Thread by @6Voodoo

There is a difference between tactics and strategy: one that decides the fate of civilizations. Western war (the professional kind) is more than a collection of random battles won or lost. This is a thread on how Ukraine squandered it’s best chance to win the war in April 2022

1/ First, some ground rules. I don’t care about your globohomo conspiracy theories. I don’t care who is right or wrong. I don’t care that the illuminati and the lizard people are secretly controlling Zelensky. This is analysis. Do some peyote and tell your dog. They might like it

2/ Secondly, you can disagree with the analysis all you want… that is how analysis works, you are likely wrong, but that’s ok: we are all learning. But “SLAVA UKRAINE FELLA” is not a rebuttal to “the UKR 72nd Mech should have enveloped the Moschun pocket”, you sound dumb.

3/ Third, I’m not saying this would have been easy, or maybe even possible. All war is a gamble, I understand how a UKR army still in the walk phase couldn’t pull this off. Got it. But if you can’t objectively assess a tactical/strategic problem, you NGMI.

4/ Tactics vs Strategy:
Tactics win battles. Lee was a great tactician. Grant was a great strategist. Grant piled multiple tactics together (blockade, control of the Mississippi, multiple axis of constant advance) into a strategy tailor made to defeat the South.

5/ “LeE wAs THE bETteR GenERAl!!!” Don’t care.
Strategy is “hey, we are going to island hop across these islands, we are going to cut off their resources, we are going to trade ground X for gain Y”. Strategy is how you intend to win the war.

6/ Sure, some wars are won by great battle tactics (Waterloo), and some wars are lost by thinking too strategically (the Stan). But in order to win a war, you need to sit down and put together a plan of how to get from A to B… how are we going to do this?

7/ What do I have to do? Because once the war starts, it is often too late.

This is either what Ukraine failed to do, or planned wrong for. Ukraine had/has no hope to defeat Russia on its own in a protracted conflict.

8/ So, like Prussia, Ukraine needed to win early before the arithmetic of attrition became a thing… unless they were counting on direct NATO intervention. Maybe, I dunno. But despite the mewlings of NAFO meme lords, that bet too has failed.

9/ However counting on someone else to die for you is often a bad bet, so lets assume they counted on NATO weapons, but no NATO Wilhelms. Unless they are drinking too much Horilka, they knew they could not withstand a protected war with Russia.

10/ They know Russia better than anyone. I forgive the Western intelligencia projection of “THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE WONT WITHSTAND LARGE LOSS OF LIFE!” because they are silly and ignorant. They wishcast they own weakness onto their opponent and take it as fact. Ukraine knows better.

11/ So what is left to our friends in Kyiv? That’s right, the old Prussian technique of win a big ass decisive battle up front, and then negotiate from a position of strength. Which, they nearly did… but like a nervous DnD gamer on prom night, couldn't close out.

12/ Any analysis begins with understanding your opponent, so lets look at the Russian situation in early 2022: Aka the “Holy Fuck these dudes suck, we were worried about this dumpster fire?” Days…. but as we saw…. Russia, given enough time and bodies, always gets better.

13/ The Russian Army was a shambles organizationally and logistically. Following a series of defense reforms, they had tried to model their army after the modular US one, and didn’t do a very good job.

14/ From over mechanization of Airborne units, to the abysmal state of readiness, training, and supplies for units at REDCON 1. This was partly due to corruption and incompetence, but also to the ridiculous level of secrecy involved in the planning to invade Ukraine

15/ Many units didn’t even know they were going to war until they started marching south. Many cannibalized as much supplies as they could find, after having lied on their readiness reports, but it wasn't enough.

16/ From the day the Russian Army arrived in their assembly areas and started to rely on their logistics trains to survive, that Army had a shelf life until it collapsed, and they needed to take a capture Kyiv before that arrived.

17/ That was the Russian plan, the same as it has always been. Send in airborne troops to capture a skybridge, and then reinforce and decapitate with ground forces. it is a simple play, and it is a play to win.

18/ To do this they wanted to use the Western Deep Penetration/Thunder Run/Flying Column. Just push progressively smaller units faster until you reached the objective. The US did it in ’03 in Iraq, and it worked for them...? Hold that thought for later.

19/ Unfortunately for Russia this type of war is also the most dependent on logistics, mobility, command, and control: all things they struggle with. So, also like the Prussians, they needed to win quickly before their abysmal logistics situation became a factor.

20/ If Russia takes Kyiv early, they delegitimize the UKR government, they are in a strong position to cut off Western supplies, and they hold every card in the deck. But they had to go fast, because their troops were literally starving for food and their tanks for fuel.

21/ It was a gamble.
Russia planned to take Kyiv in 24 hours. It is over 2 years into the war, and the closest they ever got was a lost Military Police convoy with giant balls and empty vodka bottles doing their own thunder run. So why did it fail?

22/ Mostly because Ukrainians and Russians are like Hatfields and McCoys, they know each other. UKR knew this play was coming, and set up (with a ton of help) a masterful defense in depth.

23/They constantly relocated air defense assets, they bent but didn’t break, they used natural terrain obstacles and made the best use of tactical choke points. They handed out weapons to civilians. They planned to lose, and then destroy the airfield at Hostomel, and were right.

24/ They also used modern weapons and a fighting spirit (both absent in Iraqis) to blunt more heavily equipped Russian units trying to probe for weakspots. They were like the moneyball A's beating the overpayed, overrated Yankees.

25/ The balls to the wall drive the US executed in 2003 was only successful due to the weakness of the opposition, and the power of the tank over the infantry being at it's zenith.

26/ Had the Republican Guard had the weapons, or a quarter of the fighting spirit the Ukrainians showed, 2003 looks different, but that is a thread for another day.

27/ But in addition to stopping armored columns, the Ukrainians used their technology to fight the kind of war that Deep Penetration fears the most: one on its supply lines.

28/ The Ukrainians blew up dams and flooded rivers, they stretched Russian supplies to the point Russia tried to build an oil pipeline to the front. It was a disaster for the Russians, but the Russian Army pressed on towards victory.

29/ They managed to get some units to the front to reinforce the beleaguered VDV, but the relief column of the entire 35th Combined Arms Army never made it to the front. Their long an infamous convoy was stuck, strung out, and bleeding out.

30/ The tanks and trucks of the Russian main effort bogged down in the marshy, wet, forests of northern Ukraine under constant Ukrainian attack before they could come to the aid of their brothers at the front.

31/ And these were some of the best units in the Russian Army… (no, the Russians did not hold a secret army in reserve, you are a clown). Whomever helped the Ukrainians prepare their tactical response had done a damned good job.

32/ So as the Russians that did make it to the outskirts of Kyiv bore down onto the capitol from the North, every kilometer they went made it harder for them to sustain.

33/ The Ukrainians, led by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, some National Guard nerds from the 112th Brigade, the Georgian Legion and some SOF finally stopped bending at Irpin and Moschun, where they fought the Russian advance to a standstill.

34/ The Russian 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade, 76th Guards Air Assault Division, the 64th Motor Rifle Battalion and some allied Chechans tried desperately and bravely to force a crossing of the Irpin river. But they wore themselves out on Western NLAWs and Ukranian blood.

35/ North East of the capitol, the same scene played out with the Russian 36th Combined Arms Army’s 90th Tank Division and 55th Motorized Rifle Brigade were checked by the Ukrainian 1st Tank Division at Chernihiv.

36/ Ukrainians were doing a NATO Phase 1 in the north, giving up ground and letting the Russians wear themselves down to prepare to counter attack, encircle, and destroy prime Russian units… but they forgot the second part.

37/ See, the war was raging not just at Kyiv, but in the Donbas, around Kharkiv, and from Crimea. The Russians were pushing everywhere, trying to spread the Ukrainians thin. The best response from Ukraine would have been to trade ground in some areas, at the gain of time and men.

38/ While the most important battle was raging around their capital, the Ukrainians were wasting valuable men and resources on local counter attacks for meaningless ground in places like Milova.

Is it hard to give up part of our own country temporarily?

39/ Sure… but war’s hard son. But keep in mind, Russia isn’t just going to let you encircle the VDV and a Guards Army and wipe them out… they would take resources from those fronts and try and rescue their trapped units.

40/ This is Newton’s Third Law, OODA Loop stuff… Ukraine’s tactics were brilliant, their strategy terrible.

41/ In March of 2022, a month into the war, the front around Kyiv was a potential disaster for Russia… they had a massive formation running low on literally everything, stalled outside of Kyiv trapped between an impassable river, and the Ukrainian Army.

42/ Every attempt they made to break the stalemate just resulted in more exposed units. North East of Kyiv in Sumy, they had entire formations separated from the main advance, which was itself precariously thin.

43/ This was the decisive point that all Western Warfare since Marathon and Hannibal at Carrhae was based on. They had advanced too far, and now their vulnerable flanks and rear were exposed. Their entire invasion, and the fate of Putin stood in the balance.

44/ Every Western general throughout history was screaming from the grave: “Now! Now is the time, encircle them, cut them off and destroy them!”

45/ But the Ukrainians had no way to envelop and destroy them… so the Russians just… left... they literally took their ball and went home and the Ukrainians watched.

The Ukrainians had put all their eggs into stopping the Russians, and none into “what do we do when we do?"...

46/ ..."How do we win?” Would this have secured victory? Maybe, maybe not. Would Russia have pushed on? Probably. But Ukraine needed a big, bold win, and they didn’t get it.

47/ This was it… this was the decisive point of the war. Everything after has been kabuki and math. Simply murder while little is gained. Just whittling each other away while rich men get richer and US and China both watch.

special thanks to Kings and Generals over on youtube for the maps... go check them out.

*mutes thread.

The it’s is going to bother me