US officials told The New York Times on Wednesday that the main thrust of Ukraine’s counteroffensive has started while the Russian military reported a “massive” Ukrainian tank attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Unnamed Pentagon officials told the Times that Ukraine has poured in thousands of troops who were being held in reserve to the frontlines. Most of them have received training in NATO countries ahead of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was launched in early June.
The Russian Defense Ministry said there was heavy fighting to the south of Orikhiv, a Ukrainian-controlled town in Zaporizhzhia. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Ukrainian forces “carried out a massive attack by three battalions reinforced by tanks.”
“All of the Ukrainian army’s attacks were repelled by courageous and professional actions,” Konashenkov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS. He claimed Russian forces “destroyed 22 enemy tanks, 10 infantry fighting vehicles, an armored combat vehicle and over 100 Ukrainian personnel.”
According to the Times, Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the southern front said they’d “been steadily pushing Russian troops back, but their progress had been incremental with no major breakthroughs.”
The new push appears to be a last-ditch effort to break through after the first phase of the counteroffensive had been unsuccessful. Ukraine’s goal is to sever the land bridge Russia has secured from Crimea to the Russian mainland, and Ukrainian officials told the US that the new operation could take one to three weeks if it is successful. “This is the big test,” a US official told the Times.
Ukrainian success seems unlikely, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Western officials didn’t believe Ukraine had enough weapons or training to dislodge Russian forces but hoped they would be able to break through anyway. In the lead-up to the counteroffensive, the Discord leaks and media reports revealed that the US did not expect Ukraine to be able to regain much territory.
Aaah, the New York Times in 2023, aka spokesperson of the Pentagon and purveyor of military industrial complex propaganda. What is there to celebrate when we send Ukrainian lives into a meatgrinder and uses American taxpayers’ money to do it? Start negotiations to end this stupid war.
The negotiations make no sense whatsoever until Russian army take Kiev under control.
Well said, Pal.
So the United States doesn’t really THINK that the “counteroffensive” will work, but HOPES that it will. And the end result will be more loss of life, more loss of habitat, more contamination of the earth.
And when the “counteroffensive” miserably fails, ZelBoy will shed bitter tears as to how the West didn’t donate enough weapons.
Get off your high horse, ZelBoy. The chances of you winning this war are slim and none, and Slim’s in Amarillo. NEGOTIATE, you stupid f*ck.
Well, here we go. Ukraine following instructions and throwing the dice, in this case thousands of their soldiers lives, into the mix. Zelensky the 5th “once more unto the breach”? We’ll see …
Up to now it was only the Auxiliary Thrust…!
According to SouthFront, they pushed toward Rabotino but without any success
https://southfront.org/convulsions-of-ukrainian-counteroffensive/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SouthFront
The Ukes are advancing in the South. Live with it!
Ukes? You mean UK? English mercs?
Oh yeah! They did advance deep south from Nikolaev hotel. What is really entertaining, locals waited for all the mercs to advance deep south before digging out their bodies. There was a good number of Akies who advanced deep south in Odessa region and pretty much all over Ukraine.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f5c85057aac19cfc567dd70457564c3fd97fe1978a3bd95a53f4c5211270e19.png
HARD to feel sorry for the farmers of Ukraine, were stupid enough to be cajoled and bribed into challenging the biggest & best armed state on the planet, except maybe their ally, China, but I do… Now their fate is up to Putin I believe. Just how did these guys believe they could roll Russia on handouts and the generosity of the country that snuck out of Afghanistan under cover of darkness leaving their proxy to the tender mercies of the Taliban. They were presumeded to hold on for “Up to two years.” How long did they last????? Cant remember whether it was three or six weeks!! What an ally…. Worse yet, after their last obviously failed go against Russia, they broke all their commitments of Minsk one and two. So Putin and Russia are not going to trust any deal they make going forward and the sasfest way to be sure that they are not a problem in the future is to destroy it’s viability as a state!!!
I cannot say that the US has behaved with intelligence and honor with its actions to other countries over the last 75 years. One invasion after another. Overturning governments and training hit squads and murdering innocents. I don’t believe this is the way the worlds greatest Democracy should act.
The USA isn’t a democracy. It was set up as a constitutional Republic with voting as one of the checks and balances on government power. The constraints on government power have long since failed. What we have ended up with is government controlled by special interests. These special interests are dominated by corporations. Politically this manifests itself as a donor class that seeks to further empower itself via lobbying and the election process.
Essentially, the USA is economically a fascist state as it fuses corporate power with the state. It is also a kakistocracy as it is run by the worst elements and is incompetent to boot.
US weakness is corruption by those who ignore the aspirations of the American people for development of a modern nation.
What is a modern nation? It is defined by decent wage, health care, transportation, a secure home, food on the table, education and opportunity to advance to the best of one’s ability unhindered by gate keepers occupying avenues of the people’s progress.
Notice that endless war serves the personal purposes of a corrupted few and weakens the nation by depriving it of the people’s good works.
Yes, they have fouled their own house and children, the Commons, and in earnest of human habitation in toto.
Jeez GC we don’t have any of those fucking things and no way to get them either.
Yes, Washington is a sewer.
Precisely, “sewer” is more applicable than “swamp.”
Actually Washington is an overflowing sewer infecting everything decent in our country. Read some Thomas Jefferson for the solution.
What brown shirts and fascism in the US. All the way back to the OSS which became the CIA filled with Russian haters like the Dulles brothers? How can this be? Tge legend of McCarthy and the House trials is coming back again to your town.. I have been getting Email from the DNCC requesting money. I replied it is a very close contest between our two parties which is more corrupt and more warlike. That usually stops the mail.
Just from reading the title, “US Officials Say the Main Thrust of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Started,” the game is so obvious that it’s harder to believe that they believe they’re actually fighting for Ukraine? Blink Blink Blink. I still can’t believe my own eyes. (Sarcasm)
Never gets old! 😁
This massive Ukrainian attack can have only one outcome – the massive massacre of Ukrainian men.
It is not difficult to see what happens next: once Ukrainian/NATO military forces are exhausted, Russia will counterattack and more oblasts of former Ukrainian Republic have referendums for joining Russian Federation.
Well said, and Russia’s slow-moving strategy has managed to deplete much of the West’s military surplus.. The US is now reduced to contracting artillery shells from Bulgaria.. http://www.Flagman.bg
Russia moving slow is not a strategy, it’s a failure.
If they were as strong and capable as they made us all believe for decades, they would’ve taken all of Ukraine by now.
maybe taking all of Ukraine is not their goal
Now is not but it was their initial failed objective.
Putin announced the goals of Special Military Operation just before it started: de-Nazification and de-militarization of Ukraine. What about taking or not taking some oblasts of former Ukrainian Republic into Russian Federation, it can be decided only on the referendum. Everyone can easily find out what oblasts always voted for politicians with pro-Russian rhetoric and what oblasts voted for the politicians with pro-NATO rhetoric. South and East is pro-Russian, West is pro-NATO. No one is going to take any Ukrainian oblast into Russian Federation without a referendum.
If losing the war was Putin’s real goal, he is succeeding.
Again, it’s what you guys now say. Last year, the objective was to take all of Ukraine. And why not? they thought they could and that’s why they made it to 5 miles outside the Presidential Palace before they got annihilated. Same happened at the airport. Plus their amphibious landing in Odessa that never materialized. To demilitarize and denazify (althought not even Russia knows what that means), ones must take the entire country.
in 1917 Lenin and Trotsky found out that an attempt to occupy Poland with its mostly anti-Russian and anti-Soviet population was madness. An analogy is therefore the basis for ending the current Russo-Ukrainian war. It would be madness by Russia/Putin to add all of the remainder of Ukraine to the Federation. It would be madness by Ukraine/US/Zelensky to deny at least some self-government to the Donbass and even that may be too late now. The actions of Zelensky against the Russian Orthodox Church tell the Donbass ‘Russians’ what is in store for them if they return fully to Ukrainian sovereignty. Revenge.
Lenin and Trotsky were radical anti-Christian Russophobes. When Bolsheviks established their power in Russia, the state bureaucracy was staffed by anti-Christian Russophobes and criminals, mostly by J. In first 20 years of Bolshevik rule, more than 90% of Christian churches were either demolished or closed. Most of Christian clergy was exterminated. Russian people are thankful to Stalin because he outplayed and destroyed Bolshevik gang, so after his death, ethnic Russians got to the top of the state again.
“the state bureaucracy was staffed by anti-Christian Russophobes and criminals, mostly by J”
Not a single major Soviet institution was “mostly” Jewish. The overall government under Lenin and Trotsky was about 12% Jewish, although the Politburo was 40% Jewish (with a small sample size of 7, not especially odd for there to be a statistical anomaly). Lenin — the very “top of the state” — was of mixed ancestry (including a Jewish grandfather whom he apparently didn’t ever know was Jewish), but was a hereditary member of the Russian nobility via his father. He was anti-tsarist, not a “Russophobe.”
Note “as moderator”: Not even a good try at smuggling your Jew-baiting BS in here. Knock it off or be gone.
“the state bureaucracy was staffed by anti-Christian Russophobes and criminals, mostly by J”
Not a single major Soviet institution was “mostly” Jewish. The overall government under Lenin and Trotsky was about 12% Jewish, although the Politburo was 40% Jewish (with a small sample size of 7, not especially odd for there to be a statistical anomaly). Lenin — the very “top of the state” — was of mixed ancestry (including a Jewish grandfather whom he apparently didn’t ever know was Jewish), but was a hereditary member of the Russian nobility via his father. He was anti-tsarist, not a “Russophobe.”
Note “as moderator”: Not even a good try at smuggling your Jew-baiting BS in here. Knock it off or be gone.
You are repeating the fakes from Google. You don’t even know that Lenin’s father was half Kalmyk and half Mordovian. He was promoted to the nobility for his own personal achievements in the field of education. He was a son of a serf.
Ah, so now you’re a mind-reader, and can just magically know that when I wrote that Lenin was of “mixed ancestry,” I didn’t have any particular ancestries in mind?
Yes, he was the son of a Russian serf. Who was awarded a title of hereditary Russian nobility.
He was far more “Russian” than the Georgian who succeeded him — and who did his damnedest to stamp out Christianity in Russia.
When Stalin established his power, the persecution of Christians became much less ferocious. Also he rehabilitated Russian literature. For example, the full collection of Pushkin was first published in 1937.
The plain fact is: after the death of Lenin, the top three men in the state were J. After the death of Stalin, the top three men were: one Georgian and two Slavs.
— and who did his damnedest to stamp out Christianity in Russia.
But he sure got religion when the wolf was at the door!
Nobody hates Judaism more than Jewish Bolsheviks – except maybe the Zionists who founded Israel, or do I repeat myself?
“Judaism” /= “Jewishness”
And if any of the dead Old Bolsheviks are resurrected and drop by Antiwar.com to Jew-bait, they’ll be shown the door if they don’t at least act like cats in a litter box and make a minimal effort to conceal that sh*t.
What if we immediately scoop the box?
🤔
Bolsheviks are by definition atheists. And Bolsheviks were staunchly anti-Zionist.
Tell that to Stalin.. First to recognize the colony.
РСДРП party which was later split in Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, was created in 1898. In first congress of the party participated 8 organizations, 3 of them were Zionist.
And Lenin and the Bolsheviks opposed the Zionists who walked out of the second congress in 1903.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bund-political-movement.
Yes, they were split first with Zionists, then with Mensheviks because of ideological differences but at the beginning and in WW I and Civil War they were together. In WW I all of them were supporting Germany. Bolsheviks were financed by German government. I found no one J person who fought in Civil War on White’s side. All of them were supporting Bolshevism.
Moderator’s note: Final opportunity to knock it off.
I agree that Mikhailovich’s ignorant comment is anti-Semitic. But I am against banning him or threatening him with banning. Ignorance can be enlightening.
Mikhailovich is a classical Russian chauvinist, like Putin. Mikhailovich knows a lot of facts but has no understanding of the relationship between Ukraine and Russian imperialism from a Ukrainian standpoint. It is better to expose and refute ignorant bigots than to suppress them.
I just work here. I try to exercise the lightest touch possible when it comes to enforcing the site’s guidelines, but they ARE the site’s guidelines and WILL be enforced.
I respect your job. You gotta do what the bosses tell you to do. I am on my own time here. Just another Bozo in the peanut gallery. But I respectfully disagree with the site’s rules restricting viewpoints. Delaying posting of comments that mention one specific religion is a prior restraint that I object to.
Well, you’re certainly free to object.
But your objections might be better directed to e.g. the Stormfront posses that occasionally show up to flood the comments with their filth.
Fortunately, there’s not been a lot of that lately, and almost all comments that I delete / commenters that I ban are spammers over the last few months. Especially porn spammers. Our filters are pretty good at catching them and leaving them for me to look at and delete/ban by IP, etc.
The ignorant people don’t know that so called anti-Semitism until the rise of Nazism was a religious-ideological issue, not racial. It became racial because Bolshevism was massively supported by J people and Bolsheviks considered J people as most reliable. The Bolshevik idea was to replace Russian and European elites by a new religious/ideological organization with J core.
You really don’t understand Bolshevism. It was anti-Zionist .
Just read in old communist books about the participant organizations in the first congress of Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party (РСДРП) which had place in Minsk in 1898. 3 of 8 participating organizations were Zionist, 5 – Marxist. In the old times it was not a secret. J were even proud of it.
You really have a paranoid view of Bolsheviks and Zionists. The Zionists flirted with the SD movement. But a few years after the 1898 congress they were divorced. The Bolsheviks were atheists who opposed Bundism.
You are just ignorant. Or a liar.
Unless you own this site isn’t there an inherent conflict of interest for you as a moderator being an active participant in the discussions? You can impose your biases without consequence and ban whomever you dislike. Rather totalitarian.
No.
I can’t “impose my biases without consequence.
I have bosses. Those bosses can be complained to, and sometimes are.
At which point I do what I’m told, or I quit (I quit once, rather than ban someone who actually hadn’t violated the guidelines; I was told I couldn’t quit, and the banned commenter was restored).
I’m here because unless someone is willing to be the moderator, commenting goes away entirely. And I was the only person working with Antiwar.com at the time that decision was made who was willing to do it rather than see commenting shut down. If you don’t like what I do as moderator, hit the site’s contact form and complain about it. If the people who run the site think I’m wrong, they’ll order me to do otherwise.
In the meantime, as a commenter rather than as the moderator, I’m free to comment as I damn well please as long as I don’t violate the guidelines. If you see me violating the guidelines, please let me know so that I can delete the guidelines-violating comment and punish myself by returning a few dollars of what I’m paid each month as a fine/donation to Antiwar.com.
Yes. There is a conflict of interest. But we’ll cut you slack because of the tortured situation you, as a censor, live under. The agonies of power.
That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c2c84bb31cadb523aae3c9e7bb4a00bad634ccd3097b26b2b3cf34e0083deb03.png
Knapp takes shit as much as Knapp gives shit. He’ll upvote you as easy as he will be a condescending dick to you.
Nah — I’ve got the condescending dick routine so down pat that it’s even easier than up-voting.
LOL , Wars!
Mr. T once told me I was one of his favorite commenters ( I was honored) and he still likes to regularly open a can of whup-ass on me.
Right, Mr. T? 😉
Ah, I’m actually just a cuddly kitten with y’all.
If you think most Russians are thankful to Stalin, you are very ignorant of Russia.
All the communists including Stalin and those with J parents were militant atheists who were as anti-J as they were anti-Christian. And the Bolsheviks were anti-Zionist. Ask the Bundists if the Bolsheviks were J agents or promoting a J agenda. The Bolsheviks closed more churches than synagogues simply because there were more churches than synagogues.
OK, moderator’s note time:
Comments which mention Jews get approved after being looked at, so long as they don’t contain ethnic slurs. Attempting to evade moderation scrutiny of your comments by substituting the letter “J” for “Jew” or “Jewish” makes my job harder, and will result in a ban.
Same for the letters W, B, and M?
Hahaha. Brilliant Putin deception! Rope-a-dope, or just dope?
Even if you believe Putin’s original objectives (demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine) he has failed.
It took MIGHTY USA 20 years and they left helter skelter from small Afghanistan
You said it best, Afghanistan, not Ukraine.
The US was not trying to annex Afghanistan.
but not nearly as disgraceful as their fleeing for their lives in VietNam
With Black Sea ports closed, it would be interesting to see how they will try to sneak it into Ukraine.
If and when this offensive fails historians may look at this like Napoleans Waterloo.What can not be measured yet is the US reaction to defeat of their Imperialistic aims and the neutering of Russia. I don’t think it is in the nature of these warmongering idiots to slink away quietly and lick their wounds. I would expect a more drastic response.
This war is an existential threat to . . . Biden’s reelection chances. Americans despise presidents they see as losers in our military misadventures and Biden and the Dems will be in big trouble next year if this one looks like a defeat for the plucky heroes of that frontier of democracy and freedom, Ukraine. 😏
So the chances of the US surrendering to reality aren’t very good for the foreseeable future. Maybe we (and the world) will be lucky and our brilliant leaders won’t be too drastically stupid and reckless. Or maybe we won’t be.
It IS very sad that there is such loss of life but Ukrainian sources are saying it’s 8:1 (Russians vs Ukrainians) which is —if true— remarkable for an army on the offensive.
Slava Ukraini!
Ukraine is fighting and winning a war of national resistance. It doesn’t really matter what happens on the battlefield. Russia lost the war over a year ago when the Ukrainian people coalesced in opposition to the Russian invasion. Even if all NATO aid was cut off and the Ukrainian army collapsed, Russia would still lose in the long run. The best military outcome Russia can hope for is to be an occupying power fighting a hopeless war against a popular indigenous resistance movement. Like the Israelis in Lebanon, or the British in Ireland, or the French in Algeria or the US in Vietnam or the US and the USSR in Afghanistan. In wars of national resistance the casualties on the indigenous side are usually much higher than the imperial invader’s casualties. For example, in Vietnam the US lost 58,000 troops against 2 milllion Vietnamese, including a million combatants. But the outcome was determined by hearts and minds, not force of arms. No matter how long it takes, this war can only end with a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.
It is a miracle that the Ukrainian army has stood up as well as it has. No amount of military aid ever motivated people to fight. Otherwise Vietnam and Afghanistan would have US puppet regimes.
Yes indeed. Removing Pentagon filth from our lands is top priority. Our people are strong. Much stronger and better fighters than Pentagon scum. The best thing about this clean up operation is entire world can see what happens when you trust the Empire of Lies. After liberating our country (with Russian help) and exterminating every single imperial collaborator, we will move west to liberate Europe from Anglo-American occupation.
What of the “hearts and minds” of the residents of the Confederacy ( US Civil War, in case you’re not Amerikkkan.)
The Confederacy was smashed to smithereens by the Union though it was fought almost exclusively in the South.
The condederacy was a myth. The hearts and minds of the 4 million slaves were resolutely for emancipation. Two hundred thousand joined the Union Army. Hundreds of thousand of others ran away during the war. And millions stopped working on the plantations in a movement WEB DuBois called a general strike that sabotaged the Southern economy long before Sherman marched to the sea. Only the white hearts and minds supported the confederacy.
If you go into details, you will discover that the small battles which now happen at the front, usually terminate with 30-80 Ukrainians dead and 1-2 Russian dead. That’s why Russia needs no extra mobilization while Ukraine is recruiting even old and disabled.
“That’s why Russia needs no extra mobilization while Ukraine is recruiting even old and disabled.”
And yet, for some reason, Russia felt the need to raise the maximum conscription and service ages just this month. Coincidence, I’m sure.
Russia is preparing for the eventual full scale war with NATO. Russian military industry is creating a lot of new weapons and, naturally, it needs more specialists. Several months ago Putin signed a decree to increase Russian military forces by 137 thousand men.
The mobilization for the special military operation in Ukraine happened only once; in the last autumn 300 000 men with the military experience were mobilized. Later, about 200 000 volunteers joined them. So, now, Russian army in Ukraine even more numerous than Ukrainian. At the beginning of the invasion, Russian army in Ukraine was about 4 times smaller than Ukrainian one. Since that time Kiev regime mobilized a lot more than Russia did but because of enormous Ukrainian losses, at the moment, Ukrainians are outnumbered at the front.
Ah, more “every sign of Russian failure is REALLY a sign of Russian military success if you hold your mouth just right and say the right prayers.”
To all appearances, Russian military industry is too busy retro-fitting mothballed T-55s to have much time for “creating a lot of new weapons.”
https://twitter.com/moklasen/status/1684586025731993601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1684586025731993601%7Ctwgr%5Efac3839b38f8b11a5b79abf668fb7df05b00a7b0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2023%2F7%2F27%2F2183646%2F-Ukraine-Update-Ukraine-counteroffensive-is-real-and-it-s-picking-up-steam
They should have used all these forces to push back around Avdiivka, then dug in, while they still had most of their men and equipment, just buy more time.
Better yet negotiate, but if you are going to fight at least fight smart. Attack where Russia hasn’t dug in yet, in areas furthest from their air base, don’t go straight at their main defense lines over and over.
Even if they can manage to reach Russian main lines of defense and break through some place, then what? Defend flanks at all costs? How? It would be like fighting and losing half your army, just so you can end up in a cauldron. I’m surprised Russia hasn’t allowed them to push in far enough to trap them. Who knows they might do that next time, open a door and let about a hundred tanks in, then shut it. That would be the end of this offensive.
The Russian retreat from the point of contact leaves the nazi forces exposed to artillery and minefields, which have ended any UA fantasy of an Offensive..
Strategic retreat! (I like how you tankies are starting to spin the rollback of Russian forces!)
You cows get back to that tankie and drink your kool-aid.
You can tankie, Russians later for stopping a nuclear war.
You know, I really don’t know what I enjoy more. Watching dismal faces of your pathetic, crippled grunts in Ukrainian hospitals. The stench of failure is written on each anglosaxon mug. At least they are alive, right?
Or watching your pathetic empire being humiliated on the global stage. With each geopolitical move slowly and methodically removing your parasitic claws from the world.
IDK, maybe you’re jealous we’ve still got an empire?
Yes, an empire of nobody Gnomes and the $30 trillion bill .that goes with it. Our power crazed leaders are so far behind that they don’t know we’ve lost in Ukraine. It’s another Afghanistan FIASCO…..!!!!!!!
Except where the Ukes are advancing.
Disgusted actually. Comparing our civilization to your pathetic empire is very insulting.
Did you know there are significantly more Neo Nazis in Russian than in Ukraine?
Research that before you continue spewing stupidity.
And you sound like many others here. Probalby another multi account blogger.
A kind of repeat of Kursk? The Germans could not achieve a deciding breakthrough hence did not take Kursk. Then the Russian counter-offensive threw them hundreds of miles Westward.
There’s some dissimulation going on in this reporting, which continues to mention “breaking through”. “Breaking Through” what? The Ukrainian haven’t reached the first defensive line yet, they are still fighting in the security zone; and they are now according to this story using their reserves to do that. So is that the objective? Using their reserves to “break through” the security zone? That doesn’t seem like much of a goal.
Q: How many legs does a dog have if we call its tail a leg?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg, any more than calling a defensive line a security zone makes it not a defensive line.
No a security zone is a real thing. A defensive line is a different, separate thing. Read your old marine doctrinal manuals.
Knapp has zero comprehension of military concepts and no interest in reading anything that shows Russians with the advantage. You’re wasting your time.
Welcome back, Hack! Weren’t you the guy who predicted a Russian sweep through Odessa and on to Transnistria by the end of March 2022? Still swallowing the Kremlin propaganda, I see.
Hey, do you remember that famed Canadian sniper? I forgot his name. He was like best in the west. Top notch. Seems like he expired few weeks after going to Ukraine. Must be COVID, eh?
So you’re as dumb as Knapp, right? That was then, this is now. I’ve learned more about military matters. Have you? Thought not. Still swallowing whatever Petraeus and Blinken dish out, apparently.
So you admit you were full of shit with your predictions in 2022.! Please tell us what you have learned about “military matters” since your stupid predictions last year. How long do you think it will take Russia to get to Transnistria? Or what Putin’s new goal? What’s the new time line for a Russian victory?
So you admit you were full of shit with your predictions in 2022.! Please tell us what you have learned about “military matters” since your stupid predictions last year. How long do you think it will take Russia to get to Transnistria? Or what is Putin’s new goal? What’s the new time line for a Russian victory?
He is now a writer and just posted an article about how he calculated that Ukraine loses 2,000 troops per day.
Yes, but the whole of it taken together can be referred to as the defensive line.
This argument strikes me as unproductive, semantics, good only to provide cover of confusion for the failures of Ukraine in these attacks.
I have no brief to “provide cover for the failures of Ukraine” in any respect.
As a political matter, I don’t care which regime comes out of the war as a “winner” or “loser,” although I expect both to claim the latter but for there to be a good case for the former.
As a military matter, I’ve explicitly said a number of times that I think Ukraine’s best outcome prospects involve fighting on the defensive as much as possible rather than wasting both men and munitions on attacking well-defended positions. There’s a limit to the number of Bakhmut-type “victories” — spending eight months, likely taking 2-3 times as many casualties as their dug-in opponents, to seize a single key point — that the Russians can afford.
As a military matter, there is no support for your claim that Russia suffered 2-3 times the casualties that Ukraine did in Bakhmut. We’ll probably never know the true scale of losses as both sides lie; you are conflating the rule of thumb stating that an attacker needs to generate “3 times the combat power” of the defender to achieve a breakthrough against a prepared defense, with a loss ratio, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate to loss ratios. The “combat power multipliers” in Bakhmut were through firepower, not manpower, just as ours were in Desert Storm, and in Iraq we certainly did not lose “2 to 3 times” the Iraqi casualties. One (combat multiplier) has nothing to do with the other (loss ratios), although certainly the higher the combat multiplier is, the lower the loss ratio should be.
The same people touting that “Russia lost more than Ukraine did” in Bakhmut are making the same claim for the loss ratio in the Ukrainian offensive, where now the Russians are dug in and the Ukrainians are in the open, and where the Ukrainians lack any firepower advantage. That makes absolutely no sense, again as a MILITARY MATTER. But I don’t know the actual death toll, and neither do you, and certainly the little yappy dogs that chime in have no clue either.
We have a pretty good idea by the smell and abundance of nato medals. Some of the filth in Artyomovsk (aka Bakhmut) had medals for destroying Yugoslavia.
Correct. Death tolls are all speculation and no side’s official numbers are to be trusted.
I speculate that the Russians lost more people taking Bakhmut than the Ukrainians lost holding Bakhmut. That speculation is based on my understanding, such as it is, of military history, of the forces arrayed against each other, and HOW they were arrayed. And the clincher for me is simple: The Ukrainians wouldn’t have held out there for eight months if the casualty ratio was disadvantageous to them. Could I be wrong? Of course.
I speculate that the Ukrainians are losing a lot more troops in their current “offensive” than the Russians are on the “defensive,” for the same reasons — the Russians are well dug in, with extensive obstacle and minefield protection, and almost certainly had plenty of artillery target points registered to dial in long before the “offensive” began. Could I be wrong? Of course.
Which is my point; so we agree. It’s all speculation. I disagree with your assessment on Bakhmut, but as I stated, given the lack of honesty from either side, and the complete lack of any journalistic integrity on either side, we’ll likely never really know.
I agree with your speculations and with your honesty that they are only our suppositions.
The important point is that is that it really doesn’t matter what happens on the battlefield. The war can only end with a Russian withdrawal. In asymmetric wars of national resistance the indigenous defenders often lose 10 or 20 times the casualties of the imperial invader. In the long run it makes no difference if the national resistance movement has popular support. Consider Israel in Lebanon, Britain in Ireland, France in Algeria, the US in Afghanistan and Vietnam or the USSR in Afghanistan. The best outcome the Russians can hope for is to destroy the Ukrainian army and thereby become an occupying power awash in a sea of resentful Ukrainians. Russia lost the war over a year ago. This is the denial stage I have seen so many times before. The imperial power can’t comprehend its defeat and tries to blame its lack of success on incompetence or treason (the “Rambo” delusion). Russia may escalate and it may go to a total mobilization. But that won’t change the outcome. The only way this war ends is with a Russian withdrawal from all of Ukraine, possibly even losing Crimea.
I was against Ukraine’s tilt toward the West in 2014. But Putin’s stupidity turned a Russian strategic setback into a Russian strategic catastrophe.
You cannot POSSIBLY believe that Putin will give up Crimea; by an overwhelming vote of the people, Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation.
And I myself refuse to believe that Donbas will not be (a) independent of Ukraine, or (b) part of the Russian Federation. Putin will not throw those people to the wolves.
Like most politicians, Putin will throw anyone to the wolves if he thinks that’s how he maintains or expands his power.
Sociopaths don’t care about people.
Six months ago I thought there was no way Crimea would go back to Ukraine. But Putin’s stupidity and his stubborn refusal to back down has pissed a lot of people off, including the Chinese. He acted like a rude petulant child when he met with the African delegation that was trying to give him a way to save face. So there is a distinct possibility that Russia will lose Crimea and that possibility grows the longer Putin continues the war.
Bullshit. Ther will be a much wider war if Crimea is going to be lost by Russia. And it doesn’t matter if the Chinese are pissed or not. Even the dolt Blinken has said Crimea is a red line.
Your assertion that Russia took many times more casualties because they were on the offensive in Bakhmut fails to account for the fact that the battle was fought almost entirely with artillery, and Russia had significantly more artillery & drones. Both sides were essentially dug in, shelling each other. There’s no evidence at all that Russia, with a population of 143 million, is lacking in the human & material resources to keep up regular offensives for another decade. It is highly questionable that Ukraine has the manpower to do so even with a continuous river of Western money.
OK, so you disagree with my assessment of the efficacy of Russia’s artillery. No biggie.
You do put your finger on one Ukrainian problem, though. That problem resembles the problem the Confederates had in the US Civil War. Even though they had a tendency to inflict more casualties on Union forces than they took themselves, they just simply had a lot fewer people available to fight.
On the other hand, Ukraine is backed by supporting regimes that have the capacity to produce and deliver many times as much war materiel, with little inconvenience to their own economies, as the Russians can produce/deliver at great expense to their economy. With the Russians bogged down for more than a year now, and having to pull 70-year-old tanks out of mothballs and such, the manpower inequality isn’t nearly as likely to be decisive, though — IF the Ukrainians are smart enough to largely remain on the defensive until such time as the economic impact on Russia becomes an “existential threat” to the Russian regime that can only be addressed by GTFO.
Again; I have to disagree with your assessment of the strain the war is putting on Russia’s economy, and the relative ability of the west to supply Ukraine. IF the west really wanted to supply Ukraine, they could have done it long ago, before 100s of thousands of trained Ukrainians were killed and injured; all the equipment Ukraine needs is sitting around US depots, including thousands of excess tanks and IFVs, Paladin howitzers, attack helicopters, etc. IF the US had started early last year, they could easily have fully trained and equipped 3 or 4 brigades on the US model (3 maneuver battalions) each, perhaps 20,000 men, and run them through exercises at the NTC. The marines have specialty 70-ton breacher engineering vehicles built on M1 chassis that could have been donated. An air group of A-10s could have been set up.
But we didn’t; instead, we’re providing a hodge podge of largely unwanted junk of questionable value (MRAPS, M113s, Strykers, Humvees, 105mm howitzers).
And we’re the generous ones; what the NATO countries have donated (and they are collectively richer than we are) is worse; obsolete T-55 tanks from Slovenia, handfuls of 6 or 7 different types of MRAPS, old soviet junk that has been sitting around warehouses or in open fields for 40 years, etc
Equipment types don’t communicate with each other, and much of it can’t operate together as their performance is incompatible, they’re stuck with at least 5 different tank calibers each with a separate ammunition requirement, a spare parts nightmare, and an almost impossible maintenance burden.
Similarly, with ammunition; the west could have built new munitions plants last year, signed long term contracts for 1 million shells per month going 5 years out, and been delivering by now. But they’re not. And they won’t, because they don’t want to spend the money. But they want Ukraine to expend the lives.
The “training” we provided Ukraine was a disgrace; being decentralized, with a few hundred troops sent to different locations in different countries, trained under God knows what POI, then merged together as a “brigade” of perhaps 1500 men (really an enhanced Battalion Task Force, with some DS tubes attached) and told to go fight, without any real preparatory exercises or evaluations. Instead of 20,000 men in 3 or 4 cohesive maneuver brigades they have 20,000 men in something like 14 different formations, each with a different TOE and none of them with sufficient combat power to actually accompish anything.
So, given that we DON’T want to really devote the resources necessary and create a real Ukrainian force on western lines, and have done nothing to ramp up, and the Russian do and have, the “potential” productivity of the west doesn’t really seem to amount to much. The Ukes were fools to trust them (Us).
I have no use for Zelensky and the Uke Oligarchs, but he has the right to feel betrayed. What we have done is deplorable.
Yes, I understand you disagree with me. No need for a wall of text explaining why every time — although if you want to bother with that, it’s no skin off my nose.
I don’t just “disagree” for no reason; as someone who I thought was a thoughtful and impartial moderator, I wanted to explain where I see the issues, and differences. If you “don’t care” and just want to be an arrogant snot, go for it yourself, but we’d both be better served if you didn’t bother commenting on my posts then.
My “commenter” role bears no relation at all to my “moderator” role. But let me try again:
You’ve told me you disagree with me. Many times.
You’ve explained why you disagree with me. Many times.
We still disagree.
You don’t owe me continued explanations of why you disagree with me. We’re operating from different assumptions as to what the real facts are, and we’re not likely to convince each other.
When I comment on a post, I seldom pay attention to who wrote it. I find something interesting, and I comment.
The Confederate’s did receive modern weapons from Britain, including the latest ironclad warships complete with British sailors. British intervention in the war might have only been avoided by the Russian Navy docking in New York to prevent Britain invading from Canada.
The hypothetical collapse of Russia’s economy would only occur if Russia were isolated and unable to raise finances abroad. However most of the world is still happy to trade with Russia, and I suspect China has been quietly lending the Russian government more than they let on. For China, keeping the war against the West going through lending to Moscow is similarly cheap as a percentage of its GDP.
Meanwhile, the supposed low cost of the war to the West depends on two things 1/ the cheapness of the weapons supplied, old Soviet East European equipment is cheap. Modern Western artillery & fighter jets are not cheap, if supplied in significant numbers they would be very expensive to replace. 2/ There being no significant impact on western economies beyond the cost of financing the war. This is obviously false, the instability and rocketing fuel prices have had a major negative effect on European economies resulting in political instability that may get a lot worse.
“rocketing fuel prices”
The price of gasoline in Germany today is just now getting back to where it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine — after a year of prices LOWER than before the invasion.
The price of natural gas in Germany today is less than half of what it was prior to the invasion.
The price of electricity in Germany today is about 1/3 as much as prior to the invasion.
The “rocketing” ended more than a year ago.
Which was my point; the author is stating the Ukrainians are “breaking the line”; but they haven’t even reached “the line”, they are still in the approaches to it.
Here; just to help you; FM 101-61 discussing defense in depth and what the purpose of a security zone (defined as the area before the first line of defense) is https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/100-61/Ch6.htm
You may decide you want to make up your own terms for things, but that is “calling a leg a tail” in your words, and you are the one doing it.
By every metric, Ukraine is still fighting their way into (not “through”, yet) the security zone.
Thanks for the cite.
You might want to read it. In particular, that “[t]he first army defensive line coincides with the forward edge of the defense.” The “security zone” is PART OF the “defensive line.”
It’s part of the defense in depth, it’s not the “first defensive line”; read on yourself. It is a KEY part of defense in depth, intended to weaken and canalize the offense BEFORE it reaches the main defensive positions – exactly what it is doing. The FM is perfectly clear; you are cherry picking and mis-stating to fit your opinions, but that’s not in conformance with doctrine. Call it what you want, but the Ukrainians as yet have not encountered the first defensive line and are still fighting in the security zone.
Here’s the exact quote: “The OPFOR achieves depth in its operational formation for defense by establishing a security zone when possible AND (emphasis mine) a series of army and army group defensive lines. ”
You’re welcome.
The “security zone” was called “no man’s land” during The Great War of 1914 to 1918. The security zone is also called the “contact line”. It is where the active battle takes place. A “defensive line” is a fixed area with overlapping artillery, mine-fields, tank traps, dragons teeth, etc. Behind the defensive line lies several thousand main battle tanks, attack helicopters & aircraft, thousands of APCs and hundreds of thousands of infantry.
This epic battle is having place on a huge minefield. NATO is doing exactly what Russians wanted them to do; they are pushing Ukrainian cannon fodder into Russian minefields.
Update your information. The Ukes have bypassed Robotyne and are moving towards the more thinly defended area to the East. (People who understand reality call that “flanking”.)
Absolutely. Here’s a hot update on Pentagon offensive in Zaporozhye.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/usZJLQpn2AeK/
https://twitter.com/Azovsouth/status/1684145814090973185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1684145814090973185%7Ctwgr%5E7c40186238dbb3e5947a9df3b2c7576176c11c34%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2023%2F7%2F26%2F2183361%2F-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-plus-Moldova-boots-Russian-diplomats
Hey, it seems like Russia really run out of Kalibr missiles, right?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/4ZzSHwkisMw8/
Oh boy. Each of them missiles means about 100 dead Pentagon grunts that Creepy Joke just sent to Ukraine. Looks like you will have to go door to door and hand out them triangular-shaped Union flags again to crying families. Or that isn’t your job?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/18/kremlin-officials-vodka-alcohol-ukraine-russia-war-stress/
Hahaha. You are VERY robust people!
LOL yeah, “Lets Go Brandon” type of propaganda rags are great for a laugh but I’m not reading that garbage.
Citing sources like the far-Left Guardian weakens any argument you are trying to make Irrational Prattler.
Far left? It represents Corporate interests nothing else.
It has nothing of value.
You do realize that’s just a video of a missile going overhead. Do you believe it’s something else?
Have you seen Mariupol lately?
Sorry, I have to repost.
“I ve heard the Russians aren’t bringing home their dead so they won’t have to pay bonuses to the families. That’s some Third World s**t right there! (I guess Putin doesn’t want to tap into his looted billions!)”
Oh don’t be sorry. I really enjoy your frustration. Your desperate crying makes me happy. It’s also a wonderful conformation that your degenerate empire is losing not only in Ukraine but globally.
BTW, I realize this is from 2017 but is it still true?
https://euromaidanpress.com/2017/08/20/russia-now-has-more-prostitutes-than-doctors-farmers-and-firemen-combined-and-other-neglected-russian-stories-euromaidan-press/
You mean the sanctions? It works! I’m telling you. Russia is really suffering from sanctions. We really need to step it up and crush Putin’s war machine.
So, it’s true. Nice. (I was only asking for a friend.)
Oh yeah! Sanctions are hitting Russia really hard. IMF estimates 2.5% GDP growth. Low inflation and very low unemployment. This is just depressing. Such dismal future and lack of development… I don’t know how Russians tolerate it. Russians are so poor, they are moving to build nuclear power plants all over Eurasia, Africa and south America! Totally isolated without any friends… American on the other hand is doing great with, what was it? Bidet-nomics? Especially with that American nuclear power plant in Japan.
I’m sure they’ll be fine as long as they keep whoring themselves out. Gotta feed themselves.
Absolutely right! How else are they going to do that when US sanctioned Ukrainian grain and bombed all Black Sea ports? US also sanctioned Roscosmos so they can’t even go to Mars.
Nice. OK. Next question for the same friend, do they take rubles or are they strictly taking US Dollars?
https://twitter.com/region776/status/1684029103148789760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1684029103148789760%7Ctwgr%5E7c40186238dbb3e5947a9df3b2c7576176c11c34%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstories%2F2023%2F7%2F26%2F2183361%2F-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-plus-Moldova-boots-Russian-diplomats
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb856e19d6b9361971e6522b38ac8871bf940b536643c37b7d215ebe9dfe47d9.png
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/jul/27/russia-ukraine-war-live-kim-jong-un-north-korea-russian-defence-minister-sergei-shoigu-moldova-moscow-diplomats
The Ukes are at the “main defensive line” (East of Robotyne) at Verbove today.
Uh, oh, tankies…
Talks of “negotiations” at this time would only be seen as Ukraine asking for surrender terms.
Ukraine is but trying to regain their lost properties, properties now held and defended by Russia.
Ukraine has since war began lost all standing of being a sovereign nation into being no more than a semi-autonimus vessel state of Us/NATO.
As others have pointed out, it is against all doctrine – including US doctrine – to throw your reserves into a failed offensive. This narrative that the last two months have been just “probes” and that this new stupidity is “the real offensive” just plays on the military ignorance of people like Knapp.
The other amusing thing is this constant harping on “the reserves” being the “best NATO-trained” troops Ukraine has remaining (not to mention that the army they started with was the “best NATO-trained” force trained over eight years instead of a few months). This means they’ve been using their worst troops – the untrained conscripts – to try to breach the Russian lines! How they expect their worst troops to breach the lines to then allow their best troops to take advantage of the breach is a mystery to anyone with any serious military knowledge of tactics.
Knapp must be advising the Ukraine military.
“This narrative that the last two months have been just ‘probes’ and that this new stupidity is ‘the real offensive’ just plays on the military ignorance of people like Knapp.”
In your imagination, perhaps. In the real world, I’ve expressed no opinion whatsoever on whether “the offensive” so far has been “the real thing” or not. I’ve just said that as a military matter, an “offensive” seems like a bad idea. If I was advising the Ukrainian military, I’d be advising them against that approach.
I agree with your advice. We still have plenty of time to build a wall of trenches east of Kiev going north and south, complete with very short supply lines and prepared artillery and AA support positions.
I like to think we are doing something like that for after we finish our attempts to smash through the Russian trenches. If our military decision makers believe and act on the lies we tell in order to win the information war, then Russia might really take all of Ukraine.
I doubt that they want the area around Lviv. If we could induce them into taking that territory then we would have an infinite supply of freedom fighters.
I’m not sure who this “we” is. Your commenting name suggests you’re not a Ukrainian involved in either planning or execution of the war. And I have no dog in the hunt.
We as in US. Or more accurately US / NATO / Ukraine military forces in Ukraine. I suppose that since I am not in the military it would still be a ‘they’ for both the US/NATO/Ukraine side as well as the Russian side. That gets kind of confusing.
lol… knapp 🙂 According to MacGregor the Ukrainians have 30-35K NATO-trained reserve troops (10 battalions) – likely or unlikely they’d throw all into “the real offensive” ?
Ukraine is currently losing 2,000 soldiers per day or 60,000 per month (see my Substack articles on how to calculate that.) At that rate, those 10 battalions will last one month. Others claim Ukraine still has 100 battalions or 300-400,000 troops. At this rate that amount will last 5-6 months. But Ukraine’s combat and operational effectiveness – meaning their ability to launch a successful attack at battalion or higher levels – will fail probably in half that time. We’re already seeing that in a couple places on the front line. Every serious military analyst who isn’t a propagandist for the West sees Ukraine’s military collapsing by end of the year tops. And this is with Russia still holding back anywhere from 250-500,000 troops and probably a thousand tanks, artillery, etc. The notion that Russia is “unable to do more” is risible.
“see my Substack articles on how to accept Russian Ministry of Defense claims at face value”
Fixed, no charge.
You, and I, and just about everyone else, know next to nothing about what is going on in that hellhole.
There’s no reason but bigotry to infer Russia is more deceitful than is the West’s “narrative.” In fact there’s a good deal of evidence to the contrary starting with “not one inch.” https://bit.ly/3Az5VTy
Sounds like the last ditch all-in effort.
These are the biggest days of fighting in a long time, with both sides engaged in offensives on different parts of the front.
We will never know what is really going on. I read both German and Russian accounts of the Barbarossa campaign in WW2, and both sides agreed on the basic facts on almost everything. Information War technology has advanced to the point that we will never have the faintest idea of what is happening as multiple accounts of each event that completely contradict each other are told and retold.
In a week some towns will (possibly) change hands. Whoever gets the most gets bragging rights for a while. Then new developments happen and things move on. The most likely outcome is that the total amount of change will be quite small.
What are you talking about? The Ghost of Kyav already killed all the Russians. AFU is moving to secure Kamchatka.
More detailed reports have been more clear.
Until now, Ukraine has made cross attached company-sized attacks, with ~3-10 tanks supporting ~4-12 infantry fighting vehicles. It did that without air support.
The “massive” attack was a cross attached battalion, about 20 tanks and 20 infantry fighting vehicles, supported by one single air strike in the early morning as it started.
Yes, it is bigger, but that is still not big in a war of hundreds of thousands of men.
It used the tactics NATO has been pushing. The result? Heavy losses, unprecedented, ~15 tanks and 15 IFV, according to first reports. However, first reports from a battlefield are always unreliable, so we can be sure it did not go well, but not sure of the final real numbers.
Meanwhile, in the north Russia is said to be moving 900 tanks and 100,000 men in a single big attack. That would be big, for real, if it is true.