@KipPotapych In this telethon address, Zaluzhny defused misconception about mobilisation. Many people and journalists make a lot of hubbub about something that Zelensky heard from one general and had repeated out of context another day.
He made clear, from what you posted, that mobilisation rules and methods are decided by the civilian administration, not by the military.
The fact is that the Ukrainian forces can barely stop Russian advances for the moment. However the goal of retaking all the territories up to the 1991 borders is by no means crazy or irrealistic, including Crimea.
The 1991 borders are the legal borders of Ukraine and Ukrain has the right to retake these lands by force. One of the reason why a compromise is impossible is that Russia has no legal basis to claim any of these territories. To do this they have to defeat Russian forces occupying the territories. It looks unfeasible in the current situation. And if the situation doesn't evolve in favour of Ukraine, then of course, they will not reach their goal.
it doesn't mean that they won't. Things can change in the favour of Russia or of Ukraine unpredictably. This war is full of surprising events. It's not something that can be decided by political decisions. Zelensky can't say that they will retake the Donbas and give up Crimea or vice versa. In the same manner, Putin can;t say that he will annex Odessa, Kerson, Zaporyzhya, Lugansk and Donetsk, on top of Crimea. Each of them will get what they will be able to get by the sound of the guns.
I think we are saying the same thing, but, perhaps, giving it different understanding and meaning. So in regard to Zaluzhny talk, he straightened things out by providing reasoning for why the mobilization has to take place, but that it is the civilian administration that makes the decisions; he is there to fight and provide the advice or list the current needs of the army. At this point he is out of that discussion. This conference came as a result of Zelensky creating a lot of confusion by talking about Zaluzhny demanding half a million people to be mobilized to be sent to the front (note that Zaluzhny said that the number is a “military secret” and he won’t talk about it at all), the money they don’t have for the mobilization, etc. At the end of the day, it is a difficult decision that will have real consequences for the public standing of Zelensky because it is he who will be signing the mobilization law. It’s not just the new people themselves that would have to go to war, it is also further cutbacks in government spending that would probably affect infrastructure, healthcare, subsidies, gazillion other things, new borrowing, inflation via printing money, further tax hikes, and so on. None of this is Zaluzhny’s concerns because he made it clear he is there to fight the war; but for Zelensky these concerns are very real and have significant consequences. So his public “reasoning” about the money and everything else, sending the bill for further amendments, etc, was a (very) weak attempt to shift at least some of the responsibility to someone else and Zaluzhny in particular. This is quite evident because Zelensky said he needed more justification from the military for these requests. He made it public. As a result, so did Zaluzhny and he did that very well by providing clear reasoning for everyone to understand. An important aspect of the entire “drama” is that it was, again, Zelesnky who promised all the “winnings” and victory by now, none of which had happened or have any prospects of happening in the near future. In other words, he is screwed politically. His opponents, who are basically losers of the past, understand it better than anyone else and are there to take advantage. Hence, all the political chirping as of late.
Note that Zelensky was talking about the $15B quite openly and asking where the money would come from. This clearly, in my opinion, indicates his understanding (and perhaps direct knowledge that we are not privileged to) that money is becoming a real issue. Of course, it always was an issue, but it is now an issue enough to make it public because he is not able to attract anymore significant external aid.
Now consider the act of mobilization itself. Refer to my previous posts from a few days ago regarding the demographics and population of Ukraine, including the number of people collecting pension, etc. It was reasonably established (or proposed, if you will) in that post that there are likely about 10M work-able adults in Ukraine below the age of retirement. Let’s assume (very optimistically) that half of those people are males. So the mobilization of 500K would directly affect about or up to 10% of male population of the country. That is a great number, speaking lightly. Especially in a country that has severe demographic problems such as Ukraine. Especially where the young adults are being the smallest proportion of the entire population and the desire to bring down the average age of the fighting men is a moot point, really. Of course, the proposed rotation and whatnot implies some men coming back into the “circulation”, but it would be older men having spent years at likely the most violent war of the past decades and brings along all kinds of issues, including PTSD, addiction, and a whole bunch of other nasty things. I do not believe there is a need to discuss this further because the point is probably pretty clear.
The above two paragraphs address the financial and human restrictions on the ability to fight, two of the three I mentioned in the part you quoted. I believe the third, being materiel, is self explanatory.
When I wrote… not sure, but probably about a year ago now, that the Ukrainians really get only this one chance on the offensive, it wasn’t just my “hunch”; it was a fairly well educated opinion and I provided some substance explaining why it was so.
@KipPotapych I addition to what i wrote before: I don't think that there were unilateral decisions by Zelensky or anyone to keep Bahkmut ot Sivierodonesk or any other place
at any cost. Even if someone had talked in this sens, on the ground, both the Ukrainian and the Russian armies try to advance as much as possible or to prevent the other to advance as much as possible, no matter where they are. They are pushing each others back and forth without definite target.
While there, perhaps, were no unilateral decisions, there were some decisions that were questionable. There are rumours on the UA social media and among the people “in the know” that Zaluzhny either ordered or at the very least was for pulling troops out of Bakhmut. In spite of this, the final decision was made to keep on fighting, so there must have been advisors who deemed it worth while holding Bakhmut until no longer possible. Hence, the referral to the “fortress of Bakhmut” in the media. This is all hearsay, of course, and we cannot rely on that information. If one follows some of the most prominent active supporters of Ukraine on Twitter and other social media platforms, one probably noted the outrage about Zaluzhny’s dismissal and even more so about Syrsky’s appointment. Some are quite furious (check out Def Mon’s twitter feed). The following article suggests that Zaluzhny was replaced because Zelesnky wanted to see a bit more aggressive approach to the warfare:
But people familiar with the military leadership say that at least part of the split revolves around Zelenskiy’s preference for a bolder military plan, which is at odds with what the more cautious Zaluzhnyi had planned for the months ahead. As if to smooth things over, the day after the commander’s ouster he was honored with a “Hero of Ukraine” award.
It is actually a pretty good article overall, but I do not have the time to summarize it.
Yes, I agree, each party tries to grab as much (or as little) as they can. But the fight for that much (or little) usually comes at a significant cost of human lives. One party, being Russia, is still able to sign contractors and “volunteers” to go to war, or so is being reported. Ukraine, on the other hand, has to forcefully mobilize men and send them to the front, while by Budanov’s admission, as cited by you a few weeks ago, these people aren’t being very useful. Now we may see about half a million more people like that, but likely poorly trained and poorly equipped for obvious reasons.
So yes, I do not see any positive outcome for Ukraine here. To be fair, I do not see a positive outcome even if they win, whatever that means. Us, being the west, sure; but Ukraine… not so much.
I mentioned in my previous post that Ukraine was all in without anything to lose. I believe a good or better parallel here would be what is now called Yolo in the “investment” world. They made a bet going all in buying a whole bunch of options, basically based on the info provided by the Reddit users (ie, “unlimited support” and “as long as it takes”). They were up, but didn’t cash out, and are now down significantly and the probability of coming out with a gain is close to zero, while the chance of breaking even is not that much higher. Yet, they keep throwing every penny they get into this “investment” hoping for the best. The “underwriters” of those options will come out just fine in either case; maybe a little bruised, especially in the ego department, a somewhat changed world, but definitely OK. Things aren’t looking nearly as bright for Ukraine.
I have a few more things to say, but I am out of time (and probably space for this post), so next time. No more Zelensky-Zaluzhny debate though because that’s in the past and makes no difference at this point.
