Oct 2, 2022·edited Oct 2, 2022Liked by Rurik Skywalker
A reshuffling of command is fairly typical once the bullets start flying. No plan survives contact with enemy and the current command has been almost incompetently timid from Day 1. I'm surprised that it didnt happen sooner. The Kiev hopium attack and the failure around Kharkov(sp?) should have shown that spmeone wasn't thinking too strategically. I cannot harp enough about supply lines and concentrating fronts.
I do feel that this Ukrainian offensive is the best the Ukies will be able to manage without direct NATO involvement beyond "observers." The Russians will lose some ground, consolidate lines, and settle in until General Winter makes his appearance. This will hopefully allow time to bring in the hounds. The Russians will be able to return the favor of exploiting lines this winter with fresh troops. My prayers are for the civilians trapped in the back and forth.
President Putin's speech was something else. Mentioning inversion and the Satanic corruption in the West was huge. Hell he even called out the surveillance state and referenced an alien occupying government. Speeches like that lay out a stark contrast of motivational goals. Americans get to fight for the "right" to mutilate children's genitals and men to bugger boys while Russia will fight for family and culture: the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.
I'm cool with some paid content. Fed bucks and censorious pay processors are so much easier for this lazy American.
Putin's recent speech was bitter sweet. We finally have some real anti-western rhetoric but in the end I couldn't feel like it was anything but preaching to the choir. It's actually surreal when you think about it, especially given Kremlin was smart enough to know what needed to be said but do they believe it themselves? The rhetoric does a 180 from 10 years ago yet Russia continues to steam along as a mirror image in some ways of the west, like say as far as culture is concerned.
So the only explanation we have for the war performance is that the MoD is incompetent, bureaucracy is strangling the war effort and the army is underequipped. While there are many patriots engaging in the conflict and while there are certain arms manufacturing sectors who seem to be picking up the slack - the current situation looks like at best the Russians will stumble to victory on the backs of the bravery of the servicemen. I hate to do the traditional eastern Europe liberal rhetorical argument but we have to ask ourselves; would you survive against the Americans in a trench? Would Americans ground their aviation because of a manpad? Do Americans play ball with their adversary? Do Americans seize fire so the enemy can collect the dead? Does Germany and Japan hate America because their cities were firebombed? Does the US army operate without a gigantic intelligence and strategic planning apparatus that's constantly on the offensive?
I'm afraid the problem is too large to be solved by new generals. How can you expect a general to win a modern war with artillery? The sad part about it is I think they all knew. After all why make a spectacle of these precision missiles? Who starts a war with a primary goal of scaring the enemy? What good is a resentful scared opponent left to their own devices?
The only hope now are the people, the Russian people.
I know this will be covered on tomorrow's podcast but I must comment on Putin's speech, the most brilliant he has given since he first became president. My favorite parts were: "The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neocolonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. It is critically important to them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.
In certain countries, the ruling elite voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire countries, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care. All they care about is their own benefit. " Say it, Mr. President, say it!
Oct 2, 2022·edited Oct 2, 2022Liked by Rurik Skywalker
I think this guy Lapin made the best with what troops he had. It's sensible to retire if overrun. And neither is to blame the one who was responsible for the allocation of troops to the various fronts.
Makes sense, in fact, to keep most divisions in the main central Donbass front because shifting troops to the Kharkov region Oskil line would invite the AFU to attack and regain heavily fortified positions Russia fought hard to conquer, like Popasnaya, and that would really invalidate all progress made during the SMO.
Also Kherson, the Estuary region is nice to have as a layer of protection for the Crimea. So it has to be Kharkov that gives.
When all is said and done, there remains the surprise for how good the Ukrainians have been at hiding their power level when they were being pummelled up to a month ago. I remember Zelenskyyy broadcasting a message "We will be back" around the time when Lisichansk was occupied.
He was mostly laughed at as a deluded moron useful to dupe Western audiences with nonsense while the Russian army was having a field day. It's really humbling and sobering to notice that he is backing it all up. One is tempted to take him seriously from now on.
Haven't used crypto yet. So, I would be doing this just for you (well, maybe for me later). So, I've been dragging my feet. It's gotten to the point in the US, that people have some concern about becoming a dissident, like even reading this. Would never imagine I would write this. I copy links to your articles on some of the less rabid Russia fanboy websites as an antidote. Some people are not pleased.
I’ve been reading your Substack since the very beginning. I half expected to lose interest in your writing because as time went I would surely disagree with you on too many topics to continue to value what you have to say.
Alas, that has not happened. The more you write the more I want to read. So, I’ll pay to read...
Oh and still waiting for your book to be published, I’d read that too.
Oct 2, 2022·edited Oct 2, 2022Liked by Rurik Skywalker
Not a military specialist here but I do enjoy reading authentic voices and hearing alternative views, and you have both especially considering your proximity to the action (as it were). Paid content is a pretty standard approach on these blogs and you've provided consistently good content so I would say go for it.
I'm in on "a paid section" - if I can avert a showdown with bitcoin. I have plans - but I just can't get over the hump - other boomers do it, why not me!? (Binance wants my SSN, for one - a surprise and a hurdle).
Rolo, Saker is down due to hurricane, and MoA is just down. These sources have problems as you have articulated, but at least they host free comment. Do you recommend any other web-based sources for SMO information?
"In August, indications suggested that the Russians had planned to leave the area well before the start of the Ukrainian offensive. They therefore withdrew in good order, together with some civilians who could have been the subject of retaliation. As evidence of this, the huge ammunition depot at Balaklaya was empty when the Ukrainians found it, demonstrating that the Russians had evacuated all sensitive personnel and equipment in good order several days earlier. The Russians had even left areas that Ukraine had not attacked. Only a few Russian National Guard and Donbass militia troops remained as the Ukrainians entered the area."
The Ukrops did not get any free ammo. There must have been something wrong with the tank.
Also this:
"Rybar in English
@rybar_en
·
19 h
Răspuns către
@rybar_en
1. No unit rotation. Units of the 126th Brigade have been fighting since March. Soldiers would go on leave for five days at best. Seven months on the front line without rotation. Constant battles, wounds, experienced and seasoned men were bombarded for seven months in a row.
End of August, these same guys knocked out the AFU’s 128th Transcarpathian brigade so badly that they declared mourning. Our men were left at their positions. The Ukrainians rotated out the 128th, brought in additional tank units and a month later knocked us out of our positions.
Rybar in English
@rybar_en
·
19 h
Miracles do not happen, no matter how heroic our soldiers may be, if the village is defended by 15 people, and the enemy hammers them with attacks and artillery fire for seven months in a row, sooner or later the unit will lose combat effectiveness.
2. Judging by the nature of the losses, the enemy used a tactic of wedging themselves between our strongpoints. Wildly short on infantry, ours sat at the strongholds, i.e. in the villages and plantations.
After months of reconnaissance, the enemy found places to infiltrate between the strongholds. Then came the insertion of mobile units into the gaps that were wedged open.
Our troops were severely strained, the strongpoints held, but the mobile reserves needed to stop the breakthroughs either did not exist, or were insufficient.
The strongholds would stay intact, but instantly, in the first few hours, would find themselves surrounded, fight until they ran out of ammunition and break out under fire.
By the way, the Ukrainians would have so little strength that they weren't even really trying to catch the encircled men, most of them made it back to us.
Weather was bad, neither side used artillery. So it's logical to suppose if we had some BTGs equipped with heavy copters, capable of seeing several kms, the breakthrough would have been stopped. But I have no info that the tankers fought to the last man, please excuse me if so.
3. Guys from the field report en masse that our tactical insignia, i.e. Z and V, was applied to enemy equipment, causing confusion in the first hours of the battle as the front collapsed.
If this is true, it means the enemy has an American network-centric battle management system, where all units on the battlefield are net-linked and marked on computers, even at company level, let alone at battalion-regiment level.
Thus, even a company sergeant in a Humvee, BMP, or T-64 can see on the screen where his own are and where the others are, and he doesn't care what marks are on the armor.
If this is case, then that's very bad news, since that's a qualitatively new level of troop control, and our retreat would be a consequence of losing parity."
Some of us haven't received much of a share of booty from all the enterprises of our Western 'Satanic' entity. We have to buy bird seed for our pets and beans to feed our families. News commentators are low on our 'hierarchy of needs'; so if you put in a paid section, I hope you profit from it, and will miss reading what you have to say.
Revenge for the assassination of Darina Dugina has not yet been evident. Now that Russia has been invaded, it is likely that Kiev will be destroyed in the middle of winter.
Yes ok good. Great reverence offered. . You are giving us no nonsense accounts. It was reaaly weird that the front line was so sparse in Russian troops.
If there is no Russian counter offensive within a week, then this is criminal negligence at the highest levels and heads have to roll. The concentration of NATO forces for a big offensive in the region was well known.
If there is a Russian counter offensive in the offing, then this is the kind of crisis you have in a big serious war against NATO. The retreat was not a "cunning plan" but rather what happens when you strip men and resources from the front to make the shock fist for the coming offensive and the enemy strikes to take advantage of that.
We will see.
In any case Russia has big reserves yet to be committed to battle and you can all stop panicking and taking the psyop bait like a bunch of gaslit cat ladies.
I have been told via Mike Adams articles and podcasts that Russia could hold or even conquer Ukraine fairly easily if that were its actual goal. That its armaments and troop numbers are far in excess of what Ukraine has on the ground. But that Russia is not deploying anywhere near the numbers and quality of fighting forces in Ukraine that it could.
I have no independent way of evaluating statements like this. Do you? My impression is that it's propaganda all the way down, with true facts remaining totally hidden.
The only countervailing stories I have found from Ukraine come from Patrick Lancaster's videos, and all he picks up is the impressions from civilians and solders who are on the Russian side of the front. Many of them blame the Ukrainians for most of the civilitan casualties, as does Russia. Though this tends to balance out the West's hytserical stories of wanton carnage, I don't know that it is really that helpful.
Almost no one in the West except a politican from Ireland (and they should know!) and perhaps a few others are actually demanding peace talks. And neither is Russia, it seems. So my impression is that Russia is perfectly willing to waste men and equipment to accomplish the impoverishment of the West. If I were a Russian, I might be sympathetic to this goal, though wouldn't raising the level of the entire planet be better?
A reshuffling of command is fairly typical once the bullets start flying. No plan survives contact with enemy and the current command has been almost incompetently timid from Day 1. I'm surprised that it didnt happen sooner. The Kiev hopium attack and the failure around Kharkov(sp?) should have shown that spmeone wasn't thinking too strategically. I cannot harp enough about supply lines and concentrating fronts.
I do feel that this Ukrainian offensive is the best the Ukies will be able to manage without direct NATO involvement beyond "observers." The Russians will lose some ground, consolidate lines, and settle in until General Winter makes his appearance. This will hopefully allow time to bring in the hounds. The Russians will be able to return the favor of exploiting lines this winter with fresh troops. My prayers are for the civilians trapped in the back and forth.
President Putin's speech was something else. Mentioning inversion and the Satanic corruption in the West was huge. Hell he even called out the surveillance state and referenced an alien occupying government. Speeches like that lay out a stark contrast of motivational goals. Americans get to fight for the "right" to mutilate children's genitals and men to bugger boys while Russia will fight for family and culture: the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.
I'm cool with some paid content. Fed bucks and censorious pay processors are so much easier for this lazy American.
Putin's recent speech was bitter sweet. We finally have some real anti-western rhetoric but in the end I couldn't feel like it was anything but preaching to the choir. It's actually surreal when you think about it, especially given Kremlin was smart enough to know what needed to be said but do they believe it themselves? The rhetoric does a 180 from 10 years ago yet Russia continues to steam along as a mirror image in some ways of the west, like say as far as culture is concerned.
So the only explanation we have for the war performance is that the MoD is incompetent, bureaucracy is strangling the war effort and the army is underequipped. While there are many patriots engaging in the conflict and while there are certain arms manufacturing sectors who seem to be picking up the slack - the current situation looks like at best the Russians will stumble to victory on the backs of the bravery of the servicemen. I hate to do the traditional eastern Europe liberal rhetorical argument but we have to ask ourselves; would you survive against the Americans in a trench? Would Americans ground their aviation because of a manpad? Do Americans play ball with their adversary? Do Americans seize fire so the enemy can collect the dead? Does Germany and Japan hate America because their cities were firebombed? Does the US army operate without a gigantic intelligence and strategic planning apparatus that's constantly on the offensive?
I'm afraid the problem is too large to be solved by new generals. How can you expect a general to win a modern war with artillery? The sad part about it is I think they all knew. After all why make a spectacle of these precision missiles? Who starts a war with a primary goal of scaring the enemy? What good is a resentful scared opponent left to their own devices?
The only hope now are the people, the Russian people.
I know this will be covered on tomorrow's podcast but I must comment on Putin's speech, the most brilliant he has given since he first became president. My favorite parts were: "The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neocolonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. It is critically important to them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.
In certain countries, the ruling elite voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire countries, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care. All they care about is their own benefit. " Say it, Mr. President, say it!
I think this guy Lapin made the best with what troops he had. It's sensible to retire if overrun. And neither is to blame the one who was responsible for the allocation of troops to the various fronts.
Makes sense, in fact, to keep most divisions in the main central Donbass front because shifting troops to the Kharkov region Oskil line would invite the AFU to attack and regain heavily fortified positions Russia fought hard to conquer, like Popasnaya, and that would really invalidate all progress made during the SMO.
Also Kherson, the Estuary region is nice to have as a layer of protection for the Crimea. So it has to be Kharkov that gives.
When all is said and done, there remains the surprise for how good the Ukrainians have been at hiding their power level when they were being pummelled up to a month ago. I remember Zelenskyyy broadcasting a message "We will be back" around the time when Lisichansk was occupied.
https://www.kyivpost.com/russias-war/zelensky-we-will-take-back-lysychansk-ukraine-will-be-free.html
He was mostly laughed at as a deluded moron useful to dupe Western audiences with nonsense while the Russian army was having a field day. It's really humbling and sobering to notice that he is backing it all up. One is tempted to take him seriously from now on.
Haven't used crypto yet. So, I would be doing this just for you (well, maybe for me later). So, I've been dragging my feet. It's gotten to the point in the US, that people have some concern about becoming a dissident, like even reading this. Would never imagine I would write this. I copy links to your articles on some of the less rabid Russia fanboy websites as an antidote. Some people are not pleased.
I’ve been reading your Substack since the very beginning. I half expected to lose interest in your writing because as time went I would surely disagree with you on too many topics to continue to value what you have to say.
Alas, that has not happened. The more you write the more I want to read. So, I’ll pay to read...
Oh and still waiting for your book to be published, I’d read that too.
Not a military specialist here but I do enjoy reading authentic voices and hearing alternative views, and you have both especially considering your proximity to the action (as it were). Paid content is a pretty standard approach on these blogs and you've provided consistently good content so I would say go for it.
I'm in on "a paid section" - if I can avert a showdown with bitcoin. I have plans - but I just can't get over the hump - other boomers do it, why not me!? (Binance wants my SSN, for one - a surprise and a hurdle).
Rolo, Saker is down due to hurricane, and MoA is just down. These sources have problems as you have articulated, but at least they host free comment. Do you recommend any other web-based sources for SMO information?
I'm looking forward to this podcast. I found an English transcript of the speech on the Kremlin official site. It was a real barn burner.
"In August, indications suggested that the Russians had planned to leave the area well before the start of the Ukrainian offensive. They therefore withdrew in good order, together with some civilians who could have been the subject of retaliation. As evidence of this, the huge ammunition depot at Balaklaya was empty when the Ukrainians found it, demonstrating that the Russians had evacuated all sensitive personnel and equipment in good order several days earlier. The Russians had even left areas that Ukraine had not attacked. Only a few Russian National Guard and Donbass militia troops remained as the Ukrainians entered the area."
The Ukrops did not get any free ammo. There must have been something wrong with the tank.
Also this:
"Rybar in English
@rybar_en
·
19 h
Răspuns către
@rybar_en
1. No unit rotation. Units of the 126th Brigade have been fighting since March. Soldiers would go on leave for five days at best. Seven months on the front line without rotation. Constant battles, wounds, experienced and seasoned men were bombarded for seven months in a row.
End of August, these same guys knocked out the AFU’s 128th Transcarpathian brigade so badly that they declared mourning. Our men were left at their positions. The Ukrainians rotated out the 128th, brought in additional tank units and a month later knocked us out of our positions.
Rybar in English
@rybar_en
·
19 h
Miracles do not happen, no matter how heroic our soldiers may be, if the village is defended by 15 people, and the enemy hammers them with attacks and artillery fire for seven months in a row, sooner or later the unit will lose combat effectiveness.
2. Judging by the nature of the losses, the enemy used a tactic of wedging themselves between our strongpoints. Wildly short on infantry, ours sat at the strongholds, i.e. in the villages and plantations.
After months of reconnaissance, the enemy found places to infiltrate between the strongholds. Then came the insertion of mobile units into the gaps that were wedged open.
Our troops were severely strained, the strongpoints held, but the mobile reserves needed to stop the breakthroughs either did not exist, or were insufficient.
The strongholds would stay intact, but instantly, in the first few hours, would find themselves surrounded, fight until they ran out of ammunition and break out under fire.
By the way, the Ukrainians would have so little strength that they weren't even really trying to catch the encircled men, most of them made it back to us.
Weather was bad, neither side used artillery. So it's logical to suppose if we had some BTGs equipped with heavy copters, capable of seeing several kms, the breakthrough would have been stopped. But I have no info that the tankers fought to the last man, please excuse me if so.
3. Guys from the field report en masse that our tactical insignia, i.e. Z and V, was applied to enemy equipment, causing confusion in the first hours of the battle as the front collapsed.
If this is true, it means the enemy has an American network-centric battle management system, where all units on the battlefield are net-linked and marked on computers, even at company level, let alone at battalion-regiment level.
Thus, even a company sergeant in a Humvee, BMP, or T-64 can see on the screen where his own are and where the others are, and he doesn't care what marks are on the armor.
If this is case, then that's very bad news, since that's a qualitatively new level of troop control, and our retreat would be a consequence of losing parity."
Some of us haven't received much of a share of booty from all the enterprises of our Western 'Satanic' entity. We have to buy bird seed for our pets and beans to feed our families. News commentators are low on our 'hierarchy of needs'; so if you put in a paid section, I hope you profit from it, and will miss reading what you have to say.
Revenge for the assassination of Darina Dugina has not yet been evident. Now that Russia has been invaded, it is likely that Kiev will be destroyed in the middle of winter.
Yes ok good. Great reverence offered. . You are giving us no nonsense accounts. It was reaaly weird that the front line was so sparse in Russian troops.
If there is no Russian counter offensive within a week, then this is criminal negligence at the highest levels and heads have to roll. The concentration of NATO forces for a big offensive in the region was well known.
If there is a Russian counter offensive in the offing, then this is the kind of crisis you have in a big serious war against NATO. The retreat was not a "cunning plan" but rather what happens when you strip men and resources from the front to make the shock fist for the coming offensive and the enemy strikes to take advantage of that.
We will see.
In any case Russia has big reserves yet to be committed to battle and you can all stop panicking and taking the psyop bait like a bunch of gaslit cat ladies.
I have been told via Mike Adams articles and podcasts that Russia could hold or even conquer Ukraine fairly easily if that were its actual goal. That its armaments and troop numbers are far in excess of what Ukraine has on the ground. But that Russia is not deploying anywhere near the numbers and quality of fighting forces in Ukraine that it could.
I have no independent way of evaluating statements like this. Do you? My impression is that it's propaganda all the way down, with true facts remaining totally hidden.
The only countervailing stories I have found from Ukraine come from Patrick Lancaster's videos, and all he picks up is the impressions from civilians and solders who are on the Russian side of the front. Many of them blame the Ukrainians for most of the civilitan casualties, as does Russia. Though this tends to balance out the West's hytserical stories of wanton carnage, I don't know that it is really that helpful.
Almost no one in the West except a politican from Ireland (and they should know!) and perhaps a few others are actually demanding peace talks. And neither is Russia, it seems. So my impression is that Russia is perfectly willing to waste men and equipment to accomplish the impoverishment of the West. If I were a Russian, I might be sympathetic to this goal, though wouldn't raising the level of the entire planet be better?