After the liberation of Artyomovsk (or, should we say, successful accomplishment of the Bakhmut meat grinder operation), some numbers are starting to come up, so I’ll lay down the basic stats.
The Ukrainians seem to have rotated between 27 and 35 brigades in and around Bakhmut. Those units are now mostly destroyed – dead or wounded. The minimal number of Ukrainian dead in this operation was around 50000, although I wouldn’t be surprised at twice as much.
The vast majority of Russian fighters involved in the operation belong to the Wagner private military organization, and the number that is mentioned is around 26000 men, enhanced by some Russian regular troops – marines and paratroopers. The losses on the side of Wagner are not clear – I haven’t seen any actual reports, but I would guess two to five thousand dead, but the number of troops involved in the operation definitely puts the upper limit of 10000 to a total number of Russian casualties in the operation. The Wagner people also seem to be tired, stressed out, and in dire need of being rotated out of the front line.
The Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut were among the most heavily fortified positions in the history of war, and I’m not saying that lightly. There are hundreds of kilometres of underground tunnels and facilities there, plus the Soviet reinforced concrete buildings that are incredibly hard to grind down. They also had all kinds of drones and surveillance equipment, uninterrupted supplies and so on.
The conventional wisdom of war states that you need a 3x stronger attacking force to conduct a successful siege. The fact that the Russians managed to grind down such a powerfully fortified settlement with so few troops is a unique thing in the history of warfare. Their success can be attributed to several factors. First, the Ukrainians tend to approach warfare like moles and ground hogs, digging themselves in and counting on being very hard to dig out. By doing this, they forfeit all initiative of manoeuvre warfare, and basically just postpone their inevitable defeat. Furthermore, the Russians used more and better artillery, advanced tactical and operational skills, and worked against an enemy whose position is fixed and known, with their own force that is flexible and mobile. They also used some very advanced stuff, like electronic tags for preventing blue-on-blue fire, drones, infrared goggles and sights and so on, and they also controlled the air, being able to call on occasional airstrikes, although this happened rarely. The fact that the Russians had a much smaller force contributed to the length of the operation, but to be honest, the nature of the operation was such that you could hardly do this faster by throwing more men at it; you would merely increase your losses, which the Russians tried to avoid, and quite successfully.
So, far from the picture of courageous but outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers fighting against a huge tide of Mordor, the truth seems to be the opposite – the huge number of Ukrainians dug themself deeply into concrete, displayed neither military skill nor tactical intelligence, underestimated their enemy, misread the tactical situation, and were an inferior fighting force by absolutely all standards of warfare, except for the level of equipment, which was of the highest NATO quality and included very current intelligence provided by American military satellites and analysts in Ramstein and other locations via satellite Internet link. Another deplorable thing about the Ukrainians is that they invariably tend to dig in in a civilian settlement, and not just any, but one with Russian population, because they know that the Russians will care about civilian casualties, and to them, the more Russian civilians die, the better. This fact complicates things immensely for the Russians, because they have to restrict the use of weapons of mass destruction, and basically dig out the ground hogs slowly with very granular and localised attacks, and not, for instance, with high-yield thermobaric weapons that would basically kill every living thing in the area, or with enough explosive to level the entire city blocks, which they absolutely could do.
All in all, this confirms my assessment that the Russians were doing this operation with basically their little finger, and one arm and both legs tied. They didn’t use practically any of their military, they didn’t use high-yield weaponry, they were constantly fighting outnumbered, and the enemy could count on NATO intelligence support from satellites and AWACS planes and what not, and they treated this not as some great adversity, but they literally called this “operation meat grinder”. They saw this as a slaughterhouse for the enemy, because they got them to defend a strategically crucial point they can’t afford to lose because it controls the entire area east of Dniepr river and is also the most heavily fortified area in that part of the world, and they knew several things: Russian soldiers are better, Russian tactics are better, and Russian weapons are better than NATO weapons. This sounds incredible, but the results speak for themselves.
Also, it is obvious that the Russians were in no hurry to end this quickly at all cost; they are in fact in no hurry even to end the regular bombardments of Donetsk city. My analysis of their strategy is that they are trying to accomplish two major things: first, not escalate this into a nuclear war if at all possible, because then the losses would be such, that the entire Ukraine would be a rounding error; and second, avoid being so successful in warfare that they destroy their own economy and relations with friendly countries in the process. Winning Ukraine is not really a goal; it’s basically not even something they really want, but rather something they tried very hard to avoid, but couldn’t. If they wanted to get Ukraine, they could do it easily by cutting all Ukraine’s ties to the West by entering from Belarus at the NATO border with several hundred thousand troops and thousands of tanks and other heavy machinery, turning off gas, electricity and water to all population centres of Ukraine, destroying the Ukrainian military, killing their leadership and installing their own military government in Kiev. This is still quite possible, but I have to ask, what would they actually gain, and at what cost? They would demonstrate strength and decisiveness and eliminate a very hostile force that is a puppet of their true enemies. Millions of Ukrainians would die. This would portray the Russians as ruthless, dangerous savages and would result in a serious propaganda victory for the West. Now they look “weak” and “indecisive”, but they also look restrained, careful and rational. Maybe they don’t want to look like someone who has the most powerful military in the world, and no virtue and restraint in its application, no? However, I’m not sure that their restraint works against America, because America seems to be too stupid to understand it or even to perceive it; they implicitly assume that the Russians would just go in and brute-force everything if they could, and the fact that they don’t means that they can’t. The concept that the Russians could easily depopulate Ukraine, but simply don’t want to do it because of moral reasons, is absolutely unfathomable to the Americans, because they see the Russians as a big violent stupid bear that does everything by brute force and great numbers, and they see themselves as surgical-precision superior-technology superpower; however, the mere statistical layout of the Russian victory in Bakhmut, which will be called Artyomovsk from now on, proves the opposite. The Americans are the ones who get by using low-precision (basically, kill them all and let God sort them out), brute force, numerical supremacy approach (so called “shock and awe”), and the Russians are using high-precision, high-technology, strategically and tactically careful approach, succeeding against a NATO force that has satellites and AWACS and all kinds of ground weaponry, and is 3-4x more numerous, and the result was a resounding Russian victory with minimal losses of manpower and equipment.
The silliest thing is, the West still thinks it has a technological and tactical superiority, and believes in magical virtues of “modern NATO weapons” and “NATO training”, both of which proved to be obviously inferior. Unless American military analysts do an analysis similar to the one I made, this is absolutely not going to end well for anybody, because they are going to double-down on their mistakes until they feel they have to resort to a nuclear option, which the Russians are trying to avoid at all cost, but this seems to actually increase the probability of such outcome. I don’t think it’s possible for the Americans to accept the facts of the situation, which are that their technology and tactical training suffered a resounding defeat by a technologically and tactically superior, but vastly numerically weaker enemy. They just had too much of their own kool-aid, and the talk of sending F-16s into Russian air defence umbrella is strong evidence thereof. They just don’t get it that the Russian rocket technology is at least 20 years superior to their own, that Russian radars are superior to their own, and that the Russians also have satellites and AWACS planes, high-precision and long-range rockets, and all kinds of technological wizardry. Unfortunately, after the cold war they stopped being afraid, and they could very much use fear at this point, because they were never so relatively weak against an opponent since their independence war against Britain.
Ajd se tematski upusti u sagledavanje razmjera i posljedica izvođenja očekivane ukrajinske ofanzive. Što je ruski cilj nakon Bahmuta? Navodno su Rusi napravili velike obrambene linije. Nastavak taktike “mlina za mljevenje mesa” ? Što će biti ruske “crvene linije” i kako će reagirati?
Kao prvo, zaboravi sve što si pročitao u zapadnom tisku, sve je čista propaganda i laž.
Ruske fortifikacije na liniji razgraničenja služe sprečavanju ukrajinske taktike koja im je prije išla na živce, a koja je varijacija na temu jučerašnjeg prodora na pravcu Belgoroda u Rusiju; naime granica je ogromna, to su tisuće kilometara, i to je nemoguće sve pokrivati i braniti makar imao milijune ljudi pod oružjem, i ako te netko hoće provocirati a ima podatke s američkih satelita, pogledat će gdje nema prisutnosti trupa i tamo će poslati neku malu jedinicu da napravi sranje, a ako ona prođe, za njom će poslati još vojske. Koliko sam shvatio to je neka NATO fora. Kad je Surovikin preuzeo kontrolu nad frontom, prva stvar koju je napravio je da je postavio pasivne fortifikacije tipa rovova i protutenkovskih struktura po cijeloj duljini fronte, tako da su takvi prodori nemogući i Rusi ne moraju cijelo vrijeme premještati trupe kako ih netko iz Ramsteina prošeta.
Što se tiče ukrajinske ofenzive, to je totalna fikcija koja postoji samo u zapadnom tisku. Ukrajinskoj vojsci je slomljena kičma u Bahmutu, izgubili su 35 brigada (ljudstvo reducirano ispod 50%), Rusi su im uništili skladišta oružja i municije koje su dobili od zapada, i sad je samo pitanje kvalitete terena kad će Rusi iskoristiti sve prometne linije koje se granaju iz Bahmuta i prvo počistiti Donjeck od okupatora, a nakon toga sve do Dnjepra. Dakle jedina ofenziva koju se tu očekuje je ruska.
Operacija stroj za mljevenje mesa je završila prije cca. dva tjedna kad sam vidio da su se požurili uzeti Bahmut, a prije im to uopće nije bilo bitno, cilj je bio ubijati ukrope, što znači da tu postoji neki strateški plan u koji se Prigožin morao uklopiti. Očekivao bih veliki ruski prodor negdje sredinom 6.mj ili ranije, ovisno o tvrdoći terena, ali pripreme za taj prodor su već u tijeku – to je razlog zašto Rusi sistematski ukropima uništavaju skladišta i kasarne.
Hvala…pratit ću nastavak događanja i u skladu sa tvojim uvidima. Imam još jedno pitanje-da li se Rusi stide “Kubanske krize” iz 1962. godine u kojoj su se morali povući sa Kube i vratiti nuklearne rakete? Naime taj argument Kube se u UN-u od strane Rusije i općenito u proruskim medijima ne koriste kao argument političke ideje o “nedjeljivoj sigurnosti” po kojoj Rusija ima sad isto moralno pravo da postupi (i postupa) naspram Ukrajine kao što su to uradili i Amerikanci naspram Kube za svoju sigurnost?
Griješiš. Kubanska kriza se uvijek prikazuje jednostrano, ali se amerikenjci prave ludima i naprosto ignoriraju da je to jednostavno reakcija Sovjeta na američke namjere da u Turskoj instaliraju rakete Jupiter s nuklearnim bojevim glavama. Povijest se ponavlja dakle tj. amerikenjci provociraju, a Rusi onda reagiraju pa su “zli” i “agresivni”, a ameri “pošteni”, “dobri” i Bogu “ugodni”.😈😈😈
Dobro…američki film “13 dana” pokazuje na obostrana ustukanja sa time da su amerikanci kao “itako namjeravali” vratiti raekte iz Turske. No stoji još uvjek moje sagledavanje da Rusi danas taj argumet Kube ne koriste sa Ukrajinom u svoje političko objašnjenje da rade samo ono što su radili i Amerikanci. Turina se nije osvrnuo na tu činjenicu…
Amerikanci su u tom slučaju postavili presedan po kojem njihova nacionalna sigurnost u njihovoj interesnoj zoni nadjačava sve argumente po liniji suverene demokratske volje susjedne države. Dakle po tom argumentu Kuba nema pravo sklopiti sporazum s Rusijom o plasmanu nuklearnih raketa na svom teritoriju jer to ugrožava nacionalnu sigurnost Amerike.
Rusiji taj argument trenutno odgovara. S druge strane Rusija ima problem da njihova ideja o tome da mogu uzeti dio Ukrajine i na njemu raspisati referendum o pripojenju Rusiji jako ne odgovara Srbiji koja ima problem Kosova, a iskreno taj argument ne bi trebala prihvaćati ni Hrvatska koja je imala isti problem s pobunjenim Srbima. U svakom slučaju, ta ideja o nekakvim presedanima u međunarodnoj politici se oslanja na koncept presedana u engleskom pravu i problematična je kao takva.
Ako išta, rekao bih da kubanska kriza ilustrira razliku između američkog i ruskog pristupa. Naime, Amerikanci su u sklopu mirovnog sporazuma pristali povući Jupiter rakete iz Turske, ali pod uvjetom da se to napravi potiho, tako da se u javnosti stvori dojam da su oni pobijedili Ruse a ne da su se obje strane povukle na prijašnju poziciju, a Rusija je na to pristala, što znači da je Rusiji bilo bitnije imati mir i de-facto situaciju, a Americi je uvijek strašno stalo do toga da izgleda kao pobjednik i neko koga se svi boje pa je eto uspio zastrašiti Sovjetski Savez i natjerati ga na povlačenje.
Putin je odličan primjer nekoga tko se uvijek birao ponašati pomirljivo s Amerikancima, misleći da će tako kupiti mir, i to je do sada uvijek proizvodilo loše rezultate, između ostalog to da se Rusi osjećaju inferiorno kao narod, osjećaju se kao netko tko se uvijek mora povlačiti i žrtvovati radi mira, a Amerikanci ili netko drugi će uvijek glumiti superiorne pobjednike. To je razlog zašto se toliko Rusa maknulo na Zapad – naprosto percipiraju da je to pobjednička strana. Iz istog razloga postoji percepcija o američkoj vojnoj i ostaloj tehnologiji kao superiornoj.
Mislim da je to ključno pitanje, i bojim se da Rusija naprosto nije u stanju pobijediti ako ne lupi šakom po stolu i veli “ili ćete prestat srat ili ćemo vas sve pobit, dosta je više tih sranja”. Bojim se da ni Putin ni Rusija naprosto nemaju dovoljno samopouzdanja za takvo nešto, da sad ne pričam o kršćanskom moralu na kojeg se furaju, a koji naprosto nije spojiv s tim.
Rusija jeste inferiorna po broju stanovnika (od kojih njih dosta nisu Rusi) u odnosu na “kolektivni zapad” ali što zapadu to vrijedi kad ovi imaju veliko nuklearno oružje za svoju bezbjednost. Svakako da je glavna muka zapada ogromni ruski teritoriji i prirodna bogatsva pa sad brezobrazno počinju i govoriti da je ona to postigla okupacijama, kolonizacijama i da to treba razdjeliti. Naš profesor doktor R.Pavić, poznati tumač geopolitike jasno je govorio da iza svakog rata i ratnih tendencija stoji ekonomski interes i teritorij.
To nije bitno, zato što na kolektivnom zapadu postoji jako mali postotak vojno sposobne populacije koji bi bio spreman sudoalovati u bilo kakvom sukobu, što je posljedica dugotrajnog njegovanja raznih pederskih ideologija, od feminizma na dalje, tako da imaju jako plitak pool potencijalnih vojnika, za razliku od Rusije. Isto tako, da, tu postoji još vrlo tanki sloj mogućnosti za eskalaciju rata prije nego se prijeđe na nuklearno oružje. Naprosto, ne-nuklearni rat nema nekog posebnog smisla nakon što su se obje strane “međusobno proklele”. Tu treba uništiti neprijatelja na najefikasniji mogući način i nema više zajebancije.
As for not wiping out the highest military command of Ukraine Armed Forces by the Russians, there is this rumor floating around for some weeks now that commander-in-chief Zaluzhny and maybe Sirskyi as well, have been either killed or at least seriously wounded in a rocket attack on some site in Pavlograd few weeks ago. At least, they are not appearing in public and all videos and photos presented as the most recent ones are actually the ones from before. I just don’t know if that was intentional on Russian side as some way of getting even because of the drone attack on Kremlin or it was a lucky punch?
I think they got lucky. Also, there’s a reason why Zelensky is having his long celebrity tour of the world at the moment, after the failed drone attack on the Kremlin. Apparently, the Russians previously promised the Israelis that they won’t hit Zelensky, but now the deal seems to be off. I also see increasing signs of nervousness and panic in Ukraine, because the Russians are really rattling them with recent attacks and successes.