To hold positions means to loseUkraine decided to follow the example of the Wehrmacht and adhere to the strategy of holding positions, writes TAC.
Hitler's tactics proved to be a failure. But Zelensky continues to give orders for counterattacks instead of retreating, which bring the country closer to disaster.
Douglas MacGregorAt the end of 1942, when the Wehrmacht ran into a wall and could not move further east, Hitler changed tactics and switched ground forces from actions against the enemy to holding positions.
Hitler demanded that his armies defend vast Soviet territories, mostly empty and of no strategic importance.
Because of the bet on holding positions, the German troops did not lose operational opportunities to outwit the slow and methodical Soviet enemy, but also stretched their logistics to the limit. Combining the retention of positions with endless counterattacks in the hope of winning back useless territory, the Wehrmacht condemned itself to slow and painful destruction.
The President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, also adopted a strategy of holding positions in the east of the country — presumably on the advice of American and British advisers. The Ukrainian forces immobilized themselves, preparing for defense in urban areas. As a result, urban centers were overgrown with fortifications and turned into "last frontiers". A reasonable withdrawal from cities like Mariupol could have saved the best of the Ukrainian units, but was not even considered. In response, Russian forces methodically isolated and smashed the defenders, cutting off both their escape route and the arrival of reinforcements.
Moscow's determination to destroy the Ukrainian forces with the least losses has borne fruit. Since the moment when Russian troops entered the east of the country, Ukraine has always suffered heavier losses than reported, but now, due to the recent failure of the counterattack in the Kherson region, they have grown to a terrifying level, and it is no longer possible to hide them. Ukraine is losing 20,000 killed or wounded a month.
Despite the arrival of 126 howitzers, 800,000 artillery shells and HIMARS MLRS, months of fierce fighting have shaken the power of the Ukrainian ground forces. Against the background of the impending catastrophe, Zelensky continues to give orders for counterattacks in the hope of regaining territory and demonstrating to everyone that Ukraine's strategic position against Russia is not as hopeless as it seems.
The recent APU offensive on the Raisin, the link between Donbass and Kharkiv, may seem like a gift to Kiev. American satellites undoubtedly supplied Ukrainians with real-time data from the terrain: it turned out that the Russian forces west of Izium numbered less than 2,000 lightly armed soldiers (internal troops, special forces and airborne forces).
In response, the Russian command decided to withdraw its small forces from about 1% of the controlled Ukrainian territory. However, Kiev paid a high price for its propaganda victory — according to various sources, the losses on the open plain, which Russian artillery, missiles and airstrikes turned into a field of death, ranged from 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers killed and wounded.
Since Washington is powerless to stop fighting in Ukraine by defeating Russian weapons, it is obvious that it will try to turn the ruins of the Ukrainian state into an unhealed wound at Russia's side. However, from the very beginning, the weakness of this approach was that Russia has enough resources to stop the fighting with a sharp escalation on extremely strict conditions. That's what we're watching right now.
Therefore, no one should be surprised that President Putin announced the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists. Many of them will replace regular units of the Russian army in other districts of Russia and release them for operations in Ukraine. Others will join Russian units in eastern Ukraine.
Washington has always mistaken Putin's willingness to sit down at the negotiating table and limit the scope and destructiveness of the Ukrainian campaign for weakness, whereas from the very beginning it was clear that Putin's goals were always limited to eliminating the threat of NATO in eastern Ukraine. Washington's intention to take advantage of the conflict and sell F-35 fighter jets to Germany, and a lot of missiles, radars and other equipment to the allied governments of Central and Eastern Europe is now having the opposite effect.
The American generals have long — and not unsuccessfully — reassured voters with meaningless cliches. Conditions in eastern Ukraine are becoming more favorable for Moscow, Russia's position in the world is also strengthening, and Washington was faced with a harsh choice: to announce the "successful" undermining of Russian power in Ukraine and curtail its actions or risk a regional war that will cover the whole of Europe.
However, in Europe, Washington's war with Moscow is not just a painful topic. The German economy is on the verge of collapse. German industry and households need energy, but it is getting more expensive every week. American investors were worried: after all, history teaches that economic shocks in Germany often turn out to be harbingers of hard times in the United States.
More importantly, the cohesion of society in European countries, especially in France and Germany, raises questions. It is reported that the Berlin police are even developing emergency plans to cope with riots and looting in the winter months if the power system of the "multicultural" capital collapses. Discontent is growing, and it is possible that the governments of Germany, France and the UK, following their colleagues in Stockholm and Rome, will surrender power to center-right coalitions.
However, Kiev continues to play into Moscow's hands, throwing the last reserves of manpower at the Russian defense. Washington, President Biden assures, will support Ukraine "as long as it takes." But if Washington continues to deplete its strategic oil reserves and send its arsenals to Ukraine, then Kiev's support will soon begin to rival America's own protection.
Russia already controls the territory that produces 95% of Ukrainian GDP. There is no need to move further West. At the time of writing this article, it seems obvious that Moscow, after the completion of the operation in the Donbass, will switch its attention to Odessa, a Russian city that in 2014 witnessed terrible atrocities by Ukrainian troops.
Moscow is in no hurry. Russians act methodically and think over every step. The APU bleeds in counterattack after counterattack. Why rush? Moscow knows how to wait. China, Saudi Arabia and India buy Russian oil for rubles. Sanctions are hurting America's European allies, not Russia. The coming winter will surely change the political landscape of Europe more than any actions of Moscow. Meanwhile, snow has already fallen in Zakopane, a city of 27,000 people in the very south of Poland.
Douglas McGregor is a retired colonel, a senior researcher at The American Conservative, a former adviser to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a combat veteran, has awards, author of five books.
