guys I would like to share with you an interview with a polish military expert.
Interviewer Grzegorz Sroczyński: What will happen with the war?Military expert Jarosław Wolski: During the summer holidays, the Russians lost so much equipment and used up so much ammunition that they willl not be able to win it conventionally.
Universal mobilization will not change that?They were 390 days late with it. According to their own military doctrine, they should start a general mobilization in the late spring of last year, raise an army of 1.5 million and only then attack Ukraine. They did not do it for political and social reasons, and above all because they completely wrongly estimated the readiness of the Ukrainian army to defend the state. Now they are trying to carry out some kind of late mobilization, but the goal is not to win this war.
it's not?The point is to patch the worst holes and be able to continue military operations without compromitation at all. The forces and resources that the Russians have amassed currently do not even allow them to replenish losses and rotate units. Widespread mobilization will improve the situation, but no miracles can be expected because its logic is completely disturbed.
In what sense is it disturbed?It is totally inconsistent with the rules of operation of the Russian army. There are several types of "mobilization units", that is, those that are not ready for action in peacetime and need to be "mobilized" - a concept from military slang. Some units have 70 percent of the full-time staff and equipment ready, others are 20-30 percent staffed, there are also so-called skeletal units not manned at all, i.e. basically equipment bases that still need to be replenished with soldiers, and this takes time. The Russians, in their darkest dreams, could not have imagined that they would have to "mobilize" during the war that had been waged for six months.
But what does that change?The word mess is not enough. Some of the instructors have already been injured, killed or missing in Ukraine. Some of the units to be completed during the general mobilization were stripped of their equipment. And how now does one "mobilize" a unit that is deprived of its commanding staff and equipment after six months of the war?
Because in one unit there are no half of the tanks, in another there are trucks, and in yet another they sent commanders to the front?Yes. The mobilization process will be incredibly disrupted. The Russians did not have such a difficult situation even in 1941, because then they started mobilizing earlier and the Germans hit about one third of the implemented schedule. The current situation - with their army structure - is perhaps the worst possible, because the people, equipment and units that are to initiate mobilization were used in Ukraine. Units of the "second mobilization category" - theoretically the better ones with newer equipment - do not have it at all.
There is equipment on paper, not in real life?Little different. It's on paper, and it's usually in real life too. There are tanks in the hangar, but the components have been removed from these tanks.
Why?Because someone needed something there. Military vehicles - even if they are not used - should be repaired from time to time. The Russians repaired 280 tanks a year. Except that the latest zero-mileage tanks were overhauled with mobilization tanks. Someone took money for new parts and delivered old ones removed from war equipment. Now it turns out that in the tanks assigned to mobilization units there are no such things as engines, side gears, gun stabilizers, sights, radio stations.
And what will they do with it?They will have chaos. Instead of assigning mobilized reservists to their units, they will send them straight to the front. Timely mobilization is important in the Russian system for one more reason. Their system is based on mobilized reservists to collect broken equipment from the front and repair it. As there was no mobilization so far, they did not develop these units for field repair at all. They ignored it. And that is one of the main reasons why they are doing so poorly in Ukraine. Hence the mountains of abandoned tanks, howitzers and trucks on the routes of the raids of Russian armored headlamps.
Because if Ukraine is not a real country, why send a well-developed army there?They ignored the Ukrainians and paid for it with the failure of the Kyiv operation - amazing in terms of military history.
Okay, but we're many months later now. They didn't do anything about it?They did. They stripped the reservists of technicians, electricians, welders - they encouraged them in various ways - and during the fights on the Donetsk Siewierski arc they tried to recreate the ability to evacuate and repair equipment. To a small extent they succeeded, but so what, since they were completely sunk with logistics. The Ukrainians turn it into marmalade thanks to HIMARS launchers.
Logistics? What is it?The bloodstream of every war, because it is about the supply of ammunition, fuel, spare parts, food rations. The Russians relied on a network of large warehouses and on road transport, which mainly uses human strength. What in NATO armies a truck with HDS does, which loads and unloads a container or pallets, then goes forklifts, in Russia is a herd of half-slaves in uniform who have to carry everything from the vehicle's crate. This requires several times as much time and ten times as many people. The Ukrainians - as they had already received HIMARS - destroyed these large warehouses behind the front line, which meant that the Russians had to move the warehouses further and in addition to make fifteen small ones instead of one big one. This, in turn, requires even more people and more trucks that they don't have. The effect is that their delivery system started to crumble completely. Not to the extent that they would lose the war, but they lost the ability to carry out any action rather quickly. Let me repeat: the mobilization announced by Putin is not intended to win this war militarily with conventional means, but to fill the worst gaps and not to compromise themselves to the end.
In your opinion, will the weakened and cornered Russia behave rationally or will it start to bite?It's a hard question. One must remember that it takes the will of two parties to negotiate a peace. Unless one side completely surrenders, then the situation is simpler. But if not, then prognosis is imperative. The Russians must have matured to the thought that they would not win this war and probably sent signals that they would be willing to give up some of the captured territories in exchange for peace negotiations. But on the Ukrainian side there is absolutely no will to give the Russians the corridor from Crimea to Rostov, give up the Kherson region, agree to lose twenty percent of the country. There is no such will primarily in society. The Ukrainian street will tear to shreds any Ukrainian politician who proposes something like that. The army paid a monstrous tribute of blood to defend the country and Ukrainian politicians are unlikely to have any room for maneuver. So this is not the moment for negotiations to take place.
Why doesn't Russia hit Ukraine conventionally with all its might? After all, it can wake up its air force, bomb government buildings in Kyiv, bomb critical infrastructure and NATO arms supply routes. Why won't Putin do it if he can?Because it can't. Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union the second strongest anti-aircraft defense in Central Europe, which is the silent hero of this war. The Russians were unable to gain air superiority, crush Ukrainian aviation, or reach critical infrastructure facilities. Air attacks are terribly expensive for Russians, because they have to fire, for example, twelve strategic maneuvering missiles, and then one of them will break through the Ukrainian defense into the area of the target. The target will be damaged but not destroyed. In addition, the Russians have problems with the availability of aircraft, pilots, means of destruction, and in addition they have to save something for their mythical war with NATO. The fate of the war in Ukraine would have been different if the Russians had been able to do what NATO was doing over Serbia as part of Operation Allied Force in 1999, when planes were flying at high altitude, dropping laser or thermal imaging bombs, shutting down more power plants and combined heat and power plants, which forced this country to surrender. The Russians know that they cannot appear near critical objects because they will be shot down, so they have to fire hellishly expensive cruise missiles, 70 percent of which fall victim to Ukrainian air defense or simply breaks down.
So Putin is not having a good move now? Because of his own mistakes?Yes.
And what will come of it?I believe this war will last until the middle of next year. We will face bloody fighting, and then both sides will be so exhausted that they will nevertheless sit down to negotiate peace. But this is not my cold analysis, but divination from the glass ball.
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