Ukrainian forces have still made no breakthroughs against Russian forces in the counteroffensive despite sending thousands of more troops to the front for a renewed push in the southeast, POLITICO reported Tuesday, citing unnamed Pentagon officials.
US officials said last week that the “main thrust” of the Ukrainian counteroffensive had begun and that Ukraine committed NATO-trained forces it was holding in reserve. The push was focused on Zaporizhzhia, and the idea was to sever the land bridge Russia has secured to Crimea, and there have been attacks in other areas along the front.
The POLITICO report said that Ukraine committed 150,000 troops to the assault along three axes of attack, but Pentagon officials said the operations have not yielded significant results, with one saying Ukrainian gains are being measured by the hundreds of meters.
“They are making mostly small, incremental gains,” one official said. “They are still facing stiff Russian resistance — second and third layers of defenses.” The report said Ukraine is still keeping some forces in reserves.
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 other media reports showed that the US did not believe Ukraine could regain significant territory. But the Biden administration still pushed for the assault and rejected the idea of a ceasefire.
Western officials have blamed Ukraine’s lack of success on Ukrainian tactics, complaining that Ukrainian commanders weren’t using their NATO training. Ukrainian officials have hit back at the criticism, pointing out that NATO countries would never launch a major offensive without air superiority.
After 60 days of “counteroffensive”, Ukrainian/NATO army never reached the first Russian defense line. All their “incremental gains” are within Russian minefields. About 10 days ago they captured a part of strategically important Klishcheevka village but yesterday Russians kicked them out. Other their “gains” are just traps; they are allowed to move in places where Russian artillery destroy them, then the remnants are retreating. Those tricks were repeated over and over again. How long this “standstill” can last depends upon the level of stupidity of NATO leadership. Anyway it can’t last longer than a couple of months.
It’s amazing how this official can blatantly lie, claiming that Ukraine has broken through the first defenses. Which they haven’t. No media will mention the fact that Ukraine hasn’t even REACHED Russia’s first defense line, of dragon’s teeth and trenches and bunkers. They still haven’t broken through the “grey zone,” the screening area of mines laid out that are simply meant to slow down an attacker for about two days.
All discussion of “the offensive” should start with that fact.
Indeed, the Ukie offensive was meant to break through in two days. Every day after that is a failure. In recent interviews a Ukrainian conscript said that any temporary gains (in the grey zone) they make is from suicide missions, sending hundreds out to die. Thousands. Ukraine is losing the equivalent of a battalion every day. Zelensky is using up everything. Against the strong opposition of Ukraine’s top commander Zalushny, who distanced himself from the offensive from the beginning and still does.
Russia’s General Gerasimov, in a rare interview, revealed that the military calculates that the Ukie offensive will run out of resources by the end of August, and that the war will be over in the spring.
Donny J, do you need a hug?
All that waste and you believed the lies from DC.
Wow…! Pentagon is telling the truth for a change…!
The truth is they believed their own propaganda. They thought the Russians would run away.
What happened was much like the German withdrawal into the Hindenburg Line in March 1917. Then Ukraine beat itself to death on that just like the French Army did in 1917, when the Nivelle Offensive broke the French Army on that line beginning in April 1917.
Of course the Red Army did the same thing to the German Army at Kursk in 1943. It was right there in the same place, done by the same people.
This is basic military history, not just happy talk of non-military political spin artists. Our commanding generals are supposed to know things like this. So are they incompetent, or lying to us, or both?
Hardly “done by the same people”. The roles are now reversed, it’s the Biden-financed and Biden-armed Ukrainians who are using the tactics of the Roosevelt-funded and Roosevelt-armed Soviets, forcing poorly armed slaves to run toward the enemy and die to make the enemy run out of ammunition. The KGB set up machine guns behind the lines to kill anyone who retreated. They imprisoned the families of conscripts who surrendered. Today the Ukrainians forbid men from leaving, like the Soviets forbade their subjects from leaving the country, and they use up the men like the Soviet army did. Film smuggled out has shown Zelensky’s regime torturing dissenters by tying them to lamp posts in Kiev in a crouching position. Stalin and Mao would approve. The communist states were big on public humiliation of dissenters.
I watched a video clip several days ago of Uke-Nazis murdering their own troops as they retreated towards shelter.
What you describe is how media portrays the Battle of Stalingrad. Maybe that was true in 1942.
But the next year at Kursk, the Russians were in the same role then as now, deep in fortifications waiting for their enemy to throw themselves on it.
There was an order in 1942, not to retreat to the left bank of Volga. It was justified because if Nazis managed to capture Stalingrad, the oil supply from Caspian Sea to central Russia would be cut. At the time, Caspian Sea was the only source of the oil for Russian army.
“Roosevelt-financed and Roosevelt-armed Soviets” – so it was Roosevelt who created in 1940 the world’s best medium tank T-34? Or, maybe, it was Roosevelt who created Rocket Launcher Katyusha? (it was also made before German invasion). Maybe he created Shpagin’s machine-pistol-41? I think, you are reading too much of propaganda rubbish.
By the way, who created Soviet nukes in 1949? Truman?
And the Soviets had already stopped the 1941 German offensive short of Moscow before the first US Lend-Lease shipment arrived.
US aid after that may have shortened the war, but it’s at least highly questionable whether it changed the outcome. By preventing an outright German victory before winter, the Soviets bought themselves valuable months in which to get the factories they’d torn down ahead of the German advance and moved east of the Urals back into operation churning out those T-34s, etc.
I never thought about your first sentence that way. Do you know when the first lend lease shipments arrived?
The first US Lend-Lease shipment arrived in late December of 1941 (the protocol authorizing Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets was signed in October of 1941, but it took time for stuff to start arriving at e.g. Murmansk). The Russians had stopped/turned back the 1941 German offensive several weeks earlier. The closest the Germans got to Moscow was when a reconnaissance battalion entered Khimki (20 miles from the Kremlin) on December 2. Guderian’s journal on the campaign concludes: “We underestimated the enemy’s strength, as well as his size and climate. Fortunately, I stopped my troops on 5 December, otherwise the catastrophe would be unavoidable.”
Thank you for these details,
I knew most or all of these details at some time or another. I never put them together like that.
John Steinbeck went to Russia after the war and wrote a small book called A Russian Journal, published in April 1948. The battle scene when workers were called from the production line of the Model A plant Russia bought was intense. A general showed up at the production line and implored the workers to go fight… “You work now without a roof, if you don’t stop them you won’t have walls.” It was four or five men per rifle carrying it forward as one after another fell. When the Russians broke through, they used their teeth. According to Steinbeck.
Exactly. Hitler hoped for a blitzkrieg and it failed miserably even before US entered the war.
Comparisons are like comfort food. Feels good, but not always approriate or good for you, No Russian soldier needed to forced into fighting Hitler. E verybody knew what even today is not alliwed to talk about — Getman plans and practice of eliminating inferior races. Yes, they knew what they were up against. As opposed to poor Ukrainians deeply despised by the “superior”’Kiev leadership, It is really not too hard to figure out.
“No Russian soldier needed to forced into fighting Hitler”
You owe me a new keyboard, after causing me to snort my morning coffee all over the old one.
Yiur first sentence explained it; Americans are brainwashed.
The vast horde of Americans simply want to be dumb, fat and perpetually amused. At present, 60% of Americans are obese. WTF?
“Americans are brainwashed.” We certainly are, but we’re also something else on top of all of that. Something else is wrong. …Maybe, we like it? (Sarcasm)
I read awhile back that President Xi is reluctantly reaching your conclusion, with no sarcasm.
Yes!
Swallowing own cool-aid is the worst geopolitical mistake. Since the turn of the century, both Beijing and Kremlin have masterfully exploited this imperial ignorant arrogance.
And it seems to me, the imperials are still clueless.
I can not tell whose version is more accurate, yours or Caliman’s.
The new US narrative is that the US decision makers knew that the offensive would most likely fail, with very large numbers of Ukranian losses. They pushed hard for doing it anyways just in case a miracle happened.
Thus supports the Caliman conjecture, with the added bonus of moving towards the Blinken goal of getting Ukraine to fight to the last man.
I don’t see anything that I disagree in his version. And really, I don’t even consider my snide remark as an assessment.
“in case a miracle happened.”
My take:
1/ The US military has said it looks like a long term stalemate, w/no decisive victory possible.
2/ At same time, both foreign policy and domestic political forces rule out a settlement:
the first because neocons dominate US foreign policy, and – from that pov – ‘domination’ and ‘not letting Russians win’ is imperative;
the second for domestic political reasons – because Democrats fear Republicans will represent negotiation as ‘defeat’ for electoral gain.
3/ Upshot?
a/ Short of citizen resistance, there is no political way to draw down US military aid – despite knowing the war is unwinnable and effectively endless; and
b/ in the absence of a possible strategy to end it, the slogan becomes ‘as long as it takes’ and – NECESSARILY – the US falls back on various fantasies of victory – or “miracle” – whether ‘Putin health’ or ‘overthrow’ or ‘exhaustion/citizen uprising’ or ‘miracle breakthrough.’
That’s about the size of it.
Two fading empires are struggling to remain relevant. It’s basically a snail race to see which one gives out last.
Interesting take. Best.
Our generals do know this, or at least they are advised by people who do know this. But what makes you think they actually want Ukraine to win here?
Keeping in mind that the main aim of the US and the whole point of NATO is the care and feeding of MICIMATT and the separation of Europe from Russia and China, a protracted attritional war is exactly what they want. So what’s not to like?
“are they incompetent, or lying to us” – what choice they had? For example, they could do what Russians have done: create a defense line and wait for Russian offensive. Sure, Russians would never go to such a stupid suicidal offensive as Ukrainian/NATO army is doing at the moment. In such a case, we have a war of attrition where Russian air forces, missiles and artillery would inflict much more damage to Ukraine than Ukrainian/NATO can inflict to Russia. How long it could last? Maybe a year or two. Then Ukrainian economy would be completely obliterated and Ukrainian people exhausted. NATO is also not so enthusiastic to finance a standstill. Meanwhile the geopolitical situation is changing not to NATO advantage. And what about the elections in US? So, it looks, the war of attrition is a bad option. Peace agreement? Russia will never agree to give those five former Ukrainian regions back to Ukraine. If US recognize those territories as Russian, it means the defeat of US. The current US government can’t accept this. There are no good exit from this situation for US and NATO.
I still think this is a long-term strategic failure. Instead of cleaning up Ukraine from imperial filth today, Kremlin could have cleaned up Washington and London back in 2014. It would have been painful economically but exterminating the worst threat to humanity would have been far more beneficial in the long-term. I think it still can be done and Russia still can use the hypersonic advantage window before it closes.
The Empire is Kaput!
Clearly, Russia is fighting a defensive war. This is the Russian way. They have established multiple lines of defense with dense minefields, overlapping artillery, tank traps and trenches, concrete dragon’s teeth, pillboxes and trench networks to ground launch their Kornet anti-tank missiles. Behind the lines of defense waits over 2,000 roving main battle tanks, mobile missile systems, attack aircraft and helicopters plus at least 500K soldiers.
Ukraine will never “break through” Russia’s defenses in eastern Ukraine but they will die in the tens of thousands trying to.
And, who is to blame? It’s the corporate war-mongers and merchants of death in Washington D.C. and Brussels. They are pure evil incarnate. The anti-Christ …….
Russia is fighting for their country. The US is backing Ukraine to the nines in seaech of power,profit and control. As a Socialist I know who I’m rooting for. If the US wins here China and Iran are next in line for the gentle hand of the US military.
Yes, as I’ve said before, this conflict is existential for Russia. Putin saw the writing on the wall, which hasn’t changed since the end of the Cold War, only now he was in a position to do something about it. And there is no question of the US winning, period. Russian nuclear policy dictates it.
Yes, the Russians are very good at this.
They are also very good at massive, crushing offensives. That is how they took Berlin. That is how they set the record still standing today for speed and distance of advance, when they ran the Japanese out of China.
They might come out from behind those defenses, when they think the Ukraine Army has smashed itself enough. Then we are likely to see something quite different.
“In the lead-up to the counteroffensive, the Discord leaks and other media reports showed that the US did not believe Ukraine could regain significant territory. But the Biden administration still pushed for the assault and rejected the idea of a ceasefire.”
Exactly who is the Biden administration? Turns out it’s the toxic trio of Sullivan, Blinken, and Nuland. When they allowed an attack to happen knowing that it would fail, you have to wonder if that wasn’t the plan all along. The USA may have actually been trapped into destroying NATO as a credible military force by these Straussian neocons. Their abiding hatred of Russians, Ukrainians, and now Americans knows no limit.
Probably true, but the terrible trio still require that useful idiot.
My guess is that every president since 9/11 has been beholden to that same dark neocon cabal.
TC your statement is not a guess but an accurate observation.
Biden’s still pushing because there aren’t enough dead Ukrainians. An old man whose foreign policy credentials remain those of a one trick pony, keeps pushing the only meme he ever (imperfectly) learned at the feet of the PNAC.
July 18, 2023: Col. Gray Espinas said onNPR: “Russians poor leadership, poorly trained.”
The war’s going on, people are dying, meanwhile Dementia Joe is laying out on a Delaware beach like an old walrus, without a care in the world knowing that the U.S. Protection Racket otherwise known as the Justice Department will look after him and his kin. Enjoy your vacation plugs, the next life probably won’t be as accomodating.
Interesting. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-jamming-sophisticated-us-weapons-being-used-in-ukraine-making-them-useless-report-says/ar-AA1eMVsk?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=15c0f63b183c44ab895dcd41a43b2180&ei=11
The article is about Russians jamming US missiles and interupting their flight path.
This has been going on for quite a while. What’s interesting is that the US media is actually reporting it. Up until now the US media has been practicing its freedom to only report stories that make Russia look stupid and weak.
Russia right now is reporting on how the US has made Himars useful again. Himars started out being quite effective, then mostly neutralized, now reasonably effective in a new role.
In a week or two these will be mostly neutralized, and then a third way of using them will be figured out,
Running face first on your opponents fist isn’t much of a strategy.