mediocre gas station manager known for smart speeches in unproper times?
When I heard about the retreat from Liman, I immediately began looking for it on a map.
Surely, based on the panty twisting comments, this was a titanic disaster that must threaten the entire front.
When I found it, I laughed.
This is part of the much boasted about, Ukrainian Summer Counteroffensive. If you remember, this is supposed to drive Russia from the Donbass and even Crimea.
What it has turned into is the military equivalent of throwing a bunch of crap on the wall and seeing if anything sticks. It isn’t.
As for Kadyrov, I believe his ‘spell checker’ is located in the Kremlin.
I am interested in the opinion of others about this article. It is in Russian language. But it should be no problem to translate it with DeepL. To be honest, the mystery of the Russian strategy also puzzles me a bit.
https://www.worldandwe.com/ru/page/chto_ne_tak_s_koncepciey_svo_genshtaba.html
Reminds me of my usual work situation.
I get an assignment and then work on it in the most efficient way possible.
Day 1, Email from manager, “How’s it going?”
I reply, “No problems, I’ll let you know when it is finished.”
Day 2, another email from my manager “Let me know if you need help.”
Me, “No need for additional help, it will be done soon.”
etc., etc.
Leave the war to the people actually doing the fighting and dying…
Put all the lipstick on it you want, it’s not looking good . Clearly , Putin’s general or generals … are failing him , their ineptitude just may end up costing Russia the war , certainly it is costing a lot of lives. They need to be held to account , Shoigu and on down the line . I do not blame Kadyrov one bit for being frustrated and pissed off , at this point he too must be asking himself , WTF ?
Billions of dollars worth , Western supplied muntions and heavy armor openly traveling across the country on highways and on rail , all the way to the front lines , unscathed ! Infrastructure critical to the Ukraine military, untouched ! WTF ?
The Russians have known there was a man power shortage from the beginning , only now they are calling up the 300,000 ? Should have trained and prepared troops long ago , they should have been on standby , ready to go . Most these boys are untrained and about as green as can be . Again , WTF ?
Hearing reports of Russians running out of shells , not being supplied in time . God help them if this is true !
Having lived in Russia and knowing Russians as well as I do ( I’m also married to one ) , I guess I should not be surprised by this cluster phuckk .