Author: Rong ping source: official account: Rong Ping (ID: rongping898) has been authorized to reprint
The reversal of the war situation in Ukraine surprised the whole world: the Ukrainian army on the Northern Line shifted from strategic defense to strategic counterattack, advancing for 100km in a short period of four days. It is reasonable to say that the average propulsion speed of 25 kilometers per day, even in the semi mechanized era of World War II, is nothing to boast about.
However, Ukraine, as a defensive side, is fighting on the open plains without air supremacy. This speed is actually like entering a territory without people! The most important thing is that the particularly important military towns of baralya, ikum, kupyansk and dividend man have been recovered by the Ukrainian army one after another, which is not good news for the Russian army on the northern line.
Since the outbreak of the war, ikum, located in the east of Kharkov state and adjacent to the North Donetsk river bank, has been the focus of contention between the Russian and Ukrainian armies. Geographically, ikum city is equivalent to a corner of northeast Ukraine. It can attack Donetsk in the South and contain Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine and the largest city in eastern Ukraine, in the north. It forms an isolation belt with bonus man and popasna, which completely separates northeast Ukraine.
In terms of transportation, ikum is the hub supporting the material transportation and transportation interconnection between the north and South lines of the Russian army, and its roads and railways providing weapons and material supplies to Lugansk, Donetsk, zaporoze and Kherson will pass through it.
If the Russian army can hold the line from ikum to dividend man, it is only a matter of time before it can take the whole territory of Donbass; If it can’t be defended, the passage of supplies from the Russian mainland to the South will be cut off. As a result, the previously divided northeastern Ukraine will be reunited, which will pose a direct threat to Lugansk. This means that at least half of the good situation of the northern line that has been hard maintained for six months will be ruined.
Therefore, when the war reports of the loss of ijum and dividend man came out, global public opinion instantly boiled and gradually developed in two extreme directions.
The side that supports Ukraine believes that the Russian army has shown great weakness in the defense battle of ikum, the low resistance will of the defenders and the impending collapse of the Ukrainian army have made the Ukrainian army feel like a land of no one. If it continues to develop at this speed, Russia will not be far from a complete collapse. For example, a reporter from the British economist magazine ridiculed that the Russian army in Ukraine resembles the Afghan government army in 2021.
The side that supports Russia thinks that the Russian army is luring the enemy in-depth. For example, the viewpoint mentioned that street fighting is very unfavorable for the Russian army to annihilate the effective forces of the Ukrainian army in order to achieve the goal of demilitarization. The active retreat is to induce them to withdraw from the defense area and annihilate them in mobile warfare.
These two statements are actually inaccurate. Let’s use three indisputable facts to help you directly attack the essence through the phenomenon.
First, it is an indisputable fact that the Russian army lost this time
The direct cause of the Russian army’s defeat this time lies in the misjudgment of intelligence.
Since August, Ukraine has been planning matters related to the large-scale counter offensive, but this is a political war, not a military war! As we all know, it is the Democratic Party that supports Ukraine’s fight in the United States, while the Republican Party is more inclined to reduce the intensity of the war or even end it, so as to concentrate on dealing with China in the Western Pacific region. Although the Democratic Party is now in power.
The problem is that the Republican Party’s winning rate in the midterm elections is getting higher and higher. Once the Democratic Party completely loses control of both houses of Congress, without the cooperation of the Republican Party, the intensity of US military assistance to Ukraine may not be as strong as before.
Therefore, Ukraine must be well prepared for some things after the Republican Party wins the election.
What’s the matter?
How to force the Republican Party to maintain its support for Ukraine!
It is obvious that if the Ukrainian army continues to pour down like this, then the Chiang Kai Shek clique of that year is a lesson for it: there is no reason for the United States to invest a lot of manpower, material resources and money to fight a war that is doomed to lose, otherwise it can not account to the people.
Therefore, before the midterm elections, Ukraine needs to prove its hope of winning with a clean victory, so as to incite the anti war forces in the United States to unite with the Democratic Party and put pressure on the Republican Party. The Republican Party, considering the 2024 presidential election year, can only make concessions. After all, in today’s United States, party interests are far greater than the country’s strategic interests.
Now that the reason for the counter offensive has been resolved, it is time to resolve the question of where to launch the counter offensive. The Ukrainian army’s initial counter offensive target was Kherson on the southern line, and Russia also firmly believes that the southern line is the focus of Ukraine’s counter offensive. The reason is very simple. The greatest benefit is to counter attack Kherson state at the military level.
After the Crimean incident, Kherson, sandwiched between zaporoze state and Nikolaev state, became the bridgehead of Ukraine connecting the sea of Azov and the Black Sea. If the Ukrainian army can win in Kherson, it can advance eastward to the two major port cities in the Azov Sea, namely Mariupol and berjansk; To the west, we have the opportunity to control Odessa, the largest port on the north shore of the Black Sea!
In this way, Russia’s strategic plan to turn Ukraine into a landlocked country to reduce its threat has also collapsed, which also indicates that Russia’s southern front operations will fall short. We must understand that even if we win a war that does not achieve the set strategic objectives, we will lose.
Therefore, Russia has focused its military deployment in recent months on the front line of Kherson, including the mobilization of elite forces on the northern front.
But I didn’t expect that Ukraine was fighting a political war. It doesn’t matter where the counter offensive is. What matters is winning.
Kharkov on the north line has no long-term military benefits. It is too close to Russia’s Belgorod state, and the farthest distance is no more than 50km. Even if the Ukrainian army can win the counterattack, it is simply unrealistic to keep it under the teeth of Russia for a long time.
It is also because of this unreality that Russia was taken in by Ukraine, so that the defense on the northern line was weak and was taken advantage of by the Ukrainian army.
Of course, in the final analysis, the Russian army’s defeat along the ijum line was caused by the lack of effective troops. The Russian army has only 300000 troops in total, 100000 stationed on the mainland, 100000 fighting in Ukraine and 100000 rotating. Theoretically, if the air and space forces can function normally, it will be more than enough for 100000 troops to fight half of Ukraine. However, I do not know if it is the will of the Russian army to prepare for the possible end of the US Army. The attendance rate is extremely low, and the army can only rely on itself to fight most of the time.
In the traditional mechanized war, if the garrison relies on urban buildings to defend, the attacking side must pay at least three times the force and ten times the ammunition to capture, so the disadvantage of insufficient force is magnified.
Second, it is an indisputable fact that the Russian army still holds the initiative on the battlefield
After the Russian army retreated, some people on the side supporting Ukraine always said that the Russian soldiers would surely fail because of their low fighting will and small strength. This view is actually based on a wrong logic. The goal of Russia’s war is to occupy the whole territory of Ukraine.
Before the war started, I clearly pointed out that the possibility and opportunity of Russia’s full occupation of Ukraine was zero among the four options of Russia’s only holding Lugansk and Donetsk, taking the ports along the Azov Sea, fully occupying Ukraine, and fully advancing to the eastern region with the Dnieper River as the boundary.
It is much harder to defend the country than to fight against it!
The western region of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper River has long been ruled by Poland and the Austro Hungarian Empire, and believes in Catholicism rather than the traditional Orthodox Church of the Slavic nation. Since independence, there has been no shortage of Ukrainian de Russification campaigns, such as promoting the Ukrainian language to become the national language. Later, in the civil war between Ukraine and China, the West Ukrainians fought the least, causing great trouble to the Soviet army at that time. If Russia forcibly recovers Ukraine, not only will the cost of governance be quite high, but it will also be easy to be labeled as an aggressor, because the people will not be pro Russian, and they will not be able to participate in the Russian referendum like Crimea. This is one aspect.
On the other hand, after being integrated into Ukraine as a whole, Russia’s sphere of influence borders on the core area of the EU’s geographical interests, and there is no strategic buffer zone between the two. Under the threat of Geopolitical Security, the extreme Pro American forces in the EU will rapidly expand in a short period of time and promote the deepening of peace between Europe and the United States. This does not conform to the European strategy of China and Russia to at least prevent Europe from completely taking the side of the United States.
Eastern Ukraine is very different. It has both a pro Russian public opinion base and real interests. After it is won, it can not only open up the land passage from Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, but also merge a large number of military industries including the southern machinery manufacturing factory and the Kharkov tank factory, killing two birds with one stone.
It can be seen from this that Russia has never thought of fully occupying the whole Ukraine, either from geopolitics or actual needs.
However, if we take the east of Dnieper River as the strategic goal, the shortage of troops is not a big problem.
At present, Russia still has three options.
First, put the air and space forces of NATO and the United States on the battlefield, increase air support, and replace personnel needs with more powerful firepower; The second is to speed up the referendum so that conscripts who were originally restricted by law from going abroad to fight can participate in combat missions in fact; Third, issue mobilization orders.
According to Russian law, conscripts can’t go abroad to fight, but after the Ukrainian government of eastern Ukraine is invested in Russia, they don’t go abroad
As long as the problem of the source of troops is solved, it will be a matter of time before the Russian army re establishes its offensive dominance on the northern line.
How can you find a camel that is thinner than a horse?
What’s more, Russia is not thin enough to be on the verge of death, and Ukraine is not on the horse!
Third, it is an indisputable fact that the West has not defeated Russia strategically
The main strategic purpose of the West in inciting the Russian Ukrainian war is to bring down and split Russia through the Afghanization of Ukraine, just like the Soviet Union did in those days. However, Russia’s national finance has not been dragged down. Instead, it has made huge fortunes due to the rise in international commodity prices caused by the war. Instead, the West has become trapped in its own cocoon, and life is getting harder and harder.
The inflation level in the United States continues to be high, and several rounds of interest rate hikes have no effect, because the premise for interest rate hikes to ease inflation is that the source of soaring prices lies in excessive money. But the source of big inflation after 2022 lies in the fact that the amount of goods circulating in the international market has decreased.
This is obviously a factor that cannot be controlled by monetary policy!
The situation in Europe is even worse, and the cold winter is approaching. After Russia cut off the supply of Beixi No. 1, people’s heating and industrial gas could not be maintained. In order to ensure production, European enterprises set up factories overseas in batches, emptying fiscal revenue, jobs and industrial capacity.
Ordinary people who can’t run away make trouble. A few days ago, 70000 people from the Czech Republic marched to protest against energy price increases. In recent days, Austria followed suit, causing the German media to fear that the storm would blow to Berlin all day. Switzerland, known as a human rights benchmark, even invented the crime of malicious heating.
Friends, winter has not come. It’s really November and February. Who knows what moths can come out? Alexander in Europe!
Compared with the chaotic United States and the west, what is the negative impact of a tactical rout in Russia?
German media Le Monde sharply commented on the Czech March: I’m afraid this scene will be staged in Germany
Winning or losing is a routine matter for soldiers. One or two defeats can not change the nature of Russia as a strong country and Ukraine as a weak country. The possibility of Russia losing everything is naturally out of the question.
Most importantly, Ukraine will not be Afghan, and the Russian army will not be Soviet. In terms of terrain, Afghanistan is mountainous, Ukraine is plain, and there is no danger to defend; In terms of fighting will, in the eyes of the Afghan people, the Soviet army is an alien invading the country, and everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the world;
In the eyes of ordinary people in eastern Ukraine, the Russian army is the compatriots who recovered their homeland and the generals who liberated them from the Nazi tyranny of the Ukrainian government;
In terms of the international environment, the Soviet Union was unaccompanied in those days, but now at least two-thirds of Russia can understand his helplessness in fighting passively.
In a word, ijum is the midfield, not the end!