Military Power and Strategy

The reason that all the NATO weapons and training could not help Ukrainians defeat the Russians is in the difference between the force vs power.

Jun 21, 2024

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Reading time: 45 minutes (or 49 minutes with footnotes)

Welcome to the peace initiative for Ukraine in which you can contibute by raising your awareness as well as your consciousness^[+] and spirit to the modes^[+] of neutrality^[*^], decency, respectfulness, wisdom^[*^], objectivity, mastery of the intellect, surrender (ego and mind to God’s will), and finally peace (inner then outer). To properly grasp everything, we recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative in the order that we^[*^] designed it, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we urge you to do it, please. Did you read the this “Reality Checks” segment from the beginning? Please, do so for a better grasp of the topic of this article: The Real Beginning of the War in Ukraine.

Military Power

The reason why all the NATO weapons and training could not help Ukrainians defeat the Russians is in the difference between the force vs power. NATO has more force while Russia has more power.

Ukraine would have been defeated without Western military aid long ago. There's no question about that. Ukraine will lose the war with or without the aid – not because Russian military power might turn out to be superior to NATO's but because of other factors such as the universal laws and consciousness level. With total dependency on foreign masters, Ukrainians have nothing to be proud of, especially not of their own military power and especially not after the catastrophic losses and failure of the summer 2023 counteroffensive. Even with all the military aid from NATO and some other states, Ukraine has nothing to show for it.

For some peculiar reason, at no point has the West supplied enough artillery or other weapons (such as fighter jets, air defense systems, and long-range missiles) and ammunition that would allow Kyiv to drive the Russians back. Western politicians talk about the need to force Russia to the prewar borders but do not provide enough support to do it. They keep on claiming that Ukrainians are fighting for Europe and even the whole world but are holding back on sufficient support. The West seems to be aware from the start that Ukraine can't win even with NATO's help but they want Ukraine to just hold on as long as possible to contain Russia so that it could not be of much aid to China, against which is the US prepping to wage a war over Taiwan so as to either contain it or defeat it as China is American number one enemy because it is taking over the world domination from America. The US and its military alliance are saving their military power for confrontation with China.

Russia has quasi-demilitarized NATO:
“Our weapons and ammunition stocks are depleted,” NATO chief in June 2023^[+]^[+]^[+]
In October 2023, the Pentagon warned US Congress it was running low on money to replace weapons sent to Ukraine^[+]. US Congress dropped all assistance for Ukraine^[+].
Britain has “run out of arms to send to Ukraine”, as reported in October 2023^[+]^[+].
Western ammo stocks are at ‘bottom of the barrel’ – the chair of the NATO Military Committee and NATO’s most senior military official warned in October 2023^[+]
Already in December 2022, Germany run low on ammunition and is critically dependent on China to restock its arsenal^[+]

The US has much bigger fish to fry, which is why it is gradually decreasing^[+] its support for Ukraine against Russia. All the talk of NATO supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes”^[+»] or “until you are victorious”^[+] turned out to be a big fat lie^[+»]^[+] and never mentioned in what measure anyway. No use in doing it just in bits and pieces. Such insufficient support is catastrophic for Ukraine but it is the corrupt Kyiv regime's1 fault for trusting and relying on the West rather than Russia. In 2013, the West forced Ukraine to pick a side and in 2014 they chose the West through a series of Western manipulative interventions. Corrupt, brainless, egocentric, short-sighted politicians got what they wanted (but just short term) whereas common people were too stupefied to realize how they were being duped by their leaders and Western powers pretending to have Ukraine's best interests at heart. Ukraine had it much better when it was in the Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine has proven not to be capable of being an independent, sovereign country because of the corruption, folly, and other faults of its people due to the low level of consciousness. Ukraine exists as a state only since 1991 but to this day, it has never managed to consolidate its independence and sovereignty because it never had any competent leaders, just foreign stooges.

Given that Russians have achieved their main objectives2 and then some3, it seems they have not just outfought but also outsmarted NATO and Ukraine on a tactical, operational, and strategic level. Apart from a military victory, Russia also won on all other levels, including on economic4^[+]^[+]^[ꚛ]^[+] and geopolitical (87%5 of the world sides with Russia) levels.

This is due to NATO leaders’ arrogance and corruption (given that NATO has spent almost twice as much as Russia on this war even though they claim they are not in a war – $150 billion^[+] vs. $86 billion^[+]^[+]spent by Russia – figures for the first year of SMO6).

In their low modes of consciousness^[+], arrogant political and military authorities of some NATO states have made many catastrophic errors of judgment, which led to massive human and financial losses, immense destruction, Ukraine losing much of its territory, and other horrors. These catastrophic errors of judgment were about Russian military ability and capacity, Russia's economic power, the assumed effectiveness of sanctions and frozen Russian assets, and supposed Russia's isolation.

The most catastrophic error of judgment was, of course, underestimating Russian capabilities and overestimating Ukrainian capabilities but there are countless more, including the unsuitable military strategy and combat. As we all know, this is NATO's proxy war^[*^]^[+] against Russia, so NATO is in command^[+] while Ukrainians are only used as cannon fodder. Assuming authority, NATO officers have misjudgingly instructed Ukrainian commanders to use inappropriate tactics and strategies that Americans used against guerilla fighters in the Middle East and Latin America but are totally incompatible against a large and cohesive Russian Army. One can't use the same war strategies, tactics, and equipment for totally different types of military and terrains.

We are not going to review Pentagon's intelligence, projections, and instructions here but will say that it requires very serious quality adjusters to an otherwise purely quantity-driven model. What is missing by NATO is quality-driven model which reflects a degree of excellence and spirit as well as a collective level of consciousness and would be helpful in gaining an understanding of balance of powers between belligerents. An all-inclusive model would be very instructive for a number of reasons, the main one being discovery of faults that lead to failure. A failure on battlefield as well as on all other fields (geopolitical, informational, economical, etc.) is a result of accounting for qualitative, such as operational and technological, military factors as the main drivers of the geopolitical balance and status of nations but not considering the other qualities such as virtues. A military can have the most and best weapons in the world, superiority in numbers and technology, but if they are handled by incompetent, corrupt, ungrateful, disrespectful, and depraved individuals, it is all to no avail. Just saying. Not suggesting anything.

It is suspicious, though, how come with so much NATO military aid^[+] (e.g., in the first year alone, NATO provided $71 billion^[+] in military aid while Russia spent much less - $46.1 billion^[+]) and with twice as many mobilized manpower, Ukraine has not been able to push Russians away, especially when we are constantly told in the West that Russian military is weak, backward, demoralized, underequipped, fighting with shovels^[+]^[+]^[+], rusty and mouldy weapons^[+], and taking chips from dishwashers and refrigerators to fix their military hardware^[+]^[+]^[+]^[»]^[»]. How do you explain that?
And how do you explain the fact that they constantly claim Russia is weak, crushed, and fights with shovels but also fearmongering about Russia attacking Europe/NATO and in April 2024, the US put^[»] to a vote at the UN Security Council a resolution calling Russians not to place nuclear weapons in space? No, there is no discrepancies in the narrative that army that is so weak it fights with shovels has somehow nukes in space and plans to attack next many other European countries!

Also, Ukraine and the US have different objectives, which is why their strategies may not be the best for Kyiv's agenda. Americans care the most about Ukraine retaking Crimea, so that NATO, particularly the American navy may move in to take control of the ports and reign the Black Sea, which is why they advise against offensives anywhere else, such as on eastern fronts of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, Kupiansk, etc. Of course, Ukrainian authorities are aware of that, which is why they disagree.

When it comes to military equipment, Ukrainians complained^[+] that all the Western tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles (that Americans and their NATO allies designed to use in warm climates of the Middle East and Latin America) are not adapted rainy and winter conditions – in rainy season, heavy equipment gets stuck in mud and in winter, cold weather conditions led to the freezing of hatches, tracks on tracked vehicles, as well as freezing and icing of components and assemblies. Also, Americans have always relied heavily on their Air Force, which they have denied to Ukrainians – without the key fighter jets and air defense, all those NATO strategies fall apart and training and equipment are ineffective. And even in the Middle East and Latin America, with the full American combined armed forces, Americans have not won any wars against much smaller and less equipped guerilla militants than Russians, so why would their tutoring be any good to Ukrainians against much more powerful adversary?! And since when Germans are competent to train^[+]?

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine until February 2024, General Valery Zaluzhny, had realized the incompetence of his NATO mentors (for whom President Zelensky has more regard than his army generals) and had tried to defy their command but they threw him under the bus by blaming him for destroying German Nord Stream gas pipelines and for the failure of the summer 2024 counteroffensive, thus he had no choice but to roll with punches. He has been unable to act on his own terms^[+]^[+] due to the Western powers being his masters – both as sponsors and masters of his fate (if he disobeys, they may hand him over to the Germans for being the commander of the destruction of German key infrastructure, the Nord Stream gas pipelines^[+]^[+]^[+]^[+]). It might be good that his hands are tight because as a neo-Nazi (or Bandera7^[+] follower) he would have surely resorted more to vicious operations (such as using missiles, not just drones, to strike civilian targets on Russian soil), as he already admitted^[+].

Not just Zauzhny but most of the Ukrainian generals do not see eye to eye with their NATO colleagues (as well as with each other) on conducting the war, especially the counteroffensive. The two sides are at odds^[+] about how to turn the tables on Russians because a complete reversal of the unfavorable circumstances is not as easy as they both mistakenly anticipated. Their deep divisions over the strategy are founded on differing priorities. NATO prioritizes retaking Crimea, while Ukrainian authorities (Zelensky and Gen. Syirsky) prioritize recapturing Bakhmut/Artyomovsk (to boost their morale and ego after a humiliating defeat there). NATO generals cautioned Ukrainians against dissipating their efforts because spreading too thin on several fronts instead of focusing on just one is like digging several wells at the same time, which with Ukrainian limited resources (particularly skilled manpower) ended up making no significant progress anywhere.

When in late August 2023, Ukrainians realized their mistake and focused on just one sector that NATO wanted in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainians finally made an advance there and partially^[+]^[+]recaptured the village of Robotyne. However, that came at a huge loss of both manpower (more than 20.000 KIA) and equipment but made absolutely no difference overall – certainly did not cause a reversal of the unfavorable circumstances. They should have held casualties to a minimum to preserve their longer-term fighting potential but they wasted too many soldiers to recapture this small (3 km² or 1.2 sq mi^[+], with a population of just 480^[+] before the war), abandoned, and fully ruined village Robotyne. Ukrainians sacrificed over 20.000 fighters for it, not to mention the loss of hundreds of millions worth of NATO-supplied precious equipment. Extrapolating from these numbers, Ukraine would need at least 600 million troops to retake Donbas.

One most obvious evidence of the superiority of Soviet-era equipment and tactics over the NATO ones is the fact that during the 2023 counteroffensive, the Ukrainian troops on the Vremevka salient, who used no Western equipment but mostly Soviet-era ones and who had no NATO training, were much more effective and successful in gaining ground than those on the Robotyne sector who were relying on everything from the West.

As it turns out, the Russian army is not weak^[»]^[+]^[+]^[+] after all and they are surely not running out of missiles^[+] and ammunition^[+] (but NATO is) as previously claimed by Western/NATO “experts”; the Russian economy^[+] is growing^[ꚛ]^[+]^[ꚛ]^[+»]^[+] and doing much better than European, British, and American (e.g., debt and inflation are lower^[+]^[+]^[+], and trade balance much better); sanctions are not only ineffective (they didn't stop the war) but are backlashing on Europe and the US that either fell into recession or are on the brink of collapse; and Russia is so allegedly so “isolated” that most of the world sides with it and prefers to do business with it^[+]^[»]. Looking at a 2024 UN voting^[ꚛ], it is evident that the US is pretty isolated.

The International community is really against US and Israel on the Palestine issue.

Everything NATO states leaders expected turned out wrong and their errors of judgment and underestimating Russia have caused the loss of many precious lives (even in the EU due to the energy crisis, in winter 2022/2023, 68.000 people died as reported by The Economist^[+]8 – as a pro-war media, one can be sure they even understated the number), Ukrainian territories, and billions of Western tax-payers' hard-earned money, nevertheless, they who made all those mistakes continue to earn the same or more living luxury lives while the people whom they are supposed to serve are suffering. Due to their miscalculation, the country of Ukraine may even end up being wiped out from the map as it will very likely lose most or even all its territory because NATO leaders have pushed Ukraine to seek a military rather than diplomatic resolution (of course, the ultimate fault lays at Ukrainian President Zelensky who, without considering the consequences, ditched^[+]^[+]^[+]^[+]^[+]^[+] the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022 by foolishly relying on NATO's full support to defeat Russia). The West's ruling classes need to be held accountable and will be one way or another with a little help from above. One by one, they have been knocked out of their positions in a phenomenon that many people call “Zelensky curse”.

At NATO, we are dealing with a clueless class of corrupt military officers and bureaucrats, who have no comprehension of Russian military doctrine^[+], tactics, and operational art, and for years have been internalizing the NATO-centric narrative of Western supremacy and hegemony, without any regard for the multipolar reality emerging all around them. The fact that the US generals have no clue of what they’re doing is even revealed by Ukrainian generals who explained^[+]^[+] why they were not following American orders or advice. A Ukrainian commander even told the Financial Times^[+]^[+] he’d be dead if he’d followed the “bad advice” given by Western militaries.

While on the topic of clueless class of corrupt military bureaucrats, NATO that could not find anyone better than Jens Stoltenberg^[+] to represent them from 2014-2024. There is plenty evidence proving how unworthy he was of that position, which suggests he was nothing but a puppet, but perhaps this one evidence^[»] suffice and one needs no more to realize his cognitive dysfunction.

The issue is not how clearly mentally challenged he is but how such person was selected and allowed to head a military organization that is responsible for deaths of millions of innocent people and no one holds him accountable or his puppet-masters. Here's another funny proof^[»] of the point we are making with none other but the NATO chief baring how “smart” he is because he revealed something no one would ever guess :)

Judging from the catastrophic results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive that kicked off on 4 June 2023, it is clear that the Ukrainian leadership and their NATO masters underestimated the stability and readiness of the Russian Armed Forces. This underestimation of Russia comes from their arrogance or low level of consciousness9^[+], which guarantees failure, according to the Consciousness Theorem^[+], as the level of collective consciousness^[+] determines the level of collective achievement.

In their low modes of consciousness^[+], NATO's military “experts” and commanders who are masterminding most if not all Ukrainian military activities are totally misinterpreting Russia's slow and soft approach and the use of old, unadvanced, Soviet-era weaponry, and by misjudging and undervaluing it all, they have caused hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians (and Russians) to die or be crippled, not to mention tens of millions of others suffering and being forced to flee from their homes.

“We don’t target civilian facilities to save as many civilians as possible. That is why our advance is not that rapid as many expected”, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzya said^[+] at a UN Security Council meeting in April 2022.
In an interview in May 2023, the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed^[+] Russia acts slowly in Ukraine because it carries out special op, not war and due to Moscow’s humanitarian concern for the preservation of Ukrainian cities and human lives: “We are not waging a war. It is a totally different thing to wage a war: it is a total destruction of infrastructure it is a total destruction of cities. We are not doing that. We seek to preserve the infrastructure; we seek to preserve human lives.”

Even though Putin and other Russian high officials stressed often enough that Moscow had no intention of occupying Ukrainian territories but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country, Ukraine and its NATO allies misinterpret the lack of Russian offensive expansion as a “weakness of the Russian army” and the “strength of the Ukrainian army or defense”. A delusion of grandeur, a superiority complex as well as grossly underestimating Russia and disregarding its Military Doctrine^[+] is costing countless lives and the enormous suffering of millions of people. The cost of misjudging Russia is measured in human lives, humongous destruction, and lost territories.

Taking a leaf out of Sun Tzu’s playbook “The Art of War” (544-496 BC), Russian generals might as well be using methods of subterfuge: "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

It is mind-blowing how wrong NATO generals are and how many times they either lied or made silly predictions that never came true but the Western media keeps giving them platform anyway. One such deranged ignoramus is Ben Hodges10 who incredibly served as none other but commanding general of US Army Europe^[+] and gave so many faulty forecasts that we can't even begin to count. Just one example^[»]^[+]^[+]^[»] is on 14 March 2022, when he said that Russia would exhaust its ability to fight in 10 days. Insane! These are the types that run the whole show in NATO. His other silly claims^[+]^[ꚛ]^[+]^[+]^[+]^[+]

NATO's commanders^[+] have been misinterpreting and grossly speculating Russian military strategy by measuring progress in terms of square kilometers (focusing on how much territory they occupied) instead of how much Russians have demilitarized and denazified Ukraine and prevented it from joining NATO, which were their main objectives (besides liberating ethnic Russians and keeping Crimea as well as securing water and electricity supply for it). Also, they were assessing Russian military capabilities and so Ukraine’s chances of winning by narrow-mindedly relying^[»]^[»]^[+] on facts such as that Russia was using old T-54 and T-55 tanks, turning a blind eye to all the other modern weapons that Russia had been using as well? What good their "data" analysis is when their "data" is utterly corrupted? Utter Ukrainization of America's second-rate military analysis coupled with fantasies about defeating Russia, which are paraded Pentagon and its subsidiaries like pseudo-academic think tank RAND as a collection of amateurs.

Thousands of miles away from Ukraine, bureaucrats and armchair generals (after all, they are thousands of miles away from battlefields in their cozy armchairs), such as now former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley^[+], bless his heart, have been buying into the Ukrainian and CIA narrative that is void of reality on the battlefield hypothesizing that Russians are not progressing because they are getting slaughtered in Bakhmut and other places while not willing to face the fact or admit that it is the other way around and that for Russians progress means something quite different than for Ukrainian and NATO leaders (demilitarization vs. territorial gains). Judging from huge Ukrainian losses for no overall gains, it looks like those overseas strategists treat combatants on the battlefield as units in a computer game.

While on the topic of Bakhmut or Artyomovsk, what the likes of General Milley11 chose to ignore is the embarrassing fact that some random convicts who were pulled out of prison cells in Russia to join the PMC Wagner^[+], given only a little time to train to fight in close combat under the leadership of a civilian businessman, who has never served in the military, have slaughtered the elite Ukrainian brigades^[+]^[»] and top mercenaries who have been trained by NATO for years and given the NATO weapons^[+] and who had a major advantage of committing twice as many manpower and using tunnels^[»] to reinforce and resupply their forces – how does all that square with NATO supposedly having the best military in the world and Ukrainians being the bravest and toughest soldiers in the world?! Arrogance is blinding.

Arrogant leaders are blinded by their sense of worth or importance and ego to such a degree that they are unable to perceive the threat of their rivals. While exaggerating their worth or importance, they think that by the simple elegance of their oratory, they are immune to the effects of their toxic actions. What they don't seem to understand is that everyone with enough brain cells can see right through them. Unfortunately, they surround themselves with people of lesser intelligence, which is why they keep on until some external force kicks their you-know-what. Never mind their words, study their actions and it will tell you everything you need to know.

Most of the speculation about Russia has proven wrong over the years, therefore another one on Ukrainian air defense being better than Russia's ability to use attack aircraft might be just one of those narratives to keep up the fighting morale of Ukrainians. Every time someone says the Russians cannot or may not do something, the Russians say, "Hold my vodka" and do it. Ukrainian air defense has indeed hampered Russia's ability to conduct air strikes – use aircraft, bombs, drones, and missiles but Russia has managed to use tactics to deplete the Ukrainian air defense system and so incapacitate it in due time. Of course, authorities from NATO states don't report these things to the public, just as they don't report any Ukrainian losses, giving the impression that Ukrainian losses are insignificant and that Ukrainians are winning, which can't be further from the truth. It took Pentagon leaks^[+] for the public to realize it was being lied to all along. Imagine how many other lies there are being spread by authorities.

Most people in the West prefer to see and interpret info as it fits their beliefs shaped by the narratives pushed by the state-sponsored Western mainstream media but if we want to end this horrific war, we need to face the reality. All who bought into the narrative that Russia wants to conquer Europe and that Putin^[+] is a madman are predisposed to turn a blind eye to all the facts and evidence to the contrary. It takes intelligence and thinking outside the box or an “information bubble” to grasp the truth and reality as it is.

If the US with the whole of NATO is superior to Russia, why do they fear Russia? Why haven't they since 2008 accepted Ukraine’s and Georgia’s application to join the Alliance, despite NATO’s so-called “open-door policy”? Even though to this day Ukraine doesn't fulfill all the criteria, the most common argument from top NATO leaders has been about not wanting to upset Russia^[+]^[+]. But why, if they claim they are superior to Russia and that Russia is a weakling (weaker even than Ukraine^[»])?

If Ukraine and Georgia were NATO members, the alliance would be obligated to defend them against Russia. But NATO doesn't want to confront Russia for some reason. Isn't that reason obvious? NATO can't beat Russia.

Russian Federation and especially Vladimir Putin (since he came to power in 2000) have not lost a single war12^[+]. They even won against the US-led coalition in Syria! They thwarted the US regime change operation in Syria.

By contrast, the US, which considers itself a number one military power in the world, has not won a single war since WW2! The list of American strategic and military defeats (failure to meet objectives) is longish: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, as well as Venezuela, Cuba, and Niger, not to mention all the failed attempts at regime change (just recently Belarus in 2005^[+], 2006, and 2020/2021^[+], Moldova in 2005^[+] and 2009^[+], Hungary in 2006^[+], 2011^[+], 2014^[+], 2018^[+], Russia in 2011-2013^[+], 2017/2018^[+], 2019^[+], 2021^[+], Syria ongoing since 2012^[+]^[+]^[+], Turkey in 2016^[+] and 2023^[+]^[+], Kazakhstan in 2022^[+], Venezuela in 2019^[+] and 2023^[+], Georgia in 2023^[+], Serbia in 2023^[+]^[+]…). The US could not even win against the Houthis in Yemen and Taliban in Afghanistan – it took the US four presidents, thousands of American lives, trillions of dollars, and 20 years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban! Nevertheless, Americans consider themselves the best military in the world, and in their delusional and bigheaded frame of mind, they somehow think they could win against Russia and China.

The US turned out to be a paper tiger – the number one military power only on paper when it comes to military spending but not when it comes to results and ROI13. The US may have superiority in quantity but not quality. After seeing its weaponry performing rather poorly in Ukraine, it’s fair to say the US arsenal has as much substance as the Emperor’s New Clothes. While everyone in the West has been admiring the emperor’s new clothes, Russia is disclosing that the emperor is naked. Kremlin never claimed to have the first or second-strongest military in the world or anywhere else as they do not engage in any type of pissing contest (a.k.a. d**k-measuring contest^[»]) like the US and NATO officials do, such as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken^[»] as well as US-puppet Zelensky^[+]. Even after the Ukrainian failed 2023 counteroffensive, NATO's chief Stoltenberg said^[»] that the “Russian army used to be the second strongest in the world but now it is the second strongest in Ukraine.” To whom was he talking there, idiots? Who could really believe that?

Let's look at the facts rather than listen to propagandists, shall we? To avoid accusations of “Russian propaganda”, we always use Western renowned sources.

For instance, US News & World Report reports^[+]^[+]^[ꚛ] (the owner is Mortimer Zuckerman, a son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants^[+], thus no Russian propaganda) and the World of Statistics^[+]^[ꚛ] military strength rankings rank Russia as No.1 military in the world while Ukraine is at No.6. Russia surpassed the US military in 2023, which means that the US goal to weaken Russia (drain its military resources) with the war in Ukraine not only failed but it weakened the US and made Russia stronger!

Russia beats the US with 10x smaller budget and less than half population

Even Kyiv's mayor, former boxer Vitaly Klitschko blurted that Russia is the most powerful army in the world when he was condemning^[+] Zelensky for firing Zaluzhny “For two years he [Zaluzhny] had successfully defended our country against the largest and most powerful army in the world.”

Also, Col. Doug Macgregor (retired US Army colonel and former Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of Defense), said^[»] in mid-June 2023 “Russians are probably the best army in the world at this point.” Coming from an American patriot of his stature, it means something. Like him, other military experts like US-based Andrei Martyanov^[+] and Carter Plymton Hydrick^[+] claim that America lost the arms race to Russia.

That reality may be a tough pill to swallow for the American ruling elite, especially given that they spend^[+]^[+] ten times more than the Russians for the military – $877bn vs. $86.4bn a year and given that the US GDP is more than ten times higher than that of Russia, which is not just embarrassing but it should be of great concern for the US tax-payers who’d rather see that money spent in constructive instead of destructive projects.

To truly understand a military’s effectiveness, military and intelligence analysts must investigate not only how it looks on a spreadsheet but also how it may function in the chaos and pressure of a battlefield. Having the best equipment and brave troops reveals little about how an army will perform in a war. What counts is not only advanced equipment and sufficient manpower but also the army’s ability to undertake complex operations and the robustness of its logistical capabilities, along with the proficiency, commitment, and morale of its soldiers as well as the military logic, resourcefulness, and ingenuity of its generals.

Open warfare often comes down to far more than the manpower and inventories that each side of the conflict can call upon. The war in Ukraine is a hybrid war, where military warfare is just one of many types of warfare in addition to economic warfare (sanctions, frozen assets), (dis)information warfare, psychological warfare^[+]^[+], cyber-attacks, geo-political engagement, communication14, etc. Military experts highlight the importance of intelligence, strategy, tactics, logistics, fighting spirit, and the like, whereby history experts, religious leaders, sages, astronomers, and astrologers point out some other factors determining the winners.

If you ask us, we believe that the winners are always those with a higher collective consciousness level, as verified by the Consciousness Theorem^[+] (the level of collective consciousness determines the level of collective achievement). God is in control and the winners are always those who are closer to God (those who have a higher level of consciousness).

Even if Western military and intelligence analysts took just basic metrics^[+] (such as numbers and types of tanks, aircraft, and manpower available to both sides) and Russian Military Doctrine^[+], they could have concluded that even with the NATO supplies, the Ukrainians had no chance, nonetheless, they drove the naïve and somewhat overconfident folk into the fire by empowering them with insufficient military aid.

As NATO and Ukraine prolong the war, Russians are improving their strategies and changing their plans accordingly. If Zelensky doesn't smarten up and negotiate a settlement, Russians might take^[+]^[+] the whole of the eastern bank of the Dnieper River as well as a land bridge to their folk (more than 220.000 Russian citizens) in Transnistria, including Odesa^[»]^[»]. Some say that asking Zelensky to smarten up is like asking a rock to sing opera :) but, hopefully, there are some authorities there who are capable of smartening up before it is too late, unless Maidan 315 does it.

In time, Russia will be able to dictate even harsher conditions for peace, just as Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin warned^[+] and Putin confirmed^[»].

With military inferiority, Ukrainian troops have little chance of survival, let alone advancement and it’s almost certain that Russia would not stop until it secures at least the territories that hold a southern gas pipeline leading to Crimea, including Sloviansk town in Donbas, which is the center of the Yuzivska deposit of precious shale gas^[+].

In other words, the longer the war goes on, the better is for Russia, which is to say that NATO leaders are doing Russia a favor by prolonging this war by giving Ukraine more weapons and false hopes. They’ll exhaust Ukrainian military capability eventually. That is why we urge Ukrainians to defend themselves from Kyiv regime disinformation, read here all the facts and accept this peace initiative ASAP before they lose more lives, territories, and natural resources.

Military Strategy

Everybody speculates constantly about this and that, especially about Russian enigmatic strategy, but nobody other than the leader of the country and his inner circle are really in on the game. Since MoDs do not share their plans with us, all of us can only speculate based on some evidence and historical facts. The key to success in any military is everyone down to the private having confidence that the top of the chain of command is competent and has ‘a plan’. We see that by the Russians but not by Ukrainians. Of course, there will be always some people who have no confidence in their leadership but if we compare the amount of evidence from both sides, Ukrainians are complaining much, much more about their leadership and their strategy, which is also one of many indicators that Ukraine can't win this war militarily.

Ukrainian soldier^[»]: “I do not know the plans of our government but it looks like the extermination of its own population.”
A viral video^[»] of Ukrainian soldier addressed to Gen. Zaluzhny and President Zelensky: “We will surely return. We will survive. Only not for the victory but to hang you faggots in Kyiv, on Maidan Square. And you better pray that the Russians get to you first. Maybe then you'll at least stay alive in jail!”

The main difference between Ukrainian and Russian military strategies is that Ukraine is focused on territorial gains and defense while Russia is focused on destroying Ukraine's military capabilities (increasing the Ukrainian military losses). In other words, Kyiv cares less for its manpower than for territorial gains readily sacrificing too many soldiers to seize small chunks of land like potato fields and farms while Kremlin rather withdraw its troops from territories than lose too many soldiers over it.

An army does not win a war by seizing ground but by defeating the other army.

Ukraine could lose everything. By choosing to fight for land, Kyiv will only lose more of it, according to Belarus President Lukashenko: “Yes, you can continue to struggle for these territories. I’m not telling you to give them up or anything. But choose another method. If you fight for these territories, you will lose those... Ukraine as we know it would cease to exist.”

When we talk about Russian military strategy we must refer to Russian Military Doctrine^[+], including Maskirovka^[+]. If you want to understand Putin’s reasoning^[+], you have to know “Maskirovka” – a geopolitical and military doctrine that covers a broad range of measures for deception, from camouflage, concealment, and disguise to denial, disinformation, and trickery; it is not limited to military operations as it includes strategic, political, and diplomatic objectives. Putin is a master of disguise, a mysterious character, and an enigmatic figure, fascinating many people with his mystique, which is an intrinsic and distinctive Russian trait. As a former KGB agent, Putin has obviously absorbed the old Maskirovka tactic and, as ruler, has perfected it with the help of his military intelligence service, the GRU.

Russia has had other priorities rather than becoming a military power, therefore its sluggish armaments industry prevented it from being adequately equipped with modern materials. It would have been certainly enough for fighting Ukraine but a conventional war with NATO would be unwinnable for Russia. For Putin, the Maskirovka Doctrine is therefore indispensable in the fight against the West, as NATO is a vastly numerically superior force. What Russia lacks in military capabilities it compensates with a sophisticated strategy.

Nevertheless, with the help of Maskirovka, Russians managed to fool the NATO smarty-pants and so are winning this NATO proxy war^[*^]^[+] against Russia in Ukraine despite being massively outnumbered^[+] and sanctioned.

The West or NATO has no military strategy in Ukraine. They foolishly think that mere sending weapons and Ukrainian troops would scare the Russians from going forward. Also, they think they can win this war by winning it on Twitter first, in their “fake it till you make it” farce.

We already covered the topic of clueless class of corrupt military bureaucrats exposing NATO chief's cognitive dysfunction but in this context, we need to again draw attention to the low intellectual level of NATO leaders, some of whom were not even elected but selected (cronyism) and most of whom got in power through dubious schemes as it turned out that the public does not approves of them at all, judging from extremely low approval ratings and the 2024 European parliamentary election results.

at the 2024 G7 Summit in Italy, right after many of them lost the EU parliamentary election

Judging from their obvious low IQ, it is clear they did not get appointed for their intellectual ability or competence but their willingness to fall in line and obey their puppet musters in Washington and Davos. They are clearly no diplomats, strategists, or cultured people but are ferocious tweeters with no manners who tweet what they are told. Since their tweets and other public statements are so synchronized, even using the identical phrases, there is no doubt they all get the same memo with talking points. They act without thinking, without a strategy. Whenever something happens, in a matter of seconds or minutes, they all tweet whose fault is that (of course, “evil Putin”).

And, while the Western leaders and media focus on smear campaigns and propping up the image of Zelensky and Ukraine, Western and Kyiv intelligence services focus on gathering data rather than on analyzing it, which explains poor quality of decision making.

Military experts like Jacques Baud (Swiss Colonel Chief of Staff, former secret service agent and head of Doctrine for UN peacekeeping operations in New York, author of “Russian Art of War”^[+]), explained^[»]^[»] Russian military strategy that NATO's halfwit leaders simply don’t get. While NATO and Kyiv only think on tactical level, which is only about moving troops around and destroying things, Russia think on operational and strategical level conducting large-scale operations, which are incomprehensible to the simpletons who just narrow-mindedly look at one field instead of the big picture.

For instance, sending troops to north around Kyiv in 2022 was an example of operational rather than just mere tactical undertaking art of Russian military, a master chess move. By that, they forced a bulk of Ukrainian military to stay north to defend Kyiv, which made it easier for Russian army to liberate Donetsk and Luhansk Republics, as well as create a Crimean land bridge with access to water and electricity, which was the main objective of Russian SMO. Since Russia did not do what NATO and Kyiv expected them to do, in their narrow-minded view and from mere tactical perspective, they declared that Russia failed in Kyiv region, which is moronic.

Operational art of war is different from the small-minded tactical art that NATO and Ukraine conduct. It is like a chess game to influence the decision making of the adversary, finding weak points and using creativity. You sacrifice a pawn on one side to advance massively on the other side. While Ukrainians are busy pounding their chest, singing praises about their glorious ability to defend Kyiv, Russians were taking advantage of Ukrainian pride parade and PR victory by seizing many other towns elsewhere and inflicting humongous losses on the Ukrainian army in line with their objective of demilitarization and denazification. What Russians are doing is art, not mere technical thinking and circus. This is a difference between country led by a showbiz clown and country led by an adept strategist.

Russians keep using their deceptive strategies and operations that Kyiv and NATO cannot grasp, looking at it all through the filters of their narrow minds. It is mind-boggling how NATO commanders could not see through Russia's military strategy and keep falling into traps again and again, especially in Kyiv in 2022, Bakhmut/Artyomovsk in 2023, and Kharkiv offensive in 2024. Each time Russians played them like fools as Ukraine sent their elite troops into traps while Russia makes gains elsewhere or buys time to regroup and acquire new weapons.

For instance, in 2023, Putin and his top commanders (generals Gerasimov and Surovikin) used PMC Wagner^[+]to tie up the best of the Ukrainian military in one fixation point (Bakhmut/Artyomovsk)

It is mind-boggling how NATO commanders could not see through Russia's military strategy and how Putin used PMC Wagner^[+] to tie up the best of the Ukrainian military in one fixation point (Bakhmut/Artyomovsk) to not only secure the land bridge to Crimea but also buy time to get the newly mobilized troops trained, large scale amount of equipment moved into Ukraine, and ramp up production of their JDAM weapon system with GPS-guided gliding bombs (designed to destroy highly protected military targets), which were a game-changer in this war.

Russia could probably not have pulled this off without a military unit such as the PMC Wagner Group, which mobilized Russian convicts as mercenaries, since Russia still to this day has not declared war on Ukraine and has not called for mass mobilization for full-scale war. When Russia started its special military operation (SMO) Russians didn’t mean to start a war, thus were not ready for a war, so all they did in the first year was buy time to empower themselves for war – not against Ukraine but against NATO (or to be precise, against the left liberals and globalists).

Regarding the Russian slow and soft approach, it must be noted that Russians are not in it to kill everyone and destroy everything. If they wanted massive death counts that would be happening from a computer nerd thousands of miles away. Russia has enough indestructible hypersonic missiles to level all Ukrainian towns. There are more Americans killed by drugs, stress, or junk food (cholesterol) than Ukrainians by bullets or shells in this war.

Nearly 108.000^[+] Americans died from drug overdoses in 2022. About 700.000 people in the US die from heart disease every year^[+]^[+]. In 2022, 48.204 people died from gun-related injuries in the US^[+], which might be more than killed Ukrainians (if we believe Zelensky^[+], some Pentagon’s KIA estimates^[+], or Mykhailo Podolyak^[+], an adviser to the head of the President's Office).

Russia has shown a great deal of restraint in the avoidance of massive casualties to Ukrainians. For example, they allow time for evacuations of civilians, and all their missile attacks have targeted military infrastructure causing minor casualties (many or most of which were caused by Ukrainian air defense such as S-300 anti-missiles).

The Russian approach is not what we saw America do in Iraq – just flat-out demolition of everything and killing off mass amounts of civilians. Russia is not against a nation; it is against a fascist regime^[*^] oppressing, terrorizing, and killing ethnic minorities. Russia is not at war with Ukraine but with Ukrainian neo-Nazis^[+] and NATO (who are the puppets of the left liberals and globalists).

So, they use a technique where they don't fully surround an area, always giving a possibility for the civilians to evacuate towns by encircling them from three sides and leaving one getaway side or corridor before they take towns, something the US army never does as they just move in linearly destroying everything or bombard everything with airstrikes. They also didn't plant mines when they withdrew from Kharkiv and Kherson, which was a big surprise to Ukrainians after they made much noise with warnings of mines at those times. They expected minefields probably because they would have done it if they were in Russian shoes, as they did in many places they were forced to leave such as Bakhmut/Artyomovsk. After seeing enough of how NATO-backed Ukrainians conduct the war, those moral inhibitions about land mines were gone by the time the Ukrainian counteroffensive started in June 2023.

Apart from allowing civilian evacuation, incomplete or semi-encirclements have been used as a trap for Ukrainian soldiers who unaware of it willingly go in and die in tens of thousands, unfortunately. As some commentators observe and Russian commanders point out, the Russian military prefers to leave a cauldron open with an open corridor rather than completely closing off the area because, this way, Ukrainians continue reinforcing and dying in a trap. If the cauldron was closed, the trapped Ukrainians would surrender and Russia would have to take care of the prisoners, which would cost too many resources that they need more for further fighting. As it turns out, semi-encircled towns become black holes in which tens of thousands of Ukrainians disappear without Russians having to do much – just wait to lure and exhaust the adversary, like a spider web. As Wagner soldiers fighting in Bakhmut/Artyomovsk have been pointing, the point was never to take the city but to bleed the Ukrainian army dry^[»] or to grind the Ukrainian military down or demilitarize it or remove the threat to Russia.

Yevgeny Prigozhin^[+] leader of the Russian Wagner Group^[+] that captured Bakhmut:
“On October 8, 2022, together with Army General Surovikin, it was decided to launch the Bakhmut meat grinder operation – an assault on the Bakhmut settlement to provoke Zelensky to throw in as much as possible forces to hold Bakhmut. In Bakhmut, we had to grind the AFU, hence the name - “Bakhmut meat grinder”^[+]
“PMC Wagner completed its task in Bakhmut - the goal of the "Bakhmut meat grinder" was not to take the city, but to grind the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”^[+]
“Our task is not Bakhmut itself but the destruction of the Ukrainian Army and reduction of its combat potential”^[»]
“Bakhmut is a meat grinder. We’re losing our best men… That’s why my opinion is that we should have left Bakhmut already, much earlier.” – Ukrainian general Krivonos^[»]

Like true armchair generals, many pro-NATO military analysts and penpushers mock Russia for not making any progress on the ground and for being extremely slow according to their simple-minded military logic and expectations (as if Russians are supposed to act to meet the adversary’s expectations instead of tricking them). As if this war is a video game in which the outsiders may adjust speed to suit their desires.

Russians have no incentive to seize demolished towns, so they primarily stay on the defensive to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine more effectively that way.

Russians are not working for a calendar; they are working for results and results are phenomenal for Russia and there is nothing Ukraine can do to flip that script. Russians accomplished all their key objectives and then some. On top of that, they crashed NATO states’ economies and won the hearts of the rest of the world nations that have been subjected to atrocities and exploitation of NATO states for centuries, who see Putin and Russians as the saviors of the civilized world.

Defying NATO expectations, Russians are moving at their own judicious pace, determining not just the tempo but also the nature of this war – due to satellites and reconnaissance drones being able to expose movements, this is not a war of movement but a war of attrition^[+]^[+], which explains why Russia is not moving much and rushing but methodically defeating Ukrainian and NATO forces at the fixation points it has created at places such as 2015’s Debaltsevo^[+], Mariupol, Lisichansk-Severodonetsk, Bakhmut/Artyomovsk^[»], and Avdeevka^[+] (nickname Bakhmut 2.0). Russians used those precious towns to Ukrainians as the epicenters of the war to only partially surround them so as to keep luring the best of Ukrainian military forces into those black holes, so to speak, while buying time to build their army (train the newly mobilized forces and rump up the arms production). The metric to judge success in a war of attrition is certainly not territorial gains nor it is a pace of advance.

A war of attrition is not about taking land, it is about grinding the enemy down, which Russians excel at by using a very effective semi-encirclement military strategy (some call it awfully “the meat grinder”) that serves as a trap to grind down the AFU16. Ukrainians are foolishly and willingly falling into such traps for many months by sending ever more of their best men into it, causing tens of thousands of troops to die there, unfortunately. The ingenuous Ukrainian command had been corralling them all into one place (each semi-encircled town), like lambs before slaughter. The point of the semi-encirclement or partial surrounding tactic is to leave an open corridor to lure the adversary into a trap. As they come in, they come under heavy Russian artillery attacks, like shooting fish in a barrel. Scattered groups of Ukrainian troops end up as sitting ducks in the face of coordinated strikes by Russian forces. All Russians need to do is just wait for them to fall into the trap, like a spider web, without as many casualties on their side. The offense is more demanding than the defense and so, a defending force has usually a 3:1 advantage over an attacker. In other words, a defending force can hold off three times its own number of attackers. But with this genius tactic, Russians turned that upside down with, for instance, in Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, their Wagner force consisting of much fewer committed troops and suffering much fewer losses than Ukrainians (Wagner committed^[+]^[+] 78.000 troops [49.000 were prisoners] to the Bakhmut battle, while AFU committed around 150.000 troops in 221 units^[+]. Wagner's leader Prigozhin said^[+] Ukraine had suffered up to 120.000 casualties with 50.000 dead and 50.000-70.000 wounded. 22.000 Wagner fighters had been killed, 40.000 wounded^[+]^[+]).

We wish Ukrainians were smarter than that. Instead, they fall into these traps and prefer to interpret it as Russian inability to seize towns quickly due to Ukrainian bravery. More like stupidity, although we don't discount the bravery of many of them (most Ukrainians are not brave). However, bravery without intelligence is not bravery, says an Arab proverb. Bravery without intelligence is recklessness, which is a flaw rather than a virtue. What good is all the courage in the world without a bit of intelligence? To be brave and bold while acting on hatred, whims, and nonsensical notions, what good is that? The bravest are the ones who hate Russians the most – is hatred-based bravery something to admire? That kind of reckless action is one of the reasons the Ukrainians are losing this war despite all the bravery, advanced weaponry, and technology. As Ukrainians are busy pounding their chest, singing praises about their glorious ability to defend towns, Russians are taking advantage of their mistakes by inflicting humongous losses on the Ukrainian army in line with their objective of demilitarization. Probably taking a leaf out of Napoleon’s playbook: Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.

The resilience of Ukrainian resistance is admirable for a Western think-tank and military community but appalling is their indifference to immense losses, astronomical costs, vast destruction, and horror. Also, how admirable is it to be able to resist or defend territories when Ukrainian forces have mobilized more than twice as many soldiers as Russia^[*^]?! Given that Ukrainians outnumber the Russians in the warzone to such a great extent and have all the NATO arms, training, and other support, it should have been a cakewalk rather than a daunting task to defend their positions (especially knowing the military fact that the army on the offense – Russians – need three times more men to make any advances). With twice as many soldiers on the battlefronts, Ukrainians should have not just resisted or defended but pushed Russians away but they haven’t managed it – what does that say about their capability and bravery? And what does that say then about the Russian capability and bravery? We gave you the data and you can make your own conclusions. Ours is that there is no better or worse side, no difference on the whole, no duality, just miserable people with strong convictions and tenacity in horror circumstances.

Russian military strategy is quite different from that of NATO, which is why NATO-led Ukrainians suffer enormous losses due to misunderstanding Russian tactics and misinterpreting them as Russians being weak. Clearly, Russian generals are masters at deceptive tactics when they are winning the war but making the adversary believe otherwise, despite the obvious results on the ground as visible on all military maps. This stratagem serves as an incentive to lure ever more troops into Russian traps, like spider webs. A good tactician plays with his adversary as a cat plays with a mouse, first feigning weakness and immobility, and then suddenly pouncing upon him.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper17, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.” – Sun Tzu
Cholerics are easily emotionally roused, thus think far less and so are open to simple traps. Those who easily become angry often do this as a way of feeling powerful but this is just an illusion that with other flaws of arrogance, anger, hatred, etc. makes them weak and leads to failure.

Russians don't measure progress in ground gained but in increasing the Ukrainian military losses, as the Russian main mission is to demilitarize Ukraine not to occupy it. Russian commanders’ task is not to seize territories but to destroy the Ukrainian Army and reduce its combat potential. Russians do not win a war by seizing ground but by killing the soldiers and destroying their weapons. Seizing ground is then a natural consequence. Territory gains by Russia are only a byproduct of the SMO^]^[+] objective to exterminate the Armed Forces of Ukraine (to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine). The last thing Russia wants is to take insignificant places like Bakhmut/Artyomovsk. They used many towns as traps^[»], where they lure AFU rather than hunt them.

Everyone who has a pretty sound knowledge of military history understands that the best way to attrite the other side's assets is by somehow getting them to attack your prepared defenses. It requires that they leave their bunkers and expose themselves out in the open where they become relatively easy prey for your artillery and air strikes. That's how AFU lost an army while gaining insignificant territories in the fall of 2022 and again in the summer of 2023, which was General Armageddon's18 whole plan in ordering a tactical retreat in Kherson and building a formidable defensive line (a.k.a. Surovikin Defensive Line^[+]) fully equipped to decimate the opponent on the offensive with minimal own casualties and maximal demilitarization of the AFU.

The Western pundits have been shouting from the rooftops how Russia failed in the expected winter 2022 offensive that never even took place. Russia never announced an offensive and was instead busy strengthening its defenses. Russia doesn't need an offensive. The semi-encirclement tactic (a.k.a. "meat grinder") plays well into Russia's deep battle strategy. The deep battle starts with a stalemated front line. Where you have stacks and stacks of artillery pounding the adversaries as they try to break through or hold their post. Russians are like, why get a darned cat when the mice insist on throwing themselves on the traps?! When the AFU exhausts itself, then AFRF19 will go on the so-called offensive that will be more like a walk in a park.

“*The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting*.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This fighting a war without fighting and non-linear20 war conduct is also known as the Gerasimov doctrine^[+]^[+] based on his views that “the role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness.” And based on Russia taking Crimea without a fight, without a single shot being fired. That was a Russian masterpiece. Russia has a long history of taking neighboring lands without a force, through treaties.

You will never understand what is happening in this war if you only look at the military dimension. The economic, diplomatic, and geo-political levels of the war are at least just as important, and arguably more important than what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. Engineers say: “Everyone can build a bridge that holds but it takes a professional to build a bridge that holds... with minimal expenses and maximal returns”. That's what Russia is doing in the military sense: managing the conflict with minimal losses possible while achieving all its objectives. Russian victory over Ukraine is not a matter of if, but how, taking all the levels of the Great Game^[+]^[+] into consideration.

Thank you for reading this article and participating in this peace initiative by raising your awareness and, hopefully, your consciousness and spirit. To properly grasp everything, we^[*^]recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative for Ukraine in the proper order, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we recommend that you do. This article is part of the “Reality Checks” segment debunking NATO & Kyiv propaganda. When you are ready, proceed to the next piece in this series: Military Equipment

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