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 🤷
On serious ding, you can't defenestrate the naming conventions of overseas political discourse just because you find them inane or even inimical. I do agree with you wrt 'left'—so what? Our wish-words don't go to God's ear 😭
PS Analogy presupposes only partial overlap by the very definition; it calls for metaphorical alignment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
a lot of words to say you're just using the word because you like to tar your opponents with it.
there's no "left" in the neolib cultural circus freak show. just as there's nothing truly "green" about it either. that's just to get people to adopt their bullshit out of feelings of "i'm a good person, so i vote like other good people".
the tactic is similar to "cultural marxism".
it's not Stalin or Lenin's fault that they want your son to wear a dress.
😲😂 Amazing! Preaching to the choir much? A beloved hobby-horse? 🤭
Can you read? 😏 Me wonders. Nah, more likely just grab at every vague opportunity to vent out your displeasure with the sorry state of the world. Mayhaps it makes you feel superior in your no-fool 'discernment'. Just my humble guess, I can be wrong of course. Anywhoo, not a promising way to communicate 🤷
Sure language is being perverted in real time; words don't longer mean what they used to just short moments ago, let alone historical tradition. For a tiny most benign example, 'liberal' is a much different concept on opposite sides of Atlantic.
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?
As an American nationalist, I want the Russian nationalists to prevail. Make the world safe for nationalism. The American globalists hate the Americans as much as they hate the Russians. Every move of the Biden administration is to destroy the American security, American culture and American economy. A nationalist has got to respect the nationalism of other nations, or he lays the groundwork of his own destruction.
"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.🤑
Well - your "mercenaries" are my "contractors" - plenty of NATO contractors in Ukr now and more probably on the way - e.g. t o maintain the F16s. And there's still this to explain: why are "Russia’s most effective and most motivated fighters" (Rolo) mercenaries/contractors? And if they leave the theater, what next?
Six months ago the 5D prediction was "Putin's Winter Offensive" which would "sweep all before it" (Unz). And then followed this - a PMC suffering massive losses and inflicting worse for an outcome of middling significance now to be held in a static formation by forces of so far unimpressive quality.
Predictions are worthless - I just want it to be over; failing that I desperately want it to be about SOMEthing - something like an assault on the "global digital gulag". WWI in a narrow strip of territory while the gulag moves forward behind he lines in Russia and Europe is utterly unbearable.
As I sort of inferred, Russia's intended objectives for initiating the SMO seem a bit out of whack against the backdrop of what's actually happening. The de-Nazifying of Ukraine can't be a priority if hundreds of the Azov Battalion were traded for an oligarch who was actually interviewed by Oliver Stone in one of his films about Russia. And certainly you'd never supply oil and food to the enemy but Russia is providing both. And thirdly Finland is only approximately 700 miles from Moscow and just became a NATO member yet there's hardly a whimper about that from the Kremlin. The entire conflict seems to be rather odd. If it's a war of attrition then who are the ghouls discarding, but hundreds of thousands of young nationalists from Ukraine and Russia. It appears to be another devious geostrategic operation that'll be over when the ghouls have accomplished their objectives or drained the treasury dry. So it could go on for awhile, but who knows.
Rolo did you learn English as a foreign language ( grammar etc) or did it just come naturally whilst in the language environment? I want to improve my English so that is why I ask
"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.
What happened to all Russia's red lines? One has to face the reality that those in charge in Russia are two-bit hoods who have ZERO intention of dying for the Mother Russia.
I think it is parallel universe Zyy-X23 where the ukies are annexing Russian territories
The Russian principle regarding foreign policy always used to be 'never threaten, never promise'. This principle ensured that they would never be trapped by their own words. This excellent negociating premise seems to have been completely abandoned in this war and Russia has no believable red lines left
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 🤷
what "political left"? what is "left" at all about it?
this deliberate psyop misnaming stuff needs to stop, especially on a realist political analyst's workshop.
A noble warrior detected! 😂
On serious ding, you can't defenestrate the naming conventions of overseas political discourse just because you find them inane or even inimical. I do agree with you wrt 'left'—so what? Our wish-words don't go to God's ear 😭
PS Analogy presupposes only partial overlap by the very definition; it calls for metaphorical alignment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
a lot of words to say you're just using the word because you like to tar your opponents with it.
there's no "left" in the neolib cultural circus freak show. just as there's nothing truly "green" about it either. that's just to get people to adopt their bullshit out of feelings of "i'm a good person, so i vote like other good people".
the tactic is similar to "cultural marxism".
it's not Stalin or Lenin's fault that they want your son to wear a dress.
😲😂 Amazing! Preaching to the choir much? A beloved hobby-horse? 🤭
Can you read? 😏 Me wonders. Nah, more likely just grab at every vague opportunity to vent out your displeasure with the sorry state of the world. Mayhaps it makes you feel superior in your no-fool 'discernment'. Just my humble guess, I can be wrong of course. Anywhoo, not a promising way to communicate 🤷
Sure language is being perverted in real time; words don't longer mean what they used to just short moments ago, let alone historical tradition. For a tiny most benign example, 'liberal' is a much different concept on opposite sides of Atlantic.
Thoroughly Orwellian situation 😒
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?
Yes, Prigozhin seems to be a front man. He also a master troll, but he hasn't been the only one complaining of MOD corruption.
Or may be tne MoD is depending of the...GRU ? ( lol )
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?
To lose gracefully.
As an American nationalist, I want the Russian nationalists to prevail. Make the world safe for nationalism. The American globalists hate the Americans as much as they hate the Russians. Every move of the Biden administration is to destroy the American security, American culture and American economy. A nationalist has got to respect the nationalism of other nations, or he lays the groundwork of his own destruction.
Yeah, that makes sense to me as well.
Prevent Ukraine from striking Moscow
"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.🤑
Lol, true. At the end of the day, Wagner are mercenaries and mercenaries are all about that payday.
Better known as soldiers of fortune, after all Prigozhin didn't become a billionaire playing croquet.😁
Well - your "mercenaries" are my "contractors" - plenty of NATO contractors in Ukr now and more probably on the way - e.g. t o maintain the F16s. And there's still this to explain: why are "Russia’s most effective and most motivated fighters" (Rolo) mercenaries/contractors? And if they leave the theater, what next?
Six months ago the 5D prediction was "Putin's Winter Offensive" which would "sweep all before it" (Unz). And then followed this - a PMC suffering massive losses and inflicting worse for an outcome of middling significance now to be held in a static formation by forces of so far unimpressive quality.
Predictions are worthless - I just want it to be over; failing that I desperately want it to be about SOMEthing - something like an assault on the "global digital gulag". WWI in a narrow strip of territory while the gulag moves forward behind he lines in Russia and Europe is utterly unbearable.
As I sort of inferred, Russia's intended objectives for initiating the SMO seem a bit out of whack against the backdrop of what's actually happening. The de-Nazifying of Ukraine can't be a priority if hundreds of the Azov Battalion were traded for an oligarch who was actually interviewed by Oliver Stone in one of his films about Russia. And certainly you'd never supply oil and food to the enemy but Russia is providing both. And thirdly Finland is only approximately 700 miles from Moscow and just became a NATO member yet there's hardly a whimper about that from the Kremlin. The entire conflict seems to be rather odd. If it's a war of attrition then who are the ghouls discarding, but hundreds of thousands of young nationalists from Ukraine and Russia. It appears to be another devious geostrategic operation that'll be over when the ghouls have accomplished their objectives or drained the treasury dry. So it could go on for awhile, but who knows.
🔥 Laconic in the word, spacious in meaning 😊
Thanks for the brilliant article.
Did my pal answer your email?
nope
He sent me the screenshot of his answer days ago. Very strange.
my email is rololives@protonmail.com he can send it again
Pertinent to your last talk with Nikola https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oRYDe5A6Lso&t=40s
shocking video.
so many of the same points that I make in both my russian and english language work. i mean literally the same words and language. hmm.
Yeah, that is why I sent it.
Rolo did you learn English as a foreign language ( grammar etc) or did it just come naturally whilst in the language environment? I want to improve my English so that is why I ask
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
Business as usual, Ukraine has been attacking russian and recently annexed territories for awhile now XD
What happened to all Russia's red lines? One has to face the reality that those in charge in Russia are two-bit hoods who have ZERO intention of dying for the Mother Russia.
I think it is parallel universe Zyy-X23 where the ukies are annexing Russian territories
The Russian principle regarding foreign policy always used to be 'never threaten, never promise'. This principle ensured that they would never be trapped by their own words. This excellent negociating premise seems to have been completely abandoned in this war and Russia has no believable red lines left
I am familiar with many parallel universes.
However, principles and "neo-Russians" are mutually exclusive in all.
They are cheap crooks.
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 😇