Let’s start by catching up on some sundry and important news of the past few days. First it must be noted that there’s been a sharp uptick in the shrillness of desperation in the Western MSM reportage this past week. Ever since the Leaks to end all Leaks dropped, it’s been nothing but doom and gloom and panic.
Your nazis, bandera cult(when I say 'your' i mean most ukrainian in general not you as i dont know you), prostitution to US ngo's and corrupted local and US CAN EU politicians presenting you the EU as paradise(it is hell believe me I live in the heart of natoland).Ukraine does not exist it is a fake country like mine Belgium, created only by the defeat of Napoleon against...Russia by London to..avoid further wars (lol).Never believe western politicos or journos they are all whores and corrupted(money and soul).The worse are the brits.
Apr 13, 2023·edited Apr 13, 2023Liked by Simplicius
Well done. We are at the nexus of reality vs. Western spin narrative now. The crux in the road. The West was looking for a "photo op" smooth exit from this debacle, and it is slowly creeping into the NATO consciousness that this will indeed not happen. What will happen is surrender on Russian terms. That is a factual inevitability. It is written in stone now. In the tablets. What happens in Ukraine from now on will be 100% on Russian terms. We discussed previously that the Russian Air Force would play a decisive role in the ending of this conflict. Well, it seems it has already happened. I have not heard of the FAB 3000, but if this is indeed being dropped on Ukrainian postions it is lights out. The FAB 1500 by itself does massive damage. The Ukrainians can shoot their wad with their" spring offensive", but they will be anilhated. NATO is no match for the Russians in their backyard. The stupidy and arrogance of NATO is pursuing this conflict and escalating is epic in its scope. I say all of this with the understanding that Russia has restrained itself in the damage it has inflicted so as to avoid NATO going totally insane. Russia is fighting with 100% confidence , resolve and capacity to prevail. And it will prevail on its terms. We are at the beginning of the end now. Less than 6 months to go.
Re "The stupidy and arrogance of NATO is pursuing this conflict and escalating is epic in its scope." In line with every other 'Western' policy of the last three years.
You put into great detail what I was thinking today. I would agree that the AFU/NATO troop numbers are meaningless absent of any real capability to realize any militarily significant goal. It's not like they're on the highway to Moscow after beating up a few old tanks...
With respect to satellites, JDAMS, and even UAVs, why jam that hardware if you have the ability to feed dirty data streams into their GPS, or other sensors?
I'm not 100% sure what you mean because the "feeding dirty data streams into their GPS" is exactly the definition of jamming, that's pretty much what they're doing.
I would guess that Joe means feeding the bombs some "other" GPS coordinates. It would be really "cool" if Russia could change the bomb target to some Ukrainian position...
An incredible amount of information here. There’s much to digest. It’s amusing how most of the population if they follow this at all still believe in the upcoming spring offensive. There seems to be a growing unrest with the whole situation. Putin is evil doesn’t seem to cut it for a lot of people anymore. Thanks for another incredible job.
the preailing/root causes of jdam failures may not be russian jamming, other suspects: reliability, shoddy integration with the aircraft delivering the jdam, shoddy integration with the ordnance including fuse failure.
reliability, how many shipped kits were defects? jdam kits have been in 'stock' for years, all kinds of things happen, and the kits should have been inspected and function checked before shipping. then we should worry shipping damage such as jarring. jdam was a troubled program until there were more troubled programs like f-35.
the kits are designed to bolt on to a dumb/iron bomb, what are the fuse links for soviet bombs?
finally, the jdam is controlled from the cockpit, how good was the 'weapons control set up' for an old soviet mig?
a lot of ordnance has a dud rate and jdam may be suspect.
I think it's combination of all the above. Weapons systems which were made specifically to be advanced and have jamming resistance like actual cruise missiles etc, which have different types of guidance types, would be different. But since the JDAM is sort of an 'aftermarket' bolt-on, it's fairly basic and not really made to withstand jamming as all it has is the GPS channel an some basic INS guidance (as opposed to advanced missile systems which may have 4 or 5 different types of overlapping guidance types like terrain mapping, GPS, INS, midcourse correction, etc, etc, etc). So JDAM is supposed to be a cheap solution and unfortunately it probably is not very resistant to its GPS signal being jammed
Well the U.S. did experiment with a JDAM version that is specifically armed with anti-GPS jamming tech but don't think that one got wider production, not 100% sure
Have not had time to read it all, but I am concerned with the veracity of the part about Wagner. The US does not have a "Defense Ministry" or "Ministry of Defense" - so what gives there? Can't be a simple translation error and why would this information be being conveyed in a language other than English? Further, if it is coming from a British writer, why is everything else spelled in the Americanized form of English?
"US military experts are concerned about the effectiveness of the Wagner PMCs – a source in the US Defense Ministry said.
As DC Weekly writes experts of the Ministry of Defense conducted an in-depth analysis of the activities of the Wagner PMCs and came to the conclusion that no American, British or French similar structure can compare with their units."
Sorry but that looks highly suspect. Why would a rag called "DC Weekly" not know that there are no "ministries" in the USG?
OKAY since I had some more time after getting back from the gym and onto a real PC and not my phone, I did a Google search on a few of the exact phrases used and finally landed on this:
Most of the content at DC Weekly appears to be written by one Black dude named Peter Carroll and other guy. That said, the article on Wagner does *not* in fact use the term "Ministry of Defense" so I guess Simplicius was actually getting that from a translation into another language and then back to English. However, there is no sourcing provided for the claims about Wagner nor are any actual "officials" named.
"Insiders at the United States Department of Defense have told DCW staff they are worried about Russian Paramilitary Contractor (PMC) “Wagner.” An unnamed official says Wagner is the most Highly Organized and combat-ready private military company in the world, surpassing even that of American PMC Blackwater (also known as Academi), the British PMC Aegis Defense Service, the French PMC Salamandre.
According to the source, there is good reason for such worry; Various independent international institutions and analytical groups have recognized that the PMC Wagner as being the most effective Russian military unit, with the Military Company simultaneously performing combat missions on three continents – in Africa, Asia and Europe. This is absolutely unprecedented both in terms of geographical coverage and quality as well as quantity of missions assigned to the PMCs. One of the factors behind the success of the PMC Wagner is their ability to quickly mobilize and deploy forces anywhere in the world, responding to the changing situation on the spot. In addition, the soldiers of the armed forces are highly skilled and specialized. This allows Wagner to effectively carry out various types of tasks."
Which "various independent international institutions and analytical groups" are they talking about? I checked the ones I know of. Stratfor, CFR, RAND, and others including European outlets/organizations and I cannot find anything about this claim.
So I think we still need more information. For the time being I'm not putting any stock in this particular part of the Sitrep and I wanted to note that it's actually 2 weeks old.
At the end of the day it's a moot point, we know that Blackwater and every other PMC has no access to 'heavy equipment' like Wagner does. No other PMC in the world has access to hypersonic weapons, intermediate ballistic missiles, their own jet fighters, MLRS, and guided artillery systems. So doing a deep dive on the source of the quotes is moot when the truth of the statement is self evident that no other PMC comes close to Wagner because Blackwater et al are basic perimeter security/infiltration teams, they don't have 1/10th the heavy weapons access and capability that Wagner has such as their own Iskander, Kalibr, guided 300mm MLRS systems, their own personal BUK/S-300 AD systems, and much more. So at the end of the day it's a pretty obviously known statement that no other PMC on earth can come close to Wagner in capability.
Apr 13, 2023·edited Apr 13, 2023Liked by Simplicius
That’s all well and good and a very respectable opinion (which in my limited access to facts I share). But then, if I may be allowed a criticism, quoting one more person or group of persons with the same opinion but no closer to the facts than the present analyst doesn’t really add much value to the analyst’s views.
And having said that, let me reiterate my admiration for this page.
Blackwater et al are "mercs", that is to say Soldiers of Fortune who are essentially light unarmored infantry with special forces aspirations. Wagner appears to be far more than that and with some idealogical integrity.
Apr 13, 2023·edited Apr 13, 2023Liked by Simplicius
I can't understand Ukrainian strategy. Today they lost no less than 450 soldiers in Bakhmut alone. Why don't they just withdrawal already? The area they occupy is far too small to have so many soldiers gathered there. Still around 3,000 to 5,000 by most accounts. They are getting decimated by Russian Artillery. It is non-stop at this stage.
What would it take for the Ukrainian Army to mutiny? It is one thing to be taking horrible losses in a desperate struggle where command decisions are sensible. This is not the case with Ukraine. A Ukrainian soldiers life seems to have less value than an insect from what I have observed. We have seen signs of it. Refusal to be deployed to Bakhmut, Refusal to carry on the offensive in Kherson. Ukraine is utilizing enforcement units that will shoot their own soldiers if they leave their lines. I wonder how long they can keep that up. Stalin tried something similar during WWII. It is ultimately self-defeating and had to be abandoned. Eventually the soldiers will realize that there is more of us then there is of them and take appropriate measures.
Ukraine has in the past demonstrated a willingness to sustain huge casualties of the less trained and sparsely equipped, in order to spare the better trained and better equipped (usually from western Ukraine).
Stalin, contrary to popular belief, didn't have commissars mow down retreating foot soldiers, although Hollywood and pop culture loves that idea.
The infanous "not one step back" order was given to officers, who up until that point, gave up several, strategic cities and defensive lines without even trying to defend, just straight up ordered a retreat and fled in panic as soon as they saw the German army.
A popular troll argument is that we keep hearing about the Russian victory but nothing happens. If they had the wit to read through this informative essay many of their arguments would be countered. There again western arm chair generals want instant gratification, something we are all guilty of to a degree, whereas it appears that the Russians just went about business, they play for real and not for optics.
Was unaware of the torture videos, seems we are back to the days of the Colosseum, with a lazy, ignorant class of sociopaths calling for the blood of others, regressive evolution I suppose. But there again perhaps it encapsulates why our societies are collapsing, a mental change that is cause rather than effect.
RE: Torture, well, you do have to kind of look at how Uncle Scam has managed to normalize it in the last 20 years, and it includes torture of non-combatants, not to mention illegal renditioning, TV shows and Oscar nominated movies being made glorifying it and prominent US politicians like Ron DeSantis or appointees like Gina Haspel failing upwards because they were fine with it.
I personally think this thirst for torture is not new. I’ve always marvelled at how, in July, 1936, scores of torturers came out of the woodwork in my own hometown in Spain, at the drop of a hat.
It's definitely not new, but it did kind of go out of favor for a while. However, once the Hegemon/Empire/Shining City on the Hill legally justifies extraordinary rendition to black sites and torture, it kind of sets a new example. If "the good guys" are doing it, a) it must work! and b) we can do it too!
Sure is convenient how quickly Azov was allowed to 're-brand' isn't it? I'm not sure what a "Jewish apparatchik" is supposed to mean, but I would buy "Zionist apparatchiks" if that's what you really meant.
A good summary about 'narratives' in the West + catastrophic mistakes in the evaluation of the real situation which leads them to escalate believing their own lies or fakery of their intel or idiots kaganists from ISW or worse UK MOD.
Plan A was economic sanctions will lead to regime change in Moscow. Plan B wait for the Russians to run out of bullets. NATO never had a war plan because they wanted to support a Ukrainian insurgency not a full blown land war.
I suspect that the only way the attack to take Energodar was supposed to hold (600 troops on the wrong side of a big river) was to apply nuclear blackmail and also raise international outcries and hysteria that would even force US to intervene maybe?
I don't understand how some troops can be elite if they are not involved in combat. Regular troops holding on in Bakhmut for months must have more combat experience than any elite force that just trains...
I find the western/regime propaganda amusing. Russia is attacking a nuclear power plant that it holds, using NATO supplied munitions, and then shooting down those munitions.
Question: Does Russia have an equivalent to the "HIMARS" system? If so, does it really matter if Ukraine has 100K, 200K or 400K (mostly unprepared/overtaxed) troops to throw at any given offensive? Further, doesn't Russia also have the same or similar capabilities of knowing exactly where medium to large detachments of AFU troops are?
Its rockets are 300mm in size compared to HIMARS 227mm, so they're much more powerful with a far larger warhead. The truck fires 12 instead of the HIMARS' 6. And they have GMLRS i.e. GPS/Glonass guided missiles for it just like HIMARS m31 GMLRS. And lastly their range is 120km compared to the HIMARS 80-90km since the Smerch rockets are much larger therefore have more fuel to travel farther as well as larger warheads.
In the opening of SMO Russia didn't have as many of the guided versions of the Smerch rockets in stock so it used a lot more of the 'dumb fire' ones like Grad missiles just much more powerful.
But lately more and more they've been producing and using the guided versions, which is why we've seen reports like this one a few days ago:
❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Destruction of the hangar with MLRS HIMARS in Orekhovo
Today at 17.30 artillery units of the 58th Army of the Russian Armed Forces attacked the hangars on the territory of the Orekhovskoye elevator near the railway station in Orekhovo in the Zaporizhia region.
In warehouses located closer to the football field, there were two HIMARS MLRS launchers, one M777 155-mm towed howitzer, several unidentified armored vehicles and artillery ammunition.
As a result of the impact with a package of 300-mm Smerch multiple launch rocket system and 20 shells of the 152-mm towed gun "Hyacinth", the hangars for storing weapons and equipment were completely destroyed, and the glow from the detonation was visible for many kilometers from Orekhovo.
With a high degree of probability, weapons and military equipment were transferred to Orekhov in preparation for the offensive to provide fire support for ground forces during the assault on Russian positions, and their loss will significantly affect the combat capabilities of the AFU in the Zaporizhia region.
p.s. don't confuse BM-30 Smerch for BM-27 Uragan. They look very similar although the trained eye can easily tell them apart by how far their wheels are separated on the chassis. The Uragan is closer in power to HIMARS with 220mm rockets, but they're unguided.
The Smerch is the real beast with 300mm guided rockets.
I suspect the Great Ukrainian Spring Offensive will be a bit like the Great Russian Winter Offensive. Big arrows that never wound up happening.
What is your sense of actual casualties? I have seen the leaked docs showing anything from 17k to 71k Ukr casualties, but that just looks so light. Ritter and Macgregor have been throwing around up to 250k KIA for a while now, and Ursula 7 months ago said it was 100K.
Also, again in those docs, the RU deployments in Kherson and Zap seem really light, just a couple of tens of thousands of men. On the other hand, reading your abstract above of how forces are "decentralized", I am beginning to imagine what the modern battlefield looks like. Empty. Yet full.
I find that surprisingly few people in the West accept various motivations for Zelensky. Such as:
- He doesn't care about Ukr casualties
- He is trying his best to drag NATO into the war
- He is saying/doing/promising anything and everything as long as it gets him money/weapons/whatever
- He is not interested in peace
If anyone actually believed any 1, let alone all 4, of the points above, nobody would support him. Yet, to me, it is so obviously true, and i never had an opinion of the guy. Its just blatant. And, frankly, not unexpected. Since his priority is to ensure his own survivial - be it against the Russians or the right wing of his own parties, what else is he supposed to do? He can't win a stand-up fight against Russia, so he is doing what he needs to do. Just amazing that its not transparent.
That's a good way to describe it: 'empty yet full'. I think that's kind of how it is. It's empty for the most part but can get full 'quick' by quickly centralizing groupings if you need to make a pinpoint offensive/defensive action.
As to casualties, Russian only KIA is about 15-17k with LDPR/Wagner/paramilitary/irregular, adding another 15k give or take for ~30k-ish total plus another 100-150k wounded, most of which return to battle. Russian military medical sources have stated before 95% of wounded return to fighting.
On Ukraine's side I believe they have 70-100k dead with another 60-70k irrecoverably wounded, this is wounded that can't return to battle i.e. have lost limbs, eyesight, brain damage etc. We know this because last year an internal leak occurred that showed 60k irrecoverables and this was long ago. Then another 150-250k wounded but of course most of these also return to battle.
So to say 'casualties' is very confusing and misleading we have to really be precise about what we're talking about.
If you count casualties as every type of KIA/WIA/MIA/POW then sure, Ukraine might have 500k++.
Or if you count casualties as ONLY "irretrievable losses" which means KIA plus disabled and can't fight again (lost limbs, eyesight, brain damage etc.). This number might be 150-200k.
Then if you count KIA only then it's maybe 70-100k.
Russian battlefield medicine and medevac capabilities are much better than Ukraine's so their "irrecoverably wounded" is much less. The chief reason for this is because Russia actually has helicopter medevacs as the norm, whereas Ukraine barely has any. That means soldiers bleeding out from the legs/limbs get to medical centers much faster and the percentage of lost limbs is far less for Russia, therefore far more servicemen recover from wounds and return to combat.
He says that Wagner tracks the AFU casualties which Wagner themselves inflict on the AFU, and since the first days that Wagner entered the conflict in late March 2022 to present, they have recorded 38,000 AFU killed / KIA. These are KIA just against Wagner alone, not counting the ones AFU suffered against other Russian forces. So this gives an idea of what their true losses might be. Also, 32k out of that 38k is from Soledar/Bakhmut only, the remainder is presumably from Popasna / Severodonetsk which is the other major theaters I'm aware of that Wagner fought in
Okay, let's be honest here, Prigozhin is a frikkin' drama queen, and that number seems implausible to me.
Almost all losses come from artillery fire / IDF. So this means almost all KIA bodies are still in their defensive positions, with their own unit, and can't be recovered by Wagner. So even if they recover as high as 50% of the AFU KIAs, that means Wagner alone killed 70-80k AFU, which would then mean 150k irretrievable losses to Wagner alone. Granted, the majority of the intense fighting has been in Donbass, but still, this seems to me a gross overestimation, similar to the 180k dead Russians Ukraine is touting.
Announce that all NATO EU countries that have provided the slightest weapon to UKRAINE have declared war on Russia and therefore become at midnight legitimate military, strategic, logistical and even civilian targets if necessary.
Result of such an announcement in the middle of the afternoon on a working day, according to Goldman's Sachs (zero hedge): immediate fall in the markets of 55 to 60%, i.e. tens of trillions vanished, banks on the ground, flight of populations from cities in panic, total collapse of eco activity, euro dollar fall, explosion of GOLD on the rise etc etc good telework ok, but the very rich and rich would especially take the first flight for a quiet country outside NATO EU.
Your nazis, bandera cult(when I say 'your' i mean most ukrainian in general not you as i dont know you), prostitution to US ngo's and corrupted local and US CAN EU politicians presenting you the EU as paradise(it is hell believe me I live in the heart of natoland).Ukraine does not exist it is a fake country like mine Belgium, created only by the defeat of Napoleon against...Russia by London to..avoid further wars (lol).Never believe western politicos or journos they are all whores and corrupted(money and soul).The worse are the brits.
Well done. We are at the nexus of reality vs. Western spin narrative now. The crux in the road. The West was looking for a "photo op" smooth exit from this debacle, and it is slowly creeping into the NATO consciousness that this will indeed not happen. What will happen is surrender on Russian terms. That is a factual inevitability. It is written in stone now. In the tablets. What happens in Ukraine from now on will be 100% on Russian terms. We discussed previously that the Russian Air Force would play a decisive role in the ending of this conflict. Well, it seems it has already happened. I have not heard of the FAB 3000, but if this is indeed being dropped on Ukrainian postions it is lights out. The FAB 1500 by itself does massive damage. The Ukrainians can shoot their wad with their" spring offensive", but they will be anilhated. NATO is no match for the Russians in their backyard. The stupidy and arrogance of NATO is pursuing this conflict and escalating is epic in its scope. I say all of this with the understanding that Russia has restrained itself in the damage it has inflicted so as to avoid NATO going totally insane. Russia is fighting with 100% confidence , resolve and capacity to prevail. And it will prevail on its terms. We are at the beginning of the end now. Less than 6 months to go.
Excellent assessment.
Re "The stupidy and arrogance of NATO is pursuing this conflict and escalating is epic in its scope." In line with every other 'Western' policy of the last three years.
Question is, who runs Soros.
Would to God that you prove correct.
You put into great detail what I was thinking today. I would agree that the AFU/NATO troop numbers are meaningless absent of any real capability to realize any militarily significant goal. It's not like they're on the highway to Moscow after beating up a few old tanks...
With respect to satellites, JDAMS, and even UAVs, why jam that hardware if you have the ability to feed dirty data streams into their GPS, or other sensors?
Good idea, but I think it's easier in theory than in practice. Jamming is just the economical and simple way to accomplish the same basic function.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean because the "feeding dirty data streams into their GPS" is exactly the definition of jamming, that's pretty much what they're doing.
I would guess that Joe means feeding the bombs some "other" GPS coordinates. It would be really "cool" if Russia could change the bomb target to some Ukrainian position...
Spoofing
Hey the Iranians managed to do it to a US "stealth" UAV...so why not?
But simply jamming is likely easier to do on a larger scale.
An incredible amount of information here. There’s much to digest. It’s amusing how most of the population if they follow this at all still believe in the upcoming spring offensive. There seems to be a growing unrest with the whole situation. Putin is evil doesn’t seem to cut it for a lot of people anymore. Thanks for another incredible job.
TDS was shifted to PDS ... Pretty standard cultural psyop.
sure russian jamming
the preailing/root causes of jdam failures may not be russian jamming, other suspects: reliability, shoddy integration with the aircraft delivering the jdam, shoddy integration with the ordnance including fuse failure.
reliability, how many shipped kits were defects? jdam kits have been in 'stock' for years, all kinds of things happen, and the kits should have been inspected and function checked before shipping. then we should worry shipping damage such as jarring. jdam was a troubled program until there were more troubled programs like f-35.
the kits are designed to bolt on to a dumb/iron bomb, what are the fuse links for soviet bombs?
finally, the jdam is controlled from the cockpit, how good was the 'weapons control set up' for an old soviet mig?
a lot of ordnance has a dud rate and jdam may be suspect.
I think it's combination of all the above. Weapons systems which were made specifically to be advanced and have jamming resistance like actual cruise missiles etc, which have different types of guidance types, would be different. But since the JDAM is sort of an 'aftermarket' bolt-on, it's fairly basic and not really made to withstand jamming as all it has is the GPS channel an some basic INS guidance (as opposed to advanced missile systems which may have 4 or 5 different types of overlapping guidance types like terrain mapping, GPS, INS, midcourse correction, etc, etc, etc). So JDAM is supposed to be a cheap solution and unfortunately it probably is not very resistant to its GPS signal being jammed
I think you actually mean "Fortunately it probably is not very resistant to its GPS signal being jammed" ;-)
Well the U.S. did experiment with a JDAM version that is specifically armed with anti-GPS jamming tech but don't think that one got wider production, not 100% sure
Have not had time to read it all, but I am concerned with the veracity of the part about Wagner. The US does not have a "Defense Ministry" or "Ministry of Defense" - so what gives there? Can't be a simple translation error and why would this information be being conveyed in a language other than English? Further, if it is coming from a British writer, why is everything else spelled in the Americanized form of English?
"US military experts are concerned about the effectiveness of the Wagner PMCs – a source in the US Defense Ministry said.
As DC Weekly writes experts of the Ministry of Defense conducted an in-depth analysis of the activities of the Wagner PMCs and came to the conclusion that no American, British or French similar structure can compare with their units."
Sorry but that looks highly suspect. Why would a rag called "DC Weekly" not know that there are no "ministries" in the USG?
Also I am unable to find any source by that name: https://www.google.com/search?q=dc+weekly&oq=dc+weekly&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l4j0i22i30l5.1527j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
--- More info needed, please.
OKAY since I had some more time after getting back from the gym and onto a real PC and not my phone, I did a Google search on a few of the exact phrases used and finally landed on this:
https://dcweekly.org/2023/03/29/us-dept-of-defense-officials-say-they-are-worried-about-russias-pmc-wagner-group/
Which is all fine and good I guess but...
Almost none of the usual links at the bottom of the page work at all (Site Map, Terms of Service, Privacy, etc.). One that does happens to be "Contact" which leads here: https://dcweekly.org/contact-2/ - Namely, a bunch of gobbledygook with a few email addresses at the domain "thezeenworldnewsdemo.com" which itself points here: "http://ww16.thezeenworldnewsdemo.com/?sub1=20230413-1406-11df-9b5b-523abfb6ec91" No dice. And there is no listing of "DC Weekly" at any of the usual source description sites like Sourcewatch.
https://www.google.com/search?q=thezeenworldnewsdemo - Leads to a bunch of page stubs that are apparently all over the place in terms of topics.
Most of the content at DC Weekly appears to be written by one Black dude named Peter Carroll and other guy. That said, the article on Wagner does *not* in fact use the term "Ministry of Defense" so I guess Simplicius was actually getting that from a translation into another language and then back to English. However, there is no sourcing provided for the claims about Wagner nor are any actual "officials" named.
"Insiders at the United States Department of Defense have told DCW staff they are worried about Russian Paramilitary Contractor (PMC) “Wagner.” An unnamed official says Wagner is the most Highly Organized and combat-ready private military company in the world, surpassing even that of American PMC Blackwater (also known as Academi), the British PMC Aegis Defense Service, the French PMC Salamandre.
According to the source, there is good reason for such worry; Various independent international institutions and analytical groups have recognized that the PMC Wagner as being the most effective Russian military unit, with the Military Company simultaneously performing combat missions on three continents – in Africa, Asia and Europe. This is absolutely unprecedented both in terms of geographical coverage and quality as well as quantity of missions assigned to the PMCs. One of the factors behind the success of the PMC Wagner is their ability to quickly mobilize and deploy forces anywhere in the world, responding to the changing situation on the spot. In addition, the soldiers of the armed forces are highly skilled and specialized. This allows Wagner to effectively carry out various types of tasks."
Which "various independent international institutions and analytical groups" are they talking about? I checked the ones I know of. Stratfor, CFR, RAND, and others including European outlets/organizations and I cannot find anything about this claim.
So I think we still need more information. For the time being I'm not putting any stock in this particular part of the Sitrep and I wanted to note that it's actually 2 weeks old.
At the end of the day it's a moot point, we know that Blackwater and every other PMC has no access to 'heavy equipment' like Wagner does. No other PMC in the world has access to hypersonic weapons, intermediate ballistic missiles, their own jet fighters, MLRS, and guided artillery systems. So doing a deep dive on the source of the quotes is moot when the truth of the statement is self evident that no other PMC comes close to Wagner because Blackwater et al are basic perimeter security/infiltration teams, they don't have 1/10th the heavy weapons access and capability that Wagner has such as their own Iskander, Kalibr, guided 300mm MLRS systems, their own personal BUK/S-300 AD systems, and much more. So at the end of the day it's a pretty obviously known statement that no other PMC on earth can come close to Wagner in capability.
That’s all well and good and a very respectable opinion (which in my limited access to facts I share). But then, if I may be allowed a criticism, quoting one more person or group of persons with the same opinion but no closer to the facts than the present analyst doesn’t really add much value to the analyst’s views.
And having said that, let me reiterate my admiration for this page.
Blackwater et al are "mercs", that is to say Soldiers of Fortune who are essentially light unarmored infantry with special forces aspirations. Wagner appears to be far more than that and with some idealogical integrity.
This is another excellent piece!!
I’ll have study back through it a few more times
I’m incline to think Ukraine is pretty much done I think the State Department is preparing the media to declare victory for the west in Ukraine.
Then it will be bad bad China and poor pitiful Taiwan
The Western citizenry is perfectly conditioned for this type of propaganda tool switching from one big thing to the next.
Wonderful summary! Thanks for all your work. NYT should hang their heads in shame.
I can't understand Ukrainian strategy. Today they lost no less than 450 soldiers in Bakhmut alone. Why don't they just withdrawal already? The area they occupy is far too small to have so many soldiers gathered there. Still around 3,000 to 5,000 by most accounts. They are getting decimated by Russian Artillery. It is non-stop at this stage.
What would it take for the Ukrainian Army to mutiny? It is one thing to be taking horrible losses in a desperate struggle where command decisions are sensible. This is not the case with Ukraine. A Ukrainian soldiers life seems to have less value than an insect from what I have observed. We have seen signs of it. Refusal to be deployed to Bakhmut, Refusal to carry on the offensive in Kherson. Ukraine is utilizing enforcement units that will shoot their own soldiers if they leave their lines. I wonder how long they can keep that up. Stalin tried something similar during WWII. It is ultimately self-defeating and had to be abandoned. Eventually the soldiers will realize that there is more of us then there is of them and take appropriate measures.
It isn't intelligent strategy. It's pure fanaticism driving these decisions.
In a fanatic's mind, everything is black and white. Either they keep every inch of the former Ukraine, including the Crimea, or they keep none of it.
America is being infected with the same sickness of all or nothing fanaticism. It's a real poison.
Very simple: Zelensky is a russian shadow general participating in the demilitarization of 404, good job ZE...you can improve in denazification.
Joking
Ukraine has in the past demonstrated a willingness to sustain huge casualties of the less trained and sparsely equipped, in order to spare the better trained and better equipped (usually from western Ukraine).
Stalin, contrary to popular belief, didn't have commissars mow down retreating foot soldiers, although Hollywood and pop culture loves that idea.
The infanous "not one step back" order was given to officers, who up until that point, gave up several, strategic cities and defensive lines without even trying to defend, just straight up ordered a retreat and fled in panic as soon as they saw the German army.
A popular troll argument is that we keep hearing about the Russian victory but nothing happens. If they had the wit to read through this informative essay many of their arguments would be countered. There again western arm chair generals want instant gratification, something we are all guilty of to a degree, whereas it appears that the Russians just went about business, they play for real and not for optics.
Was unaware of the torture videos, seems we are back to the days of the Colosseum, with a lazy, ignorant class of sociopaths calling for the blood of others, regressive evolution I suppose. But there again perhaps it encapsulates why our societies are collapsing, a mental change that is cause rather than effect.
RE: Torture, well, you do have to kind of look at how Uncle Scam has managed to normalize it in the last 20 years, and it includes torture of non-combatants, not to mention illegal renditioning, TV shows and Oscar nominated movies being made glorifying it and prominent US politicians like Ron DeSantis or appointees like Gina Haspel failing upwards because they were fine with it.
I personally think this thirst for torture is not new. I’ve always marvelled at how, in July, 1936, scores of torturers came out of the woodwork in my own hometown in Spain, at the drop of a hat.
It's definitely not new, but it did kind of go out of favor for a while. However, once the Hegemon/Empire/Shining City on the Hill legally justifies extraordinary rendition to black sites and torture, it kind of sets a new example. If "the good guys" are doing it, a) it must work! and b) we can do it too!
Sure is convenient how quickly Azov was allowed to 're-brand' isn't it? I'm not sure what a "Jewish apparatchik" is supposed to mean, but I would buy "Zionist apparatchiks" if that's what you really meant.
A good summary about 'narratives' in the West + catastrophic mistakes in the evaluation of the real situation which leads them to escalate believing their own lies or fakery of their intel or idiots kaganists from ISW or worse UK MOD.
https://twitter.com/talkrealopinion/status/1646104536530972672
Plan A was economic sanctions will lead to regime change in Moscow. Plan B wait for the Russians to run out of bullets. NATO never had a war plan because they wanted to support a Ukrainian insurgency not a full blown land war.
I suspect that the only way the attack to take Energodar was supposed to hold (600 troops on the wrong side of a big river) was to apply nuclear blackmail and also raise international outcries and hysteria that would even force US to intervene maybe?
I don't understand how some troops can be elite if they are not involved in combat. Regular troops holding on in Bakhmut for months must have more combat experience than any elite force that just trains...
I find the western/regime propaganda amusing. Russia is attacking a nuclear power plant that it holds, using NATO supplied munitions, and then shooting down those munitions.
Sounds legit. /s/
Question: Does Russia have an equivalent to the "HIMARS" system? If so, does it really matter if Ukraine has 100K, 200K or 400K (mostly unprepared/overtaxed) troops to throw at any given offensive? Further, doesn't Russia also have the same or similar capabilities of knowing exactly where medium to large detachments of AFU troops are?
Russia has a system superior to HIMARS. The BM-30 Smerch: https://i.imgur.com/0IVO4Hv.jpg
Its rockets are 300mm in size compared to HIMARS 227mm, so they're much more powerful with a far larger warhead. The truck fires 12 instead of the HIMARS' 6. And they have GMLRS i.e. GPS/Glonass guided missiles for it just like HIMARS m31 GMLRS. And lastly their range is 120km compared to the HIMARS 80-90km since the Smerch rockets are much larger therefore have more fuel to travel farther as well as larger warheads.
In the opening of SMO Russia didn't have as many of the guided versions of the Smerch rockets in stock so it used a lot more of the 'dumb fire' ones like Grad missiles just much more powerful.
But lately more and more they've been producing and using the guided versions, which is why we've seen reports like this one a few days ago:
❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Destruction of the hangar with MLRS HIMARS in Orekhovo
Today at 17.30 artillery units of the 58th Army of the Russian Armed Forces attacked the hangars on the territory of the Orekhovskoye elevator near the railway station in Orekhovo in the Zaporizhia region.
In warehouses located closer to the football field, there were two HIMARS MLRS launchers, one M777 155-mm towed howitzer, several unidentified armored vehicles and artillery ammunition.
As a result of the impact with a package of 300-mm Smerch multiple launch rocket system and 20 shells of the 152-mm towed gun "Hyacinth", the hangars for storing weapons and equipment were completely destroyed, and the glow from the detonation was visible for many kilometers from Orekhovo.
With a high degree of probability, weapons and military equipment were transferred to Orekhov in preparation for the offensive to provide fire support for ground forces during the assault on Russian positions, and their loss will significantly affect the combat capabilities of the AFU in the Zaporizhia region.
p.s. don't confuse BM-30 Smerch for BM-27 Uragan. They look very similar although the trained eye can easily tell them apart by how far their wheels are separated on the chassis. The Uragan is closer in power to HIMARS with 220mm rockets, but they're unguided.
The Smerch is the real beast with 300mm guided rockets.
Stay the course ❤️🇷🇺💙
I suspect the Great Ukrainian Spring Offensive will be a bit like the Great Russian Winter Offensive. Big arrows that never wound up happening.
What is your sense of actual casualties? I have seen the leaked docs showing anything from 17k to 71k Ukr casualties, but that just looks so light. Ritter and Macgregor have been throwing around up to 250k KIA for a while now, and Ursula 7 months ago said it was 100K.
Also, again in those docs, the RU deployments in Kherson and Zap seem really light, just a couple of tens of thousands of men. On the other hand, reading your abstract above of how forces are "decentralized", I am beginning to imagine what the modern battlefield looks like. Empty. Yet full.
I find that surprisingly few people in the West accept various motivations for Zelensky. Such as:
- He doesn't care about Ukr casualties
- He is trying his best to drag NATO into the war
- He is saying/doing/promising anything and everything as long as it gets him money/weapons/whatever
- He is not interested in peace
If anyone actually believed any 1, let alone all 4, of the points above, nobody would support him. Yet, to me, it is so obviously true, and i never had an opinion of the guy. Its just blatant. And, frankly, not unexpected. Since his priority is to ensure his own survivial - be it against the Russians or the right wing of his own parties, what else is he supposed to do? He can't win a stand-up fight against Russia, so he is doing what he needs to do. Just amazing that its not transparent.
Add according to new S HERSH leak, he stole at least 400 millions us for 'fuel', possibly (not kiding) russian diesel with 'good discount'.
That in turns begs the question of why Russia would sell.
That's a good way to describe it: 'empty yet full'. I think that's kind of how it is. It's empty for the most part but can get full 'quick' by quickly centralizing groupings if you need to make a pinpoint offensive/defensive action.
As to casualties, Russian only KIA is about 15-17k with LDPR/Wagner/paramilitary/irregular, adding another 15k give or take for ~30k-ish total plus another 100-150k wounded, most of which return to battle. Russian military medical sources have stated before 95% of wounded return to fighting.
On Ukraine's side I believe they have 70-100k dead with another 60-70k irrecoverably wounded, this is wounded that can't return to battle i.e. have lost limbs, eyesight, brain damage etc. We know this because last year an internal leak occurred that showed 60k irrecoverables and this was long ago. Then another 150-250k wounded but of course most of these also return to battle.
So to say 'casualties' is very confusing and misleading we have to really be precise about what we're talking about.
If you count casualties as every type of KIA/WIA/MIA/POW then sure, Ukraine might have 500k++.
Or if you count casualties as ONLY "irretrievable losses" which means KIA plus disabled and can't fight again (lost limbs, eyesight, brain damage etc.). This number might be 150-200k.
Then if you count KIA only then it's maybe 70-100k.
Russian battlefield medicine and medevac capabilities are much better than Ukraine's so their "irrecoverably wounded" is much less. The chief reason for this is because Russia actually has helicopter medevacs as the norm, whereas Ukraine barely has any. That means soldiers bleeding out from the legs/limbs get to medical centers much faster and the percentage of lost limbs is far less for Russia, therefore far more servicemen recover from wounds and return to combat.
P.s. here's today's Prigozhin's statement on AFU's casualties vis a vis the leaks:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fSHYl8hbBEmd/
He says that Wagner tracks the AFU casualties which Wagner themselves inflict on the AFU, and since the first days that Wagner entered the conflict in late March 2022 to present, they have recorded 38,000 AFU killed / KIA. These are KIA just against Wagner alone, not counting the ones AFU suffered against other Russian forces. So this gives an idea of what their true losses might be. Also, 32k out of that 38k is from Soledar/Bakhmut only, the remainder is presumably from Popasna / Severodonetsk which is the other major theaters I'm aware of that Wagner fought in
Okay, let's be honest here, Prigozhin is a frikkin' drama queen, and that number seems implausible to me.
Almost all losses come from artillery fire / IDF. So this means almost all KIA bodies are still in their defensive positions, with their own unit, and can't be recovered by Wagner. So even if they recover as high as 50% of the AFU KIAs, that means Wagner alone killed 70-80k AFU, which would then mean 150k irretrievable losses to Wagner alone. Granted, the majority of the intense fighting has been in Donbass, but still, this seems to me a gross overestimation, similar to the 180k dead Russians Ukraine is touting.
Russian ultimate joker, non-lethal
Announce that all NATO EU countries that have provided the slightest weapon to UKRAINE have declared war on Russia and therefore become at midnight legitimate military, strategic, logistical and even civilian targets if necessary.
Result of such an announcement in the middle of the afternoon on a working day, according to Goldman's Sachs (zero hedge): immediate fall in the markets of 55 to 60%, i.e. tens of trillions vanished, banks on the ground, flight of populations from cities in panic, total collapse of eco activity, euro dollar fall, explosion of GOLD on the rise etc etc good telework ok, but the very rich and rich would especially take the first flight for a quiet country outside NATO EU.