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GEOPOLITICS RUSSIA'S INVASION OF UKRAINE The Military Show: Why the Tide of War Is Suddenly Turning in Ukraine’s Favor PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkjEL1NHtls Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I don't like the heading for the video ... this is NOT a 'sudden' turning in Ukraine's favor but a very long ... and brilliant ... 'slog'. Ukraine has brought together a vast array of local competence to make themselves more than capable of making effective use of the material support they have been granted by their international supporters. The Ukrainians have been brilliant in their execution of all of this ... and they deserve 'kudos' for this. I was born in the UK in January 1940. My family lived in the suburbs of London and we esperienced Nazi bombing. I am having 'flashbacks' when I read about the bombing of Ukraine by Putin's Russia. Putin is evil, and the Russian people deserve better. I am not a historian but I have followed 'current affairs' for a very long time and have tried to understand many different aspects of geography and recent ... essentially 19th and 20th century ... history. There have been massive technoligical changes, but rather less change in the behavior of people and the leaders of people! This is dangerous and destabilizing. Ukraine has been lucky with its current leadership ... and so has the world! Peter Burgess
Why the Tide of War Is Suddenly Turning in Ukraine’s Favor The Military Show Sep 22, 2024 1.07M subscribers #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis In this video, we dive into a pivotal moment in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Ukraine's surprising August 2024 invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast marks a significant shift in the war’s dynamics. We’ll explore how Ukraine, after months of fighting to protect its own land, managed to go on the offensive. From analyzing Russia's military and economic decline to Ukraine’s improving technological capabilities and NATO support, we’ll break down the key factors shaping this turning point in the conflict. #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/cM2YykcX Transcript 0:00 The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was meant to be a “special military operation” that would result in Kyiv being captured within a few weeks. That didn’t happen. While Russia’s forces did manage to approach perilously close to Kyiv in the first few months of the war, Ukraine managed to gain an edge and push the invaders back. Yet, for the past 30 months of warfare, Ukraine has been consistently on its back foot, trying to prevent Russia from pushing deeper into its territory. By the start of August 2024, Russia had occupied roughly 18% of Ukraine’s territory, while Ukraine had been focused solely on surviving the onslaught of the meat grinder. But the scale of war seems to be tipping towards Ukraine. Perhaps the most pivotal and newsworthy moment in August 2024 has been the August 6 invasion of Kursk. By Ukraine. That’s right. Zelensky has managed to put Ukraine on the offensive for once, trying to get an advantage over Russia and capture some of its aggressor’s territory in turn. How did this happen, exactly? Well, the Kursk invasion didn’t happen by sheer coincidence. Russia has been slowly shedding its military and economic 1:03 power over the recent years. The Kursk incursion is but a mere symptom of Ukraine being able to capitalize on Russia’s more apparent weaknesses. And those weaknesses are only going to grow. So, let’s take a deeper dive into how exactly Ukraine managed to score a victory on Russia’s soil, why Russia can’t defend its territory, and what this means for the future of the war. Let’s start by outlining the current extent of the Kursk invasion. On August 6, the Ukrainian army sent a relatively small contingent of troops across the Russian border and into the Kursk Oblast. According to the Russian reports at the time, the size of the invading forces was around 300 troops backed by 11 tanks and 20 armored vehicles for soldier transport. Of course, Russia believed that this invading force would be easily repelled by the present border military. Early reports from the Russian Ministry of Defense suggested that that’s exactly what happened, painting a picture of the Ukrainian military losing 50 troops and being forced to back away at the border between the two countries. However, the Russian scheme of smoke and mirrors in intelligence reports couldn’t hold merit for long. It soon became clear that the Ukrainian army had not only managed to 2:03 invade the Kursk Oblast, but it had done so with minimal losses or even actual fighting. Ukraine was using its long-range artillery and drones to shell the Russian defensive positions at Kursk, mainly targeting areas without a significant civilian presence. Over the next few days, there were no reports from the Ukrainian army about the progress of the invasion, and the reports from Russia became increasingly frantic. By August 9, it was clear that Ukraine had managed to push through the border, occupying an area between 6 and 25 miles into the territory of the Kursk Oblast, depending on the news sources that were covering the event. Regardless of the extent of the Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory at the time, one thing was clear. Ukraine had managed to plow its way into Russia, and it looked like they weren’t going to stop any time soon. What followed was, frankly, a mess of Russia’s incompetence and the Ukrainian army’s superior experience. Rather than fighting their way through the Kursk region, the Ukrainian invasion was a set of small skirmishes followed by a sweep of Russian troops surrendering as they were being surrounded. Ten days into the invasion, one of the Ukrainian prisons reported that it had already processed 3:03 over 300 Russian soldiers as prisoners of war, and the warden stated that the number would likely reach thousands long before Ukraine ended the Kursk campaign. So, what exactly happened to cause such a distinct difference in combat styles between the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk and the constant back-and-forth that is going on inside the Russian-occupied pieces of Ukrainian land? The answer is a bit complex, but it can be boiled down to Russia slowly running out of soldiers. Let’s start with the more obvious route: the Russian troops stationed in Kursk. According to the prison that is processing the Russian POWs, nearly 80% of the new arrivals were fresh conscripts, who likely had only a few weeks or months of surface-level military training. If the trend follows throughout the entire Kursk region, it’s safe to say that Russia has basically been forced to send its newest recruits to “guard” the border regions that didn’t see much fighting at the time. Considering that Russia has been adamant about pushing deeper into Ukrainian territory, it’s likely that the more experienced (and better-equipped) troops are being sent to the frontlines closer to Ukrainian cities. It’s not a terrible tactic, per se, but it has shown 4:03 that Russia does have a few kinks in its military that it can’t solve. Why is this important? Well, numbers matter, and Russia should have had a clear numerical advantage. At the start of the invasion, Russia’s population was roughly double that of Ukraine, and similar discrepancies existed in the size of the countries’ military sizes and available manpower. With roughly double the number of soldiers available, Russia theoretically had a significant upper hand in the invasion. But, Russia has also been losing both troops and available manpower at an alarming rate. According to Ukrainska Pravda, a news outlet that outlines Russia’s daily personnel and equipment losses, the Russian army has suffered over 600,000 casualties over the past 30 months of warfare. That’s roughly double the number of troops Russia had at its disposal when invading Ukraine in February 2022. Effectively, Russia has churned over multiple “generations” of conscripts to try to win over Ukraine, and its efforts were paltry in comparison. While Ukraine did lose roughly 18% of its territory so far to Russian occupation, 2024 was a relatively stagnant year. Russia was forced 5:04 to fall back at the end of 2023 and didn’t mount a significant offensive campaign until May 2024. And Russia’s summer campaign of 2024 was undoubtedly a significant failure. Russia is purported to have lost 70,000 troops over the course of two months, setting up a precedent of losing between 1,000 and 1,200 soldiers per day. Worse yet, Russia doesn’t seem to be getting better at keeping its troops intact, with the casualty rate refusing to fall below 1,000 per day for months, even after the main stage of the summer campaign can be considered over. Russia did manage to make some progress over the year, but it’s not nearly enough, especially when compared to the sacrifices made. According to a report by the Telegraph, Russia has occupied an additional 450 square miles of Ukrainian territory between January and July 2024. This includes the large failure that was the summer campaign. But fast forward to today, and Ukraine has managed to occupy 390 square miles of territory in the Kursk oblast. Even more importantly, there are clear options for Ukraine 6:01 to cut off a large swath of the region south of the river Seym by bombing bridges and other vital infrastructure that connects the area to the rest of the region. If Ukraine retains control of the territory to the east (i.e. going close to Sudzha, an administrative center for a sub-region), it can surround the Russian forces south of Seym. If the trend of recruits surrendering before the incoming Ukrainian troops continues, it can occupy a much larger swath of territory relatively bloodlessly and gain more POWs in the process. Effectively, Ukraine has the potential to occupy more territory in a month than Russia has managed in seven months, all the while being on the defensive in its homeland. This neatly showcases the differences between Russian and Ukrainian militaries, especially in terms of technology access and troop quality. Ukraine has managed to make do with a much smaller force, backed by several waves of aid from NATO and other countries around the globe, which provide vital military equipment, ammunition, training, and economic relief. For example, both Russia and Ukraine were forced to use Soviet-era equipment and ammunition, particularly as their main battle tanks and mid-range artillery. Russia’s advantage 7:03 in that aspect was the fact that it was probably the only country that could feasibly make more of the ammunition suitable for use with these weapons. On the other hand, Ukraine was using up its limited supply of Soviet-era ammo quickly. The U.S. and NATO came to Ukraine’s aid, scouring for ammunition compatible with these weapons from all countries they could access and sending it all to the Ukrainian front. A video report by the German media outlet DER SPIEGEL showcased the situation best. A WW2 Soviet artillery launcher was being used by Ukraine to shell the Russian troops with ammunition sourced from Germany. That same launcher was on the front 70 years ago, using Soviet ammunition to shell the German troops. Both sides of the war quickly progressed past Soviet-era equipment. For much of the war, the state of the conflict was one of attrition, with neither side making significant progress. The reason? Drone warfare. A foot soldier or even a tank was no match for a remote-controlled flyer that could drop death from dozens of feet above, all the while its handler was kept safe and sound miles away. Then, the war started 8:00 taking an entirely different dimension, one where the prime targets were drone operators, who became increasingly vital parts of both militaries. Both countries sourced military-grade drones in the first few months of the war. The Turkish Baykar Bayraktar TB2 on the Ukrainian side and the Iranian Shahed-136 on Russia’s were a large part of why neither army could make significant progress against one another. The TB2 had the advantage over U.S. drones by being nearly six times cheaper to buy while still boasting the ability to cruise independently and slot a few remote-deployed air-to-ground munitions. It allowed Ukraine to make devastating strikes relatively deep into Russian territory, cutting off the Russian army from supplying the occupied pieces of Ukraine. On Russia’s side, the Shahed-136s were used to pressure the Ukrainian forces by being relatively disposable one-way kamikaze drones. Additionally, Russia had the economic and industrial capacity to manufacture drones that closely resembled the 136s, giving it an independent supply compared to Ukraine. By comparison, commercial drones were used on both sides to great effect. Since the base models were relatively easy to purchase 9:03 for both sides—typically sourced from China in one way or another—both armies had a relatively stable supply. Modifications to convert the drones into kamikaze drones were also relatively simple. Eventually, both Russia and Ukraine relied on existing drone designs and sought to improve them. For example, the Skyeton Raybird 3 is one of the newest generation drones made entirely in Ukraine. It boasts the ability to fly over 1,550 miles per mission and make precision strikes on vital military compounds by dropping an air-to-surface munition, all guided by the drone operator and assisted via AI. Additionally, the Raybird 3 included several defensive measures that the Ukrainian army could leverage as an advantage in the increasingly tech-dependent war. First, the drone could be deployed remotely, with the deployment system disassembled a few minutes after the launch. This minimizes the enemy’s chance to detect where the drone was launched from and retaliate, which gives far greater safety to the drone operator and support crew. Secondly, the drone was designed with anti-interference technology, something that both sides of the 10:00 war have started using as second nature as drone strikes escalated over the previous year. But drone warfare is just one part of the technological equation. NATO has been approving bolder plans to outfit the Ukrainian army with more advanced vehicles and military equipment. These include the M1 Abrams tank, one of the most modern main battle tanks available to the U.S. military, and the F-16, a fourth-generation all-purpose fighter that heavily outmatches Russia’s Su-27s (of the same generation). Various NATO countries have joined forces and supplied 65 F-16s to Ukraine, while Zelensky had suggested that the country will need at least another 100 F-16s to have a fighting chance. The F-16s started taking flight in August 2024, after NATO provided months of training for Ukrainian fighter pilots. What does this mean for the state of the war? Since Russia has lost hundreds of aircraft and helicopters over the past 30 months (more than 300 of each, according to Ukrainska Pravda), the new contingent of F-16s will allow Ukraine to gain more of a foothold in its own airspace and provide vital support for its troops across the country. This means that Ukraine’s improving air combat or long-range drone 11:04 capabilities will allow it to put even more pressure on Russian ground forces. It creates a precedent where Ukrainian gains could be more permanent in nature compared to Russia’s, which will be vital in helping Ukraine win the war. But as we mentioned before, it’s not just the Russian military that’s taken a hit over the course of the war. A large part of why Russia is stumbling now is because its economy has been tailored to focus on the military effort, cannibalizing all other industrial sectors as a result. Let’s take the country’s governmental efforts as an example. More than 30% of the government’s budget has been allocated to the national defense and military, a figure that is far beyond what other modern countries are used to. In terms of GDP, it means that Russia is spending roughly 7% on national defense. Compare this with the U.S. at 3.5% or the NATO average at around 2.7%, and you can easily see that Russia is trying to pull itself out of the hole it dug for itself by running full steam ahead into military budgeting. Of course, Russia has been able to allocate so much of its budget to its military due to it being one of the largest 12:00 suppliers of oil and natural gas worldwide. It was previously one of the EU’s biggest trading partners for these precious resources. After the invasion started and the EU reduced its dependence on Russia’s gas and oil, China and India took over as the largest importers of these resources. Throughout 2022 and 2023, Russia’s economy was even seemingly better than those of the Western nations, outpacing the predictions made by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF. In fact, Russia is one of the few countries whose economy grew in 2023, which can be largely attributed to the fact that it managed to get good trade deals with China and reduced its dependence on trade with NATO countries. However, the reliance on the energy sector came with significant downsides. As the magnates in the industry grew richer and could open more positions to fill new roles, people from other sectors, such as manufacturing and agriculture came to work in the energy sector, leaving the previous ones underpopulated and struggling to meet demands. As a result, China became one of Russia’s biggest trading partners in many consumer products, including cars, tractors, and smartphones, completely dominating Russia’s manufacturing industries due to lower prices. By 13:04 contrast, China’s trade deals with Russia were also heavily favored toward China, with China getting natural gas at nearly half the price that the EU was paying just a year before. The favorable winds of trade with China didn’t last long. While the trade between the countries rose by over 26% in 2023, reaching a record high of $240 billion (in yen and rubles), the growth for July 2024 is estimated to be only 1.5% over the previous year. A contributing factor may be the fact that Chinese imports of crude oil and gas have fallen by 7% compared to the previous year. This could be explained by China extending its global trade efforts by focusing on the Belt and Road Initiative, which ultimately aims to provide China with ready access to Middle Eastern oil. While most of the plans were put on hold due to the invasion, China’s ambitions mean they’re likely to resume the efforts in case the war goes on (but more on that tidbit later). If China ultimately succeeds in cutting the flow of Russian gas and oil, Russia would end up having very few buyers, which could topple the energy industry overnight. This can be devastating to 14:02 Russia’s economy since we already mentioned that the other industries have started taking hits as more people left to work in the energy sector. But that’s only one area where Russia’s available manpower has left. Another major drain that Russia has experienced as a result of the invasion is severe emigration. Immediately after the invasion began in February 2022, Russian citizens were scrambling to leave the country to avoid being drafted or subjected to the pro-war authoritarian regime heralded by Putin’s ideology. According to some estimates, roughly 200,000 people left the country within the first few months. By the end of 2022, the number of Russian emigrants has been estimated to be close to a million. According to Russia’s Alfa Bank, the country has lost roughly 1.5% of its available workforce from emigration alone. The people who left Russia were typically highly skilled blue-collar workers, so Russian companies suddenly experienced severe staff shortages. These numbers have to be compounded with the country-wide conscription efforts over the course of the war. According to some estimates, Russia’s military has roughly 15:00 1.3 million active personnel, with another 2.4 million support personnel and 2 million reserve troops. It’s a significant part of the potential workforce being driven to the front and used as fodder for the meat grinder that is the attrition war against Ukraine, where unmanned drones and long-range strikes reign supreme. To put another spin on Russia’s economy, or lack thereof, Reuters suggests that Russia has a shortage of roughly 4.8 million workers. That’s close to 5 million job openings that remain untouched since the country has no capable people to fill them. The country’s borders with the Western world are completely closed, and a significant chunk of the emigrants don’t have plans to return to the country regardless of how the war ends. All things considered, Russia’s economy might look good at a glance, but it’s been propped up by unreasonable measures and is largely considered to have gone past the point of no return. With the economy being so dependent on pieces effectively outside of Russia’s control, it would take only a few moves by Russia’s largest trading partners to cripple the country in the long run. So far we’ve spoken at length about Russia’s failing economy, but surely Ukraine isn’t doing much better, right? 16:02 Well, the answer is both yes and no. Ukraine has arguably been hit much harder by the war, economically. The country is spending upwards of 37% of its GDP on national defense and military, making it the eighth-ranked country in the world in terms of military spending. At the same time, Ukraine has been on the receiving end of generous international aid packages. According to the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations, the U.S. has allocated $175 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, $107 billion of which is direct financial aid. The rest is used internally in the U.S. to manufacture weapons and ammunition, pay for staff, or send to Ukraine’s neighboring countries which are housing displaced citizens (such as Poland). On the other hand, the Kiel Institute reports that the European countries have allocated a total of 110 billion euros (roughly $122 billion) to Ukraine, whether through a combination of direct financial aid or bilateral aid agreements, with another $85 billion left to be allocated. Altogether, the U.S. and European countries have spent more than $350 billion supporting Ukraine, and that only accounts for direct aid agreements. As a result, 17:04 Ukraine has been able to stay relatively afloat (even if that’s not the best term) by relying on overwhelming support from allies to keep the military running and the equipment flowing into the country. By contrast, Russia is under increasing pressure from most Western countries, as sanctions have prevented it from directly trading in U.S. dollars. The disruption of political relations between Russia and the West goes beyond preventing trade. Other sanctions have also targeted Russia’s ability to obtain vital technology that can be used in weapon systems. It’s one of the main reasons why Russia has been forced to rely on Soviet-era equipment. When Putin announced that Russia would deliver more than 1,500 tanks to send to the front line, roughly 85% of these tanks were the older T-72s, T-62s, and even T-55s, which are woefully underequipped to deal with the threats of modern warfare. This was evidenced by the fact that Ukrainska Pravda claims Russia has lost around 8,900 tanks and more than 18,000 armored vehicles over the course of the invasion. Simply put, Russia has been forced to continuously use and reuse its old 18:02 battle tanks and salvage them to keep sending more metal to the scrapyard that the frontline has become. While Ukraine has also received some older vehicles, in part because its army has been trained on using them first and foremost, the addition of the M1 Abrams tanks or the HIMARS artillery systems presented a notable improvement in the country’s military tech level. This harkens back to why Ukraine has been able to successfully invade Russian territory and achieve a significant territorial occupation: morale. Since Ukraine has received so much help from NATO and other allies, the army has put these improvements to the test in the Kursk incursion. The effect is two-fold. One, Russia’s military morale has started to falter. With the waves of surrendering soldiers passing through the Kursk region, there’s a much higher chance that the Russian citizens will realize that Russia is not the overwhelming aggressor it claims to be. The new conscripts are nowhere near as capable of maintaining the quality of the Russian army that the country had before the invasion, and the rapid “recycling” of soldiers will likely only deteriorate that quality further. Ultimately, Russia will be forced to loosen up its offensive efforts on Ukrainian soil—which they ramped up as 19:03 a response to the Kursk incursion—and send some of its forces to “liberate” Kursk. But by the time the Russian military gets to that, it’ll be too late. There are an estimated 200,000 civilians who have been forcefully displaced from the Kursk region. The ones who were in Kursk were privy to the significant difference in how Ukraine treats Russian civilians versus how Russia treats Ukrainians. The invading army in Kursk has delegated significant resources to help the Russian civilians receive humanitarian aid with the help of international organizations. By contrast, the early months of the Russo-Ukrainian war saw multiple Ukrainian cities being shelled indiscriminately. Even today, Russia is not straying from launching strikes on Ukrainian hospitals, an act that goes against the Geneva Convention. Furthermore, the war has been disproportionally affecting Russian minorities. The conscription efforts so far have targeted the poorer, less urban areas of the country, promising wages that are double or triple the national average. By contrast, Moscow has been largely unaffected by conscription but has seen significant brain drain as part of the emigration waves. When push comes to shove, 20:02 Putin might be forced to use Muscovites in the army, and the remaining residents of Russia’s capital city might finally get a sense of how the country has fared over the past 30 months. If, or more likely when, that happens, the entire regime in the country might fall due to internal, rather than external, pressure and we might finally see Putin forcefully removed from office. The other advantage Ukraine has received as a result of the Kursk incursion is media coverage. The country’s previous efforts were focused on protecting its existing territory and pushing back against the Russian onslaught. By showing that the Ukrainian army not only has the means to repel Russia, but to inflict significant losses in a counter-invasion, the Western interest in the war has likely peaked. If there were any doubts about Ukraine being able to stand against Russia, those are likely being dispelled as we speak, and politicians can look more favorably on sending Ukraine even more aid. Ultimately, this move may very well secure Ukraine a few more rounds of financial aid. This can work in Ukraine’s favor to end the war as soon as next year. And that’s not an unreasonable claim, considering that the Center for Strategic and 21:00 International Studies – the CSIS – outlined 2024 as the pivotal year for the war back in February. The CSIS claimed that Ukraine will spend 2024 in preparation for what could very well be the final push, as both countries will rapidly go through the available financial and military aid offered to them. The CSIS suggested that the final throes of the war will happen as early as 2025 as new tactics, key pieces of military tech, or overwhelming aid tilts the scales in one country’s favor. Seeing as the prediction was made in February, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the Kursk invasion is exactly the type of turnabout that the CSIS was suggesting. It aligns perfectly with Ukraine’s goals of obtaining more funding, creating a different military tactic from what it used previously, and threatening to tear apart Russia from the inside via moral exhaustion. The advantage for Ukraine is likely to be an advantage for all European countries. In the aftermath of Russia starting the invasion of Ukraine, most NATO countries in Europe have vowed to increase their military funding and modernize their own militaries. Through that, the Eastern bloc of NATO will likely become more effective and unified than ever before, and most of that power will be projected against Russia. Simultaneously, Russia’s biggest ally, 22:08 China, has been oddly silent during the war. If China sides with Russia fully, it stands to lose much more than it could gain even if Russia wins the war. The U.S. controls a major trade chokepoint that China uses in maritime trade, and the U.S. Army has been modernizing to directly counter the Chinese threat. With China kept in a stalemate by the U.S., Russia will inevitably be forced to review its increasingly diminishing list of political and economic allies. With most of the world backing Ukraine, Russia may find itself on the receiving end of a “special military operation,” this time orchestrated by NATO to end the war. But what do you think? How long will the Russo-Ukrainian war last and how will it end? Leave your comments below and thank you for watching. Now go check out Ukraine is Winning War AGAIN or click this other video instead!

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