Why Ukraine’s Western backers are happy to feed Zelensky’s fantasies about American F-16s

 https://www.rt.com/news/581828-ukraine-zelensky-f16-west/ 30 Aug 23

The Wunderwaffe delusion: Why Ukraine’s Western backers are happy to feed Zelensky’s fantasies about American F-16s

The 50-year-old jet won’t turn the tide of the conflict in Kiev’s favor, but it profits its partners to keep pretending

By Chay Bowes, journalist and geopolitical analyst, MA in Strategic Studies,

As the Western establishment media begrudgingly accepts what many analysts have long predicted – that Kiev’s counteroffensive is a catastrophic failure – it seems that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky hasn’t gotten the memo.

He seems adamant that the mercurial F-16 fighter jet is the missing link required to spur his depleted military to victory against Russia. There is, however, a little problem with his thesis – there’s more than one, actually, but let’s start with the most obvious.

Even as Ukraine’s long-awaited, much-hyped, but now obviously failed counteroffensive grinds to a bloody and costly halt, it seems the pro-war enthusiasts in the West and their proxies in Kiev still believe that the F-16, an American fighter jet that first took to the skies nearly 50 years ago, can somehow save the day for Zelensky and his NATO handlers. But at the same time trouble seems to be brewing in paradise as the Western media, which has thus far played such a pivotal role in overhyping Kiev’s military capabilities, is now less than convinced that this aging American castoff can play anything close to a defining role in NATO’s stalling proxy war against Russia.

While Ukrainian casualties mount, Kiev still insists that its long-telegraphed counteroffensive is indeed “inching forward,” even though the stark reality is that only a tiny fraction of its stated goals have been achieved with vast amounts of Western materiel lost in the process.

This all comes as Ukraine’s Western “partners,” who were previously so eager to “stand with Ukraine as long as it takes,” become less and less absolutist in their convictions. A coming winter, domestic woes, failed sanctions against Russia, and endless demands from Kiev to replace cash and equipment are all starting to wear on an increasingly nervous NATO. 

. Zelensky’s failed offensive is now accelerating the natural progression of war weariness in the West, where once there was supreme, almost absolute, confidence that Ukraine’s heroic warriors would easily cast out the barbarous Russian invaders. It seems that now even the spokesman for Ukraine’s decimated air force, Yury Ignat, seems to accept that when it comes to actually defeating the huge Russian military machine, talk is very cheap. Ignat recently revealed that Ukrainian fighters can barely take off before they are targeted by an overwhelming array of Russian fighters and anti-aircraft systems. He also noted that Russian fighters are far more advanced and have a far longer combat range, something the Ukrainian president conveniently forgets to mention during his awkward cockpit photo ops in Denmark, where he yet again peddles the now-tired promise of the latest in a long line of “game changers” – all of which the Russian Army has proven to be anything but. All they change, sadly, is the length of the conflict and the number of Ukrainian men doomed to die fighting it.

While the NATO architects of this conflict are of course eager to dangle the carrot of F-16 deployment to an increasingly desperate Kiev, in reality the fighters are highly unlikely ever to see service in the skies above Ukraine, at least not while the conflict is in its current active phase. Only three “partner” countries (Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands) have promised to hand a few of the fighters over to Kiev, and there are still massive logistical issues that would need to be ironed out before they could even land in Ukraine, let alone take off and enter combat.

It’s important to pay attention to where information about the reality of the F-16s’ potential deployment comes from. That’s why, when US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark Milley warned that the planes won’t act as a “magic weapon” for Ukraine, many sober, nonaligned analysts took note. Milley pulled no punches as he tried to pour some cold water on Kiev’s expectations regarding the aging jet. “The Russians have 1,000 fourth-generation fighters,” said the general following a meeting of the multinational Ukraine Defense Contact Group in May. “If you’re gonna contest Russia in the air, you’re gonna need a substantial amount of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, so if you look at the cost curve and do the analysis, the smartest thing to have done is exactly what we did do, which is provide a significant amount of integrated air defenses to cover the battlespace and deny the Russians the airspace.”

It seems that when a message isn’t playing to the narrative, the message gets conveniently shelved. General Milley’s comments are a sobering reminder of the undeniable battlefield reality, a truth routinely lost on Zelensky and company as the PR prerogative trumps the strategic reality on the ground yet again in Kiev.

Interestingly, Milley also addressed the huge costs associated with the provision of the F-16 to Ukraine: “If you look at the F-16, ten F-16s cost a billion dollars, the sustainment cost [is] another billion dollars, so you’re talking about $2 billion for ten aircraft.” He also suggested that if the cash sent to Ukraine so far had been spent on this type of weapon, not on artillery and air defense, Kiev would be in a much worse position than it is today. “There are no magic weapons in war, F-16s are not and neither is anything else,” he said. Of course, the blunt and, from a Ukrainian point of view, dismal reality is that Ukraine’s dilapidated infrastructure can’t even begin to accommodate these complex jets. Ukraine has no appropriate training facilities on its soil, and a mere eight Ukrainian pilots have begun training in Denmark. More are set to start the process in the US in October, but it would take years of preparation to have adequate pilots in any meaningful numbers. Another fact glossed over by Kiev is that the F-16s, should they ever get as far as Ukraine, will need a lot of ground maintenance infrastructure and highly complex logistical support, all of which would have to be deployed into what is essentially a war zone. No one on the NATO team seems to want to address the minor detail that the Russian Air Force will be hunting both the jets and the infrastructure from day one – another inconvenient reality conveniently ignored.

While it now seems obvious that the actual provision of F-16s to Ukraine is probably nothing more than a far-off mirage, many now see the jet in the context where it actually belongs – as another NATO castoff cynically dumped into Ukraine by Washington’s allies on the promise of higher-tech replacements by a cash-hungry Uncle Sam. But given the dire performance of Western hardware on the battlefield so far, it will surprise no one if the US ultimately cans the entire project rather than suffer the embarrassing, and inevitable, images of burning F-16s joining those of American Bradleys and MaxxPros in the fields of southern and eastern Ukraine.

So as the increasingly uneasy architects of this catastrophic conflict finally begin to accept that this all only ends one way, they’re likely to string Kiev along for as long as possible when it comes to the illusive F-16s, just like they’ve been doing with their promises of EU and NATO membership. Let’s not forget, it was those very same hollow promises that set Ukraine on the road to this devastating conflict with Russia, a conflict only the very foolish could now believe will be won with a handful of 50-year-old fighter jets.

August 31, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s army is running out of men to recruit, and time to win

It’s a brutal but simple calculation: Kyiv is running out of men. US sources have calculated that its armed forces have lost as many as 70,000 killed in action, with another 100,000 injured. While Russian casualties are higher still, the ratio nevertheless favours Moscow, as Ukraine struggles to replace soldiers in the face of a seemingly endless supply of conscripts. [Comment: There’s no evidence nor reason to believe that Russian casualties are higher. ]

Victory may be in sight for Vladimir Putin

ROBERT CLARK, 22 August 2023  m https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/22/ukraines-army-is-running-out-of-men-to-recruit/

The war in Ukraine is now one of attrition, fought on terms that increasingly favour Moscow. Kyiv has dealt admirably with shortages of Western equipment so far, but a shortage of manpower – which it is already having to confront – may prove fatal.

Broadly speaking, Kyiv’s highly anticipated counter-offensive has gathered much-needed momentum in recent weeks, with hard-fought gains around the strategically important village of Robotyne. [Comment: Losing thousands of men for a village or 2, which it’s likely to lose back to Russia in a few weeks time, is not a ‘gain’; more so because that’s exactly Russia’s goal: to reduce the number of troops in the Kiev-junta’s Nazi-aligned military.]

If this falls, the road to the Azov sea will be in sight. If Ukrainian forces can reach the coast, they will split the land-bridge connecting Russia with Crimea, potentially routing Moscow’s troops.

Ukraine’s forces, however, are not just fighting massed defences and artillery fire. They are also fighting against time. Having first penetrated the formidable Russian minefields four weeks ago, Kyiv is desperate to exploit its early successes before mounting casualties and autumn rains destroy its fighting capability.

The summer has been wet, and the autumn months traditionally bring heavy rains which turn the soft ground of eastern Europe into a thick mud as tanks, armour and artillery churn the battlefield. [Comment: Particularly because a lot of the vehicles and weapons gifted to them by the West are designed for fighting tribal groups in desert conditions]

This can all but halt meaningful advances, locking armies into place and buying the Russians time to add to the deeply dug trench networks and multi-layered minefields that have made retaking lost territory such hard going.

Perhaps more important, however, is the heavy toll the fighting is taking on the people of Ukraine. The Russian armed forces began the war with an official strength of one million, and a true strength estimated by some analysts at between 700,000 and 800,000.

A further two million men – former conscripts and contract servicemen – were available in the reserves, and some seven million men of conscription age (18-26) left to draw on, even before the Kremlin raised the age limit to 31.

Ukraine, meanwhile, had a pre-war population of 44 million. By the end of the first year of the war, some six million had fled abroad. The armed forces number around 200,000 active personnel, roughly the same again in reserve, and can draw on another 1.5 million fighting-age males. [Comment: The Kiev junta has lost nearly 300,000 men already, and those it ‘can draw on’ cannot be much more because, for many months, social media has been littered with footage showing unwilling conscripts being dragged into vans: ‘More than 280,000 dead’: Estimate of Ukraine’s military losses calculated using published obituaries]

It’s a brutal but simple calculation: Kyiv is running out of men. US sources have calculated that its armed forces have lost as many as 70,000 killed in action, with another 100,000 injured. While Russian casualties are higher still, the ratio nevertheless favours Moscow, as Ukraine struggles to replace soldiers in the face of a seemingly endless supply of conscripts. [Comment: There’s no evidence nor reason to believe that Russian casualties are higher. ]

Volunteers are no longer coming forward in numbers sufficient to keep the army at fighting strength: those most willing to fight signed up years ago. The latest recruitment slogan is “it’s OK to be afraid”, but there are still many attempting to dodge being drafted to fight on the front lines.

For all the difficulties the Kremlin has faced in its forced conscriptions, it still has hundreds of thousands of men to draw upon. This is a resource Ukraine simply cannot match, and one that the West cannot supply.

For Vladimir Putin, victory may at last be in sight as Western support begins to waver. If Kyiv cannot break through the Russian lines now, it may never be able to. If it runs out of willing men to recruit, the West cannot help.

Robert Clark is director of the Defence and Security Unit at Civitas

August 30, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | 3 Comments

Vivek Ramaswamy: Cut funding for Ukraine or face ‘post-Zelensky warlord’

Tony Diver, Telegraph, Fri, 25 Aug 2023

The war in Ukraine will end with the country under the control of a “post-Zelensky warlord” if America does not cut its military funding, Vivek Ramaswamy has said.

The entrepreneur and presidential candidate, who was considered the breakout star of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate, has pledged to stop US support for Mr Zelensky if he wins control of the White House next year.

He said Ukraine would end up “just like what happened after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan” if America does not “step in” to end Western military aid.

The war in Ukraine has become controversial among some on the political Right, who argue its cost has become unjustifiable.

Polls show that the proportion of GOP voters who believe America is doing too much for Ukraine have tripled since last spring, to 44 per cent, while a significant majority of Democrats support more spending.

Some Republicans in the House of Representatives have indicated they will be less willing to support funding increases in future, although few take as hardline a stance as Mr Ramaswamy.

In the debate in Milwaukee, the 38-year-old entrepreneur said more military aid for Ukrainian forces would be “disastrous” and amount to “protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border”.

And in comments published later by Voice of America, he went on to suggest the continuation of the war would be worse for Ukraine’s long-term interests and stability.

“My plan to end the Ukraine war will actually be probably better for Ukraine, at least it comes out with sovereignty intact. You mark my words, the way this war ends right now without the US actually stepping in and saying we’re not going to fund any more of it is going to be some post-Zelensky warlord takes over, with a couple 100 billion dollars of American military equipment. Just like what happened after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and you see how far that got us.”

Mr Ramaswamy has said he would prioritise a trip to Moscow in his first year as president and give Russia a guarantee that NATO will never admit Ukraine. He has said his foreign affairs policy would be based on the “America First” strategy pursued by Donald Trump between 2016 and 2020, when he withdrew from international organisations and treaties, including the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Ron DeSantis, the second-placed Republican candidate after Mr Trump, has also pledged to cut funding to Kyiv.……………..  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/25/vivek-ramaswamy-ukraine-post-zelensky-warlord-russia/

August 30, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

German officials believe Ukraine destroyed Nord Stream – media

Rt.com 27 Aug 23

Nothing ties Russia to the explosions, two major German news outlets have reported

German investigators probing the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines are increasingly convinced that the perpetrators in question are linked to Ukraine, Der Spiegel and state broadcaster ZDF reported on Friday.

Those familiar with the probe “consider the clues [pointing to] Ukraine to be particularly convincing,” the ZDF broadcaster said, adding that “there is no reliable evidence” that would suggest Russia was responsible………………………………………………………………………………………

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, built to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany, were destroyed by underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022. Western outlets have since repeatedly reported that evidence found in the case points to Ukraine. Kiev has denied any involvement in the incident. https://www.rt.com/news/581849-nord-stream-evidence-ukraine-german/

August 30, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Failed—It’s Time to Reevaluate.

What makes all of this vastly worse is that the cost to Ukrainians in their lives is staggeringly high. Consider just this one harrowing data point: more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the first 18 months of this war than the number of American soldiers killed during the decade-plus war in Vietnam.

August 26, 2023 By Glenn Greenwald ,https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/26/ukraines-counteroffensive-has-failed-its-time-to-reevaluate/—

There is no question that the war in Ukraine has radically changed. Even Western media outlets that have been steadfastly cheerleading for this war – and, indeed, even Ukrainians themselves – are now admitting what battlefield realities dispositively prove. The much-vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive – the imminent dramatic event we were assured for months would be transformative in finally giving Ukraine the upper hand and dislodging entrenched Russian positions inside Ukraine: a claim that doubled as a propaganda tool to assuage a growingly restless Western population about their endless support for this war – is now, no matter how you slice it, a failure. 

After months of multi-pronged attacks, Ukraine’s gains are so minimal and trivial as to be barely worth noting. Russia continues to occupy a very significant chunk of both Eastern and southern Ukraine, along with Crimea which they have held since 2014. Even Western intelligence reports acknowledge that the Russians’ defensive positions are more fortified and entrenched than any seen in decades. The U.S. has already depleted its own stockpiles of artillery and other vital weapons and simply does not have to give Ukraine what they need to have any hope of changing this situation in anything resembling the near- or the short-term future.

What makes all of this vastly worse is that the cost to Ukrainians in their lives is staggeringly high. Consider just this one harrowing data point: more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the first 18 months of this war than the number of American soldiers killed during the decade-plus war in Vietnam. The Ukrainian men who were eager to fight and who volunteered to do so have long ago been used up – killed, maimed, or exhausted. Zelensky’s only option for continuing combat is to increase domestic repression, impose greater and greater punishment for desertion, and use harsher and harsher means to force those unwilling to fight to do so against their will. In so many ways, this conflict resembles some of the worst horrors of World War I, including the need to put unwilling men who do not want to fight the deeply grim choice of either offering themselves up as cannon fodder or facing unimaginably harsh punishments by a government completely unconstrained by basic considerations of human rights or legal process, operating under full-scale martial law.

At this point, debates over who is to blame for this war barely matter. All that does matter is the question of how this will end, and who will end it. It is simply becoming unsustainable – politically, economically, and morally – to justify having Western nations pour their resources into fueling and continuing this war that Ukraine has less and less chance of winning. At the start of the war, many who claim that the real goal of the US was not to save Ukraine and Ukrainians but rather to destroy them – at the altar of their geostrategic goal of weakening Russia – were accused of being callous and conspiratorial. Now, there is little reasonable space to contest that they were right all along.

Joe Biden just asked for another $25 billion to keep this war going – as he offered $700 checks per household to the victims of the Maui fire and as profits for the European arms industry reach such record heights that they do not even bother to conceal their glee. Even if you were someone who supported the US role in Ukraine back in February of 2022 with the best of intentions – namely, you wanted to help a country seeing to avoid Russian domination – the failed nature of this mission has to compel a re-evaluation of perspective and policy. The last thing this war is doing is protecting Ukraine and Ukrainians. It is destroying both of those while imposing suffering among everyone in the U.S. and Western countries other than a tiny sliver of arms dealers and intelligence agencies. In other words, the war in Ukraine is following exactly the same pattern as every other U.S. war fought over the last 50 years.

August 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US to reduce military aid to Ukraine in 2024 – WSJ

27 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/news/581824-us-reduce-aid-ukraine/

Washington will not give Kiev a second shot at its counteroffensive, the newspaper’s sources have said

The US is unlikely to give Ukraine “anywhere near the same level” of military aid in 2024 compared to this year, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing officials in Washington. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his administration insist that they will continue to back Kiev to the hilt. 

The US has supplied more than $43 billion worth of arms to Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began last year, while leaked Pentagon documents indicate that NATO countries trained and equipped nine Ukrainian brigades to take part in the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces. 

With the Ukrainian military failing to penetrate Russia’s defensive lines after nearly three months of fighting, American military planners are advising their Ukrainian counterparts to stick to their NATO training and use what they’ve been given more effectively, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

“The American advice is based on the calculation that the surge of equipment the US has funneled to Ukraine…is enough for this offensive and is unlikely to be repeated at anywhere near the same level in 2024,” the newspaper explained.

Washington’s continued bankrolling of the Ukrainian military is a matter of political contention in the US. While almost all Democratic members of Congress back Biden’s policy of arming Kiev “for as long as it takes,” a group of more than two dozen Republicans are vehemently opposed. Moreover, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has promised to force Kiev into a peace deal if elected president next November, as has Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently polling third for the GOP’s nomination.

The Biden administration has spent all of its money set aside for Ukraine, and the president is now pushing Congress to pass a $40 billion emergency spending bill, half of which would be allocated to Ukraine. With Republican anti-interventionists up in arms, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has suggested that he won’t give the bill his unconditional support. 

“You don’t get to just throw money [away],” he said earlier this summer. “What about the money we have already spent? What is the money for and what is victory?”

Biden’s top officials have downplayed the growing divisions in Washington. “We believe that the support will be there and will be sustained,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. Sullivan added that despite the “dissonant voices” on the right, Republicans in “key leadership positions” will ensure that weapons keep flowing to Kiev.

According to a report by Axios on Wednesday, “senior US officials” have been in contact with European leaders to reassure them that the supply of military aid will not dry up.

August 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine will ‘capitulate unconditionally’ – Scott Ritter

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the Ukrainian campaign is showing “signs of stalling.” The newspaper warned that “the inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield [by Kiev’s forces] is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode.” 

25 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/news/581761-ukraines-president-volodymyr-zelensky-speaks/—

President Vladimir Zelensky should recall how World War II ended for Japan, the former US intelligence officer says

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will conclude with Kiev’s unconditional surrender, according to Scott Ritter, a former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that “Ukraine does not trade its territories, because we do not trade our people.” 

The message was dedicated to the Third Crimea Platform Summit, where Ukraine discussed ways of “de-occupying” the peninsula, which reunited with Russia in 2014 following a referendum triggered by the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev earlier that year.

Replying to Zelensky’s post, Ritter wrote that “it was NATO that suggested a trade. Russia isn’t trading anything.” 

The former US intelligence officer was apparently referring to remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s chief of staff, Stian Jenssen, who said in mid-August that Ukraine could “give up territory [to Russia], and get NATO membership in return.” According to Jenssen, this idea was actively being discussed within the US-led military bloc.

Jenssen later apologized for his remarks, saying they were “a mistake.” 

The suggestion caused outrage in Kiev, with presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak branding it “ridiculous.” Such a move would amount to “deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy… and passing the war on to other generations,” he claimed.

The head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, Aleksey Danilov, reiterated that Kiev would never negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, insisting that “Russia must be destroyed like a modern-day Carthage.” 

Ritter insisted that Moscow is “dealing with reality” when it comes to the conflict with Kiev, including “where Russian boots will be when Ukraine capitulates unconditionally.” 

“Think Tokyo Bay, September 2, 1945. That’s your future. Enjoy,” he wrote, addressing Zelensky.

On that date, representatives of the Japanese Empire signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies aboard the USS Missouri, ending the country’s participation in World War II.

In line with the deal, Japan agreed to the loss of all its territories outside of its home islands, complete disarmament, Allied occupation of the country, and tribunals to bring war criminals to justice.

On Wednesday, Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, which began in early June, was proving “very difficult.” However, he also claimed that the operation was moving “slowly, but in the right direction.” 

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the Ukrainian campaign is showing “signs of stalling.” The newspaper warned that “the inability to demonstrate decisive success on the battlefield [by Kiev’s forces] is stoking fears that the conflict is becoming a stalemate and international support could erode.” 

President Putin claimed on Wednesday that it was “astonishing” to see how little the authorities in Kiev cared about Ukrainian soldiers. “They are throwing [them] on our minefields, under our artillery fire, acting as if they are not their own citizens at all,” the Russian leader said.

According to Moscow’s estimates, Ukraine has failed to make any significant gains since the launch of its counteroffensive, but has lost more than 43,000 troops and nearly 5,000 pieces of heavy equipment. Kiev has so far claimed the capture of several villages, but these appear to be some distance from Russia’s main defensive lines.

August 27, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US and Ukraine ‘at odds’ over counteroffensive tactics – WSJ  

25 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/russia/581779-ukraine-us-debate-counteroffensive/

Washington is reportedly “frustrated” with Kiev’s reluctance to follow its advice in the conflict with Russia

American officials are “frustrated” with Ukraine’s reluctance to accept their advice on how to conduct the counteroffensive against Russian forces, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.  

The newspaper claimed it was still “not too late” for Kiev to follow instructions from Washington, and to utilize the training that tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have received from NATO nations. The outlet noted, however, that the two sides are still “at odds about how to turn the tables on the Russians”before winter sets in.

According to the WSJ’s sources, the US believes that the amount of Western military aid sent to Ukraine is enough to breach Russian defenses, although the window of opportunity is closing.   

“We built up this mountain of steel for the counteroffensive. We can’t do that again,” one former US official explained. “It doesn’t exist.” 

The Ukrainian military leadership has attempted to deflect criticism by claiming that the Americans do not understand the kind of warfare that Kiev is engaged in, the WSJ added.  

“This is not counterinsurgency. This is Kursk,” General Valery Zaluzhny, Kiev’s top military commander, told his US interlocutors, according to an unnamed American official.  

Zaluzhny was referring to a key World War II battle on the eastern front, in which defending Soviet troops stopped Nazi forces before turning the tables on them.   

Figures in Washington want Zaluzhny to concentrate Ukrainian forces near the southern city of Tokmak for a push towards the Azov Sea, the article claimed. It added that US officials disapprove of President Vladimir Zelensky’s focus on attempts to retake the city of Artyomovsk in the east, which Kiev calls Bakhmut.  

The Ukrainian leader, who has invested symbolic significance in the settlement, reportedly argued that recapturing it would boost troop morale. US officials have long said Artyomovsk has no strategic value, urging a withdrawal before Ukrainian troops were ousted from it in late May. The WSJ said Kiev had made adjustments in recent weeks by taking a defensive posture in the east.  

Russia has argued that the US is using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder in a proxy war against Moscow. The Russian military has claimed that Ukrainian troop losses during the first two months of its summer counteroffensive were more than 43,000. 

August 27, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Powerful’ Ukrainian brigade loses US-made demining vehicles – Forbes

 https://www.rt.com/russia/581697-ukraine-stryker-mine-clearing/ 25 Aug 23

The vehicles’ Stryker-type armor may not be suitable in a combat environment, the outlet’s report suggests

A Ukrainian brigade, which Forbes magazine had described as Kiev’s “most powerful unit” at the front lines, has lost 10% of its valuable mine-clearing vehicles just a week since joining the push against Russian defense lines, the outlet has reported.

The 2,000-soldier 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which is armed with four British-made Challenger 2 tanks, 40 German-made tracked Marder infantry fighting vehicles and 90 wheeled Stryker infantry fighting vehicles, had been kept in reserve until last week. It has since “written off” at least two of its 20 or so M1132 Engineer Squad Vehicles, Forbes reported on Tuesday.

The M1132 is a variant of the Stryker vehicle, which is equipped with mine rollers and is meant to clear a path through a minefield for advancing forces. The loss was hardly surprising, the report suggested, considering the role of the armor and its relatively weak protection.

Normally, minefield-breaching vehicles have the chassis of a tank. The M1132, though better suited for transportation by air, is vulnerable to enemy fire and should ideally be used in surprise assaults where there is little resistance, Forbes writer David Axe explained.

The report is based on images of the destroyed vehicles circulating online. The publication noted that it was unclear how exactly they were neutralized or whether their crews had survived. The “good news,” Axe noted, is that the US Army “has hundreds more Strykers in storage” and can supply more to Ukraine.

The 82nd was deployed to the front line in the contested Zaporozhye Region and is involved in Ukraine’s push towards the village of Rabotino, which lately has seen some intensive fighting.

Kiev has rebuked media coverage of the maneuver. Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar declared on Monday that “the price of the headlines” of such published articles was “five airstrikes a day” targeting the brigade. She also threatened criminal prosecution for disclosing information about movements of Ukrainian troops.

Evgeny Balitsky, the Russian official who is serving as acting head of the region, reported on Tuesday that, in ten days, Kiev had lost some 1,500 troops and “countless military vehicles” in the area.

August 27, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Zelensky Cracks Down on Draft Dodgers, Forces Men to Fight & Die in This War 

by EDITOR August 25, 2023 https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/25/zelensky-cracks-down-on-draft-dodgers-forces-men-to-fight-die-in-this-war/

At the start of the latest stage in the war in Ukraine, in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged supporters of his cause and the cause of Ukrainians throughout the West to stop cheering for the war and make themselves feel strong and powerful and Churchillian by doing so on social media and instead go to Ukraine and pick up arms to help them fight against the Russian army, based on the argument, among many, that Ukraine has far fewer people to fight against the much more populous country of Russia. Unsurprisingly, very few of our pack of Western world cheerleaders in the media or political and punditry classes heeded Zelensky’s pleas.

Very few of them actually went to Ukraine to help them fight and expel the Russians. And as a result, Ukraine, which already faces a massive disadvantage in population size as compared to Russia, has really been struggling from the start, especially now that the most trained and most aggressive fighters, a lot of them, have been removed from the battlefield, killed or wounded, they’re really struggling with an inability to match the sheer number of Russian men who are either willing or required to fight in this war. 

Lately, as a result, however, President Zelenskyy has become increasingly more repressive, both in terms of banning all dissent from being expressed. He has imposed martial law, making it clear that there will be no elections until this war is over, which means he will remain in power for the foreseeable future into the indefinite future and he has really had to crack down on the attempt by Ukrainian men, increasingly, either to bribe their way out of the country or to just risk their lives fleeing the country because they don’t want to be used as cannon fodder in what they obviously regard as an increasingly futile war. 

We will look at the latest events in Ukraine, including on the part of President Zelenskyy, that are increasingly anti-democratic in nature, that signifies the futility of this war effort, as well as the U.S. role, and remind you of some of the worst offenses of media propaganda that have been designed to sell this war to the West, something that plainly is eroding as a majority of Americans have decided they no longer favor any further aid.

August 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine likely to fail in key counteroffensive aim, says US intelligence

Roland Oliphant, Telegraph, Fri, 18 Aug 2023,  https://www.sott.net/article/483699-Ukraine-likely-to-fail-in-key-counteroffensive-aim-says-US-intelligence

Ukraine’s counter-offensive will likely fail in its key objective to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea this year, according to a US intelligence assessment briefed to members of Congress.

Instead, Ukraine’s attack is expected to stop some way short of the key city of Melitopol, the Washington Post reported, citing anonymous officials familiar with the assessment.

The reported assessment, which The Telegraph could not immediately verify, could foreshadow mutual recriminations between members of the pro-Ukraine alliance over the offensive’s slow progress.

Ukraine launched a long-planned counter-offensive in June. Its main objective was to reach the sea of Azov and sever Russia’s land bridge to the annexed Black Sea Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine and its allies hoped newly supplied Western equipment such as Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles would help achieve a breakthrough. But the assault immediately ran into stronger than anticipated Russian resistance and has struggled to make progress.

In an effort to reduce losses, analysts said Ukraine has now switched back to the strategy of smaller assaults and strikes on supply lines that eventually led to success in the southern Kherson region last year.

Melitopol, about 50 miles south of the current front line, is often called the “gateway” to Crimea and sits astride two roads and a railway controlling access to the peninsula. To reach it, the Ukrainians would have to puncture three layers of reinforced defensive lines and minefields, and bypass or capture several heavily fortified towns and villages en route.

Playing down tensions

In public, Ukrainian and Western officials generally seek to play down tensions over the slow progress of the fighting.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on Thursday that Ukraine does not feel under pressure from Western allies to deliver quicker results.

But mutual recriminations have begun.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said in July that the operation was originally planned for spring but delayed for months because of insufficient weapons systems and munitions. That delay in turn gave the Russians time to dig in and sow minefields, he said.

Other critics have accused Western governments of hypocrisy for expecting Ukraine to achieve a combined-arms-style breakthrough without air superiority or long-range precision missiles to hit supply lines, minimum requirements for any similar Nato operation.

No ‘panaceas’

US and other Western officials have denied decisions on arms supplies have hampered the offensive.

A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration told the Washington Post the main issue remains piercing the Russian defensive lines and that there was “no evidence” F-16 fighters or longer-range missile systems such as ATACMS would have been a “panacea” to that problem.

Late last month, a German military intelligence report blamed slow progress on Ukraine’s generals splitting Western-trained brigades into small units to assault objectives, which it said negated advantages in force and firepower.

It said an “operational doctrine” particularly entrenched in senior officers with combat experience meant Nato training was not being put into practice.

The Biden administration gave the green light to European countries to provide F16 fighters and associated training to Ukrainian pilots and crews in May, following months of Ukrainian lobbying.

The United States on Friday formally assured Denmark and the Netherlands that it would give permission for F-16s to be exported to Ukraine when training is complete, but that is not expected to be until early next year.

It has so far rebuffed Ukrainian requests for ATACMS precision missiles.

August 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | 1 Comment

General Mark Milley had a point – USA should have pushed for peace talks on Ukraine

Politico, By ALEXANDER WARD, LARA SELIGMAN, MATT BERG and ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL 08/18/2023

The conversation about Ukraine’s counteroffensive has shifted from one of excitement to disappointment, as Kyiv’s slow gains lead some U.S. officials and insiders alike to whisper: Should we have listened to Gen. MARK MILLEY?

In November, the Joint Chiefs chair said Ukraine’s strong military position and upcoming winter season combined to make a good time to consider peace talks. Plus, operations to expel Russian forces out of the whole of Ukraine –— which VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY demands — had a slim chance of success. Administration officials immediately scrambled to assure their counterparts in Kyiv that Milley was riffing and not reflecting a secret sentiment in the White House.

But listen to Milley lately, and you can hear the implicit “I told you so.”

“If the end state is Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign country with its territory intact, that will take a considerable level of effort yet to come,” he told The Washington Post this week. “That’s gonna take a long, long time, but you can also achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.”

One U.S. official, who didn’t want to run afoul of the administration by offering real views on the record, said the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington. Ukraine’s tactics to preserve troops and equipment, Russia’s dug-in positions and the fight on multiple fronts have led to slow advances, shifting a possible breakthrough further into the future.

While the U.S. still backs Ukraine’s fight, the official said, “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks………………………………… more https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2023/08/18/milley-had-a-point-00111878

August 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment