Posted on 09/12/2022 8:46:31 AM PDT by Cathi
Latest update from The New Atlas focusing on the realities of Ukraine's recent tactical victory vs. the enormous structural cost that likely leads to speeding up to Ukraine's eventual strategic failure.
Ukraine lost 5-7 brigades (20,000 to 28,000 men) in just that short 10 day period of "counter offensive." Makes the interesting point that Russia's decision to withdraw eliminated Ukraine's ability to significantly reduce Russia's manpower or weaponry. By enticing Ukraine to come out of their covered defensive positions and into the open it has provided an easier target for Russia to attack by air and artillery Ukraine's stretched out thin forces in Kharkov which is what Russia is now doing.
Interesting clips of WW11 documentary of Hiltler's similar attempt to throw everything into a last ditch effort to get a success and how it actually resulted in speeding up his defeat.
Very enjoyable to get to see the WW11 clips.
“Ukraine lost 5-7 brigades (20,000 to 28,000 men)”
That is a little thick IMO.
8 to 10 thousand is more like it. About 3 thousand killed and the rest wounded.
“Me: Russia can level Kiev.”
They tried that for two months. Ukrainian SAMs shot down their planes and missiles while partisans stopped the artillery.
Unless Russian wants to use nukes, and irradiate a chunk of Russia and Belarus, they have no way to seriously harm the capital.
“Ukraine pulled off ‘one of the greatest counter-offensives in military history’: Bolt
16,486 viewsSep 12, 2022”
The problem with this theory is that in the age of satellites and drones, the Ukrainians know where the Russians are all the time.
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It’s not quite like it is in the movies. Satellites have to be positioned to pass over a given area as they’re not in geosynchronous orbit above the battlefield. So at best, they get “snapshots” of conditions, presuming there is not heavy cloud cover to obscure the ground.
“There are significant parallels between this Ukrainian push and Germany’s Ardennes Offensive in 1944;”
The Russians have a poor understanding of their own history. Ukraine isn’t Germany in 44. It is the USSR in 43.
* Taken by surprise an enemy state sweeps in and conquers much of the border region
* An initial push on the capital is beaten back
* Armed by the west and motivated by patriotism the invaded nation gains strength pushes the attackers out.
Who just got fired?
“Ukraine pulled off ‘one of the greatest counter-offensives in military history’: Bolt
16,486 viewsSep 12, 2022?”
The person calling offensive “counter-offensive” isn’t really credible on military matters.
Granted. But as you say they get periodic snapshots. You can move an artillery piece or a platoon quickly. But you can still have a good overall picture of the distribution of forces.
And for specifics near the point of contact they have drones. So it gets harder to hide an army. The same is true for both sides, which is why it surprises me the Russians didn’t see this coming. I don’t know what their satellite capabilities are.
Indeed. Premature failure declarations on the Southern front also. Looks like they are making slow, steady progress pushing the Russians into smaller and smaller areas. There may be a sudden surrender/collapse on the Southern front in the near future also if the Russians can’t figure out how to resupply their forces there.
“Spokesperson of Operation Command South confirmed 5 settlements and 500 km2 liberated in Kherson region in last 2 weeks: Vysokopillia, Novovoznesenske, Bilohirka, Myrolyubivka and Sukhyi Stavok”
It’s going to be tougher in the south, because the Russians have concentrated forces there, and the attack was announced with plenty of advance notice.
“It’s not quite like it is in the movies. Satellites have to be positioned to pass over a given area as they’re not in geosynchronous orbit above the battlefield. So at best, they get “snapshots” of conditions, presuming there is not heavy cloud cover to obscure the ground.”
True for visual information, but we also have the Orion class of satellite. Geosynchronous antennas the size of a football field and picking up all radio signals in a region.
I’m confident that any Russian who picks up a cellphone, radio, or radar is tracked and sent to our allies.
Obviously repeating Russian fantasies
Shame their conventual military had to run from Kiev, ain't it? Or do you buy the spin that the retreats in the north were actually 'feints'?
Quick, before it happens, how do you think the Kremlin will spin losing Kherson? 'Feint', 'good will gesture', or 'regrouping'?
LOL... “the idea is that it isn’t that much of the Ukrainian victory.”
It is a pretty amazing Victory for the Ukes.
I had to go back and re-read the Russian version of events on this front because they managed to obfuscate the magnitude of the pending disaster the first time I read their briefs.
The outcome seems to be on par with the US losses in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over.
I loved the video when the Uke said, “Hey, it looks like we will be able to have a tank now, when they first came upon an abandoned Russian tank. Then as they round the tank and see the other abandoned tanks, he comments, “Oh, it looks like each of us will be able to have a tank”.
Don’t know what the Russian losses were in this Route, but they appear to have lost a ton of equipment and supplies.
The quick loss of Izyum was amazing. There were supposedly about 10K Russian troops in that area.
The entire northern wing of their attack on the Donbas just melted away.
Chode wrote:
https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2022/09/11/2732339318535402044/1024x576_MP4_2732339318535402044.mp4
Ukrainian propaganda networks claim this is captured equipment of Russian Armed Forces. In fact, this is a repair plant in Crimea. Mixture of captured Ukrainian hardware and broken down Russian Armed Forces equipment can be seen. Recorded by a woman peacefully riding her bike and speaking Russian.
It is located in Novostepnoe, Crimea.
ASB Military News
There were no Russian regular Armed Forces in any of the settlements that Ukrainians have taken in the last 7 days.
None of the settlements in the Kharkov Region had Russian Armed Forces regulars in them. There was Russian Rosgvardia — which is not designed nor trained to fight combined arms / face a military; as well as other Russian security forces— literally the police. There were no troops there.
This was the fundamental mistake of the Russian Armed Forces. They did not reinforce the territories they captured in Kharkov with their actual troops. They sent secondary forces in there. This is why we see no losses of Russian troops spread by Ukrainian channels — because there were simply no Russian Armed Forces soldiers present.
An important point that needs to be said.
In that video you can see how the clever Russians have carefully gathered intact armor of all kinds and abandoned it near a train trestle to lure the stupid Ukrainians into thinking they could advance. 🙄
That video alone should be enough to destroy the credibility of anyone arguing the Russians are doing anything other than running away in a full rout. Actually, it is enough. But there will always be people too stupid to accept reality.
“ My football team showed great Russian strategy this week giving up 30+ points lulling the other team into a sense of victorious complacency.”
Absolutely brilliant! I’ll bet the locker room celebration was fantastic after the game. It’s so rare to have a football game end with greater than a 30 point spread. Making that happen is the height of strategic vision and planning.
Yet, something has changed. The Ukrainians have been fighting on that front for months and haven’t been able to penetrate. There was a moment when they reached the Russian border, but were promptly pushed back. Same all the way down the line, Izyum, right on south. The Russians weren’t gaining ground fast, but yard by yard they were gaining.
Suddenly they melted away. As you say, their force had been hollowed out. Izyum too? That was a major hub. But the question is, why?
They seem to have stripped forces from that region to beef up Kherson. That’s the only thing I can think of.
“It is located in Novostepnoe, Crimea.”
Pretty easy to find that town on Google earth. Did you bother? In the video, there’s a row of train cars in the background. But there are no train tracks in Novostepnoe. Nor are there any buildings laid out like those in the video.
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