Is Ukraine on its last legs? A friend asked me about the situation there recently. It is difficult at best to try to penetrate the fog of war in Ukraine. During the last week or so, Ukraine launched an attack in Kursk what can only be described as a fantastical hope of capturing the nuclear facility near Kursk with the idea of holding it for ransom.
The attack failed and the losses, especially fighting equipment but also personnel, have been huge. Alexander Mercouris, a dependable source for Info in the war zone writes:
There are reports that their equipment losses in Kursk are now as great as during the 2023 summer offensive, and the front lines in Donbass are collapsing so fast that some, such as the Ukrainian MP Marianna Bezuglaya, are talking about the Ukrainian High Command having effectively written Donbass off.
Doug MacGregor, another good source, is reporting the same thing. In addition, MacGregor reports that the remaining Ukrainian units are cut off from most resupply and are being systematically eliminated.
Will Schryver, another source, forwarded an analysis of how Russia is handling the incursion around Kursk.
The Russians only sent in one heavy brigade – the 810th Marines – and it’s covering a 70km front. How? BTGs!
To recap briefly, the Battalion Tactical Group is a combined-arms battalion formation made up of a mechanized infantry or tank battalion paired with an artillery battalion and a set of other enablers (engineers, air defense, antitank, reconnaissance, etc.) allowing it to operate independently on the battlefield. It’s actually very European, this isn’t really something the Russians just came up with on their own…Specifically, the BTG was intended for use in fast-moving mobile warfare with low troop densities, and the Donbass Front features exactly none of those
When the Ukrainian command massed every unit they could lay hands on (a force that amounted to some two divisions with perhaps two brigades of heavy troops leading the assault) and launched their own “off-axis” offensive into Kursk Oblast over the (relatively) lightly-defended prewar border two weeks ago, the Russians did not respond by throwing conscripts at the alarmingly-growing salient. They sent in a single veteran mechanized brigade – the 810th Marines out of Sevastopol – and a sizable detachment of Chechen Rosgvardia to hold the line and mop up Ukrainian survivors.
These troops hit the ground and went to work, stopping the cream of the AFU in their tracks 72 hours after the first shots of the battle were fired and – judging by the latest reports of decreasing combat intensity and heavy losses among the Ukrainian shock troops – forcing the operation to culminate largely on those lines in two weeks.
How long can Ukraine hold out? In Donbass Ukrainian defenses are giving way to increasing Russian pressure. And there are no reserves to help plug the holes. In these kinds of war scenarios, a collapse can happen suddenly. The Russians are capturing significant amounts of territories and are threatening to encircle significant Ukrainian forces. Is the end near?
A more important question for the Democrats is will the collapse occur before the election? The war is their doing. After Afghanistan, the Dems can ill afford more bad press on the world news front invading Americans’ consciousness.
There were no new wars during the Trump Administration. There are at least three new wars going on since Biden took office. Just how insane are the neocons who are actually running the Biden government?