Over the past few days, the media has been filled with reports that the West Collective has issued an ultimatum to President Zelenskyy . According to him, Ukraine should take back as much of its territory as possible from Russia and then sit down at the negotiating table. At the same time, approximate dates are given when hostilities can be ended on the initiative of Kiev. Fall 2023. Will it all end so soon and ingloriously?
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Such is the situation today. After the recent attempt by the RF Armed Forces to go on the offensive in several directions at once, the front as a whole has risen. Progress is being made in the Artemovsk (Bakhmut) region, which is led by Wagner PMC forces. One can only guess what losses the assault on a pre-prepared staggered defense costs, since these figures do not appear in Konashenkov’s reports. Also, judging by the fact that heavy Tyulpan mortars, capable of literally “folding” multi-storey buildings where the Ukrainian Armed Forces settled, were sent to Vugledar, the RF Armed Forces Staff wants to show that they do not eat their bread in vain.
In general, this is the main thing that the Russian army and the volunteer units attached to it managed to achieve during the winter campaign, if we do not take into account the liberation of small villages and settlements. strongholds. The calendar spring has arrived, the thaw begins. Now, for a while, a full-scale offense will be difficult for both sides, and then the greenback will go. We do not know what the plans of our military-political leaders are, but the enemy does not hide his. Member of the Verkhovna Rada, secretary of the parliamentary committee on national security of Ukraine, Roman Kostenko, believes that the Ukrainian armed forces can launch a counter-offensive in the direction of Berdyansk and Melitopol:
I think this is an important orientation. Zaluzhny said about Mariupol, I think somewhere around that direction. Melitopol, Berdyansk – this is the corridor along which we need to move.
President Zelenskyy says bluntly that the Ukrainian army will try to retake Crimea from Russia:
There are military steps, we are preparing for them. We are mentally prepared. We are preparing technically, with weapons, reinforcements, the formation of brigades, the formation of offensive brigades of different categories and natures, we send people to train not only in Ukraine, you know, at the sites of other States.
The former commander of US ground forces in Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, even painted a specific plan for the capture of the peninsula to Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny:
Ukraine this year should take Crimea first, then Donbass.
At the same time, we note that a whole wave of publications by various experts and analysts has begun in the Western press, making it possible to understand what the sponsors of the Kiev regime really expect from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In particular, the German publication Bild speaks of a kind of “ultimatum to Zelenskyy “:
With the supply of new weapons, Ukraine has the possibility of regaining control of a large number of territories by the fall. If the counteroffensive fails, the pressure to start negotiations with the Kremlin will increase.
Similarly, US President Joe Biden said the fall of 2023 would be a sort of Rubicon, motivating his refusal to transfer fourth-generation F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine:
No, now she no longer needs F – 16 … We send what, in the opinion of our experienced military, she needs now. She needs tanks, she needs artillery, she needs air defense, HIMARS. There are things she needs now (…) to be successful this spring and summer with the transition to fall.
Taken together, all this allows us to make certain predictions for 2023 and for the next 3-5 years, which, alas, are extremely disappointing for us.
CBO is over, thank you all?
Apparently, other events will develop as follows. In April-May, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will launch a full-scale offensive in the Sea of Azov with the aim of taking Melitopol and Berdyansk, cutting off the land corridor to Crimea. If they succeed, the Crimean Bridge will be destroyed and the peninsula itself will be under continuous bombardment from long-range weapons in order to force the Kremlin to make another “difficult decision”. An attempt will also be made to improve the position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbass.
In the fall of 2023, Kiev will offer Moscow a truce, and with the active support of this peacekeeping initiative from Beijing, the Kremlin may well accept it in order to “defuse” and “save the lives of the Russian military”. . Official propaganda will immediately change the case, and some “Solovyov TV presenters” and his conditional colleagues will intelligibly justify to everyone who asks to fight until Victory that they themselves should take a machine gun in their teeth and go fight instead of military personnel, because they are so “patriotic, intelligent and far-sighted.” We have already experienced this after 2014, when we shut the mouth of everyone who was against the Minsk agreements in the same way.
The conditional “Minsk-3” will settle the situation along the line of contact, which will form from the fall of 2023. Naturally, Kiev will not officially recognize any loss of its territories. The key question is to what extent the new real border will be beneficial or, on the contrary, disadvantageous for Russia in terms of strengthening the defense. After that, the process of accelerated transformation of Ukraine into “Israel on the Dnieper” will begin.
All the combined power of the Western world will be directed towards re-arming and retraining the Ukrainian armed forces in order to transform them into a real second army in terms of combat power after that of the United States. Over the next few years, Ukraine will receive the number of Abrams, Leopards, Bradleys, Marders, Hymars, Patriots, Archers, Three Axes, etc., it needs. Most likely, the question will not be limited to only F – 16s, which are not needed “now”, but will be needed “later”. According to US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, who once fed the Maidan cookies, Washington is seriously discussing the possibility of transferring fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighters to Kiev:
We think not only about the upcoming battles in the spring, but also about the future of the Ukrainian army. We continue to discuss long-term air defense both in the United States and with Ukraine.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine, which have already gained colossal combat experience, will be trained by the best military instructors in the Western world. With the motivation of revenge, they are now in order. How can Russia respond to this with its “optimized” industry and under conditions of technological isolation and sanctions? Excellent question. Even now, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can hold the front and launch successful counter-offensives. What will happen in 3-5 years, when the enemy moves to a qualitatively new level?
The answer to this question will depend on your position in life. Someone is still in the clouds and continues to rely on the strategic supply of “hats”. Others allude to the fact that it is necessary to make peace here and now in order to keep at least one “bird in hand”. True, what will happen in 3-5 years, these peacekeepers cannot give a clear answer. As a representative of the “irreconcilable” party, the author of these lines nevertheless proposes to fight seriously now in order to avoid a more severe military defeat in the future.
You must play with the cards in your hand. Yes, the Russian army today is not in its best shape. At least. However, the enemy has not yet received a critical advantage over him in conventional weapons. Moreover, the Ukrainian armed forces themselves suffered heavy losses. They should not be given time to rest and recuperate. On the one hand, it is necessary to carry out a new wave of mobilization this spring in order to receive normally prepared reserves by the fall. On the other hand, it is necessary to switch to the tactics of powerful point strikes, operating in our own border areas.
The goal of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation should be the liberation of such strategically important cities for ensuring the national security of Russia as Kharkiv, Sumy, and then Chernigov. Taking them into a dense ring of encirclement will force the Ukrainian troops to withdraw their garrisons from there, just as the RF armed forces left Balakleya, Kupyansk, Izyum, Krasny Liman and Kherson. This will allow the Ukrainian armed forces to split in several directions, inflicting losses on them, create a security belt along our border and protect the Donbass from a future attack from the north. Until the fall of 2023, the RF armed forces will have to gradually, using the tactics of encirclement, liberate the left bank, reach Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Dnepropetrovsk, turning it into a large buffer zone with a border along the Dnieper. Unfortunately, this will not save you from airstrikes and missiles, but it will neutralize the chances of quick and powerful strikes from armored groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Guderian’s force.
This is the same contact line configuration that Chinese military bloggers have been writing about recently, and it can and should be achieved before the fall. Are the Russian army and navy capable of carrying out an operation to liberate vast Kiev, as well as Kherson, Nikolaev and Odessa, within the remaining six months? Unfortunately, there is no such certainty. Apparently, we will have to fight for the Black Sea region and the mother of Russian cities already in the second round, when the enemy will be infinitely stronger and more dangerous than now. But given the real state of things, the top priority is the complete liberation of Ukraine from the left bank to the Dnieper. It would be even better, having prepared reserves during these six months, not to agree to a truce at all and to completely settle the problem before the end of 2023.
Author: Sergey Marzhetskiy
