Ispan Fri Sep 09, 2022 6:18 pm
No report tonight, too tired.. and I am on vacation this week
Somebody a few pages back posted this. It has my seal of approval
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/ukraine-counterattacks
One comment from a great commentator on my blog, a Spanish military officer (artillery, major or above), great man, married to a Russian woman, he's one of ours. He and a couple other military/intelligence pals follow my blog and offer very good hidnsights and act as my "peer review" of sorts.
"As Zarzovs and Zhukov (me, Ispan) himself well say, in war not everything is linear. There are moments of progress, stagnation and setbacks. That's happening now. On such a broad front line, there are always weak points within it. They have them both sides along the same. Ukraine has decided to test in two, one to the south and one to the east. The southern attempt failed and is now in the phase of Front rectification. In the East, they have achieved initial success. Well, so what? For the offensive to be successful, they would need to be able to maneuver, then, against the Donbass Forces and for this they do not have troops. So? An offensive to nowhere, as in the Ebro in 1938 or the Ardennes in 1944, that does create problems for the other side but that without aviation to sustain it or the ability to exploit success leads, sooner or later, to establish itself on the defensive and suffer the consequences.
Let us understand that, in war, defenses are not always without idea of recoil. Ground is often ceded to force the enemy to stretch their lines and expose their Units outside the protection of their artillery. The retreat, well executed, allows to attract the enemy to a point where it can be counterattacked.
And in this line of thought , the Russians have one option that they can exploit as well to divert attention from Kharkov: Nikolayev. An attack in that direction would take a good part of the Forces that are now still clinging to the small gains in Kherson in a compromised situation in addition to forcing the Ukrainian command to divert troops to plug the bleeding and they would have to dig deep to get them
I would be worried if instead of 9,000 men they would have thrown 50,00 in this offensive. but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I repeat, they are only going to get a local gain with no possibility of going any further. Even an attack on Izyum, where there are numerous Russian forces, which would only have to reorient their front, is doomed to failure."