The Kuebler-Ross model of grief describes the human coping mechanism to deal with extremely difficult situations. It has five phases:
- denial - "No, not me, it cannot be true"
- anger - "Why me?"
- bargaining - attempting to postpone death with "good behaviour"
- depression - when reacting to their illness, and preparing for their death
- acceptance - "The final rest before the long journey"
With regard to the Ukrainian counter-offensive the last phase of the grief model has now been reached.
While not all politician are yet there, the military and intelligence specialists, who are part of the western propaganda squads, have made their conclusions. From their mouth the truth is dripping to the media. While the headlines below may not express it, the content of those pieces, especially in the first four, is finally admitting the obvious. It didn't work and the counter-offensive is done:
- Stormbreak: Fighting Through Russian Defences in Ukraine’s 2023 Offensive - RUSI - September 4
- Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months - War on the Rocks - September 4
- The Russians Are Getting Better - What Moscow Has Learned in Ukraine - Foreign Affairs, September 6
- How the Pentagon assesses Ukraine’s progress - Economist - September 6
- US Intelligence Official: Media Misleading Americans About Ukraine’s Battlefield Success - Hersh via Scheerpost - September 7
- NATO learning hard lessons about its future in Ukraine - Asia Times - September 7
- How Ukraine’s Heroic Stand Against Russia Could Collapse Into Failure- 1945 - September 7
- Ukrainian Progress: A Breach or a Breakthrough of Russian Lines? - War on the Rocks - September 8
- How Russia learned from mistakes to slow Ukraine’s counteroffensive - Washington Post - September 8
Simplicius has taken several of the above pieces apart and finds that they finally admit that the issue is lost:
Dire New Western Reports Call to Ditch NATO Tactics
Plus a roundup of other grist from the Western propaganda mill
Nothing of the above is new to Moon of Alabama readers. I may have helped to spare you the grief by not clinging to a the narrative but to the reality of the battlefield:
- On The Failure Of The Ukrainian Counterattack - June 16
- The Ukrainian Counter-Offensive Had No Chance. NATO Failed To Explain That. - June 23
- Reality Defeats The War Narrative - July 18
- Ukraine SitRep: The End Of The Counteroffensive - August 11
This outcome of the counteroffensive against the hardened Russian defense lines was predictable (May 11!):
In military books this is know as 'echeloned defense' with three lines of well prepared positions ten kilometer apart from each other. Each line consists of tank obstacles, mine belts, prepared anti-tank positions to monitor and counter potential breach attempts and well prepared artillery support from behind the next defense line.To crack such a nut without air support and without significant artillery advantage is nearly impossible.
But the Ukrainians did even worse than I had thought. The delaying action by the Russian army stopped them before they even reached the first defense line.
What may come next was predicted here on June 5, the day the counter-offensive was launched:
I strongly suspect that the Russian military will let the Ukrainian attacks run their course to then launch its own larger scale attacks against weakened Ukrainian defenses.
But to this day and while taking heavy losses the Ukrainian army is still running head first into a wall of Russian fire and concrete barriers. It may well keep going for another few weeks until the rain seasons sets in. That will lessen the chance of a renewed Russian attack. I have no idea yet of what might come instead of one.
To cope with the situation and bad news the U.S. will now send in a new wonder-weapon, the ATAMCS missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometer (190 miles). They come in several variants but the U.S. army will only be willing to hand over its older ones and only a few. The missiles are GPS guided which is unlikely to work well as Russia has sufficient electronic warfare assets that will disturb those signals. Some of these missiles will just divert from their target. Some will be shot down by air defenses. Some will come through. The 230 kilogram warhead can create quite a mess if it hits a large headquarter.
But keep in mind that the Russian forces are now regularly using FAB 500 glide bombs that come with nearly 500 kilogram of explosives. The bigger FAB 1500 have been tested too and are ready to be deployed. The new ATAMCS missiles will thereby not change the balance of force.
Former ambassador MK Bhadrakumar is sensing some diplomatic noise that might point to upcoming talks.
Ice cracking sounds on frozen lake of US-Russia relations
Talks may well follow but I would not expect any agreement. The Russian side will hold up its demands and the U.S. will still be unwilling to fulfill them. Not even a ceasefire will result from them.
Posted by b on September 9, 2023 at 14:44 UTC | Permalink
