'Its amazing that Mykola’s clear and logical analyses are rarely quoted in the major western press, whereas failed analysts who have consistently overrated Russian capabilities and damned Ukrainian ones, get mentioned all the time.''The one good story to come out of this desperate need to claim credit in Washington and London is that there is now a real awareness that the Ukrainians have a chance of significant success. Believe me, people would not be trying to desperately claim credit for Ukrainian strategy if intelligence reports were not showing that things were going well for Ukraine. In a nutshell, there are signs that the Ukrainian strategy which they have been following fore more than two months (over the early criticisms by US/UK sources and the analytical community) is starting to work. That strategy has been to concentrate on weakening Russian forces considerably, to create the conditions for a later Ukrainian advance. The Ukrainians realized Russian lines were too well defended in June, and they (not surprisingly) had no desire to suffer extreme losses battering themselves against those lines.
This week an excellent description of Ukrainian strategy was given by the Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov (people who know my work, know how much I rate his work). Mykola clearly outlines this strategy of attrition and force preservation.
6 Here are a few excerpts (link to the whole article in the footnotes).
"But from the Ukrainian perspective that was adopted in mid-June, we saw that using mechanized assaults would not quickly penetrate Russian defenses. So we started a slow attrition process to undermine their defense system based on artillery, electronic warfare, and air defense. We see daily evidence that this is working by destroying dozens of Russian artillery pieces. This campaign of destruction is proving effective.”and
"That’s why we decided to start from different sides. First, to destroy tube and rocket artillery and then move safely to the mines, instead of trying to breach the mines without fully suppressing Russian artillery. That’s the essence of the new Ukrainian approach: Ukraine placed its bets on a proper attrition rate, creating a safe environment for demining and then moving on.
But this is only one part of this approach. There are also in-depth strikes targeting links between the South Mainland and Crimea. And another one is simultaneously pinning as many Russian forces as possible to prevent Russians from maneuvering reserves, which is why they currently have this problem with the deficit of reserves.
Even as we see recently, they redeployed some paratroopers from Kherson Oblast to the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. And that’s why we try to prevent their maneuver and again to exhaust the Russians sooner than they exhaust us.”Its amazing that Mykola’s clear and logical analyses are rarely quoted in the major western press, whereas failed analysts who have consistently overrated Russian capabilities and damned Ukrainian ones, get mentioned all the time.
Ukraine did not change this strategy after listening to Milley and Radakin on August 10 (if they did, they hardly could have reacted so quickly as to start having success right away), its just what they were doing was having some success. Ive been banging on about this strategy for months.'
6
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/08/23/the-one-most-important-thing-for-ukraines-counteroffensive/- Phillips P. Obrien,
Weekend Update #43, August 27, 2023
Context(Ukraine needs ATACMs) - '..making the judgments that could help Ukraine defeat Russia, regain its territory, and win this war.'(Ukraine needs ATACMs) - The Army Tactical Missile (ATACMS)(Ukraine needs ATACMs) - Russians See Ukrainian Progress Where Others Don’t(Outdated US & NATO strategy) - Ukraine Proves, Once Again, That Our Idea of War Is All Wrong - Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James M. Dubik