If Bakhmut were as important as the 5D types states, then there would have been a follow-on force assembled to exploit this great opportunity. Instead the Russians will move in and hold.
This is just my opinion but your work really shines, Rolo, when you dig into the byzantine dynamics of the Kremlin. You do excellent work in explaining the web there.
May 21, 2023·edited May 21, 2023Liked by Rurik Skywalker
💬 they call this “political hooliganism” and “a provocation” that would anger the West and the Kremlin, so, as usual, we just can’t have nice things. 👌
↑↑ mirrors ↓↓ 😏
🗨 The political left and the globalist establishment like to play games with our principles. It’s the old Alinsky tactic of holding your opponents to their own list of standards while you operate with no standards.[...W]e must allow them to do what they want or we are not living up to the rules we value. (h/t alt-market.us)
Except your patriotic camp seems a step ahead—on more advanced level as it were—meaning they readily self-impose the crippling standards, and save their opponents the trouble to engage in nudging/manipulation 🤷
Just a crazy theory of mine, but I believe the Bakhmut meat-grinder story. And due to that I also believe that Bakhmut was taken reluctantly. I do not believe it was "stormed" and "fiercely contested" in "heavy battles". I think it was taken reluctantly, i.e. some wagner guy popped his head up, was shot at and ducked for cover. Telephoned the coordinates of the shooter and had the artillery wipe the shooter out. Then he pops up his head again, and waits for somebody to shoot at him. If so, rinse and repeat. Continue doing this until nobody is shooting at you anymore, then inch your way forward until somebody starts shooting at you again. Repeat at nauseam. Hence they did not want to move forward. Only when they had no other choice did they do so.
This fits the need for artillery, this fits with the meat-grinder choice, this fits with the loss-ratio, this fits with the time needed, this even fits the idiot way of "attacking" heads on as they did. And it sure fits the "give us our shells" cry.
This conflict has become existential for the West. A massive investment has been made and there is much to loose. That they will double down seems inevitable.
Perhaps the planned counter-offensive will flounder or not even begin but the messaging will be that we (the West) cannot let Russia win. That being the case, new plans will emerge and will probably include the use of NATO forces.
Although the financial resources may seem to be constrained and the Industrial capacity insufficient to put a significant force together, the large corporations will be asked to pony up. This would not be new. A recent book “Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties” (which I am yet to receive) deals with the agreement Hitler made in the 30's with all of the leading corporations in Germany. I listened to an interview with the author David de Jong (https://youtu.be/IMXZtdkREWs).
It may be many years before this conflict comes to an end. Russia's piecemeal and at times, haphazard approach, has dragged it out and convinced the West that Russia is defeatable.
1. Before the smo, Prigozhin was described as a personal "friend" of Pt Putin (as Mr Berlusconi by the way)...so he should have had the possibility to reach him very easily...
2. I thought that Wagner was a GRU's creation. Is the GRU not the military intelligence? Not depending of the MoD?
3. Meanwhile - as already noted above - on the whole, the operation ended in a strategic failure of our troops. The enemy has NOT been ousted from the Donbass in all the main directions, in most directions - not moved at all.
In the course of the offensive, the RF Armed Forces used up a lot of trained manpower, exhausted almost to the bottom the stocks of weapons, equipment and ammunition necessary for further offensive operations.
Therefore, Bakhmut's "squeezing" has been given increased attention over the past 2 months - it was necessary to achieve at least some result "for propaganda" in order to "take a breath" later ... So, like, they won ... And yesterday they stopped immediately at the outskirts of Bakhmut, as soon as they crawled to it - there is no strength to go further ...
4. Now you should wait for the "return move" from the enemy. Similar to the one that was made by the enemy in September, right after our valiant generals "tormented" the tiny town of Peski on the outskirts of Donetsk in a month.
Why do I think the enemy will attack soon? - Yes, precisely because now he has the best chance of success. - The best strike units of the RF Armed Forces are exhausted by many months of battles. The stock of ammunition is minimal. If, for example, the enemy chooses the Donetsk front for attack (for example, in the Mariupol direction), then he will be met by units and subunits badly battered and "thinned" by the transfer of reserves to Bakhmut. And if he decides to attack on the Zaporozhye front, then he may not worry about the stability of his defense in the Slavic-Kramatorsk direction and near Avdiivka.
5. And therefore - I consider the victory near Bakhmut:
a) Initially unnecessary ("distraction to an unusable object", I wrote about this many times);
b) Pyrrhic. It was not worth the effort and money spent on it, even approximately.
Excellent analysis. Reading war efforts as they are linked to internal politics is exactly correct but it is a longer view than just reporting on any day's battlefield news. Bakhmut was a meat grinder but who ground up who? It wasn't strategic so why did it happen? Egos, politics, or a real war strategy? It's really not important to know, what is important is to see the impact on the overall war effort. In the meantime it will be interesting to hear Ukraine's and the west's reactions.
I would expect that if Ukraine has a counter offensive in the works the "loss" of Bakhmut will trigger it to occur sooner than later.
I have to confess to becoming more confused. The Special Military Operation was originally supposed to have the objectives of protecting the Russian speakers of Donbass and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO and installing NATO missile emplacements that can reach Moscow in 5 minutes. Russia is fine with Finland joining NATO, although the part of Finland nearest Moscow is only 250 km further than the nearest point of Ukraine. Donbass is still getting shelled, although Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. Seems to me NATO emplacements in Finland, including the possibility of nuclear-tipped missiles. is almost as threatening as NATO emplacements in Ukraine.
What are the updated Russian objectives for the war?
"There are also rumors that Prigozhin has had enough and wants to move on to Somalia, where there is money to be made and no MoD to interfere."
If that's the case, you have to admire Prigozhin's straightforward pronouncement of his avaricious desires, as well as his disdain for meddling second-rate apparatchiks.🤑
"Possible strikes by the armed forces of Ukraine with American F-16 fighter jets on the territory of Crimea will be seen by Moscow as an attack on one of the regions of Russia," said Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US.
ok, so if some of these theories are to bear fruit, Russia now needs to find itself another meat grinder, Adveeka? Seversk? If Russian command are not interested in 'taking' Ukraine and drawing up new multilayered defences on the border of Poland we will see more time wasting, more destruction of materiel in the rear but no moves to go beyond Donbas administrative borders. What of Odesa? I always imagined it would be the last symbolic victory over Kiev before some sort of DMZ peace plan was worked out. We not going to bother?
Relieving hard-fought assault troops and rotating them rearward for Rest & Recuperation is pretty much military SOP for every army. I suspect the musicians in Wagner deserve a hard-earned break. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
My heartfelt sympathy for your 'unenviable position of both wanting to be wrong for Russia’s sake and wanting to be proven right for my sake so that I can gloat.' 😳
Just like that proverbial monkey, both beautiful and clever, lost over which way forward 😇
If Bakhmut were as important as the 5D types states, then there would have been a follow-on force assembled to exploit this great opportunity. Instead the Russians will move in and hold.
This is just my opinion but your work really shines, Rolo, when you dig into the byzantine dynamics of the Kremlin. You do excellent work in explaining the web there.
💬 they call this “political hooliganism” and “a provocation” that would anger the West and the Kremlin, so, as usual, we just can’t have nice things. 👌
↑↑ mirrors ↓↓ 😏
🗨 The political left and the globalist establishment like to play games with our principles. It’s the old Alinsky tactic of holding your opponents to their own list of standards while you operate with no standards.[...W]e must allow them to do what they want or we are not living up to the rules we value. (h/t alt-market.us)
Except your patriotic camp seems a step ahead—on more advanced level as it were—meaning they readily self-impose the crippling standards, and save their opponents the trouble to engage in nudging/manipulation 🤷
Just a crazy theory of mine, but I believe the Bakhmut meat-grinder story. And due to that I also believe that Bakhmut was taken reluctantly. I do not believe it was "stormed" and "fiercely contested" in "heavy battles". I think it was taken reluctantly, i.e. some wagner guy popped his head up, was shot at and ducked for cover. Telephoned the coordinates of the shooter and had the artillery wipe the shooter out. Then he pops up his head again, and waits for somebody to shoot at him. If so, rinse and repeat. Continue doing this until nobody is shooting at you anymore, then inch your way forward until somebody starts shooting at you again. Repeat at nauseam. Hence they did not want to move forward. Only when they had no other choice did they do so.
This fits the need for artillery, this fits with the meat-grinder choice, this fits with the loss-ratio, this fits with the time needed, this even fits the idiot way of "attacking" heads on as they did. And it sure fits the "give us our shells" cry.
This conflict has become existential for the West. A massive investment has been made and there is much to loose. That they will double down seems inevitable.
Perhaps the planned counter-offensive will flounder or not even begin but the messaging will be that we (the West) cannot let Russia win. That being the case, new plans will emerge and will probably include the use of NATO forces.
Although the financial resources may seem to be constrained and the Industrial capacity insufficient to put a significant force together, the large corporations will be asked to pony up. This would not be new. A recent book “Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties” (which I am yet to receive) deals with the agreement Hitler made in the 30's with all of the leading corporations in Germany. I listened to an interview with the author David de Jong (https://youtu.be/IMXZtdkREWs).
It may be many years before this conflict comes to an end. Russia's piecemeal and at times, haphazard approach, has dragged it out and convinced the West that Russia is defeatable.
I do not understand several things..
1. Before the smo, Prigozhin was described as a personal "friend" of Pt Putin (as Mr Berlusconi by the way)...so he should have had the possibility to reach him very easily...
2. I thought that Wagner was a GRU's creation. Is the GRU not the military intelligence? Not depending of the MoD?
More detail from Strelkov:
https://vk.com/igoristrelkov?w=wall347260249_677776
3. Meanwhile - as already noted above - on the whole, the operation ended in a strategic failure of our troops. The enemy has NOT been ousted from the Donbass in all the main directions, in most directions - not moved at all.
In the course of the offensive, the RF Armed Forces used up a lot of trained manpower, exhausted almost to the bottom the stocks of weapons, equipment and ammunition necessary for further offensive operations.
Therefore, Bakhmut's "squeezing" has been given increased attention over the past 2 months - it was necessary to achieve at least some result "for propaganda" in order to "take a breath" later ... So, like, they won ... And yesterday they stopped immediately at the outskirts of Bakhmut, as soon as they crawled to it - there is no strength to go further ...
4. Now you should wait for the "return move" from the enemy. Similar to the one that was made by the enemy in September, right after our valiant generals "tormented" the tiny town of Peski on the outskirts of Donetsk in a month.
Why do I think the enemy will attack soon? - Yes, precisely because now he has the best chance of success. - The best strike units of the RF Armed Forces are exhausted by many months of battles. The stock of ammunition is minimal. If, for example, the enemy chooses the Donetsk front for attack (for example, in the Mariupol direction), then he will be met by units and subunits badly battered and "thinned" by the transfer of reserves to Bakhmut. And if he decides to attack on the Zaporozhye front, then he may not worry about the stability of his defense in the Slavic-Kramatorsk direction and near Avdiivka.
5. And therefore - I consider the victory near Bakhmut:
a) Initially unnecessary ("distraction to an unusable object", I wrote about this many times);
b) Pyrrhic. It was not worth the effort and money spent on it, even approximately.
Excellent analysis. Reading war efforts as they are linked to internal politics is exactly correct but it is a longer view than just reporting on any day's battlefield news. Bakhmut was a meat grinder but who ground up who? It wasn't strategic so why did it happen? Egos, politics, or a real war strategy? It's really not important to know, what is important is to see the impact on the overall war effort. In the meantime it will be interesting to hear Ukraine's and the west's reactions.
I would expect that if Ukraine has a counter offensive in the works the "loss" of Bakhmut will trigger it to occur sooner than later.
I have to confess to becoming more confused. The Special Military Operation was originally supposed to have the objectives of protecting the Russian speakers of Donbass and preventing Ukraine from joining NATO and installing NATO missile emplacements that can reach Moscow in 5 minutes. Russia is fine with Finland joining NATO, although the part of Finland nearest Moscow is only 250 km further than the nearest point of Ukraine. Donbass is still getting shelled, although Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. Seems to me NATO emplacements in Finland, including the possibility of nuclear-tipped missiles. is almost as threatening as NATO emplacements in Ukraine.
What are the updated Russian objectives for the war?
"There are also rumors that Prigozhin has had enough and wants to move on to Somalia, where there is money to be made and no MoD to interfere."
If that's the case, you have to admire Prigozhin's straightforward pronouncement of his avaricious desires, as well as his disdain for meddling second-rate apparatchiks.🤑
Thanks for the brilliant article.
Did my pal answer your email?
https://twitter.com/nikola_mikovic/status/1660762548143116289
Никола Миковић / Nikola Mikovic
@nikola_mikovic
"Possible strikes by the armed forces of Ukraine with American F-16 fighter jets on the territory of Crimea will be seen by Moscow as an attack on one of the regions of Russia," said Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US.
In other words, Russia will do nothing.
9:40 AM · May 23, 2023
Никола Миковић / Nikola Mikovic Retweeted
https://twitter.com/nikola_mikovic/status/1513811145144078340
News from the near future
Putin: The goals of the special military operation to restore control over the Belgorod region in Western Russia will be achieved
ok, so if some of these theories are to bear fruit, Russia now needs to find itself another meat grinder, Adveeka? Seversk? If Russian command are not interested in 'taking' Ukraine and drawing up new multilayered defences on the border of Poland we will see more time wasting, more destruction of materiel in the rear but no moves to go beyond Donbas administrative borders. What of Odesa? I always imagined it would be the last symbolic victory over Kiev before some sort of DMZ peace plan was worked out. We not going to bother?
Relieving hard-fought assault troops and rotating them rearward for Rest & Recuperation is pretty much military SOP for every army. I suspect the musicians in Wagner deserve a hard-earned break. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Does this mean Kiev/MoD won? Wagner is out of the game aka notwar...
My heartfelt sympathy for your 'unenviable position of both wanting to be wrong for Russia’s sake and wanting to be proven right for my sake so that I can gloat.' 😳
Just like that proverbial monkey, both beautiful and clever, lost over which way forward 😇