Fighting draw
New Russia at the moment does not need neither Kiev nor Moscow
The reasons and the first stage of the civil war in Ukraine were discussed in the articles “But Donbass Happened” and “The Burden of Victory”. Now you can discuss the second stage of the war and future prospects.
The first Minsk agreements signed at the beginning of September 2014, neither Kiev nor the Donbass categorically arranged. Both sides believed that the victory was stolen from them (and both of them were right to a certain extent). They did not achieve their goals and did not lose the ability to fight further. Therefore, the continuation of the armed struggle was almost inevitable. The war did not stop, only its intensity decreased. Nobody was going to carry out the agreement, the parties only recuperated after fierce summer battles, and also waited, if the enemy would have an economic collapse. Nobody has collapsed (although the economic situation in Ukraine and Donbas is catastrophic), so in mid-January the full-scale war resumed. It ended with another defeat of the Ukrainian army and the second Minsk agreements, which were again imposed on the parties by external players (Russia and Europe). Ukraine and Donbass are still extremely dissatisfied with the agreements, because again they have not achieved their goals and still have not lost the opportunity to fight further. About the stolen victory, it is true, now neither they nor the others speak. For Ukraine, this would have been absolutely absurd, but the winter campaign cost the Donbas militia too dearly.
"American weapon, delivered to Ukraine, with a probability close to 100 percent, will very quickly be in the militia, and then in Russia ”
By mid-March 2015, the exact losses of the parties in technology since the beginning of the war (that is, for the year) are as follows.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the Armed Forces of Ukraine, all power formations fighting in the Donbass are included in this concept) tank (117 destroyed, 65 captured by the enemy), 30 BRDM (17 destroyed, 13 captured), 377 infantry fighting vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles (215 destroyed, 162 captured), 153 armored personnel carriers (107 destroyed, 46 captured), 71 MTLB and BTR-D (38 destroyed , 33 captured), 66 self-propelled guns (34 destroyed, 32 captured), 68 towed guns (33 destroyed, 35 captured), 29 MLRS (27 destroyed, 2 captured). In addition, 2 Osa-AKM air defense systems were destroyed, 1 air defense missile launcher and a Buk air defense system each, 2 Tunguska air defense systems, 9 combat and 3 auxiliary aircraft, 5 combat and 5 multi-purpose helicopters, 2 UAVs were shot down.
Donbass militia (hereinafter - Novorossia, VSN) lost 46 tanks (39 destroyed, Xnumx captured by the enemy), 7, BRDM (5 destroyed, 3 captured), 2 BMP and BMD (27 destroyed, snooped, they will be a case at a time, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be covered by a snoop of a case, they will be used, they will be a case, they will, they will be used, they will be a case, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be using the outlay, they will be a way they will, in the case of damages, they will be covered, they will be covered), they will be used to make a copy of the same figure, they will be used to make a copy of the same figure, they will be used to make a snoop of the same figure, they will be used to monitor this operation. 23 captured), 4 MTLB and BTR-D (15 destroyed, 11 captured), 4 SAU (destroyed), 13 towed guns (12 destroyed and captured), 1 MRLS (destroyed).
This list does not include BTR-D 1, 1-70 APCs and 1 ACS 2S9 first captured the militias, but then returned APU. But both sides counted as a loss of BMD 3, 2 BTR-D and 1 ACS 2S19 that have become trophies BCH, and then in their structure destroyed APU. It is likely that such cases are much more, respectively, the data on the APU would be redistributed (less captured and more destroyed). In addition, the losses of both sides are obviously higher, since not all of them are established.
It is not possible to establish any human losses correctly; even the order of magnitudes is unclear.
It is noteworthy that the APU has the main losses in the BMP and BMD. This is obviously explained by the fact that the Ukrainian army is trying to seize and hold the territory, naturally, with the help of infantry and airborne troops. That is why their cars are dying in such huge quantities. In the BCH, the main losses are in tanks. The reason is probably that the republic defended or carried out counter-offensive using tanks as the main striking force. As a result, the ratio of losses in tanks turns out to be the most “decent” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while for the rest of the equipment classes - just beyond the limits. Moreover, after the resumption of intensive hostilities in mid-January, the losses of the sides on the destroyed tanks turned out to be almost the same, despite the fact that last summer they were 6: 1 in favor of the BCH. This can partly be explained by the fact that the APU began to fight a little bit better than in 2014-m, in part, perhaps, by the fact that in late August BCH were not only "H", they helped "north wind", which after the first of the Minsk agreements not never renewed.
border opportunities
Assume that the Minsk II will be carried out, it is extremely difficult, since, as stated above, the parties have not reached their goals (for Kiev - the complete elimination of the DNI and LC, for the country - out of at least the administrative borders of the provinces). At the same time, the prospects are extremely ambiguous.
As stated in the articles “But Donbass Happened” and “Burden of Victory”, Donetsk-Lugansk separatism initially had a purely Ukrainian nature, reflecting the struggle of the oligarchs (like the Maidan, which has no relation to the concept of “people's revolution”), but then due to various reasons out of control of their organizers (Donetsk oligarchic grouping). Now the influence of the previous owners on the leadership of the DPR and the LPR has come to naught, but Moscow is very large (though not absolutely), despite the fact that at first it was zero. Civil engineering in the Donbass does not interest anyone - neither the leadership of the self-proclaimed republics (these are very specific people), nor Moscow (it is not going to join Novorossia). The civilian population is only provided with the opportunity not to die of hunger. This civilian population itself belongs to the DPR and LNR is extremely ambiguous, although Kiev mostly hates it. At the same time, the BCH gradually turned from an anarchic aggregate to no one who was subordinate to a practically normal army. There are three main components in them - those who started all this within the framework of internal Ukrainian clashes (that is, the people of Akhmetov and Efremov); volunteers from other regions of Ukraine, from Russia and several other countries, fighting for ideological reasons; local residents who had joined the militia already during the war, based primarily on revenge of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for killed relatives and friends. Their morale and level of training is quite high. With equipment, too, everything is in order - firstly, there is a huge trophies (listed above), and secondly, a significant amount of equipment from APU just bought (and in this "business" involved with the Ukrainian side as the generals and privates) Finally, it does not do without the Russian "Voentorg". However, the potential of the BCH is still limited, so even access to the administrative boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions is an extremely serious problem for them. In fact, this is possible only in the event of an internal collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian state in general. If this does not happen, the BCH can only hold the territory of today, however, this problem they solve is almost guaranteed.
Kiev Donbass and its population are completely unnecessary, this is confirmed by how quickly he abandoned his social obligations towards those who live in the DPR and the LPR. In this regard, it is impossible not to recall that Moscow did not renounce social obligations towards the residents of Chechnya, even in those years when this republic was under the control of the separatists. Then it seemed idiotic to many Russians; now it’s clear how right it was. But to abandon the Donbass Kiev is not ready (at least not yet) for reasons primarily of a political nature: it is very difficult to expand the propaganda machine in the opposite direction, and now it continues with the same fury support the idea of the unity of Ukraine. In addition, Washington strongly recommends fighting until victory. And its influence on Kiev is quite comparable with what Moscow demonstrates with regard to the DPR and the LPR - very large, although not absolutely.
However, to achieve a military victory for Kiev is almost impossible. And the matter is not the lack of equipment. At the moment, the APU is composed of about 1600 tanks (this is only T-64, there are about 400 T-72, but they are not used in battles, at least for now), 1800 BMP and BMD, 1400 BTR, 2000 MTLB and BTR-D, SAU 1100, 1500 order towed guns, MLRS 500, 80 combat aircraft, attack helicopters 40. Of course, the real numbers are much lower, because, firstly, not all the losses are taken into account, secondly, it is not known how many vehicles were sold from the APU to the BCH, thirdly, a very large part of it has fully developed the resource or is dismantled to restore other similar machines . But even if the above values are halved, it is still a lot, enough for several years of war.
In this regard, it seems rather pointless to purchase foreign arms by Kiev. In the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, which are now members of NATO, there is quite a lot of familiar Soviet technology to Ukrainians. But its nonetheless less than the APU, moreover, it is even older. In particular, Eastern Europe does not have any T-64, and T-72, as mentioned above, do not use the APU. True, many of us still believe that last year Hungary put 58 T-72 into Ukraine, but it is already well known that these tanks left in the opposite direction - to the Czech Republic, from where they were resold to Nigeria. Moreover, Hungary, which has territorial claims to Ukraine and the status of enfant terrible NATO and the EU, is unlikely to sell arms to Kiev. Eastern Europe has very little even BMP-2 (totally less than 300 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia), moreover, in the APU they are up to 1000. In Poland and Bulgaria in large quantities there are only BMP-1, SAU 2С1 and MLRS BM-21. This technique can bring some benefit to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (especially the ACS and the MLRS, since for the army that cannot fight, the role of artillery is immensely large), but it certainly will not ensure victory. Most of all, useful to the APU Mi and Mi-24-8, but in Eastern Europe a bit and most importantly - their life is stamped as much Ukrainian similar machines because they all produced in the USSR. Even more meaningless are deliveries of Western weapons, which are very much spoken about in Ukraine, in Russia and in the West (especially in the United States). This weapon is completely unfamiliar to the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; its development will take quite a long time. At the same time, Western technology does not possess any magical, all-conquering qualities. All objective American experts unanimously note that such supplies only worsen the situation for the APU, because BCH in response will receive a "PX" line at least as a smaller amount of equipment that militias are perfectly familiar and can be applied immediately. Moreover, with a probability close to 100 percent, US weapons very quickly would have the militia, and later in Russia, which do not even have a trophy: military APU simply sell. In addition, if American weapons appear in Ukraine, and still do not bring victory (and it will be so), it catastrophically discredits not only him, but also the United States in general.
According to Western experts, the problem of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is by no means a shortage of equipment, but a very low level of combat training, ugly control and rear support. And over the past year, improvements in this regard are not visible, rather the opposite.
Fight for the myth
Any army during the war learns to fight. APU is no exception. This winter, they fought more stubbornly than last summer, inflicting very serious losses in people and equipment. Nevertheless, the result was again defeated, almost as disastrous as in August and September under Ilovaiskaya.
Learn to fight the soldiers and junior officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but no senior officers and generals. The managerial chaos in the APU during the year of the war has not diminished at all, and this is already a symptom. There is no positive selection of the most capable officers, as it was, for example, in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Chechnya. As before, the Ukrainian army is led by people selected not by professional qualities, but by ideological criteria and level of loyalty to political leadership.
A similar situation with the logistics. In fact, the army is still largely self-sufficient or depends on volunteers who buy food and equipment for the Armed Forces for their money. If people are ready to fight at their own expense, then the authorities (both military and political) are quite satisfied with this. The attitude to the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is absolutely ugly, no changes for the better are happening. And this symptom is even more serious.
Moreover, the war quickly turned into an extremely profitable business in Ukraine, confirming the well-known fact that corruption in this country is absolute. Generals, officers, and also commanders of volunteer battalions sell everything and to anyone. Fake volunteers have already appeared, earning money on humanitarian aid from the army. And this is not even a symptom, but a sentence. However, the army is a part of society. After the next president of Ukraine, it seems that the level of corruption in this country can no longer be, but each new head of state demonstrates that "there is no limit to perfection."
Another disastrous circumstance for the Armed Forces of Ukraine is that for the country's leadership information warfare is much more important than the actual fighting. The current regime in Kiev, whose nature and activities directly contradict all the slogans they also organized the Maidan, is held primarily for propaganda had time to create a huge variety of myths. Some of them are fatal for servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In particular, the myth of cyborg defending Donetsk airport, led to the death of most of these cyborgs under the ruins of the airport, which still came under the control of the BCH. The myth of “Stalingrad in Debaltseve” (Ukrainian propaganda, despite extreme anti-Sovietism, drew a parallel between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Soviet army) led to the fact that “Stalingrad” really happened there, only the Ukrainian Armed Forces were in the role of the Wehrmacht (in a military sense). That is, they are demanding that they retain their positions solely for the sake of the “picture”, which naturally leads to catastrophes and huge losses.
More and more problems with personnel. And here there are processes that destroy one of the fundamental myths of Kiev propaganda. Its leitmotif is the idea of freedom as the European Ukrainians confront Russian mossy rabam- "quilted jacket", seeking to restore its totalitarian empire. For a bulwark of freedom-loving Ukrainians Europeanized issued, of course, the western regions, which were under the "imperial oppression" only 1939 year, and before that had always been Europe. And indeed, during the last mobilization, western Ukrainians showed themselves just like real Europeans. As we know, the current European thought itself that you can die in battle (including home), it is a cave savagery (so Ukraine will never wait for assistance from NATO). Here and "zapadentsy" from the mobilization is rapidly scattering in all directions, both in enlightened Europe and in totalitarian Russia. From where they furiously smash the "Russian aggressors", but only on the Internet. Residents of the central and eastern regions, that is, Russians and Russified Ukrainians, are serving. At the same time, they demonstrate all the features inherent in the very “quilted jackets” - the willingness to die for their homeland, despite the bestial conditions of service and the fact that the worthless thieves' command floods the enemy with their corpses, without knowing any other methods of warfare. True, the Ukrainian army is stricken today with indiscriminate drunkenness, but what can you do if the “Europeans” do not want to serve. Only and exclusively on their own "quilted jackets" keep the current Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukraine as a whole. The question is whether this resource is endless. There are suspicions that no.
In general, one can see obvious parallels between the current Ukraine and the Russian Empire during the First World War. In both cases, at the beginning of the war, there was a strong surge of patriotic enthusiasm, which was followed after some success by numerous defeats at the front with the loss of significant territories. Then and now there was a blatant lack of talent of the command, the strongest corruption, including direct business in the war, the collapse of life in the rear with a catastrophic decline in welfare.
What ultimately ended the Russian Empire, it is well known. All of us (both Russia and Ukraine) are still disentangling the consequences of that disaster. Whether Ukraine will end the same way depends solely on it. Another (perhaps the main) problem of this country is that it is customary there to blame their problems on anyone, just not to solve it themselves. The overwhelming majority of the country's population did not realize that independence implies full responsibility for the fate of the state. And that no one, except the government and the people, in any case should not respect the national interests of Ukraine. Other countries have their own national interests. If Ukraine provides other states with the opportunity to comply with their interests at its expense, this is a problem only and exclusively Square. If a potentially powerful and prosperous country turned out to be the poorest in Europe, and now turned into a battleground between others, only its citizens are to blame. But Ukrainians continue to look for the guilty outside their borders.
The reasons and the first stage of the civil war in Ukraine were discussed in the articles “But Donbass Happened” and “The Burden of Victory”. Now you can discuss the second stage of the war and future prospects.
The first Minsk agreements signed at the beginning of September 2014, neither Kiev nor the Donbass categorically arranged. Both sides believed that the victory was stolen from them (and both of them were right to a certain extent). They did not achieve their goals and did not lose the ability to fight further. Therefore, the continuation of the armed struggle was almost inevitable. The war did not stop, only its intensity decreased. Nobody was going to carry out the agreement, the parties only recuperated after fierce summer battles, and also waited, if the enemy would have an economic collapse. Nobody has collapsed (although the economic situation in Ukraine and Donbas is catastrophic), so in mid-January the full-scale war resumed. It ended with another defeat of the Ukrainian army and the second Minsk agreements, which were again imposed on the parties by external players (Russia and Europe). Ukraine and Donbass are still extremely dissatisfied with the agreements, because again they have not achieved their goals and still have not lost the opportunity to fight further. About the stolen victory, it is true, now neither they nor the others speak. For Ukraine, this would have been absolutely absurd, but the winter campaign cost the Donbas militia too dearly.
"American weapon, delivered to Ukraine, with a probability close to 100 percent, will very quickly be in the militia, and then in Russia ”
By mid-March 2015, the exact losses of the parties in technology since the beginning of the war (that is, for the year) are as follows.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as the Armed Forces of Ukraine, all power formations fighting in the Donbass are included in this concept) tank (117 destroyed, 65 captured by the enemy), 30 BRDM (17 destroyed, 13 captured), 377 infantry fighting vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles (215 destroyed, 162 captured), 153 armored personnel carriers (107 destroyed, 46 captured), 71 MTLB and BTR-D (38 destroyed , 33 captured), 66 self-propelled guns (34 destroyed, 32 captured), 68 towed guns (33 destroyed, 35 captured), 29 MLRS (27 destroyed, 2 captured). In addition, 2 Osa-AKM air defense systems were destroyed, 1 air defense missile launcher and a Buk air defense system each, 2 Tunguska air defense systems, 9 combat and 3 auxiliary aircraft, 5 combat and 5 multi-purpose helicopters, 2 UAVs were shot down.
Donbass militia (hereinafter - Novorossia, VSN) lost 46 tanks (39 destroyed, Xnumx captured by the enemy), 7, BRDM (5 destroyed, 3 captured), 2 BMP and BMD (27 destroyed, snooped, they will be a case at a time, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be a case, they will be covered by a snoop of a case, they will be used, they will be a case, they will, they will be used, they will be a case, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be used, they will be using the outlay, they will be a way they will, in the case of damages, they will be covered, they will be covered), they will be used to make a copy of the same figure, they will be used to make a copy of the same figure, they will be used to make a snoop of the same figure, they will be used to monitor this operation. 23 captured), 4 MTLB and BTR-D (15 destroyed, 11 captured), 4 SAU (destroyed), 13 towed guns (12 destroyed and captured), 1 MRLS (destroyed).
This list does not include BTR-D 1, 1-70 APCs and 1 ACS 2S9 first captured the militias, but then returned APU. But both sides counted as a loss of BMD 3, 2 BTR-D and 1 ACS 2S19 that have become trophies BCH, and then in their structure destroyed APU. It is likely that such cases are much more, respectively, the data on the APU would be redistributed (less captured and more destroyed). In addition, the losses of both sides are obviously higher, since not all of them are established.
It is not possible to establish any human losses correctly; even the order of magnitudes is unclear.
It is noteworthy that the APU has the main losses in the BMP and BMD. This is obviously explained by the fact that the Ukrainian army is trying to seize and hold the territory, naturally, with the help of infantry and airborne troops. That is why their cars are dying in such huge quantities. In the BCH, the main losses are in tanks. The reason is probably that the republic defended or carried out counter-offensive using tanks as the main striking force. As a result, the ratio of losses in tanks turns out to be the most “decent” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while for the rest of the equipment classes - just beyond the limits. Moreover, after the resumption of intensive hostilities in mid-January, the losses of the sides on the destroyed tanks turned out to be almost the same, despite the fact that last summer they were 6: 1 in favor of the BCH. This can partly be explained by the fact that the APU began to fight a little bit better than in 2014-m, in part, perhaps, by the fact that in late August BCH were not only "H", they helped "north wind", which after the first of the Minsk agreements not never renewed.
border opportunities
Assume that the Minsk II will be carried out, it is extremely difficult, since, as stated above, the parties have not reached their goals (for Kiev - the complete elimination of the DNI and LC, for the country - out of at least the administrative borders of the provinces). At the same time, the prospects are extremely ambiguous.
As stated in the articles “But Donbass Happened” and “Burden of Victory”, Donetsk-Lugansk separatism initially had a purely Ukrainian nature, reflecting the struggle of the oligarchs (like the Maidan, which has no relation to the concept of “people's revolution”), but then due to various reasons out of control of their organizers (Donetsk oligarchic grouping). Now the influence of the previous owners on the leadership of the DPR and the LPR has come to naught, but Moscow is very large (though not absolutely), despite the fact that at first it was zero. Civil engineering in the Donbass does not interest anyone - neither the leadership of the self-proclaimed republics (these are very specific people), nor Moscow (it is not going to join Novorossia). The civilian population is only provided with the opportunity not to die of hunger. This civilian population itself belongs to the DPR and LNR is extremely ambiguous, although Kiev mostly hates it. At the same time, the BCH gradually turned from an anarchic aggregate to no one who was subordinate to a practically normal army. There are three main components in them - those who started all this within the framework of internal Ukrainian clashes (that is, the people of Akhmetov and Efremov); volunteers from other regions of Ukraine, from Russia and several other countries, fighting for ideological reasons; local residents who had joined the militia already during the war, based primarily on revenge of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for killed relatives and friends. Their morale and level of training is quite high. With equipment, too, everything is in order - firstly, there is a huge trophies (listed above), and secondly, a significant amount of equipment from APU just bought (and in this "business" involved with the Ukrainian side as the generals and privates) Finally, it does not do without the Russian "Voentorg". However, the potential of the BCH is still limited, so even access to the administrative boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions is an extremely serious problem for them. In fact, this is possible only in the event of an internal collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian state in general. If this does not happen, the BCH can only hold the territory of today, however, this problem they solve is almost guaranteed.
Kiev Donbass and its population are completely unnecessary, this is confirmed by how quickly he abandoned his social obligations towards those who live in the DPR and the LPR. In this regard, it is impossible not to recall that Moscow did not renounce social obligations towards the residents of Chechnya, even in those years when this republic was under the control of the separatists. Then it seemed idiotic to many Russians; now it’s clear how right it was. But to abandon the Donbass Kiev is not ready (at least not yet) for reasons primarily of a political nature: it is very difficult to expand the propaganda machine in the opposite direction, and now it continues with the same fury support the idea of the unity of Ukraine. In addition, Washington strongly recommends fighting until victory. And its influence on Kiev is quite comparable with what Moscow demonstrates with regard to the DPR and the LPR - very large, although not absolutely.However, to achieve a military victory for Kiev is almost impossible. And the matter is not the lack of equipment. At the moment, the APU is composed of about 1600 tanks (this is only T-64, there are about 400 T-72, but they are not used in battles, at least for now), 1800 BMP and BMD, 1400 BTR, 2000 MTLB and BTR-D, SAU 1100, 1500 order towed guns, MLRS 500, 80 combat aircraft, attack helicopters 40. Of course, the real numbers are much lower, because, firstly, not all the losses are taken into account, secondly, it is not known how many vehicles were sold from the APU to the BCH, thirdly, a very large part of it has fully developed the resource or is dismantled to restore other similar machines . But even if the above values are halved, it is still a lot, enough for several years of war.
In this regard, it seems rather pointless to purchase foreign arms by Kiev. In the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, which are now members of NATO, there is quite a lot of familiar Soviet technology to Ukrainians. But its nonetheless less than the APU, moreover, it is even older. In particular, Eastern Europe does not have any T-64, and T-72, as mentioned above, do not use the APU. True, many of us still believe that last year Hungary put 58 T-72 into Ukraine, but it is already well known that these tanks left in the opposite direction - to the Czech Republic, from where they were resold to Nigeria. Moreover, Hungary, which has territorial claims to Ukraine and the status of enfant terrible NATO and the EU, is unlikely to sell arms to Kiev. Eastern Europe has very little even BMP-2 (totally less than 300 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia), moreover, in the APU they are up to 1000. In Poland and Bulgaria in large quantities there are only BMP-1, SAU 2С1 and MLRS BM-21. This technique can bring some benefit to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (especially the ACS and the MLRS, since for the army that cannot fight, the role of artillery is immensely large), but it certainly will not ensure victory. Most of all, useful to the APU Mi and Mi-24-8, but in Eastern Europe a bit and most importantly - their life is stamped as much Ukrainian similar machines because they all produced in the USSR. Even more meaningless are deliveries of Western weapons, which are very much spoken about in Ukraine, in Russia and in the West (especially in the United States). This weapon is completely unfamiliar to the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; its development will take quite a long time. At the same time, Western technology does not possess any magical, all-conquering qualities. All objective American experts unanimously note that such supplies only worsen the situation for the APU, because BCH in response will receive a "PX" line at least as a smaller amount of equipment that militias are perfectly familiar and can be applied immediately. Moreover, with a probability close to 100 percent, US weapons very quickly would have the militia, and later in Russia, which do not even have a trophy: military APU simply sell. In addition, if American weapons appear in Ukraine, and still do not bring victory (and it will be so), it catastrophically discredits not only him, but also the United States in general.
According to Western experts, the problem of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is by no means a shortage of equipment, but a very low level of combat training, ugly control and rear support. And over the past year, improvements in this regard are not visible, rather the opposite.
Fight for the myth
Any army during the war learns to fight. APU is no exception. This winter, they fought more stubbornly than last summer, inflicting very serious losses in people and equipment. Nevertheless, the result was again defeated, almost as disastrous as in August and September under Ilovaiskaya.
Learn to fight the soldiers and junior officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but no senior officers and generals. The managerial chaos in the APU during the year of the war has not diminished at all, and this is already a symptom. There is no positive selection of the most capable officers, as it was, for example, in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Chechnya. As before, the Ukrainian army is led by people selected not by professional qualities, but by ideological criteria and level of loyalty to political leadership.
A similar situation with the logistics. In fact, the army is still largely self-sufficient or depends on volunteers who buy food and equipment for the Armed Forces for their money. If people are ready to fight at their own expense, then the authorities (both military and political) are quite satisfied with this. The attitude to the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is absolutely ugly, no changes for the better are happening. And this symptom is even more serious.
Moreover, the war quickly turned into an extremely profitable business in Ukraine, confirming the well-known fact that corruption in this country is absolute. Generals, officers, and also commanders of volunteer battalions sell everything and to anyone. Fake volunteers have already appeared, earning money on humanitarian aid from the army. And this is not even a symptom, but a sentence. However, the army is a part of society. After the next president of Ukraine, it seems that the level of corruption in this country can no longer be, but each new head of state demonstrates that "there is no limit to perfection."
Another disastrous circumstance for the Armed Forces of Ukraine is that for the country's leadership information warfare is much more important than the actual fighting. The current regime in Kiev, whose nature and activities directly contradict all the slogans they also organized the Maidan, is held primarily for propaganda had time to create a huge variety of myths. Some of them are fatal for servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In particular, the myth of cyborg defending Donetsk airport, led to the death of most of these cyborgs under the ruins of the airport, which still came under the control of the BCH. The myth of “Stalingrad in Debaltseve” (Ukrainian propaganda, despite extreme anti-Sovietism, drew a parallel between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Soviet army) led to the fact that “Stalingrad” really happened there, only the Ukrainian Armed Forces were in the role of the Wehrmacht (in a military sense). That is, they are demanding that they retain their positions solely for the sake of the “picture”, which naturally leads to catastrophes and huge losses.
More and more problems with personnel. And here there are processes that destroy one of the fundamental myths of Kiev propaganda. Its leitmotif is the idea of freedom as the European Ukrainians confront Russian mossy rabam- "quilted jacket", seeking to restore its totalitarian empire. For a bulwark of freedom-loving Ukrainians Europeanized issued, of course, the western regions, which were under the "imperial oppression" only 1939 year, and before that had always been Europe. And indeed, during the last mobilization, western Ukrainians showed themselves just like real Europeans. As we know, the current European thought itself that you can die in battle (including home), it is a cave savagery (so Ukraine will never wait for assistance from NATO). Here and "zapadentsy" from the mobilization is rapidly scattering in all directions, both in enlightened Europe and in totalitarian Russia. From where they furiously smash the "Russian aggressors", but only on the Internet. Residents of the central and eastern regions, that is, Russians and Russified Ukrainians, are serving. At the same time, they demonstrate all the features inherent in the very “quilted jackets” - the willingness to die for their homeland, despite the bestial conditions of service and the fact that the worthless thieves' command floods the enemy with their corpses, without knowing any other methods of warfare. True, the Ukrainian army is stricken today with indiscriminate drunkenness, but what can you do if the “Europeans” do not want to serve. Only and exclusively on their own "quilted jackets" keep the current Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukraine as a whole. The question is whether this resource is endless. There are suspicions that no.
In general, one can see obvious parallels between the current Ukraine and the Russian Empire during the First World War. In both cases, at the beginning of the war, there was a strong surge of patriotic enthusiasm, which was followed after some success by numerous defeats at the front with the loss of significant territories. Then and now there was a blatant lack of talent of the command, the strongest corruption, including direct business in the war, the collapse of life in the rear with a catastrophic decline in welfare.
What ultimately ended the Russian Empire, it is well known. All of us (both Russia and Ukraine) are still disentangling the consequences of that disaster. Whether Ukraine will end the same way depends solely on it. Another (perhaps the main) problem of this country is that it is customary there to blame their problems on anyone, just not to solve it themselves. The overwhelming majority of the country's population did not realize that independence implies full responsibility for the fate of the state. And that no one, except the government and the people, in any case should not respect the national interests of Ukraine. Other countries have their own national interests. If Ukraine provides other states with the opportunity to comply with their interests at its expense, this is a problem only and exclusively Square. If a potentially powerful and prosperous country turned out to be the poorest in Europe, and now turned into a battleground between others, only its citizens are to blame. But Ukrainians continue to look for the guilty outside their borders.
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