IS PUTIN AT THE VERGE OF DISASTER?
-----------------------------------
Ukraine War, 11 September 2022; a Review
Tom Cooper
Don’t want to spoil the party, but think it’s time for some serious review of the situation in Ukraine.
I also think that we need to try to understand the situation from Putin’s point of view. Indeed, exclusively from his point of view.
As for why: well, let me remind you it was Putin who launched this aggression on Ukraine, solely for his own, Putin’s purposes. The Primary between these is keeping himself unaccountable. Unaccountable to anybody, especially in Russia.
If we go back in time and limit his activities in this regard to this year alone, ‘Plan A’ was to topple the government in Kyiv and replace it with ‘somebody friendly. That failed. ‘Plan B’ was to conquer all of Ukraine east of Dnipro, plus Kherson. That failed. ‘Plan C’ was to complete the conquest of not only Luhansk and Donetsk, but Kherson and Zaporizhzhya, too. That’s when Putin run out of troops, thus managed ‘only’ Luhansk and Kherson. Plans D, E, and F were slightly downsized variants of Plan C, primarily related to Donetsk: i.e. Putin was all the time downsizing his war plans, in turn, re-focusing on Donetsk.
…..meanwhile, he’s down to ‘Plan G’: secure Kherson, Luhansk, and keep whatever of Zaporizhzhya — but get all of Donetsk, finally.
- For this, he simply had not enough troops. Yes, amid lots of fanfare, he brought in that 3 Army Corps. He’s going to bring another one, by the end of this month. But, neither of these had ‘30,000’ nor ‘90,000’ troops, as widely claimed. The 3 ARMY CORP C has about 10,000–12,000 at best. Thus, this was still not enough for realising the Plan G — and Putin is keen to realize that one, as can be seen from continuous (indeed: growingly stronger) assaults on Bakhmut and Pisky of the last few days.
Thus, he has to ‘find additional troops’.
AND Russians are not willing to FIGHT
On the other hand, contrary to all the promises from local sympathizer snothing, Kharkiv proved nothing else than welcoming Putin’s Direwlangers. Thus, why then squander the 3 AC in Kharkiv? For what purpose?
….and, ‘think Putin’: what a better idea but to ‘punish liars while saving troops’?
Don’t worry: I’m not buying the official line of the Keystone Cops in Moscow about another ‘reorganisation’ and whatsoever.
But, it cannot be denied that Putin did nothing to stop the liberation of eastern Kharkiv, the last few days, while all the time ordering additional assaults on Bakhmut and Pisky. And, his Dirlewangers in Kherson are still holding firmly, too.
So, now review what’s achieved:
- yes, eastern Kharkiv up to the Osikil River is in the process of being liberated by Ukraine;
- yes, the VSRF and auxiliaries lost up to 8,000–10,000 troops and large stocks of ammo and other supplies.
But, this is nothing Putin cares about. On the contrary: this is the same VSRF that (from Putin’s POV) failed, miserably, in three months of assaulting Slovyansk from the Izyum area (not to talk about all the earlier failures; see the 41st CAA at Chernihiv, see the 1st GTA at Kharkiv and Sumy, then again in Popasna etc., etc., etc., etc.).
Putin can’t care about losses, but he cares about failures. To him, the VSRF is the biggest failure of this war (just check Shoygu’s and Gerasimov’s faces in their latest joint appearances with Putin, and you’ll know what I mean).
On the contrary, the VDV seems to have escaped from this one in eastern Kharkiv at the cost of ‘just’ two weak BTGs. Putin’s ‘beloved’ PMCs came away with a similar loss. SOBR and OMON did suffer some. Altogether, ‘unfortunate, but bearable’ — from Putin’s point of view. Even the Separatists managed to run away….It’s the VSRF that suffered the most.
….and nobody in Russia cares about the VSRF [ ie RUSSIAN REGULAR ARMY ] ☼: it’s expendable.
In turn, today the ZSU appears so busy just securing everything from Balakleya up to Vovchansk, Bilyi Kolodyaz, Velykyi Burluk and Dvorichna (and that is a HUGE area), that it has no time and no forces to continue exploiting over the Oskil on Svatove. The town is reportedly abandoned by the Russian troops for two days now, but there seem to be no Ukrainian troops there, either: at most, partisans and SOF only.
One can only hope the ZSU does have enough troops to continue exploiting towards Pisky-Radkivsky, Borova, Svatove, and Severodonetsk. I do know it’s monitoring the Russian withdrawal from Sudenok, in direction of the Pisky area, just for example, but I do not know about it ‘exploiting the opportunity’ there: perhaps the troops simply can’t follow at the Russian pace….?
Above all, through all of this time:
- Russians are (still) bitterly contesting any Ukrainian advance into Kherson, and
- Russians are bitterly assaulting Bakhmut and north-west of Pisky, for days and nights, meanwhile.
So, my impression is, meanwhile, that of a ‘botched up, no doubt, but still’: a big ‘swap of territory-for-troops’. Kind of, ‘get rid of useless failures, incompetents, and liars in eastern Kharkiv, on behalf of realizing the Plan G’.
Putin didn’t care to inform VSRF’s local commanders, and he didn’t ‘invite’ Ukrainians to attack. But, once they did, ‘fine with him’.
The way things are today, his troops are going to establish a new frontline along the Oskil River; they’re continuing to resist in Kherson, and thus promising him at least some sort of outlooks for completing the conquest of the Donetsk. Its advances is going to cost the ZSU time, take away troops necessary to reinforce Bakhmut and Pisky, and it’s going to end with a situation forcing Ukrainians to deploy additional units along the border to Russia — instead of deploying them on the frontline.
i.e. the realization of the ‘Plan G’ is still looking at least possible. Putin still has outlook to declare a victory, sooner or later.
….and that’s all that matters to Putin.
No comments:
Post a Comment