Place Your Final Bets On the Ukrainian Offensive

Put your money where your opinion is.

We’re within sight of the start of the end. I believe that as soon as the rains stop and the ground dries up, things are going to get interesting.

Here are your three betting options going forward. Choose wisely.

Option 1 - There is not going to be a Ukrainian offensive

The logic (such as it is) behind this view is that Kiev is basically just bluffing. They’re telegraphing their attack to try and intimidate Russia and to make the Russian people lose heart. By extension, the people who repeat Ukrainian and British disinfo about a looming Ukrainian offensive are agents of the enemy, whether witting or not. The supposed 30k or 40k or now 48k breakthrough group is a propaganda fluff piece. Ukraine is losing men faster than they are replenishing them. There simply aren’t enough men in Ukraine left. Furthermore, the supposed new army that Ukraine was supposed to have massed is just a skeleton crew composed of reassembled and patched together torn-up battalions and divisions and whatever that only look scary on paper or in propaganda. Kiev is desperate and is simply making a final roll of the dice in this daring offensive.

This is where the idiots/grifters stand. Adjust your bettings accordingly.

Furthermore, the only real attack worth talking about is the continued Russian assault on Bakhmut which will eliminate the Ukrainian army and be the fulcrum point on which the entire Ukrainian defensive line in Donbass crumbles. Kiev doesn’t even have enough tanks and vehicles to saddle their men up on.

Fuggetaboutit.

Option 2 - There is going to be a Ukrainian offensive, but it will fail to achieve its objectives

The logic here is that Ukraine’s plans (as far as we can figure them out) are too ambitious. The ultimate goal is to cut Crimea off and break the land corridor. To do this, Kiev needs to take Melitople, at least. There is no way that Russia can lose that much ground and then a minor city to boot. Just look at how hard the going has been for Russia in Bakhmut. While the Ukrainians may indeed be able to break through, they will simply get bogged down, eventually, and then be marooned beyond the river. Here though, there are multiple theories about how, potentially, Ukraine might swing north instead and move on Donetsk or whatever. Also, this attack is being pushed by NATO despite the UAF’s unreadiness and this will cost them dearly.

Either way, the result will be the same - the attack stalls out eventually and the eventual Russian counter-attack will dislodge the Ukrainians.

Option 3 - Ukraine will succeed in cutting Crimea off

The logic here is more political than orientated around any military assessments. We have to assume that someone in Russia wants Ukraine to succeed and will help them out along the way. They will do this by making sure that Russia’s defenses are inadequate despite the obvious and transparently telegraphed attack. They will surrender key towns and cities without putting up a fight and they will then use this to enter into peace negotiations.

Option 2 is the safe bet, but I like to go big or go home. So, let me explain why I now believe that Option 3 is the most likely outcome.

Prigozhin recently recorded an audio message where he was positively apoplectic, but which is in Russian and floating around on Telegram at the moment of this writing, so I’ll just summarize it here. [EDIT: here it is, thanks NAFO]

Basically, he doubled down on his accusations hurled at the MoD and said that he was now without any doubt whatsoever that the military leadership was deliberately throwing the war and is probably the most intense escalation in rhetoric that we have heard from Wagner as of yet. Worse, there is yet more infighting with Wagner taking shots (verbal) at Gazprom’s private army, which was supposed to be covering its flanks, but which pulled back, opening Wagner to counterattacks from the Ukrainian army. Prigozhin has attacked these other private armies before and described them as a transparent plot to weaken Wagner and combat their increasing political prospects at home in Russia.

But you have already heard Prigozhin’s doom and gloom musings before.

Another large military expert came out with his analysis, which, thanks to Donbass Cowboy, I don’t have to translate:

Military expert Shurygin, who previously spoke carefully about the Defense Ministry, writes (https://t.me/ramzayiegokomanda/2398) that the stake in the Ukrainian offensive will not be on Western equipment or superiority in intelligence: “The stake will be placed on our main weakness - lies and window dressing, which still “reign” in the minds of some "gentlemen commanders" in some sectors of our front. On regiments that are listed on the maps as full-fledged, but in fact - detachments of mobilized, almost unarmed people.

If you read it literally, he talks about the risks of losing the Southern Front due to the fact that the General Staff of Ukraine knows on which sectors of the front there are units under the leadership of commanders who do not report to the top about positions left in battles, do not require support for their soldiers, etc. ., and it is in these areas that the risk of breakthroughs of our defense is high.

I agree that we have problems with the commanders of the middle and junior officers, that not all supply problems have been resolved, especially in terms of providing modern means - drones, thermal imagers, drone strikers. It is difficult with means of combating tanks and armored vehicles . At the same time, I heard a lot of positive feedback about General Teplinsky, who is at the headquarters of the Dnepr group of troops just in the southern direction, my friends met with him personally . From Shurygin's mood, I see that he believes that we may not be able to hold the front . I believe that in the end we will hold the front, although it will be difficult.

Well, I am writing about this, because for now we have time to once again check the combat readiness of literally every unit on the Southern Front. This must be done before the Ukrainian counter-offensive. You can't trust bravura reports from below. I will add that I also know about the facts that are set forth by Shurygin and confirm them. Unfortunately, everything written is correct.

Bleak.

Donbass Cowboy is right though that it is encouraging that General Teplinsky has been pulled out of ignominious forced retirement by the MoD big dogs and put in charge of the south. The patriots seem to like Teplinsky. But, what if he is just being set up to fail so that the MoD can hang the albatross around his neck and thereby eliminate another internal enemy once things go south (literally)?

And then Mr. Slavsquat reported on yet another Prigozhin outburst recently:

Look, here is an interesting story from yesterday:

The founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin said that he was not allowed to build defenses before the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which he claimed will begin in May.

“There is betrayal inside Russia—we are not allowed to build a defense and advance further,” Prigozhin said. “No one gives us ammunition. The criminal gang does not provide ammunition, it accumulates in warehouses. The number of people in PMC Wagner is drying up. We are preparing new reserves, but we will not throw in new people until we have fully prepared them. Those bastards who decided not to provide ammunition must answer to the mothers of the dead. Due to the fact that there are no shells during the assault on buildings, [many] fighters die instead of [just] one. There are no shells to destroy their artillery.”

Yes, that is what Yevgeny Prigozhin—the guy who is spearheading Russia’s assault in Bakhmut—said on April 26, 2023.

Another data point worth mentioning is just how strangely the Russian state media has been treating the announced Ukrainian offensive. I have been waiting for some categorical denials or some sort of assurance that all is well and prepared ahead of time, but I have not seen anything of the kind. There have been, of course, lots of vague, non-specific, “all will be well” type analyses. But these have almost all studiously avoided mentioning the particulars of the Ukrainian offensive or Russia’s prepared defense.

I don’t know what to make of it all.

You would expect Russian media to be full of people pretending that nothing is going to happen and that all is well. But, for the most part, from checking in on Channel 1 periodically, all I see is Russian pundits watching news and reports coming out from the West and Ukraine and nervously chewing their lips. It is almost as if they are afraid to ask the question out loud: are we ready for this offensive? So, all they do is just share the news coming out of the enemy camp and and laugh nervously. I’m sitting here wondering why they can’t find a Russian Gonzago Lira or Big Serge to start coming on air and explaining to the Russian public that the situation is under control and all part of a larger Russian plan to checkmate Satan. You’d think they’d at least do that. Occasionally, they do trot out Macgregor and Ritter, which is basically akin to falling for your own psy-op. Mostly, they just share the news and lob accusations at the West for being Nazi-Fascists, reaffirm their own moral goodness, gnash their teeth that the West is arming Ukraine and then nervously titter about the coming offensive.

I … I’m perplexed.

It is almost as if Russian media is slightly more honest than Western media in the sense that no one feels comfortable going on air and stating that all will be well and that victory will be in Russia’s grasp within two weeks because of how bad it might look a few weeks from now. It is … it is really something.

Now, of course, there is a very large gap between the preferred strategy of the clown pundits who just sort of dance around bad news by changing the focus of the conversation on Western treachery, and Strelkov or Prigozhin going out there and putting the MoD on blast for their failings. The state media will never actually actively critique the Kremlin, you see. But they also seem unwilling to go out and dance like sambo dolls for Shoigu and Gerasimov’s 5D strategies either.

This weird, shuffling dance of Russia’s top pundits where they seem deathly afraid of asking whether or not Russia is ready for the Ukrainian assault and just sort of chew their lips nervously as they read the reports coming out of the West could mean many things. Personally, I think it might mean that they’re starting to understand where the wind is blowing and that if they know what is good for them, they will be as vague as possible in the coming weeks so as not to get on anyone’s bad side.

Also, it seems that we are barreling towards the Worst Case Scenario that I outlined earlier.

Also, there is a very real chance that if the Ukrainians achieve a breakthrough, the Russians will, for better or for worse, just pull back like they did before and not put up a fight against overwhelming odds.

I’ve had a gut feeling that all would go to shit for months now, but Iacked any real confirmation other than the long string of previous MoD failures to back my assumptions up, and my growing fear that rumors of a conspiracy in the Russian Deep State to surrender to the West might actually be well-founded.

Finally, there are rumors of a fresh round of firings in the MoD, which is good news indeed! But we will have to wait and see how extensive the firings are. If it’s real, we will talk about it in the coming days for sure. It seems to imply that there are chronic corruption/incompetence/treachery problems in the MoD and that word has finally gotten to Putin/he can’t ignore it anymore.

The “Hob-Goblin of Moscow” has lost his post.

Until Shoigu is removed though, it remains yet another half-measure.

My final verdict: you will rarely ever go wrong betting on the treacherous nature/criminal incompetence of Russia’s ruling elite. So, while I believe that putting my reputation on Kiev having only partial success is the safer bet, I’m going to go with option 3 because a) Prigozhin and the Strelkovites are sounding the alarm b) the Russian media is making me skittish and c) the problems in the Russian command are so glaring as to be undeniable now d) there seems to be a pattern here.

I hope to be proven wrong, but you owe me a paid sub if I’m right.