PATTON, the movie, was a masterpiece of entertainment. It is not historically accurate on many points and that is a problem with respect to Ukraine. What? I suspect some of you believe I have really crossed over to crazy land, but hear me out. Remember that scene when the Germans launched the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and Patton saved the day by “immediately” diverting his Army 90 degrees to head north and rescue the beleaguered paratroopers of the 101st and 82nd airborne regiments (note, the paratroopers insisted they did not need to be rescued, but that’s another story for another day)?
That cinema account of how Patton planned and shifted the axis of attack of his troops is presented as something hastily put together. The German offensive started on 16 December and Patton met with Eisenhower on the 19th of December and received orders to relieve Bastogne. Patton’s troops moved out on the 22nd of December and reached Bastogne on the 26th. What the movie account fails to convey is that the planning for moving his Army north began on December 9, ten days before the emergency conference with Eisenhower.
Patton’s J-2 (i.e., his intel chief) briefed the following on 9 December:
- By the end of October four panzer divisions had been identified refitting near Paderborn, far north of the Third Army’s left boundary.
- By November 10 the Germans had pulled five more panzer divisions out of the line.
- Of the fifteen panzer divisions in the west, only five remained in contact in mid-November.
- Starting November 17, aerial reconnaissance detected huge German rail movements to the north of the Third Army’s projected zone of advance—226 trains on November 18 alone.
- By November 23 Koch had identified the newly established Sixth Panzer Army, including five of its reconstituted panzer divisions.
- On December 2 the U.S. Seventh Army, to the south of Third Army, reported that the formidable Panzer Lehr Division was out of the line.
- By December 7 the Germans were holding at least thirteen divisions in reserve.
(I encourage you to read the whole article about the real story of Patton’s rescue effort at the link above.)
So why is this important? The process any first world army (e.g., United States, Russia, Ukraine) follows in moving troops and equipment from one point to a distant location follows a well-defined planning process.
The planning process Patton followed is similar to what the U.S. military uses today. The current system is known as the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System aka JOPES. I have been involved in scripting and executing over 240 crisis response exercises. I worked for 23 years for the man who wrote JOPES, so I have some insight to the process. He beat it into me. It starts with an Alert Order (e.g. Be Prepared to Act) usually followed Warning Order (e.g., Houston we have a specific problem, tell us how you plan to solve it). The military command that receives the warning order immediately tasks it staff to prepare Courses of Action aka COAs.
Those COAs are then sent back via a written message laying out what forces would be used, what resources (i.e., air support, artillery, vehicles, medical, etc.) are required to carry out the COA. The COA for organizing and deploying a Special Operations unit is much easier and less time consuming than that required to organize and deploy battalions and regiments of soldiers.
Once the COA is approved the relevant military units receive a Deployment Order. It means what it says. The military units identified for action start moving via train, truck or plane. Depends on the operation. But they are moving into place and do not initiate action until they commanders receive an Execution Order.
Since the United States and NATO are involved directly with Ukraine’s military planning, I am certain they followed the JOPES process. That means the planning for the Kharkov offensive probably started the first of September, perhaps even earlier, i.e. July or August. Assembling and moving the men and equipment to deployment points took some time. It was not done overnight.
I am not familiar with the Russian planning system, but I am pretty sure the Russians follow a similar procedure to JOPES. It is important to understand this with reference to the offensive taking place around Kharkov. The Russian forces started moving into the area on Thursday, 8 September. And we are talking about hundreds of trucks, tanks, towed artillery and troops.
So, was Russia caught by surprise? No. They had at least one week’s warning of the impending Ukrainian attack. If you want to believe that Russia’s intelligence service is incompetent or was deceived in this operation, enjoy the fantasy. The Russian planners had a couple of choices. They could have moved their forces into position earlier but that would have tipped off the Ukrainians and west that the planned offensive was compromised.
Alternatively, the Russian planners may have decided to mask their movements and made choices about which villages and cities to defend and which to abandon. If Russia had moved preemptively to reinforce Izyum that would have raised warning flags for the Ukrainian and NATO planners.
I agree with Andrei Martyanov’s take–the Russians knew it was coming and chose to let the Ukrainians flood the zone in order to eventually hit the Ukrainian forces with a massive counter attack. The Ukrainians are no longer in fortified defensive positions and their lines of communication to support the forward troops are now defined precisely. The Ukrainian attack has not destroyed nor disrupted Russia’s air, artillery, rocket and missile assets. Attacking the Ukrainian units is an easier task, not more difficult.
I am not privy to the Russian plan. But what I do know is that the planning process required to deploy the troops and equipment moving into Kharkov was not a panicked response. Hollywood can create the illusion of rapid movement of military troops, but the real world requires alerting units, making sure they are properly supplied and then undertaking the logistic task of moving those units into combat. This means the planning was deliberate, not a crisis response.
Thank you, really appreciate your work.
Wonderful explanation — thank you so much Larry. Excellent analysis 😊
There are better ways of doing counter offensive than betraying local population and hurting morale of allies supporting Russia. If denting Ukraine forces is the real aim, they could stay in Russian territory and fight on border and not leave people under fanatics. No one can trust Russia ever again. On this one, I am pretty sure there are some traitors involved.
My explanation is that Russians have preferred economic war over military over past 2 months as it seems more promising and expected by winter EU U.S unity and support to wither. But with humiliating loss they have given huge filip to their morale and dented of local population, its troops and 150 odd countries that did not vote against it in UN and it’s arms buyers.
What worked in Kharkiv can work in Donbass too. Ukraine will put in another 50,000 and MoD will redeploy troops again. What credible defense mechanism do they have?
It boils down to Russians just not having fight in them as their territory is not at stake and Russian speakers in Ukraine are just expendables. Too sad a lot of well meaning people seeking multipolarity in world fell for their scam.
I disagree, but I welcome your dissent.
What a wonderful one-line reply 🙂
Thank you for the analysis Larry…never spend a day without your and Andrei Martyanov’s analysis.
My late father and his colleagues who worked closely with the Soviets as engineers (Russians provided lot of training to Indian engineers) described the Russian approach to education and work with one word —>
“Thoroughness”
Love the thoroughness in your work.
I doubt the Russian’s left behind compromised people. Requests and invitations were made … some more forcefully than others. This would be the last conclusion one should jump to. True to the times though …. who really knows for sure.
It’s so welcome and pleasantly surprising to see you respond in this way Mr. Johnson: with intellectual generosity and an easygoing “agree to disagree” attitude. By contrast, unfortunately, any dissenting opinions – even of the mildest variety – on Mr. Martyanov’s blog are met with derision, insults and, ultimately, being blocked by him. I realize you are friends (at least at some level) and frequently cite each other, but there’s a marked difference in attitude to opposing views. He has zero tolerance, and especially on this topic, is exceedingly defensive. All of this makes me wonder if this sensitivity to criticism of his views and/or Russia’s actions shows that, at some level, he does realize the criticism does have some force.
The problem is that, although one can be an “expert” in warfare in terms of its mechanics, strategy, operations, etc. … this is insufficient to understand the nature of warfare as a whole, because factors like propaganda and psychology and politics ARE a part of warfare. (See: Clausewitz!) And if, like Mr. Martyanov, you have nothing to say about these additional factors, and if you treat them as some sort of extraneous and irrelevant consideration, then you really don’t understand the nature of war.
For example, the sort of view expressed by Vicram C. above is important and carries weight because – whether or not allowing Ukraine to make these advances is really a clever trap by the Russian military, as Mr. Martyanov and you both claim – PERCEPTIONS on the part of both Russia’s friend and enemies DO count and they DO matter! This is something that Alexander Mercouris understands well, and he discusses it at length in his vlog from a day ago.
Either way: I’m really glad to see you are much more open to opposing views, and I will follow your blog more closely now.
I “feel” you are right. This is why Ukraine is not pounding its chest over this. We will see how this plays out.
Your comment makes me respect you more, I am a Chinese reader
Same thing happened in Syria 2017-2018 in the battle for Aleppo and Idlib. They twice abruptly stopped the operations allowing for regrouping of jihadists much to the frustration of the Syrian Army and at the expense of civilian lives because they didn’t want to humiliate turkey and then just before the decisive moment for capturing Idlib city they agreed to a minsk like agreement with the turks which of course is still not implemented. This may benefit them strategically but at a huge cost for their local allies.
The Power’s Out!
September 9 – 11 will go down in history as a period of great significance in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Both belligerent parties crossed very important thresholds, which taken together suggest that the war is entering a new phase. On the 9th and 10th, Ukraine achieved its first concrete success of the war by retaking all the Russian-held territory in Kharkov Oblast west of the Oskil river, including the western bank of Kupyansk and the transit node of Izyum.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin convened an emergency meeting of his national security council, which precipitated Russia’s own escalation on the 11th, when Ukrainian infrastructure was at long last subject to attack, plunging much of the country into darkness.
It seems clear that the war is entering a new phase, and it seems highly likely that both parties will attempt to take decisive action in the near feature. For now, let’s try to parse through the developments of the past week and get a handle on where the war is heading.
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The Kharkov Counteroffensive
At the risk of sounding very pedantic, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in eastern Kharkov Oblast is an excellent demonstration of the difficulties in evaluating military operations. Everyone agrees on the basic geography of what has happened: Ukraine cleared everything west of the Oskil river of Russian forces. Nobody agrees on what this means, however. I have seen all of the following interpretations posited – note, people reached all of these conclusions from the same set of data:
Russia has drawn Ukraine into a trap and will soon counterattack
Russia voluntarily withdrew from Kharkov to prioritize other fronts
Russia drew the Ukrainians out to hit them with artillery
Russia suffered a massive intelligence failure and did not see or respond to Ukraine’s offensive
Russia suffered a defeat in battle and was forced to retreat
Let’s do a methodical autopsy and see what we come away with.
The first thing we want to note is that the disparity of forces on this front was absolutely laughable. Ukraine assembled a strike group of at least five full brigades, and aimed at a line of contact which had no Russian regular troops at all. The Russian frontline defenses in the region were manned by allied donbas militia and national guardsmen. It seems there was a lone Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) in Izyum, but little else.
It is undeniable, even for Ukrainians celebrating the advance, that Kharkov oblast had been almost completely hollowed out of Russian troops, leaving little more than a screening force. Two important things flow from this. First, that the Ukrainian shock group was in most places advancing against virtually nonexistent resistance. Secondly, more ominously for Ukraine, the low quality units left behind for screening purposes were able to put up good resistance against the Ukrainians – the Rosgvardiya men in Balakliya held out tenaciously for several days before evacuating through a corridor.
In my previous analysis, conducted while the Ukrainian counteroffensive was just beginning to develop, I noted two important things about the shape of the battlefield.
I argued that Ukraine would be unable to push across the Oskil and properly exploit their offensive.
I noted that Ukraine was making rapid advances against thinly manned, hollowed out portions of the front, and that Russia had committed very little to the battle.
Both of these statements were correct. I freely admit, however, that I drew the incorrect conclusion from them. I believe the Ukrainian advance would culminate at the Oskil river, leaving them vulnerable to a Russian counterattack by the arriving reserves. It seems fairly clear now that this is incorrect, and the Russian reserves that were en-route were tasked with stabilizing the defense at the Oskil, not launching a counterattack.
This was not an operational trap by Russia, but neither was it a victory in battle for Ukraine – for the simple reason that there was not much of a battle at all. Russia had already hollowed out these positions, and withdrew the remaining screening forces very quickly. Ukraine covered a lot of ground, but were unable to destroy any Russian units, because there really weren’t any there.
It would be silly to try to talk the Ukrainian side out of their excitement right now. Credit where credit is due, they did manage to put together a good sized shock group, aim it at a weak portion of the front, and regain a good bit of ground. Considering the abject lack of successes for Ukraine in this war, they are rightfully trying to eke every last bit of morale and propaganda out of this.
I do not, however, believe that the territorial losses in Kharkov in any way change the ultimate calculus of the war. Russia hollowed out this front and surrendered ground, but they were able to maul the Ukrainian forces as they advanced with relentless artillery and airstrikes. Ukrainian channels widely report overflowing hospitals. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed 4,000 killed and 8,000 wounded for Ukraine during their advance – I believe this is high, but even if we reduce the numbers by 50% (leaving us with 6,000 total casualties, reasonable given how much ordnance Russia discharged) it is very clear that the loss ratios in this operation were stacked badly against Ukraine, as they always are.
Momentum
As I predicted in my last piece, Ukraine has so far been unable to exploit their offensive by reaching the operational depth. They have been totally unable to project forces across the Oskil River. With the advance eastward firmly culminated, they are seeking to maintain their momentum, or at least the appearance of it.
Ukraine’s successful advance in Kharkov Oblast has been augmented with a blitz of fakery and propaganda designed to simulate a total shift in strategic momentum. These include fakes related to Russian domestic politics, such as fabricated calls for Putin’s impeachment, and battlefield misinformation, like claims that the Ukrainian Army has breached the borders of the LNR or stormed Donetsk City. They have also circulated out of context videos (the most popular one shows a Russian vehicle depot in Crimea) purporting to show that the Russians abandoned hundreds of vehicles in Izyum.
The fakery is not important. Ukraine will, however, also attempt to maintain battlefield momentum by piggybacking on the Kharkov operation with additional counteroffensives. They continue to attempt to cross the Donets River in force to storm Lyman, unsuccessfully. They also continue their attacks in the Kherson direction, making little progress and taking high casualties.
The most important development, however, is the claim that a second Ukrainian shock group has been assembled in Zaparozhia. This is an area where the geography actually would allow Ukraine to achieve operational exploitation. A successful drive towards Melitopol or Mariupol would compromise the land bridge to Crimea and threaten to crumble Russia’s entire position in the south.
Unlike Kharkov, however, this is not a hollowed out portion of the front. The newly formed Russian 3rd Corps is concentrated in the south, and Russian convoys have been spotted recently moving through the Mariupol region. Ukraine may very well attempt yet another offensive operation in this direction, but given the strength of the Russian grouping here the results will be more like Kherson than Kharkov.
Sovereignty
During the opening months of the war, I argued on Twitter that massed offensives are difficult, and that Ukraine had not yet shown the organizational ability to organize an operational higher than the brigade level. All the attacking action that we saw from Ukraine early on took the form of single brigade – or more often, single battalion – commanders taking initiative.
Well, lo and behold, Ukraine managed to field at least two (Kherson, Kharkov) and perhaps three (Zaporizhia) multi-brigade shock groups, and launch coordinated operations. This was made possible because Ukraine is a pseudo-state, which is supplied, financed, and increasingly managed by NATO. Western agencies cannot resist bragging – Britain identified itself as the party responsible for planning and organizing the Kherson operation, while the USA claims credit for the more successful Kharkov attack.
It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Ukraine is sustained solely by the west. Ukrainian soldiers are trained by NATO officers, armed with NATO weapons, accompanied in the field by NATO soldiers foreign volunteers, and the Ukrainian pseudo-state is kept running by cash injections from the west. Videos from the Kharkov front abound with English speaking soldiers and foreign weapons.
The point isn’t just to point out, yet again, that Ukraine is a failed state – a corpse that is given the illusion of life by outside actors moving its limbs. The point is that Russia understands this and correctly understands itself to be in a civilizational collision with the west. To that end, we must understand that Russian escalation is underway, and think about what that means.
Escalation and Mobilization
By this point, the idea that Russia needs to mobilize has become a tired old meme, courtesy of the deranged Igor Strelkov. It is certainly true that Russia must escalate, but leaping directly to mobilization (putting the economy on war footing and calling up conscripts) would be a grave mistake. Russia has other, better ways to escalate. The recent Ukrainian advance in Kharkov is an obvious signal to raise the force deployment, and Ukrainian potshots at targets across the Russian border only add to the pressure to take the gloves off.
First, I would like to comment on why I am against mobilization. One of the most important dimensions of this war is the economic front. Europe is being driven to the brink by the energy crisis. The Wall Street Journal keyed in on what I believe to be the most apt descriptor of the crisis, warning of a “new era of deindustrialization in Europe.”
A full mobilization would be very costly for Russia’s economy, risking the edge that it currently holds in the economic confrontation with Europe. This, I believe, is the main reason that the Russian government was quick to quash rumors of mobilization today. There are other steps on the escalation ladder before going to total war footing.
There are already rumors that Russia is planning to change the formal designation of the war, from “Special Military Operation”. While that could mean a formal declaration of war, I think that is unlikely. Rather, Russia will likely give the Ukraine operation the same designation as its operations in Syria, loosening the rules of engagement and beginning to target Ukrainian assets in earnest.
We saw a foretaste of this last night, when Russia wiped out over half of Ukraine’s power generation with a few missiles. There are many more targets that they can go after – more nodes in the electrical grid, water pumping and filtration facilities, and higher level command posts. There is at least some probability that Russia begins targeting the command facilities with NATO personnel in them. Plausible deniability works both ways; because NATO is not officially in Ukraine – only “volunteers” – targeting their personnel is not an overtly aggressive act.
Russia also has many ways to boost its force deployment in Ukraine that fall short of full mobilization. They have a pool of demobilized contract soldiers that they can call up, as well as a pool of reservists that they can raise with a partial mobilization.
The Russian line is hardening. Just in the past 24 hours, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “no prospect for negotiations” with Ukraine, and Putin said “Unfriendly forces are targeting us, and we must take initiative in order to succeed in confronting them.” Medvedev went even further just now: “”A certain Zelenskyy said that he will not hold a dialogue with those who issue ultimatums. The current ‘ultimatums’ are a warm-up for kids, a preview of demands to be made in the future. He knows them: the total surrender of the Kiev regime on Russia’s terms”
If you believe the Russian government is utterly incompetent and duplicitous, feel free to view statements like this as bluster. But given the warning shot at Ukrainian power generation yesterday, my sense is that Russia is preparing to escalate to a higher level of intensity, which Ukraine cannot match with its indigenous resources. Recent The only other player on the escalation ladder is the United States.
Dark times area ahead for Ukraine – and perhaps for Americans on the other front of this war.
The Other Southern Front
Syria and Ukraine are two fronts in the same war. This is very important to understand. In Syria, the United States has attempted to wreck Russia’s most important Middle Eastern ally and create a Trashcanistan of chaos to suck in Russian resources; in Ukraine, NATO has armed a kamikaze state to hurl at Russia’s western border. In the Russian mind, these wars are inextricably linked.
After the Kharkov counteroffensive, I strongly suspect that Russia will look for a way to strike back at the United States, without crossing red lines that could lead to a more direct confrontation. Syria is the place where this would happen. The United States maintains several illegal bases on Syrian soil, which Russia could strike using its Syrian allies much the same way that the United States is using Ukraine. Russia is in the finishing stage training a new Syrian airborne division. With Russian air cover, an attack on one of the American bases in Syria would be possible – the USA would be forced to choose between shooting down Russian planes and flirting with nuclear war, or humbly accepting the loss of an illegal base that it has worked hard to hide from its own citizens. Given the utter lack of enthusiasm among the American public for yet another war in the Middle East, it seems that the USA would simply have to swallow the loss.
Big Serge Expectations:
Russian escalation of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and command centers.
Russian force deployment raised without full mobilization.
Intensification of Russian efforts to recover DNR territory.
Possible escalation in Syria, likely in the form of Syrian army attacks on US bases.
My God! This is a great review of the situation! Well done and thank you!
“Big Serge Expectations”
Droll pun, lol.
But for sure, Big Serge will sort the Ukrainians out.
I think you’re reacting very harshly to the Russian withdrawal due to the following reasons:
1. Russians have never in the course of this operation treated civilians as expendable. They have gone above and beyond to preserve civilian life and infrastructure, and if they had not bothered about civilians as you state, they could have got over with this in weeks. They could have flattened all these places. It would be silly if, after all that work, they simply decided that civilians were expendable after all.
2. It’s a war. Things go wrong, hard decisions have to be made, and mistakes do happen. It is true that Ukrainian reprisals will be awful for Russian ethnic civilians in the recaptured territories. However, to accuse Russians of causing them, is sheer hypocrisy of Western scale. This narrative that “Ethnic Russians will hold the Russian military responsible for betraying them and turn against them because of Ukrainian reprisals” is stupid at best. I don’t know how many civilians in occupied countries in WW2 actually turned against their own resistance forces because the Germans did horrendous reprisals.
3. Finally, to be prepared for an attack and a counter-attack is one thing, to actively plan a trap is another. My reading is that the Russians knew it would come, and prepared for it, but a mobile defense doctrine depends on giving up territory and taking it back, not defending it to the last man. Your “betrayal” narrative seems to me born more of a buying into, or a desire to propagate a PSYOP designed to convince ethnic Russians in Donbas that the very Russian forces trying to protect them, will eventually leave them to the tender mercies of the Ukrainians. It’s a standard Ukrainian tactic, this “you wait till your daddy’s gone, then I will not spare you” – anyone with two brain cells to rub together (and I bet the Russians have more than enough) will recover.
Agree. To add to your assessment I understand that the Russians informed the locals of the need to evacuate to Russia where the border was already organised to support them until they could return. Certainly, some locals would not be able or refuse such evacuation, but that is a fact of war – you can’t avoid casualties – you can only hope to mitigate.
“I understand that the Russians informed the locals of the need to evacuate to Russia where the border was already organised to support them until they could return.”
Protecting civilians, or failing to try to protect them, is the biggest “tell”.
What was your source for this understanding ? Do you have a link ?
I agree too…Russia had encouraged people in contested areas to evac & they have accommodated them in Russia.
They evacuated everyone they could.
This is war. Land is taken, land may be lost, land may be re-taken, all with kittle or no notice.
Which is why Russia has encouraged evacuation from the start
The full story of this gambit is yet to be written. If Larry is right, and Ukraine/NATO are about to get their asses handed to them, then respect for trust in Russia will be increased, not decreased. So don’t rush to judgement until the final curtain has descended.
People are going to trust Russia because we all can see that their military is not run by idiots, but by peole who can actually accomplish long term goals.
You like all of us have no idea what the Russian intent is. Just a mediocre opinions.
Based upon outcomes, one can infer something of Russian Armed Forces strategy and tactics. Clearly include sparing the Eastern Provinces’ populations as they are to be incorporated into Russia. Not the US shock and awe carpet bombing approach.
This and more is examined in detail here . . . https://les7eb.substack.com/p/great-game-ukraine-long-proxy-war
Further analyses here . . . https://les7eb.substack.com/
Sadly, you didn’t read Larry’s piece (with eyes open!). Moving 50k involves logistics that Ukraine just does not have – Russia can and will interdict any effort to relocate those troops who become easy targets as soon as they leave their bunkers. This already happened during the siege of Mariupol.
And the advancing soldiers need vast supplies transported along supply lines that will be interdicted – with supplies that no longer exist in Ukraine – have you read any accounts of the conditions in the bunkers and trenches? And the west can’t even produce replacement supplies (shells, himar rockets, etc.) for up to years. Ukraine is begging for coats for their soldiers.
And we know what happened when Ukraine supply lines became too long in 2014 – under far better overall logistics. They got kettled. And dead.
Dude, read the piece!
“There are better ways of doing counter offensive than betraying local population and hurting morale of allies supporting Russia.”
Most visitors to this Site really appreciate the no nonsense approach to what is really going on. You obviously roll with the BS Reporting and have no problem with The Ukraine’s Nazi Scum otherwise you wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous comment.
It’s a very emotional critical point and indeed many of us can become upset. There are quite a few things that just don’t make much sense and infuriating: the recklessness, waste and stupidity from the West, the making of Europe’s economic collapse, the wanton sacrifice of Ukrainian civilians, and Russia’s often obfuscated rationale.
Truly, one can go down a rabbit hole forever; we can second guess every decision and action taken by any party ad infinitum. There’s just too many things going on there in Ukraine going back to Maidan and before: Banderites, involvement of NGOs and others, government change, bio-labs, large gas reserves in the south of Ukraine, massive agricultural land grabs by multi-nationals, etc.
Anyhow, let us sit tight and see what happens in the next couple of days. Pray that we all come out of this geopolitical mess without too much irreparable damage.
It’s a very “modern” (if not almost “woke”) phenomenon to expect that one of the main tasks of soldiers is to protect civilians, and so soldiers should both achieve the military goals assigned, fight – and randomly die, but also be humanitarian workers, nurses, provide psychological support, food, entertainment… next thing to come providing “customer support” and organizing “prides”.
It’s counterproductive and dangerous both for soldiers and civilians. You just saw your buddy’s head blown up and right after you find yourself distributing food, candies and chocolate to babushkas (+ their cats) and kids, before going back on the front line. Soldiers are humans, such emotional rollercoaster when at war can strongly affect their resilience and focus: too much dissonanec between the raw reality of war and the semblance of normalcy during such interactions with civilians.
As for the civilians, assigning such role to military forces ends up cultivating reliance rather than resilience, consequently reducing the odds of survival if/when the tide turns.
Sure it’s nice thing to see those videos with soldiers helping out civilians, whether it’s genuine or for PR purpose, but that’s a confusion of roles which ineluctably lead to tragedies. During war, both soldiers and civilians must harden, no other way if one wants to get a chance.
As for what may happen or will happen to pro-RU civilians in recovered areas, that’s on UKR: no such thing such as “Russia forced me”. They enjoy their war crimes and have the blessing of the West.
Filistin, that’s a very sensible comment. ‘Woke’ norms and priorities have so impacted westerners, and even western-looking non-westerners, to the point that reminders, like yours, of what armies are for can be sorely needed from time to time.
Seems to me that we need not believe either extreme: that this was an intelligence failure leading to a disastrous rout, nor that it’s part of a grand trap prepared well in advance. (Larry makes a strong case for the latter, I admit.)
When you decide to ‘demilitarize’ the biggest army in Europe with a force 1/3 its size, and moreover to man some frontline areas with lightly supported militiamen, then careful planning for hasty redeployment of vulnerable troops to avoid having them overrun in a desperate politically dictated counterattack is probably baked into the cake.
It probably doesn’t matter whether the Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov came as a tactical surprise or not. What we’re hearing about the orderly Russian withdrawal and reinforcement suggest that contingencies for THIS KIND of event (if not this specific event) were planned well ahead of time and pretty well implemented.
“When you decide to ‘demilitarize’ the biggest army in Europe with a force 1/3 its size, and moreover to man some frontline areas with lightly supported militiamen, then…”
But why decide this mismatch in the first place?
Why the mismatch ?
Because the RF is only supporting the DPR and LPR. Local (Ukrainian born) troops are doing nearly all the fighting.
It’s a civil war – been so since 2014
“… It’s a very “modern” (if not almost “woke”) phenomenon to expect that one of the main tasks of soldiers is to protect civilians …” … I wonder: have you actually heard/read Putin’s justification/explanation and comments on the SMO, namely: the protection of the people of the Donbas? So, going by your logic, we’d have to conclude that Mr. Putin is “woke”, which is patently absurd!
If I am not wrong, the retreat occurred in Kharkov oblast, not Donbas.
Anyways, I think you missed the main point: sure, yes protection of the people of the Donbas but by which means? Fighting – demilitarizing, denazifying – the people persecuting them (UKR gov and nazi groups). Protecting Donbas people clearly implied elimination of their persecutors: that’s the soldiers task > dealing and eliminating the threat. The rest (food, health, policing, etc…) is for civilian administrations.
I am pretty sure that Putin didn’t mean RU soldiers were sent there on an humanitarian mission or to provide entertainment to the locals. Nor does it seem that’s what the SMO forces have been mainly doing since its start.
So I am back to my initial statement: soldiers main tasks is not the protection of civilians per se which is a byproduct in case of military success. I don’t see what is absurd here.
Soldiers have been soldiers since war exists and their main task has never been protecting civilians, for most history civilians would run away from soldiers -friendly or hostile. Such idea is very modern and yes somehow “woke & Co” : if pregrant men can exist why not nurses, shrinks, clowns with body armor and grenade launchers switching from heavy fights to candy distribution. The confusion of roles was my main point.
To WD Ferraby:
Regarding compassion: no issue here, I cleary stated “Soldiers are humans…” and it is for this very reason why roles should not be confused. Such “compassion break” may very well break a soldier.
They are humans … with mothers. That’s not woke … that’s compassion.
This is all “nice and dandy” and very touching… BUT the problem is that YOU don’t know what you are talking about. It is actually, neither one OR another: Russians apparently started evacuating civilians that WANTED to be with Russians a few days ago – but slowly, so not to create the impression of mass evacuation. Every column of evacuees’ vehicles was accompanied/escorted by armored vehicles in front and back right to the border. One of such vehicles took a hit and the crew died but the people were escorted to the border where volunteers have been waiting for them with food, clothing and places to sleep. I saw those happy people that could not believe how warmly Russians welcomed them. I hear that those who left are mostly people that did not want anything to do with Russians and were pro-Ukrainians. There probably were some that wouldn’t or couldn’t leave for one reason or another.
This reminds me of the first “betrayal” Georgian people accuse Russia.
At the end of the 18th century the east Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti signed an alliance with Russia (becoming a sort of vassal kingdom to the Russian empire but maintaing most of its sovereignity), the famous Treaty of Georgievsk, abjuring so any form of dependcy from Persia (which had been the suzerain of the Georgian kingdoms for several centuries).
In response to this the Persians attacked Georgia and Russia did nothing to protect its vassal, actually they had already previously (a few years earlier) pulled out the troops they had in Tbilisi in order to fight the ottomans in another front.
Probably the Russians are not clear with their allies about their intention and their interest in fighting a lost battle, but the allies should also remember that the russian choose to give away their former capital (Moscow) to the invading french troops in 1812.
One of the other issues is that at that time Russia had really a lot of wars against several different enemies (e.g the ottomans, the Persians, various European states, etc) and probably should not have promised support it could not maintain.
Anyway it is tipical for the Russian to leave momentarily territories and even cities to the enemies in order to regroup and fight another day in order to win the war.
I doubt the Russian’s left behind compromised people. Requests and invitations were made … some more forcefully than others. This would be the last conclusion one should jump to. True to the times though …. who really knows for sure.
You fail to note civilian evacuation under Russian protection, including rear guards, which is documented both in video of the columns and the arrival of refugees into Russia.
Your points aren’t invalid, but your reasoning inevitably becomes “not a step back”. Do you think that Ukrainian / NATO forces would have refrained from shelling these civilians while Russia defended them? Again, your points aren’t invalid but they’re actually indicative of a deeper problem with NATO’s proxy force and how it treats civilians. If the proxy force was civilized it wouldn’t punish civilians for the fact that they reside in areas controlled by Russia. But they do, and they do so contrary to the written and unwritten rules of war. So why are you not questioning the side that’s likely to perpetrate the atrocities?
These are fascinating and beautifully written. However where are the primary sources? Without them these are just another set of opinions.
I don’t understand how you can say that Russian territory is not at stake. First, Russia has a long history of Ukraine being part of the Russian Federation. Second, Ukrainians are the cousins and brothers of Russia, part of the reason they didn’t do the ” Shock and awe” style of “warfare” of other countries and therefore have different military tactics than the average Hollywood movie.
Russia have evacuated people from the war zone a long time, those that chose to remain are most likely not pro Russian.
Why should Russia sacrifice men for them?
(Sorry for email switching Larry, i have some issues with auto fill and often forget to switch)
Mass evacuation of civilians in an area not under direct attack would have been identifiable by NATO intelligence too. What message would that have sent?
The civilians there had been under Ukrainian harassment for years. It’s highly unlikely they didn’t have escape plans. And unlike Mariupol they wouldn’t have to run a gauntlet of Azov snipers.
This has gotten people screaming that Russia should have declared total war. This is the largest country on earth with many potential battlefronts. Pragmatically, I can see why Russia might prefer NATO countries be encouraged to pour more money and irreplaceable hardware into Ukraine. It localizes what could be a much larger war.
War is awful and the calculations and decisions all involve people dying.
Watch Andrei Martyanov’s latest video,on YT right now. I think you are either an unwitting victim of the psyops or something else….. For the sake of the argument though if pro Russian civilians HAVE been left behind and now possible targets of UKRAINIAN punishment battalions that’s blame which belongs to the perpetrators.
Chief of command of a Russian volunteer battalion from the ground said the decision was made that locals are not pro-Russian enough, therefore Russia will change strategy and start wrecking critical infrastructure in all Ukrainian cities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJZrp6ORH20
And many Ukrainians are “pointers” who pretend to be pro-Russia or neutral and pass info to UA army get caught by Russians, and then beg on their knees, but obviously can’t be trusted anymore, and there were cases when captured Ukrainian soldiers freed by Russians joined AFU again and caught again https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/60742
First, the towns given over to UAF are largely deserted, their pro-Russian populations evacuated to Russia or Donbas oblasts. Second, any remainers are almost certainly pro-Ukrainian and not troubled by UAF forces. Third, the towns are of little strategic value and can be recovered later. Fourth, apprise me of your previous military experience and the battles you planned and won, or were they just movies?
Vikram, you don’t know what you are talking about. Most or all of the pro-russian residents of those areas have been evacuated to Russia under military escort all the way to Russia. You should have seen those hundreds or thousands of people arranged in tents, given food and clothing and feeling grateful to volunteers for their hospitality. Most have been moved out of the border areas into deeper/safe regions already. Those that stayed are mostly pro-Ukrainians that never wanted to leave. Obviously, nobody forced them. There may have been some people left for one reason or another but we have to wait to learn more.
Mr. Johnson can thanks your dissent but I will not. I personally consider you just as another troll seeking to extend to the max the bitterness of some people lacking serious strategic thinking and quick to panic. And if you are not and it is that same panic what speak through you mouth, then I will say this to you: stop being a easy victim of wartime propaganda, stop being part of the problem and start being the solution. This WAR, a highly hibryd one and cruel too, not some prestige contest in which we are going to select Miss Congeniality. If you are a Russian Ally -which I personally think you ain’t- then quit whining and wait how things developed for then extracting some informed conclusions. What matters here is the great strategy and not information wars.
Kharkov. It’s been Kharkov for over a thousand years. Just because some lunatics decide that cities with a penultimate letter “o” should have it changed to “i” doesn’t change the name of the place. It’s just Banderist corruption of place names, and Lvov is still Lvov,not Lviv, Mariupol is Mariupol, not Mariupil, etc.
Don’t indulge the corruption of people who sow division due to their baseless hatred.
Thanks for the analysis larry, some clarity in such a vast propaganda and Russian hysteria, I know nothing about military things or analysis, but something clear I have, and that is that you have to be crazy to think that this Ukrainian grouping Russia did not see it before, it is curious how these last three days a massive grouping of Russian equipment moved to that region and did not come into line of contact with the Ukrainians, They are simply letting it stretch and stretch further, besides within all this Russian hysteria and Ukrainian propaganda it is estimated that 2000 Ukrainian infantry KIA have fallen in the last days in this direction and many armored vehicles, this will not benefit Ukraine in any way, it will reach a point where the Russians will pull the rope of all the artillery.
Looking over western news sources including all the “war experts” now suggesting the Russian military re panicking by “fleeing” territory that was under their control is right out of Monty Python I swear.
After reading some of this nonsense my intuition and what little knowledge I have, tells me the Russian military somehow lured the Ukrolunatics out into the open and by doing so, the Russian military are going to annihilate them. There was a clip I reviewed of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers marching in a very tight formation in a forest close to one of the cities or villages talked about involved in the fighting. You can just sense they are about to get obliterated.
The video you refer to was a group of presumably American airport players. Look closely at the armbands worn by the woman with the ponytail
Airsoft
Tim,
Bernard over at MoA wrote an interesting piece back in July about the Russians drawing the Kraken formation out of Kharkov and into the countryside where they were finished off. (https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/07/ukraine-the-bear-caught-the-kraken-by-using-a-trick.html)
The militias that were manning that line until just a few days ago seem to have withdrawn to tenable positions in pretty good order (TTG seems to believe they left behind “sophisticated equipment”, though in the past he has always maintained they were poorly equipped:) and a massive evacuation of the civilian population is underway.
When that evacuation is complete I believe we’ll see the UAF caught out in the open while cut off from their lines of supply and retreat to be mauled by Russian artillery. It may seem to test credibility that the NATO planners would fall for the same ruse but hey, apart from their IO they’ve hardly shown their mettle in this war.
Time will tell.
TTG constantly post lies on ukraine war , his source is kiev news and british tabloids.
everything he said is a lie
Thank you for writing this Larry.
Cheers,
John
Hallelujah!….. Larry rides in with the facts: again!
As one famous Russian General said… “I read his damned book!”
…………. Or was that Hollywood Patton, in his damned movie?
Over too the Salty Bear for the mathematics and equations, just to prove makeup and gender pronouns don’t cut it in any war.
Just sayin.
Ramius. Hunt for Red October.
A basic theory of Judo is to let your opponent move first, then respond by throwing off them off balance with a minimum of effort. Did it a few times in competition and it works wonders, feeling a 180-pound guy fly over your head light as a feather, with a shocked look on their face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoi_nage
We’ll just have to see Russia’s response to Ukraine’s all-out thrust in Kharkov.
Masterful analysis, sir. Your logic is impeccable. It really does seem like Russians have lured the Ukro-NATO forces into a trap.
My only concern is, why the huge freakout in the pro-Russian blogosphere? Your buddy Martyanov says it’s due to a lage Ukrainain psy-ops.
Screw blogosphere, my only concern is another Bucha happening.
What of the dead getting up and walking away after they thought the camera had passed them…
I am not talking abot them, but about those tortured and killed for being “colaborators”.
Few observations: so, far Russia didn’t do any mistakes in her strategic games. If you doubt that, just look at the energy crises in Europe, and how the Russian economy managed everything the ‘collective waste’ has thrown at her. So, I see absolutely, no reason to perceive any changes in that course of well thought ‘go game’ movements (or is chess?)
My understanding is that the Russian military by Putin’s order has to protect the Russian soldiers, the communities of Ukrainian/Russians, if possible, the big cities, and the common Ukrainian soldiers. That is quite a task that Russian military agreed to achieve. Since, it’s not as simple as carpet bombing a large town into ruins and declare victory (AKA US/NATO style of war)
I’ll point you back to the Putin’s orders: de-nazification and de-militarization of Ukraine, NOT territory gains. Russia is already the largest country on earth, and few more sq km means nothing to her. The 10,000+ Ukrainian soldiers KIA in the last 2 weeks, fall into under that order.
So, just wait, because the winter is not here, yet, when the hell will break loose
You act as if Putin has anything to do with EUs issues. He didnt. Europe’s problems are 100% self inflicted. Putin foolishly sells enemies all they want but they self sanction and sink their own economies. Add in this embarrassing optics of SMO I think Russia is running a real risk of turning back mulipolarity as nations look away from Russian leadership and go back to default Western hegemony. Putin is far from a master tactician. Putin failed from outset – In Texas we “go big or go home” and he failed there too by going in light taking unnecessary casualties and moving at snails pace. I get banned from these echo chambers sometimes and thats probably Putins problem he doesnt listen to or had no tolerance for opposing viewpoints.
Russian mind and strategies are very different from a Texan mind.
A Russian will always keep as many channels open as possible to settle a dispute in the less violent way and as agreeable to everybody. I bet that right now the Russian channels are open for compromises.
The west interprets that as a weakness, but that is a fallacy proven over and over again throughout the history. Russians are anything but weak. They will make grind meat of anybody that dares to came close to the Russian land. They are smart, well armed, and patriotic.
I would not cross them
Agreed
The not so mighty US with NATO/Western vassals “went big” in Afghanistan then went home. It’s almost (probably definitely in your case) pointing out that Russia has and is making enormous efforts to avoid civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is the exact reverse of what the US has done in every war of the 20th/21st century where they DELIBERATELY destroy civilian infrastructure with no thought for civilian casualties. I refer you to Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq for recent examples,those cities were turned into rubble which concealed the corpses of thousands of civilians.
Larry:
I have read a lot about the competence of the Russian forces, and the horrendous losses of the Ukrainian army, but there is such a disconnect between what CNN says (for example) and what you say. When will the US be forced to face the truth on ground and what will that mean for the US politically (i.e. its power and relations with the world)?
Are the Russians keeping the pressure up, hoping for negotiations or for the Ukrainian army to collapse or revolt?
I get the sense that the BRICs countries are steadily increasing their cooperation and economic strength, and that the US has a short window to try to retain its dominance. I can’t see this working, but the US can and is doing a lot of damage via proxies like Ukraine. I suspect there will be a day when the UN general assembly votes to move UN headquarters away from New York, and it’s a symbolic act like this or something similar that will signal to the world the shift of power.
I’m not arguing that Russia’s military is perfect and does not make mistakes. But what the vast majority of western analysts do is portray Russia as a bunch of drunken, incompetent, barely literate slavs.
Right. Any read of military history shows that all armies make mistakes. The successful ones learn and adapt their doctrines accordingly. Russia’s armed forces seem fully capable of this. Not omnipotent but not a bunch of clowns either. Professionals.
What you are describing sounds similar to a moment in WW1 when the Germans deliberately pulled back their front lines to better prepared positions without painful salients and so forth. They conceded territory that the British / French armies had literally incurred tens of thousands of casualties fighting over just months previously. The territory was not the point.
Your comments make total sense and we will only know the full outcome for sure in the coming months. But I fully agree, the idea that such a large concentration of Ukrainian forces would have been completely unseen by Russia is fanciful. They no doubt “ran the scenarios” and took a decision that fighting to the last man for Izyum was not a sensible idea.
The challenge in the current environment is that we have a totally one sided propaganda campaign in the west, which pretty much every mainstream commentator is a paid up member of. Balanced analysis has gone out of the window.
Good that you are presenting a reality check!
“… The territory was not the point. …”
What about the (ethnic Russian) people situated on the territory? Is there any point to them?
There are various Telegram claims that many were evacuated. One night time long distance video shows Russian soldiers fighting to protect a civilian convoy and even being killed or wounded doing so.
Reality is that Russia does not deploy the millions of men that would be needed to man all the front lines continuously, and even then flexible defence would be needed. Otherwise, you end up like the French at Verdun.
Trade offs have to be made. Not perfect but it is what it is.
Agreed– 50 years of Hollywood movies assured that.
50 years of Hollywood movies assured that.
Many have the same questions, and same problems with their leaders, including myself. I had to change my SET point of view few times, and the reason is I had incomplete information. I can easy spot a lie, a BS, or just misunderstanding, but at the country level, my brain i not trained, yet.
A short as a primer is under my name.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/europe-energy-armageddon-from-berlin-brussels-not-moscow/5792005
The above link gives an interesting view from the economy point of view
I’m hoping to understand by the end of my life what is wrong with our species, why do we kill each other like is no tomorrow, and why do we do that every few generations. I mean 80 millions dead were not enough in the ww2?
No one feels another’s pain. The next generation ignores the suffering, the third generation has no memory of it. Then repeats the slaughter somewhere else.
Shakespeare and the Bible are both based on human failure. Both best sellers.
It’s the monkey brain or lizard.
Immigrants: the third generation is full of rage about injustice. They preface everything by their grandparents ethnic origins. Best example is New Yorkers they even break out in an affected accent. With the hands going.
10% Joe is Irish would you believe.
My grandmother was Irish but I don’t drink Guinness or kiss a sacred stone.
@cynical rex…
–>”but there is such a disconnect between what CNN says (for example) and what you say.”
My nephew (Army infantry sgt) served in Iraq (’04-’05), he’d send a weekly email from Camp Cooke/Taji (north of Baghdad), which I shared with friends. Their responses were almost exact as yours: his emails appear as a contradiction to what CNN reports.
Who ya gonna believe? A sitrep from a soldier in Iraq, or CNN’s selective reporting?
1,400 tons per day
That’s the supplies needed for a NATO style light Infranty Brigade in the field. Heavy combat increases the supply requirements.
Maybe better – that’s minimum 70 truckloads per day. Just sitting in the field. Maybe 50% more supplies for being engaged – say 100 daily
5 Brigades = 500 daily truckloads.
Now look at the breadth of the Kiev/NATO salient – imagine 500 trucks running around every day in that geography.
See-wadda-I-mean ?
Outstanding piece Larry. Thank you.
Larry , whats your take of this guy and his blog ? is he spreading BS Psyops nonsense ? he acted like he knew more than you guys but i doubt he have access to real data except MSM sources.
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/09/10/total-russian-collapse-in-e-kharkov/
“…..and to Martyanov and Larry Johnson and the “New Atlas” guy and all the other blind and illiterate alt-pundits who BS’ed you or else just fell silent in recent days (for those who follow that stuff, probably not my original GOP list readers.)
The U.S./Ukrainian offensive has taken most of Kupiansk almost without a fight, and the Russian army group in Izium is being evacuated, leaving behind thousands of tons of gear and ammo.”
he seemed like deranged and have axe to grind with you and matraynov
He’s a fool. He was an enlisted guy in the US Army. NO EXPERIENCE with JOPES or planning the movement of troops. He’s gone off the rails.
Andrei and I both tried to help him in the beginning. His analysis of the economic issues was sound. He’s now out of his depth and conducting himself in the most shameful manner. He’s now burned some bridges that he’ll regret. My door is closed to him.
What is your opinion of Russian ‘Reflexive control’?
What is that? I’m not familiar with the term.
agreed larry , i find it strange for someone to ‘act like a fool’ just to attract viewers. His needless rant turned off many people off his site and his stance of ‘i am the right one’ even when he have no access to real data from Russian MOD smacks of him acting out as useful idiots for USG (at best) or another psyops / IPSO guy like TTG from SST..
this ukrop offensive is accompanied by a massive psyops and propaganda drivels on the social media.. i find it hilarious to see the new trolls posting in Moon of Alabama , Saker , Matraynov.. they kept posting obvious ukrop talking points and acting like everyone is fool for believeing in russia that they outed themselves like balls on a buldog..
> i find it strange for someone to ‘act like a fool’ just to attract viewers.
You shouldn’t. This is what people – especially my generation and younger – do on the internet. Chase clout.
There is one obvious flaw in his analysis:
> North of Kupiansk, it’s likely Russia will have to retreat almost all the way to its own border (although if Uncle Sam tells his dogs, “feel free to cross the border“, anything is possible.)
If the plan really is to hit the Russians on their front porch, there’s lots of other border to do it on. Of course if that happens, Russia will have the justification to mobilize her entire armed forces. I am certain neither side wants that.
I saw that he obliquely criticized The Duran in a comment. Seems unhappy that people earn reasonable remuneration from alternative media; but The Duran guys have to pay the rent and feed the family. Not many of us have the luxury of unlimited time and no requirement to earn money!
Brian Berletic / The New Atlas seems very much to take the same view as you. I am not qualified to judge but my sense is that his analysis is usually very high quality and rational. Would be interested in your view if you have formed one.
We should note, too, that Dreizin’s appearance on The Duran, by his own admission, garnered him many new subscribers. He said he was grateful for this but his subsequent commentary says he’s really not. Jacob appears to be the type we used to refer to in school as a fathead. In the post we are discussing here, he mentioned that he’s a hermit. I think I can correctly guess why that is.
To be fair, Dreizin’s various replies to comments then make the point that he is fine with the Duran guys earning a living. Just sees himself as in a different “niche” to all the other blogs I guess. Diversity is good, although burning bridges is never smart!
It should also be noted that Dreizin himself recently decided to post no more about Ukraine on his blog. Why? Well, because the war was basically all over save for the shouting, the Russians were winning, Jacob was bored talking about the matter, and thus he would concentrate on other more important matters at his site from now on. But then the Kharkov offensive happened and Dreizin saw the opportunity to lambaste other bloggers, some by name, and so it was suddenly ” back to Ukraine” for him. Evidently his previous boredom had somehow managed to evaporate overnight!
He lives near the Pentagon, no?
For a while he was doing interesting analysis of the Ukraine situation. Speaks Russian and seemed to have some good resources. However, thin-skinned reactions and preoccupation of being the one who was right, as well as lashing out in a wholly unprofessional and insulting manner against the Duran, the New Atlas, Larry, Matryanov, Scott Ritter, many of whom were supportive of him is completely unnecessary and is now his main focus. It is sad because he is an intelligent person, who seems very unsettled emotionally.
Yep, his ego is out of control.
Agree with this. Russians biggest mistake was going in light allowing enemy more votes. Never allow the enemy a vote in a fist fight or war. Russia has allowed thousands of Ukrainan and NATO votes and I believe before this war is done NATO will be on the ground in Urkaine not fearing Putin at all. I’ve said it may times here.
To put it simple, Jacob Dreizin has a real big chip on his shoulders, gets extremely jealous of other bloggers, he has lost it!
Concur with Larry. I also did ops planning for exercises for years. UKR forces will soon face the same consequences as German forces at Bulge. (My grandfather was wounded by artillery there.)
Mine nearly lost both feet to frostbite marching alongside Patton. He was never a great fan of the general.
Very clear explanation about the military planning from Russia. Many videos and commentaries are criticizing how the Russian were totally unprepared for this Ukrainian
military offensive. Thanks
Mr Jhonson,
Your interpretation makes a lot of sense. Soon we will see the results of the russian counterattack. If it is successful, the Russians are military geniuses and you and Mr Martyanov are the best military analysts.
Three questions:
1. Is defensive line stabilized yet or redeployment is still on?
2. What can Russia do if another 50,000 troops attack happens in Donbass?
3. What new counter offensive capability Russia has to turn it around in Kharkov that they don’t have in Donetsk, where they haven’t been yet able to defend capitol city?
People don’t seem to agree that leaving behind Russian passport holders under Ukraine shows Russia doesn’t care. They have short memories. Recall how things were in Kherson earlier on, until they showed they were to stay.
is this 3 questions directed to russian MOD ? because no one have hard data on the ground truth of the battlefield hour by hour and the strategic outlook of the battlefield right now
The biggest damage of this whole kerfuffle is the impression that those that are here to stay can just leave. Trust is hard to gain but easy to lose.
Larry:
You, Andrei, Alex, Douglas and others who cheer for the Russians have lost your sense of balance. I am sure that NATO/AFU are ecstatic by the early results of the offensive. I am equally sure that the Russian military are angry among themselves over how ill-prepared and how incapable has been their response has been so far to slow down and disorganize the Ukrainians or to inflict heavy casualties.
This is a serious setback for the SMO which is intended to dis-arm and to de-nazify Ukraine. It can be overcome and losses reversed. But don’t sugarcoat it.
I am not going to play “armchair general” and offer recommendations on changes to the use of force or tactics, which would turn defeat into victory.
The Russians has been resilient and tough enough to suffer devastating setbacks and still prevail. Since the Novgorod period, they can sustain losses and then recover to win over the Mongols, over the French, over the Germans, and -eventually- over the Americans too. But, it may take years.
You really don’t understand. What is your source of information? Your “understanding” is based on what?
Larry:
I am not going to present my “credentials” to you as a way to support my understanding what the situation is.
I respect your credentials, as well as others who present themselves as experts.
“Dimar” has presented his estimate (or speculation, if you prefer) at the military summary channel, which is serious.
I feel that I can identify with the Russian-Ukrainians who have been left behind by retreating Russians. I feel that I can identify with the Russian soldiers who had to retreat under fire as the military situation was enveloping them.
Having never served above battalion level, I cannot appreciate how a general staff would react to these conditions. But, having served as a junior officer with a man who retired as a Lieutenant General, I base my conjecture on what a man like him would feel about what has happened in the Kharkov-Kupyansk- Izyum region.
War is hell. As a non-military person but a medical professional you have to balance risks and who gets your attention and support every day.
Question– did you personally experience in a military situation what you “feel you can identify with of the Russian/Ukrainians”?
yes. 1971-1972 and 1975
I look for common sense, logic, and a calm assessment of events in the people who act as analysts and commentators of current events. That’s why I keep returning to Larry’s blog.
This “retreat” was almost too clean, especially compared to the scenes of Ukraine leaving Severodonetsk.
Also notice the long columns of civilian cars getting out. More evidence of pre- planning.
As someone who has lived through Yugoslav Wars, i can tell you that columns of civilians are not an evidence of pre planing.
Did much of this recent activity have anything to do with the referendum in Kherson district on September 11? Supposedly the people were to vote to become a part of the Russian Federation. The Ukrainians definitely are trying to scare Kherson. Their desperation, I think, is going to backfire on them terribly.
When it comes to Ardennes Americans were lucky when German VI Panzer Army was led by most incompetent WW2 army commander, Sepp Dietrich. The arrogance but also the lack of traffic discipline of SS forces generally made many Wehrmacht commanders furious. The myth of Waffen SS as “elite army” should finally be debunked.
Source: Christer Bergström, Ardennes – Hitlers’s Winter Offensive
Interesting analysis Larry. Hope that you, Andrei and Brian are right.
All the best
In an age where attention spans are ever shorter, and expectations of quick and glorious victories know no bounds, I find that reality can be a bit boring. But in the end it’s often the boring and mundane that appear to win the day. Slow and steady wins the race.
Not only can reality be boring, but I’ve heard it said on more than one occasion the Russians have been running a “boring” war. This seems driven by the relatively small amounts of Russian infantry committed.
Against this choice of execution the rapid changes on the ground appear quite dramatic. Its clear the Russians didn’t plan on defending this area vigorously, compared to the south. Against the continued willingness of the Ukrainians to send men into the meat grinder, I wonder if the Russians can continue with out more commitment of Russian troops, and not rely on separatist infantry.
Of course I have no idea, beside destroying the Ukrainian military, what long term goals the Russians have for territory in this part of Ukraine.
I hope Larry is right. Already I’ve seen pictures of “Ukraine prosecutors collecting war crime data”. Get ready for an avalanche of Buchas as Ukraine successfully (to the West) blames their reprisal killings on Russians. It worked beautifully once in Bucha expect these unimaginative melo drama liars to try it again. They give themselves away by adding too much. e.g. = If they stuck to russians shelling hospitals and schools instead of maternity wards and kindergartens it would be more believable.
A farmer had a horse and a son. One day, the horse died. All the neighbors said, “Oh, how bad.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.”
The next day, the neighbors got together and bought the farmer a new horse. They all said, “That’s a good thing.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.”
The following day, the horse threw the son while trying to break the horse. The son broke his arm. The neighbors all said, “Oh, how bad.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.”
The next day, the army came into the town, drafted all the young men, save the son with a broken arm. They all died in the first battle. The neighbors said to the farmer, “Oh, how good it was for your son to have a broken arm.” The farmer said, “We’ll see.”
Good tale. Reminds me of Wisdom 9:16 ” man hardly guesses aright…”
I have not met Dreizen but I feel confident that he is not very tall. I have suspected ‘Short Man Syndrome’ for quite a while now.
dunno about short men syndrome , napolen was quite small
Excellent and much appreciated analysis. Frankly, with so much information and commentary out there it’s hard to make any sense through the fog of war.
Thank you for being one of those who analyzes. And I would like your advise on Scott Ritter’s recent opinion, which I think is correct.
Namely, that the battle of Balaklay Izioum, is not a Ukrainian counterattack but rather the entry into action of a new NATO army.
And in this case, it seems right to take the time to observe the new conditions and prepare to respond differently than in the previous two episodes.
When the internet is filled with panic stories (or should I say panic-mongers?) it is important to stay based on facts and experience.
For example, it seems that the Russians have organized a massive sheltering of civilians, which contradicts some comments.
And personally I remember, having participated in it, that moving a simple armored regiment (4 dozen AMX30 and AMX10) of a few tens of kilometers, required 2 intense weeks of preparation and technical control. And I was only in charge of the mechanics, the logistics depending on another specific regiment.
And yet we were supposedly on permanent alert, waiting to be invaded by Soviet troops.
So I agree with S.Ritter’s analysis, this third phase that is starting does not change the war but will make it more expensive.
For Russia but much time more for Europe.
The anticipated Ukrainian revenge attacks could backfire, by hastening Kherson’s referendum to join Russian Federation and receive full protection.
All
Anyone who is a student of history of modern arfare know that a battle is not just a few days engagement to determine victory or defeat condition. This is not WW1 style trench warfare where when the enemy breached your trench line then your forward echelons are in trouble , although there’s the 2nd trench line to fall back to.
I think the outcome is obvious , unless NATO put boots on the ground overtly and put all their assets into ukraine. Russia will have no ‘setback’ or ‘in trouble’ in the end.
Remember rusia is facing an enemy that is supported by the whole western world. this is something to never lost focus on. russia is heading off multiple fronts , not just ground war in ukraine but internationally.
the massive propaganda and psyops you see now on the internet and media , in concordance with the ukraine ‘succesful’ offensive and ‘russian retreat’ are just another manufactured victory for the western masses. Sadly many on telegram and twitter and other social media succumbed into this psychosis and believe in the upcoming ‘defeat of russia’ mindset.
i think people who never read history of war and military operation should do well to learn from the past..
Look at Scipio Africanus’s campaign against the seemingly invincible cartagenian general hannibal. There’s plenty of minor setback experienced by Scipio yet the roman legions under him won the military campaign.
NATO delenda est.
The Russian generals are not going to sacrifice the Donbas militias to a meatgrinder with the Ukrainian hordes with “stones”. This militia will have an important role to play in the post-SMO world. Hence an orderly retreat to save the Donbas militias. We ‘armchair quarterbacks’ should instead be watching for the new ‘Conway Cabal’ of so-called pro-Russian propagandists who are trying to adapt to the ‘narrative from the alternate universe’ in the psyops war.
@Larry Johnson
‘He’s a fool. He was an enlisted guy in the US Army.’
A few months ago, I discovered the Dreizin Report on Rumble, purely on the recommendation of Mercouris.
First time I watched him I thought, How does Mercouris recommend a low octane loudmouth like this? Wasted time watching another video or two of his before trashing him.
I notice Mercouris too, no longer mentions him.
There’s no way to spin this, it is a major Russian defeat. That this wasn’t a planned withdrawl is evidenced by all of the Russian troops, ammo, equipment and supplies the Ukrainians captured, as well as Russian Colonel General Andrei Sychevoi who is one of the top commanders of the invasion. Also, look at all the Russian milbloggers on Telegram who also discuss the shock and disorganization of the Russian retreat. As much as you might not want to admit it, this was a humiliating defeat for Putin and the Russian Army.
How can it be a defeat until everything is over. They have not even held ground for a week. It’s a successful strike and advance so far. That’s it.
If you are judging the situation by Russian micro bloggers they are not that dissimilar to any other civilian and freaking out in a world where everything is instant instant instant
I’m sure you follow a sport. In a round of golf is the guy who hits a hole in one on one round guaranteed to win?
In the third round a boxer on the defensive counters and wins that round. Next round his opponent needs to bring the response. Or is it game over for you? Do you say squash in the rest of your hotdog and go home.
This is ONE battle in a war / SMO.
Territory taken not even 5% of territory Russia has captured.
But if the micro bloggers say it’s over just get up mid game and call it.
Losing a battle doesn’t mean losing the war. This is one big wake-up call and it requires proper action. Both defeatism and denial are bad.
Thank you .
Thanks for the illuminating comparison with the 1944 offensive in the Ardennes and explaining JOPES. But with regard to the present ‘Kharkov offensive’ of the UAF I would like you to explain the concept of ‘regrouping’ mentioned by the MOD of Russia. Doesn’t ‘regrouping’ mean here that the Donbass militia (who were looking after this liberated Kharkov area before the UAF offensive took place) are moving back to Donbass and that the RF (with assistance of Wagner & Kadyrov) is moving in?
This may also mean that the RF have been (in Russian JOPES style) preparing a counter-offensive towards Kharkov – making a virtue of necessity – after having dealt with the present desperate Ardennes-like UAF offensive. After the best soldiers of the UAF have been ‘kaltgestellt’ in the present encounter with the RF (+ Wagner + Kadyrov), the RF will probably not remain standing idle at the old frontlines, but advance towards encircling Kharkov. Who in the UAF will be able to stop them?
Another question: to what extent is the UAF functioning under the influence of drugs? Why are the UAF soldiers otherwise so ‘willing’ to become cannon-fodder in front of the force majeure of the RF?
Thanks for the BRILLIANT analysis… only THE NEW ATLAS + Andrei Martyanov + YOU (Larry) were COOL and looked at it in the LONGTERM.. and said Russia knew this attack was coming. Finally someone with SANITY spoke some truth… when i found out that the Russians GAVE AWAY numerous areas to the Ukrainians in 3 DAYS (WITHOUT A FIGHT), i was confident that Russia did that to REGROUP and GRIND the ENEMY with Artillery that has gathered. Andrei is right to TERM this as WHITE NOISE.. i agree one just needs to wait for the FOG of war TO CLEAR..
I think all the doom and gloom merchants need to calm down,,is it a set back? Maybe,, but I see it as an opportunity,an opportunity to destroy large numbers of well trained Ukrainian troops and huge quantities of nato supplied weaponry all of which is overextended etc,,so let’s wait and see how the Russian military responds
Russia, like any modern army has mobile reserves for which all resource allocation has been provided in advance, so they could be employed quickly.
Russian counterattack might eventually come, but I think this is not some elaborate trap and these reserve are poring in to try to stabilize the front.
According to Strelkov – https://t.me/s/strelkovii , Ukrainians have entered Izyum but the Russians have been able to set up a rear guard so it is not a complete route at least.
“I think”
Thank you for your illustration of “representative democracy” where “we the people hold these truths to be self-evident”, from which is derived “anti-intellectualism” facilitating conformance through social embarrassment, facilitating becoming further enmazed through broadcasting your “thoughts” as a function of the agency of your opponents, including yourself.
We should note, too, that Dreizin’s appearance on The Duran, by his own admission, garnered him many new subscribers. He said he was grateful for this but his subsequent commentary says he’s really not. Jacob appears to be the type we used to refer to in school as a fathead. In the post we are discussing here, he mentioned that he’s a hermit. I think I can correctly guess why that is.
Great analysis as always Mr Johnson. I’m taken back by the disregard to the Ukrainian force’s lives. The US has satellites looking at the battlefield as do the Russians. So the west could see the weakness of the front in this area. The Russians wanted it to look undefendable. The Russians by contrast could see the grouping of the Ukrainian force’s. Bring the Ukrainians out from behind the civilians and their bunkers. Get them in the open and close the trap. Could not the west understand the risk. Even some accounts of Ukrainian soldiers have expressed concern. They even feel themselves that they have moved to far to fast and it feels like a trap. However the west has shown no concern for Ukrainian soldiers lives. It’s more important now more than ever as the midterms are only a few weeks away. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
Hello, thank you for your analysis – it certainly highlights a possibility in this conflict (just like there is a possibility that the Russians simply failed here). Time will tell.
I would like to address the claim people make that it is to Russia’s and Putin’s advantage to drag this war on because EU and USA are suffering in economic terms. I don’t think this is the case. Putin is happy to sell things to the EU and make money. While he may say that he can sell everything to China, he is no fool – trading in one dependence for another would be a strategic, long term blunder. In other words, I don’t think he trusts the Chinese any more than he trusts the Europeans. In fact, he knows the Europeans are weak and have no military or other ambitions anywhere (sans the delusions of grandeur UK suffers) – he also knows that EU will never be able to back those ambitions up in the physical sense anyway – can anyone see the Dutch or the Spanish becoming a capable military force that would ever be a threat to Russia? China, on the other hand…..
I think Putin would ideally like to finish this conflict as soon as possible and let things go back to normal. The day this conflict is over, the Europeans are going to come back asking for gas and oil and things will normalize slowly but surely. In this context, I go back to what Belarus’ Lukashenko said a week ago – that this conflict will be over within a few weeks. We can all guess as to what he meant but it may be in line with this theory of yours that this is a Russian trap to inflict a demoralizing and massive defeat on the wide-open-stretched Ukrainians who appear to have gone all in.
People also say that a lot of channels like Rybar are falling for the Ukrainian psyops. How about the opposite – this is a Russian psyops to make the “maskirovka” even more believable – even the Russian telegram people are falling for it….
According to your analysis, why were there tens and tens of abandoned tanks etc.? (Unless you dispute all of those reports.)
Turn that coin over – if some type of generic mobile allocation had been done in advance – independent of where along the line the advance would come – that still supports larry’s point.
–> MoD was well aware of future need – somewhere – along the line and rather than fill in every single possible (strategically unimportant) gap – had made conscious decision instead to be ready to pounce when such an opportunity arises.
By the way – as i remember the Patton movie scene – the general says at that mtg (when his bold claims were met with incredulity) that his men had already drawn up plans – so sort of a nod toward the actual timeline.
It’s a feigned retreat, the favorite tactic of the Mongols.
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od4oGwbLjDs.
Now look at where the Mongol Empire controlled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od4oGwbLjDs
Also read the bio of Sergei Shoigu, from the Tuvan tribe based in Mongolia and Eastern Russia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Shoigu
In the next few days, Ukrainian soldiers who have left their bunkers and human shields behind will start to get picked off one by one. They will call for reinforcements, who will also get hit. Asking to retreat, they will be told to “die where they stand” and will do so.
This episode is shameful. How many times have we been told that the glacial pace of the SMO is due to Russia not wanting to hurt loyal civilians? But now, withdrawing from these towns, the first thing the Ukies will do is murder those same civilians!
This is an absolute disgrace, and Russia will pay the price for their lack of morals, sadly.
Do you realize how stupid your comment is? Russia is to blame for the Ukrainians killing civilians? Are you out of your mind or just trolling? You see, what is preventing Ukraine from treating the civilians the same way the Russians did–i.e., protecting them. We’ll change your name to Lord Shit for Brains.
Too right.
Russians are not attacking civilians and gave them a chance to evacuate.
If they stayed in place there would be MORE civilian deaths as the Natoukies would hit the residential areas to get them instead of by passing.
Do you understand.
What they have done draws fire AWAY from residential area.
Thanks! Your explanation why the Russians let it happen makes a lot of sense to me.
The logistics of moving troops and equipment into an area is something that presumably Russian satellites (and potentially intelligence) were able to see in real time. It is not like Ukrainian troops suddenly appeared at some location, out of nowhere. It is obvious that the Russians saw this occurring. The issue now becomes whether or not we agree with the Russian response. Should they have withdrawn? Should they have remained in place and fought? I suspect that the Russian military, in their extensive military planning, investigated each scenario, and chose the one they felt was more advantageous.
Beware! The Kharkiv counteroffensive might be a feint. Russian troops are amassed in that area, living unprotected western and southern flanks. Poland’s (NATO) plans could be to take advantage of the situation to move into Ukraine to launch an attack against the Russian forces.
Bear in mind, 300 000 ukro regular troops + 300 000 reserves + 100 000 foreigners – 100 000 dead : still 600k to face. So far no real involvement from the 300 000 Russian troops. Despite an overwhelming attrition rate, Zelinsky clan hopes that waves after waves Putin will be pushed to call for conscription and sparks outrage in Russia. Thus a change of regime. Putin believes that EU may buckle down this winter. It’s a close call.
Moscow leaves the negotiation open while Kiev brush it off until full victory. So now we know what to expect. It’s a full NATO Russia war and nuclear escalation has never been so close.
I have just watched 2000 tchetchens in full gear ready to go. Truly impressive. I wonder if North Korean support will be next
im sorry to say either you are taken by the endless lies from MSM (regarding NK or Iranian Drones or whatever lies they created) or you are trolling while pretending to be concerned for russia
I still think the Russians are too thin on the ground, and need firepower on the massed enemy formations, before and during these assaults.
I thought about this too…
1) its hard to believe that RUS didnt know from the get-go that spreading their troops across such a long frontline makes each point on the frontline susceptible to a concerted push.
makes no sense to fight if you know that the odds are very well stacked against you.
if this is true, then this also means that ‘holding ground’ was never a main objective- though i think the situation at Mariupol (with reconstruction going on) is a different story.
in fact, the closer we get to the black sea, the more the RUS are likely to hold ground?
2) its hard to believe that RUS didnt know that a bunch of armor and troops were moving/amassing on both the Kherson and Kharkov front.
i think “Military Summary” (a fans channel, as Martyanov pointed out) did in fact highlight the movement of some mechanized brigades…. if somehow the fanboys know, surely the professionals do?
if the above is true, then the question is- what would the RUS army do?
a) strengthen armor+troops at both Kher and Khar
b) strengthen armor+troops at Kher first
c) strengthen armor+troops at Khar first
d) maintain assault on Bakhmut-Artemosvk
e) activate BEL troops+armor on the northern front
f) activate massive bombings (flatten everything option)
either one, or do nothing?
i think RUS decided to do (b) as the black sea area is useful for diplomacy/negotiating (mid weight), while Khar is less so (low weight). LPR and DPR most likely has greatest weight in any negotiations and should be well defended already ( i hope).
so when UKR came a blazing at Khar, decision was made to quickly fall back to defensible positions, with air cover and artillery covering the retreat.
though im bemused as to why RUS did not actively blow up the troops+armor that were moving towards Khar for the current offensive…
because by not doing so, the UKR bulk is still intact and they can turn south to LPR+DPR… surely not to the RUS border?
though their supply lines are likely longer. in some ways, its back to 6mths ago- maybe this time, RUS has more targets to bomb as civilians are mostly evacuated.
strangely, this opens up a window for diplomacy- “Do you want round two of destruction?”
At the end of the day, aside from historical reasons, UKR (EU)-RUS are neighbors… and wars are ended through negotiations, not through absolute defeat…
and what does this mean given that it is clear that NATO/US is actively participating in the war short of committing troops? (i.e. sending money, machines/materiel, training UKR troops and sending foreign mercenaries?)
still thinking about that Lend-Lease Act…
im also thinking whether this is going to become Afghan war 2.0 for RUS… at some point, the sanctions will bite- chips, rare earth elements, production equipment etc.
War consumes a lot of those… and at some point in time, India, Iran and China are going to drive hard bargains…
This is a very ugly and unnecessarily provoked war. A civil war the collective west has armed, financed and managed in a desperate attempt to crush a rising competitor with zero concern for the suffering of the civilian population. The Russians appear to be going to great lengths to avoid unnecessarily harm to non combatants. The Ukrainian’s policy seems to be to terrorize the civilian population into compliance.
Are we to believe that the Russian speaking population is now going to turn their backs on Russia and cozy up to the Ukranians?
I think not.
I am sure someone has already brought it up. But my main observation was the civilians that supported Russia was left to the hands of these Ukraine Nazis. May have been the perfect plan for Russia. But these villagers may have felt betrayed by the retreat that left them alone.
They had an opportunity to escape to Russia, not even an hour from where they were. Some may even say this is why Russia made sure to give them passports, but that doesn’t fit the narrative of being abandoned now does it ?
I have come to understand that my Post was not the complete picture. I was not aware that these folks were given an opportunity to leave if they chose too. Thanks for getting my post straighten out.
There’s some congrats going around at the Turcopolier site, they always knew the tide would change somehow. I think this is about to get worse, much worse and is not a time to celebrate.
Putin’s goals are demilitarization and denazification. By demonstrating they care nothing for the lives of Ukrainian citizens, the NATO Nazis (“Natozis”?)are effectively de-nazifying their own people, who even if they don’t like Russians, will find them definitely the lesser of two evils. As for demilitarization – that means destroying the enemy’s military capabilities. As some has already remarked here, mobility warfare is not about taking territory – it is about doing damage. The Natozis have created what I call a “maginot grid” of fortifications where they can hide. So the Russians have to use a bit of bait to get them out where they can kill them. Four-day casualties for the UAF are estimated at about 4000 KIA and 8000 wounded. That’s 12,000 out of a force of 30,000 to 50,000! I write about it here: https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/the-failed-nato-nazi-offensive-in?sd=pf I agree with Larry. I would also point out that this is a kind of military judo. In using judo for self defense with a bigger opponent, you stay out of reach; he will attack and you can take advantage of his momentum and telegraphed moves — and drop him. Very effective on concrete. But you need a bit of room to do that.
~
Excellent report Larry…..On Target, on Glide path. The study of War shows its student’s that history repeats over and over in the current of time. Warfare is 90% logistical and planning and 10% actual fighting…..this is a well planned operational stroke of war to end the Ukie remaining functional army and bring ALL players to the talk table. The Rus have just removed one of the boxing gloves….72-96 hrs. Nothing happens by chance.
Sounds like the Russians set up the Ukrainians and NATO for an old fashion ambush. This has been a tactical military strategy since beginning of time. Surprised the Western military geniuses didn’t see it coming.
What motivates American men to work to support Zelensky and the color revolution cohort working worldwide to destroy Christendom?
Are they blind?
Need a paycheck?
Different frame of reference?
Thanks for your work, the post cheered me up.
Perhaps it is here in the Oasis of Soy Milk with Avocado Toasters that I can finally find someone to help me with this one question fill-in-the blank completion test. If I win, I have been promised not only a new pair of Jockey Shorts suspenders but all the vital suspension bridges on both the east and west coasts of the Continental United States of Utopia. The question is:
Nice
Guys
Finish
______
That’s it. Any help appreciated! Thank you very much with sugar or maple syrup or organic honey on top. Pito
Meanwhile, Ukraine faces total economic collapse and perhaps internal strife. From the estimable Adam Tooze:
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-149-success-on-the-battlefield
Interesting and educational.
I’m sure Hollywood is making a movie about Ze as well, apparently Blinken wants to be played by Brad Pitt or a transvestite.
A key moment in film will follow the line circulating online that seems clear PR, that’s that the NATOukies assault was for the nuclear plant where Russia has heavy reinforcements, but Ze in a moment of deep insight while snorting coke on a toilet seat, stood up and said,
“No, turn right for Gods sake, attack Izyum!’
So they turned and the prophet was blessed and the offensive poke was successful. The people bowed to Ze and Blinken and cried with joy.
The End.
Hollywood best end there.
The Russian article https://svpressa.ru/war21/article/345530/ explains why the frontline near Balakliya used to be quiet and perhaps underprotected from the Russian side. There exists (existed) the only gas producing facility on the Ukranian side of the frontline. The Russian command left this facility untouched in an unspoken agreement with the Ukranians to keep this facility functioning during the coming winter. But Zelensky broke this agreement with the ‘Kharkov offensive’. At present the Russian Air Forces attack the gas production facility (and other strategic energy hubs such as power stations etc.), which seems to announce the oncoming attack on Kharkov. Anyway, thanks to the UA president the civilians of Ukraine will experience a winter season of cold and blackouts.
Oblomovka daydream says
Yep, gas producing facilities, electric power production, cell towers, are probably all now in play for the Russians. Gonna be a long cold dark Winter I suspect. I feel for the people, it’s too bad what they will suffer now after Zelensky went all in.
What is interesting to me is what is going on behind this strike. I will not call it an offensive yet.
The build up in Poland is significant. I have friends in British special forces and air force as well as mercenaries being offered huge sums.
I get the sense that Blinken really is fucked in the head. He really wants this Churchill messiah status as desperately as Boris Johnson and and Truss.
To me there is nowhere near enough consideration of the absolute danger of NATO escalating against a nuclear state.
I mean are they insane?
Do they not understand why the nuclear deterrent was so important.
I always thought Pentagon had wise heads. It would stop before things got mad and out of hand.
This is now basically an open war between NATO and Russia. For what?
If these morons are stupid enough to push this much where does it end? Seriously. What is there end game?
What if they can’t push Russia back, take Crimea, overthrow Putin, install Puppet, get money and power, kill rival and threat, weaken China.
Have they thought for one minute seriously what this entails and what can go wrong.
You can live with the downside of a conventional war going wrong. You get out and dust off.
We now have nuclear powers facing off and the most dangerous reckless regime in US history with corrupt or weakened Pentagon and intelligence services.
Go back 24 months and think how mad this is.
There is no good outcome from this and no end in sight.
There is no Mandela or Koffi Anan or mother Teresa who actually give two shits about humanity speaking up. Instead it’s a banana republic of a world.
This strike in that context is just one more straw on the nuclear bomb carrying camels back driven by mad men. Pray for our children.
Chechen leader Kadyrov, close Putin ally in Russia:
“They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” Kadyrov said in an audio message posted to his Telegram channel on Sunday.
“If today or tomorrow no changes in strategy are made, I will be forced to speak with the leadership of the defence ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground to them. It’s a very interesting situation. It’s astounding, I would say,”
As best I can tell from different reporting, the size of the Ukrainian forces involved is about 5 Brigades – 15,000 – 20,000 men. This seems inadequate to me for the “offensive” to represent something that had as a goal, the things that have been achieved.
What we have seen and the small size of the AFU force suggests to me, that the Russians did indeed get wind of this, but just a few days before it went off. They made the decision to get out of the way – as Mr. Johnson suggests. If they also set the plans in motion for a counterstrike, we should see evidence of that in the next days.
I suspect that the speed of advance has caught the Ukrainians by surprise. There must be frantic efforts within the AFU to send in more forces that were not originally tasked to this effort.
But now, they are up against a significant water barrier at the Oskol. Some evidence for the Russian story will be confirmed if Russia easily holds whatever crossings there are over this barrier.
The main threat to Ukraine forces are in the North. Not sure what the threat is like in the south. From the Russian POV, one would think they would want to maintain a credible threat there.
What does seem clear is that 15,000 AFU troops, is pretty light in these circumstances. Perhaps there are many more Brigades pouring in. But that has not been the impression I’ve gotten so far.
The strike force is 90% non-Ukranian according to people on the ground.
It’s Brits, poles, Croats etc. So far Americans seem limited in number and largely in senior positions. Brits seem to be the lead force and definitely army unite not mercenaries.
The ukranian.army was finished as a fighting force long ago. This is not the Ukrainian army, this is a NATO strike with a small minority Ukrainian contingent.
Unfortunately Russia has to and is escalating taking out power water etc which is shit for civilians. Rail demolition and bridges may be next.
Kiev doesn‘t have the staff to manage more than 5 brigades in heavy combat. And the NATO commanders are learning this PDQ
In my opinion how else was Russia going to draw out the Ukrainian army out of the wooded area. I rather listen to educated experts with real experience than listen to all the hype.
Larry,. You could be right. This was the strategy God commanded Joshua to do in order to destroy the city of Hai and it’s inhabitants. See Joshua chapter 8. https://www.drbo.org/chapter/06008.htm
Why isn’t Russia preventing NATO weapons and supplies from reaching the battlefront?!
They are smuggled in civilian vehicles, and alongside humanitarian aid.
I think Driezin has a day job and may have been told to get off the bus, hence his
over the top recent post. The Duran , I believe, are professional full time bloggers.
What is so odd about this is he is behaving like a hurt child and I have not said one disparaging thing about some of his recent idiotic posts. I just ignored them. Yet, he seems to have real issues about what Andrei and I have written. A mature adult, an intelligent person, would write out their alternative view and asked to engage Andrei or me in a discussion. Nope. Not for little Jacob. He comes out throwing insults and ad hominem without warning. He is now relegated to go sit at the kiddies table. He’s not ready for an adult conversation. His bridges to me are burned and will not be repaired. My wish for him is that he reaps what he has sown.
personally i think dreizin cannot hold mature conversation , given his childish way forcing people to follow his ‘spelling’ in the comment section. Mature adult would never resort to childish retort and insult but he seem frustrated after getting demonetized and his real self emerges and what we see now is his real face.
i quit visiting or even commenting on his site due to the rabid and over the top rants , which might suit a younger generation
Re discussions re military strategy and history it seems unfortunate the Mongol generals have been overlooked. In particular, the Mongol general Subutai (c. 1175–1248) who some regard as the pre-eminent general of all time. For an enjoyable history of the Mongols see ‘Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World’ by Jack Weatherford. Re the general Subutai see the very decent Wikipedia article ‘Subutai’ [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai ].
For me, several things stand out .. his forces were almost always far smaller than his opponents, his extensive use of spys, intelligence networks, subterfuge and related; the unbelievable geographic extent, terrain and varied cultures which he encountered; his favorite offensive season was winter since the rvers were frozen; and everything else !!
Excerpt from the wiki Introduction:
” Subutai was a Mongol general and the primary military strategist of Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan. He directed more than 20 campaigns and won 65 pitched battles, during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history as part of the expansion of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in human history.[1] He often gained victory by means of imaginative and sophisticated strategies and routinely coordinated movements of armies that operated hundreds of kilometers apart from each other. Subutai is well known for the geographical diversity and success of his expeditions, which took him from central Asia to the Russian steppe and into Europe. ”
Some excerpts from the wiki article’s as a General section:
” Subutai was a major innovator in the art of war. In the invasions of China, Russia, and Europe, Subutai routinely coordinated large forces often separated by large distances. Subutai’s maneuvers were designed to mislead his foes and strike them from unexpected directions. The Mongol invasion of the Jin in 1232 continually pulled the hitherto successful Jin forces apart despite their highly advantageous terrain, as they could not determine which Mongol armies were the feints and which were the true threats until their main army became isolated and starved. Strongly fortified locations would be bypassed and ignored until all organized resistance had been destroyed. Sieges would be
limited to critical or vulnerable locations; in other situations, the Mongols either left a blockading force, or simply ignored fortified citadels and devastated the surrounded agriculture so that the remaining people would starve if they remained within fortified walls.[12]
In contrast to the common perception of steppe horse archer armies slowly weakening their foes with arrows for many hours or even days, such as at the battle of Carrhae or the battle of Manzikert, Subutai fought in a much more decisive and fluid manner where heavy firepower was used to create openings for rapid cavalry charges with deep formations. At the battle of the Kalka River in 1223, Subutai’s 20,000 man army routed the 80,000 man Russian army by stringing it out after a 9-day retreat, and then immediately turning and delivering a decisive charge without a prolonged missile bombardment. The vanguard of the Russian army was already put in flight before the second wave even reached the battlefield and began to deploy.[13]
Subutai was one of the first Mongol generals, alongside Genghis Khan, who realized the value of engineers in siege warfare. Even in field battles he made use of siege engines. In the Battle of Mohi, the Hungarian crossbowmen repelled a night bridge crossing by the Mongols, and inflicted considerable casualties on the Mongols fighting to cross the river the following day. Subutai ordered huge stonethrowers to clear the bank of Hungarian crossbowmen and
open the way for his light cavalry to cross the river without further losses. This use of siege weapons was one of the first recorded uses of artillery bombardments against the enemy army to disrupt their resistance while simultaneously attacking them. In execution, his usage functioned more akin to the creeping barrage of World War I,
used to soften and disrupt enemy lines right before an attack.[14]
Like Genghis Khan, Subutai was a master at creating divisions within the enemy ranks and surprising them. The terrifying Mongol reputation, combined with highly effective spy networks that spread discord, as well as incentives to key local leaders, prevented his opponents from effectively uniting and fighting at their full capacity. ”
Highly recommend reading further, and hopefully people find this as informative as I have.
The Slavs have Mongol blood. Hence why they call themselves snow n* in terms of house West European see them.
Russia has over 120 ethnic groups. Each with long memories.
All with Mongol blood at some level.
Although the Ukrainians experienced devastated losses in the Kherson offensive, they achieved a moral victory by forcing the Russians to withdraw from towns around Kharkov! If we look back at Russia’s mistake in this long conflict, we can see that the first mistake was to allow the coup in Ukraine to succeed in 2014. The second strategic Russian mistake was not to accept the Donbas/Donetsk into Russia as Crimea. The third mistake was to agree to the Minsk agreements, which failed miserably. The fourth mistake was this SMO. Before this SMO Russia left considerable assets in the west so they may be confiscated. All this was to prove that Russia adheres to law and order and resorts to force only as a last resort. In a delusional goal to belong to the west, the Kremlin effectively caged themselves by trying to operate within the confines of international law that Washington and NATO ignore on a regular basis. The next provocation maybe in the form of agitating the former, but now independent, Russian provinces (don’t underestimate our CIA). They must have known that Trump’s downfall was due to his attempt to normalize relations with Russia. In the face of such powerful evidence as Trump’s demise, how was it possible for the Kremlin to hold on to its delusions and continue to speak of “our Western partners?”
Russia is a great country and their aspiration for peace and free trades with the west is genuine, but the Kremlin has seriously miscalculated the real situation. Their tolerance of insults and provocations has encouraged more, and the provocations are on the verge of initiating a war that will destroy the Western world.
I’m sure Mr. Putin will be calling you up and ask for your sage advice. I do not know how he has gotten this far without you in his corner.
Ash,
“He really wants this Churchill messiah status as desperately as Boris Johnson and and Truss.”
Indeed, they all want their Churchill messiah status, right up to the point when he took himself off to lead an infantry battalion on the western front….. 🙂
Late post. Looks like Putin may have been shaken awake. Infrastructure hits all over Ukraine. This should have been done months ago. There does not need to be a single light bulb on in Nazi held territory. And these railways the scum Western leaders take to kiss Zelensky’s ring? Why is a single one operating? Christ almighty. It is about time. Turn off the lights. Kill all travel. And the next time a Western leader is in Kiev? Kalibr the living shit out of it. Make the photo ops expensive. It is about time.
Hi,
One should probably consider the implications of prosecution of war on the post war peace. Plunging the Ukrainians into darkness and extreme poverty may not improve the post war prospects of a reasonably peaceful resolution.
The Russians saw what happened to Germany after WW1 and how that beget the Nazis. They may not want to repeat the experience with Ukraine.
It is not the average ordinary Ukrainian who is responsible for this war, it is a product of the Tyrants on the Potomac and their silly Bulldog, Poodles and Chihuahuas of Europe.
Winning the ordinary Ukrainian over, or at least minimising their displeasure would seem a sound strategy. Measured and considered use of military power is the best way to achieve this.
As Oscar Wilde may have said; to humiliate the Ukrainian elites may be considered unfortunate, humiliating the ordinary people could be considered carelessness.
The war against the war
Mario Drumond
To begin with, it is necessary to put things as they really are on Ukrainian territory: Russia has not invaded and is not invading Ukraine. Russia has started a special military operation to defend Ukraine from the Nazi-Nato invasion that began in 2014.
It is, therefore, on Russia’s part, a strategy of defense and not of attack.
And this is what Putin does not tire of repeating all the time and, apparently, nobody hears, nobody sees, nobody understands. Or do not want to hear, do not want to see, do not want to understand. And the worst blind is the one who doesn’t want to see – the saying goes.
But Ukraine is not Russia’s (and humanity’s) big problem at this historic moment. It’s a (small) part of it.
At the global-strategic level, Russia and China are united in a war (hidden and unconventional) against the Third World War, which is considered by NATO as the only chance to save the AngloZionist capitalist empire and, also, of its own reason to exist. But this enemy of ours (of humanity) knows that, with each passing day, his chances of being able to deflagrate it are smaller, which is all that matters to him now and at any cost, because success (victory) is no reachable for him..
Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO (and its owners) have been seeking, by all means, to either provoke Russia into starting it or find a reason for doing so “through Russia”. Through the provocation tactic, NATO only managed from Russia, in the countless attempts made throughout these eight years, a “special operation” restricted to the territory of Ukraine and to the defense of its Russian origins, which, due to the purely regional and almost homeland of the matter, does not in itself justify the long-awaited NATOnian apocalypse.
Even so, the Russian “attack” (or “invasion”) was unexpectedly carried out with great parsimony and moderation, exclusively and surgically aimed at military objectives in addition to the evident concern for the preservation of civilian lives and infrastructure. And things started to drag and take longer than NATO expected.
And NATO is in a hurry, in a hurry.
It is no longer necessary for experts to collaborate to verify the increasingly evident collapse of the pillars that support AngloZionist financial capitalism, which, by the way, are the same that support NATO and the Western arms industry. The ruin of this world of absolute cruelty is perceived very close and with it the despair of its beneficiaries, still very powerful and capable of causing great destruction, damage and human suffering, which they are already perpetrating openly, without any concern for cover-up.
Out of the blue, in recent months, the spokespersons of this damned empire through their MSM (mainstream media) have started blaring that “Russia cannot win” in Ukraine with its SMO (Special Military Operation).
Why not? – nobody asks. Can’t, done and done!? And if Russia win? – no one asks either, but NATO from the beginning of the SMO began to prepare for Russia’s victory, that for it the sooner it came the better, to justify the outbreak of the great war, because “Russia cannot win” (and if Russia win we will get Ukraine back, it goes without saying) and the entire brainwashed population in Europe and the US (the 99%) categorically agrees with the “axiom” repeated a thousand times by the mouth of every president and other high-ranking authorities of all NATO countries.
But hell, Russia almost won, but didn’t… And now it seems to be losing??!!…
And NATO needs this new world war immediately, before winter in Europe without Russian fuel, my God!
The window of time is closing for NATO to justify the long-awaited Third World War of all NATO countries against Russia and then against China. A war that would justify the cold and hunger of the 99% of Europeans during the winter, of course, because “Russia cannot win” and all “for the salvation of democracy”. After all, “war is war”.
But just now does Russia decide to retreat, to lose? If Russia doesn’t win, how can NATO justify its all-out war? Shouldn’t Ukraine win? It’s winning…
For the one who writes these lines, the above has always been the clearest and most plausible explanation of the entire Russian strategy since the beginning of the SMO on Ukrainian territory. The overzealous choice of targets, the slowness of operational maneuvers, the economy of troops on the ground, the apparent indecision or weakness of the operation in the face of a clearly inferior enemy, the little concern and inconsistent defense against MSM informational attacks, among other aspects that are obscure to public understanding, it has left analysts stupefied, confused or even embarrassed (almost all, pro-Russians and pro-fascists, competent and “couch” ones).
Meanwhile, on the macro level, the Kremlin has taken control of the situation and world power.
All the eyes and ears of the world are attentive to the mysterious building in Moscow, where Putin dispatches, calm and satisfied. Nobody knows what he and the leadership that surrounds him, together with the General Staff of his mighty Armed Forces, will say or have them say or do tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week, next month or who knows when at any time. For recent history demonstrates that each movement of this team of genius statesmen is always a surprise to the world and a reason for hope for the great majorities and despair for the small group of the enemies of humanity.
While the political, economic, social, cultural and moral ruin of the “West” lays bare itself before the world and is also moving towards its military ruin and the decomposition of its filthy sand castles (real and virtual), Russia is moving towards end this year 2022 as an undisputed great world power and, together with China, will consolidate, in the coming years, at a global level and well grounded in international law, the already inaugurated (by brilliant geopolitical alstrategy of the Kremlin) the multipolarity economical, political and cultural, thus enabling the dream of sovereignty and national identity of democratic revolutions around the world.
And there will be no shortage of time for the Russians to solve their problems with the Nazi-fascism that occupied Ukraine, which has been demonstrated historically.
Belo Horizonte, September 11, 2022 (sad date).
Putin has said that command centers where attacks on Russia are planned will be considered targets.
Perhaps it’s time for a couple of Kalibrs to land in Ramstein.
It seems to me that the Russians have prioritized the southern Ukrainian corridor to Crimea over Donetsk. I simply cannot believe that the Russians couldn’t clear out the Ukrainians who have been continually shelling civilians in Donetsk. Putin boasts, (and Andrei M.) about Russia having superior weaponry, pin-point accuracy, superior forces etc, yet the Russians haven’t cleared out a force that is essentially using WW1 trench warfare tactics to maintain its position. It shouldn’t have taken over six months to fix this problem and still no end seems to be in sight.
This is BS. This has let down the people of Donetsk of whom the protection against persecution by the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist is one of the major justifications for the SMO. If the Russians are worried about collateral damage to civilians in Donetsk why not evacuate the people most at risk to clear the way? Donetsk isn’t that big and over two million have fled the region to Russia as a consequence of the Ukrainian attacks anyway.
The intense and effective Russian reaction to the Kherson counter attack by Ukraine shows how important Russia believes the South is over the North.
A cynical person like me might conclude that the security of, and access to, Crimea is what the SMO is really all about. It would also appear from their latest actions that Russia sees the cutting of Ukrainians access to the Black Sea in order to curtail potential Ukrainian and NATO threats to Russia’s Black Sea fleet as a high priority.
If Russia doesn’t fix the Donetsk problem before winter then, people in the Global South and China might suspect, as I do, that Russian intentions have been all along about military strategy, Russia’s security and not at all about the de-Nazification and humanitarian objectives. And that they have been using others i.e. DPR to do a lot of the dirty work. If Russia wants to convince the skeptics of the Global South as to the authenticity of Russian’s empathy for ordinary people they will need to move this particular pot to the front burner and fix the Donetsk “problem.”
Putin needs to piss or get off the pot.
“Putin needs to piss or get off the pot.”
Mr. Rove mistakenly thought that you needed to be an Empire to have others respond to their own interpretations of “your reality”.
Hopefully you are not requiring usage of the pot through a “deficit” of incontinence pads in environments of full bladderdom?
“A cynical person like me might conclude that the security of, and access to, Crimea is what the SMO is really all about. It would also appear from their latest actions that Russia sees the cutting of Ukrainians access to the Black Sea in order to curtail potential Ukrainian and NATO threats to Russia’s Black Sea fleet as a high priority.”
A cynical person like you would be right. Vikram also made good points, for which he earned nothing but personal abuse from echo-chamber dittoheads.
Calling this part of a plan is not even cope. It was sheer incompetence and a betrayal of the people who will now be at the mercy of Ukrainian extremists.
“I am not privy to the Russian plan. But what I do know is that the planning process required to deploy the troops and equipment moving into Kharkov was not a panicked response. Hollywood can create the illusion of rapid movement of military troops, but the real world requires alerting units, making sure they are properly supplied and then undertaking the logistic task of moving those units into combat. This means the planning was deliberate, not a crisis response.”
This last sentence, “This means the planning was deliberate, not a crisis response.” – not saying what you said is wrong, I don’t have the qualifications or the data for that, just a doubt, then, why was Lieutenant General Roman Berdnikov relieved of command?
Thank you for your time, in advance. Take care.
I’m really not a military strategist. I’ve absorbed Slavsquat’s, Martyanov’s take on this, listened to Mercouris and Ritter and the only comment I have on all this is: THE PARTY IS NOT OVER UNTIL THE FAT LADY SINGS… Let’s wait for this.
I’ve been rooting for the Russian narrative as it makes a lot more sense than the western one. If they don’t win this decisively, I don’t know what will become of this world…
So much nonsense in this analysis,it makes me laugh.
Vikram C
“There are better ways of doing counter offensive than betraying local population …”
I think Russia will stick to their plans to destroy Ukraine military and to de-Nazify Ukraine. Laying this trap for Ukraine will accomplish their goals better, in my opinion, than fighting to defend an area which has no strategic value and which in a single frontline battle would make it easy for Ukraine forces to simply withdraw when losing. As for protecting the inhabitants…most have already (weeks ago) withdrawn to safety via Russia’s invitation and urging.
Larry,
“But what I do know is that the planning process required to deploy the troops and equipment moving into Kharkov was not a panicked response. ”
I know nothing about military matters.
If you believe the Ukrainians, they have captured several thousands of square kilometres of territory.
And it seems to me that, as part of a supposed plan to entice the Ukrainians into logistically stretching themselves out so that they could be picked off by Russian artillery, the Russians were taking an enormous risk in allowing the Ukrainians to take huge swathes of territory that the Russians had spent blood and money capturing and then defending.
Surely no military force would take such a risk given the costs spent?
Would it not be better to hold the territory you have captured and continue to defend it by ongoing artillery action given you (supposedly) have artillery superiority?
The explanations just don’t make sense.
Henry,
You don’t just hold territory, especially land that is largely unoccupied. Sure, the Russians and the Donbas militias could have stayed in place and fought, but for what purpose? Getting good headlines in the West? It means nothing to the ultimate strategy of defeating Ukraine. What the Russians did, by ceding the territory, was to draw a sizeable Ukrainian force into the open where Russia can inflict decisive casualties while minimizing their own. Does that make sense?
Yes , it makes sense, if it has no tactical/strategic consequences other than to bolster your own, which presumably is what the Russians believed.
But then why did the Russians bother spending blood and money taking it in the first place?
Sorry for the questions, but, as I say, I am just a mug punter.
Reasonable questions. I have seen no evidence that Russia suffered significant casualties in their original move into the areas around Kharkov. They did what they have been doing in the south. Rely on medium and long distance fires and then move forward with few casualties. In every operation they are inflicting massive casualties on Ukraine. See my new piece about evidence for that.
“Getting good headlines in the West?”
Couldn’t it be a factor?
Morale and propaganda value are almost as important as on the battlefield performance, yes/no?
Are you assuming that Russia gives two shits about what the west thinks or believes? I think that train left the station back in February.
🙂
Not so much the West but Russia’s own people, its own military forces.
It has an impact on the opposition forces.
Larry,
Might be a CNN beat up?
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/16/europe/russia-putin-local-councilors-intl/index.html
This is what I am trying to get at.
The Russian retreat may have been planned etc. etc. but it has repercussions elsewhere. It might have reduced tactical/strategic risk but it has increased internal political risk and perhaps demoralized Russian combatants.
Even Xi’s backing off fully underwriting Russia’s war.
Larry,
Did you see my response to yours?
I’m not sure if I got thru.
Yes, see my reply.
I was put off by Dreizen’s insulting remarks and not putting out anything of substance himself.
I am glad you called him out on it.
I so respect you and the Duran, Brian Berletic and so many others!
May God bless you for your good work!
Thank you. As I wrote previously, I was shocked that Jacob did not reach out to me to have an adult discussion about potential differences. Instead, he opted for an ad hominem attack that exposed himself as an immature jerk.