The Other Side of the Argument
On the Winter Offensive and the Victory at Soledar
I thought I’d share a perspective from a smart guy in my Russian-language podcast project who disagrees on some of my more extreme doomer positions.
Although, to be fair, he’s a doomer too, just not as bad as me. And actually even I am not really that far gone either compared to others like Strelkov. But I suppose we all seem like traitors to the cause if you listen to the likes of the Great Armchair General, his Imperial Largeness, Defender of Orthodoxy and Bad Takes, First of His Name, His Royal Fatness, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, Z-Boomer Battalion Commander, Big Serge.
But let’s hear what Stanislav the Slav has to say instead:
Look, more than 300k were mobilized, literally all my friends from the army and the administration say that 500k are called up of which 150k are at the front, 150k are at training grounds in the Russian Federation and the rest are still in military units, they have not even started training yet, because all the training grounds are occupied.
[Fair enough]
They talk about Belarus now and yes, the offensive can come from there. Equipment is being brought there. It will be from there or from another place - I do not know.
[Would be quite the ruse if it was a feint]
There are no serious clashes on the entire front line, except for Bakhmut-Soledar.
[Very true, a strange war.]
The Ukies transferred reserves and many combat-ready brigades there in order to slow down Wagner and slowed them down in Bakhmut - but then fucked up terribly in Soledar.
Wagner inflicted great damage on their manpower reserves. It is not enough to recruit people - they still need to be trained, given normal officer cadres, etc. The Ukrainian brigades were broken repeatedly, filled with fresh people and then immediately thrown to the front.
[Attacking a stronhold head-on with a shortage in shells and still managing to inflict horrific losses on your enemy far more that you sustained yourself? Dubious.]
The combat effectiveness of such hastily-assembled Ukrainian brigades was low. That is, the Ukrainians pulled all their reserves from other fronts to the Wagnerites for a month or two and still failed to hold against Wagner.
So I'm optimistic. In any case, Wagner won time for our mobiki to be taught and supplied normally.
[Fine, fine. I’d actually never heard the theory that Wagner was running interference to buy time for the mobiki to train up. Doesn’t sound like something the cook-crook would sign up for and agree to, to be quite honest. I think he saw a shiny medal somewhere in the smoldering rubble of Bahkhmut.]
On the Winter Offensive
Well, yes, everyone is waiting for the DECISIVE OFFENSIVE OF THE ARMY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, which is much more important than the games in Soledar. But actually, the defeat in Soledar is serious. The better the development of this success goes on, the better it will be for the main offensive when the time comes. The Ukrainians will have to fight on two fronts, always thinking about where to throw their forces.
[BUT THEY HAVE MORE MEN THAN YOU DO!!!]
But even if there is no offensive yet and just an intensification of fighting in the Donbass in the coming weeks, that will suit me just fine.
About the possible offensive of the Ukrainians - two points of possible attack are being pointed out. The Svatovo-Kremennaya line (they have been pressing there for a long time, since autumn, and go on the offensive often, but do not have any success) and onto Melitopol. As far as I know, reserves were sent from there to Bakhmut and Soledar. So (in my opinion) a large-scale offensive by Ukrainians is unlikely and the threat has passed. I could be wrong.
[I agree that the dangerous period of further Ukrainian counter-offensives has passed].
There, now you can’t say that I don’t give the other side a fair shake.
I can’t really say that I disagree with his perspective. The parts where he’s speculating, I can’t fault him because I’m speculating as well. As long as you have at least a semblance of a shared reality, you can have a productive discussion with someone. It is impossible to talk to people who go from talking about 100K dead Ukrainians at the end of summer, to 200K in November and now 500K in the first week of January. Parallel realities make any meaningful exchange impossible and one is forced to resort to relentless mockery to make one’s point.
It really looks like your friend is grasping at the Ukrainians alleged massive casualties as being some kind of game changer. You could lump me in with those who believe that Ukrainian dead+maimed beyond further use troops is on the high end, like between 75-100k somewhere. But still even if my higher end estimate is real its just not enough to have any sort of decisive impact on anything.
I also wouldnt assume the danger of a Ukrainian offensive is passed, as a matter of fact if you are confident of a lower end for Ukrainian dead and permanently maimed like in the 30-50k range than they have more than enough guys to launch real strategic level offensives. Stanislav assumes higher end like me apparently but theres no debating at this point that the AFU is actually larger and better equipped now than last February. They are more dangerous, more confident and the AFUs upper level leadership honestly seems more competent than their Russian counterparts.
Im not taking anything away from Russias troops, as Ive said before given the crippling disadvantages imposed on them, the quality of their opponents (35-55 year old Ukrainian conscripts seem to be immovable objects, until they are dead you just arent getting past them) and how badly led they are from above Russias troops have been performing miracles. Mariupol was genuinely the most impressive victory of the war so far, with no significant numerical or equipment advantages the Russians beat Ukraines supposedly best troops who were defending in urban terran behind human shields. Wagner clawing Soledar away from the Ukrainians with no numerical advantages in shells or men is actually more impressive than anything NATO/the Ukrainians have pulled off so far. So im 100% pro Russia here but nonetheless I think Rosskovskey and Zhukov would rate Ukraines upper level military leadership much higher than Russias right now.
Also if stuff like this is true:
https://avia.pro/news/vsu-formiruyut-tri-armeyskih-korpusa-obshchey-chislennostyu-v-75000-voennosluzhashchih
that Ukraine is forming corps that contain divisions as opposed to just Brigades than the Ukrainians certainly arent doubting their offensive prospects. As a matter of fact it looks like the Ukrainians are learning the relevant lessons from the war whereas the Russian generals are just typically apathetic. Our 5D wizards are assuring us that none of the cool kids are interested in offensives that have sufficient mass and concentration to achieve large cauldrons and decisively influence the course of campaigns but the Ukrainians seem to be changing their force structure to do just that.
I slowly deleted all the pro-russians twitter accounts I followed since the beginning of the war.
The 3 last ones were praying the "victory" of Stalingrad.
I can understand than this is a victory for Russians and, maybe, for Poles, but watching west-europeans (or east-europeans except Poles or Russians) considering Stalingrad as a "victory", sorry, I can't.
2022 had started like a tunder of love and admiration, from me, to Russia, everything Russia did, make, etc. (I had even start considering, maybe...maybe fascists were the bad pig).
And this feel was aggravated by my awfuls readings (Martianov, his friend Larry, Xavier Moreau...even, time to time -I confess- the Saker...
Now, it's january 23, all my illusions are gone. No, Russia will not save western Europe. She just can accelerate, indirectly, the fall of our wokist regimes, by those crazy energetic (auto-)"sanctions". But I see Russia as a paralyzed giant, full of corruption, brainwashed by sovokism and liberalism.
Maybe it's too extreme....Probably, Russia is not a saint neither this absolute garbage (starting a war with 200 000 soldiers ! God !)