I’m seeing a lot of “conservatives” crowing—I think that’s the right word—that the Russian offensive into Ukraine has bogged down. There are “reports” from supposed intel sources that the Russians are running out of ammunition, for example.
What’s clear through the fog of war is that the Russians were counting on most Ukrainian forces to simply put down their weapons. Clearly that hasn’t happened. The Russians have been at pains to try to convince Ukrainians that the Russian offensive is targeting the “putschist” regime—meaning, the regime installed by the US in 2014—rather than the Ukrainian people who are, after all, closely related both ethnically and linguistically to Russians. For that reason the Russians have clearly avoided damaging civilian infrastructure of the type that US offensives target.
To that end, most Western military analysts concede that the Russians have been pulling their punches—have committed a small fraction of the manpower and military resources at their disposal. In that situation, it’s foolish to suppose that the Russians lack resolve or are running out of military resources. We’ll have to see how this plays out.
Another common meme is to compare the Russian offensive to the Nazi blitzkrieg offensive of Army Group South across Ukraine in WW2. Supposedly, the Nazis’ “lightning offensive” puts the Russians to shame.
In fact, the Russians have essentially reached Kiev in about three days. Their offensive, beginning in Belarus, covered a much shorter distance than the Nazi offensive, which started from the capital of Western Ukraine, Lviv. On the other hand, the Ukrainian forces have been preparing for a Russian assault for a long time and were neither taken by surprise nor subjected to total warfare.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, writes in this regard:
We are at the dawn of day four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and I have heard many media news readers and pundits suggesting things are going badly for the Russians and the operation is bogged down. This led me to ask, “how long did it take the Nazis to capture Ukraine following the launch of Operation Barbarossa on June 21, 1941?
The Nazis entered the 1941 version of Ukraine on the 21st of June. Note, the Nazis already controlled the city of Lvov (now Lviv), which was part of Poland at the time. Remember the Nazis launched a blitzkreig. They did nothing to avoid inflicting civilian casualties. The German’s Army Group South, which included the First Panzer Group (Gen. Kleist) and the German Sixth (Gen. Reichenau), Seventeenth (Gen. Stülpnagel) and Eleventh Armies (Gen. Schobert), Luftlotte 1 (Keller) and the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies, had the mission of conquering Ukraine.
It took Army Group South six weeks to reach Kiev (August 7) and another seven weeks to secure its surrender (26 September 1941). There was no holding back. Cities and civilian strongholds were bombed mercilessly.
I think this is an interesting benchmark for comparing Putin’s progress in defanging the Ukrainian military. In contrast to the Nazis of 1941, the Putin’s forces are focused on hitting military targets. Yes, they have killed and wounded some civilians. But Putin has not authorized a massive attack on civilians. Worth recalling that Churchill and Roosevelt authorized devastating bombing missions on civilian population centers in Germany during WW II.
While it took the Nazis almost two months to surround Kiev, Putins troops appear to have done it in four days. Remains to be seen whether this will be a prolonged war of attrition and suffering or if a political solution will become tenable once Kiev is sealed.
Here’s a current situation map—as far as can be determined, since hard information is rather scarce. As has appeared to be the case pretty much from the start, the Russians appear focused on isolating pockets of Ukrainian forces quickly, and dealing with them systematically later. Pressuring the Ukrainian government in Kiev appears to be a major focus, and the westward advance from Kursk appears to made some major advances:
The overriding point is: it’s early days. It took the US Army three weeks or so to reach Baghdad, in a campaign of “shock and awe” to which Ukraine has, so far, not been subjected.
I received the below from a list I have long belonged to....may be of interest. I know the man who made the twitter filter, he's a solid professional. His email follows:
"If you are on Twitter, I have a resource you can use to help stay up to date on activities in Ukraine.
For those not familiar with it, a Twitter “list” is like a filter. By using a list you can read what people on the list are providing on twitter. I built a twitter list of people who I have vetted as providing highly reliable open source intelligence on the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
19,500 people are now following this list and using it as an information feed to help with their situational awareness.
Follow the list at:
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1483456727219683332
Little remembered about the Wehrmacht was most of the troops walked and a LOT of the equipment was drawn by horses despite the reputation of being mechanized. German tank treads were good for a couple hundred miles, equipment broke down regularly and Hitler rewarded tank production, not spare parts production. The Roman legions on a forced march on unopposed roads made 20 miles a day. Infantry facing opposition would accomplish substantially less than that and tanks without infantry is just a fancy name for target.