After some five days of Ukraine’s offensive against Russian lines it appears that upwards of 5,000 Ukrainian troops have either died or been seriously wounded. In addition hundreds of military vehicles, including many of the most recent additions to Ukraine’s armoury have been destroyed. Russia is completely overpowering a Ukrainian army that is now mostly composed of forced conscripts and reservists.
The Ukrainians being sent now as cannon fodder to the front lines and made to advance toward Russian lines are barely trained at all. The professional forces that Russia faced in the initial stages have been taken off the battlefield killed or wounded. By comparison, Russia’s troops are highly trained, even the 300,000 extra troops that were ushered into the active forces had previously served and were given many months of refresher training to prepare them for this fight.
Russia is now steadily grinding down the now poorly trained Ukrainian army along with foreign volunteers and sheepdipped NATO troops. Young and old Ukrainians, mobilised and barely given a month's training are largely innocent victims of western powers who have been pushing for the current offensive.
Russia has launched many new military satellites in recent months which give them eyes on Ukrainian troop movements and potentially precise locations of artillery and large group movements. This is yet another factor which spells the end of all Ukrainian hopes for anything even remotely resembling a victory over Russia. This was a goal and cause that was hopeless from the start due to the vast differences in the resources each side could bring to bear.
Russia, in addition to all of the above has a powerful array of new weapons which can be used to devastating effect. Hypersonic missiles, glide bombs and a diverse range of drones. Russia is applying ever more recently developed weapons as the conflict goes on, the most recent being a remotely operated mine laying device. This appears currently to be a chief cause of major destruction being inflicted upon Ukrainian military vehicles of all kinds.
The energy production capacity of Ukraine is nearing total degradation and once complete and the ground hard enough Russia will use a 500,000 strong army to sweep all before it in its upcoming winter offensive.
The Ukrainian air defence system, apart from around Kiev, appears to have been rendered almost useless giving Russia virtual freedom of the skies. Even around Kiev Russia has degraded the sir defence system, recently taking out one of the hyper-expensive Patriot systems.
You have to wonder what the Ukrainians are banking on right now. Yes, they can keep throwing men forward, mostly at this point barely trained for a month, usually less. Men up to the age of 70. Women too no doubt. And what will they achieve exactly? They might hold back the highly trained Russian military with its far superior artillery power for a limited period. But that Russian military is firing six times as many shells back on a constant day in, day out basis, decimating Ukrainian troop numbers.
Once the current Ukrainian offensive ends in total failure Russia will perhaps mount her own offensive. Or, Russia may simply continue grinding down each and every Ukrainian defence lie moving forward incrementally before grinding down the next on and on until all the Russian-speaking Donbass region is taken and secured.
So, what exactly can be achieved by Ukraine in these circumstances?
Well, the USA and others can provide greater financial support and also more and better weapons. But this hasn't worked in the past. No matter which supposed 'game-changer' weaponry has been given to the Ukrainians the Russian military still grinds on and will continue to grind on. This is because Russia HAS to do so... because it sees its very nationhood is at stake.
Barack Obama said years ago that Russia has, “escalatory dominance”. Russia has an enormous capacity to wage war. Its industry is now even more geared up to destroy Ukraine than before. Russia is not going to lose this. It cannot afford to and it has all the capacity it needs to do so. Sooner or later Ukraine will crack.
Delay in negotiating a settlement will have two consequences however.
Even more Ukrainians will die.
Even more Ukrainian territory will be lost.
There is a third to add to these two. Ukraine is parcelled up into pieces, one protectorate taken by Poland, another by Hungary and a third by Romania.
These are the realities. It seems the only reason that they cannot be faced by those pushing for ever more war is that they cannot face the humiliation of defeat. But it is coming... no matter WHAT they do.
Ukraine has lost Bakhmut. There is simply no way Russia will give up on the task of taking all the other villages, towns and cities within the Donbass region. Too much hinges on this. During the battle for Bakhmut Ukrainian hospitals were receiving on average 150 casualties per day with amputations quite common. Across the battlefield it has been estimated that Ukraine is losing between 500 and 800 troops each day. This is not sustainable.
Russia is pounding Ukrainian defence positions to dust and in fact it suits the Russian military high command to do so as the object is to eliminate as much of the Ukrainian military forces as possible, to put them into a "meat grinder" as the head of Wagner has said. The primary object overall is to eliminate as much of the enemy as possible, not necessarily to take territory.
The new Russian military satellites now have virtually full oversight over the battlefield. These were increasingly put in position over the last few months and the current strikes can be seen to have relied on the new satellite data that has become available.
Ukraine stands no chance of keeping anything much in the days and weeks ahead. Another 380,000 Russian troops have arrived with the most modern of weaponry at their disposal. (300,000 from an estimated 1.3 million candidates who have seen military service at some point in the past, plus 80,000 who have volunteered to serve). Russia is readying its military for the final period of fighting that will progressively hit Ukrainian positions, logistic centres, repair shops, warehouses, arms dumps and as can be seen in recent weeks, state command and control entities.
There is no possible way Ukraine can do anything significant in response against the now expanded Russian forces... especially as its western sponsors are running extremely low on weaponry and munitions. The fact that Russia is moving into economic growth while the western nations attacking it are increasingly going into recession is yet another factor spelling defeat for both the Kiev regime and its sponsors.
Russia attempted to find a peaceful way by which the mixed marriage Russian-Ukrainian population of eastern Ukraine could retain their language, pro-Russian culture and allegiances in the face of the president and government they by majority had elected, being ousted by means of an insurrection. The people in that region of Ukraine had expected that change would come through the democratic process, not through riot, or by any other means.
The events which took place on Maidan Square in Kiev therefore shocked and horrified them and they knew with some confidence what was to come. They knew for instance that those who had taken power were those who had failed to secure their positions by democratic means. They knew also that their language, allegiances, pro-Russian culture and indeed their lives were at threat and that henceforth they and their children down the generations would never again experience the ability to reliably cast their vote and have the government they favoured be elected to power.
In effect what had occurred in Kiev was a coup, and they knew it. In addition to all of the above they had seen various members of the United States political elite appear on the square exhorting those there to continue and achieve their goal of bringing the democratically-elected president and government down. A president who had announced that elections would be brought forward to a few months hence in which the entire matter of Ukraine linking ever closer to the European Union could be decided democratically. This was not to be. Instead many were to die including around fifteen policemen. I wonder if anyone reading this can imagine what the political elites of the USA would do if such a number of police officers were killed by similar insurrections in their country?
The people in eastern Ukraine read the writing on the wall and when the new authorities in Kiev said they were going to act against the Russian language every fear they had was confirmed. Were they to accept this new government forced on them and accept to that their already hated population (called 'Moskals' by the ultra-nationalists and most of the general public in western Ukraine, i.e. Russians) was not to be further excluded from any right to a democratic vote, their language itself and that of their children, and perhaps even the right to live at all? Of course not. They took matters into their hands by largely peaceful means, took over administration functions in their regions and demanded a level of autonomy that would guarantee their future rights.
Putin, when asked by the leaders of what became self-asserting republics, to let them join the Russian Federation, refused, stating they must remain within the boundaries of Ukraine but that he would work with others to attain for them the level of autonomy within Ukraine that they required. At the time of asking Kiev had sent its military plus the most violent of the Maidan militias to the republics and they had begun bombarding their villages, towns and cities.
Putin worked with Germany, France and the Ukrainian authorities on the autonomy issue to bring peace and reconciliation to the region. The Minsk Accords were agreed and ratified in 2015 and the next seven years were spent attempting to have them implemented. Ultimately the Ukrainian authorities stated they had no further interest in them. In the interim, from 2015 to 2021 NATO and others within the West has reinforced, trained and financed the Ukrainian army plus put in place massive lines of defence bordering the two regions.
During this period also a constant bombardment of the civilian populations of the two regions was carried out by the Ukrainian military and the so-called 'Volunteer Battalions' such as the 'Azov Battalion'. There was scant, if any, reporting in the West of this latter fact.
When the Ukrainians said they were no longer interested in Minsk and the ex-president of Ukraine, Poroshenko, said it had merely been a ruse to let Ukraine re-arm Russia understood the situation. Then Zelensky, the current president talked of regaining Ukraine's nuclear status and swore to take Crimea back by force. Then, there was a sharp rise in the shelling of the republics.
Putin saw that the peaceful means he had hoped would resolve the question of the Donbass region was no longer recognised by Ukraine or its western supporters. It was for these and other reasons, such as NATO pushing for Ukraine accession to it and with Ukraine having become a de facto NATO state, with nothing at all evident that might provide a peaceful path forward to resolve the thorny questions Minsk ought to have answered that Putin took Russia into Ukraine.
The best way forward now would be for both the Ukrainian regime and its western backers to cut their losses and resign themselves to the fact that Russia has won. They need to acknowledge this fact and begin negotiations that provide Russia with everything it asked for before this all began, something that the West precipitated by refusing to acknowledge both Russia and the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass had every right to the same level of security that NATO was created to provide the nations of the collective west.
If the above is not embarked upon soon by western leaders then Ukraine may very well disappear completely as a viable state.
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