Counteroffensive – a suicidal bloodbath for Ukraine

Catastrophic losses on the Ukrainian side – hardly any gains in terrain, yet the Western media speak of a stalemate – the truth is different.  

Peter Hanseler

Introduction

The big counteroffensive announced since last fall turns out to be a disaster. In the south, the Ukrainians have captured a few unimportant villages. One wonders how long the Ukrainians will be able to sustain this counteroffensive. 

The only thing the Ukrainians have achieved so far is catastrophic losses in men and material.

Overview

The Ukrainian counteroffensive was intended, in a first step, to cross the land bridge in the south in order to cut off Crimea from Russia and then – in a second step – to reconquer Crimea. 

Many Western “experts” were confident of victory – in complete disregard of the realities.

If you look at the land bridge, you can see that the Russians have built huge defense lines since last fall. They are extremely massive and often extremely well camouflaged. 

On most sections, three lines of defense have been built. The first defense lines are 15 to 30 kilometers behind the contact line. According to Western sources, the created defenses are so extensive that Russia cannot even man them all. 

In front of the first defense lines is the so-called security zone, mostly open terrain, which serves the Russians to push the enemy in the desired direction. 

The Ukrainians have not managed to get anywhere near the first lines of defense on any section of the front. They are virtually worn down already in the security zone between the contact line and the first defensive positions.

“Western weapons systems do not bring success”.

Reliable sources estimate that well over ten thousand people have already been killed on the Ukrainian side. The ratio of casualties is constantly increasing and this week is said to have reached 1:10 to the disadvantage of the Ukrainians. 

Western wonder weapons

General remarks

Since the Ukrainians have effectively already lost all their war materiel twice in this war, they are completely dependent on Western weapon systems. We already pointed out in January in our essay “Miracle Weapons, Weapon Systems and Gibberish” that the Western weapon systems would not bring success. Now it turns out that we were right. 

There are several reasons for this.

First, these systems must work in concert. If you talk to experts who have commanded Leopard II tank forces, for example, you hear dismay about the laughably short training period with this highly complex weapon. After three months – that’s how long the current training period is – a crew can move this tank and fire it on a training range. To effectively move a tank unit in combat takes at least two years. These formations are commanded by young officers who have a few months of training – this is suicidal.

In the last week, the Ukrainians have already lost 30% of the Western Leopard II tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. There are no reasons to believe that this negative trend will not continue

Second, the Russians have air superiority today because the Ukrainians do not have enough systems to put Russian planes and helicopters in serious danger.

Third, damaged Western weapons systems cannot be maintained in Ukraine and must be transported to Poland for each repair – and then back to the front lines. But just recovering damaged combat equipment is an enormous problem. 

Kamov AK-52 Attack Helicopters

The Russians have deployed a large number of Kamov KA-52 combat helicopters to the front. These extremely efficient weapon systems have a laser-guided missile defense system, which apparently offers very good protection against so-called MANPADS like Stinger. Despite many missions of these KA-52 helicopters there is not one report of a downed Russian helicopter so far. 

Here is an interesting contribution of the German Youtube channel Military Aviation History, where a former German tank commander and an American fighter helicopter pilot give information and confirm the above.

“The F-16 is a very old aircraft”.

The announced F-16s will have no effect whatsoever. There is no time for years of training Ukrainian pilots. Very likely, Western pilots will be used. This will further escalate the situation and bring us all closer to a 3rd world war. 

F-16

The F-16 is a very old aircraft, developed in the 60’s with its first flight in 1974 – thus almost 50 years ago. The F-16 has never been confronted with an equal opponent like Russia. The missions which the F-16 has completed so far have been against adversaries with no – or destroyed – air defenses and (virtually) no air forces. 

The Russians have excellent air defense systems, which will be a major problem for the F-16.

It should also be noted that Russian aircraft are significantly more modern than F-16s. 

A key indicator in the use of aircraft technology is the ratio of mission time to maintenance time. One speaks of a ratio of 1:4 and more for American aircraft. That is, one hour of combat mission requires 4 hours of maintenance. Russian flight technology is designed to be much more robust.

When the NVA, the army of the GDR, handed over its MIG-29 aircraft to the Bundeswehr, the Bundeswehr technicians encountered a problem: When is a general overhaul of the engines due? They asked the GDR technicians. Answer: We don’t know. It never happened before, nor is it noted in the manuals.

Prisoner Ukrainian soldiers

The number of surrendering Ukrainian soldiers increases daily. The interviewed prisoners, completely exhausted, speak about totally insufficient training. Further, they believe that they are sent on suicidal missions by their superiors. This is a human tragedy. 

As a result, entire combat forces prefer to surrender rather than perish in the meat grinder.

Figures

For the big counteroffensive, Ukraine seems to have provided almost 50,000 soldiers. They are opposed by over 300,000 Russian soldiers.

According to American information, the Ukrainian army should still have about 60,000 men in reserve, in total, not just for this counteroffensive. 

For offensives, military experts generally assume that the attacker must have three times more forces available than the defenders. Not only personnel, but also technology and thus ammunition.

“They ultimately don’t care how many Ukrainians die.”

Zahlenmässig sind die Ukrainer den Russen somit in jeglicher Hinsicht unterlegen – ein weiterer Hinweis dafür, dass diese Gegenoffensive sinnlos ist. 

Conclusion

It seems that after the debacle in Artyomovsk, Ukrainians are heading for the next catastrophe.  Certainly, the Ukrainian leadership, which has visibly learned nothing, is first and foremost responsible for this. On the other hand, this is too simple. Because the real strings are pulled by the USA and NATO. They are certainly the ones who draw up the operational plans, because only they have the necessary reconnaissance capabilities. They ultimately don’t care how many Ukrainians die as long as they feel they are somehow weakening Russia.  

And so the Ukrainians attack on many different fronts without being able to show any success anywhere. As in numerical inferiority. The Western media speak of a stalemate, thus once again interpreting events in a way that serves only to maintain a political narrative. 

This should surprise no one. The respective U.S. administrations have been systematically lying to their populations since the Vietnam War. There is always talk of successes and the enemy is portrayed as incompetent, ill-equipped, and poorly motivated. In Vietnam and in Afghanistan, these charades sometimes lasted for decades. The result is always the same: millions of dead and one more destroyed country, so that a few armament companies get rich. 

With a few exceptions, the European media adopt these easily refuted lies. This is bitter. 

It almost seems that President Zelensky is deliberately delivering his soldiers to the knife in the hope of showing success at the NATO summit on July 11 – that will not happen.