SITREP 7/31/24: Die Welt Reveals Dire NATO Camp Outlook for Ukraine – Simplicius
Wed 7:33 am +01:00, 31 Jul 2024 1 This week brings us another new batch of damning articles from the pro-Ukrainian Western media. The most telling of these comes from German Die Welt, which exposes how nearly all NATO ‘insiders’ secretly whisper among themselves that Ukraine stands no chance, but they dare not say so in public:
Excuse the slightly wonky autotranslation, but here are some relevant snippets. One of the most revealing facts is their admission that Kharkov was nothing more than a distraction by the Russian forces, something I made reference to in the last mailbag.
Interestingly, Ukraine’s own 47th Brigade just recently confessed this as well, from another source:
As you can see, there is a clear divergence between what the pro-Ukraine faction states publicly and what is privately acknowledged. Publicly, the narrative is that Kharkov is a “big victory” for the AFU because it stopped some kind of mythical Russian invasion force dead in its tracks. I roundly refuted this in the last mailbag, emphasizing that it was obvious to any half-decent analyst the Kharkov incursion was nothing more than a fixing action to strip away units from the main assault in Donbass. Interestingly, the above statement from the 47th commander points to another ongoing narrative, which I’ll share as a brief digression from the Die Welt article. This is the sudden underscoring from several pro-UA sources that Russia is winning because of some new “tactic”, which turns out to be nothing more than the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ multi-vectored pressure we’ve been writing about here for almost a year and a half. The above WaPo piece starts off pessimistically:
However, observe the laughable cope they utilize in line with precisely what I mentioned above about the Kharkov offensive: You can see how they rewrite reality to suit their agenda for glamorizing the AFU as a valiantly heroic army, when in reality they’re falling for each of Russia’s strategic ruses to great loss. Oddly, after first programming their readers with the ‘valor’ excuse, they contradict themselves by shifting to the reality a few paragraphs later:
But you see their qualifying of it with the word “nonetheless” as if to imply that this was merely an unintentional secondary byproduct of Russia’s Kharkov incursion, rather than the entire goal. Sneaky little tactics to brainwash their readers. It’s also fitting that callsign “Genius” was the only one amongst them who figured it out. They go on to grudgingly cotton on to the truth: They uncharacteristically underscore this by quoting ISW’s new release in stating that Russian commanders have drastically improved: The piece de resistance of the whole shebang is this:
They even go on to admit how Russian EW capabilities have likewise vastly improved, further underlining our recent refutations here of pro-Ukrainian claims that the AFU has a large FPV advantage:
Now, getting back to the Die Welt article in a roundabout way. All the high level representatives the newspaper spoke to stated flatly that Ukraine will not win, nor reconquer any of the taken territories:
They state that a minority of anonymous military sources believe that Russia will run out of steam by Spring of 2025, at which point Ukraine could perhaps do “something”. But the majority believe more likely a ceasefire is approaching in the next “six to nine months”:
Oddly, they convey that European leaders like Scholz fear pushing Russia too much as, according to them, it could lead to an overthrow of Putin and disintegration of Russia which would leave Russia’s 6,000+ nuclear weapons “in the hands of bloodthirsty dictators like Ramzan Kadyrov.” They reiterate that Syrsky believes Russia could have nearly 700,000 troops in Ukraine by the end of this year, a figure that clashes loudly against claims Russia was suffering hundreds of thousands of losses per year:
In line with this, more than ever Ukraine’s critical manpower shortage continues to be the main topic of discussion. An Estonian reserve soldier and war analyst with a large following wrote a detailed thread about the ongoing crisis. He gives an interesting rehash of Syrsky’s figures:
Most interesting was a report from Condottiero channel, which has no source, but the channel has been relatively reliable in the past to my knowledge:
And the usual suspects continue to sound the alarm about Russia’s spate of advances: In fact, we’re seeing more and more women operators on the Ukrainian side, here’s a recent training session:
And a new Times article covers the travails of Dzvinka, a 28-year-old Bradley commander the 2nd Battalion of the 47th Mechanised Brigade: Armchair Warlord reports on X that the latest NYT article reported a Ukrainian brigade in the collapsing Toretsk direction got 2000 reinforcements in the past two months, which presumably indicates their losses: Just as a purely conjectural back-of-napkin math, this comes out to 1000 losses per month for one brigade. Most fronts like Toretsk have about 5 brigades, give or take, so 5000 per month per front = 166 casualties per day, per front. Now there are about 4-5 fronts with major hostilities, so multiply 166 x 4-5, and you get 664 – 880 casualties per day, which is miraculously quite in line with Russia’s usual listing of AFU daily casualties. — Russian armor also continues to pour in, with three separate videos in the past week alone showing train-loads of brand new T-72B3Ms, T-80BVMs, and T-90Ms: The last one of the T-80s, you can even see they are marked with the new tactical symbol of the northern Kharkov group. Ukrainian reserve officer and analyst Tataragami also had a new thread where he agrees that Russia’s Kharkov incursion was just a distraction:
His prognosis is not good:
— Now again we see the discussion shift increasingly toward “negotiations” from the Ukrainian side: Check Finnish President Alex Stubb’s flipflop in only a matter of months—I wonder what changed? Klitschko stated that Zelensky will need a people’s referendum in order to sign an armistice with Russia: Arestovich describes what will happen in November: According to him, a truce will be established for the duration of the presidential elections. Recall that Arestovich does have a good record when it comes to predicting the war’s events, prior to the war, before he was forced to tote the Ukrainian propaganda line while working as presidential advisor. However, in another solo video, he describes the catastrophic state of the Ukrainian power grid, and say that in merely 2-3 more Russian strikes, the entire grid will be relegated to 18th century levels, causing a total collapse of society next year:
The mayor of Dnipro also discussed the dire energy situation: We see that the Ukrainian side puffs its chest and talks tough, but are increasingly speaking of negotiations. How likely is this, really? Well, the truth is, no one in Russia is talking like this, and in fact Lavrov, Peskov, Medvedev, and the rest of the Siloviki are signaling the total opposite. Russia is smashing through Ukrainian defenses like never before, the frontline is totally collapsing—for Russia to suddenly stop and negotiate is equivalent in logic to Assad “gassing his own people” when he was on the cusp of victory against the CIA’s FSA rebels. It makes no possible sense. Yesterday, Putins’ presidential aide Patrushev said some interesting words in regard to this: Listen closely—he specifically states what I just articulated above: Russia now has the massive advantage on the frontline and Ukraine and its Western sponsors want a rest so they can regroup and rearm. Does this sound like someone who’s ready to end the conflict and negotiate? The fact remains that Ukraine is using the negotiations red herring merely to prop up the falsely constructed image of their own battlefield relevance. In reality, the AFU is slowly collapsing, but they are doing everything they can to present the image of strength by pretending a mere negotiated stalemate is the best Russia could eke out. These are desperate maneuvers to mask the total panic and insurgency on their side—they know it’s not a negotiations but a complete collapse and capitulation that’s closer to reality. Just read the latest frontline updates, from New York Times:
A Ukrainian officer is outraged that the whole country is not already mobilized: — Despite all that, Ukrainian yellow press continues to push the theory that Russian forces will be exhausted in a month or two:
This is very difficult to understand, given that in the very same article they quote their own commander-in-chief, Syrsky, as saying Russia’s army will grow to nearly 700k by the end of 2024. So how is it possible Russia will run out of men and be ‘exhausted’ next month? Clearly someone is lying. A few battlefield updates: Krasnogorovka has almost entirely been taken: The Niu York area has turned into a soon-to-be disaster for the AFU as Russia has almost entirely encircled their forces on very flimsy ground that sources indicate will make retreat difficult for the trapped contingent: A wider shot: There are about a literal dozen other advances including Rabotino, Konstantinovka, Toresk—where Russia has entered the outskirts—and even Chasov Yar, where paratroopers reportedly used the old trick of sneaking through sewer pipes and tunnels to finally breach the Siversky-Donets canal to finally establish themselves in the microdistrict on the other side after a long pause: In the west of Progress, near Ochertino, Russian forces advanced as well. What’s clear is that a salient will eventually break off toward the main supply route in the north to cut off Konstantinovka like so: As can be seen, the key stronghold of Konstantinovka is slowly being enveloped, and could be the big fight of next spring, just as Bakhmut and Avdeevka each were the main spectacles of late winter / early spring ‘22 and ‘23. The Chasov Yar paratroopers will eventually press into Konstantinovka from the east while the Toretsk contingent collapses the front from the south until the city is fully enveloped. Some last sundry updates: In the mailbag comments someone asked about the extent of North Korea’s supplies, and we now have evidence that North Korea has sent its formidable Bulsae-4 ATGM, which was reportedly spotted by Ukrainian drone:
There was even a video claiming to show the Bulsae-4’s missiles destroying a British AS-90 SPG artillery howitzer at a claimed distance of over 10km, though I’m not sure if it’s been confirmed. Keep in mind this is a very powerful capability that even Russia doesn’t have. It’s in effect an Israeli Spike NLOS which, unlike Kornet ATGMs, can go beyond line of sight—a sort of ground launched version of the Russian helicopter-fired LMUR missile. The fact that Russia still does not produce a single weapon system of this type is one of the single biggest detriments, and quite frankly, embarrassments, to the Russian army, given that they are one of the most useful possible weapons on the modern battlefield. Even Hezbollah has been using the Armas, a Spike clone, for the past few months to great effect. Of course, one of the reasons Russia doesn’t bother developing it is because drones like Lancet and other anti-armor loitering munitions serve the same purpose, but it’s nevertheless a major weakness and critical missing piece in the Russian forces. — Another mailbag participant also asked about the partisan situation. Here’s another small update, the car fires have gotten so bad, now spreading from Odessa to Kiev and other cities, that a battalion commander of the Azov Brigade outright promised to start shooting on the spot any Russian-leaning citizens caught vandalizing their precious cars: — Rumor has it the situation on the front is so bad, Zelensky was forced to skip the Olympics ceremony: I think he was spotted at the Olympics, anyway: — Today Belousov announced Russia’s FPV drone figures, reported by Kommersant:
With one analyst noting:
The article also states:
4000 per day is 120,000 a month. Last December, Strategic Industries Minister of the AFU, Kamyshin, reported that Ukraine produces 50,000 monthly: Perhaps they too are around the 120k mark or more by now, no one knows for certain, but at least these are some official figures from both sides rather than wild speculations. — Head of the Ukrainian Border Service told a woman last year that Crimea would certainly be returned by July 28, 2024—you have my word, he says! As a quick note, I’m still sequentially working through the last bit of mailbag questions in the comments section of the original thread. It turned out to be quite a larger task than I thought, as most questions simply are impossible to answer in a single sentence or two, requiring a little context, etc. So bear with me but the remainder will be answered in full by tomorrow. — I actually had wanted to cover much more information and other topics, but alas there is only so much room, so stay tuned for the next report. Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a monthly/yearly pledge to support my work, so that I may continue providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one. Alternatively, you can tip here: buymeacoffee.com/Simplicius |
Yes, I recall Victoria Newland being there. A really lovely person, if never there was one. .It’s never made sense in the way they claim it does. I could speculate about possible reasons even multiple reasons for it, but the Ukranian people will suffer for it, the weapons manufacturers will benefit greatly funded by the ordinary folks and owned by the usual few. The usual shit show which has always gone on.