US and Western officials speaking to The New York Times blamed Ukraine’s struggling counteroffensive on Kyiv’s tactics, saying Ukrainian troops are too spread out.
US officials said that Ukraine’s primary goal is to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea but that Ukraine has placed its troops and firepower equally along the entire front, in the south and the east.
The report, published on Tuesday, is the latest example of the West trying to pin the blame for Ukraine’s failures solely on Kyiv, even though it was clear that the US and NATO did not believe Ukraine would have much success but pushed for the counteroffensive anyway. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Western officials did not think Ukraine had enough training or equipment for the assault but hoped they would be able to break through.
The Times report said that as a result of Ukraine’s tactics, there are more Ukrainian troops near Bakhmut and other eastern cities than in the south near Melitopol and Zaporizhzhia. The report said the US had advised Ukraine to focus on pushing toward Melitopol.
The report said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and other top NATO military leaders told Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny in an August 10 meeting that his forces should focus on one area. Two officials said that Zaluzhny agreed with the Western advice.
One US official said that only with a change of tactics and a dramatic move from Ukraine can the tempo of the counteroffensive change. The Washington Post reported last week that US intelligence has determined the counteroffensive will fail to achieve its main objective of capturing Melitopol and severing the land bridge to Crimea.
The US has also been pushing Ukraine to go harder in its counteroffensive despite Russia’s vast minefields and high Ukrainian casualty rate. The Times reported this past Friday that US officials “fear” Ukraine has become “casualty averse.”
Zaluzhny and other Ukrainian officials have hit back at Western criticism of their counteroffensive, pointing out that NATO would never launch such an assault without air superiority. Kyiv insists their Western backers need to be patient, but US officials told the Times that Ukraine only has another month to six weeks before rainy conditions force a pause in the counteroffensive.
Uh-huh. Concentrate limited forces (leaving thinly defended lines elsewhere) and punch through along a narrow section of the front in a create-your-own-cauldron maneuver.
Whose side are these unnamed US officials on?
Not ours.
“Risk averse” was their word, … they want blood!
I thought it was because they “don’t have the stomach for it” (favorite Neocon phrase. Upper middle class punks who would have had their lunch money stolen from them daily if they didn’t go to private schools. 🙂 ).
They badly need some positive news for PR. Sponsors are discontent.
True. I think they’ll have to settle for stories about pointless drone attacks on Moscow. Maybe they can keep the audience distracted from reality.
This isn’t proof of a proxy war at all. /s
LOL
Col. Douglas Magregor on Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show: NATO can not beat Russian in a non-nuclear war and needs to stop now with the senseless killing. The Globalist American Empire made a play for Russia and lost and now they can’t admit failure. To keep blaming their puppet, the Ukraine, is shameful; the Ukraine has done everything asked of it.
The warmongers running the US made a huge mistake and the American citizens will pay for it. We should have spent the outrageous sums on foreign interventions at home where we live and breathe. Now the country is in hock mostly to the Chinese the coming power in the world. How could our rulers be so stupid?
“Now the country is in hock mostly to the Chinese”
China owns about 3% of US government debt.
And China is doing everything it can to rid itself of rapidly growing US debt.
Right, the biggest (by a large margin) share is held by Social Security, Public Employees Pension Fund, RR Retirement Fund, etc., and the Fed; i.e., a captive market managed by (you guessed it) gov’t appointed ‘experts’. Sleep well folks the Reds only have 3%.
Uh huh. These political generals in the Pentagon lost against bicycle riding Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Every few months those generals claimed that victory was at hand. Twenty years of bull s resulted in lots of dead and maimed people. For NOTHING.
It did keep the trough for the MIC full.
So…..” mission accomplished”, right!
Russia has air superiority, to include drone surveillance. If the Ukrainians attempt to stockpile supplies and mass troops in one area for an attack, the Russians pound them with firepower before they can attack.
Russia does not have air superiority in Ukraine. Never has.
If you meant Russia has more AirPower (numbers) available, that’s a different thing.
You need to lay off your namesake because it’s clearly addled your cognitive functions.
You need to look that up. Complete air superiority is call air supremacy. Having superior (more) air power is called air superiority.
Don Julio:
I am aware of your opinions and bias with this conflict. You seem hell bent on negating and scoffing at Russia’s effectiveness with a defensive war and attrition. Moreover, your opinion is that Ukraine’s current ‘counteroffensive’ is going according to plan.
Please go on record to state how you think Ukraine is going to win this conflict and when. Winning the conflict would entail full military control and occupation of all lands currently held by Russia. This would include Ukrainian annexation of Crimea (which we all know has been Russian since the 1700s. A very long history.)
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation with this.
Yea, herd them into a large target group, that should work out well.
Yes. I can still hear my Platoon Seargent screaming, “Spread out, one round will get you all!”. Thankfully we were just doing war games and there were no real bullets flying. Otherwise, I would have wet myself.
NY Times & Washington Post; ah-ah-ah-CHOO !
UA has deployed its last remaining reserve battalion after the failure of the counteroffensive.. After this, there are no more troops to be deployed, so how will UA continue ?
They’ll just draft the 6 year olds. /s (I think…)
The front line is what it is, and it is over 1000 km long. How come the Russians are not too spread out? Oh. The Russians haven’t lost as many as 400,000 KIAs and 2 million wounded men.
For a while, there were 80,000 men in and aroàund Bakhmut, and there are still a staggering number of Ukrainian battalions there, so no, Ukrainian troops are not spread evenly along the front line.
The one thing that is clear from this report is that the blame game has started. None of the NATO generals who have ‘helped’ the Ukrainian army ‘feed’ the war with dead bodies want to take tghe blame for an embarrassing (and predictable) military defeat. None of the politicians who were so cocky a few weeks ago will want to admit the political and financial defeat of NATO. And none of the military-industrial CEOs will want to admit that their overpriced gear and profit-oriented factories are not in any way superoir to what available to Russia.
They have no worries, their accomplices in the press will cover for them and themselves… The fix is in.
Yep, spread out on a slab.
Russia’s first objective in the Special Military Operation has been the demilitarization of Ukraine. With the approaching destruction of Ukraine’s third army in the conflict, that part of the project seems near completion. Ukraine does not have the means to raise another army. Sadly, the human cost has been enormous.
The second and third objectives are to denazify Ukraine and to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes against civilians in the Donbas, as stated in Putin’s address at the outset of the operation. Those will follow naturally in the course of peace negotiations. Which will come soon, I continue to hope.
From Putin’s address:
“[I]n accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the
sanction of the Federation Council of Russia and in pursuance of the
treaties of friendship and mutual assistance ratified by the Federal
Assembly on 22 February this year with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, I decided to conduct a special military operation.
Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and
genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. And for this we will
strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, as well
as bringing to justice those who committed numerous, bloody crimes
against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.”
(source: hxxps://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-putin-s-declaration-of-war-on-ukraine/)
“Russia’s first objective in the Special Military Operation has been the demilitarization of Ukraine. With the approaching destruction of Ukraine’s third army in the conflict, that part of the project seems near completion.
Russia’s first objective has failed miserably. Ukraine is now more militarized than ever thanks to Putin’s brilliant idea to take Ukraine. The SMO is going according to plans.
You are really disconnected from reality, aren’t you? Is it hard drug use? Alcohol dependency? Maybe you were dropped on your head as a child? Do you habitually sniff glue? Maybe you are just fascist scum.
Of course they are spread out because Russian army is pressuring along all the front. In Kharkov oblast Ukrainians are already retreating and urgently need the reinforcement. Washington strategists probably unaware that at the moment Russians are approaching Kupiansk.
Oh shoot, the war is over.
So if they don’t move into Kupiansk you’ll say the are just waiting for a big surprise or just slowly bleeding NATO. Lol.
And that’s good. Never allow your enemy to have accurate information.
My brother played chess like this map. There’s two sides of the board and the center, which Ukraine appears to be attempting to hold near Kramatorsk and Bakhmut. Very slight Russian potential checkmate moves toward Kuplansk and Odessa make holding the center more and more difficult.
My brother was also a master sailor who I occasionally had the opportunity to crew for. His motto was, “Stay in the middle of the pack and keep on the hunt.” Russia appears to have methodically set up three ways to rapid victory. Ukraine has no reason to hope and should negotiate on Russian terms.
Now don’t confuse the amoral Neocon warmongers with facts and evidence. Shame on you …..
Agreed your first sentence. Also, Washington strategist is a contradiction in terms.
…What’s that? Nuland thinks Ukraine becoming “CASUALTY AVERSE” is bad? Why not send her own children to fight in Ukraine? …Oh, she would send them if she had any? Okay then. Call me “CASUALTY AVERSE” but I still don’t want to send my children and grandchildren to the Ukraine war. (Sarcasm)
She appears to be some kinda moral imbecile. Perhaps we shouldn’t blame her. (S alert)
Just an “imbecile”, Robert; Cookies is completely bereft of morality, as is her husband, the Blinkin’ Idiot and the Vegetable-in-Chief.
There it is!😁
I don’t want my teenage grandsons goin’ either.
All NATO criticism regarding Ukraine’s conduct of this offensive is just blame shifting. If it’s not “Ukraine’s fault” then an inquiring mind might want to know why NATO encouraged this offensive having done a very marginal job of training the Ukrainian Brigades entrusted to them, failing to supply appropriate equipment (instead of the mass dumping of unwanted, largely obsolescent crap they provided), failure to supply sufficient ammunition, and failure to provide the means for effective air defense.
This is military malpractice at every single level – tactical, operational and strategic. And a complete failure of “intelligence”.
NATO’s intelligence services KNEW that Russia has been building extensive defensive works in their sectors since last fall, and did nothing but improve them throughout the winter, all while the NATO “experts” were having sexual fantasies about Ukraine “penetrating” with “superior western equipment”. Did not a single “expert” look at a map; look at the defensive works being prepared, and look at the TOE of the Ukrainian forces being made ready?? If they did, and they encouraged the offensive anyway, they should all be shot in the face.
It’s political malpractice, not military. This is what happens when politicians misinterpret (misunderstand?) the notion of civilian control of the military.
Politicians certainly share the blame, but if you have been listening to the endless parade of senile, doddering imbeciles posing as “military experts” on cable news, all of them former generals and admirals, it’s pretty clear that our military leaders are all as clueless (or dishonest; take your pick) as the politicians. Worst of all is that disgraced fuckwit 4 star General “Betrayus Petraeus”, and his commentary about “NATO training” and “western weapons” making a huge difference to Ukraine’s prospects.
Which should come as no surprise; given the last 20 years of lying, deceitful, dishonest, and idiotic military minds promising us that “we are winning” in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the local militaries ” are standing up and ready to take on the fight” with “just a little bit more of our professional whiz bang training”. Given a track record of decades, being Wrong About Everything, why should anyone believe they are “right” this time? Or “honest”?
Exactly what Martyanov rails about in almost every post he does.
Well, both sides of this dispute have retired military voicing opinions about this clusterfuck.
My point has to do with the day to day operations of our active military relative to their “superiors” in civilian leadership, who don’t understand squat about war and peace.
By the time an officer gets to be a general, he has become a politician, and the truth will rarely escape his lips. If you want the truth, you need to listen to the colonels. Even better, listen to the retired colonels.
There are two kinds of colonels — colonels who want to become generals, and retired colonels who are bitter that they never made general.
Why are these Ukrainians not happily sacrificing themselves to the glorious Empire Of Lies? What could be more noble than to die for America’s defense contractor’s bottom line? I mean profit man …. PROFIT! Ukrainians just don’t seem to appreciate their country destroyed and their population dispersed and their young men slaughtered for the glory of all that’s good and decent like they did in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya.
Ukraine puts more focus in the north because if Russia goes farther there Ukraine’s front crumbles. What is at stake is Kharkov and the land to the Dniepr river.
Washington focuses on Crimea exclusively. In 2014, after the Kiev coup Biden financed by $5 billion, Washington officials visited Crimea. It was considered a good place for a U.S. naval base. This would threaten Russia’s vital trade route in the Black Sea, without which they’d be severely crippled.
Obviously, nothing the Ukraine does is going to work until someone utters the magic phrase, “TURNING THE CORNER”. I’m rather surprised this hasn’t been done, considering it worked so well in Afghanistan.
More of the tunnel at the end of the light.
Well, those “Amerikkkan Officials” are welcome to go over and fill the gaps.
They’re too spread out because they don’t have any men left. Colonel Douglas Macgregor says they have 37-39 brigades left plus another 6-7 in reserve, all of which are not at full strength.
Even at full strength, this is a mere 184,000 men maximum, more likely around 150,000, with even fewer actually capable of combat.
Ukraine is losing 60-100,000 men per month at the current rate.
Do the math. Ukraine can not last more than another month or two. It has already clearly lost operational effectiveness and is unable to achieve significant objectives and is on the verge of losing combat effectiveness (the ability to even launch attacks).
Stating that “they’re too spread out” clearly confirms this situation.
Even if Ukraine had another 100,000 or more scattered around in the remaining major cities or guarding the border with Belarus, none of them are present on the front lines, so they are effectively meaningless. Once Russia rolls up the front lines, forces Ukraine into full retreat past the Dnieper, and consolidates its forces into an “iron fist” comprising 500,000 troops, 1,000 or more tanks, and full artillery and air power, the remaining Ukrainian forces will be utterly unable to resist the Russian advance.
That’s when the defeat of Ukraine will be clear to everyone, even clowns like Knapp. It may not be a “big arrow” manuever advance, but rather a slow, inexorable one, but it will be an advance and it will not stop until it reaches the Polish border.
I think the only caveat would be that Putin seems to be timid and for good reason. He doesn’t want to push too hard, too quickly and provoke a Polish and/or general NATO incursion into Western Ukraine and start a nuclear war. His primary goal has always been (in my opinion) to achieve the goals of the SMO through forcing a diplomatic settlement.
Again it is the Battle of Kursk which seems to support the point of Milley. In the South where the German forces were narrowly massed a breakthrough was achieved through several strong defense lines. The Detachment Kemp, held in reserve, was only activated later when the breakthrough stalled because the Germans did not have enough power to protect the flanks of their wedge.
In the North, where the attacks were planned over a much broader front, no breakthrough was achieved.
So the issue is not only “can the Ukrainian army achieve a significant breakthrough” but “if a breakthrough is achieved, can the Ukrainian army successfully defend the flanks of the wedge”? And that calls for another question “has the Ukrainian army been trained to do that”?
I will be surprised if we learn that the Russian army has not been trained in “wedge squeezing” along mine-free zones perpendicular to the wedge.
Without a substantial breakthrough the war will develop in taking and losing square kilometers of territory.
humans will be obsolete in a couple years, technologies like ‘glockbot’ will manifest and have independent dwell/hunt capabilities and that will be the end of ground forces pretty much. after that it will be cruise missiles and autonomous ground vehicles. sending these guy out to get killed against the russian army=retarded. if the mines dont get them, the snipers will.