Thanks for that Richard. I'll leave posting until next week - maybe he will have been in touch by then. Are the comments you just made on my substack available on one of your substack posts? I may do another section on the Russian Offensive this week and I may want to quote from it if that's OK. I won't do it unless commentators are talking about it.
Response to Dr. Rob Campbell's "Ukraine Weekly Update"
Excellent recap. Concise and accurate.
Two points:
1) Zelensky says he wants to raise another 250-500,000 men. First, good luck with that, Z. Second, he's losing between 60-100,000 men per month (and rising which is why the average daily is getting closer to 800/day), so even if he gets 500,000, that will last less than 5 months - and be utterly useless on the field much sooner than that due to loss of combat and operational effectiveness - which the Ukraine army is already showing due to an inability to achieve any significant operational objectives.
2) Garland Nixon has no clue. While the overall war itself may well continue through summer of 2024, the collapse of the Ukrainian army is due within the next three months, given the loss rate mentioned above. At that point, there is no reason for the Russian army NOT to launch a major advance, however slowly it actually advances. I expect Russia to continue to minimize its own casualties going forward. This does not preclude a major advance once Russia has rolled up the current Ukrainian defenses and shorted the line of contact, enabling Russia to consolidate its forces into a much more dangerous concentrated force which the remnants of the Ukrainian army will be utterly unable to do significant damage to.
In other words, the sequence of events should be:
1) Within the next one to three months the Ukrainian army begins to collapse and is forced to retreat to the other side of the Dnieper, likely being forced to abandon much of its remaining heavy equipment.
2) Russian army inflicts heavy casualties on the retreating Ukrainians, because a retreating army which does not have the power to perform a credible fighting retreat always takes heavy casualties. See the Iraqi "Highway of Death."
3) Russia will roll up the contact line east of the Dnieper and consolidate the bulk of its forces into a line much shorter than the current 800-1000km. Unclear how long this will take and whether Russia will finish it before spring. I suspect they will, certainly by end of spring, 2024.
4) Russia will then advance to the Dnieper, making sure not to leave significant Ukrainian units remaining east of the river, although one can expect various "left behind" guerrilla units to remain while being completely ineffective against the consolidated Russian army. Russian military police, GRU/SVR/FSB and Rosqvardia will take over security in the Ukrainian cities east of the Dnieper.
5) Russia will then have to decide whether to cross the Dnieper now or continue to pound the Ukrainians across the Dnieper until they are further weakened and unable to offer significant resistance to a Russian crossing. No guess as to how long this will take.
6) The Russians cross the Dnieper. Now the decision has to be made whether to proceed directly to Kiev or diverge and take the southern Ukrainian cities - Nikolaiev, Odessa, etc. This decision will depend on how many effective Ukrainian units remains in those cities which can threaten the Russian flanks. If those units come out to fight, they will be unable to deal with the concentrated Russian army and thus be annihilated. If they remain in the cities, the cities can be bypassed and the Russians can concentrate on reaching Kiev.
7) Assuming the latter, by summer, 2024, Russia reaches and surrounds Kiev. This assumes the Kiev regime has not 1) collapsed, or 2) surrendered, or 3) fled westward into Poland to form a "government-in-exile."
The operation in Kiev will be on the Syrian model: 1) surround the city; 2) cut off logistical resupply (water, electricity, food); 3) make probing attacks to locate enemy resistance; 4) send in the Chechens to deal with said resistance piecemeal; 5) wait for the city to fall. This could take days, weeks or months which is why a timetable is impossible to estimate.
Beyond this, it's hard to predict what will happen. I expect once Kiev falls, the Russians will take western Ukraine to the Polish border. This will be affected by whether Poland or NATO itself attempts an intervention either now or before Kiev is taken. Obviously, this would change the entire situation.
I get all comments to posts as emails. In addition, subscribers can email me by replying to any of my emailed posts they receive. Their email replies will be forwarded to me just like comments to the post are.
I wanted to ask you about MoA's rules. I posted my weekly update on the MoA last weekend and it was deleted - twice. Is there a rule against promoting your own substack on MoA? Or maybe I've broken another rule. I've written to b asking what I've done wrong but haven't had a reply. Anyway, I don't want to post it again until he comes back to me. Perhaps they get too many mails, so can't reply to them all. I donated £10 recently but didn't get a reply. Any ideas about what is going on?
Thanks for that Richard. I'll leave posting until next week - maybe he will have been in touch by then. Are the comments you just made on my substack available on one of your substack posts? I may do another section on the Russian Offensive this week and I may want to quote from it if that's OK. I won't do it unless commentators are talking about it.
Response to Dr. Rob Campbell's "Ukraine Weekly Update"
Excellent recap. Concise and accurate.
Two points:
1) Zelensky says he wants to raise another 250-500,000 men. First, good luck with that, Z. Second, he's losing between 60-100,000 men per month (and rising which is why the average daily is getting closer to 800/day), so even if he gets 500,000, that will last less than 5 months - and be utterly useless on the field much sooner than that due to loss of combat and operational effectiveness - which the Ukraine army is already showing due to an inability to achieve any significant operational objectives.
2) Garland Nixon has no clue. While the overall war itself may well continue through summer of 2024, the collapse of the Ukrainian army is due within the next three months, given the loss rate mentioned above. At that point, there is no reason for the Russian army NOT to launch a major advance, however slowly it actually advances. I expect Russia to continue to minimize its own casualties going forward. This does not preclude a major advance once Russia has rolled up the current Ukrainian defenses and shorted the line of contact, enabling Russia to consolidate its forces into a much more dangerous concentrated force which the remnants of the Ukrainian army will be utterly unable to do significant damage to.
In other words, the sequence of events should be:
1) Within the next one to three months the Ukrainian army begins to collapse and is forced to retreat to the other side of the Dnieper, likely being forced to abandon much of its remaining heavy equipment.
2) Russian army inflicts heavy casualties on the retreating Ukrainians, because a retreating army which does not have the power to perform a credible fighting retreat always takes heavy casualties. See the Iraqi "Highway of Death."
3) Russia will roll up the contact line east of the Dnieper and consolidate the bulk of its forces into a line much shorter than the current 800-1000km. Unclear how long this will take and whether Russia will finish it before spring. I suspect they will, certainly by end of spring, 2024.
4) Russia will then advance to the Dnieper, making sure not to leave significant Ukrainian units remaining east of the river, although one can expect various "left behind" guerrilla units to remain while being completely ineffective against the consolidated Russian army. Russian military police, GRU/SVR/FSB and Rosqvardia will take over security in the Ukrainian cities east of the Dnieper.
5) Russia will then have to decide whether to cross the Dnieper now or continue to pound the Ukrainians across the Dnieper until they are further weakened and unable to offer significant resistance to a Russian crossing. No guess as to how long this will take.
6) The Russians cross the Dnieper. Now the decision has to be made whether to proceed directly to Kiev or diverge and take the southern Ukrainian cities - Nikolaiev, Odessa, etc. This decision will depend on how many effective Ukrainian units remains in those cities which can threaten the Russian flanks. If those units come out to fight, they will be unable to deal with the concentrated Russian army and thus be annihilated. If they remain in the cities, the cities can be bypassed and the Russians can concentrate on reaching Kiev.
7) Assuming the latter, by summer, 2024, Russia reaches and surrounds Kiev. This assumes the Kiev regime has not 1) collapsed, or 2) surrendered, or 3) fled westward into Poland to form a "government-in-exile."
The operation in Kiev will be on the Syrian model: 1) surround the city; 2) cut off logistical resupply (water, electricity, food); 3) make probing attacks to locate enemy resistance; 4) send in the Chechens to deal with said resistance piecemeal; 5) wait for the city to fall. This could take days, weeks or months which is why a timetable is impossible to estimate.
Beyond this, it's hard to predict what will happen. I expect once Kiev falls, the Russians will take western Ukraine to the Polish border. This will be affected by whether Poland or NATO itself attempts an intervention either now or before Kiev is taken. Obviously, this would change the entire situation.
Thanks Richard.
How do I contact you directly?
I get all comments to posts as emails. In addition, subscribers can email me by replying to any of my emailed posts they receive. Their email replies will be forwarded to me just like comments to the post are.
Hi Richard,
I wanted to ask you about MoA's rules. I posted my weekly update on the MoA last weekend and it was deleted - twice. Is there a rule against promoting your own substack on MoA? Or maybe I've broken another rule. I've written to b asking what I've done wrong but haven't had a reply. Anyway, I don't want to post it again until he comes back to me. Perhaps they get too many mails, so can't reply to them all. I donated £10 recently but didn't get a reply. Any ideas about what is going on?
Best wishes
Rob
Nope. No idea. Karl Sanchez - karlof1 - posts a link to his Substack there almost every day.
As an example, see his post here: Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 31 2023 17:58 utc | 21 -
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/08/ukraine-open-thread-2023-206.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef02b751b01edf200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef02b751b01edf200c
So I can't figure why b would delete yours.