https://theduran.com/bakhmut-marinka-ugledar-russia-speeds-up-offensive-macron-to-meet-biden/
AC: another update on Ukraine, a lot of activity. Things moving faster than we anticipated in our video yesterday. Analysts generally agreed Bakhmut would fall but projected a timeline of 2-4 weeks but things seem to be moving much faster.
AM: String of reports about 4 settlements - large villages, essentially Bakhmut suburbs - have all been captured on the run by Russians, one after the other. Usually each would take weeks but the Russians captured 3 in one day and another this morning. They've now cut the major road between Bakhmut and Chasovyar(?) which is the place from whence reinforcements to Bakhmut used to go (come?), so one of the major supply routes to Bakhmut.
Denis Pushilin, head of the DPR, said yesterday that Bakhmut was on brink of being completely encircled.
Saw a report this morning I can't confirm that the Ukrainians are starting to pull out of Bakhmut as they've found it untenable, that they've left behind their territorial reserve troops to cover their retreat, but their best troops who have been badly knocked about are now being pulled out.
There seems to be a similar crisis for Ukraine, not quite on this scale, in a small town in Donetsk called Marinka, a suburb of Donetsk City south of Bakhmut. The Russians have largely captured it and Pushilin said they will be "liberating" Ugledar very soon.
We've heard about Bakhmut being ready to fall before and then the Unkrainians managed to dig in but this time it's looking much more concrete.
AC: We have been here before and saw that Ukraine was able to hold off the fall of Bakhmut, what do you credit with the sudden speed w/which all these villages are being taken? I think even Putin said that Ugledar would soon be "liberated" though I haven't been able to double- and triple-check that.
AM: Two reasons that are connected. First, Russian forces in Donbass have been vastly increased in number and striking power. We're getting more and more of those 300k troops and 80k volunteers in Donbass and the Russians have also been upgrading the weaponry in use there. Incredibly, up until recently the Ukrainians outnumbered the Russians in Donbass, including in
Bakhmut itself. And that was why they were able to slow these Russian advances.
Second, they now have a unified command under Surovikin. Up until September, the theater commanders of each theater of the war were
fighting it as a private war by themselves. Now we have Surovikin, who's able to make strategic decisions such as redeploying troops from one battlefront to another. He's clearly made taking these places around Donetsk a priority.
AC: also read a report saying General Zaluzhni from Ukrainian side has informed Zelensky that Bakhmut can't be defended and the troops need to be pulled out. What does Ukraine do now? Does
Zelensky listen, or maneuver to do something else?
AM: that's always the problem. Zaluzhni has been giving what looks like realistic advice to Zelensky throughout the war and Zelensky doesn't listen. He orders troops to hold out as long as they can, as
happened with Mariupol and Severodonetz-Lysychansk, so the loss was much higher than it needed to be.
Given his past pattern, I think Zelensky's instinct will be to order the troops in Bakhmut to dig in and to try and counterattack in some other place like Kharkiv or Zaparozhia; problem is the Russians
seem to be prepared for attacks in both places as Surovikin has been busy fortifying Russian positions there.
If Bakhmut and the surrounding areas fall and the entire Ukrainian position in Donbass starts to break down, the narrative of victory he's been selling to the Ukrainian people and the West starts to
collapse. And as PR-conscious as he is, that would be difficult to accept.
AC: we forget when we talk about Zelensky that he has to fight for his life, he's surrounded by some nasty characters on all sides so he needs to keep the narrative going, the money and weapons flowing in, the black market sales flowing. The missile strikes and kamikaze drone attacks - getting reports from the Ukrainian side that they're
once again bracing for these. Do you think this will happen on top of what's happening in Bakhmut, etc?
AM: They don't share their plans with me but I do think that it will come sooner or later because the Russians are saying as much - statements from senior Russian officials that these attacks will
continue. I think it will escalate and at some point it will be coordinated with the land offensive.
AC: the EU is desperately trying to find ways to keep Ukrainian citizens in Ukraine. They say they're sending hundreds of generators, will send people to fix the electric grid. I understand, though they won't admit it, they're panicking about a mass refugee flow into the EU. Macron is going to DC to meet with Biden. He'll
obviously talk about Ukraine but also that he thinks the US is ripping off the EU with the price of LNG. You have Moldova, also facing an energy crisis because of its electric grid being connected to Ukraine's. It's a bad situation all the way around for the collective West, where do they go?
AM: I agree, because they have no Plan C. Plan A was the economic sanctions, which failed to topple Putin's government. Plan B was to pour weapons into Ukraine and force the Russians to retreat, which would cause political crisis in Moscow and lead to Putin's fall, but it has failed.
Now the military situation on the battlefield has changed, weapons stocks are depleted, we even get reports the Pentagon is telling Ukraine to slow down on the amount of artillery it's using as we
can't supply an endless number of shells - that was in the NYT. It's a ludicrous thing to say, how can the Ukrainians fight if they're facing 20-50k rounds a day and they can only fire back 2,000?
Europeans are quarreling about the oil price cap. Article in FT that they've actually been stepping up purchases of LNG from Russia - Russia now a major supplier of LNG to Europe but it's not
something we've talked about much. So they're running around trying to find solutions in Ukraine. They don't have weapons to send and they're trying to get Israel to send surface to air missiles but it
won't be near enough for what Ukraine is facing.
You can't send enough generators to Ukraine to replace your collapsing power grid, someone said you would need a million generators to do that. Also, generators generate electricity by burning oil and that's in short supply in Ukraine.
The one thing they won't do and can't do is call Putin to find out what his proposals are to end this. And telling Zelensky they've reached the limit of what they can do, we're going to have to negotiate with Putin and advise you to do the same. But they won't because they're too invested. One new idea Boeing had was to attach a small bomb to a small jet engine, a sign IMO that they're running out of HIMARs.
AC: There is one person who would call up Putin and that's Macron, who has called him several times before.
AM: Putin has become very exasperated with Macron because he calls up to talk about negotiations but never comes up with anything
Putin can work with. But you're right that Macron has talked about the importance of negotiations. IMO this is his last chance. The right thing for him to say to Biden is "this has gone as far as it can, we're facing defeat in Ukraine and collapse in Europe, you need to call off your hardliners because European solidarity and European economy are going to start crumbling. which will have an effect on you at some point as well. We have to talk to Putin, put aside the regime change notion and the idea of Ukraine ever joining NATO or the EU, accept that most of eastern Ukraine will be under Russian control."
Does Macron have the intelligence and political courage to do that? You shook your head no and I agree, I don't think he does. I suspect he kept the lines open with Putin because he wanted to accept
Putin's terms of surrender, he never expected that it might be the West having to do that.
AC: final question, I've been reading articles over past few days talking about how the Biden WH has achieved a strategic win in Ukraine, not just in the war but in general - NATO more unified than ever, Russian military and economy in shambles, the EU is severed from Russia and will be severing itself from China and is now in the pocket of the US, you know the talking points. I've seen these packaged together in various articles, like one in Bloomberg yesterday, and think to myself, in order to avoid another Afghanistan debacle wouldn't it be best for the Biden WH to just dump Ukraine on the EU, cut it loose? Claim it as a victory, use BBC, CNN and so on to talk up the achievements...
AM: Yes. And you got a sense several weeks ago that some people, esp. from the Pentagon like Gen. Milley, were murmuring that was the right thing to do. But the neocons opposed it and they won, as
they always do.
But you're absolutely right, that's what they should do but they're not going to do it. There was a Bloomberg article about sending F-16s and Patriot missiles, IOW try to match Russia's escalation,
which is an incredibly dangerous strategy.
Several months ago I agreed with the narrative about their achievements, e.g., severing ties between Europe and Russia and cementing bloc solidarity. But the cost of that success is starting to
grow with every day. Logically they should cash in their winnings and stop. But the problem is these people don't know how to stop. They'll just agitate for more and they'll find some people in Europe
who support them.
AC: But Europe is going to break.
AM: every single neocon venture I can think of has ended in this way. They start out strong but eventually the whole thing starts to unravel and they never learn from that. The lesson they take away is that they should have escalated more.
The Poles would not be talking about a $30/bbl oil price cap if they weren't being coached by the Washington neocons. So they'll start pushing for this, say let's send F-16s AND pilots, put more boots on the ground. And we have a POTUS who's weak and very much under neocon influence. (AC: and the best part is that when it all crumbles, you can blame it all on Biden).
there doesn't seem to be anything here