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Decision Time in Ukraine
In the Land of Confusion podcast covering the six-month anniversary of the start of the Ukraine War, I stated that the behavior of the Ukrainians over the last six weeks struck me as consistent with their shaping the battlefield for an offensive around Kherson. The types of strikes that Ukraine had been making were designed to isolate Russian forces in Kherson by cutting supply routes, destroying ammo and fuel dumps, and forcing the Russian aircraft out of Crimea. I thought it would start in September, likely mid-September.
It appears I was off by a week or two. Both Ukrainian and Russian sources are reporting that such an offensive has begun. At this point, both sides are declaring they are winning. That, too, is to be expected.
I will make another prediction: This offensive probably means the war will end within the next ten weeks. I am not predicting who will win — just that this battle will likely settle the war. If the Ukrainians succeed, the Russians will be playing the British at Yorktown. If the Russians succeed in stopping the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians will be playing the Germans in the Ardennes. In short, the loser will lack the military assets to continue the war.
We will know better in a week who the likely winner is.
Published in Military
In fairness they Don’t chant Death to India once or twice a year. They do chant Death to America. I realize Obama thought that was just a rhetorical excess. Trump was more inclined to take people at their word.
I am struck by how bad the Russians appear to be at logistics. Am I wrong about this or is the US just so good at logistics that I have an unrealistic view of how logistics should work? Also it appears to me that the Russian’s have not be using their advantage in Airpower very effectively. Do you have any thoughts about this. Is it fear of manpads? Do the Ukrainians have some other air defense capability that is backing off the Russians? Are their logistics problems to blame? Any theories?
I think that Russia is that bad at logistics and we are that good. Also, there appear to be two more factors. First, Kherson is some distance from Russia, so the logistic lines are very long already. Second, the Ukrainians have been using HIMARS from us to take out all of the bridges across the Dnieper River which is a substantial fiver.
I think that those are good points. Russian aircraft cost some $25 million to $35 million, and the manpads cost a fraction of that. Russian pilots shoot their munitions quite quickly before turning away.
Now the Frogs can’t even boil themselves!
But the US is able to conduct multiple offensive operations half a world away from our shores. In multiple different theaters. I get that Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t exactly Ukraine but the distances are much more significant. I guess I expected something more from a military that was touted as near competitor of the US. It does appear that Russia has a great deal of problems with resupply any amount of distance from their occupied territory. That having been said it has appear to me that they have been making incremental progress along the entire line of contact (I tend to only go by maps now) I realize that doesn’t tell as much of a tale but it is the least subject to propaganda/ my own wish casting. It will be interesting to see if the Ukrainians can roll any of that back.
The US rarely if ever has a choice about deploying forces across oceans, which Russia hasn’t faced before. But even just crossing over (mostly) land they don’t seem to be doing very well.
The Ukrainian DeepState has been waging war on the eastern portion of their nation since 2014. It seems like they don’t mind extended wars.
Of course maybe having to engage with an actual military adversary will affect the neo-Nazis differently, than their shelling and bulldozing their way through residential areas of the eastern Ukraine has over the last 8 years.
One citation:
Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists
July 7, 2015
Exclusive: Ukraine’s post-coup regime is now melding neo-Nazi storm troopers with Islamic militants called “brothers” of the hyper-violent Islamic State stirring up a hellish “death squad” brew to kill ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, on Russia’s border, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
In a curiously upbeat account, The New York Times reports that Islamic militants have joined with Ukraine’s far-right and neo-Nazi battalions to fight ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. It appears that no combination of violent extremists is too wretched to celebrate as long as they’re killing Russ-kies.
The article by Andrew E. Kramer reports that there are now three Islamic battalions “deployed to the hottest zones,” such as around the port city of Mariupol. One of the battalions is headed by a former Chechen warlord who goes by the name “Muslim,” …
Full article can be found at:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/07/ukraine-merges-nazis-and-islamists/
See my reply right above this one, in which the 2015 Consortium News article details Islamic extremists teaming up with the Deep State “official government” and military of the Ukraine against the civilians in the eastern part of that nation..
Maybe they learned from us allying with Russia during WW II.
Could you insert the matter that the words you are using as my words are actually quoted material from the article I cited. (Copyright matter.)
Ukraine was given assurances by both the US & Russia- do not forget that. It only reinforces the maxim that you cannot trust Russia to honor an agreement unless they face overwhelming force. That is why Ukraine doesn’t want a negotiated end of the conflict with Russia still on Ukrainian land- they rightly suspect Putin will just rearm and be back in a few years.
I had to guess which words were yours and which quoted, since you didn’t separate them yourself.
No the real corruption king is Russia-that has become glaringly obvious to all who care to see:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2022-08-31/how-russian-corruption-is-foiling-putins-army-in-ukraine
I wonder if this is legit…
Doctor-heal thyself….
Russia’s goal was to decimate the Ukrainian government & install a puppet- they failed miserably.
Ukraine’s “recent nasty behavior”? You mean having the temerity to fight back effectively?
Russia profiting? You lack the accounting skills to factor in the tremendous loss of life & material Russia has suffered- thousands of armored vehicles etc
addendum-
https://theins.ru/en/politics/254573
And why is that?
And why is that?
[Hint: it isn’t about religion. Compare and contrast with their behaviour towards (proudly “kaffir”) India.]
When it was convenient, sure. Still think America could have built on that to the benefit of Americans instead of the Administration playing politics with it to their detriment.
Here’s another hint: When someone/country is in trouble, how often do they say “Quick, get India on the phone!”?
Yes, I think it probably was legit – in April 2022.
All you need to do is to empower a critical mass that wants to do that. Not necessarily a majority, in fact it’s probably even more controlable if it isn’t a majority. I think that’s how proxy wars work.
That’s why they chant Death to America? Don’t see the logic, but okay.
But that can be the result of it.
Call America to get help, America helps, some people don’t like it – especially if America stops them from destroying some other country like maybe Israel, which is what they want to do – and so they hate America.
Why would they hate India? Has India been stopping them from destroying Israel?
Actually I thought about it, and I think America’s current relationship with Iran is indeed the result of someone calling up America to get help.
That country was the UK, which called America when Iran (under its first democratically elected Government) nationalised its oil fields and required the British to pay a fair price for the oil.
This was hard to bear, after losing India, so the Brits called the US.
The result was a 1953 CIA backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected Government of Iran, installed a puppet regime (the very not democractically elected Pahlavis) all of which resulted, in the fullness of time, in the Islamic Revolution, the punitive freezing of Iranian assets by the US, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war which devastated the country (in which the US helped Saddam), impoverishing sanctions, and so on till today.
Anyway, that is at the root of Iran’s perception of the United States today.
Israel may be central to the US’ perception of the Middle East, but I don’t think it’s central to a lot of the Middle East’s perception of America. At least not Iran’s.
Somehow I think if you polled a lot of people in Iran, that’s not the answer they would give you.
What YOU think the reason is, is irrelevant. You’re not the one saying “Death to America!” At least I hope you’re not.
I think that Russia is doing the incremental progress by simply bombing the heck out of the next couple of miles and trying to advance if they have wiped out everything in their path. If they can’t advance, they obliterate the ground even more, and try again. That tactic is working in the east and north. But Kherson looks to be different, as they are not able to restock their ammo. I understand that the UK, the US and other countries like Germany and Poland may be training up Ukrainian soldiers in the NATO way of war, which is not three yards and a cloud of dust.
The Dnieper River is a really big river, the biggest in Ukraine. The bridges have been put out of commission for heavy trucks and tanks. Right now pedestrians can cross them, but that is about it. The Russians are frankly trapped, and the HIMARS are wiping out the ammo dumps and supply dumps west of the Dnieper River. I think that we will start to see some mass surrenders as the Russians literally run out of food, especially in the area west of the Dnieper River and well north of Kherson. This could well cause a cascade effect, or at least so I hope.
I think that you are right. The last thing Ukraine wants now is a cease-fire which would allow Russia to restock and refresh its troops.
Of course I’m not. But I don’t think most people in Iran are either.
Well then maybe, as with Al Queda etc and other muslim terrorist groups, the “peaceful” ones need to be doing something to control the ones that aren’t.
Hey, come on. You did Iran wrong in 1953 and since in ways that damaged them deeply and which had nothing to do with Israel. They don’t trust you as a consequence – or should I say, they don’t trust your government although they do actually seem to like you as people. And perhaps one reason they don’t trust your intentions is that you take no responsibility for your Government’s actions – in fact many of you seem determinedly ignorant of these. So wrt asking the peaceful ones to reign in the violent ones….I’m sure you see the irony of the demand.
Overall, the countries that nobody hates, are the ones that can’t really do anything all that wrong even if they tried, because they aren’t big enough/strong enough to matter.
DNFTT.