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| Kyiv (Source) |
Here, I have done that. Hat tip to Jawa Report website ...
So, here we
are, 3 days counting to full month and were discovering ourselves in something
akin to the Groundhog Day - Russians still haven't taken Kharkiv, Kyiv ,
Cherkassy or even Mariupol, and they got captured airfield at Kherson
bombed/artillery-ed into oblivion.
Ukrainians
have only forces enough for local counterattacks, but they exact heavy toll on
the Russians - in my estimates, up to 30k total in KIA, WIA and MIA (captured
and desertions).
That is,
about 30% of the initial invading forces.
Including
like 5 generals killed ...
... and even
one senior naval officer.
Lets compare the results with benchmark for East Europe conquest, German attack on Poland in 1939:
By that
D+28 Germans were mopping up last vestiges of the resistance and negotiating
surrender of Warsaw.
And they got similar number of own casualties, but with order of magnitude, at least, more own forces involved. Invasion of Poland, check casualties section
So, Russian
conquest of Ukraine spectacularly has bogged down. Quite literally because
Rasputitsa/General Mud - is in full
effect by late March. Compare timetable of certain other battle for Kharkiv,
1943 (Manstein himself could not fight mud ...)
While there
are many more paved roads than in 1941, what Russians advances are making , is
contained to them. And Ukrainian light infantry maneuvres around them thru
countryside, using whatever forests, villages and towns in the way for cover.
Our good
net-neighbour Sal has a coverage of one such local battle.
With that kind of losses, it appears Putin has gone full Stansfield.
Recruiting Syrian fighters from Assad, emptying far-flung garrisons from all over the empire's 11 time zones, and even recreating the 1905 Baltic Fleet voyage in reverse.
Brits hide your fishing boats!
Polish,
Slovenian and Czech Prime Ministers visited Kyiv under fire, showing that while
not ready to send troops they are ready to put some personal risks to at least
bolster morale of the defenders.
When
speaking of the aid, instead of spectacular and flashy but limited usefulness
fighter jets, small and medium drones
seem to be the way. IDK if Turkey is following with more TB2 deliveries, but US
is sending own small drones.
Russians have been, tellingly, sending only missiles to try and intercept any help coming thru Lviv area. Seems their planes just don't feel safe enough over this part of Ukraine.
Which leads
me to another part of the puzzle. It seems Belarus while being forced to be
host nation for invaders, is in no mood to take any active part despite
whatever its dictator could wish. The troops just wont go... And Russians seem
to not have enough troops (yet) to make a thrust south from Belarus along
Polish border to cut off the supply stream of NATO weapons ...
I think the
center of gravity for Ukrainians holds firmly so far. Russian COG being the
propaganda-brainwashed citizenry at home, I am expecting it would take more
dead bodies, in the realm of few dozens thousands to force some kind of revolt
against Putin.
Contrary to
many pundits I don't look much forward to the palace coup alone, since the
people close to Putin are basically his clones in thought at least. But if
popular revolt looms someone might take the risk..
Though,
even such theoretically positive outcome is fraught with risks: revolution, coup or even civil war in nuclear
superpower? Yikes ... But still preferable to active war with NATO. And given
that Russians switching tactics to just shelling general enemy direction - with
civilians included, eventually that would happen. When some sort of civilian
casualties threshold is crossed be it 200
thousands or half million, or million - wrath of the public opinion will force
politicians hand all across the West.
See you
(hopefully) next week...
Another opinion:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.unz.com/mwhitney/larry-c-johnson-the-ukrainian-army-has-been-defeated-whats-left-is-mop-up/
Smells like horse dung to me.
Delete"Moping up" an armed, angry, invaded militia ... is not always easy.
ReplyDeleteDefeated? Pretty feisty for a defeated army.
ReplyDeleteBrought his chess scorekeeper to a go match?
ReplyDeleteI don't know who to believe any more regarding what's going on. I believe this is referred to as the "Fog of War". All I do know is if you invade another country without provocation, you're the bad guy. I believe this is the case in Ukraine. I also believe that we should NOT get involved in this fight militarily. No national interest at stake. Provide arms and supplies, yes. Military forces, No! My 2% of a dollar,
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteConcur!
DeleteBadger Concurrence!
DeleteJohn Blackshoe totally endorses Juvat's comment.
DeletePawel, thank you for continuing to update us (and best wishes to you and yours, of course). It is appreciated as a point of view that most cannot get.
ReplyDeleteYour fears of a palace coup are the same as mine: to my mind at least, things seldom "improve" under such circumstances and it may very well bring someone to power that has even less reason to respond in a different manner. I guess what I miss in this situation is to what sense the overall command and political structure continues to support the war or not - although senior military members continuing to die does suggest a rapidly waning enthusiasm may be in the not too distant future.
(Sarge: I vote starting to refer to Pawel as "Our Man In Poland" - just because, well, it makes it sound more correspondenty (yes, I know that it is not a word...)
Concur
DeleteI agree, I like having the opinion of someone close to what is happening. Especially someone like Pawel, that I trust.
DeleteFrom news reports last night, it seems the Belarusian railroad workers and others have been sabotaging the Belarus railroad network and so now no supplies via rail through Belarus is happening which is making the Russian supply situation even more horrible.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Pawel, our man from Poland. Keep it up, please.
Not off-topic.
ReplyDeleteAs ever, from a moderate, far-right contrarian:
I haven't believed anything coming from/through any governmental agency or media outlet since "the AIDS epidemic" of the '70s. The CDC was pumping out Bravo Sierra that (I truthfully don't remember what percentage of the U.S. population, but it was unrealistically high) that we'd all be dead (or at least severely debilitated) with HIV before the year's end - no way to avoid it!
I know it's an unrealistic wish, but I sincerely hope there's at least one adult with undamaged grey matter in D.C. who can intercept the finger before it caomes anywhere close to flipping the switch. There is absolutely no upside to our involvement, any involvement whatsoever.
Yes! I know, innocent people are getting killed; OTOH, you couldn't pay me enough to walk up Park Ave from Union Square to 135th anytime after sunset.
As Lt. Commander Charles Edward Madison put it (probably a Paddy Chayefsky line): "Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town."
Concur.
DeleteThere was a report on the BBC news tonight about the resistance in a small Ukrainian town https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60840081. It looks like the Ukrainians are, as the saying goes, 'tougher than woodpecker lips'. It seems that since the events of 2014 the Ukrainians have taken lessons on board and learnt. They can't take the Russians on mass against mass so they are leveraging what they are good at and utilising technology. The Russians are suffering because they don't have a strong NCO culture ( preventative maintenance) and they absolutely will not let small unit commanders display initiative. There is a long way to go yet and I hope that there are people with some semblance of common sense left on the Russian side and that we in Europe come together and start organising our defences.
ReplyDeleteBTW looking at Russian kit, if you were buying kit would you look at Russian kit? It seems as if it comes catastrophically unstuck when it gets hit by any ATGW.
Retired