Ukraine War, 12 July 2024: Mobutu Syndrome, Part 3

Hello everybody!

Must admit, I was expecting to experience ‘lots of flak’ in reaction to this ‘Mobutu Syndrome’ feature, but: it’s still an ironic experience to read specific reactions to the first two parts of ‘Mobutu Syndrome’. Especially those who are descending into outright panic.

See, ‘oh my, this means a total defeat of Ukraine’.

Aw, come on. Cool down a bit, please.

No, boys and girls: nobody said that (even if I would, I would have said so clearly).

Nope: the current situation at the top of the Ukrainian civilian- and military leadership doesn’t mean a defeat of Ukraine. It ‘only’ means exactly what we can already monitor along the frontline: that Ukraine cannot win this war, that the ZSU cannot even hold its frontline, and that the PSU is continuing to let the Russians massacre Ukrainian civilians almost at will, and destroy its economy and property.

With which we’re back to something I’ve discussed here: Victories and Defeats.

That Russia cannot win this war is obvious since early March 2022. But, now it’s obvious that Ukraine cannot win it either – at least unless it reforms its political conduct of this war, and the style of command of armed forces.

Why that?

Because, the current ZSU- and PSU’s motto, ‘just give us arms and ammunition, we know what we’re doing’ - is an exercise in self-deception. Considering what I’ve explained in the Part 1 and 2, I cannot but wonder: how do ‘they’ (people like Syrsky and/or Oleshchuk, and/or their aides/favourites) think to ‘know’ how to use arms and ammunition delivered by the West ‘properly’, if they are refusing to listen to ‘bad news’ and are systematically preventing a critical, objective review of both their own performances, those of their subordinates, and thus both the effects of their own actions and performances of the services they are commanding?

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Another ironic reaction was that about the PSU’s practice of wildly overclaiming own successes against Russian aircraft, helicopters, missiles, and attack drones.

Such behaviour is ‘nothing new’? ‘Everybody is doing that’, you say?

Oh, but sure. Indeed, I can, promptly, offer you dozens of relevant examples – and that not just from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Iran or Iraq. How about Israel – which is currently an excellent example because for 80 years we’re watching the West ignore results of its own deeds there, and for eight months now we’re watching the results of the Israeli political leadership intentionally and systematically ignoring warnings of own security services and armed forces? Or the USA, where the political-, military-, and security decision-makers were systematically lying about Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years?

Please, feel free to go on and ignore the obvious. As said yesterday: I do not mind.

Just, please, keep in mind that when overclaiming, and the resulting self-deception go too far, then tragedies like on 8 July are simply unavoidable. They are the only logical result. They must happen.

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BTW, if that issue is not important, feel free to explain me how comes that yesterday (or, was it the day before?), NATO decided to establish a ‘Joint Analysis and Training Centre’ (JATEC) with Ukraine, responsible (quote), ‘for identifying and applying the lessons of the Russia’s war against Ukraine and to increase Ukraine’s operational interoperability with NATO’…?

Can’t help it: I read this as, ‘NATO is recognising that both the leadership of the ZSU and PSU are not taking it particularly seriously with studying their own lessons from this conflict – and that in addition to numerous of NATO’s own Experten failing for Ukrainian fairy tales, thus drawing entirely wrong lessons from this war’ (which is something that was obvious for over a year, meanwhile – alone on basis of the content of dozens of publications by NATO-Experten in question).

….must be my wishful thinking then…

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Finally, I love those ‘mature’ reactions like, ‘Ahahaha, you said “balloons”, and under “balloons” I understand “tits”’, or such like, ‘have you got an idea what would a net hanging from a barrage balloon weight’?

Seemingly, plenty of people have never heard about something called ‘helium’. Nor about balloons – in sense also known as ‘omni-directional airships’ used as cranes in construction industry, even smaller of which can lift 60,000kg… (which are something like 5-10 times cheaper than aircraft capable of lifting similar loads)…. or ‘blimps’ used for observation purposes by Israel, or Russia, already for decades…

Hogwash and blasphemy, all of this! Everybody knows what happened to Hindenburg… some 86 years ago… only yesterday…

….and that with tits is so much more interesting and ah-so-funny, especially compared to physical laws (like that with gases lighter than air). The only logical conclusion possible is that balloons can’t lift anything useful at all…

….which, for some unexplainable reason (must be that notorious itch in my small toe), strongly reminds me about that with ‘mortal threats of electricity’, from back in the 19^th Century: which, obviously, were as dangerous, and as mass-murdering as ‘exploding’ and ‘burning’ solar panels are nowadays…

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Ah well… now lets throw a look at what happened on 8 July.

As always in systems of systemic failure of leadership and command, such things do not happen all of a sudden. Actually, they are developing over weeks and months. The only thing ‘sudden’ is when it culminates into a major failure. In the meantime, there are always plentiful of ‘warning signs’: they’re just systematically ignored – which is no surprise when both politicians and top commanders impose a system of refusing to listen to bad news, while keeping the public happy with ‘good news’. Indeed, when they impose a system of punishing (see ‘investigating’) everybody who complains.

Add to this the ultimate incompetence of multiple western governments, resulting in the failure to not only increase the supply of SAMs to Ukraine, but actually to stop these, while also failing to timely increase the production of SAMs to the necessary levels…

Isn’t that a classy mix, huh?

Ah no, it does’t matter. That’s just my usual (Marxist?) rambling about politics…

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Now, to understand what happened next, one has to understand the integrated air defence system (IADS) of the PSU. This is not easy, because, contrary to the frontlines on the ground, there are none in the air. Or there are but: they’re invisible.

Point is this (and this is valid for all Ukraine, not ‘just’ the north-east and east, shown on the maps below): there is a huge difference between the area ‘monitored by the radar network of the PSU’, which is something like this:

….and the area actually defended by air defence units of the PSU and the ZSU, which is something like this:

Why is there such a dramatic difference?

Because the majority of radars operated by the PSU has a maximum detection range of around 300km. On the contrary, the mass of SAMs has a range of 30-40km. Only the Patriot, S-300 and IRIS-T are slightly better in this regards. Moreover, the majority of such ‘heavy/best’ SAM-systems are deployed for protection of major urban- and economic centres. Since around February this year, their presence closer to the frontlines is, usually, ‘minimal’ and/or ‘temporary’ by nature.

The PSU is short on missiles even for the defence of most important infrastructure in the rear. Moreover, and as we have seen from the videos released by the MOD in Moscow over the last 2-3 months, heavier Ukrainian SAM-systems meanwhile can’t survive remaining in certain areas closer to the frontline for any longer periods of time.

At last as important is that the combat attrition after two years of high-intensity war is such, that the PSU only has enough SAM-systems left to create so-called ‘overlapping’ air defences - zones within which it is deploying multiple different types of SAMs, each of which is responsible for defence from different types of threats - in two areas: Kyiv and Odesa.

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What a surprise, then….

-          for weeks, and then months (at least since January this year), the Russians are, literally, ‘drilling holes’ in the integrated air defence system (IADS) of Ukraine.

-          The process in question might appear different, but its essence was the same like what the Ukrainians were doing (and are still doing) to the Russian air defences of the occupied Crimea, as described the last year in the feature here: Saints, Thunders & Lightnings, Part 4.

Roughly described, the effects upon the PSU’s radar network were (and, probably, still are) something like this:

How did the Russians manage that?

-          As first, and as reported several times, they’ve increased the altitude at which they’re operating their reconnaissance UAVs (foremost Zalas) to 2,000-3,000 metres.

-          This resulted in block conversion of the mass of Ukrainian anti-UAV tools into useless garbage: none of usually available machine-guns (calibres 7.92, 12.7, and 14.5), and light flak (23mm) can reach that high.

-          The Ukrainians tried to counter by MANPADS, because these are longer-ranged than light artillery; they have shot down some of Russian UAVs – and then, what a surprise, run out of MANPADS.

-          Then they started shooting even with heavy SAMs at reconnaissance UAVs – and then run out of these, too.

-          Before soon, the PSU was down to flying ‘anti-UAV-combat air patrols’ by Yak-52 trainers. With some success, no doubt, but: this was far from enough. Alone detecting and tracking down all the UAVs the Russians are regularly sending this deep over Ukraine is problematic, not to talk about shooting them down – whether by fire from machine guns, or by tipping them with help of Yak-52’s wingtips…

-          Eventually, the Russians found themselves in a position to deploy their reconnaissance UAVs 50, 70, 100, 150, even 200km behind the Ukrainian frontlines, almost at will.

-          With reconnaissance UAVs capable of operating freely that deep behind the frontline, they began targeting Ukrainian air defences – principally by their Iskander-M ballistic missiles. One by one, P-18 radars, S-300s, and other stuff were knocked out.

-          The PSU reacted in predictable fashion: it continued deploying P-18s, S-300s and other stuff to ‘close the gap’ – only to have these hit, again, and again.

-          ….and then the Russians started routing their ballistic- and cruise missiles through the resulting gaps, something like this (mind: this doesn’t mean the Russians are using ‘exactly’ these routes; even less so ‘every time’):

-          while the PSU continued doing as if everything is perfectly fine and keeping the public happy and content by its exaggerated claims for the numbers of Russian missiles and attack drones shot down.

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Overall, the effectiveness of the Ukrainian IADS was in constant decline. And this did not get better even once the West, finally, reacted and delivered the 5^th PAC-2 SAM-system to Ukraine, and another IRIS-T etc., the last month.

Here one should keep in mind: it’s not like the PSU lacks skilled SAM-commanders. On the contrary: it has quite a few of these. Especially gents operating Buks and Osa-AKMs, and then those with experiences like, for example, from the Izyum area of April-June 2022. However,

a)       in a command system where their complaints and/or requests for help are either ignored, or they subjected to ‘investigations for incompetence’ when they either complain or can’t do their job because they’re not receiving the necessary support, there is no way to improve their performance; and,

b)      the number of such (‘best’) commanders is limited, and most of them were meanwhile appointed to command units already operating Western-made SAMs (like Patriots, IRIS-T, NASAMS, MIM-23 HAWKs etc.), which began experiencing shortages of ammunition; while

c)       those still operating older systems… well, sorry: are not as good as some others…

On the contrary: they’re doing exactly the same mistakes like people commanding specific newly-established brigades of the ZSU. See: lack the knowledge where and how to deploy their units properly; how to camouflage their positions; and especially how often to re-deploy their units. And even if they do not lack that knowledge, they’re regularly overruled by commanders that ‘know better’… Then add communication problems (whether those caused geographic distances, because the battlefield is so huge; or by Russian jamming, or by the Russians intercepting and reading communications…. ), and different tactical limits of their equipment (yes, even the Western-made equipment has its limits), and you’ve got the picture.

Net result:

-          During the night from 7 to 8 July, the Russians ‘pulled the PSU by nose’: sent a stream of Kh-101s to enter the Ukrainian airspace from the north-east.

-          Once the Ukrainians were busy looking in that direction, the Russians sent another stream of Kh-101s (roughly) via the gap in the Ukrainian IADS in the Poltava area.

-          And because nobody in the PSU found a solution how to close that gap, the Kh-101s approached Kyiv undetected.

Obviously, this is a conclusion/assessment of mine. I.e. nothing I’ve got to hear from a specific source. However, that conclusion is on hand, because the High Command PSU reacted in its usual fashion, with ‘everything’s fine’-message, and in the early afternoon of 8 July – hours AFTER the Kh-101s savaged two hospitals in the Kyiv area alone (plus the Artem/Artyom Works) – proudly claimed ’11 (out of 13) winged missiles Kh-101’ as ‘shot down.

Which, except they’ve missed an entire stream of about a dozen of Kh-101s, was a pure hogwash. This is obvious from the fact that just this one video:

…is showing the ‘arrival’ of at least six, possibly up to eight Kh-101s. Then add the one that has hit the Okhmatdyt Hospital, plus at least one (whether Kh-101 or something else) that has demolished the Isida Maternity Hospital… no need to count the possible other 2-3 that came down around Kyiv alone: that’s at least 8, probably 10 missiles. Certainly many more than the PSU’s official ‘score’ is telling us have been released by the Russians, and then got through its air defences.

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What can one conclude about all of this?

It’s sad to say it….at least nothing pleasant…but: well, gauging by reports about how many of mid-ranking officers of the ZSU have ruined their careers, and how many private persons got themselves into major troubles with authorities while kicking and pushing to prompt the GenStab and the Ministry of Defence in Kyiv to seriously support the production of drones (and then massively increase the same)… it seems the West could supply 50 Patriot and IRIS-T batteries to the PSU, and this would still not be enough. Because of command practices at the top, and as illustrated on this 8 July, when the Russians have successfully penetrated the best-protected piece of the Ukrainian skies.

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And, then, please mind one more thingy: NATO has it easy to supply additional SAM-equipment. See: radars, power supply, launchers…. But, it has a huge problem with delivering additional missiles.

Because it didn’t increase production of these on time. At least not on time so that it would manufacture much more missiles already now: it’s going to do so… in 2027 or later…

….which means, that the next episode in this drama is already pre-programed: unless it fundamentally reforms itself (and then not only the command system, but also the way it thinks about modern advanced technologies), the PSU is not only going to have a major command problem, but also ‘lots of western-made SAM-sites’ with no missiles for all of them.

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That’s about what’s coming to my mind about this topic, ‘right now’. I do not exclude the possibility of few additional details appearing, sooner or later. Sadly, and as not only my own life-time experiences are teaching me, but - based on what I get to ‘hear’ in your personal messages and e-mails - your experiences are teaching you the same, the ‘Mobutu Syndrome’ is not limited to the Ukrainian top political- and military leadership.

Actually, it’s dominating the Western economies, too. Especially the much praised ‘private sector’.

Thus, getting rid of at least the most of this, and even if it’s for just a temporary period in time - is going to be anything else than easy for the Ukrainians.

Shouldn’t mean they shouldn’t try, though: is the only way forward.