Revisit the War in Ukraine again

A few days ago, when I thought that the overall situation in Ukraine had been decided, I wrote a "Review, What Ukraine Should Do", believing that Russia would split Ukraine in half along the Dnieper River, annihilate 150,000 elite Ukrainian troops, and determine the situation of the war. Now it seems that this judgment is wrong.

At that time, the basis for this judgment was that Putin could accurately predict the price to be paid for the war in Ukraine, so that the Russian strategy could obtain the greatest probability of the outcome of the war, and the Russian army must be able to obtain more than this price. So the Russian military needs to turn Ukraine into a puppet government or a harmless neighbor, and the premise of this is to disarm Ukraine. Otherwise, a Russian-hating Ukraine with armed forces would be a bloody wound of Russia – that is what happened in Afghanistan. The advantage of Ukraine is that the industrial areas of Eastern Ukraine, the shipyards of Odessa, and the wheat fields on the Great Plains are not places of great profit. Therefore, the conclusion is obvious that the shape of Ukraine naturally provides a plan for a vertical split along the Dnieper River, especially after the start of the war in southern Crimea and northern Kiev, which is going well, while the Kharkiv Sumertunnets artillery fire has been making little progress, of course, this impression will be reinforced, and when I see the 4th Tan Division rushing from Kharkiv to Poltava, I certainly feel that the overall situation has been decided.

However, the 4th Division of Kintan rushed to Poltava and returned without firing a shot, and this mighty armed parade found nothing but throwing away dozens of combat vehicles. And to the south, if it were not for the wrong ground map at the beginning, the Russian army would also retreat from Zaporizhia. It developed eastward to the west, and with some success, the siege forces of Mariupol met to the east and marched west into Odessa (of course, the latest news is that Odessa suffered a defeat and contracted). Kiev in the north failed to steal chickens from the airborne airborne airfield at the beginning, but the airborne troops maintained their presence, and after meeting with the armored troops who rushed in, they opened up an airborne landing field, and through several airborne landings, they had begun to establish a siege posture in the west of Kiev, while the east side was also a hard bridge to kill Kiev close to the ground, but it was obviously not smooth here, the breakthrough was not opened, and the follow-up troops lined up on the road for several days. On the eastern front, whether on the Kharkiv or Donetsk side, the Russians seemed to be about to begin their siege, and Mariupol looked like they were about to close the net.

The Russian army has changed from large depth to shallow depth little by little, and is it not afraid to let go of the Ukrainian army and lead to a long-term war? Or is it no longer capable of conducting large-depth operations? After the war, the Russian army carried out very resolutely, and abandoned a large number of intact combat vehicles, but then had to withdraw or shrink because of the decline in combat effectiveness and the dispersion of troops that could not carry out follow-up tasks. Is the Russian Military Staff unpredictive about this?

My friend Cheng Yi is very knowledgeable about the economy, and recently talked to him about the situation in Ukraine, which was quite enlightened. Suddenly, I felt that the problems mentioned above were actually very easy to understand.

First of all, I thought that Russia must do what it wants, because I overestimated the cost of starting a war, for Russia, after starting a war, Russia faces three problems: first, sanctions; second, the West directly with material military assistance to Ukraine; third, the West may personally go to war.

But nearly ten days later, after the sanctions, something surprising happened, and the sanctions were ineffective against Russia, for the simple reason that the bulk of Russia's exports were oil and gas, and exports accounted for nearly half of total exports. If Europe can sanction Russia's oil and gas, then Russia will be miserable, and if it does not sanction Russian oil and gas, just boycotting Tchaikovsky is obviously just making sanctions. As a result, Europe was unable to sanction Russia on oil and gas.

As for material assistance, looking back, it is difficult to imagine that the United States has a good understanding of Russia, and when the United States has penetrated Ukraine so deeply, the United States has not gathered its friends to arm Ukraine - of course, some students will point out that the United States has aided a large number of javelins and stinger missiles, but these two things are sufficient for launching terrorist attacks or ambushes, but they are not suitable weapons for frontal battlefield victories, after all, the range of javelins is not as good as a mortar. Stingers also do not provide important air defense.

And personally, because the probability of occurrence is too small, this threat is more of a diversionary nature than a real threat, it is true that Russia needs to keep its hand because of this possibility, but the third world war in the context of nuclear war is still not easy to happen.

Therefore, Russia did not gamble on the fate of the country when it launched this war, so there is no pressure to win quickly.

However, if you can win quickly, of course, saving money and life is more attractive.

Therefore, Russia began to blossom on three sides and make a posture along the Dnieper River, and if Ukraine is really an unsupportable Adou, as everyone predicted before the war, then, in this situation, the Ukrainian army in Eastern Ukraine will retreat to the Dnieper River with a high probability. Therefore, the Russian army was very bold when it started the war, and it also paid the price of logistical disconnection and the forward being ambushed. The Kiev airborne airfield and the subsequent opening of the airborne field allowed the war to start in Kiev on the first day, but there is no doubt that the troops here also bore a lot of pressure and losses. However, in general, the Russian army performed very brightly, proactively and imaginatively at this stage.

But the Ukrainian army still insists on the city in eastern Ukraine, I do not think this is the result of the ukrainian army's firm will to fight, if the Ukrainian army has a firm will to fight, it should take advantage of the dispersion of the Russian army at the time of development, fighting several regimental and battalion-level annihilation battles to seize the initiative in the war, but the Ukrainian army's combat organization ability seems to be able to organize ambushes at the company level, and the Battle for Kiev Airfield is quite able to reflect the Ukrainian army's frontal offensive ability. Therefore, the Ukrainian army now seems to have basically given up the attempt to compete for the initiative, which can be summed up in a sentence in the theory of war as passive action waiting for annihilating results.

The following battle situation speculates that the Russian army gave up a large-scale encirclement and annihilation (if you can believe in the ability of the Russian staff, they should make this gesture, intimidate the Ukrainian army, let them leave the position, and thus collapse, but it is also possible that the level of Russian staff officers can not catch up with the Soviet era. From the perspective of the battlefield, the Russian army does not seem to have the intention of conquering Kiev in the short term (the hint of the tens of kilometer convoy that stopped for several days), Kharkov did not complete the division, and the most appropriate seems to be Mariupol, which is heavily surrounded, closest to the Russian logistics base, and sucked the russian heavy army group. After taking Mariupol, the Russians could liberate at least tens of thousands of strike troops, either from the south (Volnovaha) or further dividing to the west (Polo set), which were optional options.

I hope they will throw their troops into the West, but the fierceness of the Russian army should have passed, and the greatest possibility is that they will still roll up little by little from the south to the north.

Since the beginning of the war, commentators who are not optimistic about the Russian army have repeatedly reminded the impact of spring thaw on the offensive, and historically, thawing will not be until mid-April, and it may also be global warming, and this day will be a little earlier. But if you think about it carefully, it seems that everyone has fallen into this inertia of thinking, and everyone is accustomed to wanting to attack unfavorably after thawing, but they have the air supremacy and have a complete road network, and the advantage of the Russian army after thawing is probably even greater. In particular, the Russian army aims to disarm Ukraine, so it is not inconceivable to use the mud god.