Jim's Blog

An enormous number of men died, an enormous number of tanks and fighting vehicles were expended in the battle for Avdeevka. Advdeeka was the key strong hold in the line of strong places the Ukrainians have spent ten years building in the Donbass.

And the key to the battle of Avdeevka was the Terrikon, an artificial mountain fortress with a flat top covered by maze of bunkers, and the top surrounded by low walls, so that those below could not see those on top, nor shoot at them. From the Terrikon, those on top can see and kill people twenty kilometers away, from reasonable safety and comfort. As long as the Ukraine held the Terrikon, Avdeevka could not fall. Once the Russians took the Terrikon, Avdeevka could not stand. The flat top was big enough that pounding it with artillery blind was pointless, for the material around the trenches and bunkers was like concrete. And even if artillery had a drone spotter, you had to land the shell right on the target, and artillery was not sufficiently accurate, the fortifications being tiny and very strong.

The Russians expended huge numbers of men and tanks repeatedly trying, and repeatedly failing, to take the Terrikon. An enormous number of men died, and an enormous number of tanks and vehicles, were expended in the endless and endlessly repeated World War I style battles for the Terrikon. They kept trying to have World War style II battles, but it always devolved into World War I style battles, which are always terrible and horrifying. Until Russia gave White’s 114th brigade the job of taking it, and permission to do it their own way. They took it with zero casualties, and little use for the mountains of million dollar equipment deployed. Zero casualties in the 114th, though I suspect that there were quite a few casualties in the column of tanks used to distract attention.

White privately raised funds to buy some drones. The battle was mostly won by a single drone operated by White, plus a whole lot of electronic warfare. His drone looks like an ordinary good consumer grade drone, presumably modified for war. Maybe worth a few thousand dollars, while the tanks and all that cost millions of dollar each. The cost of those drones was the cost of a few shells. His team had only three drones at any one time, though they lost quite a few drones in the process.

Hat tip Simplicius the Thinker “Ukrainian streets deserted“. Scroll to the end of his page. First part of his page covers the fact that the Ukraine collapsing from the inside, not from the battle front. The future of war is the mini documentary at the end of his page.

White used drones, men on foot, stealth, distraction, misdirection, electronic warfare, and drones. Mostly he used one single drone. He took the blood soaked Terrikon with zero casualties. There are many drones and drone operators in this war, but a very small proportion of drone operators are responsible for the vast majority of damage inflicted on the enemy, as in knightly medieval warfare where battles were apt to be primarily decided by the valor, strength, and skill of a single exceptional knight, the Terrikon was in large part taken personally by White himself, through the drone he operated.

He pounded the Terrikon by drone for quite a while, then, when the Ukrainians were distracted by an entirely irrelevant column of tanks, pounded them some more. Most of them broke and fled, and were killed while fleeing. Then his men, deeply hidden in stealth, suddenly came out of stealth and stormed the Terrikon, killing the holdouts, who were hiding in the remaining bunkers and trenches — mostly people too wounded to flee. Those few who remained were too demoralised to offer effective resistance.

The job of the tanks was merely to attract attention and shellfire, so that shells would be landing on tanks that did not matter, rather than on men who mattered. When the Ukrainians should have been bombarding the Terrikon, and bombarding the remnants of their own troops abandoned on top of it, they were instead shelling an irrelevant column of tanks.

The Russian high command refused to believe that White’s Brigade had taken the Terrikon, so they ran up the flag, and sent out the video on social media.

Notice: Aristocratic warfare — a single man makes the difference. Aristocratic logistics — White fought with his personal weapons, rather than relying on the vast and stupendously expensive logistic bureaucracy. Artillery mattered a lot, the thunder of tanks mattered a lot as an attention getter and as an artillery sponge, but largely it was one drone operated by one man. The Ukrainians broke and fled under drone warfare, and only then did his men move.

Aristocratic governance is born in aristocratic warfare, and the first side that wakes up to this is likely to conquer. The Holy Roman Empire was born with Charles the Hammer almost accidentally creating aristocratic governance. The Russian government gave White some medals. Should have given him lands and a wife.

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The Ukraine never has been a nation. It has always merely been a province of empire. Ukrainians oft got conscripted to fight in the wars of far away empires, but even when the empire ruled through local satraps, as it does now, the local minions of empire failed to act as if the Ukraine was a nation.

Here are Ukrainians celebrating independence day. Notice the near total absence of anyone celebrating. Compare with the enormous turnout everywhere in Russia for victory day.

And today the local minions of empire in the Ukraine are not acting as if the Ukraine is a nation.

Three recent incidents reveal this. That defences along the Northern front were paid for, yet for the most part not actually built, that the Russians discovered a very long pile of materials for building defences that had been dumped among the trees by the edge of the road and, most all, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, playing guitar and singing with a Ukrainian rock band at the Barman Dictat in Kiev.

The Ukraine has a trucking crisis, making it difficult to move food to where it is needed, because so many truck drivers have been conscripted to fight in the front lines, rather than transport stuff to the front lines. A Ukrainian conscript who lost both legs at the knee was demobilised for lack of legs, and then, legless, conscripted again. But, it would seem that is not a problem for nightclub entertainers. Kiev, thanks to the mighty influx of American money, has more bars and nightclubs than it did before the war.

According to CBS news, that it is party time in Kiev is a form of defiance of Russia. The young men in the CBS photos are evidently at no risk of being summoned to the front. The imperial minions in Kiev are acting like the war is a gold mine, and they have struck it rich.

The minions in other imperial provinces along the border watch the party enviously, and wonder if they too could strike gold and retire to the South of France.

If the Ukraine was a real nation, the local elite would not do this stuff, or if they did do it, would be more furtive about it. The local elite has no plans for making peace with Russia. They don’t care and it is not their decision to make anyway. They have plans for moving to the South of France. They are building and purchasing mansions, and in Zelensky’s case, a palace, as far from the Ukraine as they can, and as the war approaches its end, stealing as much as possible as fast as possible.

As the time available to steal stuff grows shorter, and the prospect of long term employment as the empire’s satraps in the Ukraine grows more remote, the imperial minions naturally focus more on stealing whatever is not nailed down, and burning down what is nailed down so that they can steal the nails, and focus less on preserving imperial rule. Global American Empire rule over the Ukraine is collapsing. The battle field is merely a lagging indicator. The collapse starts in the luxurious nightclubs of Kiev first, and the battlefield eventually follows later. The apparatus of imperial rule in the Ukraine is about to relocate to the mansions in the South of France.

The same malaise is visible, though not in such advanced form, even in the heart of empire. The inability to increase arms production is partly de-industrialisation, partly diversity, equity, and inclusion, partly the decline of science and technology. But it is also partly that military industrial complex is more focused on how much they can steal before the roof falls in than on increasing arms production.

Russia has activated its fresh Northern Front forces, who now find themselves fighting the tattered remnants of Ukrainian forces who had earlier been chewed up on the Eastern front, and sent to guard the Northern front to give them a break. These fresh forces do not have fresh leadership. They are led by battle hardened veterans who have been through hell and back.

In modern warfare, you cannot follow Kagan’s moron plan — concentrate your forces on a narrow front, and punch through. If you try it, you are just creating a target rich environment for the enemy to have fun with.

A broader front favours the attacker, a narrower front the defender. The Eastern front is so broad that it is rather permeable to people sneaking through, and on May tenth, the Russians activated the northern front, making the front line a whole lot broader.

The Russians have been loudly signalling and very publicly organising an attack for May fifteenth — which was widely believed to be feint to pull Ukrainian forces off the eastern front. As feint, it succeeded, leading to some small Ukrainian collapses on the eastern front, a little village here, a little village there, a hill or two, a patch of trees, a few trenches.

Then on May tenth, the Russians launched several small reconnaissances in force across the northern front. Some of which were horribly defeated, but most of which were startlingly successful, so within a few hours, the successful ones were followed up by a thunder run. (Which sounds a bit like Kagan’s stupid plan, but these are broad front thunder runs, not narrow front thunder runs, so maybe not quite as stupid.)

Well, in modern warfare, thunder runs have a horrifyingly bad record, so the Ukrainians will likely manage to stop it somewhere somehow. Modern warfare favours the small, swift, sneaky, and unexpected, and quietly changing the day by five days should not have been all that surprising, though it looks like it was. The Ukrainians got caught with their pants down. But the key and fundamental Ukrainian problem is that they are just running out of Ukrainians. Too many have died. And having a whole new front and a whole lot of fresh Russian troops to deal with suddenly makes that problem a whole lot worse. Too many have died, and today a lot more are dying.

It seems unlikely that the Ukraine war will end in a negotiated settlement. The Ukrainian muppet state is already starting to disappear, with most of the high elements of the state having moved to mansions in the South of France, Italy, and Canada. They don’t seem keen on America for some reason I am at loss to understand. Zelensky has purchased a palace in London, which is not a strong vote of confidence in the continued existence of the Ukrainian muppet state.

Those elements of the state apparatus that are still around are increasingly acting like mobile bandits rather than stationary bandits — grabbing what they can preparatory to moving on, and applying state violence capriciously and arbitrarily without regard to the long term state objectives of maintaining order and productivity. Likely that by and by, there just will not be enough of the muppet state left for the elements of the state to get away with using violence under color of authority.

If the Ukrainian muppet state simply vanishes, chances are that the Russians will not intervene to restore order, as this would be contrary to their objective of obtaining a neutral and non aligned buffer zone between themselves and NATO. With luck, we may gain a modern example of how to organize a state from nothing. Or at least how not to do it. Ancient states were created from nothing through relationships of blood and marriage, but we are likely to see a state created from nothing through computers running on Starlink internet and generator power or solar power.

On the other hand, the normal process of state creation is that mobile bandits get sufficiently large and well organised that they face no serious opposition within a well defined turf, and quietly and slowly settle down to stationary banditry. Which is a long, slow, bloody, and destructive process. And one that the Russians may not have the patience for. Russians want a strong cohesive and neutral state capable of keeping out agents of foreign powers, capable of taking responsibility and exercising power over state level threats that happen on its turf.

We shall see. But the topic of this post is not what happens to the Ukraine after what remains of the Ukrainian muppet state skedaddles, but what happens in Nato after what remains of the Ukrainian muppet state skedaddles. Even if Ukraine develops a strong cohesive non aligned state, Nato and Russia are going to keep on pushing where their borders are adjacent. What is happening to Kalingrad is intolerable to Russia and Russians, and Russia is sure to do something violent about it after the Ukrainian muppet state vanishes, even if Nato engages in no further acts of menace and aggression — and it surely will engage in further acts of menace and aggression.

Russia has had centuries of Kalingrad type problems, and for centuries has been resolving or attempting to resolve those problems with immense and terrible violence. This is unlikely to change no matter who governs Russia in future, short of it being conquered and converted into a muppet state of the Global American Empire.

Russia is an empire, and naturally fissiparous, but the gradual escalation of threats, menace, and violence by the global American Empire has led to unprecedented unity and patriotism. These days, even the Chechens are enthusiastic Russian patriots. Russians have deep and horrifying memories of World War II, and when they look westwards, they see the German Wehrmacht in 1940. They are psychologically prepared for total war that could very easily go nuclear, though they do not expect nuclear war happening suddenly out of the blue.

The most recent Nato escalation of war on Russia was a small scale invasion of Russia past the borders that Nato recognizes. It was only a reconnaissance in force, a test of Russian capability, will, and cohesion, but it pissed off the Russians no end.

The Polish and American Nato forces operating from Nato bases in the Ukraine were wearing “Free Russian” hats, and the Nato bases are prominently labelled Ukrainian, and everyone in Global American Empire thinks this makes it totally not a Nato invasion of Russia, just a proxy invasion of Russia, a view not universally accepted by people who live in Russia.

Because the Global American Modus Operandi since 2010 has been slow and creeping escalation, on the slow boiling the frog model, no one in Russia expects nuclear war any time soon, but the Russian government and individual Russians are preparing for nuclear war eventually.

You will recall how the US could not tolerate Soviet Empire bases in Cuba, and this nearly led to nuclear war even though there was absolutely no threat of an Imperial Soviet Invasion of the American homeland. Russians perceive a very real threat of Imperial American invasion. In the end, either the borders of the Russian homeland will be neutral states, or the nukes will very likely fly.

The Ukraine begins to crumble. The Ukraine has about six months of war material left. There army has been severely depleted of men willing to fight. Zelensky has been ruling illegally since March 31, when the last constitutional fig leaf of paper pretence at democracy expired. The pool of potential conscripts is empty – they could easily lower the age of conscription to eighteen or to fifteen, but due to flight and failure to reproduce, that is not a substantial pool.

The death and injury rate among the men that have already been conscripted is horrendous, and is growing faster and faster.

On the other hand, Russian advances have been insignificant so far. A ditch, then a tree, then another ditch, then a house. Remember Bakhmut. That was quite a while ago, and Putin murdered the general who accomplished it, which is not good strategy. Today there is much excitement because the Russians have gained a small and shaky toehold in Chasov Yar. The centre of Chasov Yar is about ten kilometres from the centre of Bakhmut, and the Russian toehold about five kilometres from the western edge of Bakhmut, so it took the Russians all this time to advance five kilometres.

But this painfully slow rate of advance largely reflects Ukrainian strategy of sacrificing very large numbers of troops to hang on to very bad positions. They keep feeding enough troops into a killing field that the Russians cannot take it. So the Russians kill the men that are defending it, and the Ukrainians feed in more men. Ukrainian strategy seems single mindedly focused on what will look good in next week’s Washington power point presentation, and avoiding what will look bad in that presentation, rather than on winning the war.

A Ukrainian strategy aimed at winning the war would be to make Russians pay the highest possible price for their advances, and Ukrainians the lowest possible price for inflicting that high price, and then negotiate when the Russians got tired — it would mean a willingness to fall back from weak places. The entire Greatest Ukrainian Counter Offensive consisted of Ukrainians in weak places fighting Russians in strong places.

Washington loves its frozen conflicts, but the Ukrainians are paying an unpayable price to keep this conflict frozen.

I watched Kagan on Youtube lay out his plan for the Ukrainian Greatest Counter Offensive. (Or maybe it was his wife’s plan, or Blinken’s plan, but he seemed to think it was a great idea, and that he was a great military expert on warfare). Well I am not a great military expert on warfare, but I thought that the plan was idiotic, and that he was idiotic. Some time later I learned that the Pentagon also thought the plan idiotic, and the Ukraine’s top general thought the plan was idiotic. Nonetheless, the Ukrainians attempted to carry out the plan. Which tells you where the power is. The power is with people who have family reasons for wanting Ukrainians dead.

So, the question is, how long before the remaining part of the Ukrainian army just decides to vanish?

Summer.

If the Ukraine was a real nation, their army would be only about half way to collapse, and they could probably continue the same way to 2026 or so. But I think Ukrainian patriotism is mostly fake. The Ukraine has never been a real nation, but a satrapy that empires fought over, not with. I say Ukrainian patriotism is fake and gay, that people say patriotic words because it is easier and safer, and in due course they will say pro-russian words, and scarcely notice the change. Their Ukrainian patriotic words are not really their words, they are Global American Empire words, and Global American Empire is falling.

We shall see if I am right.

Know your enemy, know yourself, win every battle. Know yourself but not the enemy, win some, lose some. Know neither the enemy nor yourself, lose every battle

The Global American Empire does not know itself nor the enemy. They cannot see that to the ordinary Russian in the street, this looks like the lead up to World War II with Nato as Wehrmacht, that fear of the west and the tyranny Russians suffered in the 1990s has remarkably united the naturally fissiparous Russian empire.

And similarly, they believe that Russians seek liberation from Putin, see him as a tyrant, and long to be liberated to Global American Empire rule and for peace by surrender. Hence the remarkably stupid US “Free Russian” invasion of Russia. They thought the oppressed Russian masses would rise up to join them for liberation. The Russians got some electronic devices from the bodies of the “Free Russians” — which recorded a mixture of Ukrainians speaking Ukrainian with Ukrainian accents, and Americans speaking English with American accents.

Our rulers believe their own economic statistics, such as 3.5 percent inflation and low unemployment, hence the disaster of economic sanctions against Russia, which in practice did far more harm to the American Empire than the Russian. All GDP statistics are fake, but Global American Empire GDP statistics are fake and gay. Hence American incapacity to support this war logistically. When America goes up against China, the disparity in economic capability is going to be far more extreme.