Kid you not, there are observers predicting that Russian troops will freeze, en masse, during a winter offensive. Presumably because a Russians live and train in a tropical climate.
Russia should sit at America’s feet ... Of the approximately 400 military interventions the U.S. has conducted since 1776, half occurred between 1950-2019, and more than 25 percent occurred in the post-Cold War period. This startling statistic is according to a “new, comprehensive dataset of all U.S. military interventions since the country’s founding” that Sidita Kushi and Monica Duffy Toft unveiled in a recent article published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. The Sugar High of Unipolarity: Why U.S. Military Interventions Increased after the Cold War - Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Has Putin figured out how to win a war in a way that the US cannot ? From Vietnam, to Iraq, to Syria, to Afghanistan the US, for all its military might, cannot close the deal on any conflict that has a significant civil component. Noted defense analyst Anthony Cordesman ... “The U.S. has yet to show that it can cope with the civil dimension of such wars. Virtually every commentary on each of America's ongoing wars has noted that a lasting victory cannot be won by military means alone. The U.S. has found it extraordinarily difficult, however, to come to grips with the true scale of the political divisions, failures in governance, problems in economic development and social welfare, and the demographic pressures on the host country or the regimes it has helped to create.” The Real Lessons of Mosul (and Sixteen Years of War in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) Now we go to Australian John Helmer, longest serving independent journalist living in Russia. His surmise on how Putin will end the conflict while sewing up the civil component ... Basically, Russia will be content with securing the four oblasts which are OVERWHELMINGLY sympathetic to Russia while ejecting the few that are not. THEN, Russia will establish a roughly 100 km wide DMZ. The DMZ will amount to significant pushback of relentless NATO advances since 1990. And the four oblasts which have voted to become a part of Russia will not likely be subject to civil strife. NOW, yes, Russia pushing to the West, taking Kyiv, etc., would be a recipe for the sort of disaster that has befallen the US in multiple disastrous forays. johnhelmer.net
From a former German tank commander’s blog, more on “Where is the Russian Air Force ?” ... “RF has total air dominance over the entire Theater. Pilots are expensive, so are the aircraft, compared to missiles/drones. They operate freely with deadly effect up to ~30-35 Kms beyond the FEBA all along the line. RuAF do not risk strikes deeper into Ukraine because remnant AFU AD systems are dispersed in concealed/camouflaged ambush positions throughout Theater, Detection radars OFF. US/NATO surveillance assets detect said RuAF strike aircraft/Helos track & likely target & pass targeting data directly to AFU AD battery, which activates tracking/targeting radar & launches cold in an instant, high probability of instant ambush kill. A few were lost in the first few days post Feb2422 this way, so tasking changed. Cost benefit ratio re RuAF harassment/interdiction strikes much beyond FEBA, as compared to missiles/drones, highly negative. Yet, when Major offensive Ops commence will be very active as ground forces advance, providing cover, targeting & prompt direct air-support up to ~30-35K beyond front line advance & recon screen.“
And only one side has the home field advantage, which makes re-supply that much easier. The other side has been bumbling idiots the last nine months when it comes to logistics. A big part of enduring extreme cold has to be determination, which a people fighting for their freedom and their property will have plenty of, while a bunch of conscripts whose officers are afraid to spend time with them near the front (and have little intrinsic motivation to fight) will have little of. We'll probably hear of a lot of Russian troops surrendering for a hot cup of coffee (with vodka in it). Remember, Russia is already at 57% of the number of deaths it experienced in Afghanistan (8,600 in Ukraine vs 15,000 in Afghanistan) before they gave up the fight. The clock is ticking . . .
Sending a message. I was under the impression that the FSB faction wanted to extract Russia from Ukraine and Chech/Wagner wanted more war. That may point to who ordered the hit.
I see no way that the current gubmnt of Russia can ever be accepted back into the western system after the level of war crimes and atrocities being seen in Ukraine. Someone need to ask MTG if this is okay. ANd I thought that Turkey had stopped the transit of war ships through to the Black Sea. Hoepfully some Ukranian drone boats can sink this recently deployed warship Pentagon considering Boeing Co offer to supply Ukraine with "long range bombs" ie missiles. 150 km range, accuracy 1M. Time for Ukraine to reach into Russia and start taking out bridges and rail infrastructure in Russia Bakhmut is WW1 style killing fields with Putin sending thousands to their certain death in futile attacks. Russian MP wants to destroy energy sector and then banking centers to stop all commerce in Ukraine Ukraine-Russia war latest: Warship carrying Kalibr missiles deployed to Black Sea as Russia 'prepares fresh attacks' (msn.com) Since Russia’s soldiers first stormed Ukraine, women have been gang-raped, men castrated, children sexually abused, and civilians forced to parade naked in the streets, according to the United Nations. The Kremlin stands accused of terrorising the Ukrainian population with sexual violence in a systematic and unsparing manner. It is thought that the full-extent of this barbarism will not come to light until years after the war. The allegations come ahead of a major international conference for preventing sexual violence in conflict, held in London on Monday, during which dozens of survivors from around the world will speak out about their abuse. “In Ukraine, an alarming number of reports are coming in from areas illegally controlled by Russia. The UN has begun to document them, and they are chilling,” James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, wrote exclusively in the Telegraph ahead of hosting the conference. More than 50 ministers from around the world will join him.
rail bridge used to supply russian military in possession of nuclear plant has been hit. They are going to choke them out. Will Putin negotiate for a retreat or will he allow them to starve and be slaughtered as their supplies dwindle General Staff: Ukraine damages bridge used for Russian military supplies. (msn.com) The Ukrainian military has damaged a railway bridge near the village of Starobohdanivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which had been used by Russian troops to deliver weapons and military equipment, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on Nov. 28. The General Staff added that Russian troops are defending their positions in the oblast instead of trying to advance, and that seven settlements in the region had been shelled.
Ukrainian home field advantage is akin to Gators home field advantage these days. *facetious* Russia is fighting out of its own backyard and appears to have unlimited weapons supplies.
Signs of Another Humiliating Loss Send Russia Into Denial Mode Another glorious withdrawal, totally on purpose, to set up for even more glorious Winter Offensive, in which 300,000 elite conscripts will come screaming out of East like Cossacks of old to smash Teutonic Nazis and liberate Little Russia.
Former US Marine Brian Berletic. Yes, I know videos can be arduous. And I realize you don’t want to waste 18:00 of your time on content you’ve determined beforehand to reject. But in all of his videos he employs only Pentagon and Western media and Ukrainian maps to underscore how badly things are going for Ukraine ...
Col. Douglas MacGregor (rt.) says that satellite imaging has identified an estimated 540,000* Russian troops and 5,000 armored vehicles in theatre. He reckons that Russia will mobilize overwhelming force when the ground hardens, likely between Dec. 10 and Dec. 20. *It is unclear whether this figure includes local militia and mercenaries.
Wagner has been bringing in hardened rebels from the prisons in Africa. More meat for them to feed into the grinder. Hopefully it remains low in numbers. It would seem that any prisoner sent to the front would do anything they could to negotiate a peaceful surrender to Ukraine unless they feared being returned in a prisoner swap. I would hope that covert units could identify and eliminate these groups of "black russians" as they are some bad people that the Ukrainians don't need in their system. Wagner Group Accused of Recruiting Prisoners From the Central African Republic for Russia’s War in Ukraine (thedailybeast.com) ABUJA, Nigeria—Russia’s infamous Wagner Group is freeing hardened rebels held in jail cells in the Central African Republic and deploying them overseas, including in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, two senior military officers in CAR told The Daily Beast. According to the sources in CAR, where armed rebels have controlled large parts of the country for about a decade, dozens of men held in military and police custody for crimes such as rape and murder are now being recruited into Wagner’s local wing, which includes hundreds of fighters commonly referred to as “Black Russians.” Many of the recruits, the officers said, are rebels the military consider to be terrorists because of their unlawful use of violence and intimidation against civilians and armed forces in pursuit of political aims. “Since October, they [Wagner paramilitaries] have been walking into military and police cells and releasing rebels, including those held for attacking Bokolobo village [in southern CAR] in May and for raping women and girls,” an officer who works at the military headquarters in CAR’s capital, Bangui, told The Daily Beast. “Nobody can stop them because the government has given them so much power to act the way they want.” Another military officer told The Daily Beast that rebels held for attacking and killing CAR soldiers during an assault on a military camp in the southeastern town of Bakouma town in April have also been freed by Russian mercenaries. The officer said Wagner paramilitaries told military officials that the released rebels would be working for the group overseas. “They [Wagner] said they needed urgent manpower in Mali and Ukraine,” the officer, who works with CAR’s army, told The Daily Beast. “I think more than 20 people we’ve been holding [for very serious crimes] have been released.”
(Shivers) I can think of no mightier warrior to throw into a brutal winter conventional conflict than a militiaman from sunny Mali who has bloodied his bayonet attacking the fiercest farming villages in East Africa. I am beginning to rethink Ukraine’s odds in blunting this offensive.
