Maciej Zwolinski

There was a popular joke during communism about a worker in a sewing machine factory, who was stealing parts from work and bringing them home to build a sewing machine for himself. Except he could not, because every time he tried to put the parts together he came up with a machine gun. It was funny because it was true -there is a factory in Radom where they used to manufacture literally both weapons and sewing machines

There have been reports of Russians shifting units from the Kherson group to the Tokmak direction to supplement the reserves which are running out. I think the primary reason for raids in the area of the "Dniepr" grouping is to remind the Russians that they cannot keep removing soldiers from there.

Judging by the frequency of that kind of scenes appearing on the TV, it looks like it is very easy to get public displays of support in Africa, no matter the cause. It seems people there are generally bored and will do a lot just to generate some excitement. A few EUR will help, but I honestly think some are there just for a lark. During the battle of Mogadishu, many US soldiers who fought there reported with astonishment civilians flocking to the sound of the guns to see what was going on.

WW1 was undoubtedly a period of defensive primacy in the context of the Western Front yet it cracked. It took 4 years of economic blockade, 2 years of very unscientific attritional warfare, 6 months of somewhat more intelligent attritional warfare and some technical development (I would argue it was the least important element) and the Germans were finally forced to make an all-out effort to revert to manoeuvre warfare, which finally did them in. I think that (at least for armies incapable of obtaining massive air superiority) the era of defensive primacy has indeed returned, but Ukrainians are already fairly well advanced in the intelligent attritional warfare stage, to borrow your quote - they are already playing it. At the same time Russians are extremely wasteful with their assets, so it should not take as long this time around. PS. On a slightly related note, regarding the Zaporozhe offensive, there seems now a consensus among the commentators that the UKR have started with an attempt to make a NATO-style mechanised breakthrough, once that did not work out they had to come up with plan B which turned out to be their tried and true attack-by-artillery with limited objectives . However, it was a very quick and smooth transition, to me surprisingly so. I am wondering if the original mechanised push was not something which the the Ukrainians did mostly to appease their Western advisors, while all along they were preparing for the attritional, Kherson style slog, having always seen it as the more realistic approach.

That may be a language issue, but I do not see the contradiction between fear and selfishness. Fear is often (perhaps mostly) a very selfish emotion. People may fear for others, but mostly fear things which may cause harm to themselves. And when one fears for others, it is mostly for people who are close to him in some way or another, so arguably also in those cases it is not exactly altruistic.

Although there is nothing wrong with the others and the Germans could just as well sing the entire thing. Generally, nobody should be able to take offence against someone else's national anthem. Ukrainians in theirs express a claim to the lands up to the San river, which is now in Poland, and I do not think anyone is particularly bothered by this.

I do not find it strange at all. 1. This is probably spontaneous only as far as the bearded fellow in the foreground was concerned. The children are a folk dance assembly and the bearded fellow is almost certainly their director. Obnce he made his decision and told the children to sing, they sung. 2. The children are a folk dance assembly. Singing is what they usually do. 3. During the Russo-Ukrainian War singing the national anthem has been a widespread gesture of patriotism, defiance of the enemy and support of the soldiers and civilian resistance. I am quite certain that by this point, Hungary is perceived by the Ukrainians as an ally of their enemy, and by extension, also an enemy. Turning the children away from the border on spurious grounds (and finding a turniquet would be spurious grounds for refusal to enter) seems therefore an act of harrasment by the enemy to which the Ukrainians show their defiance in their usual way.

Germans in WW2 did seem quite relaxed about this. Or more specifically, Hitler was and everybody else had to go along.

Fortunately, this was also predictable. The Ukrainians have been openly talking about the Russian reserves massing in the North-West since before the Zaporozhe offensive started, and have their own reserves nearby and unused, unlike the Germans at Kursk. AFAIK the risk is less of Russian actually mounting a successful counter-counterattack a la Operation Kutuzov, than of Ukrainians having to commit the reserve to stop them and becoming unable to proceed further in the South, with each side blocking the other's attacks in perfect symmetry.

Checkers

That is exactly what Kofman, Lee, Gady and Muzyka were saying coming back from their latest research trip

No, not that scale. Rember this is in Zaporozhe, so terrain is like in Kherson - big fields with narrow tree lanes between them. I imagine this scenario looks like this: once the Ukranian attack succeeds, and their (very limited) objective has been taken, a few Russian tanks or BMPs (say a platoon) come out of the treeline on the Russian side and shoot up the treeline on the Ukrainian side, trying to make the Ukrainians retreat. They stay as far away as possible from the Ukrainians and if they manage to get a LOS from further away than the Javelin range (2,7 km AFAIK) they are relatively safe, because it is unlikely the UKR would bring a longer ranged AT weapon on their backs through a minefield. Eventually the UKR may call artillery fires to make the Russians withdraw or the Russians sufficiently hurt them with fire, that RUS infantry can come back and reclaim that treeline.

In my impression, that last sentence was a very important point for Kofman and Lee. They talked about this several times. Because of that even a succesful Ukrainian infantry attack successfully crossing a minefield and taking a position does not mean that the successful unit can be reinforced and supplied. Before it happens, the minefield, which is now at the back of new Ukrainian position, has to be cleared in the way suitable for vehicles. This also applies to medevac, which means that each casualty is carried by hand. This takes away several men from the front unit - the wounded plus up to 4 soldiers to carry him several hundred meters. Russians also are aware of this, so as soon as the Ukrainians take a piece of land, there is an armoured counterattack because at that point the Ukrainians are going to be dismounted infantry only with portable AT weapons.

In case the question is not rethorical, I agree. From the podcast, I get the impression that Kofman agrees too, but in order to avoid making a too broad statement, he presents it in terms of "this is what works for the Ukrainians" versus something else that "could work for us". I just interpret those statements as meaning "this is what works in this war". He quite explicitly said that the experience in the Ukrainian war was that if you move a company of tanks to a treeline, this is a great way to lose a company of tanks because it would act as a magnet for all kinds of fires from the RUS which those tanks would not withstand. However, his point about insufficient coordination was to my understanding connected with something else. He and Lee presented a list of examples of units missing directions, missing timelines, not having a back up plan, etc. This was of course anonymised for OPSEC reasons and therefore difficult to agree or disagree with. I assume that he and Rob Lee know that those things happen in all wars, so I understand that in their judgement, there were too many of those incidents, caused by lack of experience in the new brigades.

I had a dispute where the explosion apparently was triggered by electricity generated by rubbing grain sacks against something in the silo or even the grains rubbing against each other - as close to spontaneous combustion as one ever gets. Very dangerous place to work.

Truly a Himmelfahrtskommando

My apologies, the statements of Kofman which are very similar to Gady's Twitter thread are in a different podcast - that's "War on the Rocks" podcast http://warontherocks.libsyn.com/assessing-ukraines-three-axes-of-advance. They start at around 8.38 time mark. I am sorry for the confusion. I listened to both podcasts on consecutive days, so when I heard some of Kofman's remarks on the "Geopolitics Decanted" they reminded me of the earlier podcast and got mixed up.

It was written by Gady on Twitter, but said by Kofman in the "Geopolitics Decanted" podcast released this Saturday. They were all returning from the Ukraine and recording on the train to Kiev. They are saying the same thing.

Do you mean that the West should find an actual way of changing the attritional, artillery-centric paradigm via some innovation (technical? tactical?), or just try to make a show of it to keep the morale up on the homefront? No reservations on the second, but I am quite sceptical of the former. The three fundamental assumptions: (1) NATO armies will not join the war; (2) NATO will not give to the Ukrainie too much of equipment that would have to be taken away from NATO active units, to avoid disarming itself even temporarily (3) NATO will not share its newest equipment for the fear of Russian/Chinese/Iranian reverese engineering - mean that we are unlikely to see Ukrainians getting a Wunderwaffe to quickly win the war for them. I think the UKR will have to fight it their way, and the West can only support them with more or less suitable weapons, in more or less sufficient amounts. To be precise: HIMARS was almost a Wunderwaffe, but under very specific conditions, almost tailor made to hurt Russians fighting in the way they fought the previous Summer, which they were able to subsequently modify. That trump card was played on the defense and is no longer that potent. I do not think UKR will be so lucky to get another weapon capable of having so big impact on the battlefield. Neither ATACMS nor F-16 in the numbers likely available to UKR seem like such Wunderwaffen.

I call it "the Dan Frye school of defence" after the iconic MMA fight.

I assume it is getting a "very good" mark in the category of WW I style "bite and hold"/French 1940's style "bataille conduite" which implies that a quicker and less costly in men and materiel manner of attacking is impossible. Do you think that the balance between attack and defence has shifted towards the defence to generally cause this? Both Gady and Kofman having returned from their field trip to Zaporozhe suggest, that the Ukrainians are deficient in combined arms tactics and a better tactical training could make their attacks more powerful and successful. I am skeptical as I just cannot imagine how the UKR could have achieved better results in e.g. breaching minefields near Orichiv by better coordinating their forces. Obviously, they did not bring in the air force, but that is not a failure of coordination, it is a failure to have enough of the planes and helis left at this moment of the war.

These questions imply that UKR have a choice between attritional style war and some other style, weighing the pros and cons of each and deciding. I am quite sure that is not the case. I simply don't think they see any other way of attacking on the Zaporozhe battlefield, than "artillery conquers, infanry occupies".

It is after all the classic Kursk scenario, with the 1st GTA et consortes in place of the Steppe Front. And without the south prong of the counterattack, because of the sea.

Harvest = Urozhaine?

That is monumentally wrong. A classic case of what Russia does when it is strong and not threatened is the period prior to WW 1- it tries to expand its territory in all directions, including to the West, by taking territories of the Hapsburg Empire. Also, Cold War. What was the Western attack which provoked the Soviets? The invasion by their treacherous ally III Reich in 1941?