The ghost of the coming Ukrainian offensive
Usually, ghosts appear after death, an unfinished business, it is said, compels the soul to linger in the earthly realm of the living.
In the case of half announced, half suspected next Ukrainian offensive (the last one still possible, in my guesstimate) the ghost wanders before death.
I have to mention a source of inspiration* : Scott Ritter interviewed an interesting guest, Andrey Klincevich, a Russian military analyst, who sketched how the said offensive could look. The translation was poor, some nuances were surely lost.
The possible Ukrainian offensive will head in the Melitopol direction, with the known and well advertised intention to cut the land corridor between Russia and Crimea. Ok, everybody agrees it is the only place where it makes sense, militarily speaking.
For this to have a chance to be successfully executed, Ukraine’s forces will have to amass tanks, use Apache helicopters with Hellfire missiles (apparently AFU - Armed Forces of Ukraine - pilots are training in UK on British Apaches) for air to ground support, boosted by a large number of light vehicles with TOW missiles (more efficient than Javelins, according to Klincevich), all under air cover provided by Typhoons (mostly), F-16s and assorted Soviet era type jets.
How would it look in reality ? Hard to say, there’s no clear schedule for tanks deliveries yet and the fighter airplanes are only in the ‘prepare the sheeple’ propaganda phase. The problem with training and maintaining various models of tanks the intended deliveries arose will only be magnified when fighter jets come into the picture. But the process could accelerate or, maybe, several components are kept under wraps until they could be assembled quickly in order to acquire some element of surprise.
A quite expected evolution, aligning within the trend I mentioned elsewhere, would see UK dumping the Typhoon into Ukrainians’ lap (surely packaged with some mercenary pilots for spicing). The technological eradication of Germany continues. After the Poles and others started the hemorrhagic discarding of Leopards, the Brits could give the signal for the end of a German-led European made fighter jet era. Germany was always the most interested party in joint European military equipment projects since it makes a good fly under the radar alternative when sensitive technologies are concerned, considering Germany isn’t allowed full independence other countries enjoy (notably France, at least in theory - today, De Gaulle’s era truly independent mindset is just a page of history). US’s MIC surely knows how to exploit the war in Ukraine and pull the necessary political levers to eliminate the competition. In the future, UK will probably fully rely on American made F-35s and deepen its dependency on US. Others who are now part of the Eurofighter project will soon follow.
That’s fine, but how does the lucrative, for some, ‘cleaning of the house’ convert into an AFU victory on the ground ? Probably it won’t. Let’s suppose though the theoretical deliveries of tanks, missiles, attack helicopters and jets materialize, enough AFU crews, pilots, maintenance teams are trained and also supplemented with NATO military-turned-mercenary where needed. Could the offensive reach a sufficiently highly exploitable target, by the propaganda machine, so it would be able to squeeze out a face saving ‘victory’ moment ? I think it won’t be able.
The Russian analyst mentioned one dimension where the West has advantage - the satellite array intelligence gathering. Translating into faster reaction time. It remains unclear how decisive such advantage could prove in the battlefield, but we have a hint a Western type offensive could benefit from a higher flexibility than the Russian opponent would be able to demonstrate. Obviously, Russians know that too and can draw their own conclusions.
Enters the fortifications system general Surovikin hurried to put in place. Extensive enough to cover both the risk posed by the real offensive and the probable accompanying feint. The wall’s main purpose: reduce own casualties, maximize the attacker’s and do it without massively involving reserves, which would remain available to counter-attack efficiently.
I won’t insist on the military goal a Ukrainian offensive, desired and designed by the perverted neoconish minds, could achieve, if there is one which isn’t clearly discernable, why bother, if it is the march to, paraphrasing, the shores** of the Azov sea… it won’t happen, the push is going to crash against the Russian defenses. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out how a self-inflicted bloody carnage could then be spun as victory.
The best, for everyone involved, would be that this last Ukrainian offensive remains forever a ghost. Because the Russian offensive and its blood toll will come anyway, no Nuland’s gang obsession or fantasy can prevent it and the Western military would have no excuse to indulge the sociopaths and let things get out of hand, ever closer to the ultimate criminal stupidity - WW3. Kicking Germany’s ass and juicy military hardware buying lists are ‘victory’ enough.
*
** US navy (not the Marines the paraphrase alluded to) proved to be much more efficient beyond the shores, deep underwater, against the pipelines. In truth, neither the pipelines nor their owner put up much resistance.