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    Simplicius: TIME Magazine Profile Depicts Grim Führerbunker-Stage of Zelensky's Conflict Archived Message

    Posted by t on November 2, 2023, 3:53 pm

    https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/time-magazine-profile-depicts-grim

    The talk of the blogosphere is the new devastating TIME magazine profile on Zelensky which paints the most grim, 1945 Führerbunker portrait of Zelensky yet. Bernhard covers it well on MoA, but I’m going to retread some of the same points to take the analysis into a slightly different direction of anticipating what comes next vis a vis the current political turmoil in the U.S.

    First let’s cover the most salient revelations.

    Zelensky admits that the entire world is losing interest in Ukraine, treating it as a TV re-run that’s on for the 10th time in a row:

    “The scariest thing is that part of the world got used to the war in Ukraine,” he says. “Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave. You see it in the United States, in Europe. And we see that as soon as they start to get a little tired, it becomes like a show to them: ‘I can’t watch this rerun for the 10th time.’”

    Members of Zelensky’s team say he’s lost the “sparkle” he once had, now arriving to give orders then coldly leaving without any fanfare or trivialities. He feels “betrayed” by his “allies,” he says.

    But that’s where the frightening part comes in:

    But his convictions haven’t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace. On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. “He deludes himself,” one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. “We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”

    This is the quintessential Führerbunker moment.

    They go on to say that Zelensky’s stubbornness keeps them from discussing the one big taboo subject: ceasefire.

    Zelensky very forthrightly admits that if he doesn’t get further aid, Ukraine will lose:


    In a very revealing paragraph, they admit that not only has the counteroffensive failed and that Zelensky will have to fire the general in charge, but that things have gotten so bad units are no longer even following orders to advance or attack:

    The cold will also make military advances more difficult, locking down the front lines at least until the spring. But Zelensky has refused to accept that. “Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” he says. Before the winter sets in, his aides warned me to expect major changes in their military strategy and a major shake-up in the President’s team. At least one minister would need to be fired, along with a senior general in charge of the counteroffensive, they said, to ensure accountability for Ukraine’s slow progress at the front. “We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.”

    Expanding on this, they recount how the order was given to retake Gorlovka, which was met with frank disbelief on the frontline, urging commanders to ask: with what?!

    When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?”

    One interesting aspect to this admission is that some may recall several months ago, around the time of the counteroffensive, I discussed possibilities for vectors here. One thing I specifically mentioned was how Russell “Texas” Bentley was loudly urging the Russian military to send reinforcements to the north Donetsk-Gorlovka area because he felt that the southern Azov direction was just a feint, and the AFU would actually attack to try to retake Donetsk-Gorlovka. It’s interesting now to see that perhaps some of his instincts were correct.

    But the dreadful article goes on, confessing that the lack of manpower has become so dire for the AFU that even if all the newfangled weapons from the West were to be delivered, Ukraine may no longer even have the men to use them:

    In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”

    You recall how many videos I’ve posted recently showing frontline commanders and Ukrainian pundits specifically highlighting this? More and more voices have risen from the ranks of the AFU recently stating that they are flat out running out of men. This included the countless videos explaining how soon the entire population will have to be mobilized, man, woman, and child.

    The most recent of these videos was the commander of the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade, Dmitry Kukharchuk, explaining exactly the hinge point at which Ukraine began to lose the war:

    Etc.

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    • Simplicius: TIME Magazine Profile Depicts Grim Führerbunker-Stage of Zelensky's Conflict - t November 2, 2023, 3:53 pm