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| 'Failure of strategy.' The Ukrainian Fronde began to 'dig' under Zelensky |
| 2023-11-05 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gevorg Mirzayan [REGNUM] “I received a call from one of the heads of the leaders’ offices. They panic and ask: “What should I report to my leader? Are you really at a dead end? Is this the effect we wanted to achieve with this article?” This is exactly how the deputy head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, Igor Zhovkva, commented on the article by the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny , which recently appeared in the Economist. In it, we recall, Mr. Zaluzhny is extremely pessimistic about the prospects of inflicting a military defeat on Russia with the means that Ukraine now has and that are provided by the West. ANALOGIES WITH THE FIRST WORLD WAR The general is no less pessimistic about the further course of hostilities, which have taken on a positional character - just like in the First World War. “The biggest risk of a trench war of attrition is that it could drag on for years and wear down the Ukrainian state ,” he says. Military experts agree with these theses of the general. A positional war really developed on the line of contact. For the same reason that it developed during the First World War - the superiority of defensive means over offensive ones. There were no tanks in the First World War, so the infantry took the brunt of the attacks, and machine guns and powerful engineering structures stopped these attacks. Sometimes up to a hundred thousand fighters went on the attack - and they could not break through the front, Andrei Klintsevich, director of the Center for the Study of Military and Political Conflicts, explains to IA Regnum. “Currently, heavy breakthrough technology is being leveled out by cheap, mass-produced and high-precision weapons - FPV drones, continuous mining. In fact, the tank does not have time to reach direct fire - it is already spotted from the air 20 kilometers in advance by a drone, after which the drones arrive and burn it,” says the expert. Yes, there is a way out of the situation - defensive formations can be overcome by large forces and with powerful fire damage. There is an American concept of a breakthrough, when in the main direction of attack it is necessary to achieve a fifteen-fold superiority over the enemy, especially in an urbanized environment. However, operational excellence has not been canceled; the headquarters are working. Although the possibility of deceiving the enemy has decreased, pulling apart and tapping the line of contact with further concentration of forces in the area is possible. “What works, first of all, is the concentration of firepower, when high-precision and other strikes are carried out on enemy strongholds, thus plowing up the enemy’s defense line in front of them, and only then infantry is brought in,” continues Andrei Klintsevich. However, there is another powerful factor - the potential of states. Both mobilization and from the point of view of the capabilities of the military-industrial complex, capable of multiplying the volume of equipment produced to create conditions for a breakthrough. And here the Ukrainian potential is hopelessly inferior to the Russian one. “Kyiv lacks the main resource in war - time. In ten years they can gather equipment and people, but in a month or two there will be nothing ,” continues Andrei Klintsevich. And Russia will have it. Has already. KYIV AGAINST However, the authorities not only refuse to recognize Zaluzhny’s theses, but also directly refute them. “ This is not a stalemate ,” Zelensky himself said. His persistence in denial can be explained by several factors. First, we need to be held accountable for the current military failure. For trying the so-called. “summer offensive”, during which, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu , 90 thousand Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 600 tanks and 1900 armored vehicles of various classes were destroyed. Moreover, all the losses turned out to be in vain: neither the notorious access to Crimea nor any other serious achievements were recorded. “The failure of Ukraine’s promised military superiority strategy requires a search for those responsible. Since no one wants to become extreme, we see attempts to abdicate responsibility , ” Russian political scientist Anton Khaschenko explains to IA Regnum . Remove it and shift it to someone else, before they make Zelensky himself the culprit. Of course, you can transfer it to the West, and it will even be true. The blame for the failure of the “counter-offensive” lies with the West: it did not provide Ukraine with the necessary means to break through our most powerful line of defense. The Americans believed that these lines could be broken through with heavy breakthrough divisions, and the main force was supposed to be helicopters and airplanes. Then there are artillery strikes, followed by mine clearance equipment, tanks, and only then light infantry. And NATO transferred everything to Ukraine for this offensive - except aviation. “The result was a defeat ,” says Andrei Klintsevich. However, Ukrainians cannot blame the West, since it: a) gives money; b) gives weapons and c) is tired of Zelensky himself. Previous attempts to blame the United States for failure led to extremely harsh reactions from American politicians to such accusations. Therefore, Zaluzhny must be blamed, especially since the popular Ukrainian general is gradually becoming a “assembly point” for the president’s political opponents. “The internal front sees a bifurcation point approaching and is using the period of Zelensky’s political and public weakness to present itself to Western partners and its potential voters - taking into account the hypothetical elections of the head of state next year,” says Anton Khashchenko. FIGHT BETWEEN A TOAD AND A VIPER Moreover, Zelensky needs to stop Zaluzhny here and now. After all, unfortunately for the Ukrainian leader, the general’s popularity will only grow. Firstly, due to - oddly enough - the military successes of the Russian army. For example, Ukrainians know that General Zaluzhny is against the defense of Avdiivka. “Theoretically, it is now more profitable for Ukraine to withdraw the garrison from Avdiivka and surrender this fortified area. Otherwise, Avdiivka will turn into a bag of fire, into which Ukrainian units will be drawn in and die - as happened in Artemovsk ,” Andrei Klintsevich explains the logic of such a position. Zelensky, for political reasons, holds on to Avdiivka, sacrificing (as in the case of Artemovsk) thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in order not to receive another surrendered “forte”. However, sooner or later Avdiivka will still be surrendered. Secondly, it is necessary for his opponents to stop Zaluzhny due to the deradicalization of the position of the West and part of Ukrainian society. Military fatigue has clearly accumulated not only in the West, but also within Ukraine itself. And not only among the population, which has lost mobilized relatives and friends, money, as well as the ability to predict their lives. But also among the elite, a certain part of which would have been happy to make peace with Russia long ago. The position of Zelensky, who, apparently, for purely psychological reasons, is unable to recognize the inevitable, is an anchor that needs to be gotten rid of, explains Anton Khashchenko. These people may be much closer to Zaluzhny’s pragmatic position than Zelensky’s stubborn one. However, is this position closer to Russia? For Moscow, oddly enough, Zelensky is still more profitable. “I would not consider Zaluzhny’s candidacy more convenient for Russia than Zelensky. We already had young Zelensky against the annoying Poroshenko. At the same time, most likely, if the latter had retained power then, the SVO would have ended long ago. Zelensky is more of an ideologist of the confrontation with Russia, a “seller” of his ideas in the West. Zaluzhny is their implementer on the battlefield. I’m not sure that a practitioner is better for us than a theorist ,” says Anton Khashchenko. In addition, as long as Zelensky remains in power in Ukraine, Kyiv will refuse any negotiations with Moscow on freezing the conflict. A freeze, which is disadvantageous for Russia, but to which some eastern partners will force it - the main thing for them is to somehow end the armed confrontation. This means that thanks to Zelensky, Moscow has the opportunity to win the fight of attrition - that is, to defeat the Ukrainian army, liberate the territories, and then negotiate not about a freeze, but about a full end to the conflict on Russian terms. |
| Posted by:badanov |