Ukraine Military- A Guinea pig of US-NATO experiment in studying Russian Military tactics

Briefly -On the success and sustainability of Kharkov offensive.

(This is just an observation based on the conversations and reads of Marxist military historian analyzers. I have no claim of being a military analysis- far from that.)

 (It is important to note another fact that before the Ukrainian Kharkov offensive Marxist Leninists of Donbass had warned that “Russia is playing a dangerous game of appeasing the world public opinion”. )

Listening and reading the commentaries and short analysis of Marxist Military historians on Ukraine’s offensives my observation conclusion is that the offensives are politically motivated rather than militarily, and that derives from the tactics and practice of US-NATO using the Ukrainian army in experimenting and studying the Russian responses.

Even the western media today is admitting that the Kherson offensive made no military or otherwise gain but heavy loss. For Russians Kherson is much more important than Kharkov which only serves as a flank for south and it is near border of Russia which makes it an easy target of offensive at any given time. That is why defense of Kherson had priority and Russia reinforced that region early on.  And that is why the Kherson offensive turn out to be a disaster for Ukraine military.

Kharkov offensive; long term or short-term success? 

Kharkov offensive is a repetition of history in short span of time at the same region –This happened not long before but earlier in the start of “special operations”. They extended their military force, exposed themselves to attacks….and soon after faced a devastating defeat in Kharkov. It was great for headlines, but questionable for war.

Gain requires sustainment of the gain. Sustainment requires drawing forces from other fronts, and thus weakens those fronts. That happened at the Donbass region from where they draw forces to sustain earlier gains in Kharkov and thus giving the chance to Russians to move to Donbass much faster than they ever expected in where they build a sustainable defense line and move slowly but surely by utilizing every opportunity. 

Reversely, when Russia started gaining grounds in Donbass, Ukraine drew forces from Kharkov to counter Donbass which ended up losing all of their gains in Kharkov. The previous gains of Ukraine in Kharkov short lived and the present one does not look having a longer life span.

In other words, offensive gains of Ukraine have been so far unsustainable for they do not have either the material or men-power to sustain the gains.  Each gain they have weakened the other fronts by drawing forces to sustain the new one. 

This does not mean that the Ukraine’s offensive in Kharkov is not significant. Kharkov is important for Russia for protecting the flank of Russian forces at the front of Donbass.  Knowing that Ukraine is massing its power to that region, will ultimately force Russia to take serious actions in the region where Ukraine is in the offensive rather than a concentrated defense line.  It is not a trenched defense, but an offensive open to offensive air and land attacks by Russia. 

The Kharkov offensive may be a tactical success for the headlines, but a strategic blunder for the long run. It resembles to an extensive tactic of sending a group of platoons to raise Ukrainian flag in a village without any residents for “headlines” (in some cases at the expense of losing the entire platoon) is not “military gain” but bound to end with disasters. 

Ukraine’s offensives in small and larger scales have been purely political, rather than sustainable. And strangely enough, offences coincided with the “statements of multi-billion-dollar military aids” from US and other western countries- either before or after the approval of billion dollar “aids”. In other words, none of the offensives had a long-term military significance so far, but “headline” significance to boost the morale.

War is not waged for headlines, but for sustainable offensive victory. At the current situation Ukraine does not even have enough means and manpower to sustain Donetsk, Dnieper, Melitopol, Kherson and even Odessa. The Kharkov offensive stretched out its forces, reaching their limits to sustain it, which as a result will weaken each and every referenced region. Considering the facts, especially being right at the Russian border defenseless to the air raids, the tactical offensive of Ukraine may well end in a strategic disaster on their part, more like by Russia surrounding it, cutting them off and eliminating the largest number of forces entirely. 

It is important to note that Russian forces have withdrawn from most of these areas without a fight- including withdrawing the civilians from some towns and reinforcing the defense lines.  Looking at the map the Ukrainian army is extending in a tight corridor surrounded by Russian forces where they can be circled and annihilated. Some military historians point out that it was one of the Soviet tactics in the face of enemy outnumber them. They withdraw in a way that lets the enemy penetrate in a line and circle it to annihilate when the reinforcement and the right time comes.

It is necessary to remind that, the Russian strategy is based on the concept of “special military operation” with specific goals, not a “full scale war”. Russian miliary heavily rely on local forces-militia, with a minimal (as a ratio of its entire military) forces of their own on the ground. 

Russian strategy and tactics are based on a long-term sustainability and sphere of influence rather than short term, “headline” tactics.  

Ukraine government, as well as the US-NATO allied countries needs this kind of “headlines”. It is functional on the side of billions of dollars “donators’ to show to its population that their “help” is working, as well as on the side of “receiver” to show that they are putting the “donations” to an effective use. However, looking at the larger picture, all these “experimental” offensives seem to be facilitating the disastrous defeat of Ukraine rather than extending it.

Russia has shown for years that they are not after “short term”, “retaliating”, “revenge” tactics for headlines, but for “long term” gains. Russia is well aware of the rising discontent among the population of NATO allied countries against their own governments. They are very careful not to change the direction of this discontent, but by exposing the western propaganda, they try to intensify this popular discontent. The western part of Ukraine is out of war zone without any military attack to cities from Russia. That is a very affective policy of Russia as far as the public opinion is concerned and it serves its long term “sphere of influence” policy and aim.  Taking the “special operation” extremely slow, dragging it to the winter may well be within its long-term strategy. They are mostly targeting the concentration of military hardware, communication, military men, and of their destruction. Both strategies of Russia in Mariupol and Kherson tactical offensives were a long term, planned tactics with sustainability in mind. It is a long-term positional fighting as it was in Lugansk, Donbass, Kherson.  Ukraine’s Kharkov offensive has no viability of long-term positional fighting for obvious reasons stated above.

Then, what is really going on in addition to war being waged for “political” aims, rather than for sustainable military gains?

What is going on is that Ukraine, by order of US-NATO, applying the military outlined “textbook” tactics. However, those military tactics against the “defensive tactics” of Russia is designed based on the military and technical capability of US army against Russian army both of which technically have equal level as compared to Ukraine versus Russia which is incomparable.

 According to the military historians, the Kherson offensive against the Russian defensive formation is a copy from US army textbook explaining how to defeat the BTG’s (Battalion Tactical Groups) “division level multiple defensive line” of Russia.  US- NATO simply using the Ukraine military to the letter of their own texted-tactics to study the results and determine the weaknesses and/ or strength of Russian BTGs in order to revise their own tactics based on factual results. 

The tactic used (of course by the order of US-NATO) in Kharkov, as military historians note, is the worse under the condition of “incomparable hostile forces” as far as the means, manpower and air superiority is concerned. Hitler’s army used this tactic (mechanized forces leading and infantry is following on foot miles away in a long stretch) early on against the weak Soviet forces, later however Soviet turned the Hitlerite tactic in to their own for encircling and eliminating the Hitler’s forces repeatedly. 

The conclusion is that the “success” of Ukraine in Kharkov seems to have more of a political gain than military gain in the long term.  It may even facilitate the disastrous defeat of Ukraine in various regions including Kharkov, (Unless the war is extended to neighboring countries) with the "declaration of war" by Russia, dropping the "special operation".