Now You Know.

Yes, those Russian shovels.  

Laser-guided, some of them are INS and GLONASS guided with command updates, active radar seekers and shit. Meanwhile, this text is now being circulated in Russian media. Here is the part of it:

Любопытный текст с анализом действий ВС РФ и ВСУ от западного военного эксперта, предположительно перевод с форума ветеранов военной академии West Point: "Spirit of the Desert: …Поскольку украинцы проявляют поразительную нечувствительность к человеческим потерям, сегодняшнее изменение тактики украинского командования я рассматриваю как оправданный подход в поиске «ключа» к русской обороне. Классические атаки по нашим боевым уставам предполагают предварительное подавление и разрушение оборонительных позиций противника артиллерией и авиацией, а так же одновременное уничтожение его органов боевого управления на глубину полосы обороны и недопущение подходов его резервов. Поскольку у украинцев практически нет авиации и они существенно уступают русским в количестве артиллерии, классические атаки не приводят ни к чему, кроме массовой потери дорогой боевой техники на подходе к русским позициям, дезорганизации и деморализации атакующих с последующим отступлением. Почти три недели таких атак так и не смогли прорвать русскую полосу обеспечения, кроме того, было потеряно, как мне сказал «G-3» из USAREUR-AF в Stuttgart, уже до четверти наших «Bradley», и они сейчас вынуждены экстренно отправлять две роты «Bradley» и много другой техники на пополнение и восстановление боеготовности двух бригад ударного соединения украинцев. В этих условиях нашими парнями, совместно с украинскими командирами была разработана тактика «москитного» продвижения – непрерывных атак русских позиций небольшими тактическими группами украинской пехоты...

Translation: An interesting text analyzing the actions of the Russian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine from a Western military expert, presumably translated from the West Point military academy veterans forum: "Spirit of the Desert: ... Since the Ukrainians show amazing insensitivity to human losses, I consider today's change in tactics of the Ukrainian command as a justified approach in search of a "key" to the Russian defense. Classic attacks, according to our combat regulations, involve the preliminary suppression and destruction of the enemy's defensive positions by artillery and aircraft, as well as the simultaneous destruction of his combat command and control organs to the depth of the defense zone and the prevention of the approaches of his reserves. Since the Ukrainians practically there is no aviation and they are significantly inferior to the Russians in the amount of artillery, classic attacks do not lead to anything, except for the mass loss of expensive military equipment on the way to Russian positions, disorganization and demoralization of the attackers, followed by a retreat.Almost three weeks of such attacks could not break through the Russian moreover, up to a quarter of our Bradleys have been lost, as G-3 from USAREUR-AF in Stuttgart told me, and they are now forced to urgently send two Bradley companies and many other equipment for replenishment and restoration of the combat readiness of two brigades of the strike formation of Ukrainians. Under these conditions, our guys, together with the Ukrainian commanders, developed the tactics of "mosquito" advance - continuous attacks on Russian positions by small tactical groups of Ukrainian infantry ...

I couldn't find the origin of this. So, guys, a request--if some one can find it, please provide a link. If this text is true--it is literally the most preposterous shit I ever read on operations (and tactics). It defies imagination and tactical and operational truisms of concentration of forces. Not to mention the fact, if to assume the text being genuine, of treating ukies as worthless cannon fodder.  

Yeah, Yeah, Sure.

What those boys and girls in Pentagon and London (and other chihuahua capitals of NATO) do not understand that Russians can calculate better than them combined in the field which matters in real life: operational and strategic planning. Especially a strategic one. It all reminds now a famous Russian cyclical nursery rhyme about the priest and his dog. 

The priest had a dog,
And he loved her.
The dog ate a piece of meat,
He killed her.
He buried her in the ground,
And he wrote an inscription...
(Then begin again.)

And so is NATO and 404.  Politico, which is a herald of every possible perversion policy from DNC and the White House reports:

A small group of Western allies are engaged in “advanced” and “frantic, last-minute” negotiations to finalize a security assurance declaration for Ukraine ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, according to four officials familiar with the talks. For weeks, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany have been discussing the issue with Kyiv, and have also reached out to other allies in NATO, the EU and the G7. The idea is to create an “umbrella” for all countries willing to provide Ukraine with ongoing military aid, even if the details vary from country to country. The effort is part of broader negotiations at NATO and among several groups of nations over how Western allies should display long-term support for Ukraine. 

And the fundamental question in this geopolitical The priest had a dog is: supply with what? Militarily the writing on the wall is already there. As Larry noted a few days ago:

Ukraine’s attempt at a Hail Mary (the football play not the Catholic prayer) victory by seizing swaths of territory from the Russians is a failure. The Russians have intercepted every move and Ukraine’s negligible advances are counted in single digit kilometers along with piles of Ukrainian corpses and burned out huld of Western supplied tanks and armored personnel carriers.  

Today, the boy has corroborated while speaking to ABC News. And the US providing cluster munitions to 404 is just another sign of desperation and admitted fact that NATO simply ran out of other, less "controversial", types. I am sure General Staff knew it and anticipated it--West's "economic data" is largely a fiction, as is industrial capacity and this is the only thing which matters in serious geopolitical game. Generally speaking, it makes no difference whatsoever for the outcome but it also illuminates well Russia's strategic goals, one of which is demilitarization of NATO. Demilitarization of NATO means running it out of crucial military materiel and that is why I am getting really tired listening to US supplying "cutting edge" weapons. Truth is, the US has no cutting edge weapons unless one counts a rumbling 70 ton pile of metal such as M1 Abrams of F-35 a cutting edge. Patriot PAC3 IS a "cutting edge" weapon--we all know how that thing performed. 

Now, RT has shown Shoigu visiting Russia's MoD firing ranges in the South. Make your own conclusions on why and factor in Russia's military production which makes one in NATO downright puny. Will Russia continue with Strategic Defense MO while continuing offensive operations at selected axis or two? Possible, but maybe not. But that is what escalation dominance gives you, while observing inner-NATO hustle and further decomposition of globalism. Bought yesterday a couple of Combat Air and Air Forces magazines (need them for the book), boy, the number of articles on Ukie Air Forces dropped to zero in the last few months. What happened, people. Alexander Mladenov, I am calling you. There was so much written on all those Ukie AF "operations" and "successes". Where did it all go? This is what happens when one "serves" for a whole year as a "reserve officer" in the Bulgarian Air Defense, whatever that means. 

Yet, good ol' boys from Top Gun: Maverick  school of advanced air combat studies continue to live in the La-La Land in which there are no true integrated air defenses, no S-500s and S-400s with Buk-M3s, no capable Air Forces and opponent's genuine netcentricity. What can I say--they are incapable of learning. Considering the fact that very many of them, inevitably, went through the US public schools' system in the last 20 years--there should be no surprise whatsoever. And so, here we are at the square one:

The priest had a dog,
And he loved her.
The dog ate a piece of meat,
He killed her.
He buried her in the ground,
And he wrote an inscription...
(Then begin again.)

Rinse, spit, repeat.

Well, Friday.

 Gotta love Rick.

Go at it.

My Talking Head.

As promised. 

Stanford loves itself some Nazis.
 

Why It Might Be Over...

... sooner than we think. My friend Marat Khairullin gave yesterday a superb sitrep (sadly only in Russian): 

He describes in detail a sorry state of VSU, which is corroborated by other reliable sources, but goes further and describes occasions on which frontline VSU units have been actually... cooperating with Russian Army. The statistics of even regiment-brigade level sniper groups (number of those groups varies, but it is more than a few) is altogether terrifying since it is pretty normal for one of each such groups to kill between 20 to 30 VSU personnel in a single night. That gives a good perspective on a scale of VSU losses and also confirms my constant point that Russian MoD is very conservative in stating VSU losses. 

But even these "conservative" estimates are terrifying. Here is butcher's bill for today from Russian MoD. 

In 7 days--almost 5,000 KIAs. No wonder then that it is reported now that many VSU soldiers simply refuse to attack and prefer to sit in trenches without moving--totally understandable. Which brings us to Larry's excellent piece yesterday, which I also discuss today in my new video which will be up shortly. 

A friend still involved in the day-to-day operations sent me the following video. He said this is making the rounds among the Company Grade Officers (i.e., 2d Lt, 1 Lt, and Captains) and enlisted personnel. A majority of the American military actually believes this stuff, especially the Zoomers. Reddit, the main social media app of today’s youth, is chock full of this garbage. 

Although the video is a lame attempt at humor, the narrative/meme is not a joke. Many younger officers genuinely believe that we have Russia over a barrel and can take out Putin at will. It is one thing for the average guy or gal on the street to believe such nonsense, but it is terrifying to learn that many U.S. military officers, both junior and senior (including Flag Officers, i.e. Generals), are so deluded.

This is not surprising at all--average modern US Army company level officer, especially "taught" military history on the examples of Patton's "exploits" and the "yardstick" of turkey shoot in the Gulf, wouldn't take seriously nowadays the history of Operation Zitadel (started on July 5, 1943) 80 years ago and the scale of events US Army simply has no experience of dealing with. Yes, July 5-July 12, 1943--Zitadelle, after that--Kursk Offensive Operation. 

This scale is beyond the experiences of the US Armed Forces, as is Stalingrad, Operation Bagration, Liberation of Balkans and many other things and they simply cannot take it. And so is SMO. Only one American historian of note--David Eisenhower, the grandson--had enough courage to point to the 800 pound gorilla in the room which was and remains a professional envy. Considering the fact that America's resurgence and superpowerdom originated in WW II, acknowledging military and geopolitical realities of the last 85 years on a political level in the US would mean undermining America's mythology not just militarily, but on a national level and would represent in itself a Koschei The Immortal proverbial tip of a needle, which, when broken, kills him. But it merely reinforces my position for many years, decades really, that the US never realized itself as true continental power because this realization comes only through continental warfare of scale. One simply cannot buy itself a military history no matter how one tries. 

They Still Don't Get It...

 ... It is a hint. 

BTW, what kind of open mine is in the video, wink, wink? Ah yes, standard complains about Russian "unprofessionalism". Well, truth is if there is one (actually three) aircraft in which you can do this...

That would be SU-35 (also SU-30SM and SU-57). Somebody should invite Tom Cruise to this:

And then ask him what is his opinion on R-37, NetCentric capabilities of SU-35, SU-30SM and SU-57, and, in general, how is it to interact with own (friendly) AD complexes and AWACS. I am sure he will want to make another movie Top Gun: Chihuahua.

I Gave Interview To RealTruthTalk Guys...

... today.  

Enjoy, if you will.