What if Vlad Loses, Or Worse, Falls into a Stalemate? By James Reed
There is always plenty of misinformation in any war, but today in the post truth era, we simply do not know what is true and what is not. Thus, even the president of the Ukraine, had posted video footage of alleged Russian jets being shot down, that turned out to have come from a video game. Reports of 13 Ukrainian soldiers who put up a last stand on an island, turned out to be false, they surrendered as photographs latter revealed. It was a great morale story, useful for a time.
Thus, we should take with a bag of salt, claims made by Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff of Britain’s armed forces. He is of the opinion that Russia’s lead forces have been “decimated” and it is not inevitable that Russia will succeed in taking over the Ukraine. Whether this is true or not, we here cannot determine, and probably no-one really knows, or will know until the Ukraine is defeated and the dust of war settles. Yet, if it is true, the bigger question is what will Putin do facing defeat? Clearly, he has staked his entire reputation upon this military adventure, and failure is not an option. Will he simply keep going until grinding to a halt, as Russia and the US did in Afghanistan? Or will desperation lead him to use tactical nukes? There will be no coming back from that one. My guess, is that probably the Russians have been using military surplus gear, not their latest tanks, in a bid to drain the Ukraine. Fighting will intensify in the weeks to come, with Russia ultimately dominating the Ukraine. Then China attacks Taiwan, within months, if not weeks. Australia will be on the hit list, to be invaded I predict within the next few years. Guess what happens to us? Hint: it will no longer be a rich and diverse multicultural wonderland.
“Russia’s lead forces have been “decimated” and it is not inevitable that it will succeed in taking over Ukraine, the head of Britain’s armed forces has said.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, said Moscow had “got itself into a mess” and that its invasion was “not going well”.
He also warned that Russia might “turn up the violence” with “more indiscriminate killing” in response to the highly effective Ukrainian resistance.
As many as 11,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the fierce fighting, according to the latest approximate figures published by the Ukrainian armed forces on Sunday.
An estimated 44 aircraft, 285 tanks, 985 armoured vehicles, 109 artillery systems and 60 fuel tanks have also been destroyed. Admiral Radakin said the Kremlin had lost more troops in a week than the UK did in 20 years in Afghanistan.
He also said that the morale of the invading soldiers had been knocked so badly that some had abandoned the convoy destined for Kyiv to camp in the forest.
The UK Ministry of Defence said that according to reports, Russian supply lines continued to be targeted, which was “slowing the rate of advance of their ground forces”. In an intelligence update it said that there was a “realistic possibility” that Russia was trying to disguise fuel trucks as regular support lorries to minimise losses.
Russian forces were targeting populated areas in an attempt to “break Ukrainian morale”, it added.
“The scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continues to surprise Russia. It has responded by targeting populated areas in multiple locations, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol,” the update reported.
Russia has previously used similar tactics in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016, employing both air and ground-based munitions.
Asked if it was inevitable that Russia would take over Ukraine, Admiral Radakin told the BBC: “No, I think we’ve seen a Russian invasion that is not going well. I think we’re also seeing a remarkable resistance by Ukraine, both its armed forces and its people.
“We’re also seeing the unity of the whole globe coming together with a cohesive approach, whether that’s economically, diplomatically, culturally, socially, militarily, applying pressure to Russia, and that needs to continue so that Russia stops this invasion.
“We do know that some of the lead elements of Russian forces have been decimated by the Ukrainian response.”
However, Admiral Radakin warned that Russian aggression could be ramped up.
“I think there is a real risk because Russia is struggling with its objectives on the ground in Ukraine, and we’ve seen from Russia’s previous actions in Syria and in Chechnya where it will turn up the violence, it will lead to more indiscriminate killing and more indiscriminate destruction,” he said.
“We have to keep applying the pressure to Russia that this is outrageous and that the sense that because your invasion isn’t going very well, that you just become more and more reckless in applying violence is totally unacceptable.”
Admiral Radakin said that a no-fly zone over Ukraine would not help and would instead escalate the conflict. “The advice that we as senior military professionals are giving our politicians is to avoid doing things that are tactically ineffective and definitely to avoid doing things that tactically might lead to miscalculation or escalation,” he said.
“The no-fly zone would not help. Most of the shelling is coming from artillery, most of the destruction is coming from artillery, it’s not coming from Russian aircraft. If we were to police a no-fly zone, it means that we probably have to take out Russian defence systems and we would have NATO aircraft in the air alongside Russian aircraft, and then the potential of shooting them down and then that leads to an escalation.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russian forces were preparing to bombard Odessa, a strategically important port city further west, on the Black Sea coast.
The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Ukrainian think tank, said a detachment of about 20 landing ships and support vessels were off the western coast of Crimea, adding that the threat of troops landing near Odessa remained.
It said that units belonging to 810 Corps were being loaded on to large landing ships, as Russian forces continued to attack Odessa from the air with cruise missiles and aircraft.
However, a senior Pentagon official said the US did not believe a Russian amphibious assault in or near Odessa was imminent. The official estimated Russia had launched about 600 missiles since the start of the invasion and deployed into Ukraine about 95 per cent of combat forces it had assembled outside of the country.
Russian forces continued to try to advance and isolate Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Chernihiv and were meeting “strong Ukrainian resistance”, the official said.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said the enemy had been “demoralised” and reserve forces who were coming to replenish units had an “extremely low psychological state”.
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