- Hubert Walas
Public Opposition.
Day 11 of the invasion. Russia continues to struggle to make significant territorial gains, and within Russia the first subtle signs of potential implosion are visible. Heavy fighting is taking place in Irpin and Bucha, with individual streets and neighborhoods in these cities changing hands.
The threat of the attack on Odesa remains open. Zelenski warns that the Russians will soon start bombing the city. A landing from the sea is possible, which is why Ukrainians are mining the beaches. An assault from separatist Transnistria is also possible. This way the attack would come from two directions at once to cut off the city from the rest of the country. Nikolayev was defended after a heavy battle, so the land march from the east towards Odesa was stopped. Additionaly, it turns out that Mariupol is not completely encircled. It is accessible from the west and north.
Many expect that after a few days of halted operations, the Russians will renew the offensive in many directions. But the optimistic option says that these are not intentional pauses, but are due to inefficient logistics.
It seems that in a desperate attempt to improve it, civilian vans and trucks have begun to be brought down. In recent days, several videos of echelons carrying civilian trucks, buses, civilian off-road vehicles marked with the "Z" identification sign have been published. If this is an attempt to patch up intermittent lines of communication, the Russians may fall from the rain into the gutter. These cars, even more than military equipment, will be exposed to technical problems on Ukraine's heavily damaged roads or will get stuck in the mud. The second explanation is that the Russians are staging a criminal occupation and are preparing to deport Ukrainian prisoners and civilians deep into Russia.
The commitment to use civilian transport resources may also be a signal of the call up of reservists and one of the elements of mobilization of the armed forces of the Russian federation. There is a rumor about a secret mobilization in Krasnodar Krai, neighboring Crimea, to replenish the losses suffered. The Wagner Group has also set up its office in Rostov-on-Don to recruit mercenaries to fight in Ukraine.
In turn, volunteers from all over the world, are reaching out to Ukraine. 20,000 people with military experience have rushed to help Ukraine. These are often well-trained, battle-tested soldiers or ex-soldiers. While nearly 100k Ukrainians have returned from abroad to defend their homeland. The latest reports say that in Ukrainian hands there are already 20-25k anti-tank weapons - Javelin or NLAW.
It is possible that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are keeping a certain part of their armored forces in strategic reserve. Officially, no loss of even one Ukrainian T-72 tank has been reported so far, and five reserve brigades were equipped with them.
The transfer of Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine is shrouded in a fog of ambiguity. The U.S. administration has officially given the green light for this to happen, but Warsaw wants the decision to be made at the NATO level. Poland would receive in exchange used American F-16s, the problem is that they have been already promised to Taiwan. Such subjects like silence.
Still hard to verify are the losses of both sides. However, at least 3 Russian sources can confirm that Russian losses reported by the Ukrainian side are pretty close to the truth. The first one is the statement of Russian senator Lyudmila Narusova, who at a meeting of the House stated out of the blue that she had heard that out of 100 recruits sent to fight, 4 came back alive. The second one is a leaked letter of an FSB agent, in which he writes that it is hard to estimate how many people we have lost, but for sure it is thousands, maybe 2, maybe 5, maybe 10 thousand. By the way, the FSB leak heralds a total catastrophe for Moscow. It comes from a fairly reliable source and many people confirm its authenticity. A link to the leak can be found under the video.
Finally, the third argument, which can prove the very high Russian losses, was published by the Russian_VDV_Textbooks Twitter profile. This one citing trusted contacts in Russia states that the Russian Western Military District has lost 1200 officers since the beginning of the war. This refers to those killed, wounded, or captured. Extrapolating this to the overall figure of 11,000 killed Russian soldiers reported by the Ukrainian side may not be very far from reality.
The second issue is destroyed or seized equipment. Here, in turn, we can support it with evidence in the form of photos or videos. Such data is provided by the portal oryxspioenkop.com. For the moment, the loss of 847 Russian vehicles and aircraft has been confirmed in this way. How many are reported by the Ukrainians? 2116, so about 40% of what the Ukrainians say is confirmed. However, it should be remembered that the Ukrainians certainly do not take photos of every destroyed car or truck, and they report destroying nearly 500 of them, with only 70 documented. This makes the Ukrainians' estimates coincide at least 50-60% with the documented state. It is therefore likely that this percentage is even higher.
The latest reports state that the modern Russian ship Vasili Bykov was sunk, and the Special Forces of Ukraine destroyed 30 helicopters at the Russian base in Kherson. At the time of writing, no evidence has emerged to confirm the success of these missions, but if true they would be remarkable indeed..
The question that arises after 11 days of war is: what is the Russian goal of the war now? Earlier Putin defined this goal as follows: neutrality, demilitarization, "denazification" Ukraine. It seems that there are 3 possible ways to achieve it.
The first, is the rapid capture of the capital and major cities and the replacement of political authorities. The old ones are imprisoned or liquidated during the capture of Kyiv. This was Putin's initial plan for the war. We already know that this idea is unworkable. No artificially proclaimed power has a chance to survive because it will have neither popular support nor will it create an administrative and coercive apparatus.
The second way is occupation. As in the first option, it is practically unfeasible with respect to the entire territory of Ukraine. Strong popular resistance and guerrilla warfare will make it impossible to create an occupation administration, which Russia has neither the forces nor the means to maintain. Ukraine is a country too territorially large to control, especially with so much fighting spirit. It will also fail because of the typical Russian mess we see in the ongoing military operation.
That leaves option 3. The destruction of the Ukrainian state and its armed forces in such a way that reconstruction will take decades. These are actions aimed at destroying the infrastructure necessary to provide the population with a normal life, destroying the public administration and breaking social resistance with the destruction of cities and towns. And this is the variant we are seeing.
Now the Kremlin has officially revealed what peace terms it is putting on the negotiating table with Kyiv. Ukraine must recognize the annexation of Crimea and the independence of the separatist republics. The Ukrainian constitution, on the other hand, must include a provision on "not joining any bloc." Christo Grozev of the bellingcat adds that the Russians were to suggest that Zelenski pro forma should remain as a president, while Russia would appoint prime minister.
The realization of scenario 3 is evidenced by the fact that increasing acts of terror are being committed by the Russian military. It regularly fires at pre-arranged humanitarian corridors. Here we see the attack on the corridor in the town of Irpin.
Furthermore, the BBC is reporting that the Russians are...mining these corridors. This is what they’ve done in Mariupol. Of course, they put all the blame on the Ukrainian side. It is also unofficially said that on the frontline they are using civilians as human shields to escape Ukrainian fire. In addition, the criminal artillery, rocket and bombing attacks on residential buildings continue, which have no effect in terms of the art of war. It is only about introducing even more terror among the population. However, the Ukrainian people are as united as ever, and their goal is one - the expulsion of the invaders.
The resistance and truth that lies with the Ukrainian people is slowly beginning to make its way to the source of this horror, which is Belarus and Russia. Chief of the Belarusian General Staff Viktor Gulevich reported by letter that due to the mass resignation from the war, the Belarusian Armed Forces are unable to field any battalion tactical groups. At the same time, he asked the Minister of Defense to accept his resignation.
The authenticity of the letter is unconfirmed, but it fits into the larger picture described by Svetlana Tikhanuska's staffer Franak Viacorka. He writes that "according to Putin's plan, Belarusian troops were supposed to enter Ukraine a week ago. However, something went wrong. Some officers resigned, some fled Belarus, some contacted us (read authorities in exile). Recruits are fleeing en masse, some generals have resisted the idea of participating in the invasion." This would also explain why so far we have not seen an attack on Western Ukraine to cut supplies from the West. However, the territory of Belarus continues to be directly used by Russia and is an extremely important resource for the Kremlin in the context of the entire war.
Protests of support for Ukraine have taken place, in Russia-friendly Kazakhstan. Even more significantly, the first clear cracks are appearing in Russia itself.
Anti-war protests were held in 69 cities in Russia, and on one day alone - March 6 - 5,000 people were detained in them. The total number of detainees has already exceeded 13,000 since the beginning of the war. All the protests were brutally suppressed, and people are threatened with long prison terms, so their courage should be admired.
The first social signs of discontent are also being triggered by sanctions - in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, workers at the Gemont factory went on strike after failing to receive their paychecks due to the worsening state of the economy.
Slowly, a change in Russians' perception of the war is beginning to be noticed. While this survey was only of Moscow residents and only Internet users, the percentage of respondents who blame Russia for the war rose from 14 to 36 percent in two weeks This is a clear trend, even for the limited conditions of the survey.
This may be influenced by further hacking actions by Anonymous, who again hacked into Russian television and broadcasted footage of bombings of Ukrainian cities.
Unfortunately, it should be noted that a large part of Russian society closes its eyes or even strongly supports the war, and Putin, voluntarily shouts slogans of support and displays the Nazi symbol of the 21st century, the letter Z. Russia of 2022 is a repeat of Germany of 1939.
On the subject of sanctions, the West is slowly reaching a wall. Significantly, the largest payment card operators - Visa and Mastercard have stopped their services in Russia. They are responsible for 75% of non-cash transactions in the country. PayPal also does not work.
Still, the topic of oil and gas remains open. The U.S. holds talks with Iran and Venezuela, which may result in relaxation of relations with both regimes and green light for oil export from these countries. These are preparations for the planned suspension of oil imports from Russia.
If this were to succeed, Moscow would effectively be economically cut off from almost every direction - not counting China. Hydrocarbon sales account for about 30% of Russia's budget.
Meanwhile, the Polish borders have already crossed over a million refugees from Ukraine, 1.5mln overall fled the country.
