The failure of the superblitzkrig

Burning Russian tank near Chernigov. Photo: @ukraina_novosti

Now you can already summarize some results of the first two days of the Russian invasion. The purpose of this war (which is forbidden to call war in Russia: the media that use this term instead of the official “special operation”, Roskomnadzor blocks; under the actual prohibition, any negative information about the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine) Vladimir Putin quite openly identified the destruction of the independent Ukrainian state and the establishment of a puppet pro -Russian regime in Kyiv.

It seems that Putin was counting on Superblitzkrieg, was going to cope with Ukraine in 2-3 days. He probably hoped that in such a short time Western states would not even have time to really introduce anti -Russian sanctions. And then they can already be put before the failed fact of the appearance in the occupied Kyiv of the pro -Russian government and begin political bargaining.

Russian troops began an offensive along the entire line of the Russian-Ukrainian border and on the front line in the Donbass. In addition, Russian troops invaded Ukraine from the territory of Belarus. Thus, the Russian command expected to achieve all goals at once, including the seizure of Kyiv and other large cities, as well as to stretch the forces of the Ukrainian army in various directions. The flip side of such a strategy was that the Russian forces were also stretched out and in the main directions it was not possible to create quite powerful groups. Now it has already been revealed that there were two main directions in the Russian offensive - in Kyiv and in the south, where the Russian troops managed to seize a large bridgehead and go to the Dnieper River from Crimea. Further, from there, blows can be delivered both to Odessa and the rear of the groups of Ukrainian troops defending in the Donbass. But now all the attention is focused on Kyiv, on the outskirts of which battles have already started.

The Russian command, when planning a war against Ukraine, sought to repeat the experience of two American operations against Iraq. First - disarming missile bombing with high -precision weapons on airfields, control points, missile positions, radar stations and other most important infrastructure facilities. Then - a blow by airborne and mobile formations on the demoralized and deprived of the enemy control, who does not have air support. In the classic American version, high-precision missile and bombing strikes are first applied and infantry and tanks enter the business only after a few days, or even weeks.

The Russian command decided to combine both phases of the operation and simultaneously with the missile and bomb strikes the beginning of the ground offensive, as well as the landing of air and sea landings. This, apparently, is explained by two reasons. On the one hand, the Russian army is in a hurry to realize the Putin Superblitzkrieg. On the other hand, it can be assumed that in Russian arsenals there is a very limited supply of high -precision ammunition, which are not enough for multi -day artillery preparation. And, as you can state, the superclitskarig failed.

Apparently, Putin and his generals hoped that after the first strokes on Earth and in the air, the Ukrainian army would be demoralized, lose control and escape home. But nothing of the kind happened. The Ukrainian army has retained controllability and combat effectiveness, inflicts heavy losses to the aggressor and so far holds the capital and all major cities. There are no desertion and mass surrender. On the contrary, lines from volunteers and conscripts are lined up throughout Ukraine.

No split in Ukrainian society in connection with Russian aggression occurred. On the contrary, it rallied even more in the struggle for independence. Even such a supporter of the restoration of the USSR, such as Victor Alksnis, is forced to admit : “Today, our military personnel participating in the military operation there are mainly firing people who speak Russian, who is dear to them. And the machine guns distributed today in the Ukrainian cities to combat the“ Russian invaders ”are mainly Russian -speaking citizens and the tragedy in the past in the past in the past Indeed, Russian people now consider themselves Ukrainians and Russia is an enemy for them, who needs to fight with. "

The Russian army, as can be understood from messages in Ukrainian social networks, already on the second day of the offensive faced serious supply problems, primarily with a lack of fuel. Obviously, the command did not expect such fierce and organized resistance and, planning a superblitzkrig, did not imply such a large consumption of ammunition and fuel. Probably, logistics problems are associated with a slowdown in the advancement of Russian troops, marked by American intelligence already on the evening of February 25.

According to the official figures of the Ukrainian side, Russian losses by the morning of February 26 amounted to 14 aircraft, 8 helicopters, 102 tanks, 536 armored personnel carriers (most likely with BMP), 15 artillery guns, 1 Buk air defense system, more than 3,500 dead and about 200 prisoners. The number of prisoners here is most likely close to the truth: if at the end of the fighting they are significantly less, Ukrainians can be accused of killing prisoners. As for the number of killed, it is quite difficult to check.

The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Alexei Reznikov turned to the families of Russian troops: “In a few days of intervention, the same Russian military will be destroyed in Ukraine as in two Chechen wars. Thousands of thousands. Thousands. The ruler of Russia has become a killer. Not only Ukrainians, but also Russians. We know that now there are completely boys in the army throughout Russia. What is being prepared to transfer calls without minimal military skills. The contractors do not tell where they are acting.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, Irina Vereshchuk, called on the International Red Cross Committee to help to take out the body of Russian soldiers from Ukraine: “These are thousands of bodies of the invaders, humanitarian necessity. We ask for them to leave the territory of Ukraine and leave for Russia. In the Russian Federation, they should know how many such bodies and how many are the occupiers today lies in Ukrainian land ".

The fact that the Russian losses are really very large, says the document, published by the British journalist Emma Burrose. This is an order of the deputy head of the Ministry of Health of Russia Andrei Plutnitsky, published, apparently, on the evening of February 24 and sent the next day. Medical organizations are prescribed "to determine those who are ready for business trips to specialists and medical workers with secondary education ... who can be promptly involved in the implementation of measures aimed at saving lives and maintaining human health in the Russian Federation." If the authenticity of the document is confirmed, we can conclude that already on the first day of the war with the stream of the wounded, military doctors who were concentrated in Ukrainian borders could not cope.

In Ukraine, there are already significant losses among civilians. On the morning of February 26, they amounted to 198 killed, including 3 children, and 1115 wounded, including 33 children. In a day or two, this number can increase by an order of magnitude if large-scale street battles will begin in Kyiv, Kharkov and other major Ukrainian cities.

If the Russian losses are really so great , then the Ukrainian side must be held out for about another week in order not to at least lose the war. During this time, Russia should end with high -precision ammunition. And taking into account the fact that the number of wounded is usually more than the number of those killed by 2-3 times, for the same period in the 170,000th Russian group, almost the entire combat composition of the most combat-ready units deployed against Ukraine. The Russian army will need a pause in order to pull up and at least minimally train the second -hand parts, as well as replenish the stocks of fuel and ammunition.

The Ukrainian army will be able to continue to fight while maintaining political will to resist and continue the supply of modern weapons and ammunition from the United States and other NATO countries.