Posted on 05/17/2022 2:54:37 PM PDT by tlozo
As Time reported on Saturday, despite the well-known losses and failures suffered by the Russian invaders since the war started, “Ukraine is in far worse shape (militarily) than is commonly believed.” Moscow still has close to 150,000 troops on Ukrainian soil and relentlessly launches missile attacks throughout the country, even as it prosecutes a plodding offensive in the Donbas. The Ukrainian military is fully engaged in an existential fight in the Donbas and smaller (but fierce) fights in Kharkiv and the Kherson/Mykolaiv region.
Western supplies of weapons, tanks, and artillery pieces to Kyiv alone don’t translate into offensive capacity. To properly and effectively use that growing arsenal, Ukraine will have to build a sizable offensive force. Presently, virtually the entirety of their active force is decisively engaged in defensive battles throughout the country. Clearly, Kyiv cannot simultaneously have its forces defend at the same time it creates an offensive strike force.
As explained in Part I, it will realistically take 12-to-18 months to create an offensive force of sufficient strength and size to have a realistic hope of driving Russia from the Ukrainian territory it currently holds. That means Ukraine’s existing formations must prevent a Russian breakthrough that would threaten other cities (or Kyiv, in a future worst-case scenario).
It is tempting to suggest that Russia’s poor performance in the war from the outset will remain poor throughout. History suggests Russia may well learn from its mistakes and eventually start to make major progress (after suffering the loss of over 2 million troops by the end of 1941, Soviet leadership finally corrected some of their mistakes and eventually crushed the Germans, driving them all the way back to – and defeating them in – Berlin).
Whether that happens or not, however, Ukraine must begin now to ensure it has the time to create the offensive capacity necessary to launch a nationwide offensive. Part III of this series will describe how that force can be created, but for that to happen, the current Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) must ensure they are able to ensure Russian forces do not advance far enough to put the capitol at risk before the offensive power is ready to unleash.
Prepare Troops to Conduct Fighting Withdrawal
It is only natural in war to want to defend every inch of territory, requiring the enemy to pay in blood for each advance. If Ukrainian defenders cede ground to the Russians, the thought goes, it will make their future attacks more effective, as they will have gained ground without having to pay for it first. While that mentality has its place in war, and sometimes can result in great success (see the American 101st Airborne Division in World War II’s Battle of the Bulge), there are times when it is necessary to give ground in one place to strengthen positions elsewhere.
If UAF troops adhere to the “never give an inch” of territory anywhere, at any time, they will be at greater risk of eventually having their lines in the Donbas penetrated by a large enough Russian battle force and surrounded. The Russian troops will then be in a position to reprise their tactics that successfully captured the city of Mariupol, cutting off the defender’s ability to escape or get resupplied with food, water, fuel, and ammunition – without which any army will eventually lose the ability to resist.
To prevent that outcome, Ukrainian troops need to begin immediately preparing their troops to conduct large-scale withdrawals from their current positions to other locations further to the rear from which they will be in a better position (more on that below) to prevent Russian encirclement. The key word in this maneuver is “fighting” withdrawal. The intent is not merely to leave one position and drive to the next, but to move in such a way that the enemy is made to pay a price all along the route, the end of which sees the Ukrainian defenders establish themselves behind a new, well-prepared line of defense.
Fighting withdrawals are very complex maneuvers and operations few commanders or troops spend much time practicing. But doing it well is vital to ensuring their defense continues to hold and that the enemy isn’t able to break through – and continues paying a price in blood while the friendly troops reposition to more defensible terrain.
Preparation of Fallback Position
Before any retrograde operation might be contemplated, however, it is important to prepare the fallback position ahead of time. The UAF would be wise to begin, immediately, planning and resourcing the creation of a new line of defense 30 or more kilometers to the West of their rear-most defensive positions in the Donbas. This line would need to be built on terrain that gives significant benefit to the defenders, such as a river valley or ridgeline.
Kyiv would send conscripts, new recruits, or civilian volunteers to the site selected as the new defensive line to begin constructing defensive works, hardened bunkers, key trench lines, and other fortifications that friendly units would fall into. These positions would be built in depth, mutually reinforcing each other. This force should also build protected firing positions for artillery batteries five to 10 kilometers behind the front of the line.
In the two or three kilometers before the initial fortifications, the engineers should emplace anti-personnel and anti-tank minefields that include ingress and egress routes known only to the defenders, so the repositioning units from the Donbas line would be able to safely transit them. After occupying the new positions, the lanes in the minefields would be close and would impose severe casualties on the Russians if they try to penetrate them.
Ideally, Ukraine would bring in fresh howitzers delivered from NATO countries and have them pre-sited, along with considerable stocks of ammunition, so the UAF artillerymen could simply fall into the new positions and be ready to fire almost immediately. Likewise, Kyiv would pre-position considerable stocks of food, water, fuel, ammunition, and other war stocks necessary to sustain combat operations for weeks or months.
Execute the Move
The UAF troops would only move to the new defensive line if the Kyiv force commander concluded that the Russians would surround them if the Ukrainians remained in place. While it sounds heroic and brave to suggest the UAF troops fight to the last, such a move would put at risk the entire country’s ability for security.
If Moscow’s troops were to succeed in surrounding and destroying, for example, the northern shoulder of the Donbas, the remainder of the center and southern shoulder Ukrainian troops would be at significant risk of likewise being surrounded and cut off. If Kyiv is to ever hope to produce a sufficiently strong offensive capacity to drive Russia out of its country, it is crucial they avoid encirclement and the viability of their main Donbas force.
However, if that moment arrives, the Ukrainian force commander will give the order for part of his formation to begin redeployment to the pre-arranged new defensive line. He will have already designated exact locations where each sub-unit would position itself in the new line and rehearsals will have been done down to the small unit level. The support units would be the first to displace, while frontline combat units begin to attack the Russians with artillery, direct fire, and lay down smoke to conceal the movement.
Then a coordinated maneuver, unit by unit, would begin to reposition, covering withdrawal with smoke or artillery attacks (designed to obscure Russian observation of the movement) so that each unit’s redeployment has protection of another unit’s direct fire. The units will then conduct a leap-frog type movement from the Donbas front all the way to the new line, so that no UAF troops are ever without supporting fire from another Ukrainian unit.
Once all the units have been repositioned to the new line, they will begin a non-stop process of improving their positions, creating overhead cover to shield their positions from drones or overhead observations, and making themselves generally less vulnerable to Russian artillery and rocket fire. Once this new line is fully occupied, the Ukrainians will be in position to hold out, potentially for months.
To guard against the possibility that this line is also breached in the future, the command in Kyiv will begin almost immediately selecting and then preparing another fallback position 30 to 50km further to the west.
The objective of the Ukraine’s command authorities in the next year isn’t the defeat of the Russian attackers, but the preservation of as much combat power as possible to ensure Russia can’t militarily defeat the UAF while Kyiv works to build the capacity in the western part of the country that in a year to 18 months could be capable of starting a large-scale offensive that may indeed be strong enough to drive Russia out of Ukraine.
These maneuvers will only be used if the Donbas line is in danger of being breached. If the Russians are never able to sufficiently threaten the Ukrainian lines, then there will never be a need to conduct a fighting withdrawal. But it should be a priority for Kyiv to prepare such a position now, because if Russia does later put the line at risk of compromise, it will be too late to form adequate fallback positions. Kyiv’s top priority must be in guaranteeing that no matter how the fight in Donbas goes, they have sufficient time to build an offensive force – which Part III of this series will explore.
The globalists and deep state will have their Russia war to the last Ukrainian life!
Bkmk
Sounds very wise.
90% of Ukrainians believe they can win, and with western weapons...
We’ll see if they run out of Russians before the Ukes run out of bullets.
90% of morons believe any idiotic poll that tells them what they want to hear.
Russia isn’t worried about casualties.Therefore they will prevail.
Poll: 97% of Ukrainians think their country will win war against Russia-May 9, 2022
https://news.yahoo.com/poll-97-ukrainians-think-country-165904854.html
Poll: 90% of Ukrainians Think They Can Beat Russia’s Invasion-March 23, 2022
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/poll-90-of-ukrainians-think-they-can-beat-russias-invasion/
Recent survey shows 93% of Ukrainians believe in victory over Russia, In two recent surveys, a steady increase was seen in the belief in victory over Russia.
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-701863
Sorting out the Nazis and trouble makers
‘The Cry was No Evacuation” doesn’t really ring, does it?
Posted by: Merkin Scot | May 17 2022 9:24 utc | 1
A post at Defence Politics Asia YouTube channel reports the following process is being utilized”
The thing to remember about ANY/EVERY single person who leaves Azovstal previously, presently or in the future is this:
1. The Russians are not stupid or sloppy.
2. First they are taken under guard to a processing place. Wounded are under guard during treatment until fit for normal processing.
3. They are scrupulously checked for real identity by their papers and every civil database the Russians have access to. Local Mariupol LDPR investigators are also there to use their local knowledge to verify all claims of civilian neutrality.
4. They are stripped to look for any fascist sympathetic tattoos, men and women alike, it has been reported by one woman evacuee.
5. They are FINGERPRINTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED and their future intended residential address documented as they may be called as witnesses to war crimes in future criminal trials. The LDPR and Russians are fkn serious about legal retributions for the 8 year war and about making sure that not a single nazi sympathiser ever gets back into social circulation.
6 They are interrogated about all personal matters and all knowledge about what is going in inside Azovstal. Obviously, anyone NOT completely forthcoming is held for future interrogation.
7. Only after all the above tests, they are sorted into:
free civilians to go home, their choice of Uk or LD or RF territory or to refugee camps;
harmless Ukrainian Regular soldiers who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting exchange for Regular Russian POWs as per Geneva Convention;
foreign low level mercenary fighters who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting criminal prosecution;
high level foreigner (eg NATO staff), who most probably go to FSB Headquarters in Moscow for future intel and political purposes;
Azov fighters who will all get kept as non-swapable POWs to be prosecuted by the LDPF for war crimes. The LDPR Public Prosecutors have publically clearly stated their guilty punishments may be as high as the death penalty.
So that’s the strict filtering regime. So have no fear that any of the “Rats of Azovstal” will escape their rightful fates. Even after another 1000-2000 surrenders, the exact same processing will be done to each and every one. The LDPR and Russian military jails are gunna be real full, real soon.
The poster apparently gathered this information from a range of participants in the conflict. He has been following the Azovstal / Mariopul conflict for the past two months collecting information for a possible book.
You keep pretending Ukraine is one, big unified nation. It's not. There has been a civil war going on in Ukraine for eight years.
In Donbass, where the majority are behind the DPR and LPR and view the Russians as liberators.
Mariupol has a very touching Victory Day celebration on May 9th. The Russian flags were flying.
So what category are the Jewish Azov fighters?
“There are about 40 Jewish heroes protecting Azovstal now,” David Arakhamia, the adviser in charge of Ukraine’s negotiating delegation, told The Times of Israel on Friday.
One of the Jewish soldiers the Zelensky adviser referenced released a video last week calling on Israel to rescue the besieged Azovstal garrison.
In a message posted by Kyiv-based entrepreneur and activist Ilgam Gasanov, Vitaliy Barabash said in Ukrainian, “It’s hard for me to speak, so my speech for me will be said by my brother, on behalf of all Ukrainian Jews who are together with me here.”
Barabash, also known as Benya, held a Ukrainian flag up to the camera as his friend read his statement, a Star of David tattoo clearly visible on Barabash’s hand.
Addressing “Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the Knesset, the public of Israel,” and prominent Ukrainian Jews, Barabash’s statement announced that “in the rubble left from Azovstalí, there are Jews like me, like you.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-zelensky-adviser-40-jewish-heroes-fighting-in-mariupol-steel-plant/
Every poll in Ukraine shows 72% approval for Zelensky with 90% belief that Ukrainians can win. Ukraine is unified in opposition to the Russian invasion.
No doubt, those in Donbass and Kherson weren't interview in the poll.
Ukrainian is anything but unified. There has been an ongoing civil war there for eight years>
The Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis HATE and have abused the ethnically Russian part of the population. If you don't know that, you don't anything about this war or the country.
Polls are for dancing.
You're being obtuse. Obviously, invaded Ukraine could not be polled, but I noticed Kherson had demonstrations against the invading Russians. You're also ignoring Ukrainian outrage at the Russian invasion that has united all Ukrainians parties.
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< a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/ukraine-for-laughs.html"> « Ukraine Open Thread 2022-67 | Main < /a >
Take your Soros polls and stick them where the sun don’t shine.
Dear comrade from the Russian Embassy. You forgot to mention that this touching Victory Day celebration was organized by Russian war criminals after they razed the whole city to its grounds. And no, there is no civil war in Ukraine. Only parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russia since 2014 invasion.
The best thing that ever happened to Ukraine is the Russian invasion.
Clean out the Nazi rats….. expose Western corruption…. Hey,
instead of writing such bunk take up heavy dinking and smoke at least a pack of Camels a day. R U an American?
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