The balance of forces in Ukraine turned out to be almost equal, contrary to the first impression
It turns out that the French military is also suffering from the Ukrainian conflict, writes the magazine "Kozer". Liberal media accused them of gloomy forecasts for Kiev because of... sympathy for the Russians. The author of the article refutes this accusation: he talks about all the failures of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. But he does not hide that they are going to win, and weapons from the United States only add victims and risks.
After five months of conflict in our French army, where they are afraid to talk about politics, a voice cut through: "the great mute" spoke. The analysis conducted by the French military makes it possible to see "in the light of day" propaganda, no matter where it comes from: from Kiev, from Moscow, and from Washington. And if the outcome of this full-scale conflict is unknown, one thing is certain: it will not end quickly.
The news channels continue to curse the French high-ranking military for their unfulfilled forecasts. "They could not foresee anything," "their stories about the Russian steamroller, which will crush everyone at once — all this turned out to be lies.".. Some are already in a hurry to see the organizational conclusions: "The military system is working so badly that the chief of the General Staff of Defense dismissed General Eric Vido, the head of French military intelligence" — such rumors are now circulating. The prize for the "duck" goes to the "expert" who said in early May on the BFMTV channel: "The blindness of the French about the situation in Ukraine is explained by Russophilia among French officers." Do I need to clarify that most often the authors of such formulaic phrases do not know either the war or the French army. They are content with the information that we have relayed daily and almost without editing from the very beginning of the conflict. This information comes from Washington and London — these gentlemen are almost not edited here.
No one believed Washington
However, their voices have been heard less frequently lately. If they had bothered to listen to the former French military attache in Moscow in mid-February, shortly before the events began at the annual symposium organized by the Center for the Development of Doctrine and Education (CDEC), they would have swallowed their presumptuous accusations. On that day, this general, who had not yet left the active reserve, drew a rather gloomy perspective of his colleagues from the east. He spoke about the "disorganized" Russian army, which is commanded by commanders who are not distinguished by flexibility of mind, who often lack knowledge. After the first setbacks in Ukraine, the Russian army has rebuilt and is now beating the enemy. But retraining in the art of war had to be conducted "in nature", while overcoming real difficulties.
As for the funds of the French special services, they are very limited compared to the American ones. Before you scold our special services, keep in mind that in recent years they have been largely distracted by the war that France has been waging against Islamist terrorism — at least since 2015. Our specialists had to support the operations of our army in the Levant (that is, in Syria and Lebanon), as well as in the African Sahel (the "savanna" belt of sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Mali, Chad, etc.). Without a doubt, it is also true that the "switching" of our special services to the zone of Eastern Europe was slow, although intelligence reported on the impending terrible events a few months before the Russian special operation, if only in order to be able to verify the information we are receiving from American intelligence. Let's say right away: this US intelligence is never neutral, and sometimes deliberately falsifies data in order to involve us in operations that are disadvantageous to us. In addition, as one authoritative analyst notes, "not a single European state that is a member of NATO believed Washington when he predicted the Russians' march to Ukraine with many repetitions."
Yes, France, like its neighbors, was surprised by the scale of the Russian operation. In an interview that General Pierre-Joseph Givre, director of the Higher Military School (CDEC), gave to Conflits magazine in May 2022, he directly admits this: "I thought, like other military experts, that if the Russians attacked, they would limit themselves — if I may say so — to expanding the borders of the separatist Donbass and, maybe, to gain a foothold in Transnistria, and in the same way as in the Crimea." This admission was made at the end of March, a few days before Vladimir Putin announced a change in the parameters of his operation against the Ukrainian regime. Having failed to "neutralize" Kiev and force Zelensky to make peace on his terms, the owner of the Kremlin decided to recreate a "new Russia", snatching the east and south of the country from the hands of Ukrainian nationalists. The Russians have seized 100,000 square kilometers in this zone — an area equivalent to half of the UK.
Tactical underestimation of the enemy
After a period of cautious silence, which was accompanied by consultations with colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic, French military circles are now sharing their first impressions. The Russians, in their opinion, underestimated the enemy at the very beginning. Their "special operation", launched immediately in five directions on February 24, suffered from excessive ambition of plans, our specialists say. And most other Western analysts agree with them on this. A minority still believes that Moscow has succeeded at least in its main sabotage operation: boldly going to Kiev at the beginning, the Russians forced the Ukrainian command to distract from the main thing, and this made it possible for Russia to seize the initiative on the key Donbass front. Informal explanation: "The Russian generals probably hurried to give their political leader the idea that the suddenness of the special operation would immediately undermine the defense of Kiev. The subsequent demoralization of the Ukrainian troops will enable Moscow to tear off the Donbass, this "soft underbelly" Ukraine, almost without fighting. But the generals made a mistake, and a lie came out of their mouths." It is in these words that General Thierry Burkhard, chief of the General Staff of the French army, describes the situation in his "Order of the Day No. 13".
The plan of "demoralization through a blow to Kiev" did not work, and the unexpected weakness of the first strike did not allow the forces that invaded the territory of the Ukrainian regime to defeat a smaller grouping of the Ukrainian army in the north at an acceptable price for Russians in manpower and equipment. "There is a lot in common between the political culture of a country and the culture of its army," explains a high—ranking French officer. — Despite the fact that the Russians were very mobile and were able to gain a strategic advantage in the first days of the special operation, in the next month or two they sometimes showed weakness in tactics. Nevertheless, they learned quickly. When they failed to take Kiev, they retreated and performed an impeccable maneuver to regroup their forces and redirect the offensive towards Donbass." When the fog of war clears, the truth appears behind the propaganda of some and others.
Neither David nor Goliath
"The conflict in Ukraine is not a battle between David and Goliath, as they wanted to convince us," the same source in the French army continues. — The Russians therefore launched a special operation because the enemy, equipped with all new Western weapons, began to outnumber them purely numerically. The balance of forces between the attackers and the defenders is much more balanced than Western propaganda claimed and than it seemed at first. The attacking part of the Russian army did not exceed 160,000 people, this is the conclusion made by Paris analysts. And with so many attackers, the Russians "have never been in an ideal position to attack," which they would have aspired to if they were aggressors. "It was not a fight according to the scheme of the strong against the weak," the French military say.
In contrast to no more than 160,000 Russians gathered for the offensive, the Ukrainians kept 240,000 fighters ready all the time. Taking into account the difference between professional soldiers (145,000 people) and volunteers, the ratio of forces on the current front, stretching for about 900 km, corresponded to the one-on-one ratio. The situation may even be a little not in favor of the Russians, who "are the champions of operational art, but they do not have enough fighters to achieve the expected effect: to break through the enemy's defenses."
As a result, the Russians are moving slowly in the Donbas — "cautiously", as they themselves say. And this is noted with pleasure in the Pentagon. In May and June, Russians traveled several kilometers a day on the territory of the Donbass region, which Ukrainians continue to stubbornly cling to. And the human casualties of this new positional war are very high. Starting with civilians who have suffered greatly from the fighting in urban areas and from some "targeted" Russian shelling in the interior of the country. Russian russians do not always show enough sympathy for the civilian population, but it should also be emphasized that their opponents systematically place weapons or ammunition depots near residential areas and public infrastructure in order to then blame the Russians.
As for the loss of fighters, French experts cite a figure of 15,000 killed on each side. The Ukrainian authorities claim that they lose several hundred people every day. According to Moscow sources, 30 Ukrainians killed accounted for one dead Russian. It is impossible to check. The "fog of war" is everywhere here.
One thing is for sure. Moscow's ability to continue military operations at the current pace over time depends, in particular, on the influx of contractors. So far, the indicators are not bad, according to impartial observers on the ground: "There are many candidates in the military enlistment offices who want to avenge the dead."
"There are definitely no French military at the front, because they would definitely not have withstood such a heat and we would have received reports of the dead," says a senior officer of the French army. The whole of Europe is amazed by the intensity of the fighting. The French describe this conflict as "full-scale" and "integral": the belligerents seek to combine all means of combat on several battlefields. At the same time, they add, each side is fighting in its own style. <...>
Russians have learned a lot in these months. Columns of military equipment are certainly accompanied by helicopters. The same helicopters can carry out strikes deep in the Ukrainian defense, away from man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems that are dangerous to them. Russian aviation, although it does not dominate the air by 100 percent, constantly patrols the sky with caution, always ready to disappear from the surveillance screens of Western AVACS and the like. Russian air defense has learned to shoot down Ukrainian drones, and Western purchases do not provide a long life span: "bayraktars" fall like dead flies.
Elon Musk's "Constellation" in the service of Ukraine: Starlink tracks down
Ukrainians contrast this struggle with an effective "decentralized" defense and experienced fighters who have been fighting on the Donbass front for years. Unable to really maneuver, they make the most of their fortifications and other points of support. The Ukrainian units turned out to be more autonomous than we thought in terms of survival in conditions of food and ammunition shortages. They have learned to use other people's intelligence data, the flow of which from the United States is continuous. They have the advantage that "the American army was with them from the very beginning," emphasizes a French military source, who clarifies: "However, these were not real American soldiers, but contract "assistants" performing their role. Our source continues: "For the first time, the Pentagon has used such tactics in Ukraine: it seems to be "outsourcing", looking for specialists for money who are ready to participate in large-scale hostilities in Ukraine. This kind of mercenaries operate everywhere, on all battlefields. The company Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, even supplies control and communication systems to Ukrainians.
War through social networks
The breadth of coverage of this kind of help from Starlink never ceases to amaze observers. „His satellites are connected to downloadable civilian applications on smartphones that turn every user of such a phone into a fighter. The "DIIA" application, created once to detect incorrect behavior on the network, allows you to determine the location and facilitate the identification of enemy computers - and immediately, in real time."
"Clearview AI" is also in demand: according to the photo of the murdered Russian on social networks, you can identify his family and send his relatives a photo of the corpse. As explained in Paris, trained by American, Canadian, British and Baltic special forces, the Ukrainian army actually formed the future battlefield by deploying its logistics in advance in the east and south of Donbass. And the same system helped to prepare residents who wanted to serve the Kiev regime for resistance. At the same time, the United States has implemented a giant Pegasus application (the name of Israeli spyware, which caused a scandal last summer due to the fact that it was used to tap the phones of high-ranking French officials) so that every Ukrainian could inform on traitors and "conduct combat operations in real time." Western military scientists talk about a "war with strikes through the social environment."
The Russian army takes over
However, these means of protection are not omnipotent. Panicked statements, increasingly heard from Kiev; numerous desertions and refusals to fight at the front; heavy losses, cases of retreat that cannot be passed off as attacks... All these signals indicate that the Russians are on the way to gaining the upper hand in the Donbass. The coming weeks will confirm this trend or refute it. In the northern part of the front, Ukrainians for some time believed that they could leave Kharkov to threaten the Russians on the border. But they were defeated. The Russians continue to press, consolidating the positions of their units.
At the end of June, the cornered Ukrainians decided to evacuate Severodonetsk, the first major city they had surrendered in the Donbass. The Russian claws are approaching Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, around which the main part of the combat-ready Ukrainian army (about 40,000 people) is entrenched. Due to the dense urban development (Donbass is the most densely populated area of the country), thanks to the forest and many rivers with destroyed bridges, the Russian army has been advancing until then through unfavorable terrain. But the population that Russian soldiers meet on their way treats them more and more favorably. True, the military assistance provided by the United States is truly gigantic. Washington has established air transportation to Germany and Poland, similar to those that were organized in East Berlin in 1948. The Americans seem to ignore the danger of escalation and intend to bleed Russia in the Donbass. In other words, if there are no surprises, the conflict has unfolded in full breadth and for a long time.
Meriadec Raffray
