The British Ministry of Defense has released its latest military intelligence report, dealing with the situation in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
The report said that Russian forces "entered the center of Bahmut and occupied the west bank of the Bahmutka River."
British intelligence officials point out that “it is possible that a key Ukrainian supply route west of the city has been completely lost.
"Probably, at the local level, members of the Wagner mercenary group and the commanders of the regular Russian army temporarily stopped their conflicts and improved their cooperation," the report said.
This translates into the extermination of the Ukrainians, and the preparation to repel the Ukrainian counterattack. Which was announced by the American Foreign Minister A. Blinken.
Except that the attacks are not announced, but are carried out by surprise in order to achieve the maximum against enemy positions, while reducing the casualties of the attacked.
Why has Russia with so many conventional superweapons not achieved a quick victory in Ukraine?
We have been witnessing a paradoxical event for several months now in Ukraine (after the initial Russian advance in February 2022), especially after the massive mobilization of 200,000+ Russian troops, along with the movement of truly formidable conventional weapons.
The questions that plague the minds of many expert defense analysts are the following:
1. How is it possible for a country like Russia, which has real conventional super weapons, to be essentially "stuck" on the borders of Ukraine, which does not yet have the range and quality of Russian weapon systems?
2. How is it possible that the Kremlin gives a white face to a mercenary organization like Wagner, which is accused by some inside Russia while these mercenaries occupied Bahamut?
3. What territories did the Russian regular army finally occupy in Eastern Ukraine, when most of them had been occupied by armed Russian-speaking militias in Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014?
4. When will we see the Russian divisions deployed in offensive formation and when will the Russian attack take place?
It is estimated that if there was serious military and political leadership in the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian military would have actually finished Ukraine in 40 days.
Initially this would be achieved as follows:
"Using Kinzal-type ballistic missiles, destroying all Ukrainian decision centers (most are 130 meters deep), as well as large radar systems.
Second, the Russian Air Force would shoot down all Western arms shipments everywhere, on highways, airports, and wherever this process took place.
Finally, the Russian Armored Divisions, with attack helicopters above them, and fighter jets above them, would advance with their thousands of tanks in cooperation with the motorized infantry, spread over a width of 10-15 kilometers.
This terrible “wave” moving in Three directions, with continuous air support would reach Lviv in record time, and all Ukrainian cities would fall.
However, no war was won or lost.
Instead, we see Wagner fighting in Bakhmut for months, Kadyrov's Chechens earlier, but Russian regular army nowhere.
Russian front-line forces make extensive use of large-caliber heavy self-propelled artillery, use TOS-1A systems and have Iskander missiles at hand.
But with artillery you destroy enemy positions and potential, you don't conquer territories, this is done with the cooperation of Infantry and Armor in the advance phase, something we have not seen yet.
This is a huge issue for Moscow, and any of its plans, because what we see on Ukrainian soil is not the image of a great country, and the Russians will pay dearly for that.
This desire combined with Western aid will bring developments in the near future, unless the Russians decide to strike first with what they have, and these are certainly many and formidable weapons.
In fact, yesterday it became known that the US has supplied the Ukrainian army with 253 tanks, 381 armored vehicles, 480 armored wheeled vehicles, 147 guns, 571 HMMWV jeeps, forming 3 Armored Brigades and reaching a total number of 12.
Coupled with the supply chain of EU countries, Ukraine will not only go head-to-head with the Russian military, but seek to deal a heavy blow to it.
How will the Russian army react then, as the use of nuclear weapons would mean global disaster for Europe and the whole world.
