Today we will talk about the course of hostilities over the past month plus for almost a week now.
I remind you every time and I will remind you today - this war is absolutely insane.
Russia does not set and cannot achieve any adequate goals, but can only ruin the life of its neighbor and itself.
But the war is on, which means that today we will talk about the war.
The main news of the last week was the talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul.
As for any such bilateral contacts, there is a general rule: the starting positions in each round of negotiations are determined not at the table where the delegates sit,
but on the battlefield where two armies are fighting. It is the situation on the fronts that primarily determines the course of the talks, the substantive issues, and their very tone.
For almost the entire month of March, the Russian and Ukrainian armies are in a clinch. Changes in the front line can hardly be called radical.
The capture of Kherson was and still remains the only success of the Russian troops in the capture of regional centers.
Troopers in Odessa did not land, and Nikolaev fended off all attempts to capture it.
City fighting continues in Mariupol, the inhabitants of the city are still in a blockade.
To the north, Kyiv, Chernigov, Sumy and Kharkov continue to successfully defend themselves.
The decrease in combat activity in the Kiev and Chernigov directions announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense may mean the transfer of efforts to the zone of the most intense battles -
to the Donbass. Although, of course, one must be wary of reports from the warring army about their immediate plans.
In Donbass, the most combat-ready grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the one hand,
and the joint forces of the Russian army and the formations of the DPR and LPR, on the other, are participating in fierce battles.
The troops of the so-called people's republics are staffed with conscripts who are being thrown at well-fortified positions.
This is another tragedy of this crazy war, and as the fighting intensifies on the Donbass front, it will only get worse.
Meanwhile, there is no need to forcibly drive people into the Ukrainian army - Ukraine, in fact, is waging its own Patriotic War, in which all people participate,
and the lend-lease from the West helps a lot.
For what reason did our country find itself drawn into this unnecessary massacre?
Why is the Russian army stuck on the territory of Ukraine? How will Western sanctions affect the course of the war?
will talk about all this now.
Before moving on to operational-strategic issues, let's talk about an important theory.
It will be important for understanding all this nightmare which we observe in real time right now.
If you ask what the United States and Russia have in common, the answer will be this:
it is a unique habit to arrogantly invade foreign countries without knowing or understanding anything at all about these very countries.
Thus, the Soviet leaders were, for ten years since 1979, searching the mountains of Afghanistan for the working class, in order to help the Afghan proletariat build socialism.
They were looking for the proletariat in Afghanistan.
Soon after that, having learnt nothing from the mistakes of others, the American army marched on to establish a liberal democracy in Iraq.
A liberal democracy in Iraq which was brought there at gunpoint - what could go wrong?
For almost twenty years after that the Russian propaganda — and quite reasonably so — was telling us about the horrors in which the American attempt to forcibly democratize Iraqi society resulted.
But why was it telling about it? To have us draw some conclusions?
Conclusions like “don’t invade other countries trying to establish your own orders there” maybe?
One could object, like, "Ukraine is not Iraq or Afghanistan, but a well understood neighboring country."
In such a frivolous attitude lies precisely the trap into which the leadership of our country has fallen.
Ukraine is a complicated country with a difficult history and a structure of society that is far from obvious.
Russian propaganda has created an illusion that we know everything about Ukraine, and better than Ukrainians themselves too.
But we don’t. Russians, and primarily the highest authorities who make the fateful decisions, know nothing about Ukraine!
You listen to propaganda and Putin himself and it seems that, by their words, the Ukrainian people suffer terribly under the heel of the evil junta that seized power on the Maidan.
The Ukrainian people await day and night for the Russian liberators to come and free them from the maidan-fascist yoke.
Exactly what “maidan junta” did Putin find in Ukraine in february 2022 may I ask?
Where have you been for these eight years? Ukraine is not Russia, the leadership changed twice there in that time.
Those who replaced Victor Yanukovich and the Party of Regions in 2014, themselves managed to lose their next elections to smithereens.
And it was very predictable too - the whole electoral history of Ukraine in 21 century is a seesaw: one day Yushenko wins over Yanukovich, the other day it’s Yanukovich over Yushenko.
The constant dishing of Ukraine over these many years had created a dangerous illusion of our complete understanding about the internal matters of Ukraine.
But we need to understand: the Russian propaganda never had a goal of figuring anything out or creating a solid and objective view of Ukraine.
The propaganda always had its predetermined ideological concepts.
So propagandists only cared about the facts that matched these predetermined concepts.
The Russian political and military leadership made the decision to invade Ukraine not on the basis of objective data, but guided by ideologemes, fantasies and very biased information.
Putin, Shoygu, and Gerasimov knew nothing about the country which they decided to Invade.
“Come it’s Ukraine, it’s all clear there” - is a very dangerous delusion of the Russian authorities.
Their level of expertise did not go very far from the idea of building socialism in Afghanistan.
A little more of the important theory. When a country leader decides on using the military, he needs to raise a fundamental question: what would be the objective?
Philosophical concepts, political slogans, abstract processes and personal ideas of “historical justice” cannot be the goals of war.
A goal is something clear, definite, finite, measurable and achievable.
It must be such that it could fit on half of the A4 sheet.
Even before the hostilities begin, the head of the state, if he is determined to start a war for whatever reason, should already have a picture of the desired post-war structure in his head.
It may sound cynical but wars are started to improve the situation in your country in comparison to the pre-war times, not to worsen it.
It is necessary to imagine not only the hoisting of the flag over the Verkhovna Rada, but also the desired peace after the war.
What will happen after the victory?
Otherwise, it may easily turn out that the most brilliant military victory will lead to such costs that it is better not to defeat anyone at all.
If you have moved the tanks without knowing “where” and “why” then the military disaster is already predetermined.
You can’t even start a small business like that, let alone big wars.
One of the reasons is that we have inherited a painful duality in foreign policy since Soviet times.
In the early soviet years there was People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs that had at least some understanding of foreign politics.
But at the same time there was Communist International that worked in parallel with it and suffered from the delusions of Marxism-Leninism.
The army worked in a similar way. There was a commander with at least some military education - and a political instructor who had nothing but slogans on his mind.
True professionals, both in foreign policy and in military affairs, are terribly boring people.
They think in terms of goals and objectives, calculate the necessary resources, determine the timing and think through the possible consequences.
And worst of all is that after all these boring calculations a professional may just announce:
“Your Grace, nothing will come out of this idea of yours. The goals are not clearly defined, specific tasks are not set, and in any case, we do not have sufficient forces and means for such an enterprise”.
It is unpleasant for the great geostrategist to listen to such speeches, they spoil the mood.
Therefore, professionals are moved away from the throne over time.
Now ideologists and political instructors are a different matter!
Their speeches flow like songs: there would be, of course, no specific figures or reasonable calculations, but plenty of metaphors and allegories instead.
The court ideologist in any case will immerse the authorities into the world of mysteries, phantasmagories and ivory towers.
On 26 of February, RIA Novosti, one of the main Kremlin media outlets, published an article dedicated to the victory over Ukraine ahead of time due to a technical error.
It was called “The coming of Russia and the new world”. The article was quickly removed from the website but of course it was saved on the internet.
It begins like this: “a new world is being born before our eyes! The Russian military operation in Ukraine has marked the beginning of a new era in three dimensions. And in the fourth dimension,
in the intra-Russian one, a new period begins both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic structure.” I can’t be forced to be citing this absurd further, but make sure to find the article and try to read at least a part of it. Just google “the coming of Russia and the new world” and embark on a journey into fantasy worlds and surreal universes that consume the minds of people who’ve been in their positions for far too long but still are involved in making important and fateful decisions and sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in Ukraine.
I can’t be forced to be citing this absurd further, but make sure to find the article and try to read at least a part of it.
Just google “the coming of Russia and the new world” and embark on a journey into fantasy worlds
and surreal universes that consume the minds of people who’ve been in their positions for far too long but still are involved in making important and fateful decisions
and sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in Ukraine.
Well let us get back to Earth now, where operational-strategic and, in essence, very terrible things began to happen.
We’ll be talking about it now, there will be no commercial today again, so i just want to remind you that we are on Patreon, you can subscribe if you have a foreign bank card.
Not a big part of my audience has a foreing, not Russian, card, but if you do, you’ll support our editorial greatly.
On February 24, the Armed Forces of Russia and the forces of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR controlled by it attacked Ukraine.
During the first hours of war there was a feeling that the Russian army actually knows what it’s doing after all.
A massive missile attack was launched on the objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: warehouses, airfields, command posts and air defense systems.
This is a classic of military science and working by the textbook.
It seemed that the Russian army was acting skillfully, living up to the forecasts of foreign military experts about taking Kyiv within three days.
Then, in the very first hours, the fog of war hid from us the real picture, in which, as it turned out later, there was no place for military science,
but the strangest fantasies of ideologists and political officers were being realized.
The real picture turned out to be this: on sections of the Ukrainian border with a total length of about one and a half thousand kilometers,
Russia brought into battle about one hundred and fifty thousand of its military personnel,
plus several tens of thousands of forcibly mobilized residents of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR.
The thing is not just that it’s less than what the Armed Forces of Ukraine had, which is by various estimates up to 260,000 people even before the mobilization.
The thing is that the invading army was scattered across a vast territory, on several separated fronts, without creating a spearhead anywhere
that could penetrate the Ukrainian defenses and advance deeply enough.
The whole plan for the campaign was apparently based on a single idea:
the Ukrainian army with the exception of maybe a few hundred nationalists would not really resist.
And the civilian population on the primarily russian-speaking Ukrainian east will greet the invading Russian troops with joy, flowers, and bread and salt.
According to the original plan, the Ukrainian military and civilians were supposed to think in exactly the same way as the Kremlin ideologists,
who have their own separate fictional Ukraine in their heads.
There is no other explanation for why the attack was so few in numbers and scattered across different fronts.
But this is not the theme for today's video, unlike the military operations themselves, so we’ll keep talking about them.
In real life, in order to defeat Ukraine, it was necessary to involve almost the entire personnel of the millionth Russian army,
send not battalion-tactical groups, but combined arms armies into battle.
It was necessary to ensure a decisive superiority of forces in the directions of the main strikes, to involve the entire Black Sea Fleet and almost all combat-ready Russian aviation.
And to carry out mobilization in case all this does not work.
It was too optimistic to believe that the Armed Forces of Ukraine could be stunned by just one massive missile strike.
To conquer the second largest state in Europe, a readiness to shoot all their stock of high-precision and advanced weapons was required.
And finally, they should’ve been indulging themselves in illusions about the “mission of liberation”.
To try and occupy another country and think of yourself as a liberator at the same time is schizophrenia that leads to military failure.
You can’t be doing both at the same time. You can’t occupy anything without being an occupier.
Right now the Russian Armed Forces act exactly like an occupier would.
At the present moment the Russian army does not follow any “rules of decency”: it wipes entire cities off the face of the earth.
But at the beginning of the war it actually tried to act without getting dirty, even though it was impossible by definition.
You can’t take a city which is ready to defend itself without destroying it completely.
The Russian army tried not to destroy at first, then it tried to only destroy a little, but the logic of war is relentless.
Again, this is pure madness, why are Ukrainian cities being destroyed, who is it being done?
The only explanation I can think of is revenge of sorts, as if Putin is taking vengeance on these cities for not obeying him, for not wanting to live under his rule.
But anyway this is happening.
Let's go back to the very beginning of the war. The offensive of the Russian army on Ukraine could hardly be called an offensive.
There was no attack on a broad front.
The columns of Russian equipment simply moved forward along the highways, self-confidently, not expecting either ambushes or air strikes.
Moreover, the Ukrainian military often simply let the armored vehicles go forward and attacked the supply columns that followed.
The armored vehicles that had gone forward would simply soon stop without refueling.
A large number of armored vehicles in good condition were simply abandoned by the Russian military due to lack of fuel,
as well as due to a lack of understanding by soldiers and junior officers of why they are here and what they need to do.
As a result, the Ukrainian Armed forces simply captured these tanks, armored personnel carriers and motorized leagues -
recently Forbes published an article stating that after a month of war, the Ukrainian army had more tanks than it had before it began.
The Russian army simply lacked the troops to safeguard the territory it already passed.
And after all, it had more important tasks than securing its rear — a column of National Guard with clubs and shields was thrown at Kyiv ahead of everyone else!
The National Guard is not an army, it’s purpose is not to fight but to disperse protesters.
And there they had to fight. And the National Guard column near Kyiv was quickly defeated.
It is unbelievable how the Russian political and military leadership did not expect Ukrainians to resist in defense of their own soil.
Even the dates scream about it.
I have a theory that the whole “special military operation” was expected to be finished in three days (which was forecasted by american analysts) — right by february, 27,
the Special Operations Day. But even if i’m wrong, the fact remains:
the offensive was launched right before the start of the spring thaw.
Clearly they planned to have it finished before spring, no one expected to fight in March and forward.
After all, it is no coincidence that both Napoleon and Hitler attacked our country in June -
so that there is enough time until the off-season, when the army will sink in the mud.
A tank may not mind some dirt, but a fuel truck cannot go everywhere.
Vladimir Zelensky deserves a notice too. He played many roles in the past, and not all of them were heroic ones.
But it would be worth it on the eve of the war to understand that now he is not playing - he is the real popularly elected president of Ukraine.
This man got his mandate from the people as a result of fair elections not in order to flee in case of danger.
Zelensky acted like a true leader and led his country’s fight for independence.
Which was clearly a surprise for the Russian ideologists who knew nothing of Ukraine.
Right now or in the near future, significant regroupings and changes in the balance of power on the fronts are possible.
Therefore, I suggest to once again briefly review the various fronts of the Russian-Ukrainian war - at the time of filming the video - no matter how wild it may sound.
At the beginning of the war missile strikes were launched from Belarus and Russia in the north, in Kyiv and Chernihiv directions.
These are the directions that the Russian side undertook to reduce its activities at the moment of filming this video.
The troops that were moving to Kyiv from Belarus, took the Chernobyl nuclear power plant under control.
Near Kyiv, in Gostomel, a helicopter landing force was landed, which with great difficulty, not from the first attempt, after suffering losses,
managed nevertheless to entrench itself on the territory of the airport and waited for the main forces to come.
Then fighting took place on the streets of Kyiv suburbs — Bucha and Irpin.
People who lived there, just like the residents of Moscow satellite cities, used to drive every day to their workplaces in the capital.
Today, Bucha and Irpin are destroyed and most of the local residents have lost their homes, and some also their lives.
They took a blow that was targeted on Kyiv, and it is here, on the approaches to the capital of Ukraine, this blow was stopped.
To the North-West of Kyiv, Chenihiv is on defense.
We don’t hear about Chernihiv as much as Mariupol or Kharkiv today, but it too was shelled, and there are massive destructions.
Chernihiv is the city that has preserved (and I very much hope that it still does) the most important legacy of our common Ukrainian and Russian history.
The ancient Rus temples here were carefully restored after the german occupation, and if they will now have to be restored again, it will be too grim of a symbolism.
This is not what we need to “can do again”, as our country keeps saying.
It is known for a fact now that as the result of a Russian strike a unique archive was destroyed in Chernihiv, that contained evidences of nazi crimes during the Great Patriotic War.
Which is symbolic as well. But the main thing is that many peaceful civilians died in Chernihiv.
In the East, Sumi and Kharkiv are still defending. Kharkiv was damaged especially heavily.
According to the mayor’s statements, about two hundred houses were destroyed.
Let’s move to the south.
The marine landing that was expected during all these weeks didn’t happen yet.
In theory, after landing in Odessa, the Russian marines could join forces with the peacekeeping contingent in Transnistria.
The lack of landing can be explained by various reasons. Most likely the Black Sea Fleet has neither the men nor the resources required for a strategic landing -
it could rather be a tactical operation.
Landing with insufficient numbers which is also clearly expected by the enemy can mean unacceptable losses for the troops.
If you ever watched “Saving Private Ryan” then you know that marine landings are among the most difficult of military operations —
and to carry out such an operation without the effect of surprise and enough marines would be suicidal.
To the east of Odessa, Mykolaiv is successfully defending.
And it is in Mykolaiv that one of the bloodiest episodes of this war happened: the Russian army struck at the local army barracks, at least dozens of Ukrainian soldiers died.
This strike has put an end to all the talks of Ukrainian soldiers and officers not being the enemy.
And yesterday a russian missile hit the building of the Mykolaiv administration.
It looks like the target was Vitaly Kim, he’s become one of the notable persons in this war with his numerous reports from Mykolaiv that he is making in russian, i’m watching them all.
He said that that day he overslept, he planned to come a bit later and at that time the Russian missile had hit near his office. People died there as well. Civilians.
And the capture of the city is not even on the agenda now.
Fighting continues in Mariupol. There is almost nothing left from the city itself, it is a total humanitarian catastrophe.
The Ukrainian leadership estimated 5 000 killed during fighting and the blockade.
Almost everyone was left without a shelter in what used to be an advanced city with a population of 500 000.
It is worth noting that many of Mariupol residents are migrants from the DPR, that is, people who have already lost their homes twice.
Mariupol is the last hotspot along the so-called “land corridor” to Crimea.
It was caught between a rock and a hard place of the two advancements — one from Crimea and another one from the self-proclaimed DPR.
Without a doubt, the eyes are turned to Donbass now.
One of the objectives of the Russian army, as far as we can understand these objectives, is to encircle and to destroy the Donbas grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
and to establish control over the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions within their administrative borders.
In case you didn’t know, the DPR and LPR control only a part of their respective regions, but claim them entirely.
Mariupol, for example, was located within the part of the Donetsk region that was controlled by Ukraine.
Of course no one asks local residents whether they want to be a part of the DPR and LPR.
Maybe some of them did hope to join Russia eight years ago, but the perspective of being shoved into some people’s republic is hardly appealing to them.
and now especially after the war, the blockade the destruction, Russia is hated there.
Over the past eight years, the Armed forces of Ukraine have equipped numerous defensive positions in Donbass,
which the troops of DPR and LPR break open with great difficulty and great losses.
In the official briefings of the Ministry of Defense voiced by Konashenkov, you can hear phrases like “we have advanced for eight hundred meters”.
The capture of any settlement in Donbass is a huge success on its own.
And the fate of Volnovakha that was “liberated” from Ukrainians and 85% of which was destroyed, is illustrative of the price of such “successes”.
Once again, i draw your attention to the fact that here, in attempts to encircle the Ukrainian forces and in suicidal frontal attacks on well-defended positions,
they use people drafted into armies of DPR and LPR. They are civilians, not professional military.
Probably some of them wanted to reunite with Russia in 2014, but for sure not one of them ever wanted to die for some Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republic that was imposed on them.
The Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on for over a month now.
No one wants it, it isn’t solving anything, it was started because of the incorrect understanding of reality and is being waged in violation of the known principles of military science.
When every illusion about the desire of the Ukrainian people to see Russian tanks on their streets vanished, the Russian troops did not stop their senseless military operations.
The Russian army simply started to act a bit more effectively.
In other words — it stopped having any care about Ukrainian cities and Ukrainian citizens in order to achieve the desired progress.
But there still is no progress, only the senseless destruction, deaths, suffering and hatred of people who spoke primarily in Russian and until recently thought rather nicely of Russia.
The Russian Army is destroying the very russian-speaking part of Ukraine, the need to protect which the Kremlin has been talking about for so long.
Well now Ukraine really needs protection — but from the Russian army.
And Ukrainians — including the Russian-speaking ones — are defending their country.
While the technical, human and moral resources of the Russian troops are running out, mobilization into the Ukrainian armed forces is already beginning to bear fruit.
What is happening now is a monstrous madness that needs to be stopped.
There was no moral or military excuse to start it. It cannot be explained by even the most cynical of reasons.
There was no calculated decision, there is no and could not be anything to gain for anyone.
It is nothing but an absurd crime against humanity and common sense, no national pride is worth it for even one more day.
Every day of this war is a national shame for Russia. The sooner it ends, the sooner we can start washing off this stain.
Russia will not gain anything from this war, and it could've gained anything.
Stopping now would be better than stopping tomorrow. And stopping tomorrow would be better than stopping on the next day.
No to war. And see you tomorrow.