Posted on 12/25/2022 3:45:45 PM PST by Cathi
"Danny Haiphong: For the last several weeks there has been this intense battle in the city of Bahkmut and the western mainstream media has been kind of sounding the alarm a bit. You've had places like the Guardian, the New York Times talk about how Ukraine has been using artillery and all kinds of weapons at alarming rates to the point where it seems like they are admitting that Ukraine is outgunned here. What is your assessment of the situation right now on the ground in Bahkmut and going forward as we enter this winter phase of this proxy war going on in Ukraine?
Scott Ritter: Well first let's understand that the battle for Bahkmut has been going on for many, many months now. Bahkmut is the "Gordian knot" of the Ukrainian defensive belt that exists in Donestk. A defensive belt that has been constructed on a continuous basis since 2014. It is one of the most extensive, fortified defense systems in modern history. It is manned with troops. It has the support of heavy equipment, artillery, etc. And the Russians have been in the business of grinding it down for many weeks and what we see right now is basically we are seeing the culmination of all of the Russian effort.
I always laugh when people say, "How could Ukraine be outgunned." I don't know maybe because they only have x number of artillery pieces and the Russians have x times 10. I know that when I have more artillery pieces than you I am going to win that fight generally speaking especially in positional warfare where you have made is pretty easy for me by sitting in your positions that I can identify using my intelligence resources and pound you into submission.
You know there are two aspects to this fight. One is that the Russians are more than happy to let the Ukrainians sit in place and suffer casualties. Often times the Ukrainian battalion will rotate into the front lines and days later will rotate out suffering 60% casualties without ever having seen a Russian. They'll just show up and they die. Then they leave and another battalion comes in . And that's the thing. The Ukrainians are rotating battalions in. Every once in a while The Ukrainians will fail to rotate in on time; leave some chink in their armor and if that time is right the Russians will carry out an assault on that position. This is extraordinarily bloody combat, close quarters combat of the most intimate nature. They will face-to-face in trench; hand grenades, knives, bayonets, rifle stocks, bullets at close range and the Russians tend to prevail, seize the position and then they wait and start the process of grinding down the next position.
The goal of the Russians, of course, is to kill as many Ukrainians as possible and fortunately for Russia Ukraine is giving them plenty of opportunities to do just this by their tactics. One has to wonder at what point in time Ukrainians will recognize that the price of holding on to Bahkmut is too high. That Ukraine would be better off preserving these forces; some of who are well trained and using them as a mobile defense capable at least of lowering the casualty ratio. Right now Russia is enjoying an 8 to 1; 10 to 1 ratio primarily because it can exploit its artillery advantage. Even when Ukraine has modern Western artillery such as the M777 from the United States...the HIMARS, other artillery systems from other NATO countries they don't exist in sufficient quantities to level the battle field."
Yeah, it’s merely been a “mop op operation” going on a year now. He’s been wrong about everything.
This guy will flip the script at any moment. Do you not remember what first made him famous? Taking on the Clinton administration as a whistle blower during congressional hearings - saying the administration was not taking the threat of weapons of mass destruction and Iraq seriously enough. Biden attacked him during a Senate hearing as not having credibility and not being a person of “high enough pay grade” to be saying the things he was saying. Clinton leaves office, Bush takes office - Bush starts taking a harder line on Iraq, and low and behold, he becomes famous again, doing a 180 degree turn on WMD and becomes the hero of the Left - CNN couldn’t get enough of him to use him to trash Bush and Republicans - ignoring his total switchover. He was like Michael Avenatti of those times - the press had him everywhere as a media darling - then they were forced to drop him as radioactive as scandals came to light.
Baghdad Bob proved that propaganda only goes so far—in the end the truth will come out. Russia will lose Donbass and Crimea or Russian tanks will roll into Kiev. Who know when that will be? 2023? 2024? 2048? Like most World Wars I think about four years will be enough.
I knew someone would bite. Can’t you see with the opening line, “Yea but Scott’s our pedifile” I am baiting everyone. Aside from baiting everyone, I’ve been following multiple foreign sources on Ukraine and Scott is closer to the truth than most in west know. I don’t care about Scott and don’t follow him at all. Just that I noticed he is currently more on-point than anything on US TV.
“But The Daily Mail and AP and WaPo are the credible agencies to you?”
Hardly.
“Ukraine’s LAST STAND”
Day 305...
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