Ukraine War: 17 November 2024: Part 1

Hello Everybody!

Don’t know about you, but for me: this was a very exciting weekend. It began with reading a growing number of – actually: funny – comments by different Ukrainian experts in the social media, about how Ukraine can expect much more from the ‘Trump II’ Administration, than from Biden. How Trump is going to help much more because there are so and so many of such and such reasons for him to do so.

Lovely, isn’t it?  

Well, I do hope this might become truth. Just, that itch in my small toe is telling me: no way.

To make sure: no, I’ve got no crystal ball and can’t say which way are things going to turn once Trump returns to the White House.

However, I do have a strong impression that over the last night Zelensky became the first Ukrainian taught an important lesson in this regards.

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Ups! They didn’t do it, yet – but, yes, they are going to do it again

It all began with Zelensky’s interview for the Radio Ukraine. By side that he was lying about ‘brigades (of the ZSU) now being permitted to withdraw when requesting to do so’, about his ‘military leadership granting them the same’, and that, ‘because our stance is that the human comes first and then the land’…. We’ve discussed this so often: the cold matter of fact is that for the Zelensky’s Glavcom and GenStab-U, lives of ZSU troops simply do not matter; that Syrsky is never ordering withdrawals; that he’s always at least a week late with reacting to emergence of cauldrons and with sending reinforcements etc., etc., etc.

What’s more relevant for the first part of this feature – for strategic decision-making – is that further down that interview, Zelensky explained how Ukraine is (essentially), ‘an independent country and it can’t sit and listen (what are other countries deciding about its future) at the negotiating table’.

Precisely that statement was then publicly ridiculed by Elon Musk.

And that’s no surprise.

That’s what one gets when the sole strategy for this war is to make boastful statements in the social media, while doing nothing: especially not mobilising the population and the economy in the face of a war of extermination imposed upon Ukraine by Russia. Instead, in almost three years since the Russian invasion, Zelensky has successfully converted Ukraine into a country almost entirely dependent on supplies of money, arms, and ammunition from abroad.

Fact is: for Trump, Musk & Co AG, such a country is neither ‘independent’, nor even ‘sovereign’.

For them, such a country is an overdependent, costly and thus a useless subsidiary, a puppet within ‘own’ or ‘their’ sphere of influence. Something perhaps worth negotiating about (with somebody else), but certainly not worth negotiating with.

Especially when – which is about the only thing that matters to such like Trump and Musk – the country in question also has a GNP lesser than the annual income of ExxonMobil, while they’re horny to return to ‘business as usual’ with Pudding. Because they need Pudding to secure that nice income for ExxonMobil (and similar corporations) from such affairs like oil exports from Kazakhstan.

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(The Beginning of) the End of System Zelensky

From that point of view, I see this as ‘at least an invoice’ for all of Zelensky’s failures – if not the very beginning of the end of the ‘System Zelensky’. Where I must promptly add: fortunately, the end of ‘System Zelensky’ it is not going to be the end of Ukraine, too.

What am I talking about?

In my vocabulary, ‘System Zelensky’ stands for the system of governance in which those in charge are doing nothing. At most, ‘maintaining the status quo’ – while hoping somebody else is going to do their job for them, and (that’s so fashionable in our days), making boastful announcements in the social media, plus staging 2-3 press conferences a day. The ‘standard’ for Western governance of the last 10-15 or so years.

And, why am I so sure this might be the beginning of the end of that system – at least in Ukraine?

Oh, that’s a different story – and then one that’s going to take some time to explain.

***

Broken Record

While the above-mentioned affairs were taking place somewhere along the undersea communication cables between the USA, Europe, and Russia, and different characters were blaming me for ‘sounding like a broken record’ for my critique of the incompetence and corruption of the Zelensky Administration, Glavcom Syrsky, and that useless gang of his buddies named the GenStab-u – plus of ‘spreading Russian propaganda’ and ‘enriching myself from the war in Ukraine’ – somebody else did something similar to what I’m doing for months already, and then sat down to write and publish the results.

And so, Oksana Kovalenko has asked different of ZSU’s officers what do they think what’s wrong with the Ukrainian armed forces (ZSU), and how to defeat the Russians. Surprise, surprise, the resulting article is bristling with statements like:

• "Problems at the level of brigades appear when mistakes are made at the level of the General Staff or when decisions are not made quickly enough."

• "The weakest link in the command system of the Armed Forces is the General Staff."

• "Currently, the General Staff does not function at the strategic level, but at the level of operational command - it plugs holes."

…and:

• “…We do not have our own production of appropriate weapons, there is no resource to support both the Defence Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine in general as a belligerent state. It is necessary to mobilize the efforts of the entire country. We have up to a million soldiers in reserve. A fair approach to mobilization for military service is needed, there must be adequate training of people so that they understand what combat operations are and receive the necessary skills. The whole country should work for mobilization, not only the TCC."

…i.e.: all the same stuff I’m ‘preaching’ for months already (including above).

That said, I’m meanwhile ‘few steps’ further with my research. And that’s where I think that ‘another reason for the end of the System Zelensky’, but also there being no need to worry about this, might become obvious.

For a while already, I’m monitoring a certain new ‘phenomena’ within the ZSU. I’ll shamelessly admit: I gave up asking contacts for related clarifications, long ago. They’re all so tightly monitored by the SBU that they simply can’t talk without jeopardising themselves. Thus, there’s no point in asking openly about the following issue… Which in turn means: the mass of this is ‘something like deduction’.

Nevertheless, I’ll try.

***

Autonomous… ‘Sectors’

I could start with something like, ‘in the beginning’… there were ‘units’ which neither the Glavcom nor the GenStab-U, and even less so any of local commands dare ‘messing around’. Because I do not want to cause troubles to anybody I’m not going into too many details (like names, designations, geographic areas etc.). That’s also why this part of this feature is going to remain ‘unillustrated’, too. Let me just say something like this: there are ZSU ‘units’ administering, organising and re-organising themselves as they like. For months already, if not since longer. This is not only related to their (‘usually’ and ‘far more’) successful recruiting campaigns, but the way their sub-units are equipped, organised and - meanwhile - commanded in battle.

On its own, one might say, ‘nothing special’ – and then go on explaining it with better private funding of the units in question etc. (like I did, about a week or so ago). However, meanwhile I’m ‘quite certain’ that the units in question are also operating within their sectors something like ‘autonomously’. With other words: whether abandoned by their superiors, or for whatever other reasons (quote from a certain contact: ‘stupid orders from 500km away’), their commanders began taking things into their own hands.

Again, I’m not going to go into details: mind that this could be (mis)interpreted as ‘mutiny’, at least for ‘disobeying orders’. That’s something no military service and no serving member of any military service can take easily. Thus, let me keep this description limited to the following: by now, I think to have identified at least four, possibly five such sectors of the frontline in Ukraine. And several times as many… ‘units’ doing…’that’: areas (and units) where specific commanders seem to be either frustrated enough, and/or considered and accepted as authoritative enough to run operations entirely on their own.

Almost certainly without ever consulting ‘Kyiv’, too.

Of course, I could be perfectly wrong, but, I think we’ve seen this happening in a number of places just this week. Indeed, the following all happened in a matter of 3-4 days. ‘Almost at once’. Again, no details, but: ‘CO of Battalion A and CO of Brigade B’ prepared an operation, infiltrated enemy lines, massacred dozens from a selected enemy battalion – de-facto ‘in sleep’ – before returning safely back to own lines (without a single loss). Or, ‘COs of Brigades E, G, and L’, arranged defence in-depth, left the Russians advance down the road Y, then sacked and smashed them to the last (without a single loss)… Or, ‘Brigade K’, supported by ‘Brigades O & J’ run a local counterattack, pushed the Russians back to… (without a single loss), etc., etc., etc.

Again: this all happened in a matter of 3-4 days. And these are just three out of some six or seven examples known to me. Point is: there is no way all of this to be micromanaged by Syrsky, ‘at once’, and especially not ‘per remote control from Kyiv’. Not even if every day would have 48 hours, and Syrsky would need only 2 hours a sleep per day (and that while micromanaging ‘100+ other battles’). Moreover, operations in question were simply not ‘his style’: his style is ‘send Battalion X to patch up the frontline in the Sector Z’… and ‘oh, one battalion is not enough? Send another one…’….and no talk about arrangements with neighbouring units, no talk about mutual support and no talk about withdrawal routes (because, between others, there is no ‘withdrawal’ in the Ukrainian doctrine of national defence, and therefore in no training manuals).

Indeed, funniest of all is that after one of operations in question, the GenStab-U was caught having no clue what’s going on. Essentially (again: sorry, no names nor geographic designations for reasons explained above), around 11.00hrs of the day in question, the GenStab-U made a statement for the press that there are no Russians in the area in question, although clear videos were published already a day earlier. And then, it was exactly around the same time the GenStab-U made that statement, that the last of the Russians ‘that were not there’ was…erm… ‘kuddled’.

With other words: the GenStab-U (still) had no trace of clue about what was going on by the time the affair in question was over.

What is important to keep in mind when considering all of this: ‘one’ commander can’t do such things. That takes cooperation of ‘neighbours’. If for no other reason then because when (for example) a commander of ‘Battalion A or ‘brigade B’ decides to run this or that operation, he depends on cooperation and support of ‘neighbours to the left and right… probably somebody in the rear, too’: regardless if defensive or offensive in nature, when one is fighting the Russians nowadays (and for reasons nicely explained not only by Don or me, again and again, but in Oksana’s article linked above, too) one needs strict flank protection. Otherwise, the Russians are promptly exploiting the opportunity.

…which, in turn, means: there are no ‘just single units’ and no ‘just single commanders’. There are appear to be entire ‘autonomous sectors’ of the ZSU’s frontline: sectors where nobody cares about the local territorical commands, the GenStab-U, and even the Glavcom has no say.

And, the nicest thingy about this: these sectors are also the most successful in their operations, regardless if offensive or defensive. Indeed, there are ever more of such units and ever more of such sectors, and they are (gradually) growing bigger, too.

Now, while this can be explained with insubordination and lack of discipline (or even with ‘but meh, that’s done with official permission’) one must mind that it takes ‘balls the size of the Wembley Stadium’ to do such things.

Personally, I find it a promising development. Indeed: an encouraging development. Perhaps even a prototype for what is the ZSU going to become in the future. So much so, this is why I say: whatever happens to the ‘System Zelensky’, regardless how degenerating it is, I’m not worried about Ukraine, nor, ultimately, about the ZSU.

From chatting with dozens of people, I know, contrary to Zelensky, Syrsky and their Buddies, Ukrainians know they need to support the armed forces, otherwise they all – the entire nation – are going to be exterminated. That’s why so many of them (even if ‘not all’: the lack of union in this regards is the major result of Zelensky’s failure to mobilise the entire country and its people) are supporting their armed forces with all their powers. And, finding no other solutions for their incompetent and corrupt leadership, parts of their armed forces are taking things into their own hands.

Contrary to their political- and military leaders - whenever they do so, they are successful: at war, in situations like the one of Ukraine in our days, that’s about all that matters.