What Can the Shock Success of Ukraine’s Offensive Tell Us About the War?

Fair enough Marko. While I am Neutral, and have zero skin in the fight, the truth is one can never underestimate, nor overestimate one’s opponent.

But now it’s plan “B” for the RF, at least as far as I can see from my armchair far away from the fighting. The “partial” cut off of the Ukrainian force by hitting the dams and the reinforcements of the RF coming into the fray will make this an epic battle for both sides.

Just stop. It’s getting to the point where it feels like you’re making fun of a retarded person. Yes anyone with half a brain figured out that the Russian SMO is the most half-assed and sad military operation from a “major power” in God knows how long. Kharkov was the turning point and the hits keep on coming. Ukraine shelling the administration building in central Kherson City, shelling downtown Donetsk, faking some new war crime, just today. Not to mention attacking Russian villages near Belgorod some days ago. Russia burst a dam to then do nothing. SMO going according to plan, nothing to worry about. People in military schools will be studying this war for decades to come to figure out what not to do when invading a country

“The Russians were manning their right flank from Kharkov to Izyum with low numbers of second-rate troops. Rosgvardia internal (police) troops and Lugansk militias, backed by detachments of Russian army regulars (e.g. for artillery, air defense, and tank support).”

Yes. The answer why they made this decision is obvious.

The majority of south and southeastern Kharkiv is open steppe with sprinkled settlements. It possesses nothing important in terms of industrial production or geographical advantage. In fact, any occupying force is inherently vulnerable in this position – you cannot hide or protect any concentration of forces for an offensive operation, and the geography negates any hope of a defender’s advantage. Even numerical superiority is enfeebled by the real possibility of getting surrounded, especially since Russian BTGs have a large contingent wrapped up in artillery.

Additionally, they gave up on Izyum being the road to Kramatorsk some time ago. The UAF had successfully bunkered down in the forest southwest of it, threatening the flank if troops moved south. From its initial occupation the number of BTGs in Izyum had dropped from 20 to 1. Since August Bakhmut has become the focus of attention.

In general Kharkiv presents a dilemma to Russian command. You still want to exert control over this territory for nominal reasons. But it’s useless as a staging ground for, well, anything and it requires way too much investment to make secure. You don’t want your best troops being idle when Soledar and Kherson are the strategically important parts of the theaters (Kharkiv is not) and they are active.

“The extent of the Russian “success” consisted of not getting themselves encircled and losing numerous men as POWs.”

And this is a very notable success considering that the offensive maneuvers executed by the Ukranian forces are expressly intended to cut off retreat paths, supply lines, and reinforcement routes. What we saw was straight out of the Wehrmacht’s playbook during their invasions of France and Poland. This isn’t a pejorative: most offensive military doctrine in the West is inspired or derived from Germany’s use of combined arms, stressing mechanized infantry for increased mobility, and emphasis on decisive forward action. Second-rate troops are generally unable to organize a retreat under fire, especially when the opposing forces are trying to flank them at every opportunity. Even regular troops would be captured en masse if they were caught off-guard.

“There was no stopping the Ukrainians, particularly since they were quite happy to drive into the Russian rear at speed and bypassing Russians defenses — knowing that owing to their numerical superiority these could be dealt with 2nd and 3rd echelons.”

Wrong again. This is the general tenure of Western maneuver warfare regardless of force concentration. The first echelon breaks through the frontline and envelops a pocket to trap and isolate defenders, while the second or third one advances forward to strike at operational depth. You don’t need superior forces to pull this off; a coordinated and disciplined thrust can throw the front line into disarray and make it crumble.

“This does not stop the 5D ghouls from claiming that the Ukrainians paid for their gains with massive losses. This is transparently false. Where in between abandoning 10,000 sq km and 50-100 tanks in just 5 days would the Russians have had the time to inflict heavy losses?”

Um…it’s quite simple. When an army advances as quickly as the UAF did, they lack the capacity to position and synchronize close air support, artillery (besides long-range systems like HIMARs), and air strikes. The former two lag behind since they require infantry support to secure their positions; the latter is delayed or preemptively used because local conditions change too quickly to avoid hitting your own men. The spearhead becomes exposed to defensive artillery, missile strikes, and air strikes as it’s far easier to coordinate and anticipate your own troops’ movement: they will only stay still or fall back. High casualty rates are a common pattern if the offensive party lacks air superiority. Just compare the Ardennes offensive, Tet offensive, and Kursk to the Gulf War and Iraq theaters. Thanks to U.S. air units striking at operational depth and disrupting defenses, U.S. forces could make these bold moves with few losses.

The UAF, by contrast, couldn’t do this as they don’t have an air force that can meaningfully contribute. Their NATO instructors have zero experience dealing with mobile screening forces falling back into massive artillery and rocket barrages. The Korean War was the last time a Western army faced anything resembling an industrial peer; meanwhile, U.S. military theory lacks such countermeasures in practice because they’ve always enjoyed armor and air superiority. So unsurprisingly the UAF + Western mercenaries suffered horrendous casualties. This was corroborated by Ukrainian sources BTW.

I also highly doubt there were “hundreds” of tanks abandoned in the Kharkiv region. If the General Staff wasn’t planning to attack through Izyum/southern Kharkiv or hold the territory, there wouldn’t be lots of tanks there in the first place. Not in the countryside where repair crews and refueling is hard to come by.

So cut the hyperbole and stop engaging in doom-mongering. The UAF made a successful tactical strike, Russia made a successful tactical retreat. 90% of the land captured is nigh-pointless for both of them from an operational and strategic level (PR for Ukraine though!). Izyum, Kupyansk, and Liman are really the key points in the region and we’ll see how the fighting goes there.

That the West, Ukraine, and NATO are fighting Russian missiles and shells with human lives!

https://i.imgur.com/VOQnMpp.jpg

This is NATO strategy against Russians!!!

All conventional theories of military strategy say Russia needs two million men or more in the Ukraine theatre to do succesful offensive operations now the Ukraine is mobilized. It would be better to have more than two million. If you accept this war is as serious as WWI or WWII for Russia, which it is, three million men for the Ukraine front is no big deal. Russia can win this war will far less resources this time. But still needs 2+ million for Ukraine. There is no way around the numbers. No other thing or strategy can compensate for not having more men.

What a joke you pro empire, racist supremacist global Jewish Judeo Nazi satanic slave empire dictatorship.

One area where the Judeo Nazi empire is still a superpower is in lies and propaganda. This site is good at that, fooling those who don‘t do their own research.

The great victory of the empire. Throw 50 k soldiers at Russian lines, lose over 25 k of them so far, capture some fields and few towns and proclaim victory.

This what Hitler did losing entire armies, millions of men Germany could not afford to lose, if Germany wanted to defeat Russia in world War 2. Judeo Nazis Zelensky, Kolomoisky etc., are making the exact same mistakes.

Russia lost very few men but was able to destroy vast numbers of Ukrainian men and equipment and is in the process of destroying all the reserves of the Ukrainian Zio Nazi army.

One mistake Russia did make among others is in not destroying Ukraine’s leadership military command and control infrastructure.

Russia is no in the process of training another 200 k volunteer contract soldiers. This will be sufficient to conquer all of Ukraine and all NATO armies there most likely leading to the breakup of ZIO Jewish supremacist Nazi NATO and the ZIO Jewish supremacist Nazi EU which should be the end of the racist supremacist global Jewish Judeo Nazi satanic slave empire dictatorship .

Let’s see where things are in November.