Update on the military situation in the war in Ukraine
Ukraine continues to implode and lose support
In my last update, A look at the state of the Ukrainian army, I chronicled how many units and even the families of the soldiers started to openly refuse to carry out suicidal orders, citing the lack of support, proper weapons and leadership.
This has not stopped, and is only getting worse. The risk of an implosion of the Ukrainian front-line is real. As further proof, this shift is being prepared in the Western media and by European politicians.
The American Conservative wrote it succinctly a few days ago, in an article titled ‘When the lies come home’:
“Still, there are brief moments of clarity inside the Washington establishment. Having lied prolifically for months to the American public about the origins and conduct of the war in Ukraine, the media are now preparing the American, British, and other Western publics for Ukraine’s military collapse. It is long overdue.”
The article took note of the propaganda and lies that has been spread around:
“The Western media did everything in its power to give the Ukrainian defense the appearance of far greater strength than it really possessed. Careful observers noted that the same video clips of Russian tanks under attack were shown repeatedly. Local counterattacks were reported as though they were operational maneuvers. Russian errors were exaggerated out of all proportion to their significance. Russian losses and the true extent of Ukraine’s own losses were distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored.”
Next, they made the following observation, which is absolutely important:
“But conditions on the battlefield changed little over time. Once Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves in static defensive positions inside urban areas and the central Donbas, the Ukrainian position was hopeless. But this development was portrayed as failure by the Russians to gain “their objectives.””
The moment that Zelensky decided not to give up a morsel of Ukrainian territory, or to try to ‘halt’ or ‘stall’ the Russian invasion as long as possible in order to gin up international help. But this has been a severe miscalculation, one their soldiers are paying a very high price for.
The Russians are slowly advancing, grinding down any defensive position with their overpowering artillery strength, instead of attacking head on and risking very high casualties and losses on their own side. They are in no hurry, and attempt to target military positions only: after all, the civilians there are part of the mostly Russian speaking areas they are claiming to liberate from the Ukrainians. It would make no sense to start shelling them indiscriminately. This is another reason that explains the slow and methodological approach of the Russians. Identify the positions of the Ukrainians, and take them out one by one, instead of carpet-bombing the villages and cities in their way.
This leads to images and situations I thought we’d never see again, that conjure up ghosts of World War I. Down to the trenches, crater pocketed moon landscapes and shell-shocked soldiers who have no idea why they are there, left to die by a high command that has no idea.
Look at this video, and notice the fear and impact of the constant shelling, filmed by an Ukrainian soldier in his trench.
Or this one, capturing an actual hit or nearby hit…
Or this one, showing a birds eye view of Ukrainian positions, and the results of constant shelling. This could be filmed over a century ago “In Flanders’ Fields”… This is really harrowing to me, to see such landscape and horror back. The video shows the Ukrainian 29th checkpoint, being constantly attacked by the mortar battery of the 2nd MSB of the 4th brigade of the LPR. The closer you look, the more you see.
Last week, DefenseOne wrote how Deputy Defense Secretary Hicks spoke about Russia and the Ukraine during the 7th annual Defense one Tech Summit.
She said:
“I think what we can assure ourselves today is that there will be a country called Ukraine. It will be a sovereign country and that country will have a military that will need to defend it. And so as we look ahead, we're thinking through what are the kinds of capabilities that the Ukrainians need to protect themselves over the long term.”
The position of the Biden administration is indeed to turn this into a long term affair, where the US would be pouring billions of dollars’ worth of support and weapons into Ukraine.
The article pointed out:
“The United States announced two weeks ago that it would begin sending long-range artillery systems, helicopters, and other additional heavy weapons to Ukraine as part of a new $700 million arms package. But, said Hicks, the department is also trying to take a longer-term approach to supporting Ukraine, five, 10, and 20 years into the future.”
A lot of questions come up, and it is hard not to see how certain lobbies and groups within the Washington elites are trying to replace the bottomless pit of the Middle East and Afghanistan (which Trump effectively ended through his negotiations), with another endless war to keep their profits and influence going, for decades to come. The price that the soldiers and people on the ground pay? Not their problem…
But it won’t work, this time around.
Even the Wall Street Journal wrote that ‘Cracks appear in Western Front Against Russia’s War in Ukraine’.
“At the center of the disagreement—which is splitting a group of Western European powers from the U.S., U.K. and a group of mostly central and northern European nations—are diverging perceptions of the long-term threat posed by Russia and whether Ukraine can actually prevail on the battlefield.
The first bloc, led by France and Germany, is growing reluctant to provide Ukraine the kinds of offensive, long-range weapons it would need to reclaim ground lost to Russia’s armies in the country’s south and east. They doubt Russia would directly threaten the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
On the other side, Washington, London and a group of mainly central and northern European nations, some of them former Soviet bloc members, see the Russian offensive as a harbinger of further expansion by Moscow, making Ukraine the front line in a broader war pitching Russia against the West.”
Several of the Eastern-Europeans countries have a very understandable and deep-seeded distrust of the Russians:
““This is an unprecedented attack on Ukraine,” said Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks. “Our understanding, which is based on a long history of interactions with Russia, is that we cannot rely on Russian mercy and we see the Russian attack on Ukraine as simply the prelude for further Russian imperial expansionism.””
ZeroHedge reports how other former Soviet republics, who traditionally remained friendly towards Russia, are now openly questioning the continued support for Ukraine. Case in point, Bulgaria, which said it had ‘done enough’:
“"We’ll do what we have promised to do and there’s no need to reignite the debate every two weeks," Bulgarian Prime Minister Petkov said. "We’ve supported the incoming refugees, we have sent all kinds of humanitarian aid, we have also been involved with repairing Ukraine’s heavy weapons and we’re in line with all sanctions against Russia."”
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov wrote that there is no real effort to talk about peace, because the US did not want to.
"All these Scholzs, the Macrons can talk about anything they want, but they don't make any cardinal decisions. The decision is made by the US. If the US wanted peace, peace would be made. That's my understanding of it."
Other sources show the same reality: “European Ukrainian Unity myth starts crumbling as reality kicks in”. The results of the embargoes and sanctions are about to boomerang, and Europeans nations start to panic as their own population begins to feel the pinch in many different sectors: energy, food, transport,… And winter hasn’t even arrived yet! “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." First comes food, then morality. Ukraine is far removed from the daily life of most people, but when you start risking freezing and starving, or at least having severe problems continuing paying for energy and food, and you see your own family being directly impacted, priorities change quickly, and very powerfully.
The Russians are using this to make good on the warning Putin gave over 10 years ago, that the time of the unipolar world was over (meaning: a world with only 1 main superpower, the US). Now we see him work actively on a multipolar world, with different groups and spheres of influence. Markedly, this attempt to counter the G8, where Russia has been excluded from:
On the left the new G8 format proposed by Russia and China (China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Iran) on the right the former G8 when Russia was included in the obsolete format. (ranking in terms of GDP PPP) Notice how the G7 was very EU-centered, and the new format that is much more representative of global economics and interests.
A lot is shifting around, and is not really spoken about either. Our own leadership is completely missing in action. Not a good situation…
Meanwhile, internationally the Russians are NOT winning the propaganda war, either. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that African countries, despite the specter of famine, and the alleged reason being the war in Ukraine, are still taking the side of Russia. They understand that it is the Western sanctions (e.g. restrictions on using Russian banks or use of the Ruble for payments which hinder grain import from Russia) that are to blame for the food crisis. When looking at Russian efforts to keep the sea lanes from Odessa to the rest of the world open for grain shipments, you see here at least part of the reason: a show that Russia is doing all it can to ensure the food supply remains intact. This is severely undermining trust in the Western World (read: EU and US) by African countries, and gives Russia and China a golden opportunity to expand their own influence there. Unintended side-effects, that will have very far-reaching consequences long term!
Then there are the rumors about coups. There are rumors that high-ranking Ukrainian officers passed information to the Russians leading to the strike at a command center killing 50 officers/generals. There are continued videos of troops refusing to follow orders without proper support.
Will there be a coup? Or is that information warfare to set up the Ukrainian commander in chief Zaluzhnyy, in a battle of power between Zelensky, the political arm of Ukrainian power and fully aligned with EU/NATO/US interests, on one side, and Zaluzhnyy, who controls the military power (at least the regular army, the neo-Nazi groups have shown to only follow their own interests)? Keep an eye out on this, in the coming days and weeks.
This type of news of chaos and flat-out mismanagement are coming from everywhere now.
Sources now admit that losses among Ukrainian soldiers are appalling high, up to a 1000 A DAY. Those are trained combat troops, which cannot be effectively replaced by conscripts. The effect on morale among other troops cannot be understated, either.
The Guardian notes:
“Ukrainian losses range from 600 to 1,000 people a day. This is a colossal reduction in the combat capability of Ukraine due to the unsuccessful attempt by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to hold the defense of Severodonetsk.
"The total number of casualties - more than 20,000 a month - raises questions about what state the Ukrainian army will be in if the war drags on until the autumn. The Russian army already controls large parts of Ukraine, and they can suspend hostilities with a territorial advantage."
It is now openly spoken about how the Russians have plenty of ammunitions, both artillery shells and rockets, while the Ukrainians are lacking severely.
As does the New York Times:
Put all that together, and you understand why voices are being heard now that talk about how Ukraine should surrender territories in exchange for an end to the hostilities!
From IntelSlava: France has increased the supply of Russian gas, despite the agreement between the EU countries to reduce fuel imports, and in the future completely abandon it, writes the British newspaper The Daily Express.
"Macron betrayed Ukraine," the author of the publication Anthony Ashkenaz notes.
Even the Germans are now openly looking for ways to circumvent their own sanctions. That front is crumbling on all sides.
One last element. It is said that a cornered animal is the most dangerous.
Ukraine (and their backers) knows it is losing the war, militarily, economically, and even diplomatically/propaganda-wise. They are getting desperate. This feeling trickles down to the field, and you see Ukrainian forces now shelling the civilian city of Donetsk, indiscriminately targeting hospitals, residential areas, and so on. At first, the media tried to do this off as yet another example of ‘Russian atrocities’.
But even the UN was forced to issue a warning, expressing concern about the shelling of a maternity hospital in Donetsk, as a violation of international humanitarian law. Still, they could not bring themselves to openly name the aggressor who is doing the shelling: the Ukrainians (unlike the very forceful statements condemning Russia when the fake pictures of the Ukrainian hospital were circulated, ignoring that this was already abandoned and used by Azov elements as their base).
One media outlet wrote:
“The UAF purposefully destroys critical and residential infrastructure facilities – in other words, they destroy the peaceful life of Donbass residents.
Dams, transformers, heating and power grid routes are exploding, residential buildings are being hit by tanks – the Ukrainian army is burning everything around, repeating the “exploits” of its Nazi idols.
What is it if not genocide?”
The Russians officialy protest, on different channels, for example here the Russian embassy to the UK, to the British government:
But the news is going out, and with proper assignment of where the shelling is coming from:
A Swiss newspaper wrote:
“At least three people including a child were killed and 18 injured on Monday in a Ukrainian artillery attack at a market in the Russian-backed separatist Ukrainian region of Donetsk, officials in the province said.”
The irony has to be noted, at the end of the article:
“Ukraine and its Western backers say Russia is waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state which is fighting for its existence. Kyiv says Russia's claim of persecution of Russian-speakers is a baseless pretext for the invasion.”
It was exactly this kind of conscious targeting of civilians, women, children, schools, etc., that provided the moral outrage in Russia that supports this whole war. Unprovoked? Baseless?
What is happening in Donetsk this past week and today is nothing new, sadly.
You also see the destruction of churches, and attacks on Clergy, often Russian Orthodox.
This video shows the consequences of the shelling of the temple in Terny by Azov elements.
IntelSlava provides some background:
“As you know, there is nothing sacred for militants from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and these shots confirm this once again. Most of the churches on the territory of Ukraine did not support the separation of the UOC and the ROC, because of this, the Ukrainian Nazis try to damage the churches as much as possible”
Or this example, a good week ago:
From Intel Slava:
“The largest wooden church in Ukraine is burning - the wooden All Saints Skete of the Svyatogorsk Lavra of the Moscow Patriarchate, opened in the 16th century was attacked by Ukrainian militants”.
(Video here)
While this was in Ukrainian held territory, the news was spread that this was a Russian attack. Locals confirmed this was not the case, but the result of fleeing Ukrainian troops firing at the Church with incendiary rounds. Again, this is a pattern of hatred towards Russian Orthodox churches and clergy, exacerbated by the anti-Christian slant of the Azov type neo-Nazis. As with the shelling of Donetsk, this is the spiteful lashing out of an army out of options, with morale sinking every day, trying to cope with the death of their own comrades, and the lack of clear leadership and goals.
The innocents pay the price, as they become easy targets…
To end, a few interesting memes:
First, this brilliant meme, that ties together the Russian reasons for this war. Don’t try to get too close to Russia, they like the wide buffer to protect them. It refers to the Teutonic knights, the Polish winged hussars, Napoleon, Hitler, and now, of course, NATO. Russians see this, and the instinctively understand the point, both of this meme, and of the war. While people in the West might disagree, they should acknowledge the strong feelings about this in Russia: it IS a reason for them, and in their eyes, a very good one, with historical pedigree.
Or this: Mr. MacKay lashed out against Switzerland, for not providing support to Ukraine (i.e., not donating their Leopard II tanks to aid the war efforts). But how is staying out of a war and choosing sides by arming one of them ‘violating their historical neutrality’? This makes no sense, whatsoever! On the contrary, it PROVES their neutrality!
But it is emblematic of the blind emotionalism. Not helping is seen as an attack.
Lastly, because it is so interesting in what it states about the importance of truth in messaging and propaganda, as I have explored in my series “The War for our Minds”:
In summary:
The situation in Ukraine is getting worse and worse for the Ukrainians, despite all efforts, and despite the massive support. Even that support is waning, and waning fast, to the point that it now can be said that Ukraine is not just losing the war that counts, the one on the ground, but also the messaging and propaganda war. The European support is cracking and divided, and African countries, despite the risk of famine because of all this, are placing blame on the EU/US sanctions, and NOT on Russia!
We see certain countries in the EU and the US becoming more and more isolated, as we see the position of the US as sole superpower wane, and, as Putin said -and actively worked towards- a nascent multipolar world, for better or worse.
Watch out for a coup or replacement of the Commander in Chief in Ukraine (and other shake-ups, as the situation becomes worse and people try to save their hide by blaming others), or for a complete or partial collapse of the Ukrainian army due to destroyed morale and complete lack of support and leadership.
And watch out for the goal of the Russians: capturing the Russian speaking regions, as well as the whole coastline, including the long Russian speaking cities of Odessa and Kharkov. They have nothing to gain with an armistice or deal at this point, as their progress is steady, and the West has nothing left to offer them at this point.
Still, pray for peace, that this mindless slaughter might end soon.
I read the real truth from the beginning regarding this whole situation and this admin desparetly attempting to cover up the use of Ukraine a s a playground and their biolabs. Dunbas and others from Eastern Ukraine were asking for help against the Zelensky and the nazis of western Ukraine to stop them. Boy did I get flake, now, gee you were right.
Very good article. Thank you for the work you put into it. 👍👍👍