Half a year of the “SMO” – TTG

The Russian volunteer and blogger Murz who has been deeply involved with providing repairs and collecting aid for the so-called “People’s Militia” of the so-called “Donbass Republics” has published his view of the results of the six months of the special operation. It is somewhat of a long post but the level of self-awareness (with few exceptions) of Murz is quite striking.

As already mentioned, the Russian leadership prefers to turn a blind eye to problems during the SMO, hoping that this will make the problems disappear. The leadership of Russia is moving into another reality (and the Republics are following it). Problems do not disappear, and then we hear amazing explanations for the slow pace of the offensive – “we are deliberately advancing so slowly so that fewer civilians die.”

The reality is that in the spring the Russian Federation killed all those forces with which were able to carry out large-scale encirclement operations. No encirclement operations, no decisive turning point in the course of war. I already wrote about it. The enemy will slowly retreat in those places where they will be pressed by the artillery powerfully enough, but they will retreat to prepared positions occupied by the reserves deployed. To “grind” their cheap infantry in this way without having enough of our own proper infantry can take a very long time and not bring much success.

As already mentioned, instead of the normal replenishment of currently fighting troops, a program has been launched to form new units “from scratch”. We will observe the slaughter of this wave of “volunteers” over Ukrainian positions, including the next three-month-old “BARS” [special reserve initiative in Russia] during the fall. With no mobilisation there will be no fully-fledged replenishment of troops. Are you forming new units in conditions of a general shortage of personnel and communications? They will initially turn out to be uncontrollable, roll out in dense columns to the front line and be wrecked by the enemy artillery and MLRS.

Well, the remnants of experienced infantry professionals are now being finished in completely wild conditions of further attempts to storm the Ukrainian positions around Donetsk.

If there will be no mobilisation in the Russian Federation – the frontline will not just stop, but will begin to slowly roll back in places in the opposite direction. To the sounds of “Kalibrs” flying over the heads of the ukrops somewhere into their rear.

This is a war to destroy Russia, no one will agree to any compromise peace, unless the very fact of its agreeing is included in the mechanism of a coup d’état in the Russian Federation. And this war, with excellent chances of winning our leadership has every chance of squander.

[…]

As for the texts, I will try to finish in the foreseeable future the text about communications, about why it does not exist, and I hope I will somehow have time to write about the drones that do not exist. And so in general there is nothing to argue about, there is nothing to prove. There are people who understand what kind of ass we are in, and people who have moved to another reality, with their information servants following them.

https://wartranslated.com/lpr-volunteer-murz-on-the-6-month-results-of-the-smo-we-are-in-the-as/

Comment: This is just an excerpt of an assessment of the state of Putin’s special military operation at the six month mark by Murz. It speaks more to conditions among the DNR and LNR militias. Of all the combatants in this conflict, these militias have suffered the most. In the LNR, what’s left of the militia no longer sees a need to continue the fight beyond the border of their republic. In response, Moscow has deployed units of the Rosgvardia to keep their brother republic in line.

Murz is Andrey Morozov, a Russian war blogger who was first inspired to travel to the Donbas by the early exploits of Igor Strelkov. He is a true believer in the cause of the Donbas republics. My opinion is that those republics are truly and royally screwed. The DNR and LNR never recovered from the devastation of the 2014 to 2015 fighting. The dedicated and competent rebel patriots were killed off first by Kyiv and then by Moscow. What was left has descended into a 1930s gulag. As Murz notes, the militias and militia aged males of the Donbas have been largely sacrificed to Putin’s SMO. No matter who wins the war, the Donbas republics have lost.

TTG

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21 Responses to Half a year of the “SMO” – TTG

  1. VietnamVet says:

    TTG

    The level of propaganda on all sides, the West and the Russian Federation, is astonishing. In the first Cold War and Vietnam, the media in the West was at least in touch with reality while the message was being massaged. Walter Cronkite was forced to retire at 65 because he reported that the Vietnam War was unwinnable after the Tet Offensive.

    Now all sides believe in their own propaganda. Neither side is mobilizing. There are no peace negotiations. Each side is intent on provoking a color revolution in the other — Moscow or Berlin. This is a stalemated war of attrition. After six months, it is becoming clear that neither side is capable of maneuver warfare. Europe is seeing astonishing high, unaffordable, energy bills. This has been a hell of a summer. A Winter without heat and with shortages of food and goods is certain to cause unrest. Hungary is the only national government that appears to care about the fate of its people. This is a proxy world war that profits only the wealthy, without end. The trench lines will likely extend from the Baltic to the Black Seas.

    This is about as close to World War I as one can possibly get in the nuclear age.

    The enforcing the rule of law on the Oligarchy (given a free pass by Eric Holder and Barrack Obama) and the restoration of sovereign national governments that serve their people, offers a way out of the calamity.

  2. Fred says:

    TTG,

    What is the source of the translation?

    Murz: “To “grind” their cheap infantry in this way without having enough of our own proper infantry can take a very long time and not bring much success.”

    That depends upon one’s definition of success.

    ” The dedicated and competent rebel patriots …. the militias and militia aged males of the Donbas have been largely sacrificed …”

    I agree with your sentiment. Didn’t these folks understand that when the neocons and their traditional enemies engaged in a proxy war they would be in the middle and played by both sides?

    • TTG says:

      Fred,

      This is from the site, War Translated, run by someone going by the name of Dmitri. He’s Estonian, but his parents were Russian and came to Estonia during the Soviet times. The site translates a lot of Russian writings and interviews into English. It’s at the link.

      I’m sure the Donbas rebels were grateful for Russian assistance in the early days. They weren’t in a position to refuse the aid and never understood how little the Russians cared about their fate. Moscow did little for the DNR/LNR beyond giving them enough weapons and ammo to confront Kyiv.

      • fredw says:

        I have seen it asserted that the consolidation of Ukrainian support for their government was driven in large part by local elites observing how the pro-Russian elites in DNR/LNR were treated. Becoming part of that was not an attractive prospect.

      • Fred says:

        TTG,

        Well we did have the French help us out in 1776, but had a quasi-war with them not many years later. Now we are still entangled in the Old World, to our detriment it appears.

  3. Barbara Ann says:

    It appear Murz’ post struck a nerve, his LiveJournal account (link in TTG’s post) now reads as follows:

    This entry has been suspended and is not available for reading.
    The reason for this suspension: This entrу was suspended in accordance with the requirement from The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roscomnadzor) based on the article 10.6 of Federal Law “On amending the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information”.

    Thankfully someone saved a copy of his post in the Wayback Machine.

    “If there will be no mobilisation in the Russian Federation – the frontline will not just stop, but will begin to slowly roll back in places in the opposite direction”

    Didn’t Col. Lang predict exactly this some while back, to widespread disbelief?

    • Bill Roche says:

      BA: Yes Col Lang predicted this. The Russians went beyond their capabilities of resupply in mat’ls and men. Russia went too far too fast. Who is to say that the UM has the “juice” to push’em back. So both sides stop, rest, resupply. Putin has called for 137,000 more men but they cant find their way into battle b/f 7/23. He expects winter, rising food prices, and public dissent to remove western European support for Ukraine by Christmas time. I think he’s right. “Time time time, is on my side, yes it is”. I really hated the Stones but they’re right on this, so is Putin. Western Europe will desert Ukraine. What will the Poles, Finns, Balts, and Slovaks do … ahhh, that is the question. If they let the Ukrainians hang out to dry then, IMHO, Putin is right about them, they are unter mensch.

      • cobo says:

        The alternate potential is that Western Europe realizes that their problem is Russia, and they gear up to go take what they need. With Lukashenko threatening nuclear armed fighters, Zaporizhzhia and Putin’s constant nuclear threats – it’s just time to go get them. NATO has to make war, and the time is now. Iran, North Korea, China, it’s time. When its coming, you go out to get it. It’s coming anyway.

    • blue peacock says:

      Barbara Ann,

      It appears Putin is a bit like our leaders. No mass mobilization and the whole country on a war footing with shared sacrifice across the population.

      We have also got engaged in wars of occupation over the past few decades and spent trillions borrowed from future generations but never asked current generations and the laptop class to sacrifice anything.

  4. Fourth and Long says:

    Maybe this belongs in the Mar a Lago thread but did anyone catch the 2 minute trailer yet for:

    My Son Hunter:

    https://youtu.be/GCvb6TfBXFk

    ?

    Related: Robert Davi exposes infiltration of the “My Son Hunter” film:
    https://youtu.be/7A4S0TjdIyg

    He made the flick or he’s in pulling another Reverend Jackson stickup on the DNC.

    “Here’s the trailer. $50 mill in this numbered account or ..”
    A scurilous and baseless thing to say, were it not for what a kind trustworthy man he appears to my 19 trillion yrs of evolution battle tested intuition.

  5. Jovan P says:

    The Donbas republics would have lost if Ukraine unleashed their operation of ,,reunification” and they would have ceased to exist. This way many men from DNR and LNR were sacrificed, but they saved their people.

    Ukraine’s elites are the losers. And the people of Ukraine who never wanted war, which is why they voted Zelensky. But who cares what the people want.

  6. Babeltuap says:

    Russia has had much success using bitter cold and resource constraints to win. They did it to Napoleon, Hitler and will do it to Ukraine. Shock and awe is not their thing. Slow slow methodical grind. In a couple months much of Europe’s bloated welfare state will be freezing and begging for it to end but it won’t. The era of cheap fuel and relying on the US paying to defend all of them is over.

    • Fred says:

      Babeltuap,

      Macron has already warned the French of the ‘end of abundance’. Brought to France by the regulatory state. At least sanctions will get regime change the elites believe in soon, like they did in Cuba. At least they don’t have Le Pen in charge, eh?
      https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/macron-warns-french-of-tough-times-ahead-end-to-energy-price-cap/ar-AA112P0r

      • Barbara Ann says:

        Fred

        The sanctions are sure to cause regime change eventually, the question is where. Let us see how far the French are prepared to follow their Young Global Leader into the fin de l’abondance era and the Hellish future the WEF has planned for us all. The first YGL to fall will also mark the beginning of the Great Reject. Bring it on.

    • Fourth and Long says:

      Right as rain. But the Oeust has been studying the eastern front of WW2 intently for decades now. Case in point – the dizzyingly detailed and voluminous books of Col David Glantz of the US Army. That’s what’s publicly available. Ever check the open source pdfs that were available for years from Ft Leavenworth? They have never stopped paying close attention.

    • cobo says:

      I agree, however, missiles don’t get stuck in the snow.

    • Pat Lang says:

      Are they not still fighting and rather well? I am disappointed in Max Blumenthal. I endorsed one of his books. People who want perfection including perfect virtue do not live in the real world.

      • John Merryman says:

        I would say the front line troops are fighting heroically.
        That doesn’t seem to be the real problem though, as this article makes all too clear.

        • Pat Lang says:

          Jim
          Most armies are corrupt to some extent. You do not know that?

          • John Merryman says:

            It’s a matter of degree and whether it’s a significant factor, or simply a nuisance.

            I tend to see Turkey as the role model Ukraine should have followed, of how to play the sides off one another and not just be a battleground. When the western politicians were talking about using them as another Afghanistan, the Ukrainians should have looked at how that turned out for the Afghanis.

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