Another Snapshot of Kiev’s Military Collapse: But It Ain’t Over Yet

The spectacular “success” of Kiev’s counter-offensive has predictably engendered a dogfight.

By Pepe Escobar and first posted at Strategic Culture

The spectacular “success” of Kiev’s counter-offensive, which echoed throughout the geopolitical galaxy, has predictably engendered what everyone with a brain was expecting: a dogfight.

Enter the Zelensky-Zaluzhny Show – especially after the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) admitted on the record that the war has “reached a stalemate” – code for “we’re deeply in trouble”. He also referred to “positional defense” – code for “we’re gonna keep losing more and more territory.”

The dogfight comes complete with Mafioso overtones, as in 39-year-old Zaluzhny assistant Gennady Chistyakov “accidentally” detonating a grenade received as a gift, seriously injuring his daughter and duly blowing himself up.

This might be seen at face value as yet another wacky Pulp Fiction-style sketch involving the top dogs (with no Winston Wolf  to “solve problems”). But it does carry an ominous message to Zaluzhny: once again, Mafia-style, from now on he’d better beware of friends bearing gifts.

As for the “counter-offensive”, the file, for all practical purposes, seems to be closed. There won’t be another one – because there are no more weapons, assets or troops to carry it, except the odd Ukrainian elderly citizens and unsuspecting housewives chased by the “security services” as they exit the supermarket.

A moral-psychological debacle

That brings us to yet another snapshot of what’s really happening on the frontlines.

The attached document, fully verified for authenticity, is a mid-October report to the Commander of the 10th Army Corps of the AFU.

The report states that the 116th separate mechanized brigade is “incapable of conducting offensive operations because of high losses and high numbers of soldiers that need psychological and medical assistance.”

The 116th brigade has been deeply involved in military operations in the Zaporozhye region for 5 months already. For 3 months it had been part of the 10th Army Corps, “Tavriya”.

The report details that the brigade’s losses are 94 soldiers dead; 1122 wounded; and 95 missing. That corresponds to 25% of the total number of personnel.

When it comes to the moral-psychological front, at least 153 soldiers are deemed in need of immediate psychological rehabilitation.

This brigade is a quite significant unit; what’s implied is that a moral-psychological debacle is now inbuilt as a System Error at the heart of the Ukrainian military. Consequences, short and middle term, will be dire.

All that is happening while the flow of foreign mercenaries to the AFU is drying up. No wonder: enter the Perfect Storm of brigades being thoroughly decimated; unspeakable levels of corruption; and better career opportunities in the rekindled Forever War in Israel/Palestine.

Civilians in Kharkov, for instance, confirm that foreign mercenaries speaking Polish or English are now “almost invisible”.

None of the above means that things from now on will be a cakewalk for Russia. For instance, the Russian Army still has not been able to destroy the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Dnieper in Kherson.

Further on down the road, it will be increasingly trickier to expel the Ukrainians from the eastern margin of the Dnieper.

Russian military media, at the highest level, does its best to sharply focus on serious instances of ineptitude by the Russian Army. That’s their civic duty – and involves creating a groundswell of public opinion, forcing the Russian Army to correct its mistakes and most of all refrain from underestimating the enemy.

After all, this is far from over – no matter the dogfight now raging in the corridors of power in Kiev.