Waiting(s) for Godot in Bakhmut and Kherson
Latest broadcast from Athens by Alexander Mercouris (Mercouris 08/10.2022). It deals mainly with Donbass and Kherson developments but, oddly, does not cover the recent strike (or explosion) in Crimea.
Bakhmut
British Ministry of Defense (MOD) has resumed its battlefield reports. It admits for the first time that the Russians have made key strategic advances towards Bakhmut, the lynchpin of the Ukrainian defense system in Donbass. It says the Russians have made only 10km advance towards Bakhmut over the last 30 days, and 3km elsewhere, which it attributes to insufficiency of Russian equipment, and claims the advance is likely less than the Russians had intended. But how does the MOD know what the Russians intended - there is no actual information about this because such information is kept secret.
What the discussion misses is just how heavy are the Ukrainian defenses in this area and it could be very significant that there has been an advance of the scale the Russians have accomplished. The Russian advance is a pretty standard pattern. When there are intervals between intense fighting and artillery barrages that is when the MOD tells us that the Russians are stalling. The MOD never gives any indication as to what the Ukrainian losses are. They frequently provides guesstimates, almost certainly incorrect, of Russian losses, not of Ukrainian.
Yet there have been points where Ukrainian officials have cited Ukrainian losses of between 100, 200 and even 500 men a day. A Forbes article recently said that Ukraine no longer has enough tanks to make any kind of offensive. A former disillusioned member of the Russian government has published a commentary on the Ukrainian war and about the fact that the Ukrainian government is not providing accurate accounts of the battlefield and speculates that there are declining numbers of HIMARS and similar strikes. All this is at least as important as the number of kilometers of Russian advance.
On the topic of HIMARS, the Russians claim to have destroyed another HIMARS launch vehicle. If so, it would bring the number of HIMARS systems that the Russians have destroyed to five (estimated by New Atlas) or perhaps 6 or even 8. Ukraine and the USA say the true number is 0. Mercouris attributes more credibility on this to Russia.
Zaporizhizhia
Who is shelling the Zaporizhizhia nuclear power station?
A recent Daily Telegraph editorial (be aware that the conservative Telegraph has been talking about Russia losing its grip for months) decries Putin’s recklessness and recalls to mind the Chernobyl explosion (an accident) forty years ago, implying (but not actually stating) that it is Russian military action that is responsible.
This implication is quite commonly shared across Europe. Ukraine itself claims part of the facility has been seriously damaged by the strikes. The plant was acquired in March, but Ukrainian workers have been maintaining it. Ukraine claims that the strikes are not at the plant, but from the plant. The Russians categorically deny they have been launching missiles from this site.
Read carefully, the Telegraph editorial actually seems to be admitting the obvious, namely that the Ukrainians are shelling the site, while Russia is using the site for shelling Ukraine. The Telegraph seems at one moment to allow for the possibility that strikes on the site might be an accident (it is the only source making this claim). Yet it then also implies, while admitting that it very unclear as to who is shelling what or why, and without any independent reporting from the site, that Putin is deliberately threatening Europe. The IAEA has not yet sent in its people - for that to happen, the inspectors need to be safe, and this would require whoever is shelling the plant, Ukraine, to stop the shelling, together with any shelling from the plant, which Russia denies it is doing. None of this garble helps anyone to understand what is going on but implies that somehow it is all Putin’s fault.
There is no dispute as to whether the plant is being shelled. Everybody accepts this. And the Telegraph implicitly indicates that it is the Ukrainians who are shelling the plant, even while claiming that the Russians are using the plant for shelling - which Russia denies - and for as long as Ukrainian shelling continues there cannot be any inspection. An IAEA inspection would confirm whether Russian military are or are not present at the plant and using it for shelling, and if Russian military is present and have been using the plant for shelling purposes, claims that originate from Ukraine, they would need to be pressured to withdraw (which I personally think is highly unlikely). Mercouris believes the Ukraine shelling of the plant is part of a pattern of increasing recklessness by Ukraine, possibly out of desperation.
There was little activity in the Donbass on August 9 (Mercouris seems to have undertaken this broadcast in advance of - or without sufficient knowledge of - the events in Crimea which were dealt with in the Gonzalo Lira broadcast on The Duran, that I summarized yesterday. Back in Donbass, further Russian advances can be anticipated over the next few days, while Ukraine seems to be juggling forces between different places.
Kherson
A former Russian minister is testily asking where is the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Kherson city? Ukraine has been promising one at least since May but probably from the end of March or early April and has been emphatic that it would happen in August. If it doesn’t happen this month, the credibility of Ukraine will be very badly damaged and there will likely be greater future skepticism of Ukrainian claims.
Mercouris cites a military source who predicts that any such counteroffensive would almost certainly fail. Perhaps in preparation for such an event there has been a further HIMARS hit (August 8) to the Antonovsky bridge near Kherson, which has postponed ongoing repairs to the road surface, but it has failed to achieve structural damage. Ukraine is seeking the more powerful 300km missiles that might have warheads that could do structural damage to the bridge; up until now the USA has declined to provide these, perhaps out of genuine fear of Russian retaliation.
All this suggests that the Antonovsky bridge is actually significant. Russia has apparently built two pontoon bridges across the Dnieper, and we don’t hear much about these. So they clearly work around damage to the bridge. A single missile would probably not do serious damage to a pontoon bridge (they are modular so that any given segment can be replaced). Nearer to Kherson City itself the Russians are operating a ferry for civilian traffic.
In the event of a Ukrainian counteroffensive east of the Dnieper, Russian artillery could probably repel it. The destruction of bridges might require Russia, in the event that it wanted to proceed east towards Odessa, to rethink its strategy for resupply of artillery shells in massive quantities (they have been consuming as many as 10,000 a day for strikes on relatively smaller places like Peskiy). Pontoon bridges would not be sufficient, and it would be very expensive to use trucks: trucks would be needed invery large numbers. Most likely, the shells would be transported in other ways. Rail is the obvious mode to use for transport of ammunition to heavily protected ammunition dumps.
So the Antonovsky bridge, which is a road bridge, would not be chosen. It has been more important for civilian than military purposes. There are no indications of shortages of food in Kherson city. Food supplies are probably being sent across the pontoon bridges and ferry. But the railway bridge on top of the nearby dam mayk be critical. Thishas suffered only superficial damage so far (and railways are generally much easier to repair than roads). But the railway bridge becomes a point of vulnerability not for the defense of Kherson, but for a Russian advance westward. Another possible mode of transport is ship, but Mercouris does not go into detail about this option, possibly because it would be much slower and more complicated. So the significance of the Antanovsky bridge has been greatly exaggerated.
Economy
Mercouris speculates that the recent Biden spending bill may add to inflationary pressure in the USA even though it is strangely called the Inflation Reduction Act.
He notes growing criticism of Zelenskiy in the West. The recent Amnesty Report is probably not part of this trend, but rather the result of highly competent Amnesty field workers valiantly pushing back against the politics of a senior hierarchy which has sometimes in the past has detracted from the organization’s reputation and reliability.