Zaluzhny Was Right, Zelensky Was Wrong, and Rolo Was Prescient As Always

This attack is foundering.

It seems that General Zaluzhny was right and the political figureheads in Kiev were wrong.

Here are some of the great decisions that his replacements implemented:

• Attacking fortified Russian positions head-on

• Throwing armor away on minefields as an expensive form of minesweeper

• Not preparing enough soldiers in the area before the big push, having to send in smaller groups piece-meal

• Shooting their own tanks by accident

To be fair, they are also doing some things right:

• Intense, pre-prepared and accurate artillery bombardment of Russian positions

• Constant and active use of drones and drone strikes

• Night attacks

We’ve also seen some serious electronic warfare on display this time. I had always heard that the Russian army’s EW capabilities were second-to-none in the world. But, I hadn’t seen much of it in the Not-War so far, so I assumed that it was either fake hype or yet more proof of Shoigu’s MoD being bought and paid for by Langley. It will be interesting to dig into the EW side of the showdown when the dust settles.

It is not just the Russians who think that the UAF is foundering, by the way.

Another general in reserve, who I used to think had leadership potential back in the day, Sergei Krivonos, declared publicly that the UAF attack was a disaster in the making two days ago.

Here is what he said:

Retired Major General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Krivonos called on the leadership to suspend the offensive, otherwise the Ukrainian army would be defeated, RIA Novosti reports.

“It is very important to understand that we still needed powerful air support for the offensive, we hoped to get F-16s, but nothing was handed over to us. For this reason, if I were in the place of the military leadership, I would cancel all actions for the time being,” Krivonos commented on the situation.

According to the military, Western equipment that has just arrived in Ukraine will soon turn into ashes. Ukrainian fighters are now an easy target for a professional and well-equipped army of the RF Armed Forces.

Recall that in the Orekhovsky direction in the Zaporozhye region, a flame is standing like a pillar - this is the NATO equipment that arrived in Ukraine is burning. According to media reports, Russian troops destroyed a German Leopard 2A6 tank, American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and a Polish armored vehicle.

What should also be mentioned is that the AA system of Ukraine appears to have run dry. I mention this because it appears to be confirmed by the reality on the ground and, curiously, the Teixeira Leaks mentioned the possibility of Ukraine running out of S-300s by May.

Teixeira did nothing wrong.

This is another bullseye for the leaks. I no longer had any doubts regarding their authenticity, only their veracity. Also, no side come out looking good from these leaks.

Everyone in Russia gets in trouble: Prigozhin is accused of trying to cut deals with UAF generals, Shoigu’s MoD lets Washington and Kiev know ahead of time where they are striking, Putin is sick with cancer and largely out of the loop at this point, etc. Oh, and Russia had taken more losses than Ukraine by the time it came out. Dubious.

This is all worth breaking down and approaching critically another time in a separate post though.

In terms of what Kiev asked for, they got everything that they wanted going into this attack except the F-16s. First, they asked for long-range missiles that could strike 250 km away. HIMARS was all well and good, but, after significant losses, the MoD finally simply moved their supplies out of the 80 km range of the weapons system. The Storm Shadows were supposed to be off the table, as Washington supposedly feared escalation and shots being fired into Russian territory. Clearly, we crossed that red line a long time ago and the Kremlin’s incompetence and inaction led directly to NATO feeling comfortable in escalating further. By the way, I firmly stated back in spring that I was certain that Ukraine would get their F-16s eventually after Washington was done hemming and hawing.

Let’s see what happens.

Also, Kiev got the tanks that they were asking for. Leopards from Germany, Abrams from the US (tankers are still training on them), and Challengers from the UK, among other vehicles. Now, we actually haven’t seen any Challengers in the field yet. Either they are being held in reserve for the right moment or there were some terms and stipulations from the UK side about their use. We’ve seen destroyed Leopards though, for real this time actually, not some tractors that the MoD spokesman was trying to convince us were enemy tanks, and we’ve reaffirmed for ourselves the rather well-known military axiom that tanks are hard-countered by strikes from the air.

So, why can Russia suddenly strike from the air? Well, partially because of the aforementioned depletion of the Ukrainian AA.

It’s like a big game of rock, paper, scissors. Of advantages and counters.

Speaking of counters, some Z-analysts are so enthusiastic that they are predicting an imminent Russian counterattack. This is similar to predictions that the seizure of Bakhmut would be capitalized and followed up on by the Russian side. Or that the Ukrainian defenses in Donbass as a while depended on the city. Wrong, wrong and soon to be wrong again, as usual. Sure, Russia might push back, and, military logic says that a counter-attack to the UAF counter-attack would make sense. But, to do that, Russia needs lots of tanks and soldiers. Have the people making this prediction not been paying attention to how badly the UAF is foundering now? And they have many more men and many more tanks than Russia does!

Russia does indeed have a window of advantage now though, if the situation does not change drastically for the worse, to achieve results. Unlike Ukraine, which doesn’t have AA or F-16s, the Russians can support their armor from the air. But, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Russia has shown an almost complete inability up to this point of conducting effective combined arms operations. They chose to be go on the defensive from the autumn onwards because they ran out of men, were running out of tanks, and because it is easier to defend.

Careful: Rybar is Z-triumphalist and has been very wrong before. But they are better than Konashenkov.

Also, we are getting ahead of ourselves.

The attack is not over yet. Oleg Tsarev, a Ukrainian opposition politician (now pro-Z) who some think was slated to lead the replacement government in Kiev if the coup operation should be pulled off successfully, had this report to share:

Whether Kyiv recognizes the beginning of the offensive or not, it goes on. At the same time, one must understand that the battles have yet to reach their peak. Even in the main, Zaporizhzhia direction, the enemy has not yet committed the main forces into battle, primarily large tank wedges, but around Orekhov alone, about 600 tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, plus infantry fighting vehicles, are ready. It is not clear what the intention was, but so far a number of attacks seem like a sacrifice: the Armed Forces of Ukraine in small groups, on wheeled armored vehicles go on the attack with almost no support from artillery or tanks - groups with a ratio of wheeled armored vehicles and tanks of 10 to 1 have been noted. Another important point about which I already wrote: our minefields have become an insurmountable obstacle for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Leopard was handed over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine without minesweeping, if mine clearance equipment is included in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it is knocked out by ours in the first place. In the narrow corridors that they manage to break through, equipment accumulates - a convenient target for our artillery, anti-tank systems or Ka-52 helicopters, which reveal their full potential - both Leopard (2 exactly destroyed) and Bradley (6 destroyed) are on fire, a lot is thrown into gray area. Plus, numerous shots from the front show that the columns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are driving along the roads. In one sortie, a pair of helicopters destroys 5-7 tanks and armored vehicles. For all these reasons, the loss of equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine exceeds 300 units in four days. By the way, Ukrainian sources write that Syrsky is in command of the offensive, and not Zaluzhny, who did not want to attack, but wanted to wait for F-16 aircraft and long-range missiles.

Yes, everything is just beginning, this is the opinion of our President, who said that the offensive potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is still preserved. At the same time, our military on the line of defense invented by the General Staff and General Surovikin understand everything and are preparing to repel more massive attacks that will surely follow. I would like to note what important work has been done to ensure that our units have communication, while ours successfully jam GPS signals and UAV control channels of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Our military on the first lines of defense are working like clockwork, smoothly, without the fuss and confusion that Kyiv was counting on. These days the Russian army shows how to fight. We are not ashamed of our army.

This strikes me as an optimistic, admittedly, but a serious and encouraging report. Tsarev and others who are now nodding along approvingly over the last few days, are not like the clowns that I have to share Substack or the English language generally with. The people who I take seriously, who are optimistic now, were also very upset back then at how poorly the war was going for Russia i.e. they acknowledged the truth when it was hard to do so.

Yes, I kept note of who demonstrated honesty and an ability to admit reality, and so when they now share good news, I take it seriously as well.

Finally, I thought Strelkov had a good analysis worth sharing:

Mentions began to pile up in my network that the current battle in Zaporozhye "can be compared with the Battle of Kursk, everything is very similar."

I was asked to comment on this. Well, in my opinion, "yes and no."

"Yes":

- The battle takes place in the summer, on a very similar terrain;

- On the face of the attempt of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to "ram" the Russian long-term defense with the massive use of modern armored vehicles;

- The defending side revealed the plans of the enemy in advance and prepared to repel his offensive.

"No":

- The scale of the battle is an order of magnitude smaller than the Battle of Kursk, the forces involved from both sides are similar (the Germans attacked only on the southern front a dozen and a half tank and motorized divisions, the enemy - so far no more than 5-6 brigades, equal in terms of the size of each of the then German regiment);

- The offensive was launched without even relative dominance in the air (on the contrary, Russian aviation dominates relatively);

- In the first three days of the offensive, the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not even break through the first line of defense (the Germans still managed to break through the first line on the second day);

- The Armed Forces of Ukraine do not demonstrate flexibility (for now, at least) in their actions - they "hit their foreheads" in the same place. (The Wehrmacht managed much better, tried to inflict ramming blows in different directions and where it "raked" strongly - tried to get around).

- Most importantly, the Red Army had strategic reserves in the summer of 1943, which made it possible to launch its own strategic offensive even before the enemy completed his own (stalled in all directions) offensive operation. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation do not have such forces at their disposal.

Conclusions:

1) The probability of a decisive victory of the Armed Forces of Ukraine every day is less, not more (since the defenders can easily increase their reserves and build new defensive structures). Even with the maximum success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Melitopol direction, they will be able to achieve no more than somehow "push through" our front. And that is not a fact. Much depends simply on the supply of ammunition and equipment in the attacked area.

2) If at some point the Armed Forces of Ukraine decide to end the battle, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be satisfied only with the success of passive defense, they will not be able to counterattack.

Also, it appears that Melitople is indeed the goal of the offensive and its main thrust.

I nailed this prediction back in the spring as well. Probably before anyone else, by the way, just for those keeping track at home. How did I know though? Well, I figured the UAF was so obviously on a winning streak, and so much larger and better equipped that they would go for the most ambitious, highest cost, highest reward strategy - cutting Crimea off from Russia by going for Melitople. Those who labored under the delusion that all was well for Russia on the front at the time could not have come to this conclusion or made such a bet. Simple as.

The only way that Russia loses the battle for Zaporozhye at this point is if defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory.

How? Well:

• If Russia’s commanders didn’t prepare enough supplies beforehand

• If Russia’s commanders get off a phone call with Washington, London, or Tel Aviv and decide to blatantly stab the military in the back again

• If Ukraine breaks through somewhere and has a chance to pour in its reserves (at that point we get to find out if Russia had enough troops prepared)

Meanwhile, the night attacks continue. The artillery shelling continues. And the tanks continue trying to break through the Russian positions.

Not exactly accurate, but still funny.

All hands at the ready! Steady as she goes! We might make it out of this mess in one piece yet!