The SMO has become kind of a paradoxical topic in that the stories of the men fighting mean a lot to many Russophiles and pro hohols alike, while the details of what shed, outhouse, cabbage patch is being fought over is no longer that interesting. In the past few weeks the Russian Army has finally pushed the Ukrainians out of Pokrovsk and currently has the AFU in neighboring Minograd surrounded, the Russians are making steady advances in Zaporozhe and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts, and they have fought their way into Konstantanovka in Donbass. In Kharkov they have entered Kupyansk and it looks like the AFU might lose Volchansk sometime before we all die of old age. The last year has been the best of the SMO by a large margin for Russia. The problem though is that the success Russian Forces have been recently enjoying is very strictly in relation to how bad things previously were. Yes, it’s good that Ukraine hasn’t launched any grand offensives since Kursk and I will be genuinely happy to see Minograd fall. Should Russian Troops batter their way straight up to the Dniper and reach Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporozhe I’ll be trolling pro hohols with joy on notes. But for one, we don’t know why Ukraine hasn’t launched another big offensive. The most obvious answer is that they are experiencing serious manpower shortfalls which is not an unreasonable assumption. However, it would also be stupid and negligent to discount the possibility that they can go on the offense but simply haven’t gotten a green light. Any big operation on Ukraine’s part requires very heavy logistical/financial/intelligence support from the US, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that for the time being that Washington is just keeping the AFU leashed due to whatever back door disagreements are theoretically happening between different Zog West Factions. The longer the AFU doesn’t make any big arrow moves the more certain we can be that the problems really are due to manpower, but it’s too early to assume that that is definitely the answer. But let’s say the problem is that the AFU has burnt through its personal reserves, this solves the issue of Russia having to parry serious AFU attacks, but it does not solve Russia’s systemically under resourced war effort.

Russian Troops in the mud not having to worry about big Ukrainian Offensives is objectively good but that doesn’t mean they will be raising the flag in Slavyansk or Kramatorsk any time soon, if ever. There is well under a million Russian Troops in Ukraine, the hohols claim that there are about 700k Moskali invaders in what today geographically corresponds to that Bolshevik Abortion of a country. The City of Zaporozhe has about 700k residents. Dnipropetrovsk has just under a million and Kharkov over a million as does Odessa. The hohol claim that they are fighting 700k Russian Troops is if anything over balling the actual numbers for propaganda purposes, so how exactly is this ridiculously under manned Russian Army in Ukraine going to seriously occupy all these huge cities even if the AFU just melts away which they absolutely aren’t going to? In 2007 during the “surge” in Iraq there were about 160k Coalition Troops and the population of Iraq was about 27 million. If anyone remembers the surge only worked when the US paid the Iraqis to stop fighting. Moscow will never be able to out spend Washington, and the population of Ukraine is around 35 million. Russia of course has more men on hand, but Ukraine is a correspondingly much bigger country than Iraq geographically with a bigger population by at least 8 million. To this day America doesn’t really seriously control Iraq, they just pay not to be attacked. This strategy won’t be sustainable for Russia, and even if the AFU collapsed Ukraine would have to be thoroughly de-Ukrainianized and subject to a hard occupation for a bit. Like the Coalition in Iraq Russia would have to deal with an insurgency, only they would have Slavic Insurgents backed by NATO Spookery on their hands not Arabs backed by nobody. So even though the local population would generally be more friendly this would be heavily counter balanced by the insurgents themselves being way more dangerous, competent, well funded, well connected etc. In short Russia is trying to win the conventional war with an Army that might have enough men just to occupy the country once the conventional fighting stops.

Of course, the analogue with Iraq has some very serious limitations, obviously what geographically corresponds to New Russia, Odessa, Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhe and Herson has a fairly pro Russian population, or at least not anti Russian. But the problem is even taking all those Oblasts is beyond the ability of Russias likely well under 700k man force on the ground. Just trying to seriously take Slavyansk and Kramatorsk would require shutting down every other front, but if Russia does that they leave themselves vulnerable to even modest Ukrainian counter attacks on said deactivated fronts. For Russia to attempt to take a real serious population center they have to do what it appears the Ukrainians are currently doing. That is, shuffling almost everything they have to one specific point and neglecting everything else. On the other hand, if Russia doesn’t start taking large population centers than this is all totally pointless. Sheds, turn up fields, etc in Zaporozhe without Zaporozhe is a lame participation trophy that will please nobody who is genuinely pro Russian and as things are standing, Russia might not even have the resources to take Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, much less Zaporozhe and that’s to say nothing of Odessa and Kharkov.

All Zanons recent excitement is predicated on the AFU just collapsing utterly which they were predicting after Bakhmut, after Avdeevka, after Kursk, etc etc. As previously stated, I’m open to the idea that the AFU is experiencing man power issues but lets not forget that under a year ago the AFU and Russians were at numerical parity, and before that the Ukrainians were outnumbering the Russians. The relative numerical advantage has finally tilted in Russias favor thus they are plowing forward at around 10km a day average as opposed to 4or5 on average but assuming this generally positive dynamic means the AFU is about to collapse is mistaken. Let’s say the AFU is in fact in very, very bad shape. Lets say they can put only 200k men in the field to Russias somewhere under 700k. If Russia starts an operation to take Slavyansk and Kramatorsk this will require concentrating almost all of that 700k and that’s if Ukraine only commits say 125-150k to the defense. Reminder, Ukraine hit Kursk with probably 15-20k men. With Russias current manpower arrangement taking a major population center means having to retreat somewhere else. Now a critic might object and say that the current fight at Pokrovsk/Minograd is going well enough, but both those towns combined had a prewar population of just Kramatorsk alone and Kramatorsk/Slavyansk are going to have to be taken together like Pokrovsk/Minograd. Also, the AFU is not actually throwing everything on the line to hold Pokrovsk/Minograd, inside the “cauldron” in Minograd is likely under 1000 AFU.

This is from a pro Kremlin news site speaking of the Ukrainian attempts to unblock Minograd:

Theoretically, it is possible [for the Ukrainians] to assemble a wide front: three to five brigades, 12-15 thousand bayonets with equipment and strike at once. But first they need to be accumulated, moved into place unnoticed, and Syrsky clearly cannot cope with this.

https://360.ru/tekst/ukrainian-crisis/vsu-terjajut/?from=inf_cards

Notice that the pro Kremlin writer assumes the Ukrainians would need 12-15k men to unblock the town. These are not huge numbers by any means, and it implies that the actual number of AFU holed up in Minograd is nothing extraordinary. Also implicit here is that there aren’t tons of Russians surrounding the town if a concentrated thrust by 12-15k Ukrainians would be enough to unblock it. So, what is the big deal about this siege exactly? Well, the SMO is the “nothing ever happens” meme in war format. None of Russia’s scattered but albeit genuinely impressive accomplishments at the tactical level have any chance of coming together and translating into operational level success because at the operational level the war is being fought aimlessly on Moscow’s end and it seems like this is becoming the case on Kiev’s end as well. This a map of the Pokrovsk “Cauldron” from my go to telegram channel for maps Z Committee:

Where you see Покровск in parenthesis towards the left=Pokrovsk. Minograd is located where you see Миноград. The red and light red is all Russian owned and the blue is Ukrainian or Grey Zone. The yellow lines are anti tank/dragon teeth obstacles, the orange are ditches/trenches, and the light blue are Ukrainian Strong points. At the bottom right you see a 1km white line for estimating distance on the map. As you can see the small AFU Force in Minograd is well and truly SOL if nobody unblocks them. Kiev had plenty of time to pull them out but the order never came. This is something new, at Lichansk, Bakhmut, Ugledar, Avdeevka and Suzhda the Ukrainians always retreated in good order without falling into any kind of encirclement. This time Kiev let that happen and many pro Ukrainian Commenters are justifiably pissed off about it. In the scheme of things, the AFU losing 1,000 men pointlessly doesn’t change a whole lot at the zoomed out strategic level, but it does indicate that maybe the AFU is not on its game like it used to be. At Avdeeka and Suzhda Ukrainian Commanders on the ground just pulled out on their own without waiting for Kiev to give permission when it looked like there was a serious threat of encirclement arising. That hasn’t happened this time which indicates that maybe Kiev has tighter control over the Army to the AFUs detriment. Ukrainian Telegram has started claiming as much. This post is from November 4, a Ukrainian Drone Operator who goes by Muchnoy had the following to say about the situation developing in Pokrovsk:

There are no words for whats happening, it’s just some kind of shit! I don’t even know how to comment on this… I’ll just say that this situation reminds me of the Battle of Suzhda, when our Cossacks had to pass through a narrow bottleneck!

I feel very sorry for the soldiers, very sorry! It hurts me that they’re being fed such bullshit by their useless commanders about how everything is fine, have you stupid fools lost your fucking minds?

Stop trying to calm people down and feeding them shit on the news, it’s making me want to vomit! You know what? When the truth suddenly comes out and you are forced to confront it it will already be too late to bring the soldiers back!

https://t.me/muchnoyjugend/12806

That was over 2 weeks ago when the AFU still could have left without excessive losses. Muchnoy correctly saw how the situation was developing and noted that the Commanders on the ground were just acting like nothing was wrong. That’s kinda new and if you are pro Russian it’s a positive dynamic. Here is how he describes the attempts to unblock the town on November 14:

Shakhovo: on this segment of the front, the situation is sharply escalating, the enemy was able to seriously push through the defense in the area of Vladimirovka — so much so that the locality had to be transferred to a full-fledged red zone. Theoretically, there may still be some of our forces left there that did not have time to withdraw, but in general the settlement is already under enemy control — this can be seen both by the pace of his advance and by the change in the nature of the battles around it.

Then the pressure goes straight to Shakhovo. The battles for the village are already entering a phase of hard grinding: the enemy is pounding outskirts with Kabs and enemy FPVs (drones) are constantly flying, trying to clear their way. Our people work no less harshly in response, and the visual control footage shows how in the north-eastern part of the locality the pigs gets hit in the teeth by the fighters of 2 Airborne Brigade, who confidently hold their sector!

As a result, this area is once again heating up. As soon as we manage to stabilize one ledge, a new direction of pressure immediately appears, the enemy tries not to give us any time to find our balance.

https://t.me/muchnoyjugend/12866

Most the fighting to apparently de-blockade Minograd has focused on the Dobropole Salient North East of Pokrovsk. The Shakhovo Muchnoy is talking about is located to the left of the little Russian flags on this map where you will see шахово written if you squint enough.

Now this zoomed out map shows where Dobropole is in relation to Minograd:

I circled the salient in Black and Minograd is a tad south west of that number one in the red circle. The neck of the “cauldron” is nowhere near that salient as you the Respected Reader can clearly see. This fighting around the Salient does not really have anything to do with unblocking Minograd imo, it’s just that that salient is the most vulnerable and exposed part of the Russian Line so that’s where the Ukrainians are attacking. But even if the Ukrainians cut off or collapse that salient it changes nothing in the scheme of things, like I said, the war is looking as aimless on Kievs end as it is on Russias these days. Both sides are just attacking opportunistically where they see an opening, but such a strategy has no prospective for achieving big picture success. The general trend is in Russia Favor in that the AFU really might be experiencing manpower issues and the Commanders that used to make sure their guys wouldn’t get surrounded are apparently in shorter supply than in previous years. From the way Muchnoy described the fighting at the Dobropole Sailent it appears the AFU takes a field of mud here and the Russians an abandoned outhouse there. So even this fake deblocking operation isn’t showing any tangible results. If the AFU can’t launch any big operations that show they still have some of their old gumption in the next few months Ill tentatively be ready to concede that their best days are now well behind them, but again we need to be cognizant that it could also be the case that Zog West is just playing hardball with Kiev and not providing the resources that the AFU needs for a big arrow thrust for the time being. The longer the current situation goes on the less likely the AFU will be in a position to redo Kursk or Fall of 2022. As of now we certainty aren’t there yet, and worst of all even if we get there it’s not a safe bet that Russia waltzes into Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, much less Kharkov and Odessa.

What would it take deliver these cities? Strelkov offered the following back in January:

Contrary to popular belief, mobilization is not about “trapping” large masses of untrained people in order to put them under the gun at any cost. The complex of mobilization measures suggests something else. I believe that in order to defeat the Ukrainian Armed Forces and eliminate “Ukraine”, at least 500,000 men fit for service at the front must be additionally commissioned (trained and equipped with everything necessary, forming additional military units, formations and associations).

https://rtvi.com/stories/dlya-razgroma-vsu-nuzhno-eshhe-ne-menee-500-tys-podgotovlennyh-muzhchin-igor-strelkov-dal-intervyu-rtvi/?ysclid=mi7zjsyvs0135933977#bounce

It’s really that simple. The AFU needs to be smashed, not just bruised, and Kiev needs to surrender absolutely unconditionally. That requires at a minimum at least 500k more properly trained, equipped, and supported men. That is Russia is short almost 50% of what it needs to actually have a chance at winning for real. The more realistic anti Russians laugh at those who pretend that social/economic pressure is going to topple Putin any time soon, and rightfully so. The flip side though is that any pro Russians who act like Odessa, Kharkov etc are coming home without Kiev’s unconditional surrender are equally deluded. Social and Economic pressure aren’t going to remove the current clique ruling Russia, and Russias current approach to the SMO is not a threat to the people running Ukraine. Changing the management in Moscow will require an outside force toppling the current regime, and the same is true in the case of Kiev. The biggest headache for the people running Ukraine right now at the zoomed-out level is the occasional power outage and the Military syphoning off money better spent on hookers, coke and yachts. The biggest headache in the case of Russia is the military syphoning off money better spent on coke, hookers, yachts and the occasional power outage/Oil Refinery getting damaged. Both ruling cliques are actually safe from eachother and their biggest enemies are strictly domestic. Zelensky is fighting off western backed “anti corruption” activists and the Russian Military is an afterthought. Putin is way more serious about domestic competition than he is about the AFU. If Moscow wants to “win” it needs to go after the AFU like it went after Strelkov and General Popov but that would require the military syphoning off more resources that the Putin Faction needs to pay its political allies. That is escalating to win in Ukraine is Political Suicide Domestically. It’s a situation with no clean exit, Moscow can’t escalate, nor is Zog West offering surrender terms that Moscow is comfortable accepting. Also, if Moscow takes the steps Strelkov is recommending than the National Leadership will be required to set concrete goals which they can be held accountable to which is another huge minus as far as Russia LLCs Wise Stakeholders are concerned.

The general axiom I am putting forward here is that a Russian Force capable of delivering Slavyansk and Kramatorsk could also deliver Kiev eventually and without Kiev the war is a net L for Russia. The current Force Russia is working with can’t deliver Slavyansk and Kramatorsk in all likelihood because if it could have it would have sometime in the last few years given how close those cities are to the front. Of course, Force Ratios are constantly changing, and it really does look like the ratio is shifting in Russia’s favor for now, but that is being manifested in plowing ahead 10km a day on average instead of 5 2 years ago and 1 before that. We aren’t seeing big population centers falling, nor does the AFU not going on any big arrow offenses lately mean that they are on the verge of collapse.