Introduction
As you all know, I only write updates when I have something to add to my previous analysis and operational updates. Such a situation has occurred now. I have decided to write a few words about the upcoming Ukrainian offensive.
My focus will be to show some possible scenarios and their implications. What I don’t want to do, and in fact can’t do, is to predict where and how the offensive will take place. Or even when. I don’t know.
In fact, I have already written/announced in previous articles that there will most likely be an offensive. Today I want to go deeper into some details. Moreover, I want to write a little about some circumstances in Artemovsk (Bakhmut), and take a look at further overall developments.
Background
It makes sense to take a look at some of my former analysis and operational updates to get a better understanding of this one. Especially since I will simply add only new content without referencing former scenarios.
Here are all of my articles enumerated.
Ukrainian Counteroffensive
Basics
Ukraine is being forced to prepare and execute an offensive against the Russians. I’ll come to the objectives of those parties who force Ukraine in a minute.
But first, I want to reiterate a basic fact. The West is deliberately burning Ukraine and its human potential down with a “Scorched Earth” policy. If Ukraine was acting independently, and its goal would be to defeat Russia by bogging it down in a bloody insurgency war that would last years, it would not think about large scale offensives but rather a well-developed plan of withdrawal battles and ambushes.
Instead, there is a certain pool of Ukrainian manpower available to the West, with which the West aims to achieve as many goals as possible until the manpower is eventually annihilated. And the pool of manpower will certainly be annihilated. Everyone knows it. The Russians, the Ukrainian leadership (traitors), the West, and the Ukrainian soldiers who are going to be annihilated. Everyone knows it. And yet, for this war to end, this inevitable process needs to be undertaken. The annihilation.
This is extremely sad, and not a thing that I wish for. These are orthodox Slavs, as I and the Russians are. Even though the Ukrainians are moronic idiots, they are our moronic idiots and do not deserve to be annihilated. Well, all except for the Ukrainian Nazis. They indeed deserve the worst thinkable annihilation.
Keeping this in mind, we can now understand why this offensive most likely needs to take place. It is the last throw of the trained Ukrainian manpower still capable of conducting any kind of offensive action. And this last batch needs to achieve certain goals before the war ends. Unfortunately, everyone knows that they will need to go through this last batch of meat in order to achieve the inevitable outcome: the total Ukrainian surrender or the destruction of its physical ability to resist.
Ukrainian Objectives (Western Perspective)
Ukraine is tasked by its Western masters to achieve one or several of the following goals either fully or partially:
Kill at least several thousand Russians
Ukraine gathered, depending upon the source, approximately 100,000 men for this offensive. This is the manpower pool that is available for depletion. Usually, an attacker needs a 3:1 advantage over the defender in order to break through defensive lines. Since Russia has a far better trained army, far more modern weapons and tactics, and an Air Force that continues to increase its capacity for close air support (CAS), the ratio needs to be far higher. Ukraine needs to put approximately 10 soldiers in the field to overcome each Russian.
Let’s simplify here for the sake of explanation. Let’s assume that the Ukrainian army gathers all 100,000 men in Zaporizhzhia and tries a concentrated offensive in the direction of Melitopol. (BS, yes, but bear with me).
If Russia fields 10,000 men, all the Russians and all the Ukrainians would die. Again, this is only for illustration. Hence, Russia would be forced to field far more than 10,000 soldiers in order to stop the offensive and reduce its own losses. I’d say that if Russia fortifies its defensive positions in Zaporizhzhia with 50,000 troops, the ratio against Ukraine would skyrocket from 1:10 to 1:20. With this ratio and battlefield setup, the Ukrainian offensive would fail and the Russians most likely would suffer far fewer than 10,000 casualties.
Why do I play with such figures? It is very simple: Russia only needs to invest 10,000 men and the Ukrainian offensive is doomed, right? All of them will die, but Ukraine will have lost 100,000 men and will not have achieved its goals, right?
Totally wrong. This is still a Special Military Operation. An SMO. Such casualties are no longer acceptable.They were in Phase 1, but no longer. Over the course of 14 months, Russia has lost some 20-30,000 people in Ukraine. Which is already a tragedy. If it would lose 10,000 men over the course of a few days/weeks, it would be a disaster. Remember the funerals with thousands of Ukrainian flags all over Ukraine? Such a situation would be likely in this scenario, though on a smaller scale, in Russia. That would cost the Russian government a lot of political capital and trust. The soldiers need to be protected. Still, it is an SMO, and not yet a war where such numbers would be acceptable.
You get my point? The Ukrainian soldiers are doomed. Most of them will die; they know that. But if that is so, why not achieve a huge blow against “Putin” by killing several thousand Russian soldiers in the process to add to the destabilization of the Russian position. Consider the following objectives:
Capture at least one major Russian city in Novorossiya
Will the offensive take place? Where will the offensive take place? When will it take place? With what intensity? I don’t know! I really don’t know. But I will share some of my thoughts with you.
Judging by the Russian overt preparations, it seems to me that the Russians are expecting a two-phase offensive. One phase in the Kharkov direction, most likely as deception and distraction; and the main offensive, or phase two, toward Melitopol.
Who knows?
Some people have discussed the possibility of an incursion into Belgorod or other Russian core territories. Possible, but I can’t see a single political advantage for Ukraine doing that.
Personally, I would argue that Mariupol would be the one big prize to win, for both the West and Ukraine. It would cause the biggest possible damage to Russia. How?
It would cut the land bridge to Crimea.
It would cost Russia the lives of thousands of soldiers defending the town. Russia can tactically retreat and withdraw from a lot of places but Mariupol is not one of those places. It would necessarily develop into a force-on-force battle to defend the town, which would be extremely costly in terms of casualties. Even if Russia would eventually succeed in defending the town, it would need to deal with the thousands of casualties.
Russia would lose its pearl and PR victory where it proudly films daily how the town is being rebuilt.
The Russians would need to reconquer the city, and they would destroy it again in the process. The reconquering would be extremely bloody and costly for the Russians.
Russia would lose a lot of trust of its own citizens; Novorossiyan citizens, as well as international partners.
Hence, I wouldn’t be surprised if we would see the following development from Ukraine:
Start probing and distracting attacks in the Zaporizhzhia Region.
After gaining Russia’s attention in Zaporizhzhia, start an armored offensive in the Kharkov region with all of the Western equipment. It should look very realistic. As we saw in Summer 2022 in Kherson, Ukraine would absorb thousands or tens of thousands of casualties for this mock offensive.
After having Russia’s full attention in the abovementioned fronts, Ukraine could start a massive insertion offensive with light units into Mariupol. What is an insertion offensive? An offensive that is designed to open a channel through which Ukraine could insert several tens of thousands of troops into Mariupol to take positions in the buildings there.
In the best-case scenario, this channel could be kept open to supply the garrison. In the worst-case scenario these people would simply serve as means to force Russia to reconquer Mariupol and again destroy the city in the process.
I’m not saying this will happen. And this is not my analysis. I have absolutely no idea what will happen at all. I only want to say that from my point of view, this would deal the biggest possible damage to Russia and I can imagine that this is the reason why the Pentagon is so optimistic about what is to come. This scenario is not unrealistic at all.
Always keep the following in mind: The West doesn’t care about the Ukrainians. If we again consider the Ukrainian force of 100,000 troops for the frontline, then we need to think about them, in business terms, as an investment. Ukraine is going to expend all of them in the expectation of gaining far more in return. Let me translate that into the situation on the ground: All Ukrainians accumulated for this offensive will, according to the West, die, be wounded, or be captured in order to achieve a return for the West that is more valuable than the loss of 100,000 Ukrainian men.
What is more valuable than 100,000 Ukrainian men for the West? Anything. They are worth nothing to the West. But let’s be more realistic. The Mariupol scenario mentioned above would be more than worth it. It would be a bigger return to the West than anyone can imagine.
Let’s conclude this point. Mariupol would be the crown jewel. But of course, any other Russian city in Novorossiya could be the target as well.
Sever the land bridge to Crimea at least for several hours/days
Severing the land bridge to Crimea would be also a major blow to Russia. Not as bad as losing Mariupol, but it would still be some kind of a defeat for the SMO with a possible conversion into war. Moreover, it would cost Russia many casualties in defense of the territory. But the losses would be far fewer than in the Mariupol scenario, since Russia would conduct a mobile defense with several fallback lines from Zaporizhzhia to the boundary of Crimea.
Put Ukrainian boots on Crimean soil, at least for several hours/days
The same as for the severing of the land bridge but more serious. It would be an attack on the Russian core territory. Hence, there is a real possibility that it could trigger protests in Moscow. Moreover, it would have an impact on the trust and confidence of the Crimean people in the ability of Moscow to protect them.
In fact, the goal of the West here is to show the Russian people that the SMO is not sufficient to defeat Ukraine/the West, and to trigger protest against Putin in demand of war. There are certain reasons why President Putin is still driving a SMO instead of a war. I understand them. In fact, it would be harmful for Russia to escalate the SMO into a war against a country like Ukraine. Such protests in support of the conversion to war wouldn’t be favorable for the Russian government.
Russian Objectives
For Russia, a concentrated frontline by Ukraine would be damaging under any circumstance. For many reasons:
Huge casualties. 1,000 – 10,000 troops are what I estimate between the best- and worst-case scenarios. This is inevitable in a force-on-force engagement, which Russia has tried to avoid at least sincePhase 2of the war.
There is not much space left for mobile defense (tactical retreating to pre-defined fallback positions) of the bigger cities under Russian control. Some could be abandoned in order to avoid huge casualties. Some (Mariupol etc.) will not be abandoned under any circumstance.
Political damage, as already described above, in case of losing critical cities, land bridges, or the entrance to Crimea.
The lives of the moronic Ukrainians count as well to Russia. Even though they are morons, that are dying like lemmings for people who don’t give a f*** about them. In the long term they still will be part of the Russian world and they are considered to be Russians. Hence, the Scorched Earth approach of the West at least need to be mitigated as much as possible.
This offensive could, within a few weeks, cost Ukraine up to 70,000 men in dead and critically wounded. It is far more favorable to Russia to hinder or mitigate the offensive so that these lives could be saved for Ukraine after the war.
Long-time readers of BMA know our thinking. We predict that Russia is fighting for a collapse. Of course, a collapse can happen because there are no people left. And this is indeed not an unrealistic option. Far more favorable would be to trigger the collapse by destroying materiel, not manpower. This would end the war before the human potential of Ukraine would run out. I will go deeper into this in the Logistics section below.
As we see, a Counteroffensive by Ukraine will not be good for Russia. Yes, these troops and equipment, unfortunately, will need to be destroyed anyway. But it is far more favorable for Russia to do that on Russian terms and in places of Russian choice, and not as Ukraine dictates.
My analysis of the events on the battlefield in recent days is that Russia is trying to either totally stop the offensive in its tracks, or if this is not possible, to take out as much steam as possible to make it less harmful. These are my observations:
Massive bombings of the Ukrainian rear. Everywhere in the close and middle distance from the frontlines. Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, Pavlograd etc. These attacks are especially effective since the Russian Air Force has now started to make massive use of heavy glide-bombs. Targets are troops, equipment, and ammunition supplies/accumulations in the rear.
Massive missile attacks on the same targets as mentioned above. Most of these attacks are not reported or kept secret by the Ukrainians, but there are more than enough reports about massive damage dealt to targets in the rear.
I’m not entirely sure, even though I fully trust Larry Johnson with his analysis about the Pentagon leaks, whether there are Russian elements in play here as well. Releasing such documents at this time is not very favorable to the West and Ukraine.
Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean that Russia triggered the release, even though it is not impossible. No, it also could mean that Russia can take heavy advantage of the release by promoting it in the Ukrainian social sphere.
I still believe that this is not a leak, but is engineered with a certain objective. Which one and by whom, I don’t know. But it is not unrealistic that such documents could be used by Russia as a means to reduce the morale, motivation, and support of the Ukrainian public and their soldiers.
If the (close to) real situation, which is absolutely catastrophic, becomes known somehow to the Ukrainian public and military personnel, this could have a massive impact on the soldiers’ performance on the battlefield.
To sum it up: Russia is either trying to avoid the counteroffensive entirely, or to make it as weak as possible in order to reduce its own military and political losses as much as possible.
Months ago,BMA identified five spotswhere Russia is grinding the Ukrainian army down in order to improve the Russian position. And this is what will continue: killing the Ukrainian army from a safe distance, and in small bites. Russia thereby avoids direct force-on-force engagements. Wagner and Artemovsk (Bakhmut) is something different. I will explain that later.
Black Mountain Analysis is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Russian Defense Strategy
We saw both the Russian mobile defense strategy and the Ukrainian double ruse approach. There is nothing new. Only the places will be new.
Ukrainian double ruse (Summer 2022):
Commenced probing attacks in Kherson while taking heavy casualties.
Commenced a large-scale offensive in Kharkov and took back critical (YES!) areas, that were prepared for a later envelopment of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, at the right time.
Continued the offensive in the South, conquering Kherson city. (Allowed by Russia, to avoid bloody force-on-force engagements.)
Russian mobile defense:
The layered retreat from the Kherson suburbs to avoid force-on-force engagements with its most valuable troops, the paratroopers. This bought time to evacuate the civilians and to organize a masterful one-day retreat of the Russian army over the Dnieper.
The layered retreat by the Russian army from the Kharkov region with minimal Russian losses and thousands of killed Ukrainians.
We should keep these things in mind when considering the future.
Now let’s think about the Russian defense. I’ll keep this section short. Many have analyzed the Russian fortifications already. That’s not what I want to do. I want to look at the big picture. Every fortification can be overcome. And holding a fortification or trench system also means heavy losses for the defender if the attacker can suppress the Russian artillery.
What does that mean? As long as the Russian artillery can hold the enemy back, the fortifications can work relatively well without many losses. The main source of Russian losses would be the Ukrainian artillery, which should be in place if the Ukrainians want to start an offensive.
If the Ukrainians manage to overcome the Russian artillery and move close to the first line of defense (trench systems), the Russians will have to withdraw. Not because they can’t hold it. No. But to avoid unnecessary casualties in trench warfare. That’s not what the Russian army should do in a SMO. Wagner is something different. We’ll come back to that later.
The same comes for the next line of defense.
Before Ukraine reaches the third line, the Russian military doctrine would order flank attacks on the invading force left and right from its angle of attack to envelop the Ukrainians. Possibly this could happen, if it is determined that the attacking force can be destroyed with less effort and fewer casualties.
What is more likely, is that every line of defense is also a fire bag and a mine trap. The invading force will be bombed heavily after taking each line of defense.
If we assume, for the sake of discussion, that the offensive will take place in Zaporizhzhia then the following scenario could be possible:
Attack the offensive formations with the glide-bombs (Air Force), missiles, and artillery until they reach the first line of defense. If they reach the first line of defense,
Retreat from the first defense line. If the enemy makes further progress,
Retreat from the second defense line.
Try to envelop doctrinally with reserve forces the invading force left and right on the second line of defense and destroy them. If this is not successful, then retreat to the next line trench system, prepared further in the rear.
Repeat the same.
I created a schematic visualization, with no real places, only for the sake of explaining the mobile defense approach. Since I neither know where the offensive will take place nor I do know all prepared Russian defense installations I decided to make up virtual defense lines to not confuse real and imaginary ones in one picture.
The picture considers that the Ukrainians would probably decide to ford the Dnieper and come down from Zaporizhzhia at the same time, to have a two-vector approach.
Here, the Russians could fight at distance and withdraw several times when the Ukrainians come too close, until reaching either Melitopol or the border to Crimea. Both are very undesirable events for the Russians. Of course, I will again mention the prepared fire bags, ambushes, minefields etc.
Well, after explaining the defensive approach, it should be absolutely clear to everyone that an offensive in this direction would be a pure slaughter of Ukrainians. Without a doubt the ratio would be over 1:15 in favor of the Russians. This is well known to everyone, that’s why I have a hard time believing that this will be the main direction of the offensive. Or if there will be an offensive at all. Remember, the Russians are trying hard to prevent the offensive.
The NATO planners are not idiots, and they are very capable. Even though they don’t care about Ukrainian lives and all able-bodied troops will be invested (dead man walking already), they indeed have a goal that they want to achieve. Not a military goal but a political goal. I assume that IF the offensive takes place, we could experience some surprises that NATO has prepared for us.
Logistics (Why Ukraine is Still Allowed Logistics)
Why Ukraine still maintains logistics capabilities
Ukraine is able to supply its troops, defenses, and offensive actions only because Russia is allowing it.
Russia could completely stop the overt logistics in Ukraine within several days. I’m talking about bridges and the train traffic. The targets that would need to be impaired are well known, since they are Soviet built and they are not moving or hidden/concealed:
It would be pretty idiotic to eliminate the above infrastructures. I have argued against their destruction almost since the beginning of the SMO. Before I started BMA, I was arguing against that on my former Twitter account.
Why?
It is absolutely preferable for Russia to fight the Ukrainians close to Russia, where it has air superiority and a friendly population. It is very detrimental for Ukraine. Hence, Ukraine needs to be allowed to ship everything into the Donbass.
NATO needs to be allowed to dispose of its fighting potential as effectively as possible for political reasons. (BRICS/China etc.)
A long guerrilla war all across Ukraine would be very undesirable for Russia. It is better to destroy the West’s whole military potential, both equipment and manpower, in an organized manner and in places where it is desirable for Russia. See my five spots of grinding, mentioned above.
If Russia would stop the Ukrainian logistics today, the Donbass front would perhaps collapse. But NATO would be forced to go covert and slow their efforts. This would lead to the inevitable guerilla warfare all across Ukraine. And withdrawals to otherwise untouched cities, which would then also be destroyed.
In short: Russia stays idle to enable Ukraine to commit the most effective mass suicide that is possible. Russia doesn’t want to make problems for the Ukrainians while shipping themselves and more importantly their equipment, massively into a death trap.
Hence, this is the reasons why Ukraine still has logistics capabilities.Here I explained some logistics basics. Taking this into consideration, we can conclude that Ukraine (NATO) has a hell of a job to do in order to enable all the logistics necessary for the war effort. Now think about the counteroffensive south (In Crimean direction) over a major river, the Dnieper. An incredible number of resources are committed by NATO and Ukraine to enable this effort. It is in fact totally idiotic, and forced by the West only to achieve some political goals by pitting the Ukrainian male population against itself. Modern lemmings.
On the other hand, it is totally favorable for Russia that Ukraine needs to hold back something like 150,000 to 300,000 people in the rear only to maintain these insane logistics. Congratulations.
Sustainability of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in logistical terms
Shortest section: à Madness.
Not impossible, but as describe above you need tens of thousands of people dedicated to conduct logistics operations under such circumstances. Which circumstances? Operating across a major river where you have no air superiority. Going around the river at Zaporizhzhia is the same effort/madness as fording the Dnieper directly.
The more I write about the sustainability of an offensive to Melitopol/Crimea, the more I think that we will experience some surprises in other directions. IF the offensive takes place at all. Melitopol/Crimea is exactly this:
Artemovsk (Bakhmut)
Basics
The purpose of the Russian efforts at Artemovsk has been to further grind the Ukrainian troops and equipment down. I’d argue that the Ukrainian garrison in Artemovsk consists of 20% professional troops and special forces and 80% conscripts, with replenishments of “fresh” conscripts daily.
And that’s how it works. Ukraine needs two things:
Hold Artemovsk to not allow collapse of the whole Donbass frontline. Why?
To be able to prepare the counteroffensive to achieve one last big political goal. This would be impossible if the Ukrainians had to deal with a whole collapsing frontline in Donbass.
I would not be entirely surprised if the Ukrainian counteroffensive would be aimed at Soledar-Artemovsk.
Ukrainian troops
As mentioned above Ukraine is using mainly untrained conscripts to hold Artemovsk. With some professional officers and special forces for coordination and logistics.
The daily Ukrainian losses in manpower are horrendous. Nevertheless, if we take into consideration that Artemovsk should hold on for some two more months because the counteroffensive should be concluded by then, we could calculate the following: 400 casualties/day X 30 days/month X 2 months = 24,000 additional casualties by the end of June. By using mainly conscripts to plug holes in Artemovsk this is (unfortunately and disgustingly) enough to keep the eastern front stable and to secure the back of the counteroffensive.
Wagner
As I said, I would not be entirely surprised if the whole “counteroffensive” thing would be simply aimed at retaking Artemovsk and Soledar. It would also be a huge blow to Russia. In such a scenario Wagner would need to be defeated. Which is not impossible. It would have the following implications:
Defeat/Weakening of Wagner. (I’ll go deeper into that later).
Capture of a huge urban area which is extremely difficult to recapture by the Russians again.
Russia would have to exert huge efforts to recapture these places. This time without Wagner but with regular Russians troops. (In case Wagner would have been defeated or seriously weakened.)
Forced conversion of the SMO into war, which is currently unfavorable for Russia. Note: Wagner IS the SMO. I’ll explain that in a minute.
Major PR and military defeat for Russia. The West could make a lot of capital out of that.
War!
Let me explain my understanding of what Wagner is. Please keep in mind that this is only my analysis and I can be entirely wrong on this:
Wagner is the Russian equivalent of aCost Centerin business administration
Russia is using Wagner to accumulate the best volunteer fighters of Russia for direct assault action. The Russian army cannot yet engage in force-on-force action, let alone direct assault action in an urban environment. These types of fighting are the ones with the biggest casualty rates. I know it, many of my family members served in WW2 and in the Yugoslavian wars in such assault detachments.
Such casualty rates are incompatible with a SMO. First, the Donbass militias did this job. Their casualties, which were very high, were not part of the Russian army. Later, after the incorporation of Donbass into the Russian Federation and consequently their military, Wagner took over this job entirely. Doing the dirty and hard work, taking the casualties and keeping the balance sheet of the Russian army clean. I already criticized this technique months ago. I want to criticize it again.
The Russian army, which is conducting an SMO, has many fewer casualties and direct engagements with the enemy. The SMO is not designed to sustain the level of casualties as the volunteer force “Wagner” is doing. There would be many questions in Russia in such a case.
It is one thing to order people who are conscripted to walk into their guaranteed death, and something else to do that with volunteers who know exactly what they have signed up for. Take, for example, the marines who were storming Ugledar some months ago. They called their governor in the Russian far-east who intervened. Maybe rightfully. Maybe the responsible general was an idiot. But I want only to demonstrate what would happen if the regular Russian troops would sustain casualties of the magnitude of Wagner or the Ukrainians. It would be all across Russia in the news, etc.
Volunteers are volunteers. They know exactly what they are signing up for, and they are highly professional. I assume that Wagner regularly recruit their troops right out of the Russian army and special forces. Maybe even directly out of the SMO forces. If they die, they die on another account/cost-center. And the relatives, if there are any, can’t do anything since these were volunteers.
There are reasons why Evgeny Prigozhin expresses public concerns about the upcoming Ukrainian offensive in connection with Wagner. Let’s just assume for the sake of discussion that the Ukrainian counteroffensive would take place in the Artemovsk/Soledar direction and it would succeed. Let’s further assume that the Ukrainians would manage to take out a huge part of Wagner. Russia would have NO troops left for casualty intensive offensive operations.
Russia would need to declare war and then it could use its whole accumulated and trained army for everything that is needed. I would argue that it would be better to avoid/stop the offensive to avoid a situation where such measures need to be taken.
Keep in mind. Wagner from 2014 to January 2022 is another Wagner than from February 2022 onwards. Currently it is a fully integrated part of the Russian army in command and control. But not in the organization sense. Casualties, financing, and supplies are separated for obvious reasons.
Do I think that such a scenario could/would/will happen? I would rather say no. But who knows. This is the last throw. We should expect anything and everything. Under any circumstance, I see and believe that the Russian general staff, here in this case General Surovikin himself, is being careful to take most of the steam out of the offensive before it even starts; with the air force and the missile forces.
I don’t think the Russians will roll over and play dead. The worst possible position which you can be in right now is in the skin of a Ukrainian soldier earmarked for the offensive. The only question that you currently have is whether you will be badly wounded/maimed, captured (best-case scenario), or in which cruel way you will die. Most will die, since there is no way to safely evacuate all the wounded. I don’t write that with pleasure, being an orthodox Slav. It is disgusting.
Negotiations
Now we have all the people that are constantly advocating for “Sit down and talk peace”. Okay. Snap a finger and there is peace? I want to put it this way à Russia is again in an existential struggle. If it doesn’t manage to drive NATO out of Ukraine, then its very existence will be constantly under threat. If there is one single piece of Ukraine that is not liberated then this will be the seed for a new NATO attempt against Russia. That’s why Russia’s main objective is the full denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine and theimplementation of the new draft treaty for European security.
As long as these objectives are not achieved, Russia is under constant threat of being split up into multiple little statelets like Yugoslavia.
So, these people think that “Sit down and talk peace” will achieve peace?
What are the implications of peace talks now, including a ceasefire?
Between 20,000 – 30,000 Russians (Russian Army + Donbass Militia + Wagner) died for a small strip of land in east and south Ukraine.
The threat against Russia would still exist. In fact, it would be an even bigger threat because Ukraine would join NATO right after the conclusion of hostilities. It doesn’t matter what treaties Ukraine would sign. For example, to NOT join NATO. Ukraine would join NATO the next day.
Negotiations were possible until the end of Phase 1. After all that has been invested in blood, equipment, and political/economical capital, there is no way back. Only the full achievement of all goals is a real option. President Putin invested Russia’s whole nation in the building of a multipolar world order. Anything negotiated now in Ukraine would be the end of this project and Russia. It would mean that the West is still able to dictate outcomes and terms.
And for what should Ukraine negotiate exactly?
With which authority? Ukraine can’t decide a thing about itself. How should they negotiate about European and NATO security?
So, negotiating such goals WITH Ukraine is pure bullshit. I don’t get how someone can call for the Ukrainians to sit down and “talk peace”. I really have a hard time understanding that, considering the abovementioned facts.
Negotiating with the West? The slaughter between Ukrainians and Russians is a jackpot for the West. They will do everything they can to ensure that as many troops as possible on both sides die. Further Ukrainian mobilizations? Great! Further Russian mobilizations? Even greater. More blood. More scorched earth. As long as it is sustainable with Western money and equipment, it WILL BE sustained.
With whom should Russia negotiate?
Russia: “Listen, NATO, if you don’t withdraw to your borders of 1998, we will destroy the whole of Ukraine and kill most of its male population”. NATO: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, go ahead bro”.
Unfortunately, this will be fought until Ukraine totally collapses and (eventually) most likely disappears. Unfortunate not because Ukraine most likely will disappear. No, but because of the massive loss of Slavic lives. Against each other. Odious.
Further developments
Remember my article about Russian and Soviet military doctrine?
After the Ukrainian offensive we can expect to see Russia on the move.For more details please re-read this article.
There is only one outcome possible. The full defeat of Ukraine and its full surrender, denazification and demilitarization. This is not wishful thinking; it is my professional analysis and I have enumerated countless arguments for it in almost all of my articles.
I mentioned in one of my articles the impending end of the professional Ukrainian army (not the end of the war). This will be evident after the Ukrainian offensive.
