I am very suspicious of the Powers That Be and all their activities. Activities like Kung-flu dictatorship, the destruction of US electoral procedures and processes, transgender insanity, etc, etc. When these very same people, without exception, took the side of Ukraine in that awful conflict, I was flummoxed. I want to support the Ukrainian people fighting against an apparent aggressive dictatorship, but I couldn’t help think there was something wrong… the whole thing was just too easy, too pat, white hats & black hats.
Via Revolver.news, a long twitter thread, Quick recap for those who haven’t followed what’s been going on in Ukraine but want to understand. I blog these things for the text; there are some images and a map, and they are not included. The link is a much better source if available.
02/24: The Russians invaded from the south, south-east, east and north, in a lightning campaign.
The Russians invaded with 190K troops—against 250K combat troops from Ukraine.
The RF put 30K troops near Kiev—nowhere near enough to capture the city—but enough to pin down some 100K AFU defenders.
The RF also launched several axes of attack, with reinforcements on standby (including a famed 40km long tank column), to see where they might be needed.
The AFU had been about to invade the Donbas
This was the immediate motivation for Russia’s invasion: To beat them to the punch and scuttle Ukraine’s imminent invasion—which they did
Also, by attacking from the north and south, the Russians disrupted weapons supply chain from NATO.
Had the RF only attacked in the east to prevent the AFU invasion of Donbas, there would have been an open corridor for resupply from the West.
Threatening Kiev stopped that.
So the main AFU army was left stranded in east Ukraine, with the rest of the Ukr. forces isolated and pinned down—with no easy resupply from the West
The RF then went about hitting AFU command/control and resupply links, further isolating and immobilizing Ukrainian forces.
The Russians soon nominally controlled land the size of the UK in Ukraine—but it was a tenuous control.
The south of Ukraine was more fully in Russia’s grip. The AFU around Kherson simply scattered. Mariupol became a clear battleground, as did the Donbas proper.
What the Russians initially wanted was to:
- Short-circuit the imminent Donbas invasion—which they did.
- Scare the Zelensky regime into negotiating a political settlement—which they failed to do.
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