Western deliveries to reverse the course of war?

Change in trend.

We are 2 months into the biggest war in Europe in almost 80 years. A war that will dramatically change the global order, and especially the European order. The countries that benefited most from the old system try to maintain the existing order, but the old paradigm is already a motif of the past. In the coming months and years, Europe will face fundamental changes.

These changes, however, will depend on the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian war. This has already claimed over 50 000 lives. First, let’s look at the situation on the battlefield. Confusion - this is probably how the Russian offensive in Donbas, predicted for weeks, can be described. This consternation is caused by a question - has the announced offensive already started in practice, as the Ukrainian staff claims, or are we still dealing with the calm before the storm?

According to the Ukrainian staff, the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy directions have been completely liberated and there are no signs of enemy forces gathering there. In the Kharkiv direction, the Ukrainians are making spot counter-offensives, which resulted in the liberation of several settlements. Meanwhile, Saturday saw the lowest activity of the Russian Federation troops in Belarus since the beginning of the war. No Russian air launches or rocket attacks were observed. Eighty-five percent of the Russian troops that had gathered there earlier were to leave Belarus.

Nevertheless, the main direction of the Russian Federation's military concentration remains the line of Izyum, Slavyansk, Severodonetsk, Popasna. Despite small territorial gains, Russian attacks are mostly repulsed by Ukrainian forces. The storming of the Azovstal fortress in Mariupol was called off by the Commander-in-Chief himself, Vladimir Putin. This is another sign of weakness - the Russians would suffer further bloody losses, which they can no longer ignore at this point in the war. But it should be remembered that these announcements could simply be a smokescreen. In the southeast the Russians are trying to breakthrough in the Hulyaipole area. Moreover, there are many indications that the Kremlin has lost more generals.

Dry messages may not fully reflect the current trend on the battlefield. That's why today it's worth listening to Igor Girkin, Strelkov. Girkin Strielkov is a Russian war criminal, FSB reserve colonel, fighting on many fronts - Moldova, Serbia, and most notably for 8 years in the Donbas. He is the former defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donbas People's Republic. Strelkov appeared in our reports about a year ago when he declared that the Russian Federation's goal should be to create a separate republic in the southeastern part of Ukraine - Novorossiya, which would essentially cut Ukraine off from the sea and create a land bridge to Transnistria. On April 23, Strelkov's declaration was essentially echoed by Deputy Commander of the Central Military District Major General Rustam Minnekaev. For Strelkov, however, this is poor consolation. He sincerely cares about the conquest of Ukraine and is a faithful believer in Russian imperialism and chauvinism, but at the same time, he remains one of the few Russian voices that break out from the Kremlin propaganda. This makes him a great mirror that reflects the true state of the Russian war campaign. First, Girkin accurately predicted the development of events on the Kyiv direction. Let's listen to it.

Even one of the few realists among the Russians did not believe in the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kyiv, and yet it happened. Strelkov's experience allowed him to predict quite accurately the development of events a month ago, although he refused to believe in the scenario of a complete retreat.

After this long introduction, it is now worth taking a look at what Grikin Strelkov says about current events. On April 22, the Russian held a solo broadcast in which he shared his thoughts. The speech was translated by twitter user @mdmitri91 .

Girkin is surprised at the declaration of the Russian operational objective to be a land bridge to Crimea, which, after all, is essentially already in place. Except for breaking through to Transnistria, this objective was accomplished in the first 2.3 weeks of the war. However, he calls the intention to break through to Transnistria "problematic," as this one would require first "liberating" Mykolaiv and then Odesa. Both cities are larger than Mariupol; Odesa is up to three times larger. Although Strelkov admits that this is a legitimate goal of the operation, which would cut Ukraine off from the sea, he doubts how it can be achieved with existing forces. Girkin wonders if the Russians even have enough forces to push out Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, not to mention a bridge to Transnistria. "There is no clear answer for me, but for the last three days, there has been virtually no progress north of Izyum”

Girkin goes on to stress that time is crucial to the success of the Russian offensive. If the Ukrainians complete their 3rd round of mobilization, they will have about 300 000 army, says Strelkov. An additional 10 Ukrainian divisions, 100 000 of troops will be able to cardinally reverse the current trend of fighting. Already now Ukraine with a relatively small operational reserve is able to successfully hold back the Russian offensive and it works. In a month or two, the situation may change dramatically.

Girkin points out that Russia, like Ukraine, should be building reserves. "I don't see that," he says. Recruits from private companies can only cover current losses, it's not enough to change the layout of the battlefield. “So if Ukrainian forces are not destroyed over the next month, month and a half, the enemy can take the initiative and probably will."

Don't count on Ukraine collapsing in 2 weeks. It's not going to happen. We have failed to throw masses at them. Especially since Ukraine is receiving serious equipment reinforcements from the West. Now real, heavy fighting is going on in Donbas. Russian troops have had some tactical successes south of Rubizhne, but only because the enemy has left these areas - I stress - left, Girkin highlights. We were unable to repel them ourselves. Yes, the enemy behaves competently, maneuvering, shifting troops, and looking for weak points. They fight competently in all aspects. I would like to be wrong, but for 8 years my dark visions have come true every time. I am seriously concerned. Strelkov ends his broadcast.

Girkin, as one of the few Russians, is so concerned about the weakness of the Russian military and, above all, the incompetence of the commanders that he is not afraid to speak about it directly and call things by their names.

The statements of other Russian officials paint an equally grim picture, this time of the Russian economy. Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Russian central bank, says that the logistical blockades are harming Russia even more than the economic sanctions. Supply chains are broken. Warehouses will be emptied soon and Russia faces soaring inflation. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reports that 200,000 people are at risk of losing their jobs in the capital alone. In turn, Andrei Belusov, Deputy Prime Minister, reports that the economic aid package to fight inflation is limited to 7-8 trillion rubles. This ceiling has already been reached by the government. There is no more room for economic stimulation. The Russian economy is on a downward spiral.

It also turns out that the Russian human losses reported by the Ukrainians, may not be far from the truth. Let’s recall, the number as of April 25 is nearly 22,000 fallen soldiers. As reported by the pro-Kremlin website Readovka, the Russians at a closed briefing of the Russian Defense Ministry were to admit the loss of 13,414 soldiers and another 7,000 missing. The Vkontakte post was deleted shortly thereafter.

If that wasn’t enough Russia has also been haunted by a strange plague of fires and other infrastructure disasters in recent days.

1. It started with a fire at the Tver Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense.
2. Then we had an explosion at the country's largest solvent plant - the sub-Moscow, Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant.
3. After that a fire broke out at the Korolyov College of Aerospace Engineering and Technology. This is Roskosmos' main analytical center.
4. Additionally, the dams on the Kuban River have broken, which led to severe flooding near Krasnodar.
5. On top of that on April 25, a large fire broke out at two fuel storage facilities in Bryansk, which is a logistics hub for the Russians during this war. It is also a key link for Russian oil exports to Europe.

Can you discern a pattern in these attacks? I leave the answer to you.

Russian digital infrastructure is also under heavy attack all the time, user @micahflee reports. Hackers are after Russia. Millions of gigabytes of data have already leaked from the websites of Roskomandzor, the Russian censor; many energy companies, including Rosatom, Transneft, and Gazprom; the Russian Central Bank; and even the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ministry of Culture. And that's just a small fraction of the entities attacked. Analyzing this data will take months, if not years. Programmers are already working to make journalists' jobs easier by creating a proper search engine for the database of all hacked documents.

One other, perhaps most important aspect completes the current picture - the brute firepower that Ukraine is finally beginning to receive in large numbers, from many directions. And this assistance is largely finally coming down to key battlefield components - tanks and artillery. Exact figures are not known, but the number of both types of weaponry that have been sent to Ukraine, or soon will be, is certainly already in the 3 digits. In recent days, Poland, cautious in informing about its own deliveries, confirmed that the value of equipment sent to Ukraine has already exceeded $1.6 billion and it included tanks. American aid is approaching $4 billion. Relative to their capabilities, the Baltic states, primarily Estonia, are helping greatly. After initial hesitance, it looks now the consensus that Russian forces need to be thoroughly destroyed has been met in the West. To put it cynically, supplies to Ukraine are becoming "fashionable" for every European country, which of course doesn't diminish their sincerity, but at the same time allows them to win a few electoral votes. It is no coincidence that Paris announced the delivery of modern Ceasar howitzers a few days before the presidential election. By the way, Emmanuel Macron's victory is good news for Kyiv, although one should not expect that France will suddenly become the first proponent of the Ukrainian issue. There are still voices coming from Paris saying that close cooperation with Russia is in France's interest.

Cooperation with Russia, but for different reasons, is proving to be an irreplaceable issue for Germany. While for France, Russia is useful primarily for its own balancing act in Europe and limiting US agility, the French are in no way dependent on Russian hydrocarbons. Unlike the Germans. Berlin feels that the comparative advantage it has developed over the past decades over other countries in the region and the world rests largely on Russian raw materials, which ensure the competitiveness of German business. Without them, the margins of German products will decline, and thus the wealth of German society. At the outset, this is the reason for German sluggishness and indifference, the latest expression of which was a letter from some German intellectuals calling for a halt to arms shipments to Ukraine. However, this letter was answered by many other experts, often Germans, who... also wrote a letter - this time demanding more arms supplies and German support for Ukraine. The latest reports prove that the latter are gaining momentum.

We observe the clash of the old paradigm with the new, of hard interests with human morality. War demands sacrifices, but everyone tries to avoid them.