Russia’s Unstoppable Momentum: The Path to Victory in Ukraine’s War

by SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER

Yesterday, Ukraine launched a large new push attempt on Rabotino which had some people calling it the third phase of the offensive. Some sources claimed 83+ armored vehicles were involved in a huge column, but there have not been precise corroborations. There have just been some new photos of armor graveyards from the push, as well as confirmations of new destroyed Strykers as well as other vehicles:

 
They pushed down into Rabotino and finally made Russian forces abandon it. However, afterwards Russia retook some of it with a small counter-attack. As of this writing some sources claim Russia has a presence in the south of the settlement, but it’s uncertain. In fact, the DontStopWar channel associated with an actual Russian military unit seems to state that AFU hasn’t even captured the north part of Rabotino yet:

 
Here’s a helpful map which shows Russia’s previous control before any of the counter-offensives began in June (white line). The purple line shows how far Ukraine has gotten now on this western side.

Here, you can see that Russia’s infamous main “Surovikin defense line” begins much closer than on the Vremevske ledge in the east. Which means Ukraine is very close to it near the town of Verbove. However, here Russia has many more layers of the Surovikin line, whereas in the east, beneath Staromayorsk, the line may begin much farther south but there’s fewer echelon layers.

A wider view:

 
It had been previously stated that the main counter-offensive objective had been downsized to simply taking Tokmak, rather than the unrealistic objectives of capturing Crimea, Mariupol, or even Melitopol. If they can take Tokmak they will be happy and consider that a major success.

Thus, some sources claimed that the new major advance would be a final culminating “armor fist” to break through the first line and shoot down towards Tokmak. Neither is likely to happen. Particularly capturing Tokmak, which is absurd at this point.

But have no fear—Western military thinkers claim all is not as dire as it seems.

 
But they can already cover all this territory with their vaunted JDAMs, Storm Shadows, GLSDBs, etc. What would putting all that in HIMARs range do? It’s not like HIMARs can hit moving targets so having a highway in HIMARs range doesn’t do much.

For the record, here’s a post from an AFU unit to see their side of the updates on the current hostilities around Rabotino:

Good morning, dear friends!

Good news to you.

⚔️ Fighting on the southern outskirts of Robotino. In some places, the guys went to Novoprokopivka.

⚔️ The Ukrainian armed forces have started to move towards Kopanya from Robotyne. This is a counterattack to avoid hitting us in the flank. No progress so far. Fierce fighting. But then the orcs got nervous…

⚔️ Verbove – advance and also counterattacks to avoid a blow to our flank.

⏳ Nesterianka – No deep advances so far, but the area is very interesting….

📍 Now all the main battles are taking place in the Robotyno-Novoprokopivka-Verbove triangle – the fate of the Tokmak direction is being decided here. The enemy, like us, threw everything they could here – infantry, paratroopers, marines, prisoners, etc. It’s much easier for the orcs – they have burrowed into the ground, into the defensive lines they built in advance. This is what makes it difficult to move in the direction of Novoprokopivka – Verbove.

The orcs’ aircraft continue to operate, but it is becoming a routine. There are new minefields, apparently set up by the orcs recently and hastily, haphazardly.

We are working, yours.

There are continued rumors of new mass mobilizations from Ukraine for this fall-winter.

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Yuri Podolyaka (Russian analyst) on the state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

💬 “I returned from the front line of combat, talked to the guys who captured soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the southern sector. There are noticeable changes: now they often surrender even when they could still fight. There has been a psychological shift among Ukrainian soldiers, and more and more of them really don’t want to end up in this slaughter. The Kiev regime must understand that it will only get worse from here.

➡️The turning point came in June-July, when Ukrainian soldiers began to realize that it was the end. The Russians didn’t retreat. It’s reminiscent of the critical point the German army faced at Stalingrad.

➡️A new wave of mobilization in Ukraine will likely face much greater resistance from society. Although they could recruit 200,000 to 300,000 within six months, due to raising the age, canceling previous deferment conditions, and other measures. But the quality of this contingent will be very low. The best of them are currently dying on the battlefields.”

Video for the above:

 
Zelensky seemed to stage a question at a press conference two days ago in order to begin conditioning society for the inevitability of a new mass mobilization:

 
Meanwhile, Reznikov, who conveniently is said to be resigning soon, told Ukrainians that when they see a soldier in the street, they should expect to replace him on the battlefield soon:

 

 
Meanwhile, MSM is also breaking the news to society slowly:

 

 
Note the slow descent: a few months ago it was “Ukraine is running out of ammo”, which has now become “Ukraine is running out of men.”

The problem is, some sources like the following report that Ukraine needs to mobilize 10k per month just to keep up with losses:

Ukraine must mobilize 10 thousand people every month to be able hold the front

“In order to compensate for the losses (dead and wounded), as well as to replace the military dismissed from service for health reasons, age and family circumstances, it is necessary to call up about 10 thousand people to the Defense Forces every month.

This is without taking into account the creation of new units or the training of reserves, ”a source in the General Staff of the AFU reports.

So, in order to keep up with that plus add enough new recruits to bring up ~200-300k would be a monumental task that is likely not possible.

Gleb Bazov of Slavyangrad even claims the following dire situation:

Sources monitoring the movement of Ukrainian strategic military reserves report their absence from the previous deployment locations. This means that Ukraine has nearly drained/exhausted all its currently available manpower and military equipment resources, sending them to the front.

This corroborates our earlier projection that the Ukrainian counteroink has peaked and is slated to completely exhaust itself in September, likely by mid to the beginning of the last third of month.

What’s interesting is that other headlines have recently been revealing how U.S. leadership is clashing with that of the AFU in regard to the distribution of forces. Namely that Western leadership wants Ukraine to go “all in” on the southern direction while they regard Ukraine’s pouring of reserves into Bakhmut and the northern Kharkov front to be wasteful and dissipative.

The latest NYTimes article goes into this:

 
As well as Wallstreet Journal:

 
From NYT:

Ukraine’s grinding counteroffensive is struggling to break through entrenched Russian defenses in large part because it has too many troops, including some of its best combat units, in the wrong places, American and other Western officials say.

The article makes some other admissions:

 

American officials’ criticisms of Ukraine’s counteroffensive are often cast through the lens of a generation of military officers who have never experienced a war of this scale and intensity.

Moreover, American war doctrine has never been tested in an environment like Ukraine’s, where Russian electronic warfare jams communications and GPS, and neither military has been able to achieve air superiority.

As well as stating that Ukraine likely has 4-6 weeks remaining before the rains take over and operations will have to be paused.

Now, Arestovich has underlined this fissure, candidly opining that he too cannot see the logic of the endless Bakhmut reinforcement:

 
General Zaluzhny days ago indirectly replied to all such complaints by pointing out that Ukraine would lose territory in those regions if it took men away from them to the south. Certainly in Kharkov they would, where Russia is actually conducting assault operations. But in Bakhmut, it seems to me the Russian force disposition is not that of assault-heavy squads but rather defensive forces of the 3rd army corps. If Ukraine were to ease off on that front, I doubt those Russian forces would eagerly burst forward but rather continue digging in to strong defensive lines.

This surmise was proven days ago when I posted a video of Russia’s only big mishap in recent times. It occurred near Klescheyevka by those very forces who tried to switch to offensive operations to expand their zone for a bit more breathing room. They did not appear prepared for that assault as they were brutally rebuffed with an entire armored column destroyed in a way that was reminiscent of the earlier Ugledar fiascos. Meanwhile the troops in Kharov region continue advancing and assaulting successfully on a daily basis.

But this seems to reveal an odd ideological obsession with Bakhmut—somehow, that particular town is personal to Ukraine’s leadership. We can speculate on why: the most readily available reason being perhaps that’s where they spilled the most blood and faced their largest humiliation in many ways. More likely, as I wrote last time, they smelled weakness there. Syrsky stated, in the infamous video I once posted, that now that Wagner had left, there was nothing ‘scary’ in Bakhmut anymore—a frail attempt to lift his troops’ morale.

Now—perhaps to cover their own dire need for men—Ukraine is issuing new reports that Russia itself is planning for a major mobilization this fall:

The head of the Ukrainian intelligence Kirill Budanov assures that Russia has been continuing covert mobilization since last fall and is now considering the possibility of additionally drafting 450 thousand people.

According to him, monthly hidden mobilization gives the troops a replenishment of 20-22 thousand people.

The interesting aspect above is that he confirms the “covert mobilization”, which by now is not so covert as Russian officials have continually updated the numbers on it. He claims a 20-22k new troops per month, that was Russia’s figure from about June or earlier. Now Medvedev/Shoigu report upwards of 40k new signups per month, if you’ll recall. But that’s neither here nor there; the important thing being that even Ukraine is acknowledging this, which means that there’s no room left for propagandists and schizopatriots to claim that “Putin and Shoigu are corrupt” and are deliberately throwing the operation because they refuse to mobilize more men. Whether it’s 20k or 40k, this monthly sum represents upwards of 250-500k new men per year in shadow enlistment. But of course it’s never enough, the schizopatriots claim only 2-3 million new men is adequate and that all Russian citizens must be press-ganged into 18 hour shifts at the tank forge.

This gives us a rough outlook for the next 6 months, up to next spring. Ukraine will likely try to desperately mobilize as many new men as possible over the winter in order to prepare for the big Russian spring 2024 operations everyone is now talking about. But a slight hitch in that plan. The earlier posted WSJ article generated buzz such that RT even headlined it:

 
Namely, that a former U.S. official told them that funding will be tapered off next year, and that the “mountain of steel” needed to refit the AFU simply “doesn’t exist”:

 
On that same note, it’s interesting how many pro-Ukrainians doubted how much of Ukraine’s airforce Russia had destroyed. For instance, Oryx’s infamously undercounted list only has a few dozen craft (while Russia lays claim to hundreds). Now, Ukraine’s airforce spokesman Yuri Ignat has openly stated that Ukraine requires a whopping 128 fighter jets to “replace the old fleet.”

 
That last part is crucial—he’s clearly admitting that they’ve lost at least 128+ fighter craft which must be replaced. Using laughable Oryx figures, here’s what The Economist believes Ukraine lost:

 
If they lost only 60, would their spokesman be saying they need ~130 to replenish the fleet? That said, Russia’s own official figures show nearly 500 airplanes, though it’s difficult to know their tallying methodology and whether perhaps they include something we don’t know about:

 
For instance, they are likely including all disused/mothballed planes they destroyed on the ground, which is said to be many (it includes tons of transport planes, and old Soviet biplanes like the AN-2, etc.), whereas Ukraine is referring to only active usable fighter jets, specifically. Not to mention a portion could be double counts in that Russia may have “damaged” many which were subsequently fixed and then hit/destroyed again at a later date, which would appear as 2 separate planes on Russian tallies.

Getting back to the near future. One last major problem is that Ukrainian officials foresee a very grave upcoming winter:

💡🐽⬛️ There may be no light in Lviv for up to 2 months – Mayor Sadovaya

“We need to prepare for a situation when Lviv may be a month or even two without power supply. When there will be a difficult situation, the demand will be twice as much for refuelling generators and transporting water. We need to prepare for very difficult periods,” the mayor said during a meeting of the city council.💥😁💥

Last winter when Russia ran its large infrastructure strike campaign many believed that it was mostly in vain as Ukraine went on to fix much of its energy network, particularly given the perception that Russia was only striking transformers rather than the power plant engine rooms themselves. However, recently I’ve seen some possible info to the contrary, like one report stating that only a small fraction of the infrastructure had been repaired. Ukraine boasted that they still maintained an “energy surplus” earlier this year, however commentators noted that much of that was likely an effect of the exodus of millions of people leaving a huge net loss of energy usage in large cities.

Either way, reports continue from the Russian side that Russia has big plans. For instance, the Zaporozhye governor after his recent meeting with Putin:

Balitsky, after his conversation with Putin, announced “a lot of interesting things” on the SMO fronts in autumn. According to him, the Russian president confirmed his thesis: We haven’t started anything yet.

The only question remains, will Russia “start something” major this fall/winter, or wait for spring? On one hand I favor spring because there’s no real hurry at the moment and Russia is still building up stores and stockpiles of surplus ammo for an offensive.

However, there’s clearly also great strategic possibility in launching an offensive at a point of the AFU’s greatest exhaustion and breakdown, which would be this fall. Waiting for spring could allow them to begin those mass mobilizations to replenish their forces. Likely, they’ll split the difference. This fall/winter they’ll launch smaller localized offensives to take advantage of exactly the spots where the most battered AFU brigades are in the process of being pulled and replaced, while next spring may bring something much bigger and unified.

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