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    Scott Ritter: Ukrainian Counteroffensive Runs Into Defensive Wall Archived Message

    Posted by sashimi on June 11, 2023, 6:05 am, in reply to "Scott Ritter: Finally the Bull Charged"

    10 Jun 2023

    Over the course of the past few days, Ukraine has thrown two of its
    best-trained, best-equipped mechanized brigades into offensive operations
    against entrenched Russian defenders in the Zaporozhye sector of the front
    lines.

    These two brigades had been hand-picked for this job, having been equipped with
    modern Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, supported by
    Western-supplied artillery, and using NATO-specific tactics shaped by
    NATO-provided intelligence and NATO operational planning. In short, these two
    brigades represented a top-level NATO-level capability, the epitome of the nexus
    between Ukraine and the Collective West in their ongoing war to destroy Russia.

    They failed.

    As the world comes to grips with the imagery of destroyed US-manufactured M-2
    Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned
    and burning on the Ukrainian steppe, the harsh truth regarding the futility of
    its larger designs - the strategic defeat of Russia - is starting to sink in.

    The reality, however, is that Ukraine was never going to achieve its stated
    objective of punching through the Russian defenses to sever the land bridge
    connecting Crimea with Russia proper. This was pie-in-the-sky thinking
    promulgated by Ukraine's Western supporters to motivate the Ukrainians into
    committing the equivalent of mass suicide to inflict similarly prohibitive
    casualties among the Russian defenders.

    The Western hope was that Russia would become demoralized by these casualties
    and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to both Ukraine
    and its Western allies.

    So far, Ukraine and its Western allies have failed.

    The genesis of this failure can be traced to two things. First, the low-opinion
    Ukraine and their NATO allies had regarding the combat capabilities of the
    Russian army, and in particular those forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region,
    and second, the unrealistic expectations assigned to NATO training and equipment
    that had been provided to the Ukrainian forces assigned the task of breaking
    through the Russian defenses.

    The area selected by Ukraine and its NATO partners as the focus of effort for
    the counteroffensive was held by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division, part
    of the 58th Combined Arms Army. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based
    think tank with close ties to US and NATO, claimed that the troops of the 42nd
    Guards Motorized Rifle Division "are predominantly comprised of mobilized
    recruits and volunteers and are therefore likely to face some problems with poor
    training and discipline."

    Moreover, it accused at least one of the subordinate regiments - the 70th
    motorized rifle regiment - of performing poorly during the initial phases of the
    Special Military Operation in 2022.

    It is therefore reasonable to believe that NATO and Ukrainian military planners,
    using intelligence assessments that highlighted perceived command and control
    weaknesses and poor morale among the Russian forces which, when combined with
    poor past performance, believed that the Russian defenses in the Zaporozhye
    sector manned by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division would collapse under
    the weight of a NATO-style assault, allowing Ukrainian forces to penetrate deep
    into the Russian defenses.

    While the fighting in Zaporozhye is not yet finished, the initial results on the
    battlefield show that, contrary to the expectations of Ukraine and its NATO
    partners, the men of the 42ndGuards Rifle Division performed their tasks in a
    professional manner, decisively defeating the Ukrainian assault forces. The 70th
    Motorized Rifle Regiment has been singled out as performing very well under
    difficult circumstances. The same can be said of the 291st Motorized Rifle
    Regiment     and the 71st Motorized Rifles Regiment, along with special forces
    soldiers from the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade. Analysts from ISW, in assessing the
    initial successes of the Russian defenders, noted that "Russian forces appear to
    have executed their formal tactical defensive doctrine in response to the
    Ukrainian attacks."

    This, of course, should have taken no one by surprise, since the individual in
    command of Russian forces in the Zaporozhye area is Colonel General Alexander
    Romanchuk    , the man who is responsible for conceiving modern Russian defensive
    doctrine. In April 2023 Romanchuk, who at that time was serving as the Rector of
    the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the
    equivalent of the United States Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort
    Leavenworth), co-authored an article titled "Prospects for Improving the
    Efficiency of Army Defensive Operations."

    In the article, Romanchuk noted that the main mission of a defending force "is
    to neutralize the initiative of the advancing enemy, i.e., to bring him to the
    state of impossibility to continue advancing with deployed forces. Ultimately,
    this allows you to reduce his activity and seize the initiative by going over to
    a decisive counter-offensive to defeat the enemy with shock groups."
    -- Cont'd at https://sputnikglobe.com/20230610/scott-ritter-ukrainian-counteroffensive-runs-into-defensive-wall-1111050140.html

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