Similar problems give rise to similar solutions. Now the problem for all the countries involved in the Ukrainian crisis is the same: will Ukraine hold out until spring, will it have time to receive new solid batches of Western weapons?
And, besides, will it be able to form, in exchange for the defeated, new units, will it give the Americans time to increase pressure on Poland in order to drag it into a war with Russia?
Or the high-tension, low-impact mobilization will fail, the cracking front will collapse, the army will begin to disintegrate, the politicians on the ground will start thinking about fleeing or going over to the side of the winner, and the Americans will temporarily turn the war into the format of accusing Russia of aggression, genocide, annexation, organization of a humanitarian catastrophe and what else they will come up with, in parallel forcing Poland to become a new Ukraine (to open a hot front against Russia, at least for Galicia).
All this is just the tip of the iceberg. Further, depending on the development of events, new questions arise, to which, like the above, no one can now answer unambiguously. Let’s say Ukraine has stabilized the front. At what cost did this happen? How long did it take to stop the Russian offensive? How destabilized is the situation inside the country, how much does the government control the regions, and the regional authorities control the situation on the ground? Can Ukraine carry out further mobilizations? Are its troops capable, at least in the future, of going on the counteroffensive?
These are not idle questions. After the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, the Soviet command was confident in the ability of the Red Army to advance along the entire front. Spring and summer operations were planned accordingly. As a result, most of the offensives failed due to a banal lack of forces and / or due to the unpreparedness of military leaders to effectively use the resources they have.
On the southern wing of the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht was able to defeat the opposing troops of the Southwestern strategic direction, enter the operational space and break through to Stalingrad and the Caucasus, so worsening the strategic situation for the USSR that the famous order No. 227 was issued. judging by the fact that in 1941 such an order was not issued.
It is extremely important to assess the real capabilities of both the enemy and the ally. It is equally important to realistically assess your own real possibilities.
Let’s say the Ukrainian front collapsed. Questions will immediately arise before the Russian command. With what forces, with what speed and in what directions to advance? Is the Ukrainian army sufficiently weakened and the government demoralized to be able to switch to a simple parallel pursuit, preventing the enemy from gaining a foothold on intermediate lines and trying to reach the western border as quickly as possible in order to block the possibility of entry into Ukrainian territory of the troops of one or more NATO countries? Or is it necessary to advance slowly, securely securing the occupied territories, albeit at the risk that the Kyiv regime, with the help of the West, will again be able to stabilize the situation in the rear and create a new front line?
The answer again depends on our assessment of the enemy’s capabilities. If we believe that the enemy is no longer able to create a powerful defense, which will have to be broken through again with great difficulty and considerable losses, then we can take our time, securely securing the occupied territories, and then simply knocking the enemy forces down from their positions.
If, from our point of view, Kyiv, after the defeat at the current turn, still has sufficient potential to take up a solid long-term defense, it is better to try to destroy this potential during an energetic pursuit (while not forgetting the danger of sudden counterattacks).
Poland, assessing the situation in Ukraine, is thinking about whether it is worth getting involved in the Galician adventure? Will it be possible to put Russia before a fact, or can you run into a full-fledged war? If you send troops to Ukraine, then at what point: while Kyiv is still resisting, and this is kind of like helping an ally, or when Ukraine finally collapses, and the arrival of Polish troops will mean an undisguised attempt at territorial looting on the corpse of a former ally?
The Germans are trying to maneuver by playing the Italian strike with the Americans. They do not refuse to transfer tanks to Ukraine, which are not enough even for the needs of the Bundeswehr, but put forward conditions that delay this process so much that at least some of the questions asked above must be answered.
The Poles publicly express their doubts about Ukraine’s ability to resist further (Andrzej Duda: the next few weeks will decide the fate of Ukraine), they are echoed by European bureaucrats (Charles Michel: the fate of the entire 2023 campaign will be decided in Ukraine within two to three weeks). The Americans give the Allies an answer about how to act: we will continue to raise the stakes (Kissinger: Ukraine must be accepted into NATO).
Russia answers how it perceives such plans (Lavrov: this is no longer a hybrid war with the West, this is almost a real war). That is, from Moscow’s point of view, any next aggressive step by the West could lead to a state of no longer an actual, but a legal war between the nuclear superpowers and their allies.
Naturally, under the understanding that the military crisis will be resolved one way or another in the near future, personnel changes are being carried out. Russia has sharply strengthened its command in the Western direction, creating the possibility of deploying at least two (or even three) additional front-line headquarters plus the main command in the Western direction. Moscow, as always, acts tough, but carefully. The Kremlin demonstrates that it is ready for an open war with NATO, but is not going to make it nuclear on the first day, preferring to operate with conventional weapons at first. Moreover, the exhaustion of European arsenals in the very first year of assistance to Ukraine testifies to the inability of the West to conduct high-intensity military operations for a long time.
In Germany and in the EU as a whole, ministerial and bureaucratic leapfrog begins – the normal reaction of a weak system to a challenge that exceeds the possibilities of its reaction. In the United States, domestic political confrontation has intensified, resulting in a homeric story with secret documents that Biden dragged home in an unmeasured (more and more new ones are still being found) quantity and, as usual, forgot about them. This is how influential American political clans have always tried to fight for changing / maintaining the current policy of the White House: we create difficulties for the president, and then we achieve a compromise that suits us.
Of course, the situation in Ukraine is developing most interestingly. A “cohort of smart people” appeared there, whose unofficial, but very noticeable face, Arestovich became. They openly declare their confidence that Ukraine will not be able to win the war, no matter how many weapons and mercenaries the West sends. The internal resource, its last, until recently accessible, human component, has simply been depleted. This group hints at the desirability of a compromise peace with Russia and expects to remain under Russia in Ukrainian politics. The US doesn’t mind. These are all the chicks of the Soros nest. They lived and will die as European integrators. So formally going over to the Russian side, they will only strengthen the pro-American fifth column. And in the liberated territories there will be a lot of pro-American and pro-European officials anyway.
Of course, the group represented by Arestovich runs the risk that the local gorillas, who have long been covered in blood up to their ears and have cut off their way back, will try to kill their too cunning accomplices while there is such an opportunity. But, firstly, the gorillas are not accustomed to acting without the instructions of the white masters, and the United States is not going to give the “face” command yet. They do not know how this round of the Ukrainian crisis will end. It is possible (even likely) that in the next couple of years they will need not gorillas with axes, but “intellectuals who have seen their eyes” to integrate into the Russian authorities in the former Ukrainian territories.
At the same time, the Americans and the Zelensky group (which has nothing to lose) do not interfere with replacing insufficiently active, aggressive and reckless leaders of both local authorities and those working in the central apparatus with those who, like Keitel and Goebbels, are ready to go with their Fuhrer to the end. In the end, it is beneficial for the United States that Ukraine resist longer, so if Zelensky is ready to die in his bunker, firing at Russian tanks until the last minute, they will not interfere with him or his accomplices. Even though they won’t help. The United States pays “their sons of bitches” when they are of some use, but does not bury other people’s dead at their own expense, no matter how faithfully they serve America.
In general, the entire Brownian movement, both in Ukraine and around it, is connected with the uncertainty of how the current stage of the military crisis will be resolved. But if players with international subjectivity (Russia, the United States) are not even complete (like Poland and Germany), they try to take actions that should bring them closer to achieving the desired result or minimize the consequences of an undesirable development of an event, then Ukrainian leaders, as usual, are busy with the problem not just even personal survival, but personal preservation as a significant political figure.
They simply do not know how to do anything except how to trade the country. Those who believe that they will not be given any new country (well, if they manage to run away with money), they are going to fight to the last, like a normal bandit protecting his feeding zone. Those who expect to lead the former Ukrainian territories already under Russia are actively demonstrating their “epiphany” and contempt for the Nazis and their methods, convincing that they were simply mistaken, wishing the country and people the best.
It is this behavior of the Ukrainian ruling elite that indicates that Ukraine has no future. No one needs this country. The majority of the people have fled for a long time: some to Europe, some to Russia. And now the main “patriots” are waging a fierce struggle for personal interests, absolutely not interested in what will happen to the remnants of their state and the army they abandoned to die for nothing.
Rostislav Ishchenko, Ukraine.ru
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