Quite disheartened by this report, I have to admit. And I don't know how the West can pressure the Ukraine state to become serious in the conduct of the war
Well if you read carefully the interview transcript with Serhiy Filimonov, it seems that in part that approach to training and equipment supplies was demanded by West. At least this what I read between the lines. "We would supply weapons only to those who we train to use them".
But UA has put ineffective commanders without war experience there. Which can be understood, all effective were battling at the front line.
So generally this whole idea of forming new whole units and training someone somewhere was stupid. And ended up in total disaster and waste of time. But this should have been clear from the disaster of 47th already 18 months ago.
The problem is, of course, not Zelensky. Whole Ukrainian society is suffering from post-Soviet mentality. Society doesn't want to know reality and never wanted to; army and society suffer from "only good news" syndrome; therefore only people who somehow provide feel-good stories rise on top. Those people do not consciously lie; they honestly believe their feel-good stories because only huge optimists can rise to top, everyone else is rejected by society.
Syrsky is a lier, yes, but so is Budanov, Biletsky and all others. No, Biletsky can't reform Ukrainian army in 6 or nine months, nobody can; he is lying - he believes his lies, but those are lies nevertheless.
If someone says something not optimistic, Ukrainian society will reject him. So stop thinking about replacing Zelensky; whoever would replace him, would be even more populist, more optimistic, less competent.
We don't have another Ukraine to help, so this is the one we will help. Deal with it.
Ukrainians are skeptical and a litle pesimist on the big life story just like all Eastern Europeans.
They don't believe the good stories and government communicates. That's why they have a passion for Western and Gerrman things, which they associate with trust and thuthfulness.
Telling bad news and assuming responsibilty is normal în Ukrainian private life.
The problem is the society dominated by oligarchs, where one can screw up and still keep his position. Because he can negociate with other oligarchs and pay them or threaten with some bad consequences if they don't comply.
No. Just no. I have spent enough time watching Ukrainian media and talking with people to understand the society. Gordon is popular, and he is a farking moron with constant feel-good stories, and people can't get enough of him. Arestovich, at the start of the war, was spewing shiat, and people ate his shiat in spades and asking for more. Budanov is popular, farking showman. I'm listening to everything, from Lviv TV to the east, and all people want is zrada-peremoga, and the more peremoga the better. Nobody wants honesty.
Next to nobody believes the TV. People laugh at Gordon and despise Arestovich.
The TV is in a war-time mode, completely controlled by the government. And if an opposition voice becomes too loud, they first take away their license, and if they continue investigations, they may end up mobilized to the army or in jail being accused of treason. This is exactly how the government reacted to the investigation which uncovered that the food for the army was bought at triple price in 2022. The MoD wrote that the investigator demoralized the society and was a Russian spy.
Of course we should help. Nothing of what Tom has written here changes that, but it would be nice to see some learning taking place and some changes being addressed.
Of course. However, we should understand the challenges and possibilities. There are some things we can somehow influence; there are things that are beyond the realm of possible. I feel that the author went well beyond the realm of possible in his desires; if we would try to affect those changes, we would look insane and be rightfully dismissed.
Seriously? I'm not sure his desire to fire Zelensky and send him to the front-line infantry would be seriously thought about in Zelensky's office. :) I would certainly advise a bit less radicalism. Zelensky is here to stay for another decade; let's work with reality.
Terms, what terms? There would be no elections till the war end; there will be no end of war for 10 more years. Zelensky will be a broken man by the end of the war, he would be lucky if he would simply lose power, like Churchill lost it. Terms...
I don't even want to think about what would happen in Ukraine after the war. It would be a nightmare of its own, I don't want to think about it. Lets just set a goal for our lives - to have an end of the war where Ukraine is its own independent and free country, and not think beyond that. I've got enough depression as it is. :)
Zelensky is the problem. Indeed: he's the core of the problem.
It's his job to fire the Glavcom and force a reform of the ZSU. He's refusing to do either.
With him refusing to do either, the Glavcom and the GenStab-U have no incentive to reform: on the contrary, they are feeling free to continue BS-itting without an end. Because they are unaccountable and irresponsible.
And yes: Budanov, Biletsky etc:: as said, they all have to go. At least the '100+ top generals', probably up to 1,000+.
I don't think there are 1000 generals in Ukraine. I've counted 105 total, of all ranks, including medical service. If you dismiss them all, you will be left with nothing.
I had also an extended post expanding on your words, but damn phone ate it. I would retype it later.
(edited: added another post below. Got all emotional writing it, huh.)
In order to reform brigades into divisions or to retrain troops, as Biletsky fancifully claims he can do(which military academy did he graduate from, by the way?), one needs to rotate them to the rear first.
This is not even remotely possible.
The entire Russian strategy since the Ukrainian defeat during the Zaporozohye Offensive and the Bakhmut Counter-Offensive in 2023 is to conduct company-level offensive operations across most of the line of contact specifically to disorganise the Ukrainian OOB. The uninterrupted pressure I) prevents the Ukrainians from reorganising or retotating their brigades, II)forces them to rapidly shift whatever few "fire-brigades" they have left from one sector to another, III) attriting the same into increasingly lower states of combat-effectiveness and IV) has forced the Ukrainians to deplete all of their reserves. For IV, see what happened to the Ukrainian Marine Corps after they were defeated in Krynky - the 35th Marine Brigade was redeployed to Kurakhove, the 36th to Vovchansk and Kursk, the 37th to Kurakhove, the 38th to Pokrovsk, and so on and so forth, leading to a situation where the Mykolaiv and Kherson sectors are now almost entirely undefended; even the territorial-defense formations in these regions were sent to the Donbass, like the infamous 123rd from Mykolaiv, which had one of its battalion commanders (186th) commit suicide when his entire battalion deserted a few days after being deployed to Vuhledar because his entire battalion deserted(although, let's be honest - it's more likely that his men fragged him because he had taken issue with them deserting en masse).
Given that Ukrainian brigades are sorted by tier, with most formations composed of elderly men, commanded by officers with zero training except for having graduated from an optional military course in university 20 or 30 years ago while studying to be lawyers or journalists or engineers(a laughable course, even more laughable after the 1980s), which serve no practical purpose other than digging trenches and serving as trip-wire bait for drone units commanded by high-tier brigades, and these high-tier brigades cannot be rotated from the front, it is not possible to spare anyone for re-organisation or re-training.
But even if it was...who is going to re-train them? It's an open secret that both the Ukrainians and the Russians redirected most of their training cadres to infantry battalions back in 2022-2023. Nobody is really trained for over 2 years. In reality, most combatants in this war are just thrown into combat formations after a rudimentary boot camp which usually doesn't even teach the men how to properly service their weapons. It is a sink-or-swim mentality. Rookies are expected to learn from seasoned soldiers in the field, or, if they don't have the smarts and heart for it, to die in a few weeks.
To accomplish what Biletsky wants would require a pause in the fighting for at least several months and probably more like half a year. The Russians aren't going to give Ukraine a pause. So we come back to the first question I asked: what sort of military education does Biletsky have, that he has become an authority on military matters? As far as I know, he has zero military education. He was educated at a History faculty in a civilian university, and then rose to prominance by leading a neo-Nazi football ultra street gang under Avakov's patronage in Kharkiv in street battles against "drug traffickers, illegal street vendors, and illegal immigrants"(translated to English: he was employed by Avakov to dismantle economic enterprises, legal and illegal, which refused to pay protection money, or paid protection money to rival organised crime formations).
To take Biletsky's words seriously, words which basically amount to little more than "everyone is a "faggot"(that's the word he was using every 10 seconds in the interview you posted, but the producers of the YouTube channel decided to translate it as "scoundrel") except for me and are idiots, which is why we're losing, but if I, Ukrainian Napoleon, were in charge, I'd fix everything in a few months", is surreal. He's just engaging in political self-promotion, don't indulge him.
Okay, I'm back with my wall of text as I promised.
Zelensky is not competent in military matters. He is not supposed to be competent! He is a civilian leader; it would be complete travesty for him to try to micromanage the army, something he has neither education nor understanding of. He have to rely on his staff, military command, Genstab, military advisers; he, or any other civilian president, has no right to try to govern the army on his own. It would be criminal.
None of them are competent enough, even though they try their best, I'm sure; so whatever advice he receive is not very good.
He may try to fire people he thinks incompetent and promote people he thinks competent but how would he know on his own who is who?! I believe he honestly tries to do the best he can in the limits of his understanding and advise from everyone, including NATO advisers. NATO advisers are not really good at understanding the situation in Ukrainian army so their advises are also not good.
I've read very carefully (twice) the story of 152 brigade you've linked in your article, and let me tell you: this is exactly the reform of training you are asking for. Any attempt to reform training would go exactly this way. That's what Zelensky and Syrsky tried:
Don't hurry, don't throw people into the firefight. Create a brigade, set a training camp, add a real front-line young-blood commander (Ihor Zakharov) from the fighting lines, who knows how the proper working regiment have to work and give him the necessary authority to imprint his knowledge into the newly formed regiment. (Why newly formed, and not the old one - I have an answer, and it's a good one, in my opinion, but it's a story in itself)
Don't hurry them up, let them train and find their legs first.
We can't, obviously, take all the commanders from a good fighting brigade and make them commanders of battalions and platoons and whatnot, obviously, it's impossible, the front will crash; so we will take existing people with experience, and let Ihor Zakharov teach them proper modern war. You know, the old guard. 80% of all Ukrainian officer corps from top to bottom. Soviet people.
So, how did it go? Exactly as you could expect. All the officers on every level, from Majors to platoon leaders, are complete and utter shiat. Ihor Zakharov tried to make them understand what's the duty and responsibilities of an officer are using the only language they know - verbal and physical abuse. He wasn't successful.
Those people can't be cured - they are, after all, not doing anything wrong. It's never their fault, nothing is, they always have an excuse! He couldn't follow the orders, because he was too busy: he was repairing a car! Battalion commander! Of course he couldn't report in time, he was, after all, without internet; it's not his duty, as an officer, to establish lines of communication; there is no connection, so nothing can be done, and he is not to blame. How can they select their own platoon commanders? They need, first, know their own people to select a platoon commander from them, and, second, take a responsibility for selection. What if platoon commander, selected by them, would be no good? No, obviously, it's the duty of Ihor Zakharov to select their own platoon commanders for them, obviously.
Ihor Zakharov screamed, abused and hit them, and then demoted them. He was extremely lenient. I would have executed them all right in front of their men they have failed so thoroughly. It is probably a good thing I'm not a commander in any army in the world. I've got all huffy from simply reading the article.
People were coming and going getting only basic training without becoming a unit simply because their officers on all levels weren't a unit themselves. Even if there was no taking people from brigade it would not help any, you can't get good training and cohesion among enlisted men if their officers don't do training or cohesion or leadership.
In the end, they led their people into combat. People who weren't ready. Who were absolutely not trained. Who had no support and no understanding of how to behave on a front line. They hadn't refused an order, they hadn't resigned, they hadn't committed suicide instead. No. They've said nothing, they received orders and, like a broken phone, sent their battalions, their regiments, their platoons to die. "Oh, my men didn't know how to do positions so we just sat there for 3 days with me happily sucking my dick until artillery struck. Oh, the horrible high command!"
Not one of officers in the article even said "oh, those people were my responsibility, and I have failed them so hard. So hard. I don't know if I can live with myself." Oh, nooooes. It was all the fault of high command, underlings, artillery and drone squads, neighbours and everyone else. I am blameless. I'm a victim here. I bear no responsibility for anything.
The defining trait of a Soviet person is denial to take responsibility. Whatever failures higher ups did, you had your own responsibilities, you had your duty. What did you do? Farking Soviet people, I hate them.
All the levels of Ukrainian army from top to bottom, including enlisted, are contaminated by Soviet worldview. That was a genuine attempt from Zelensky and Syrsky to reform army training using the best advice offered to them by the only people with authority to give military advice. It ended up exactly how any such reform attempt would end, be it made by Syrsky or Zaluzhny or Biletsky or anyone.
Can it be fixed? Yes, of course. Now, I've never served in any army nor had any military or leadership training, so I'm obviously plenty competent to make plans and suggestions. And I will probably write a multistage plan for Ukrainian army reform in the future. But for now, all my calculations say it would be 2 years till the first trained men realistically would come to front and 5 years till the whole army will be retrained.
For now, what we need is to make both Ukrainian people and leadership, as also European and US leadership, to understand that the war will go for at least 10 more years and those reform years would be resources well spent.
The Western help is enormous. It largerly exceeds corresponding help of USSR to Vietnam. Problem is that Western help is underreported and being revealed accidentally.
Like recent US revelation of USD 1.5 bln investment into UA drones program or French already delivered 85 (!!!) Caeser SPHs or never reported but occured South Korea deliveries of ammunition.
Tom wailed about lack of landmines deliveries to Ukraine. Ha-ha, just google a bit. А famous show of trophey UA arms in Moscow attracks mainly attention by captured NATO armour, but only a few pay attention to the numerous types (mainly US) anti-personnel and anti-tank land mines being used by UA army.
It's a bit of a specious comparison in logistics terms though. Vietnam is literally on the other side of the world from the USA. Invading Ukraine is a classic Russian imperialist war. And then there is the serious matter of terrain.
The Us involvement in drones was public knowledge made so by Blinken himself in April. Of course that is a detail. And the point isn’t whether or not is is small or large but whether it is sufficient or insufficient. It may be enormous and still insufficient.
If anything, western aid has been radically over-transparent, and telegraphed to the point that it has often undermined the strategic utility of the very systems provided.
Not institutions, they are democratic by design, but hijacked by oligarchy oriented legislation and in gang of totaly corrupted bureaucrats running those institutions.
Institutions have organisational cultures that might be totally contrary to what is on paper, and that undermines overt laws and rules.
Also most government institutions are not democratic, even in Britain or Germany. This includes everything from heads of many government organisations to the judiciary to indeed thr military.
Then there's the non government institutions such as media, political.partiea, lobby groups and special interest groups.
I actually work for a government organisation in Australia. We have often ignored or misinterpreted rulings by democratically elected ministers because they are clueless idiots whose decisions would makes a mess of things.
In most instances on the planet democratic rule is an illusion designed to placate the masses.
I see a lot of positive developments. On the military side I see drones and new weapons. On the civilian side I see a country managing to go through a third winter wit a destroyed power grid. I see a society rising to its challenge. Nothing of this invalidates Tom’s comments.
Perhaps someone should correct me if I have understood this incorrectly, but a regiment is an organizational unit in modern militaries for the most part, not an operational-manuver unit (which is the brigade). So when will the 425th Assault Battalion, now the 425th Assault Regiment, become a brigade? ... and to what Corps will it be assigned? [Apparently, there are no divisions to be organized.]
In Ukraine, as far as I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), a regiment is more or less homogeneous unit consisting of ~3 battalions plus smaller support units (companies, platoons). A brigade is less homogeneous - it can have 4-6 battalions of different specialties and support units sized up to battalion.
For example, an infantry regiment can have 3 infantry battalions, a tank company, AA company, medical platoon, recon platoon, etc. An infantry brigade can have 4 infantry battalions, 1 tank battalion, 1 artillery battalion, medical company, recon company, etc.
I don't know if this applies particularly to Ukraine, but I had thought that the basic manuever unit of a modern infantry force is the brigade (with combat support and combat service units). Regiments have a historic origin and armies such as the UK would have some or all of its battalions assigned to particular manuver units. Possibly this is a matter of semantics. What matters is the specific military force that a regiment or a brigade can bring to a battle.
Under the current government, no military/political reforms will be carried out, nor will there be any attempts to reach an agreement with the aggressor. This is an axiom. A change of this government by constitutional means is also impossible in the foreseeable future. Only madmen can dream of a new "Maidan". So who are the calls for "replacement and reforms" addressed to? By what forces and in what way?
Even Zelensky is promoting "negotiations from a position of strength." So who among us has been brainwashed? What are your proposals for ending hostilities? War to the last Ukrainian or a mass exodus to the West?
Your pessimistic and depressing comments, although IMHO a realistic description of today's state of the Ukraine gov't, has prompted my pessimism and depression! Now what is left to Ukraine, assuming they can survie the Russian onslaught which frankly I am beginning to believe that they cannot? I perceive that Ukraine's armed forces could never be incorporated into NATO's "STANAG" without fundamental reforms. I am assuming of course that the various NATO militaries, by national groups, essentially are in OK shape. I assume this too for my nation's armed forces--USA--but I cannot know for sure even about this.
Ukraine is fighting a positional war, a war of attrituion, with Russia. IMHO, Russia has staying power. Does Ukraine? Frankly, I don't think so under current conditions. A positional conflict to me is a state that will lead either to Ukraine's total defeat or to a negotiated end to active war to the disadvantage to Ukraine, but not necessarily in the short term to the disadvantage of Western Europe and to the U.S. Note my emphasis placed on "short term." Long term would therefore mean to me the real possibility of a future NATO-Russian war if only based upon future Russian miscalculations regarding a Western including U.S. response to Russian aggressions.
Also, there is the possibility (to what extent?) of a future military conflict between the U.S. and Communist China over Taiwan or the So. China Sea or both due to perceived weakness by China of the West in general and particularly of the U.S. in particular. I consider these possibilities as a long-term vulnerability for the West (and the U.S.) if only because I will likely be dead in the long term!
This leads to another short-term consideration, assuming that a miracle occurs, if/when the politicians in the civilian and military organizations under the Ukrainian national government reform themselves at least somewhat to the level of competence. The short-term is to assess, if it exists, that which Clausewitz termed the "Center of Gravity" of Russia as it pertains to the Russian military assault on Ukraine. First, is there a Center of Gravity for Russia? Second, does a "reformed" Ukraine have the potential to attack Russia's Center of Gravity to bring the war to a conclusion, however temporary or short-termed, with conditions that favor Ukraine? These are big questions!
Thus far, what I have seen described posts in Tom's substack blog, is a Ukrainian attack (this is in addition to the positional defense actions) that is broadly dispersed over Russian military and civilian logistics. I look upon this is as more positional, logistic warfare. I am not suggesting that this is not beneficial to Ukraine's defense, but is it likely to be effective in achieving some sort of beneficial war results to Ukraine in the absense of directly throwing off Russia's military balance on the battle field?
Again, I do not perceive that Ukraine (or even the West) has the ability or the "stomach" to endure in the long-term a positional war of attrittion against the Russian bear. Despite all the talk about the imminent collapse of the Russian economy and its potential, negative effects on Russian war waging, I perceive that Russia has an enormous ability to endure suffering. Suffering in my view is the 8th or 9th quasi sacrament (in this case un-Holy Mystery) of Russia Orthodoxy. ****
Sorry for the long post.
****Some consider the tonsuring of a monk or a nun to be a quasi-8th sacrament of the Russian Church.
1) Sorry but it seems to me you have a misconception about NATO forces. It's rather small ground forces are tailored to the doctrine an overwhelming air force will do the main work and what is left to the "boots on the ground" is just a clean up. So clearly if there is no overwhelming air force the doctrine will simply fail.
2) The situtation for Ukraine isn't completely dark. As a morale booster for you and everyone else a link to an article by Stefan Korshak from today:
Given the current IAD environment on both sides such use of air power doing the main work is not likely. During the NATO-Warsaw Pact era, the NATO war doctrine as I studied it as a student at the U.S. Naval War College, was to fight a "boots on the ground" [armor included!] fighting retreat while NATO engaged in air interdiction of Soviet [mostly higher grade Russian military power] follow-on forces, and while awaiting U.S. reinforcement by air and (mostly) by sea of troops and material/equipment, etc.
Interestingly, NAVWARCOL wargaming produced some pessimistic results regarding such reinforcement. Specifics were classified and not available to us, the officer-students, at Newport, RI.
You are confusing Russia with USSR-Warsaw pact. Russia's population is 3 times smaller than USSR; Russian military, not reinforced by Warsaw pact militaries, smaller still. Russia is not a threat for NATO other than nuclear.
Both Ukraine and West can jolly good stomach long-term fight, and so can Russia. Neither Russia nor Ukraine went all-out into the war yet; both are trying to fight it as a not very significant conflict rather than war of survival, without disturbing the population too much. Both can support current level of warfare pretty much indefinitely. That's why I think the war will continue for years.
Maybe they could in terms of sheer manpower, but not in terms of morale, industrial production and economy.
Someone still has to pay. A person can only be used in one function and after being killed, crippled or taken prisoner that person is gone in regard of any function.
2025 will be decisive in which direction the dice will fall with maybe an end in sight with the end of 2026.
If it ends like the Korean war (i.e. no winner, no peace treaty, just an armistice, but back to the original border line) would be great for Ukraine. To make it clear I mean the internationally approved borders of Ukraine.
IMHO there is big difference between NATO doctrine during the cold war and now.
1) During the cold war decades ago I remember a NATO maneuvers where they came to the conclusion that they could stop the Soviets so they decided to use tactical nukes. At that time the NATO had a lot more boots on the ground and by the way Germany could mobilize a lot of soldiers, which is no longer the case. On the other side of the 'iron curtain' there was the complete WP, which now no longer exists.
The representative of the German Federal Government present protested, but this did not change the decision of the exercise management.
Ah and yes during that time the big bridges over the Danube in Austria were also targets for the tactical nukes of NATO.
2) Now with much less boots on the ground on the side of NATO to stop attacking forces I seriously doubt that the NATO doctrine would have worked if NATO would have been in the situation of Ukraine.
Таке відчуття що це робиться навмисно, щоб просто покласти чоловіче населення України в землю, я своїй дружині давно сказав це дивна війна, мій президент та Сирник вони не тупі люди а розумні, і не можуть не усвідомлювати наслідки своїх дій, значить я роблю висновок що це робиться навмисно ними в інтересах бункерного невігласа (((
Доповню, пригадав як був у лагері як тільки приїхав до Німеччини, то одна жінка розповіла що військовий один втік через кордон, до Норвегії і каже що їх обманюють, так не всьому що кажуть вірити треба, але читаючи Тома, робиться всього один висновок, у них є завдання українських чоловіків просто знищити, а як, вони вже показують яким чином вони це реалізовують.
He's a Russian. Multiple core Russian propaganda theses condensed into two paragraphs, most glaringly calling Zelensky "бункерного невігласа" which is only ever used by the Russians butthurt over Putin being called that.
Please - you and everybody else - continue sending links to ALL such reports you can find. I'm collecting everything, and I promise to continue posting on this topic until there is a serious, fundamental reform within the ZSU.
To make sure: I am not affiliated with any kind of political parties or figures (whether in Ukraine or anywhere else): I do not care who is responsible or whatever, and I've got no ideas who should replace the current gangs of incompetents.
I just want this idiotic mismanagement of the ZSU to stop, a major reform to be introduced so that no people get killed because of idiotic commanders. Not only the ZSU troops deserve much better, but too much is at stake but to let Zele, Syrsky & Buddies continue ruining the Ukrainian armed forces.
Honestly, I blame above all, the Americans. The shift from Zaluzhniy's hard nosed pragmatism to a "culture of good news" must have a lot to do with trying to influence the Western commitment level. And the problem is that with the self-evidently senile and vacuous leadership in Washington, it's entirely understandable that the Ukrainians think it is both necessary and possible to deceive them. Corruption and a type of post-Soviet oligarchical hierarchy should have been well known features of the Ukrainian political system when all this began, and even before 2014. The Americans have been in this situation over and over and over again, Zelenskiy is the latest Diem, Chalabi, Karzai etc.. Russia has its own problems but I think Putin has always had a clear eyed sense that the American political class is too intellectually mediocre to play at empire.
No. It is a lot more important to deceive Ukrainians themselves. Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe in its own people.
Mind you, their fears are not entirely unbased. Ukrainian society doesn't like hard truths and usually punish those bringing it to them, politically. It's how it worked since I've started to watch Ukraine in 2010. They are, after all, people, and post-Soviet people at that.
Additionally, I'm pretty sure Ukrainian leadership believes it all, simply because most people who report to them prefer to embellish the truth, just like underlings in Russia do. It's the Way of post-Soviet countries.
That most people don't like a bitter and hard truth is nothing specific for Ukraine. That is just common for the majority of people all over the world.
I also believe that your obsession with 'Soviet' and 'post-Soviet' mentality is a cheap explanation for wider social and political developments. It's been almost 35 years of capitalistic oligarchy, it's time for Eastern Europe to face its own issues without (only) blaming history. For me, mismanagement in Ukraine reminds me of mismanagement everywhere else, or do you think that US generals in Afghanistan did not deliver good news for 20 years? Nor did they do that in Vietnam? What are they doing about the economy in the West? And about climate change? When there's a f*ck up like the LA fires, do they take responsibility?
"Corruption and a type of post-Soviet oligarchical hierarchy should have been well known features of the Ukrainian political system when all this began, and even before 2014."
Interesting comment that ironically could end up relating to the incipient American oligarchy to become somewhat official tomorrow as a result of Trump's 2nd inauguration as POTUS: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, & Mark Zuckerberg [this is just a start!] who have attached themselves to the winning poker game in town.
What really bothers me the most, is that Zelenskyy seems to genuinely think, that he's the greatest and smartest leader in the Western world. All while being unbelievably mediocre, to be generous to him. Every time he opens his mouth abroad, it's clear he thinks that the foreign leaders, have no other source of information about the war, except from either him or the TV. He doesn't appear to understand that:
1. Every gov in NATO has a whole lot of people, whose only job is to follow the events in Ukraine.
2. Within NATO, loads of civilian and military personnel from all member countries, have regular and direct contact with one another, and exchange information and opinions.
Everybody knows that Ukraine as it is today, will never ever satisfy any of the requirements to join either NATO or the EU. Everyone knows about the shitshow in the ZSU. Everybody knows about their losses, especially in terms of equipment. Everyone knows that the UA industry is completely and utterly worthless. Everyone knows Syrskyi is the embodiment of Luigi Cadorna. Somehow, the only person that doesn't seem to know all this, is Zelenskyy. Yet, he constantly speaks as if it was everybody else who were clueless. Truly, the emperor has no clothes.
Jon Snow, a local fool, tried to serve and fight honestly. For this, he first received a knife from his colleagues, and when he survived and won the war, he was transferred to the wall with a reprimand, because he killed a general who had gone crazy. But Bran, who was injured not for performance, was constantly lying on sick leave, hung out with the limitedly fit Hodor and those who are directly guilty of creating the main enemy, became the commander-in-chief.
Arya - a SF officer with sad eyes, who eventually dragged out the final rink and received a "valuable gift of a thermos" from the command.
Sansa - a typical woman from the regiment, whose depressed mood is due to the very frequent change of infantry battalion commanders.
Tyrion was constantly transferred between units and finally became the post of lock-battalion with the MPZ. He still recalls how, during that assault on fortified positions against a superior enemy force, they fucked up and lost all the assigned Dothraki.
Спасибо Том за ваши труды. К сожелению, наш президент Зеленский слишком тупой, с манией величия лицимер, чтобы читать таких аналитиков, как вы и делать какие-то выводы. Я думаю, будь у него IQ больше 80 - он бы застрелился в прямом эфире на очередном своём пиар интервью. Как многие маленькие люди (антропологически) он обижен на всех ещё похоже с детства, и имея сейчас безграничную власть угнетает свой народ, получая удовольствие как насильник над беспомощной жертвой. Закончит плохо, но успеет убить ещё много своего народа....
How old are you? 5?
Quite disheartened by this report, I have to admit. And I don't know how the West can pressure the Ukraine state to become serious in the conduct of the war
Well if you read carefully the interview transcript with Serhiy Filimonov, it seems that in part that approach to training and equipment supplies was demanded by West. At least this what I read between the lines. "We would supply weapons only to those who we train to use them".
But UA has put ineffective commanders without war experience there. Which can be understood, all effective were battling at the front line.
So generally this whole idea of forming new whole units and training someone somewhere was stupid. And ended up in total disaster and waste of time. But this should have been clear from the disaster of 47th already 18 months ago.
Thank you, Tom
The problem is, of course, not Zelensky. Whole Ukrainian society is suffering from post-Soviet mentality. Society doesn't want to know reality and never wanted to; army and society suffer from "only good news" syndrome; therefore only people who somehow provide feel-good stories rise on top. Those people do not consciously lie; they honestly believe their feel-good stories because only huge optimists can rise to top, everyone else is rejected by society.
Syrsky is a lier, yes, but so is Budanov, Biletsky and all others. No, Biletsky can't reform Ukrainian army in 6 or nine months, nobody can; he is lying - he believes his lies, but those are lies nevertheless.
If someone says something not optimistic, Ukrainian society will reject him. So stop thinking about replacing Zelensky; whoever would replace him, would be even more populist, more optimistic, less competent.
We don't have another Ukraine to help, so this is the one we will help. Deal with it.
Ukrainians are skeptical and a litle pesimist on the big life story just like all Eastern Europeans.
They don't believe the good stories and government communicates. That's why they have a passion for Western and Gerrman things, which they associate with trust and thuthfulness.
Telling bad news and assuming responsibilty is normal în Ukrainian private life.
The problem is the society dominated by oligarchs, where one can screw up and still keep his position. Because he can negociate with other oligarchs and pay them or threaten with some bad consequences if they don't comply.
No. Just no. I have spent enough time watching Ukrainian media and talking with people to understand the society. Gordon is popular, and he is a farking moron with constant feel-good stories, and people can't get enough of him. Arestovich, at the start of the war, was spewing shiat, and people ate his shiat in spades and asking for more. Budanov is popular, farking showman. I'm listening to everything, from Lviv TV to the east, and all people want is zrada-peremoga, and the more peremoga the better. Nobody wants honesty.
Everybody cheers yet no one wants to go to the front. Or pay larger taxes. Or host the refugees for free or simbolic fees.
There are many empty houses in villages, and people there would accept refugees. However, nobody proposes that.
I live in Ukraine and I know what happens here.
Next to nobody believes the TV. People laugh at Gordon and despise Arestovich.
The TV is in a war-time mode, completely controlled by the government. And if an opposition voice becomes too loud, they first take away their license, and if they continue investigations, they may end up mobilized to the army or in jail being accused of treason. This is exactly how the government reacted to the investigation which uncovered that the food for the army was bought at triple price in 2022. The MoD wrote that the investigator demoralized the society and was a Russian spy.
"laugh at Gordon and despise Arestovich."
Depends on which level of society people belongs. In Russian same applies to Soloviev and Simonyan.
Gordon and Arestovich are popular among russians, but not ukrainians.
Nope. Same freaks as Soloviev.
We have viewers' numbers. They may not be popular in your strata, but they are popular.
And people despise Arestovich now. At the start of the war, when he promised Ukrainian victory in three weeks, people loved him.
At the start of the war nobody knew the facts. Even now the truth is classified.
It was blindingly obvious that the war will not end in 3 weeks or 3 months. Only those who are not interested in truth didn't knew it.
Of course we should help. Nothing of what Tom has written here changes that, but it would be nice to see some learning taking place and some changes being addressed.
Of course. However, we should understand the challenges and possibilities. There are some things we can somehow influence; there are things that are beyond the realm of possible. I feel that the author went well beyond the realm of possible in his desires; if we would try to affect those changes, we would look insane and be rightfully dismissed.
Both Zelensky's office and Ukrainian journalists follow Tom. Whatever he writes infiltrates the Ukrainian infosphere.
Seriously? I'm not sure his desire to fire Zelensky and send him to the front-line infantry would be seriously thought about in Zelensky's office. :) I would certainly advise a bit less radicalism. Zelensky is here to stay for another decade; let's work with reality.
I doubt he has means or even desire to stay in power for more than two terms.
Actually, he may benefit from leaving the post-war troubles to another party to build on the popular discontent.
Terms, what terms? There would be no elections till the war end; there will be no end of war for 10 more years. Zelensky will be a broken man by the end of the war, he would be lucky if he would simply lose power, like Churchill lost it. Terms...
I don't even want to think about what would happen in Ukraine after the war. It would be a nightmare of its own, I don't want to think about it. Lets just set a goal for our lives - to have an end of the war where Ukraine is its own independent and free country, and not think beyond that. I've got enough depression as it is. :)
That's exactly what kremlin would very much like to spread among all the mass media around the world. Bravo tovarisch!
Zelensky is the problem. Indeed: he's the core of the problem.
It's his job to fire the Glavcom and force a reform of the ZSU. He's refusing to do either.
With him refusing to do either, the Glavcom and the GenStab-U have no incentive to reform: on the contrary, they are feeling free to continue BS-itting without an end. Because they are unaccountable and irresponsible.
And yes: Budanov, Biletsky etc:: as said, they all have to go. At least the '100+ top generals', probably up to 1,000+.
I don't think there are 1000 generals in Ukraine. I've counted 105 total, of all ranks, including medical service. If you dismiss them all, you will be left with nothing.
I had also an extended post expanding on your words, but damn phone ate it. I would retype it later.
(edited: added another post below. Got all emotional writing it, huh.)
If it's only 105: great. Then it's 'just' those responsible for doctrine, training, organisation and command who have to be fired.
Reform? Reform how?
In order to reform brigades into divisions or to retrain troops, as Biletsky fancifully claims he can do(which military academy did he graduate from, by the way?), one needs to rotate them to the rear first.
This is not even remotely possible.
The entire Russian strategy since the Ukrainian defeat during the Zaporozohye Offensive and the Bakhmut Counter-Offensive in 2023 is to conduct company-level offensive operations across most of the line of contact specifically to disorganise the Ukrainian OOB. The uninterrupted pressure I) prevents the Ukrainians from reorganising or retotating their brigades, II)forces them to rapidly shift whatever few "fire-brigades" they have left from one sector to another, III) attriting the same into increasingly lower states of combat-effectiveness and IV) has forced the Ukrainians to deplete all of their reserves. For IV, see what happened to the Ukrainian Marine Corps after they were defeated in Krynky - the 35th Marine Brigade was redeployed to Kurakhove, the 36th to Vovchansk and Kursk, the 37th to Kurakhove, the 38th to Pokrovsk, and so on and so forth, leading to a situation where the Mykolaiv and Kherson sectors are now almost entirely undefended; even the territorial-defense formations in these regions were sent to the Donbass, like the infamous 123rd from Mykolaiv, which had one of its battalion commanders (186th) commit suicide when his entire battalion deserted a few days after being deployed to Vuhledar because his entire battalion deserted(although, let's be honest - it's more likely that his men fragged him because he had taken issue with them deserting en masse).
Given that Ukrainian brigades are sorted by tier, with most formations composed of elderly men, commanded by officers with zero training except for having graduated from an optional military course in university 20 or 30 years ago while studying to be lawyers or journalists or engineers(a laughable course, even more laughable after the 1980s), which serve no practical purpose other than digging trenches and serving as trip-wire bait for drone units commanded by high-tier brigades, and these high-tier brigades cannot be rotated from the front, it is not possible to spare anyone for re-organisation or re-training.
But even if it was...who is going to re-train them? It's an open secret that both the Ukrainians and the Russians redirected most of their training cadres to infantry battalions back in 2022-2023. Nobody is really trained for over 2 years. In reality, most combatants in this war are just thrown into combat formations after a rudimentary boot camp which usually doesn't even teach the men how to properly service their weapons. It is a sink-or-swim mentality. Rookies are expected to learn from seasoned soldiers in the field, or, if they don't have the smarts and heart for it, to die in a few weeks.
To accomplish what Biletsky wants would require a pause in the fighting for at least several months and probably more like half a year. The Russians aren't going to give Ukraine a pause. So we come back to the first question I asked: what sort of military education does Biletsky have, that he has become an authority on military matters? As far as I know, he has zero military education. He was educated at a History faculty in a civilian university, and then rose to prominance by leading a neo-Nazi football ultra street gang under Avakov's patronage in Kharkiv in street battles against "drug traffickers, illegal street vendors, and illegal immigrants"(translated to English: he was employed by Avakov to dismantle economic enterprises, legal and illegal, which refused to pay protection money, or paid protection money to rival organised crime formations).
To take Biletsky's words seriously, words which basically amount to little more than "everyone is a "faggot"(that's the word he was using every 10 seconds in the interview you posted, but the producers of the YouTube channel decided to translate it as "scoundrel") except for me and are idiots, which is why we're losing, but if I, Ukrainian Napoleon, were in charge, I'd fix everything in a few months", is surreal. He's just engaging in political self-promotion, don't indulge him.
They only way then to create an army in the style of a NATO one is to have a NATO one on the ground ….
Okay, I'm back with my wall of text as I promised.
Zelensky is not competent in military matters. He is not supposed to be competent! He is a civilian leader; it would be complete travesty for him to try to micromanage the army, something he has neither education nor understanding of. He have to rely on his staff, military command, Genstab, military advisers; he, or any other civilian president, has no right to try to govern the army on his own. It would be criminal.
None of them are competent enough, even though they try their best, I'm sure; so whatever advice he receive is not very good.
He may try to fire people he thinks incompetent and promote people he thinks competent but how would he know on his own who is who?! I believe he honestly tries to do the best he can in the limits of his understanding and advise from everyone, including NATO advisers. NATO advisers are not really good at understanding the situation in Ukrainian army so their advises are also not good.
I've read very carefully (twice) the story of 152 brigade you've linked in your article, and let me tell you: this is exactly the reform of training you are asking for. Any attempt to reform training would go exactly this way. That's what Zelensky and Syrsky tried:
Don't hurry, don't throw people into the firefight. Create a brigade, set a training camp, add a real front-line young-blood commander (Ihor Zakharov) from the fighting lines, who knows how the proper working regiment have to work and give him the necessary authority to imprint his knowledge into the newly formed regiment. (Why newly formed, and not the old one - I have an answer, and it's a good one, in my opinion, but it's a story in itself)
Don't hurry them up, let them train and find their legs first.
We can't, obviously, take all the commanders from a good fighting brigade and make them commanders of battalions and platoons and whatnot, obviously, it's impossible, the front will crash; so we will take existing people with experience, and let Ihor Zakharov teach them proper modern war. You know, the old guard. 80% of all Ukrainian officer corps from top to bottom. Soviet people.
So, how did it go? Exactly as you could expect. All the officers on every level, from Majors to platoon leaders, are complete and utter shiat. Ihor Zakharov tried to make them understand what's the duty and responsibilities of an officer are using the only language they know - verbal and physical abuse. He wasn't successful.
Those people can't be cured - they are, after all, not doing anything wrong. It's never their fault, nothing is, they always have an excuse! He couldn't follow the orders, because he was too busy: he was repairing a car! Battalion commander! Of course he couldn't report in time, he was, after all, without internet; it's not his duty, as an officer, to establish lines of communication; there is no connection, so nothing can be done, and he is not to blame. How can they select their own platoon commanders? They need, first, know their own people to select a platoon commander from them, and, second, take a responsibility for selection. What if platoon commander, selected by them, would be no good? No, obviously, it's the duty of Ihor Zakharov to select their own platoon commanders for them, obviously.
Ihor Zakharov screamed, abused and hit them, and then demoted them. He was extremely lenient. I would have executed them all right in front of their men they have failed so thoroughly. It is probably a good thing I'm not a commander in any army in the world. I've got all huffy from simply reading the article.
People were coming and going getting only basic training without becoming a unit simply because their officers on all levels weren't a unit themselves. Even if there was no taking people from brigade it would not help any, you can't get good training and cohesion among enlisted men if their officers don't do training or cohesion or leadership.
In the end, they led their people into combat. People who weren't ready. Who were absolutely not trained. Who had no support and no understanding of how to behave on a front line. They hadn't refused an order, they hadn't resigned, they hadn't committed suicide instead. No. They've said nothing, they received orders and, like a broken phone, sent their battalions, their regiments, their platoons to die. "Oh, my men didn't know how to do positions so we just sat there for 3 days with me happily sucking my dick until artillery struck. Oh, the horrible high command!"
Not one of officers in the article even said "oh, those people were my responsibility, and I have failed them so hard. So hard. I don't know if I can live with myself." Oh, nooooes. It was all the fault of high command, underlings, artillery and drone squads, neighbours and everyone else. I am blameless. I'm a victim here. I bear no responsibility for anything.
The defining trait of a Soviet person is denial to take responsibility. Whatever failures higher ups did, you had your own responsibilities, you had your duty. What did you do? Farking Soviet people, I hate them.
All the levels of Ukrainian army from top to bottom, including enlisted, are contaminated by Soviet worldview. That was a genuine attempt from Zelensky and Syrsky to reform army training using the best advice offered to them by the only people with authority to give military advice. It ended up exactly how any such reform attempt would end, be it made by Syrsky or Zaluzhny or Biletsky or anyone.
Can it be fixed? Yes, of course. Now, I've never served in any army nor had any military or leadership training, so I'm obviously plenty competent to make plans and suggestions. And I will probably write a multistage plan for Ukrainian army reform in the future. But for now, all my calculations say it would be 2 years till the first trained men realistically would come to front and 5 years till the whole army will be retrained.
For now, what we need is to make both Ukrainian people and leadership, as also European and US leadership, to understand that the war will go for at least 10 more years and those reform years would be resources well spent.
"the Western aid is too little...."
The Western help is enormous. It largerly exceeds corresponding help of USSR to Vietnam. Problem is that Western help is underreported and being revealed accidentally.
Like recent US revelation of USD 1.5 bln investment into UA drones program or French already delivered 85 (!!!) Caeser SPHs or never reported but occured South Korea deliveries of ammunition.
Tom wailed about lack of landmines deliveries to Ukraine. Ha-ha, just google a bit. А famous show of trophey UA arms in Moscow attracks mainly attention by captured NATO armour, but only a few pay attention to the numerous types (mainly US) anti-personnel and anti-tank land mines being used by UA army.
https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/20245151133-0Cgj2.html
The Western aid is mainly obsolete junk delivered in dribs and draws.
USSR gave Vietnamese what they needed to win the war. West gives Ukraine mainly old cast off's.
But the Vietnamese were also well led for most part and had a clear strategy.
The Ukrainians suffer from the same incompetence and corruption the Russians do.
Even if west gave Ukrainians F-35s, AGM-158s, and thousands of M1, M2 etc Ukraine would still be struggling under current regime.
Same applies to Russia.
North Vietnam unlike South Vietnam was never confronted with an invasion.
North Vietnam was also fighting a literal superpower at the height of its military power.
The Russian military is a shadow of what the USSR was and in terms of command competence, not even 1% if the triumphant Soviet Army 0f 1946
It's a bit of a specious comparison in logistics terms though. Vietnam is literally on the other side of the world from the USA. Invading Ukraine is a classic Russian imperialist war. And then there is the serious matter of terrain.
Right, Western help was mainly junk in 22-23, but now it's generally consisting of modern weapons.
Soviet help to Vietnam was rather modest, comparing to the one to Egypt (no SA-3, no "Styx", no T-62, and etc).
Indeed, effiency is the key
The T-62:would have been of virtually no value to Vietnamese for most of war. Sa-3 would have.
However Uktaine still receiving mainly junk - eg main tank currently bring delivered is Leopard I.
The Us involvement in drones was public knowledge made so by Blinken himself in April. Of course that is a detail. And the point isn’t whether or not is is small or large but whether it is sufficient or insufficient. It may be enormous and still insufficient.
Inefficiency, not insufficiency.
If anything, western aid has been radically over-transparent, and telegraphed to the point that it has often undermined the strategic utility of the very systems provided.
The stain of Russia in both its Imperial and Soviet forms runs deep in Ukrainian political institutions.
Not institutions, they are democratic by design, but hijacked by oligarchy oriented legislation and in gang of totaly corrupted bureaucrats running those institutions.
Institutions have organisational cultures that might be totally contrary to what is on paper, and that undermines overt laws and rules.
Also most government institutions are not democratic, even in Britain or Germany. This includes everything from heads of many government organisations to the judiciary to indeed thr military.
Then there's the non government institutions such as media, political.partiea, lobby groups and special interest groups.
I actually work for a government organisation in Australia. We have often ignored or misinterpreted rulings by democratically elected ministers because they are clueless idiots whose decisions would makes a mess of things.
In most instances on the planet democratic rule is an illusion designed to placate the masses.
This is a critical situation. The situation isn't that desperate, this is not South Vietnam in its death throes.
Criticism is necessary and justified, but it is not the case that everything about Ukraine is negative.
If criticism is expressed alone, it will ruin morale and that would really be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I want to remind everyone here, and I mean everyone here, that the common goal is for Ukraine to win and the RF to lose.
I see a lot of positive developments. On the military side I see drones and new weapons. On the civilian side I see a country managing to go through a third winter wit a destroyed power grid. I see a society rising to its challenge. Nothing of this invalidates Tom’s comments.
It isn't about invalidating Tom's comments. It is about also getting some positive comments, so thank you.
A pleasure. And I understand your need. And I try support in small ways.
Well, this one looks positive to me :
https://militaryland.net/news/skala-expands-to-a-regiment-size/
Perhaps someone should correct me if I have understood this incorrectly, but a regiment is an organizational unit in modern militaries for the most part, not an operational-manuver unit (which is the brigade). So when will the 425th Assault Battalion, now the 425th Assault Regiment, become a brigade? ... and to what Corps will it be assigned? [Apparently, there are no divisions to be organized.]
In Ukraine, as far as I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), a regiment is more or less homogeneous unit consisting of ~3 battalions plus smaller support units (companies, platoons). A brigade is less homogeneous - it can have 4-6 battalions of different specialties and support units sized up to battalion.
For example, an infantry regiment can have 3 infantry battalions, a tank company, AA company, medical platoon, recon platoon, etc. An infantry brigade can have 4 infantry battalions, 1 tank battalion, 1 artillery battalion, medical company, recon company, etc.
I don't know if this applies particularly to Ukraine, but I had thought that the basic manuever unit of a modern infantry force is the brigade (with combat support and combat service units). Regiments have a historic origin and armies such as the UK would have some or all of its battalions assigned to particular manuver units. Possibly this is a matter of semantics. What matters is the specific military force that a regiment or a brigade can bring to a battle.
Thanks for the update. Are there any chances for reforms?
Under the current government, no military/political reforms will be carried out, nor will there be any attempts to reach an agreement with the aggressor. This is an axiom. A change of this government by constitutional means is also impossible in the foreseeable future. Only madmen can dream of a new "Maidan". So who are the calls for "replacement and reforms" addressed to? By what forces and in what way?
What the agreement with the aggressor do you want to reach? In which way he will kill you? You are brainwashed.
Even Zelensky is promoting "negotiations from a position of strength." So who among us has been brainwashed? What are your proposals for ending hostilities? War to the last Ukrainian or a mass exodus to the West?
Presently: 0.
Your pessimistic and depressing comments, although IMHO a realistic description of today's state of the Ukraine gov't, has prompted my pessimism and depression! Now what is left to Ukraine, assuming they can survie the Russian onslaught which frankly I am beginning to believe that they cannot? I perceive that Ukraine's armed forces could never be incorporated into NATO's "STANAG" without fundamental reforms. I am assuming of course that the various NATO militaries, by national groups, essentially are in OK shape. I assume this too for my nation's armed forces--USA--but I cannot know for sure even about this.
Ukraine is fighting a positional war, a war of attrituion, with Russia. IMHO, Russia has staying power. Does Ukraine? Frankly, I don't think so under current conditions. A positional conflict to me is a state that will lead either to Ukraine's total defeat or to a negotiated end to active war to the disadvantage to Ukraine, but not necessarily in the short term to the disadvantage of Western Europe and to the U.S. Note my emphasis placed on "short term." Long term would therefore mean to me the real possibility of a future NATO-Russian war if only based upon future Russian miscalculations regarding a Western including U.S. response to Russian aggressions.
Also, there is the possibility (to what extent?) of a future military conflict between the U.S. and Communist China over Taiwan or the So. China Sea or both due to perceived weakness by China of the West in general and particularly of the U.S. in particular. I consider these possibilities as a long-term vulnerability for the West (and the U.S.) if only because I will likely be dead in the long term!
This leads to another short-term consideration, assuming that a miracle occurs, if/when the politicians in the civilian and military organizations under the Ukrainian national government reform themselves at least somewhat to the level of competence. The short-term is to assess, if it exists, that which Clausewitz termed the "Center of Gravity" of Russia as it pertains to the Russian military assault on Ukraine. First, is there a Center of Gravity for Russia? Second, does a "reformed" Ukraine have the potential to attack Russia's Center of Gravity to bring the war to a conclusion, however temporary or short-termed, with conditions that favor Ukraine? These are big questions!
Thus far, what I have seen described posts in Tom's substack blog, is a Ukrainian attack (this is in addition to the positional defense actions) that is broadly dispersed over Russian military and civilian logistics. I look upon this is as more positional, logistic warfare. I am not suggesting that this is not beneficial to Ukraine's defense, but is it likely to be effective in achieving some sort of beneficial war results to Ukraine in the absense of directly throwing off Russia's military balance on the battle field?
Again, I do not perceive that Ukraine (or even the West) has the ability or the "stomach" to endure in the long-term a positional war of attrittion against the Russian bear. Despite all the talk about the imminent collapse of the Russian economy and its potential, negative effects on Russian war waging, I perceive that Russia has an enormous ability to endure suffering. Suffering in my view is the 8th or 9th quasi sacrament (in this case un-Holy Mystery) of Russia Orthodoxy. ****
Sorry for the long post.
****Some consider the tonsuring of a monk or a nun to be a quasi-8th sacrament of the Russian Church.
1) Sorry but it seems to me you have a misconception about NATO forces. It's rather small ground forces are tailored to the doctrine an overwhelming air force will do the main work and what is left to the "boots on the ground" is just a clean up. So clearly if there is no overwhelming air force the doctrine will simply fail.
2) The situtation for Ukraine isn't completely dark. As a morale booster for you and everyone else a link to an article by Stefan Korshak from today:
https://stefankorshak.substack.com/p/january-19-day-1060-keeping-current?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=849275&post_id=155170380&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1nk4fy&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Given the current IAD environment on both sides such use of air power doing the main work is not likely. During the NATO-Warsaw Pact era, the NATO war doctrine as I studied it as a student at the U.S. Naval War College, was to fight a "boots on the ground" [armor included!] fighting retreat while NATO engaged in air interdiction of Soviet [mostly higher grade Russian military power] follow-on forces, and while awaiting U.S. reinforcement by air and (mostly) by sea of troops and material/equipment, etc.
Interestingly, NAVWARCOL wargaming produced some pessimistic results regarding such reinforcement. Specifics were classified and not available to us, the officer-students, at Newport, RI.
You are confusing Russia with USSR-Warsaw pact. Russia's population is 3 times smaller than USSR; Russian military, not reinforced by Warsaw pact militaries, smaller still. Russia is not a threat for NATO other than nuclear.
Both Ukraine and West can jolly good stomach long-term fight, and so can Russia. Neither Russia nor Ukraine went all-out into the war yet; both are trying to fight it as a not very significant conflict rather than war of survival, without disturbing the population too much. Both can support current level of warfare pretty much indefinitely. That's why I think the war will continue for years.
Maybe they could in terms of sheer manpower, but not in terms of morale, industrial production and economy.
Someone still has to pay. A person can only be used in one function and after being killed, crippled or taken prisoner that person is gone in regard of any function.
2025 will be decisive in which direction the dice will fall with maybe an end in sight with the end of 2026.
If it ends like the Korean war (i.e. no winner, no peace treaty, just an armistice, but back to the original border line) would be great for Ukraine. To make it clear I mean the internationally approved borders of Ukraine.
But nothing is decided yet.
IMHO there is big difference between NATO doctrine during the cold war and now.
1) During the cold war decades ago I remember a NATO maneuvers where they came to the conclusion that they could stop the Soviets so they decided to use tactical nukes. At that time the NATO had a lot more boots on the ground and by the way Germany could mobilize a lot of soldiers, which is no longer the case. On the other side of the 'iron curtain' there was the complete WP, which now no longer exists.
The representative of the German Federal Government present protested, but this did not change the decision of the exercise management.
Ah and yes during that time the big bridges over the Danube in Austria were also targets for the tactical nukes of NATO.
2) Now with much less boots on the ground on the side of NATO to stop attacking forces I seriously doubt that the NATO doctrine would have worked if NATO would have been in the situation of Ukraine.
But that is just my personal opinion.
Таке відчуття що це робиться навмисно, щоб просто покласти чоловіче населення України в землю, я своїй дружині давно сказав це дивна війна, мій президент та Сирник вони не тупі люди а розумні, і не можуть не усвідомлювати наслідки своїх дій, значить я роблю висновок що це робиться навмисно ними в інтересах бункерного невігласа (((
Доповню, пригадав як був у лагері як тільки приїхав до Німеччини, то одна жінка розповіла що військовий один втік через кордон, до Норвегії і каже що їх обманюють, так не всьому що кажуть вірити треба, але читаючи Тома, робиться всього один висновок, у них є завдання українських чоловіків просто знищити, а як, вони вже показують яким чином вони це реалізовують.
Your president? Did you vote for him?
Якщо це питання мені, то я за Порошенка віддав голос свій!
If you are Ukrainian in UA you should see hear and feel by yourself what happens in your country without Tom's help.
Я нікому нічого не повинен, і тим більше країні яка мене двічі викинула на смітник, і я був в Україні під час війни, те що відчував, без допомоги
Тома спокійно обходився, але як то кажуть, одна голова добре а дві краще, тим паче думки у нас збігаються!
He's a Russian. Multiple core Russian propaganda theses condensed into two paragraphs, most glaringly calling Zelensky "бункерного невігласа" which is only ever used by the Russians butthurt over Putin being called that.
The Soviet nuclear scientists that insisted that (rough quote), 'Soviet nuclear reactors do not explode', back in 1986, were no dumb people either.
They just couldn't admit their own mistakes, because that would have been equal to admitting their own responsibility.
Dear Tom, thank you! Two additional links with view on same topic from Sehiy Filimonov, commander of one of the most effective units, Da Vinci Wolves: https://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2025/01/10/7492889/
https://youtu.be/0ejEmBEEPbA
Thanks, Zenith!
Please - you and everybody else - continue sending links to ALL such reports you can find. I'm collecting everything, and I promise to continue posting on this topic until there is a serious, fundamental reform within the ZSU.
To make sure: I am not affiliated with any kind of political parties or figures (whether in Ukraine or anywhere else): I do not care who is responsible or whatever, and I've got no ideas who should replace the current gangs of incompetents.
I just want this idiotic mismanagement of the ZSU to stop, a major reform to be introduced so that no people get killed because of idiotic commanders. Not only the ZSU troops deserve much better, but too much is at stake but to let Zele, Syrsky & Buddies continue ruining the Ukrainian armed forces.
This war resembles the Winter War. I told you that a couple of years ago, when you compared it to the Iran-Iraq War.
Honestly, I blame above all, the Americans. The shift from Zaluzhniy's hard nosed pragmatism to a "culture of good news" must have a lot to do with trying to influence the Western commitment level. And the problem is that with the self-evidently senile and vacuous leadership in Washington, it's entirely understandable that the Ukrainians think it is both necessary and possible to deceive them. Corruption and a type of post-Soviet oligarchical hierarchy should have been well known features of the Ukrainian political system when all this began, and even before 2014. The Americans have been in this situation over and over and over again, Zelenskiy is the latest Diem, Chalabi, Karzai etc.. Russia has its own problems but I think Putin has always had a clear eyed sense that the American political class is too intellectually mediocre to play at empire.
No. It is a lot more important to deceive Ukrainians themselves. Ukrainian leadership doesn't believe in its own people.
Mind you, their fears are not entirely unbased. Ukrainian society doesn't like hard truths and usually punish those bringing it to them, politically. It's how it worked since I've started to watch Ukraine in 2010. They are, after all, people, and post-Soviet people at that.
Additionally, I'm pretty sure Ukrainian leadership believes it all, simply because most people who report to them prefer to embellish the truth, just like underlings in Russia do. It's the Way of post-Soviet countries.
That most people don't like a bitter and hard truth is nothing specific for Ukraine. That is just common for the majority of people all over the world.
I also believe that your obsession with 'Soviet' and 'post-Soviet' mentality is a cheap explanation for wider social and political developments. It's been almost 35 years of capitalistic oligarchy, it's time for Eastern Europe to face its own issues without (only) blaming history. For me, mismanagement in Ukraine reminds me of mismanagement everywhere else, or do you think that US generals in Afghanistan did not deliver good news for 20 years? Nor did they do that in Vietnam? What are they doing about the economy in the West? And about climate change? When there's a f*ck up like the LA fires, do they take responsibility?
"Corruption and a type of post-Soviet oligarchical hierarchy should have been well known features of the Ukrainian political system when all this began, and even before 2014."
Interesting comment that ironically could end up relating to the incipient American oligarchy to become somewhat official tomorrow as a result of Trump's 2nd inauguration as POTUS: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, & Mark Zuckerberg [this is just a start!] who have attached themselves to the winning poker game in town.
What really bothers me the most, is that Zelenskyy seems to genuinely think, that he's the greatest and smartest leader in the Western world. All while being unbelievably mediocre, to be generous to him. Every time he opens his mouth abroad, it's clear he thinks that the foreign leaders, have no other source of information about the war, except from either him or the TV. He doesn't appear to understand that:
1. Every gov in NATO has a whole lot of people, whose only job is to follow the events in Ukraine.
2. Within NATO, loads of civilian and military personnel from all member countries, have regular and direct contact with one another, and exchange information and opinions.
Everybody knows that Ukraine as it is today, will never ever satisfy any of the requirements to join either NATO or the EU. Everyone knows about the shitshow in the ZSU. Everybody knows about their losses, especially in terms of equipment. Everyone knows that the UA industry is completely and utterly worthless. Everyone knows Syrskyi is the embodiment of Luigi Cadorna. Somehow, the only person that doesn't seem to know all this, is Zelenskyy. Yet, he constantly speaks as if it was everybody else who were clueless. Truly, the emperor has no clothes.
Yup, the 'Mubarak Syndrome': a situation where he thinks there's nobody else who is clever enough to do his job.
(By Ruslan Khavriuta):
Game of Thrones is very reminiscent of our army.
Jon Snow, a local fool, tried to serve and fight honestly. For this, he first received a knife from his colleagues, and when he survived and won the war, he was transferred to the wall with a reprimand, because he killed a general who had gone crazy. But Bran, who was injured not for performance, was constantly lying on sick leave, hung out with the limitedly fit Hodor and those who are directly guilty of creating the main enemy, became the commander-in-chief.
Arya - a SF officer with sad eyes, who eventually dragged out the final rink and received a "valuable gift of a thermos" from the command.
Sansa - a typical woman from the regiment, whose depressed mood is due to the very frequent change of infantry battalion commanders.
Tyrion was constantly transferred between units and finally became the post of lock-battalion with the MPZ. He still recalls how, during that assault on fortified positions against a superior enemy force, they fucked up and lost all the assigned Dothraki.
Спасибо Том за ваши труды. К сожелению, наш президент Зеленский слишком тупой, с манией величия лицимер, чтобы читать таких аналитиков, как вы и делать какие-то выводы. Я думаю, будь у него IQ больше 80 - он бы застрелился в прямом эфире на очередном своём пиар интервью. Как многие маленькие люди (антропологически) он обижен на всех ещё похоже с детства, и имея сейчас безграничную власть угнетает свой народ, получая удовольствие как насильник над беспомощной жертвой. Закончит плохо, но успеет убить ещё много своего народа....