As we near the 2 year mark of the war, a ‘Doom and Gloom’ mood has definitely set upon Ukraine’s troops.
After the failed summer counteroffensive came the sudden disruption of international funding. Now, the realization that Russia is better manned and equipped for battle, and the frustration of being on the defensive again is making soldiers question the judgment of their leaders.
Read: Ukrainian Forces Are Running Out of Artillery Shells as Russia Presses With Offensive – New Military Aid Has Fallen by 90%
The discontent among Ukrainian soldiers is becoming more common and expressed out in the open.
Worse – it now comes into the open that one of the few highlights of Kiev’s campaign – the ‘beachhead’ across the Dnieper River against well-armed Russian troops – is nothing but a PR stunt, and a ‘suicide mission’.
New York Times reported:
“Soldiers and marines who have taken part in the river crossings described the offensive as brutalizing and futile, as waves of Ukrainian troops have been struck down on the river banks or in the water, even before they reach the other side.
‘We were sitting in the water at night and we were shelled by everything’, the marine, Maksym, said. ‘My comrades were dying in front of my eyes’.”
Fresh troops arriving have to step on dead Ukrainian soldiers’ bodies.
“’There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position’, said Oleksiy. ‘It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It’s impossible to move equipment there’.
‘It’s not even a fight for survival’, he added. ‘It’s a suicide mission’.”
Read: Doom and Gloom in Kiev: No EU Supplemental Military Aid and No Membership Talks for Now – Admiral Kirby Warns US Aid to Ukraine Is ‘At the End of the Rope’
By now, everyone has realized that Russian forces mean to push deeper into eastern Ukraine, capturing other oblasts (regions), including Odessam that Russian President Putin has called ‘a Russian city’.
Associated Press reported:
“’The reason the Ukrainians are gloomy is that, they now sense, not only have they not done well this year … they know that the Russians’ game is improving’, said Richard Barrons, a former British army general. ‘They see what’s happening in [US] Congress, and they see what happened in the EU’.”
Ukrainians have definitely passed on to a purely defensive stance.
“’The main goal for the winter is to lose as few people as possible’, said Parker, the Ukrainian commander of a mechanized battalion near Bakhmut who asked to go by his battlefield name to speak freely. […] ‘We have to be clear’, Parker said. ‘It’s not possible in the winter to liberate Donetsk or Bakhmut, because they have too many (fighters)’.”
The Russians have put their defense industry in overdrive the past year, manufacturing armored vehicles and artillery rounds at a pace Ukraine or even the West cannot match.
“’Yes they’re ahead of us in terms of supply’, said Boxer, the commander in Kherson, who credited Russian drones with having longer range and more advanced software. ‘It allows the drone to go up 2,000 meters, avoid jammers’, he said, whereas Ukrainian drones “can fly only 500 meters.”
The problems on the battlefield are made exponentially worse by the undeclared civil war between Zelensky and Military Chief Valery Zaluzhny.
Newsweek reported that a wiretap found in offices that Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, planned to move into ‘could be another sign of the reported rift between him and his President Volodymyr Zelensky’.
“The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted on Telegram on Sunday that ‘a technical device’ had been found in premises earmarked for Zaluzhnyi’s future use.
Preliminary information showed the equipment was in a ‘non-working state’ and while it had not been found in the actual office of the commander, it was in one of the rooms ‘that could be used by him’.”
Read: Zelensky Versus Zaluzhny: The Infighting Worsens as the President Gives Orders Directly to Battlefield, Bypassing the General That Is Polling Much Higher Than Him
“John Foreman, former defense attaché to the British embassy in Moscow, said it was ‘highly unusual’ that the SBU had revealed the device had been found, although it seems the information had been leaked first.”
While Russians obviously are suspected – but it is relevant that the Newsweek sources are quick to state that it could also be ‘an internal job by someone trying to gain intelligence or kompromat [compromising information] on the Commander-in-chief’.
“‘If so, it is also concerning that infighting is continuing between the military and civilian sides in the wake of the failed Ukrainian offensive and Zaluzhny’s, article’, Foreman told Newsweek.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian media reported on Monday that a wiretap had also found in the office of Zaluzhnyi’s assistant, Konstantin Bushuev. Newsweek has contacted the SBU for further comment.”
Read more:
Mainstream Media Bitterly Comes to Terms With Vladimir Putin’s Successes in the Ukraine War
The post Low Morale Grips Ukrainian Forces as Russians Grow Stronger – Beachhead Across the Dnieper ‘A Suicide Mission’ – Army Chief Zaluzhny’s Office Bugged by either Russia or Zelensky appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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