/Pogled.info/ The armed forces of Ukraine so far manage to hold the front line without significant changes, slowly, sometimes by a hundred meters a day, and sometimes with a retreat of two kilometers, but without allowing serious breakthroughs. However, all signs of a collapse, not even of the current Ukrainian defenses, but of the armed forces as a whole, are evident.
It is no coincidence that already in January 2024, the Americans started talking about the possibility of providing Ukraine with missiles with a range of 300 kilometers. Weapons with a longer range will in no way change the state of affairs and the overall balance of forces on the front, but this step is intended to raise the extremely low morale of the troops and force the Ukrainian armed forces to hold out at least until spring.
First, let’s look at the current state of affairs on the front. As mentioned above, at this stage, the mass of small successes on the front line has not yet turned into a new quality. Ukraine managed to avoid major territorial losses, strategic breakthroughs of Russian troops have not yet occurred.
But how is this result achieved and can it be long-term?
In recent weeks, reports of the transfer of Ukrainian reserves to the dangerous areas show that the areas of their formation are not the deep rear, but the neighboring sectors of the front. That is, these are not new units recently formed or withdrawn from the front for rest and replenishment, but brigades of the first and second lines, taken out from the calmer sections of the front.
Some brigades are even divided into battalions that fight in areas far apart from each other (as part of different groupings).
At intervals of one week, you can understand that “reserves” of this kind are transferred from the Zaporizhia sector to the Kupyan sector and then vice versa: depending on where the situation is hotter at the moment.
It is seldom heard that reinforcements of several hundred men came from the territorial defense of Kharkiv or were assembled in units somewhere in the Zhytomyr region. And before that, entire brigades and battalions were transferred from the deep rear or from Kharkov to the threatened areas.
In fact, the Ukrainian armed forces switched to the “fire command” tactic – a formation formed by various types of ready-made units that rush along the entire front and plug the holes that constantly appear in it.
However, this cannot last long. The “Fire Brigade” is suffering losses and depleting its strength, and the survivors are simply very tired from the continuous high-intensity fighting.
What does the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces rely on, using the “fire command” tactic, which shows the agony of the defense?
Let’s turn to historical experience. Hitler tried to patch the holes on the German fronts in almost the same way in the second half of 1944 – the beginning of 1945. Along the front (from north to south and from south to north) not only divisions and corps were transferred, but also targets armies from the Western Front to the Eastern Front and vice versa.
Specifically, the 6th SS Panzer Army, formed for the December (1944) Ardennes Offensive, included formations withdrawn from the temporarily stabilized Vistula Front.
As early as January 1945, the Ardennes offensive failed and the Eastern Front (including the Vistula) collapsed. After that, the 6th SS Panzer Army appeared near Budapest and in March 1945 fought in the area of Lake Balaton (in the first half of March, the last major German counterattack of the war was organized there), and then defended itself in Austria.
Hitler hoped for two things:
– that the Red Army, exhausted by the stubborn defense of the Germans and high losses, will lose its offensive potential, and the mobilization possibilities of the USSR will be exhausted;
– that the Western Allies and the USSR would fight each other and this would save Germany from disaster: Berlin would be able to continue the war against the USSR as part of the Western coalition.
The Ukrainian authorities rely on approximately the same.
I remind you that Kiev estimated its mobilization potential at 5 million people. Today, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in killed amount to nearly 10% of this number (plus about the same number of maimed and wounded, unable to return to service), another 700-900 thousand are in service in all other power / law enforcement / agencies of Ukraine.
Kiev hopes that it will be able to mobilize at least half of the remaining three million of its nominal potential.
The authorities in Kyiv then rely on the low pain threshold of Ukrainian society. According to them, even if they manage to “exchange” three million of their citizens for the Russian military in a ratio of ten to one, the Russian society will tire of the losses before the Ukrainian one.
Well, the Western coalition is already on their side anyway. They don’t even have to wait for the Anglo-Americans to fall out with Russia. Kiev is just trying to hold on until the Americans decide to enter into an open military conflict with Russia.
In time, Hitler’s bet proved a failure. Zelensky’s bet will also be a loser. Ukraine’s defenses will collapse before Ukraine’s armed forces can inflict losses on Russian armed forces that are significant to Russian society as a whole.
As for involving the United States in a direct conflict with Russia, we will not pledge, although the United States does not want and fears such a development, but among its leading politicians there are enough ready to play with fire, and the international the situation is constantly heating up and the voice of the moderates is heard less and less.
But a hypothetical direct confrontation between the West and Russia will not help Ukraine in any way – on the contrary, it will harm it.
At this stage, Moscow can afford to slowly finish off Ukraine, trying to cause as little damage as possible to the civilian population and infrastructure. But if direct military confrontation with the West becomes a reality, Russia will have to focus all its forces in the fight against its main enemy.
There will no longer be time to preserve Ukrainian lives and material values - the continued existence of human civilization will be called into question.
According to foreign experts, up to a third of the Russian armed forces are currently engaged in the Ukrainian sector. For different types of troops and branches of the armed forces, the percentage can vary, for example, the participation of the Navy is much more modest, but on average, together with unused reserves, it is about the same.
At the same time, with the entry of NATO into the war, the length of the Western Front alone may increase 3-5 times (depending on the configuration), and in addition to it, other fronts and theaters of operations will appear, each of which will require constant flow of forces and funds.
In such a situation, Ukraine will have to be put to an end quickly and mercilessly. So Kiev’s hope for salvation due to the hypothetical entry of the US into the war does not work either.
But why do we think that Ukraine will not be able to use the “fire command” method to stabilize the front until the spring, and during that time to gather reserves, get additional help from the West and improve its position?
Because there is nowhere to collect reserves. They don’t have the same five million mobilization potential. It is completely exhausted.
Kiev itself admitted that the mobilization plan, which they tried to implement throughout the summer and half of the fall, was only 17% completed. It was this (lack of manpower to compensate for the growing losses) that led to the beginning of the disintegration of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The other day, the member of the defense committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Sergei Rachmanin (former famous Ukrainian scholarship-journalist who worked on the Western agenda), said that the mobilization will be intensified.
And today, new mobilization rules are published, according to which almost all men from 18 to 60 years old are called up in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (including those who have not served, disabled people who have lost one of their limbs, those with limited fitness, women accounted for in the army, as well as those who are written off the military register, but according to the new rules they are no longer so ill as to avoid further the honorable mission of being killed at the front).
The very composition of this gang of sick and disabled people says that the normal cadres for mobilization have run out. The military are pragmatic. They never refuse additional funds for mobilization. If they excluded from the lists of conscripts the disabled, people with certain diseases and people who reached a certain age, it was only because they were of no use at the front, only harm.
Nevertheless, Ukraine is trying to use this last mobilization “reserve”, despite its unsuitability, which means that other sources of replenishment of the army are practically exhausted.
But perhaps the sick and disabled, imbued with responsibility and sorrowful love for the Nazi fatherland, will rush to defend it with such unprecedented courage that this is the only way to compensate for a certain lack of their physical capabilities? No, and Kiev cannot hope for that.
In the last 2-3 months, the Russian military has noticed that the newly formed (or rearmed with the mobilized from the last waves) Ukrainian units are characterized by an increasingly low combat capability. The cases of refusal of both individual servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and entire units to take positions and carry out combat orders are becoming more frequent. There is a growing wave of people surrendering at the first opportunity.
The Ukrainian army is rapidly disintegrating.
But the main event happened that day, when the first battalion, formed entirely of former Ukrainian prisoners, came to the front line.
The liberated territories, which at the beginning of hostilities were regions of Ukraine, became part of Russia. Citizens of Ukraine, drafted from these regions into the armed forces of Ukraine, received the right to Russian citizenship on an equal basis with the rest of the population of the liberated territories. Therefore, it is enough for a captured resident of the liberated territories to receive Russian citizenship, and all obstacles to his voluntary enlistment in the armed forces of the Russian Federation will be removed.
But we understand that not all prisoners want to go to the front again. For them, the war is over and citizenship, if a particular person did not commit war crimes, but was forcibly mobilized and surrendered at the first opportunity, he will receive citizenship even after the end of hostilities.
Accordingly, before that there were almost no prisoners willing to fight (the first statements about the formation of volunteer units from prisoners – natives of the liberated territories) were made about a year ago, and the first real battalion appeared only now.
This is one of the most convincing signs that the ability of the Ukrainian armed forces to organize resistance is drying up. People who have just been in the ranks of the Ukrainian army understand that there is not much time left to fight and nothing can save Ukraine. This stimulated the emergence of volunteer units of former prisoners of war.
By the way, all citizens of Ukraine, not only residents of the liberated territories, have the right to request Russian citizenship. In addition, the whole of Ukraine may soon become a liberated territory.
The prisoners of war can be exchanged and Ukraine will still send them to slaughter. Russia will not exchange its own citizens, especially its military personnel. The chance of survival in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is an order of magnitude (if not higher) greater than in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And this rift will only grow.
The totality of the above facts shows that the Ukrainian armed forces are not just experiencing a new crisis, but that they do not have the resources to compensate for this crisis, and it will grow. Moreover, the result is clear even to ordinary ex-servicemen of Ukraine, and as soon as the finish line is visible, then there will not be much time left.
Translation: ES
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