Posted on 09/29/2022 1:02:04 PM PDT by JonPreston
Cathi, With all due respect, they aren’t contradictory.
Dima did point out the tragic, pointless AFU losses of men and material, BUT he also stressed that the staging of massive Russian forces north and east of the theatre of battle probably had a lot to do with the cessation of the AFU’s offensive efforts because there is a risk that the AFU could be operationally encircled. Dima speculated even yesterday that the RF may have something waiting in the wings to stop the AFU. He identified it today.
Mercouris talked about the fluctuating number of actual RF troops resulting from contract expirations and has finally tweaked to the fact that long-standing RF military doctrine may well have played a significant role in how the SMO has been conducted and with what forces. Mercouris’ main point was that after tomorrow afternoon, those considerations are no longer in play and that the full weight of the RF armed forces can be brought to bear in Ukraine.
Now, to your point. I believe that Dima’s “running out of blood” comment obviously meant that the losses for the AFU forces allocated to the Liman front has been so battered that without reinforcement and resupply they can’t prudently continue. Bear in mind that the AFU has its hands full. It has to hold the entire front (and provide protection for the oblasts to the west of the Dnieper). It can’t simply keep pouring men and machines into the Liman front without jeopardizing positions elsewhere. Moreover, if Dima is right about the RF “fists” waiting in the east and north, the AFU may well believe it doesn’t have enough “blood” left to continue the attack AND cope with new RF forces.
As for the number of AFU forces, I’ve seen ISW (neocon central) numbers that indicate that at the outset that there were about 200k active duty troops and about 900,000 reserves. After the beginning of the SMO the number of active duty has increased and fluctuated. So, Shoigu is right regarding the 200k at the beginning of the war, and roughly 400K is certainly plausible for the present.
I think Mercouris is right that the ALLIED forces (actual RF troops are a minority of those) have always so far been heavily outnumbered. The 8 to 1 figure, though, was just based on RF troops alone at their low point at the end of August, but he pointed out that when the allies are included the AFU advantage is about 3 to 1. The SMO has succeeded in liberating/capturing almost all of 4 oblast because this isn’t early 20th century war. At the very beginning the Ukrainian air force and air defenses were taken out, and the RF aerospace forces and artillery have disrupted and destroyed huge amounts of AFU ammunition and weapons.
Overwhelming numbers of soldiers make no difference if they can hardly engage the enemy. Kherson is a good example. Tanks and infantry were sent across the steppes without artillery and air support (because the AFU can’t provide those) and were chopped to pieces before they got close enough for small arms fire. Kharkov was similar. The RF did a tactical withdrawal of troops and greeted the AFU with immensely destructive artillery and aerospace bombardment. AFU losses were extremely healy, while, as in Kherson, the RF lost very little in the way of men and material. In essence, the territory gained in Kharkov is basically a cemetary for AFU soldiers and machines. In the same vein, the AFU “bridgeheads” north and south of Liman have actually been kiling fields for the AFU.
I don’t see Mercouris being critical of the RF high command so much as he is incrementally understanding more of what has been going on behind the scenes in the Kremlin.
I depise the Biden administration and NATO manipulating the Ukraine and the RF into this war, and especially for the massive loss of AFU soldiers who had no idea what was really at stake.
As for the RF, if this ends as I think it will, war colleges worldwide will study what the RF accomplished in 7 months on a shoestring. Having said that, I wish the RF could have ended this faster. It would have been less costly for Ukraine.
As an aside, I can hardly believe the ignorance being expressed on the thread about the alleged Belarussian mobilization of 120k troops. Belarus only has about 45k active duty troops. It does have reserves, but I haven’t seen a credible claim that those reserves are being called. According to Dima, the 120k troops are Russian. Given that he’s in Belarus, I think he’s in a position to know.
Thanks. I must have been thinking of WW-II era barrels.
Never-the-less, I would think that in in heavy continuous fighting, those 2500 rounds would happen fairly quickly.
Just like 81 million voted for Xiden. /sarc
Yes, I know about the End Goal. I just wonder why they are so insistent and why the deadline is seemingly so inflexible. There is a grimness to their constant repetition of *deadline*.
The incrementalism was actually working for them. The slow creep kept most people complacent. It has been this increasing tempo, the 360-degree grid attacks, the steely resolve they all show when mentioning *the deadline* and *the transition* that put my back up.
The elders may or may not survive to 2030, so I don’t think it is the threat of mortality behind the drumbeat of *2030*.
It may be that the financial jig is up.
Along with the cadenced march because *deadline*, no one can miss how they seem intent on destroying not just cultural foundations, but the human infrastructure from food, medicine, education, soil, air, climate, industrialization....
Why? It is forcing a reaction from the global populace that seems counterproductive for the globos.
Another thing: they are proud globalists. Yet, they are fracturing the supply chains and seemingly upending the glue of international trade, breaking the nation states essential for a truly global society down into smaller increments to the point of forcing border changes where they cannot force migration. It is atomization, the antithesis of globalism.
Why do it this way? It isn’t even necessary for the End Goal.
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