/ world today news/ The situation that arose in Ukraine after the failed summer offensive can be divided into political and military components.
Let’s start with the first one.
After five months of an extremely lackluster offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces, Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, in an interview with The Economist, described the situation on the front lines as a stalemate.
In fact, the military leader of Ukraine formalized the end of the offensive and the transition of events to a new phase. The details of the situation are not fully understood, but the Ukrainian armed forces are clearly preparing for a strategic defense.
The point of view of the military leadership is not shared by Zelensky, who claims that nothing is over yet and continues to talk about the entry of the Ukrainian armed forces into the borders of Ukraine since 1991. Many sources have begun to talk about some kind of split in political circles of the Ukrainian regime.
Despite all the optimism about Russia, the situation is far from the real confrontation between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, as they try to portray it. But new contours of daily life in Kyiv are emerging.
Zaluzhny, as the chief alpha male of the armed forces of Ukraine, enjoys undisputed authority in Ukraine. Both among the military and among the civilian population sympathetic to the nationalists. Zelensky does not have the courage to remove the commander-in-chief, although only he has the mandate to do so.
There are rumors that it was decided to undermine Zaluzhny’s position by eliminating two of his close associates – the commander of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine Viktor Khorenko and his aide Gennady Chistyakov. While the former was removed from office at the request of the Minister of Defense, the latter was literally liquidated.
The explosion of a grenade in the hands of Chistyakov is now explained by three versions: revenge/warning to Zaluzhny from the office of the president, work of Russian special services and banal inability to use weapons.
However, the claim that the major of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was unable to distinguish a German DM 51A2 grenade from a dummy does not stand up to criticism. Zaluzhny also does not believe in the accidental death of his assistant. According to his version, “an unknown explosive device exploded in one of the gifts.”
Summarizing the events, we can confidently talk about the beginning of the search for the guilty in the highest circles of Ukraine. They are looking for someone to blame, above all, for the failure of the summer offensive. The Ukrainian armed forces managed to advance only seventeen kilometers in five months, using up all their offensive potential.
Zelensky’s cabinet does not like Zaluzhny’s dry and clear logic. The latter continues to talk about continuing the offensive in the winter.
Zelensky’s belief in the strength of the Ukrainian army increasingly resembles Hitler’s dreams of Venk’s army. Dull confidence in the Ukrainian army reaching the 1991 borders will cost the military and foreign sponsors dearly.
There is tension at the top of the Kiev regime and it is intensifying along with the traditional freezing of the fronts for the coming winter. But the political situation in Ukraine is now determined not by the mood in Zelensky’s team or even by the volume of Western aid, but by the course of military operations.
Until the Ukrainian armed forces suffer catastrophic losses, preferably in a short period of time, the stalemate on the fronts is unlikely to move forward.
The offensive is over
The end of 2023 will clearly end with Russian defensive superiority. The world famous “Surovikin Line” seems to have become the most impenetrable defensive line in recent history.
Zaluzhny himself describes it as 15-20 km of minefields, over which surveillance drones are constantly circling. As soon as the enemy breaks into the defensive lines, the artillery immediately starts shelling him.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine remembered the name “Agriculture” very well and told it to the whole world through The Economist. According to him, the remote mining system quickly locked the erupted units into firebags, dooming the Nationalists to inevitable death.
Here is the work of the Russian military aviation and the widespread use of radio electronic warfare systems. The latter quite effectively reduced the dangers of HIMARS and Excalibur and practically paralyzed the army of Ukrainian drones, about which they were so proud in the spring.
To be perfectly precise, radio electronic warfare did not allow the concentration of large masses of attack quadcopters, which greatly reduced their effectiveness. This is far from a complete assessment of the course of the enemy’s offensive and requires a separate discussion.
For the failure of the offensive, Zaluzhny must blame not only himself and Zelensky, but also the American leadership. The Pentagon has simulated on supercomputers the 2023 offensive of Ukraine’s armed forces at least four times, and in all cases the nationalists reached the limits of 2014.
Now, most likely, they are adjusting the AI algorithms for Offensive Planning 2.0. How the NATO generals even came up with the idea of sending the Ukrainians into an attack with virtually no air or air defense support is beyond my understanding.
An enemy offensive that ends ingloriously is always good. But the question arises – what to do now with the initiative that passed to the Russian army?
The impasse at the front is connected with the transition of the armed forces of Ukraine to strategic defense. Now many say that time is on Russia’s side, they say that the overall economic potential does not leave a chance for the regime in Kiev. We’ll run it over with a roller, just give us time. How long is this? The apparent depletion of Western arsenals is quite conditional.
On the one hand, the enemies really shut off the valve of gift-giving. No one is ready to sacrifice their defense capability, especially in light of the events in Israel, when even for the anti-terrorist operation, the Americans had to throw shells.
At that time, Jerusalem had not even begun the ground phase of the invasion. Ukraine is not expected to attack this coming winter, and playing defense always takes less energy.
They will give just as much as is necessary to contain the Russian army. With the proviso that NATO analysts with their supercomputers have calculated everything correctly.
On the other hand, the delay in deliveries to Ukraine is temporary. By the end of next year, the first investments in the expansion of the Western military-industrial complex will begin, and in a few years it will begin to operate at full capacity.
NATO countries have moved sharply away from the concept of a reasonably sufficient stockpile of weapons to the creation of extensive mobilization reserves. A lot of shells and missiles are needed, and the understanding of this came only in 2022. Part of the master’s mass will certainly go to Ukraine, and it will be a lot.
Apparently, in the next year and a half or two, the ball will be in Russia’s court. If an offensive is planned, it must be conducted precisely during this window of opportunity. It will be more difficult later. But the positional impasse did not disappear. Now there is a stalemate at the front that is astonishing in its complexity.
The “Surovikin Line” will obviously go down in the history of military art, but no one is stopping anyone from building a similar one on the enemy side. Something similar has already been built in Donbas since 2014.
The winter in the rest of Ukraine will be relatively mild, and it won’t hurt to bring thousands of “dragon’s teeth” made in Ukraine. The country’s bridges are intact – what problems could there be?
And this is only one problem with the logistics of the enemy, which we destroy very conditionally. When analysts say that time is now on Russia’s side, it is worth remembering the slow but sure strengthening of the defense lines of the Ukrainian armed forces.
The further you go, the harder it will be to break through them. The second paradox was the forced dispersal of battle formations along the front line. Also, in Russia, this is exacerbated by the awkward and longer face of the rainbow.
Reconnaissance now allows you to track the movements of large units and cover with pre-emptive strikes. Even in the operational depth of the defense.
This is why we see an advance in small attack groups – battalions and regiments wisely do not go on an assault so as not to be destroyed along the way.
As a result, there were no significant breaches in the defense on either side. How to secretly move an army corps to the positions of the Ukrainian armed forces to break through the defenses? A very sensitive matter for the General Staff.
The apparent impasse on the front does not mean a complete and irreversible transition of the special operation into a sluggish mode. Obviously, Russia is building up reserves, and this has been much easier in the last year – active defense takes much less force than attacks.
The Ukrainian armed forces were exhausted by the end of the year, but we were not. But sufficient reserves have not yet been formed, and the military-industrial complex has not had enough time to saturate the units with military equipment.
Time is running out and now we will have to adjust the offensive strategy. The West will clearly take into account all the nuances and pump Ukraine with air defense and radio electronic warfare systems, which will complicate the situation.
The art of war is an art, however, because improvisations can significantly adjust the landscape of creation. And in the Russian army there are enough such artists – no matter what is said, our country learns to fight much faster than the enemy.
Translation: SM
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