Respected military analyst speaks out on state run TV about the ability of the Ukrainian army

JimH52

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Oct 14, 2007
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You can see his fellow associates at the desk are very weary. I suppose they are afraid that they will also be targeted by Putin for saying anything negative about his war. Is this a crack in the Russia wall of lies?
 
Here is a longer clip with subtitles. Khodaryonok is a retired Colonel who never drank the kool-aid. He's a frequent military expert commentator on channel one. He's pretty blunt in his comments, surprising it was aired.



This is a translation of a piece he wrote before the invasion called "The Forecasts of Bloodthirsty Pundits". Subtitled "On triumphant hawks and hasty cuckoos".

"But we have to admit the following: if before 2014 the Ukrainian armed forces were a splinter of the Soviet army, then in the last seven years Ukraine has developed a substantively different army, based on a completely different
ideological foundation and in many ways up to the standards of NATO. And entirely modern weaponry and technology is today arriving, and continuing to arrive in Ukraine from many countries of the North Atlantic alliance.

....

Now let us consider the assertion that Western countries won’t send a single soldier to die in Ukraine.
It’s important to note that this is likely the case.

However this does not exclude, in the event of an invasion by the Russian federation, of huge amounts of assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces from the side of the West in the form of a huge variety of military arms and technology and war materials. In this respect the West has demonstrated a previously unprecedented level of unity, which it seems like Moscow did not anticipate.
There is no reason to doubt that the USA and NATO Countries will launch some reincarnation of the Lend-Lease program based on the World War II model. We also can’t exclude the flow of volunteers from the West, of which there could be many."

 
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I was a Combat Engineer at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne when the wall fell. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union we welcomed our new friends to exchange officers for mutual information exchange.

I still remember the Russian Captain. He was a Russian Paratrooper. He watched us do some training and quietly asked several of us how many Officers were disguised as Enlisted.

This Russian found it hard to believe we would train our basic Privates in how to read maps. Most of the skills a Private has to learn to graduate basic training were classified in the Soviet Army. Map reading. Setting up and using a radio. Learning how to call for artillery support.

The Soviet/Russian model is for unskilled soldiers to be viewed as little more than robots. Go where you are told. Shoot anyone you see.

We knew this of course. It is why we were trained to shoot the Enemy Officers first. The Russian Soldiers without leadership were not effective.

Putin is a true believer in the wisdom of the Soviet. He had to be to get picked for the KGB. If you train soldiers on how and why things work they may start thinking. And thinking is bad for any totalitarian society. Because you can’t control what the people are thinking.

The downside of this is that Officers will need their troops tightly gathered. They can’t control what they can’t see. There is no way to know where Private Boris is or what he is doing if the Officer can’t see him.


That is the result. The unit is attacked with Artillery. The unit is destroyed in detail.

It is painfully obvious that the Russians are still using the old Soviet model. Quantity over Quality. Mass over technology.

It remains painfully obvious that this just doesn’t work on the modern battlefield.
 
Here is a longer clip with subtitles. Khodaryonok is a retired Colonel who never drank the kool-aid. He's a frequent military expert commentator on channel one. He's pretty blunt in his comments, surprising it was aired.



This is a translation of a piece he wrote before the invasion called "The Forecasts of Bloodthirsty Pundits". Subtitled "On triumphant hawks and hasty cuckoos".

"But we have to admit the following: if before 2014 the Ukrainian armed forces were a splinter of the Soviet army, then in the last seven years Ukraine has developed a substantively different army, based on a completely different
ideological foundation and in many ways up to the standards of NATO. And entirely modern weaponry and technology is today arriving, and continuing to arrive in Ukraine from many countries of the North Atlantic alliance.

....

Now let us consider the assertion that Western countries won’t send a single soldier to die in Ukraine.
It’s important to note that this is likely the case.

However this does not exclude, in the event of an invasion by the Russian federation, of huge amounts of assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces from the side of the West in the form of a huge variety of military arms and technology and war materials. In this respect the West has demonstrated a previously unprecedented level of unity, which it seems like Moscow did not anticipate.
There is no reason to doubt that the USA and NATO Countries will launch some reincarnation of the Lend-Lease program based on the World War II model. We also can’t exclude the flow of volunteers from the West, of which there could be many."


Thanks for posting his!
 
I was a Combat Engineer at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne when the wall fell. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union we welcomed our new friends to exchange officers for mutual information exchange.

I still remember the Russian Captain. He was a Russian Paratrooper. He watched us do some training and quietly asked several of us how many Officers were disguised as Enlisted.

This Russian found it hard to believe we would train our basic Privates in how to read maps. Most of the skills a Private has to learn to graduate basic training were classified in the Soviet Army. Map reading. Setting up and using a radio. Learning how to call for artillery support.

The Soviet/Russian model is for unskilled soldiers to be viewed as little more than robots. Go where you are told. Shoot anyone you see.

We knew this of course. It is why we were trained to shoot the Enemy Officers first. The Russian Soldiers without leadership were not effective.

Putin is a true believer in the wisdom of the Soviet. He had to be to get picked for the KGB. If you train soldiers on how and why things work they may start thinking. And thinking is bad for any totalitarian society. Because you can’t control what the people are thinking.

The downside of this is that Officers will need their troops tightly gathered. They can’t control what they can’t see. There is no way to know where Private Boris is or what he is doing if the Officer can’t see him.


That is the result. The unit is attacked with Artillery. The unit is destroyed in detail.

It is painfully obvious that the Russians are still using the old Soviet model. Quantity over Quality. Mass over technology.

It remains painfully obvious that this just doesn’t work on the modern battlefield.
Poootin seriously underestimated the Ukrainian military. With the help from western nations, Ukraine may win this war and even attempt to retake Crimea. It may certainly be in the cards. Your opinion?
 
....

Now let us consider the assertion that Western countries won’t send a single soldier to die in Ukraine.
It’s important to note that this is likely the case.
It's not the case obviously but those captured by Russia will be sworn to denial of representing their countries. This is another violation of the mutually agreed upon rules for this war.

Russia is doing acceptably well at the moment but i greatly fear that it's going to get worse for Russia and they will violate the rules.
 
Poootin seriously underestimated the Ukrainian military. With the help from western nations, Ukraine may win this war and even attempt to retake Crimea. It may certainly be in the cards. Your opinion?

Honestly. Russia will go to Nukes to keep Crimea. Their largest Naval Base on the Black Sea is on the Crimean Peninsula. Losing that would be akin to losing San Diego. Russia won’t lose it. They can’t. The effect would be catastrophic. So they’ll go all out to defend it.

What should have happened is Russia negotiated a deal like Guantanamo Bay. Instead Russia decided to go for broke. Now their economy and world standing is in the crapper. It will take decades to recover what they’ve lost.

Their Aviation industry will likely never recover. Their international airlines will be bankrupt in a few more months. At most. They won’t be able to lease or buy planes. They won’t be able to fly anywhere except China.

Their Domestic Airlines will be Chinese before the year is out. That will be the only way they can keep operating.

Since Russia played their Trump card on Oil and Gas. Deals are already being negotiated to get new sources. Bet money on new LNG carriers being built.

Countries that were moving away from Nuclear power will be rethinking that.

The Russian Plan called for a quick victory. Then before the world could get outraged it was a done deal. But Ukrainian Resistance proved sufficient to thwart that plan. Now. The Russians are pouring men and material. Things they can’t afford to lose. Pouring them into a meat grinder.

We were taught that atrocity happens when Morale is low and frustration is high. The sexual assaults show that the atrocities are happening. The soldiers pushed off that they are losing friends and fellows are attempting to assuage their egos by punishing the people they can. It is the act of weak ego people to do that. Weak ego people who want to establish dominance.

Everything we see is about how Russia is collapsing. Their officers even if they knew better before are reverting to Soviet dense pack of troops for better control. The continuing Rapes and other atrocities show that the officers are barely in control of the troops. They are becoming a mob.

The next step from my own training is that the troops will start turning on the officers. We have seen some of that already. In Vietnam it was called Fragging the officer. That was when someone would toss a Fragmentation Grenade into the Latrine when the officer was in it.

The Russians have to know they are close to that point. So the Officers will be watching their own troops with suspicion and that will harm combat effectiveness even more. More troops die. More troops get frustrated and angry. More start looking for revenge. It becomes a downwards spiral that is difficult to break.

The American Technique to combat this is have Officers and NCO’s lead from the front. An example. The first person out of the plane when jumping is always an Officer. The troops know that their Officers are leading them. Not only sharing the danger. But literally leading the way to that danger.

Contrast that with the Russian Officer with his hand on his pistol standing behind his troops to shoot any who don’t obey. How willing to fight and risk death will those soldiers be?

Russia is crumbling. If the linked article I posted above is correct. The propaganda is starting to break. It is entirely possible that another Revolution is in the works. And it will start in Ukraine when a unit that has been mauled too many times refuses to attack.
 
Honestly. Russia will go to Nukes to keep Crimea. Their largest Naval Base on the Black Sea is on the Crimean Peninsula. Losing that would be akin to losing San Diego. Russia won’t lose it. They can’t. The effect would be catastrophic. So they’ll go all out to defend it.
Mostly everything you're trying to say is wrong and that's based on your first paragraph being wrong, and only an attempt to find some reason to reject the facts of the present situation.

You've tried to create a comfortable situation in which Russia can accept defeat but still claim a win with the Crimea. Let's establish that for an opener!

That doesn't take into account Russia's reason for drawing the line on US encroachment on their territory and neither does it acknowledge that this is America's war against Russia and America is not going to accept such a paltry gain of Ukrainian territory secured. That is not the reason for the war and that will never suffice.

here's Russia's bottom line: Taking of the Donbass and holding the Crimea. And that's being conservative.

Rather than attempt to debate all your talking points, that would be too time consuming, addressing your motive in your first paragraph is all that is needed.
 
What should have happened is Russia negotiated a deal like Guantanamo Bay.
Russia had that deal. They broke it in 2014 when they annexed Crimea.

The Black Sea Fleet was home ported in Sevestopol until 2042 with an option to extend to 2047. Then Putin decided to tear up all the agreements.

Putin is like the dog that caught the car. His fantasy has collided with reality in a very dramatic way.
 
Mostly everything you're trying to say is wrong and that's based on your first paragraph being wrong, and only an attempt to find some reason to reject the facts of the present situation.

You've tried to create a comfortable situation in which Russia can accept defeat but still claim a win with the Crimea. Let's establish that for an opener!

That doesn't take into account Russia's reason for drawing the line on US encroachment on their territory and neither does it acknowledge that this is America's war against Russia and America is not going to accept such a paltry gain of Ukrainian territory secured. That is not the reason for the war and that will never suffice.

here's Russia's bottom line: Taking of the Donbass and holding the Crimea. And that's being conservative.

Rather than attempt to debate all your talking points, that would be too time consuming, addressing your motive in your first paragraph is all that is needed.
No deal will be made with Putin because Putin has proved to the world that he cannot be trusted to abide by it. If Ukraine did make a deal with Russia, it would mean the end of sanctions and the end of weapons from the US and Europe, and that would mean that Putin would invade again once the Russian economy had recovered.

This war is win or lose and Russia will surely lose it. The only way Russia can win it is to capture and control all of Ukraine and at this point it is highly doubtful Russia can continue to hold on to what it has captured so far. As long and the war goes on, it will cost Russia 20 billion euros a day and the Russian economy will continue to contract and inflation will continue to grow until it will become impossible to attend to the needs of civil society in Russia and the survival of the Russian state will come into question. The bottom line for Russia's survival is complete unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine including from Crimea.
 
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Those photos of the armored units destroyed crossing that river? Are certainly compelling. I have been waiting for news of that battle. I read that the Ukrainian Troops defending Kharkiv, were the best trained, and best equipped, in the entire Ukrainian army. And that the forces that would be assaulting the city were a mix of the troops that were defeated at Kiev, and irregular separatist partisans from the Donbas.

. . . and, given the location, and its strategic importance, it would be key to any long range victory in the war, for both sides.

The date on this article? May 13th.

And on this one? May 16th.


Leaves me with a question. . .

If Ukraine Is Winning Why Is The U.S. Requesting A Ceasefire?​

Why did U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin call the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu on May 13th, urging an immediate ceasefire?

:dunno:

"On May 13, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu for the first time since February 18. Secretary Austin urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication."

I think we need to really be suspect of the NYT, and the propaganda they push. . . I am NOT saying that this is accurate, but it might just as well be an accurate summation of events, as the NYT.


". . . The Ukraine is losing up to 15,000 men per month to the war. The total Ukrainian casualties, dead and wounded, are likely already at 50,000. The weapons the U.S. and others provide, are not sufficient to sustain the war. The Ukraine has only 3 days reserves of diesel and gasoline left. The main parts of its forces are immobile and are getting surrounded by Russian forces. Their situation is hopeless.

The Pentagon of course knows this all and that is why Austin initiated the call and asked for a ceasefire.

The Russia side will not agree to a ceasefire. At least not unless the 'west' offers to take back some of the 6,400 sanction measures it has initiated against Russia.

There are recently a number of other issues that also go in favor of Russia:

  • The economic outlook for Russia is good. It will have a record wheat harvest. Its internal measures to compensate for the results of sanctions are working. Counter sanctions Russia has now initiated against its enemies are starting to become effective.
  • Hungary has blocked European sanctions against Russian oil.
  • Turkey is slowing down if not prohibiting the entry of Kurd friendly Sweden and Norway into NATO.
  • The U.S. weapon deliveries to Ukraine will stop on May 19 unless Congress passes authority for new ones.
  • Senator Rand Paul has held up the required bill with the quite reasonable demand to have a inspector general scrutinize where the $40 billion 'for Ukraine' will be going. The Democrats will certainly dislike that.
  • U.S. gasoline prices have hit a record high.
  • European natural gas prices have also jumped after the Ukraine blocked the flow from Russia through one of the pipelines and while the flow through the Yamal pipeline in Poland has been stopped due to Russian counter sanctions.
  • Le Monde has verified and published a video that shows a Ukrainian 'volunteer battalion', led by a known criminal, torturing Russian prisoners of war.
  • Russia has published new material about the U.S. military biological 'research' in Ukraine. Other countries will also have questions about these activities.
The British Ministry of Defense claims that Russia lost a significant amount of material and men in an attempt to cross the Seversky Donets river. However the aerial pictures published by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry show that about half of the destroyed vehicles are BMP-1 with the original small one man turret and the stubby 73 mm gun. Russia is said to no longer have these. All its active service BMP-1 are said to have been upgraded and now have different turrets with 30 mm machine cannons with longer rifles. There must have been a larger battle over the crossing with probably both sides taking heavy losses. Moreover the fighting is now on the western side of the river. The Russian forces thus must have crossed the river in significant numbers. . . . "

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SATURDAY MORNING LIVE WITH SCOTT RITTER AND RAY MCGOVERN​

Streamed live on May 14, 2022
 
Back to the thread, I think the good Colonel got a "talking to" from the Kremlin.

The next day he was talking about how the US Howitzers would quickly be dispatched, and used the footage of the miss released by the MoD. Video clip is in the tweet.
 
Back to the thread, I think the good Colonel got a "talking to" from the Kremlin.

The next day he was talking about how the US Howitzers would quickly be dispatched, and used the footage of the miss released by the MoD. Video clip is in the tweet.

Gotta keep the truth from the Russian people....it's the Poootin way.
 

You can see his fellow associates at the desk are very weary. I suppose they are afraid that they will also be targeted by Putin for saying anything negative about his war. Is this a crack in the Russia wall of lies?


Moscow horde lost this war ...
 

You can see his fellow associates at the desk are very weary. I suppose they are afraid that they will also be targeted by Putin for saying anything negative about his war. Is this a crack in the Russia wall of lies?

A paid by NATO liar and traitor
 

You can see his fellow associates at the desk are very weary. I suppose they are afraid that they will also be targeted by Putin for saying anything negative about his war. Is this a crack in the Russia wall of lies?


 

That SPM made a very satisfying fireball when the ammunition went off. That's a somewhat rare piece, there were only 9 of them in active service.

There is a backstory on this one- a Russian journalist (posts on Twitter as Necromancer) posted a video of the mortar the previous day, in that exact position.

The Ukrainians saw the Twitter post, identified the location and targeted it the next day.

The Deputy Commander of the Luhansk Military District thanked "Russian propagandists who were bragging about it on social media, which helped us correct the fire"
 

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