Posted on 03/31/2025 2:03:33 PM PDT by EnderWiggin1970
The Russo-Ukrainian War is now three years old, and the third Z-Day, on February 24, 2025, was marked by a substantively different tone than prior iterations. On the battlefield, Russian forces stand significantly closer to victory than they have at any point since the opening weeks of the war. After reversals early in the war as Ukraine took advantage of Russian miscalculations and insufficient force generation, the Russian army surged in 2024, collapsing Ukraine’s front in southern Donetsk and pushing the front forward towards the remaining citadels of the Donbas.
At the same time, 2025’s Z-Day was the first under the new American administration, and hopes were high in some quarters that President Trump could bring about a negotiated settlement and end the war prematurely. The new tenor seemed to be made abundantly clear in an explosive February 28 Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vice President Vance, and Zelensky, which ended in the Ukrainian president being ignominiously shouted down and evicted from the White House. This followed an abrupt announcement that Ukraine was to be cut off from American ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) until Zelensky apologized for his conduct.
In an information sphere rife with rumors, inscrutable diplomatic maneuvering, and heavy handed posturing (clouded further by the distinctive style and personality of Trump himself), it is very hard to figure out what might actually matter. We’re left with a bizarre juxtaposition: based on the explosive vignettes of Trump and Zelensky, many might hope for an abrupt course change on the war, or at least a revision of the American position. On the ground, however, things continue much as they have, with the Russians grinding forward along a sprawling front. The infantryman entrenched near Pokrovsk, listening for the whirring of drones overhead....
(Excerpt) Read more at bigserge.substack.com ...
What is the gist of Sergey’s thesis?
It took the Russians about three months to roll back the Kursk salient.
The Ukrainians are pretty tough.
“It took the Russians about three months to roll back the Kursk salient.”
The Ukrainian Army went into Kursk on 6 August, almost eight months ago, and still occupy parts of it.
“What is the gist of Sergey’s thesis?”
OK, I peeked and saw that it was that Russia is unstoppable, and should be given everything it wants in a peace settlement - the straight Kremlin Party Line:
“1. Regime change in Kiev to bring in a government more acquiescent to Russian interests.
2. Russian control of all annexed territories (either through the actions of the Russian Army on the ground or by Kiev withdrawing from them)
3. Broad sanctions relief for Russia
4. Credible pledges that western troops will not be stationed in Ukraine as “peacekeepers” - since, after all, one critical strategic objective for Russia was to prevent the consolidation of NATO on its flank, they will hardly accept a peace that features the deployment of NATO troops into Ukraine.”
He asserts:
“the Russian army surged in 2024, collapsing Ukraine’s front in southern Donetsk and pushing the front forward towards the remaining citadels of the Donbas.”
In fact, in 2024, the total land area taken by the Russian Military was less than that of Los Angeles County. Their net rate of advance has slowed from even that pace, so far this year, while their average daily casualty rate continues to climb - now over 1,200 per day, up from around 200 early in the war, as Russian forces continue to transition from a tank heavy mechanized force with a 20-1 Artillery advantage, to a poorly trained Light Infantry force of recent recruits, with rough Artillery parity, facing growing Ukrainian drone superiority.
With a 21% base interest rate (some consumer loans now topping 40%) and growing individual and corporate debt loads and bankruptcies, the Russian economy is facing growing risks of multiple crises. The housing market has already busted, and inflation continues to accelerate, while wage growth has plateaued. The currency and stock markets are both at risk for large downturns as the money runs out to prop them up.
Russia needs to get a cessation of hostilities before economic crises get out of hand, as their Central Bank has warned the Kremlin. The Russian Central Bank estimates June.
If anything, Russia has demonstrated staggering weakness over the past three years.
____________________
Let’s take a step back and look at the facts:
Russia is 30 times larger than Ukraine in landmass.
A staggering 40% of its entire national budget is devoted to war.
It has lost a million Russian troops.
It had to bring communist North Korean forces i !
It had to bring islamic Chechen forces in as well!
Yet, after all this, Russia still doesn’t fully control the four regions it illegally annexed — large portions remain under Ukrainian control.
Ukraine has even managed to push into Russian territory, holding positions in Kursk and now advancing into Belgorod.
Russia appears incapable of both attacking another country and defending its own borders at the same time — a shocking failure for what was once considered a global military powerhouse.
The so-called “great Russian empire” has been reduced to a struggling, overstretched force, unable to achieve decisive victories against a country a fraction of its size. It’s nothing short of baffling.
“(Russia) has lost a million Russian troops.” (Killed and Wounded)
That is many times the losses that the Soviet Union incurred in it’s ten years in Afghanistan, before it retreated and collapsed.
The Soviet Military was four times the size of Russia’s before the 2022 invasion started. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Red Army during the Afghan War, and central to the Soviet Defense Industrial Base.
Afghanistan has roughly the same sized land area and population as Ukraine, but Ukrainians are dramatically better trained, equipped, organized, led and supported by International allies. Most of the Soviet Union’s former allies in the Warsaw Pact, are now among the most anti-Russian members of NATO, contributing significantly to Ukraine’s war effort. Russia has managed to accomplish far less in Ukraine, than the Soviet Red Army did in Afghanistan, where they actually occupied the whole country at times, and installed their own puppet Government.
The Soviet Union looked ten feet tall before its defeat and collapse, but Russia has progressed much more quickly down that road under Putin.
Putin has driven Russia over a cliff to its doom.
"...the Pentagon and the CIA actually ran all of Ukraine’s tactical operations out of a base in Wiesbaden, Germany — after building a colossal Ukraine war machine post our 2014 color revolution in Kiev."
Convergence Calling
Clusterf**k Nation ^ | Mar 31, 2025 | James Howard KunstlerPosted on 3/31/2025, 2:05:39 PM by little jeremiah
Excerpt from article:
“Contrary to Western media's trash talk, Russian military has not been degraded. If anything, it has been significantly upgraded.” —Alex Krainer
You’re going to see what a truly consequential span of weeks, looks like, as Western Civ goes into full churn on April’s doorstep. Remember, TS Eliot called it the “cruelest month.” Too many uncomfortable things are converging, too many ongoing operations are unwinding, too many tensions are breaking.
The conclusion of “Joe Biden’s” Ukraine War fiasco looms. You can tell because The New York Times published a gigantic piece Sunday detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA actually ran all of Ukraine’s tactical operations out of a base in Wiesbaden, Germany — after building a colossal Ukraine war machine post our 2014 color revolution in Kiev. Since the very start of the hot war in 2022, we did all the targeting for the weapons we gave them and planned their every move. What a surprise! (Not.)
Thanks, I’ll this one to my list.
“The Russians fought the combined efforts of NATO”
…except that not a single Active Duty NATO Military person engaged in combat, nor even a single Combat Platform assigned to any Active Duty NATO Military has yet taken part.
As Russia approaches a million combat casualties, exhaustion of its old Soviet stockpiles, and with their bankruptcies approaching the rate of the Soviet collapse; NATO’s entire Operational Force Structure is completely untouched (but they have increased their budgets, procurements, training, forward deployments and fortifications).
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Ukraine: Fighting to the Conclusion [Big Serge], BeauBo wrote: “The Russians fought the combined efforts of NATO”
…except that not a single Active Duty NATO Military person engaged in combat, nor even a single Combat Platform assigned to any Active Duty NATO Military has yet taken part.
As Russia approaches a million combat casualties, exhaustion of its old Soviet stockpiles, and with their bankruptcies approaching the rate of the Soviet collapse; NATO’s entire Operational Force Structure is completely untouched (but they have increased their budgets, procurements, training, forward deployments and fortifications).
ransomnote: Actually NATO has had active duty military in combat operating some of the technology the west provided to them. Patriots, manpads and other technology, particularly missiles. The reason why the Ukraine doesn't have embedded journalists is to conceal the intel operators and Western 'participants'.
The US military under Biden allowed its people to 'retire', go fight in Ukraine as a 'volunteer', and then return and re-enlist.
NATO did lose at least one bunker of staff in a missile buster type attack by Russia. But you know, NATO is not going to say so because the US and other NATO nations never declared war on Russia, so they are all guilty of treason in their efforts.
The Ukraine exhausted its stockpiles long ago. The US provides the Ukraine with Himars and buys old Sovliet launchers for them. I think it was mid 2023 that the Ukrainian commander said he knew what he needed to win, and he knew NATO didn't have it to give him.
NATO expected to use America to fight Russia directly and to force regime change in Russia. Then NATO would 'acquire' Russian nukes with which to fight the US (because Biden lost control) and the result would be that NATO/WEF/UN/Elites would control the weapons stocks of both the US and RUssia.
So what I'm getting at here, is NATO has scraps of weaponry compared with Russia or France, or the UK etc. At least France does make weapons, but not on a scale to be a player. NATO gave Ukraine old equipment and has little new equipment. Their troops are inexperienced (except those who ended up in Ukraine) and they have no intention of actually fighting - they want the US to fight and die, but not the Euro types.
"NATO’s entire Operational Force Structure is completely untouched (but they have increased their budgets, procurements, training, forward deployments and fortifications)."
No. Not true. The EU nations expected the US to fight and die and their military preparedness is not imperssive. Oh they are rushing to get it together now that Hegseth said that they were on their own. But it takes years to put together what they plan to do, and they haven't done it because they also said they didn't have the money. That was before they flushed money down the Ukraine. NATO is lying and posturing.
Here's an excerpt giving an example of British commandos, out of uniform, conducting illegal warfare and hiding behind their Ukrainian proxies.
The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine
This is the untold story of America’s hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia’s invading armies.
By Adam Entous
Adam Entous conducted more than 300 interviews over more than a year with government, military and intelligence officials in Ukraine, the United States, Britain, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Turkey.
March 29, 2025
On a spring morning two months after Vladimir Putin’s invading armies marched into Ukraine, a convoy of unmarked cars slid up to a Kyiv street corner and collected two middle-aged men in civilian clothes.
Leaving the city, the convoy — manned by British commandos, out of uniform but heavily armed — traveled 400 miles west to the Polish border. The crossing was seamless, on diplomatic passports. Farther on, they came to the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, where an idling C-130 cargo plane waited.
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Ukraine: Fighting to the Conclusion [Big Serge], BeauBo wrote: “The Russians fought the combined efforts of NATO”
…except that not a single Active Duty NATO Military person engaged in combat, nor even a single Combat Platform assigned to any Active Duty NATO Military has yet taken part.
As Russia approaches a million combat casualties, exhaustion of its old Soviet stockpiles, and with their bankruptcies approaching the rate of the Soviet collapse; NATO’s entire Operational Force Structure is completely untouched (but they have increased their budgets, procurements, training, forward deployments and fortifications).
ransomnote: More proof AMericans had boots on the ground in Ukraine:
So Milley was running the whole Ukraine war with Russia without telling the public -report
American Thinker ^ | March 31, 2025 | By Monica ShowalterPosted on 3/31/2025, 6:46:23 PM by Kazan
"They supplied coordinates to the Ukrainians on Russian targets from a base in Wiesbaden. They supplied mobile artillery units called HIMARS for satellite-guided rockets on Russian targets with American troops calling every shot. They put boots on the ground, and more boots on the ground, calling them "subject matter experts." They dispatched the U.S. Navy to share targeting information on Russian warships beyond Ukrainian waters -- when Ukraine sank Russia's flagship battleship without a navy, through drones, that was what was going on."
Then mission creep came calling, and soon enough, the U.S. was handing out intelligence on Russian locations for military strikes.
There is no Russian Black Sea fleet. Ukraine sunk or kicked out the Russian navy from Crimea. If the sanctions stick, Russia will have trouble fighting one more year.
It’s going so well that Pooty has just called up another 160k to be conscripted.
Half of LA county is huge amounts of land, this is the most powerful Russia, beat to shit by a force that is supposedly on its back. Neither Nation forces have been mobile, moving or offensive beyond 3 platoons at a time for better than 2 years. For all practical purposes its been a stalemate meet grinder, open to any force with a clue to make a change and shock the world.
There is little reason for either side to put their head above the trench edge, these are going to the be the lines at the cease fire....any little town captured at this point is construction riprap at this point.
The MANPADs are easier to operate than AK-47s. Afghan analphabets could use them effectively after several hours of training. Just one example what kind of nonsense you dudes are posting here as I don't have time to go through all of it.
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