I couldn't help myself, Rolo. There was the thud of palm hitting face as I read that big pipe full of hopium.
Your accounts of the front ring genuine while so many others are "rah, rah." I hope Comrade Krieger is ok. I miss his tales; they actually jived up with the videos available on Southfront last year. The only concrete items in the whole article were the use of drones and munitions involved; something again that largely is a big pile of nothing.
I'll believe Russia is serious when the Dniepr(?) bridges go down. Even just a few hawks coming to power would be welcome. I found that link off of someone's blog that I usually respect but he's gotten rather spun off with 5D "Russia and China are gonna git the GAE."
I read the post you covered and it struck me as a lot of verbiage to cover up a lack of real insight.
It reminded me of how a professor I had described most student papers: "the law of repeated defecation. Throw a lot of sh&t against a wall and hope something sticks."
I hope I am being too cynical but I would be shocked if Putin goes all commando in the speech. The idea a major offensive is going to happen and Putin is going to upgrade the SMO to war seems very Q, we've got guns and are taking back our government and Trump is going to cross the Rubicon to me.
Not surprisingly Vox Day was convinced by the guy's post. Day represents some of the best and worst of the dissident Right. He spots ahead of most what the globalists are going to push but then falls for every right wing fantasy cope.
Alas, no matter how cynical I am, I am usually not cynical enough.
Hi Rolo, Apparently, I'm not very well versed on the subject, though I do my best to understand what's really going on. That said, yours is the only account I've read which claims that Ukraine's army (at least inside the country) remains larger than Russia's. Other are claiming it's on its last legs, it's out of ammunition and the West has none to offer, morale is in the toilet, thousands are freezing and infected with TB, and it's been forced to kidnap teenagers as young as 14 off the street, put them in uniform, give them a week's training and send them to the front, where their life expectancy is 4 hours.
But those same Russia cheerleaders also claimed that the war would be over in a few months. I don't know whom to believe, but it seems to me that, the longer this war drags on, the more the demographics favor the West, (assuming they put more boots on the ground), unless Russia gets reinforcements from somewhere, preferably China, which should have a big incentive to stop the Hegemon before the Hegemon goes after them next.
I dont deny that things are rough for the average conscript. But I don't think that 600k Ukrainians have been killed. I don't think that Russians have achieved a 10:1 kill ratio either.
But that's because I believe people like Strelkov and Progozhin as opposed to the Saker.
Rolo: for access to subscription articles, try the wayback machine. Preface your link in your browser with 'archive.is/' (remove the quote symbol). Below is the UK Times link in *several reports*
Custer used a "staggered offensive" at the Little Bighorn. It was not a success. One is tempted to recall Hitler's Blitzkreig and the use of Panzers. Given the alleged number of Russian tanks, it seems Russia would have little trouble pushing aside the mercenaries and CIA agents defending Kiev and the rest of the criminal state.
I must take issue with your slander of Bruce Lee, however. Without going into detail about his many fights, did you ever see how he shredded that telephone book with a 2-inch punch? If he hadn't had aspirations to be a Hollywood star, he could have been a world champion Super Featherweight boxer.
The neocon "Study of war" group in DC is hardly a neutral observer; but they also do not claim any sort of "inside" information - all "open source" as they say. They continue to think that, while Russian offensive operations continue in Luhansk , no major efforts or outcomes are likely in the near/mid term:
" ... Russia likely lacks sufficient uncommitted reserves to dramatically increase the scale or intensity of the offensive this winter. Russian conventional ground forces are generally deploying and fighting in normal doctrinal formations and units rather than in battalion tactical groups or other ad hoc structures. The observed absence of several critical tank units suggests that the Russian military continues to struggle to replace equipment, especially tanks, lost during previous failed offensive operations. ..."
For my money it's noise directed by Russia's enemies with one simple purpose - more NATO weapons .. urgently - because .. "the Russians are coming! And if you doubt it, just check the telegram channels QED." Question: who runs telegram? Are they loyalists, oppositionist, mixed? Western propaganda has everyone and his uncle reading telegram now.
The military summary channel reported last night, there would be about 190 battalions somewhere in north to Sumi .
If that's true, it would be a considerable army enforcing the already present.
Maybe too early to conclude, the chief hasn't spoken yet, but it looks more and more, as if both Ukrainian and Russian tribal establishment's shared main goal is to kill as many Russians and Ukrainians as possible, and the war drags on, WWI style.
Couple that with the injection damages, excess mortality, future does not look that bright demographically, no matter how this war ends.
We are at staggering 45% excess mortality here this month, and many still births, ie dead child.
The only positive here, the clowns in Berlin babble about reintroduction of compulsory military service. No sane German will ever fight for this scum, they are hated, they will have to send the soyboys, SJWs, homos and cultural enrichment to the front.
A tranny in skirt in a APC that is officially approved to carry pregnant women to the front will surely scare the Russians more than a Leo 1. I am not joking, tanks have to be build to enable pregnant women at the front, according to Green doctrine.
Meanwhile, Berlin just repeated a sham 'election', determined to be fraudulent. Already talk of a repeat of the repeat, imagine my shock, again fraudulent, just as the largest yellow press paper already titled days before the repeat. Best Germany there ever has been, we have been brought civilization and democracy by the All-Lies.
I think Mr Rolo will like these on the "french" Revolution, precursor to Bolsheviks and the results we are dealing with now ....
You forget: Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, no it's a plane, no it's Super bisexual! With his trusty sidekick Superlesbian! Quick - call Batbisexual and BatLesbian to the scene before Transexual Joker makes her and his getaway.
That is a way too sophisticated thought for like Analena Baerbock, she is busy and angry with these animal names for tanks and stuff. Again, I am not joking.
She speaks a better English than alleged native German. That said, her English is atrocious already, her German pure nonsensical gibberish.
If you look in their eyes, it can't conceal their hate for anything German, and a demon shows its ugly face. Just observe them.
The border between Russia and Ukraine will be decided by the balance of forces on each side of it, like every other border in the world. What we have here is a WW1 style of artillery war where the surprise loser will be in possession of a genuine superpower arsenal of nuclear weapons ( including the world’s largest collection of tactical ones) when suffering the crowning humiliation. Anyone who thinks they know what will happen is kidding themselves. WW2 started because of appeasement. WW1’s origins were different. So don’t thinky that all we have to do to avoid WW3 is to avoid appeasement , because then you might inadvertently find yourself in a general war no one wanted. We don’t know whether Putin considers this war of his in Ukraine to be defence, and so not one he can accept a loss in.
The Ukrainians are firing more rounds a day through their Western howitzers than the Western suppliers knew those weapons could fire (they are designed for) and that is from a Ukrainian gunner speaking on CNN. The British minister of Defence in the last few days has publicly asked Ukraine to stop trying to keep up with Russia in artillery because the West will not be able to keep Ukraine supplied at the current rate. Are the Russians even trying to ‘breakthrough’ and presumably seize lots of territory quickly to the maximum extent possible We tend to assume they are trying that, but they seem to be going too slow, considering a reportedly large force being held in reserve . That the mobilized troops are all gone seems dubious. . I think Macgregor’s suggestion that Russia wants to keep Ukraine in an artillery logistics battle of attrition may be more along the right lines. A massive taking of territory in a successful Russian offensive might produce a big American response, maybe even a direct one. Russia is trying to make the war boring.
For decades Britain has been increasing the share of the country’s budget spent on health and welfare payments, and done so without increasing taxes, by taking from the money to be spent on defence. The British army had been cut to the bone before the Ukraine war, it is now giving away to Ukraine things that will eat into its (already attenuated) capabilities. In Afghanistan the British army were dependent on the US for helicopter transport., now it will be everything. For West European countries, Nato is all about doing defence on the cheap, courtesy, of American taxpayers a la Germany, and having ever increasing social spending. Actually fighting a war (especially one where there are approaching 1k fatalities a day as in Ukraine) will be a deal breaker for Nato members.
I don’t think making dramatic advances and taking territory is a Russian priority any longer. You need to relate Russian losses to Ukrainian ones. Russia might lose a division a in Bakhmut each day and yet win the entire war, if Ukraine’s military casualties each day were comparable in number and quality of human resources.
If Russia’s military performance against Ukraine has been quite as poor as is portrayed on this blog, how is it that Ukraine requires any support from NATO? In fact, how is it that Ukraine seems to be running out of weapons on a constant basis, sure there’s the grift, the theft, but on the NATO side they don’t bother to deny that Russia has destroyed in short order whatever NATO “allies” have supplied Ukro’s with. And when considering that, how can their casualty numbers be even to the Russian numbers when a vast amount of equipment has been destroyed? Are you going to argue the Ukro troops were no where to be seen when the donated equipment was fried? That makes no sense whatsoever, with all that destroyed equipment has also taken a fair amount of Ukro soldiery with it, & who knows what those figures are? One thing that is for certain, at the rate NATO is having to resupply the destroyed equipment, there is no way that the casualty rate is even, & increasingly more reports are coming in about the high casualty figures (inc. KIA) on the Ukro side. One last thing. The notion that an attritional war is not a good strategy for Russia because they are killing or ostracizing people who eventually could be “flipped” so to speak over to the Russian side is an insult to the intelligence. Ukrainians fighting Russia can not & will not be convinced at some point to change sides, they have had more than ample opportunity to do that, the fact that they are prepared to fight an army coming from a country that was once the same country they lived in, that their grandparents & great grandparents will have fought for demonstrates that these people are gone mentally, totally gone. If the average Ukrainian can believe the NATO west is a good friend to them, but Russia an evil enemy, there is nothing Russia can do to win these people back to the right side & killing them is about the only option left. Push that Slavic brotherhood bullshit somewhere else, I saw it in the Balkans & all it did for us Serbs was to get more of us killed. I can not comment on the day to day management of the war, how well or not is it being managed, or what the end goals are, I just don’t have access to that information. There are many mixed reports coming in from the field. One thing that has always been clear to me though was this, had Russia been in a position to win over Ukraine rapidly, in the sense of toppling the government & taking control of the country, you would be looking at immediate escalation with NATO & direct war with the US. No question. That is what the anti 5D supposed “realists” can not get into their heads. They seem to think, oh sure, Russia would win & the US would just sit there. No. Use all the 5D slurs you want buddy, it is not in Russia’s interest for this thing to go fast, it is in Russia’s interest to drag it out, to manage the pace of escalation. I don’t know what is in Putin’s mind, but avoiding a nuclear war I am certain is a top priority for him – if that is possible. So attritional warfare is the way, destroy the enemy slowly, surely, & keep the battlespace to the Ukraine theatre, for as long as possible at least.
" had Russia been in a position to win over Ukraine rapidly, in the sense of toppling the government & taking control of the country, you would be looking at immediate escalation with NATO & direct war with the US. No question. "
Your argument fails on the points that if NATO was willing to escalate in the past they are surely willing to escalate in the future, especially after weakening Russia and building up their own strength for a year. The out dated equipment they send to Ukraine is of no concern to them as they have the " good stuff " waiting in reserve. Additionally, US weapons factories have been humming along 24/7 for a year now also building up supplies. Russia could have ended this fiasco in a month but failed. We can speculate on why.
NATO is not going to escalate anything in case Russia wins Kiev and the war is over, because militarily it can't.
Most Ukrainians troops are drafted men not volunteers. They cannot refuse to go to the frontlines, because if they do refuse they won't go to prison, but as punishment will be sent to the front. And once there, if they keep refusing to fight they'll get shot for desertion. These conscripts are in all probabilities not ideologically hostile to Russia.
Disinfo site Yahoo shows pic of Biden entering plane and headline "Putin knew what Americans didn't: Biden was coming President Biden's surprise visit to Ukraine. on Monday..."
With you on your final prediction, with the caveat that the Russians would appear to be in a much better position to make gains to a point they feel comfortable with any scale down, assuming that in fact is possible at all.
I couldn't help myself, Rolo. There was the thud of palm hitting face as I read that big pipe full of hopium.
Your accounts of the front ring genuine while so many others are "rah, rah." I hope Comrade Krieger is ok. I miss his tales; they actually jived up with the videos available on Southfront last year. The only concrete items in the whole article were the use of drones and munitions involved; something again that largely is a big pile of nothing.
I'll believe Russia is serious when the Dniepr(?) bridges go down. Even just a few hawks coming to power would be welcome. I found that link off of someone's blog that I usually respect but he's gotten rather spun off with 5D "Russia and China are gonna git the GAE."
This is one of the reasons I love to read your substack ;-)
these folks have played too many video games. Rolo Slavskiy is the real deal, there is no denying it.
I read the post you covered and it struck me as a lot of verbiage to cover up a lack of real insight.
It reminded me of how a professor I had described most student papers: "the law of repeated defecation. Throw a lot of sh&t against a wall and hope something sticks."
I hope I am being too cynical but I would be shocked if Putin goes all commando in the speech. The idea a major offensive is going to happen and Putin is going to upgrade the SMO to war seems very Q, we've got guns and are taking back our government and Trump is going to cross the Rubicon to me.
Not surprisingly Vox Day was convinced by the guy's post. Day represents some of the best and worst of the dissident Right. He spots ahead of most what the globalists are going to push but then falls for every right wing fantasy cope.
Alas, no matter how cynical I am, I am usually not cynical enough.
Hi Rolo, Apparently, I'm not very well versed on the subject, though I do my best to understand what's really going on. That said, yours is the only account I've read which claims that Ukraine's army (at least inside the country) remains larger than Russia's. Other are claiming it's on its last legs, it's out of ammunition and the West has none to offer, morale is in the toilet, thousands are freezing and infected with TB, and it's been forced to kidnap teenagers as young as 14 off the street, put them in uniform, give them a week's training and send them to the front, where their life expectancy is 4 hours.
But those same Russia cheerleaders also claimed that the war would be over in a few months. I don't know whom to believe, but it seems to me that, the longer this war drags on, the more the demographics favor the West, (assuming they put more boots on the ground), unless Russia gets reinforcements from somewhere, preferably China, which should have a big incentive to stop the Hegemon before the Hegemon goes after them next.
I dont deny that things are rough for the average conscript. But I don't think that 600k Ukrainians have been killed. I don't think that Russians have achieved a 10:1 kill ratio either.
But that's because I believe people like Strelkov and Progozhin as opposed to the Saker.
Thanks so much for responding.
Rolo: for access to subscription articles, try the wayback machine. Preface your link in your browser with 'archive.is/' (remove the quote symbol). Below is the UK Times link in *several reports*
https://archive.is/ETBGW
Custer used a "staggered offensive" at the Little Bighorn. It was not a success. One is tempted to recall Hitler's Blitzkreig and the use of Panzers. Given the alleged number of Russian tanks, it seems Russia would have little trouble pushing aside the mercenaries and CIA agents defending Kiev and the rest of the criminal state.
I must take issue with your slander of Bruce Lee, however. Without going into detail about his many fights, did you ever see how he shredded that telephone book with a 2-inch punch? If he hadn't had aspirations to be a Hollywood star, he could have been a world champion Super Featherweight boxer.
The neocon "Study of war" group in DC is hardly a neutral observer; but they also do not claim any sort of "inside" information - all "open source" as they say. They continue to think that, while Russian offensive operations continue in Luhansk , no major efforts or outcomes are likely in the near/mid term:
" ... Russia likely lacks sufficient uncommitted reserves to dramatically increase the scale or intensity of the offensive this winter. Russian conventional ground forces are generally deploying and fighting in normal doctrinal formations and units rather than in battalion tactical groups or other ad hoc structures. The observed absence of several critical tank units suggests that the Russian military continues to struggle to replace equipment, especially tanks, lost during previous failed offensive operations. ..."
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-19-2023
For my money it's noise directed by Russia's enemies with one simple purpose - more NATO weapons .. urgently - because .. "the Russians are coming! And if you doubt it, just check the telegram channels QED." Question: who runs telegram? Are they loyalists, oppositionist, mixed? Western propaganda has everyone and his uncle reading telegram now.
The military summary channel reported last night, there would be about 190 battalions somewhere in north to Sumi .
If that's true, it would be a considerable army enforcing the already present.
Maybe too early to conclude, the chief hasn't spoken yet, but it looks more and more, as if both Ukrainian and Russian tribal establishment's shared main goal is to kill as many Russians and Ukrainians as possible, and the war drags on, WWI style.
Couple that with the injection damages, excess mortality, future does not look that bright demographically, no matter how this war ends.
We are at staggering 45% excess mortality here this month, and many still births, ie dead child.
The only positive here, the clowns in Berlin babble about reintroduction of compulsory military service. No sane German will ever fight for this scum, they are hated, they will have to send the soyboys, SJWs, homos and cultural enrichment to the front.
A tranny in skirt in a APC that is officially approved to carry pregnant women to the front will surely scare the Russians more than a Leo 1. I am not joking, tanks have to be build to enable pregnant women at the front, according to Green doctrine.
Meanwhile, Berlin just repeated a sham 'election', determined to be fraudulent. Already talk of a repeat of the repeat, imagine my shock, again fraudulent, just as the largest yellow press paper already titled days before the repeat. Best Germany there ever has been, we have been brought civilization and democracy by the All-Lies.
I think Mr Rolo will like these on the "french" Revolution, precursor to Bolsheviks and the results we are dealing with now ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiZZRalHjHY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wg2hC3qAeQ
You forget: Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, no it's a plane, no it's Super bisexual! With his trusty sidekick Superlesbian! Quick - call Batbisexual and BatLesbian to the scene before Transexual Joker makes her and his getaway.
That is a way too sophisticated thought for like Analena Baerbock, she is busy and angry with these animal names for tanks and stuff. Again, I am not joking.
She speaks a better English than alleged native German. That said, her English is atrocious already, her German pure nonsensical gibberish.
If you look in their eyes, it can't conceal their hate for anything German, and a demon shows its ugly face. Just observe them.
The Anglo-American Empire just wants to see as many dead Slavs as possible. Doesn't matter which side they're on.
OMG the title is bait! Rolo is not hedging on the doomer stance, he is doubling down on it!
Unbelievable! These are thrilling times
Sigh...everyone's trying to read all those tea leaves.
Thoughts on the following comment?
----
The border between Russia and Ukraine will be decided by the balance of forces on each side of it, like every other border in the world. What we have here is a WW1 style of artillery war where the surprise loser will be in possession of a genuine superpower arsenal of nuclear weapons ( including the world’s largest collection of tactical ones) when suffering the crowning humiliation. Anyone who thinks they know what will happen is kidding themselves. WW2 started because of appeasement. WW1’s origins were different. So don’t thinky that all we have to do to avoid WW3 is to avoid appeasement , because then you might inadvertently find yourself in a general war no one wanted. We don’t know whether Putin considers this war of his in Ukraine to be defence, and so not one he can accept a loss in.
The Ukrainians are firing more rounds a day through their Western howitzers than the Western suppliers knew those weapons could fire (they are designed for) and that is from a Ukrainian gunner speaking on CNN. The British minister of Defence in the last few days has publicly asked Ukraine to stop trying to keep up with Russia in artillery because the West will not be able to keep Ukraine supplied at the current rate. Are the Russians even trying to ‘breakthrough’ and presumably seize lots of territory quickly to the maximum extent possible We tend to assume they are trying that, but they seem to be going too slow, considering a reportedly large force being held in reserve . That the mobilized troops are all gone seems dubious. . I think Macgregor’s suggestion that Russia wants to keep Ukraine in an artillery logistics battle of attrition may be more along the right lines. A massive taking of territory in a successful Russian offensive might produce a big American response, maybe even a direct one. Russia is trying to make the war boring.
For decades Britain has been increasing the share of the country’s budget spent on health and welfare payments, and done so without increasing taxes, by taking from the money to be spent on defence. The British army had been cut to the bone before the Ukraine war, it is now giving away to Ukraine things that will eat into its (already attenuated) capabilities. In Afghanistan the British army were dependent on the US for helicopter transport., now it will be everything. For West European countries, Nato is all about doing defence on the cheap, courtesy, of American taxpayers a la Germany, and having ever increasing social spending. Actually fighting a war (especially one where there are approaching 1k fatalities a day as in Ukraine) will be a deal breaker for Nato members.
I don’t think making dramatic advances and taking territory is a Russian priority any longer. You need to relate Russian losses to Ukrainian ones. Russia might lose a division a in Bakhmut each day and yet win the entire war, if Ukraine’s military casualties each day were comparable in number and quality of human resources.
>A massive taking of territory in a successful Russian offensive might produce a big American response, maybe even a direct one.
Which is why they tried to seize Kiev in the early weeks of the war?
>Russia is trying to make the war boring.
5D.
>Actually fighting a war (especially one where there are approaching 1k fatalities a day as in Ukraine)
I think the average was closer to 200 a day, and up to 600 in the early days. what is your source?
>Russia might lose a division a in Bakhmut each day and yet win the entire war,
Ah yes, the attrition strategy. But if you do the math, then Ukraine can fight for 10 years more at these attrition rates.
If Russia’s military performance against Ukraine has been quite as poor as is portrayed on this blog, how is it that Ukraine requires any support from NATO? In fact, how is it that Ukraine seems to be running out of weapons on a constant basis, sure there’s the grift, the theft, but on the NATO side they don’t bother to deny that Russia has destroyed in short order whatever NATO “allies” have supplied Ukro’s with. And when considering that, how can their casualty numbers be even to the Russian numbers when a vast amount of equipment has been destroyed? Are you going to argue the Ukro troops were no where to be seen when the donated equipment was fried? That makes no sense whatsoever, with all that destroyed equipment has also taken a fair amount of Ukro soldiery with it, & who knows what those figures are? One thing that is for certain, at the rate NATO is having to resupply the destroyed equipment, there is no way that the casualty rate is even, & increasingly more reports are coming in about the high casualty figures (inc. KIA) on the Ukro side. One last thing. The notion that an attritional war is not a good strategy for Russia because they are killing or ostracizing people who eventually could be “flipped” so to speak over to the Russian side is an insult to the intelligence. Ukrainians fighting Russia can not & will not be convinced at some point to change sides, they have had more than ample opportunity to do that, the fact that they are prepared to fight an army coming from a country that was once the same country they lived in, that their grandparents & great grandparents will have fought for demonstrates that these people are gone mentally, totally gone. If the average Ukrainian can believe the NATO west is a good friend to them, but Russia an evil enemy, there is nothing Russia can do to win these people back to the right side & killing them is about the only option left. Push that Slavic brotherhood bullshit somewhere else, I saw it in the Balkans & all it did for us Serbs was to get more of us killed. I can not comment on the day to day management of the war, how well or not is it being managed, or what the end goals are, I just don’t have access to that information. There are many mixed reports coming in from the field. One thing that has always been clear to me though was this, had Russia been in a position to win over Ukraine rapidly, in the sense of toppling the government & taking control of the country, you would be looking at immediate escalation with NATO & direct war with the US. No question. That is what the anti 5D supposed “realists” can not get into their heads. They seem to think, oh sure, Russia would win & the US would just sit there. No. Use all the 5D slurs you want buddy, it is not in Russia’s interest for this thing to go fast, it is in Russia’s interest to drag it out, to manage the pace of escalation. I don’t know what is in Putin’s mind, but avoiding a nuclear war I am certain is a top priority for him – if that is possible. So attritional warfare is the way, destroy the enemy slowly, surely, & keep the battlespace to the Ukraine theatre, for as long as possible at least.
" had Russia been in a position to win over Ukraine rapidly, in the sense of toppling the government & taking control of the country, you would be looking at immediate escalation with NATO & direct war with the US. No question. "
Your argument fails on the points that if NATO was willing to escalate in the past they are surely willing to escalate in the future, especially after weakening Russia and building up their own strength for a year. The out dated equipment they send to Ukraine is of no concern to them as they have the " good stuff " waiting in reserve. Additionally, US weapons factories have been humming along 24/7 for a year now also building up supplies. Russia could have ended this fiasco in a month but failed. We can speculate on why.
NATO is not going to escalate anything in case Russia wins Kiev and the war is over, because militarily it can't.
Most Ukrainians troops are drafted men not volunteers. They cannot refuse to go to the frontlines, because if they do refuse they won't go to prison, but as punishment will be sent to the front. And once there, if they keep refusing to fight they'll get shot for desertion. These conscripts are in all probabilities not ideologically hostile to Russia.
Disinfo site Yahoo shows pic of Biden entering plane and headline "Putin knew what Americans didn't: Biden was coming President Biden's surprise visit to Ukraine. on Monday..."
With you on your final prediction, with the caveat that the Russians would appear to be in a much better position to make gains to a point they feel comfortable with any scale down, assuming that in fact is possible at all.