Report # 257. Several waves of Ukrainian ‘offensive’ blocked

June 10, 2023

1. Results of Ukrainian losses during disrupted ‘offensive’

The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive has started, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on June 9. He cited the deployment of Kiev’s strategic reserves as a telltale sign of the operation. “We can state with absolute certainty that this Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, and the use of strategic reserves points to it,” Putin announced at a press conference. The president noted that particularly heavy fighting has been ongoing for five days, with Russian troops managing to hold their positions. 

 

He also claimed that the Ukrainian military has suffered far heavier casualties than the “classic” three-to-one ratio often expected during an offensive. Putin attributed the purported failure of the Ukrainian unsuccessful drive to the effectiveness of the armaments already at the disposal of Russian forces.

During last four days of AFU ‘offensive’ (between June 4-8) Kiev lost 107 tanks, including 13 German-made Leopard 2A6 and Leopard 2A4, 3 French-made AMX-10 wheeled tanks; 233 armored fighting vehicles, and more that 5,000 servicemen.

Citing anonymous senior U.S. officials, CNN reported that the Ukrainian military had sustained “significant” casualties this week. The outlet’s sources described “greater than expected resistance from Russian forces.”

Russian forces delivered strikes by seaborne and airborne precision weapons against Ukrainian depots storing foreign-made ammunition, armaments and equipment, including drones, disrupting the enemy’s supplies in the combat area, Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on June 9. "Last night, Russian forces delivered multiple strikes by seaborne and airborne long-range precision weapons against depots storing foreign-made ammunition, armaments and military equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles. All the designated targets were hit. The strikes disrupted the supplies of Ukrainian troops in the areas of combat operations," the spokesman said.

2First nuclear strike: will Russia resort to it? (interview)

Despite the fact that Russia did not immediately respond to NATO violations of Russian ‘red lines’, Washington and Kiev have many times regretted it, because they received a crushing blow of retaliation, said Vladimir Kozin, political scientist, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. He said this in an interview with the Internet website Ukraina.ru.

Q: Vladimir Petrovich, from the point of view of U.S. politicians and military officers, the inaction of the Russian leadership towards the West, which has crossed red lines, is seen in the US as a signal that all barriers can continue to be broken, the Russians will not do anything. By the way, our population has a similar viewpoint. What should Russia do in response? What do you think about this?

A: Your question, as I understand it, is dealt with Russia’s red lines drawn to warn that it is ready to strongly oppose unprovoked armed aggression began by Ukraine and NATO against the Russian state.

QYes, it is correct.

A: Obviously, two key principles should be followed when drawing these lines.

First, do not mark them publicly too often, even on major occasions.

Second, to implement in practice and thoroughly its warnings to eliminate new threats to Russia's security that have emerged, if specific red lines have been marked. And preferably react without delay. But if such threats remain only in the form of political statements, i.e. not supported by a forceful reaction from the Russian side, they are devalued. The aggressor-states get used to them. They get a firm belief that there is no need to expect any additional military action by Russia in response to their ill-intentioned actions.

In senior U.S. circles, they assume in vain that they and their closest NATO allies can simply ignore Russian red lines. Although they have deliberately crossed some of these lines, ignoring the warnings from Moscow, which could not immediately respond to their violation for a variety of reasons. But gradually on all of them, both Washington and, to an even greater extent, Kiev regretted many times when they had reckoned on their impunity as a result of misinterpretation and received a crushing blow of retaliation.

Over time, as the Russian Armed Forces (RF Armed Forces) get newer and more promising weapons, such frustrations will arise more and more often among U.S., NATO and Ukrainian so-called strategists. If they do not consider the word caveat. I bear in mind mean Latin word with a meaning ’warning based on experience.’

Q: Did the Russian side leave all of its previously indicated red lines untouched?

A: No, not all of them. Previously, for example, the Russian Armed Forces did not destroy large military depots filled to the roof with U.S.-NATO heavy weapons and their ammunition. Now their destruction by high-precision and high-powered strike weapons has become a stable practice. What is left of such storage sites is empty territory. Previously, few Russian strikes had targeted the strategic command and control structures of the AFU. But recently it has been repeated many times and very successfully.

Even the Western media acknowledged the deaths of many high-ranking military officials from a number of transatlantic alliance states who sat in such structures and instigated Kiev to escalate aggression against Russia. Neither Kiev, nor NATO, nor the European Union took into account that Russia would launch heavy strategic bombers with long-range conventional high-explosive fragmentation missiles. They have missed it. But the process is underway.

Q: Does Moscow need to draw any more specific new red lines?

A: I think it needs to. For example, while anticipating the supply of American F-16 fighter-bombers (some types of which, by the way, are certified tactical nuclear weapons carriers) to the Ukrainian air forces, it should gently, but strongly warn the Ukrainian and NATO military and political leadership that all of them will definitely be destroyed at Ukrainian airbases and in the skies of Ukraine.

In parallel, it is necessary to warn the aggressor states of NATO alliance that all their military transport aircraft, including those delivering heavy military equipment and ammunition to the AFU, will be destroyed as soon as they enter Ukrainian airspace. This will be done by the Russian Aerospace Forces. It is important to simultaneously warn Kyiv and the alliance headquarters in Brussels about the introduction of a so-called no-fly zone in the skies of Ukraine over the entire national territory under its control. At the same time, I think that in a number of cases Russia can do without red warning lines and act immediately as new challenges and threats emerge, without warning the enemy.

Q: Should Russia deliver a strike – nuclear or non-nuclear – on the most active participants in the aggression against Russia that are members of NATO, such as the UK and Poland, as well as against Brussels - to show force, so that it will not be tolerated?

A: Brussels obviously means the potential forceful attack on the huge headquarters of the military bloc, located in the Everest district on the outskirts of the Belgian capital? Not Belgium as a country? Is that correct?

Q: That's exactly right.

A: I think that in the current situation, it's not worth a first missile-nuclear or first strike using non-nuclear, conventional weapons. If Russia quickly destroys Ukraine's military machine and achieves its demilitarization and denationalization, preserving for all eternity its non-aligned status, and as a state that will never again threaten Russia, its allies and friends, there will be no need for such strikes from the Russian side. Such strikes - both nuclear and non-nuclear - would provoke not just a nuclear missile war. But a combined war with three components: nuclear-missile, missile-antimissile, and space strike systems.

But if the US and NATO deliver the first nuclear missile strike against Russia, its allies and friends, then of course its powerful nuclear Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces) and seven kinds of hypersonic advanced high-precision systems will respond to the aggressor, as they say, with a full program. And in all the states of the North Atlantic Alliance, which together with Ukraine unleashed an armed aggression against the Russian Federation, during which, since April 2014, 20 thousand civilians have already been killed and tens of thousands of homes and social and other infrastructure facilities have been destroyed. Russia will also retaliate against those countries that keep sending and sending lethal weapons to destroy Russians and Ukrainians alike. Such things cannot be forgiven or forgotten.

Q: In one of our conversations you mentioned the theory of a Russian nuclear first strike – like the Americans have had since 1945. Tell us more about that, why do we need it and what does it give us?

A: Indeed, the United States has had a nuclear first strike installation in its nuclear strategy for almost 80 years. Primarily against Russia and the PRC and on 14 grounds, half of which can be interpreted arbitrarily by Washington. For example, if the geopolitical situation changes, the US will determine them independently. Russia, after the appearance of nuclear missile weapons (originally developed in the USSR in 1949) has a strategy of retaliatory nuclear strike.

Although before the start of Ukrainian-NATO aggression - first against the Donbass (since April 13, 2014), and then against Russia (since October 5, 2022 after four new territories officially joined Russia) – I was not in favor of the use of nuclear missiles in a first strike or its use in general by anyone at all. But in the current atmosphere I have already become a staunch advocate of the view that Russia should switch to a first-strike nuclear strategy against hostile nuclear states. Or maybe even non-nuclear states, depending on their aggressiveness.

You put the question correctly: why do we need to do this and what does it provide for us.

First, it would allow us not to miss the first nuclear missile strike by the United States and its nuclear allies the UK and France.

Second, it will balance the permanent threat of a nuclear missile attack by the NATO nuclear troika, whose main member, the United States, has long concentrated strategic and tactical nuclear missiles in "forward-based" zones near the territory of the Russian Federation and its allies and friends.

Thirdly, it will weaken the degree of qualitative improvement of Washington's strategic offensive nuclear and tactical nuclear weapons, as well as somewhat negate the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy and nuclear plans, as Jake Sullivan, US Presidential National Security Advisor announced publicly at the US Arms Control Association on June 2.

And lastly, it would strengthen to a much greater extent the political-military backbone of Russia's nuclear missiles and other deterrence means against any potential aggressors.

Q: Competitive intelligence expert Yevgeny Yushchuk said in an interview with Ukraina.ru that a dead Zelensky would be convenient for everyone: the West and Russia. And what do you think? Should we get rid of Zelensky? How would that help?

A: Zelensky's voluntary and proactive resignation as president and commander-in-chief of the country's Armed Forces, or resignation after getting ‘advice and consent’ from the United States and NATO, would stop the armed aggression against Russia, the scale of which I spoke of earlier. Why shouldn't Moscow also try to advise Zelensky's main bosses to implement the second option?

I think that the early replacement of Zelensky with another non-aggressive, adequate and realistic leader who does not associate himself with the ideology of neo-Nazism, Banderism and oppression of Orthodox Christianity would radically improve the military and political situation and restore the quite productive trade, economic, financial and cultural relations in Europe and in the world as a whole in the past. Even assuming that the Russian side receives a rejection of this initiative from Washington and NATO capitals, we should still try to promote it through diplomatic channels, that is, not through the media.

Q: You talk in various political and military lobbies. Tell us, in confidence, is Russia currently considering a peace plan to resolve the conflict in Ukraine?

A: The Russian Federation has its own national plan to completely stop the aggression of Ukraine and NATO against the Russian state. It was reiterated the other day by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin that was reflected in the media and also commented on in Kiev, although in a very negative way. Moscow is also aware and generally reacts positively to the so-called peace plans of other states, although it recognizes that many of them do not take into account current realities and developments in Ukraine and even lead to a prolongation of this external aggression.

Q: What is the place of the Kiev regime there?

A: It is important to give a clear official qualification of the actions of Ukraine and NATO against Russia. For example, to recognize the beginning of the "armed aggression of Ukraine against the DNR and LNR" from April 13, 2014 (the beginning of the "anti-terrorist operation" of the Ukrainian regime against the two republics of Donbass, and in fact unleashing against them exactly aggression and genocide policy against its citizens), and "armed aggression of Ukraine and NATO against Russia" - from October 5, 2022. I gave an explanation of this date above.

All other terms, such as "Ukrainian conflict or crisis", "confrontation or civil war between Ukraine and Russia", put the aggressor and the victim of aggression on the same board, and also exclude NATO as an organization actively and diversely participating in the said aggression on Kiev's side.

Q: What must necessarily be included in the peace plan on Ukraine?

A: It seems to me that the Russian side should supplement our state's official position on the political settlement of the situation related to the armed aggression of Ukraine and NATO against Russia with a paragraph on full compensation by the Ukrainian side for the numerous Russian civilian victims killed and wounded by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and special services, as well as the costs of rebuilding the residential buildings and various social, energy, transport and other infrastructure facilities destroyed and damaged by them.

There is also a proposal which does not belong to peaceful initiatives, but is nevertheless important. The State Duma separately or jointly with the Federation Council could decide to qualify Ukraine as a "terrorist state," given the numerous acts of individual and mass terror already carried out by the Ukrainian armed forces and special services against Russian citizens, its socially significant and other infrastructure.

In general, I believe that our political and awareness-raising work in connection with the aggression of Ukraine and NATO against Russia should be thoroughly and qualitatively strengthened.

Interviewed by Anna Cherkasova, Ukraina.ru. Source: http://eurasian-defence.ru/%3Ca%20href=" https:="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(81, 151, 205);">https://ukraina.ru/20230605/1046905480.html">https://ukraina.ru/20230605/1046905480.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(81, 151, 205);">https://ukraina.ru/20230605/1046905480.html

 

 

Written by http://eurasian-defence.ru/?q=node/11689" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(81, 151, 205);">Vladimir P. Kozin

 

 

10.06.2023
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