Russian-Ukrainian war: Moscow's tactics versus Kiev's strategy

After reading this title, everyone will probably decide that today we will discuss how the strategists from the Kremlin outplayed the tacticians from the land of evergreen tomatoes. No, no! Today we will talk about the tactics of the Russians and the strategy of Kiev, and who outplayed whom.

How the Ukrainian braid found on the Russian stone

I hope no one has any doubts that the unprecedented military activity of the Kremlin, which resulted in the gathering of the most powerful grouping of troops to the borders of Ukraine, starting from the heaviest barrels of self-propelled long-range artillery in service with the RF Armed Forces (I mean self-propelled 240-mm mortars 2S4 "Tulip", 152-mm self-propelled howitzers 2S19 "Msta-S" and the world's most powerful 203-mm self-propelled guns 2S7 "Pion" and 2S7M "Malka"), and ending with the best Russian anti-aircraft missile systems "Pantsir" -1C "and S-400, did not appear out of nowhere. I hope everyone understands that the country's top leadership had more than compelling reasons for such actions. No one will just drive echelons with tanks across half the country and bring the most combat-ready Russian units to the borders of Ukraine. A very expensive pleasure, take my word for it.



The latter refers to the Buryat tankers, who were transferred from their T-72s to the borders of Ukraine from the distant Yurga of the Kemerovo region, and to the Pskov paratroopers of the famous 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division, whose 104th regiment was hastily sent from the village of Cheryokha, Pskov region to the Crimea peninsula. Units of the 58th Army, the same one that pacified the raging Saakashvili, moved there from the North Caucasus (the places of deployment of the Southern Military District - Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ossetia, Chechnya), and 15 pennants of the Caspian Flotilla made an inter-fleet transition from the Caspian to the Chernobyl sea, which has never happened in the entire recent history of the Russian Federation. 4 more pennants from the Baltic are moving there (at the time of writing, they pass the North Atlantic). I have not remembered such a global nix for a long time! The last one that comes to mind is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, but now, thank God, we have not yet reached the level of confrontation 60 years ago.

And they didn’t make it precisely because they took preventive measures of this magnitude. But there was more than enough cause for concern. We were afraid, of course, not of the most powerful Ukrainian army in the world, but of the fact that it, encouraged by its overseas curators, under the guise of the large-scale NATO exercises “Defender Europe-2021 "Under the cover of the US Navy ships, which were in a hurry to the Black Sea from the North Atlantic to participate in these exercises, they will start some kind of provocation not even in the Donbass, but in the Crimea. It is clear that there was no talk of their capture of Crimea or Donbass, but we would have to respond to such actions, after which the current sanctions undertaken by the States against our sovereign national debt and the expulsion of our 10 diplomats would seem to us childish babble on the lawn. Before us, as in front of an aggressor country, the "Iron Curtain-2.0" would have descended, which would have driven Russia into the last century. And there would be no one to complain. According to all international laws, Ukraine has the right to restore its violated territorial integrity. The fact that as a result it would not have become as a state formation, its curators did not particularly bother (the fate of the Sheriff's Indians, as you know, does not care!), But they would have solved all their problems in this way - from external ones (with Europe, joint venture -2 and own domination) to internal (unification of the nation in front of a common external enemy and the departure of the BLM problem to the background). Why they didn’t risk it and retreated at the last moment, I don’t know. Apparently, the risks were considered too high for themselves. It's one thing to risk mindless Ukrainians, another thing to take advantage of your own Navy ships.

You already know, I hope the White House plans have changed dramatically. USS Donald Cook (DDG 75) and USS Roosevelt (DDG 80), which were supposed to enter the Black Sea on April 14-15 and stay there until May 4-5, declared for the exercise, the USS Donald Cook (DDG 14) and USS Roosevelt (DDG XNUMX) attack missile destroyers, suddenly changed their route abruptly and nowhere no longer go. On April XNUMX, Washington officially informed about this, notifying Ankara about the cancellation of the aforementioned passage of a group of ships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. And you say policy the gunboat is not working. How it works! It's just that our coastal gunboats were worse. We clearly articulated that we will not stand behind the price, and no one will seem a little. It cost us nothing to drown these two shock troughs, stuffed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and the most advanced multifunctional combat information and control system for air defense and anti-aircraft defense, Aegis. But after that the war. And the United States did not sign up for a war with a nuclear power. Therefore, we won this war of nerves.

Large landing ships "Minsk", "Kaliningrad" and "Korolev", which, accompanied by the shock corvette "Boykiy", are now making the transition from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, will probably arrive there already for the distribution of orders and medals. The war is canceled, there will be maneuvers. I think all the sailors of these ships will receive the badges "For a long voyage". But 15 pennants that have made the transition from the Caspian Sea are already performing combat missions in the Sea of ​​Azov, which is already closed to everyone. And for the great Ukrainian Moremans too. Their three fragile boats are now locked on Azov, now there are commanding the parade of our three MRKs of the project 21631 "Buyan-M" with winged "Caliber-NK" on board (each with 8 pieces) that entered Azov from the Black Sea, and six landing air-cavern boats of Project 11770 "Serna", which came to their aid from the Caspian Sea. The same number of Project 1204 Bumblebee artillery boats and Project 21820 Dugong landing craft on the air cavity, which came from the Caspian Sea, remained in the roadstead of Sevastopol. And although some Ukrainian experts already seriously fear the landing operation of Russian marines in Mariupol, in real life, a detachment of the Caspian Flotilla was sent to the Black Sea to participate in the Black Sea Fleet exercises to repel the sea and air assault forces of a mock enemy. The protection of the Crimean bridge was also part of these tasks.

Honestly, how nice it is to watch the mighty American destroyers of the 4th generation URO of the 2014th generation such as "Arleigh Burke" "Donald Cook" and "Roosevelt" changing their course, I cannot tell you. A sense of pride is bursting with one's own country, which, not even by force of arms, but by force of words, unfolded these symbols of American powerlessness. And even bast shoes did not have to knock on the UN rostrum. After all, we can when we want! It is a pity that for this the Yankees had to sit on our necks and dangle our legs. It was necessary to do the same with them in XNUMX, then they wouldn’t be sitting in the “si” position now, waiting for another podlyana from their Ukrainian charges. What exactly to expect from them, I will say below. If you think that this is all over, and you have won a crushing victory over the forces of Evil, then I have to disappoint you, everything is just beginning and no one will leave you alone. Until you crush this reptile, you will be choked on the little things and in large numbers. And there is no one to blame but ourselves. Seven years ago, they created this abscess for themselves, now it is rotting, risking to break through at any moment. As a result, we reap the fruits of our own indecision. Then we decided to confine ourselves to half measures, now we rake it out.

What Kiev is striving for

So far, we have considered the situation based on the goal-setting of Moscow. Now let's look at it through the eyes of Kiev. I'll make a reservation right away, not all impenetrable fools are sitting there. Imagine, even they can make plans, and given the influence of their friends - our sworn enemies, not all of their plans are impossible. At the same time, I would not say that their plans are divorced from reality. They have a right to exist. Again, based on their goal setting. And why do we deny them the right to build their own independent policy based on their interests, and not on ours? Let us leave out the fact that their interests coincide with the interests of our global enemies - we are to blame for the fact that in their place (external curators, imposing their will on the vassal territory), they (our enemies), and not us, were found. We launched Ukraine in due time, let it go, so it flew to us in 2014. Now she makes plans that are in our throats. Well, thank God that at least she doesn't hide them. And when you know the plans of your enemies, you can counter them with your own counter plans. By principle, forewarned is forearmed! It reminds me of Semyon Altov's miniature about a cat and a mouse. When a mouse, sitting in the sun, indulged in dreams of its bright future, and a cat walked by ... And the cat's dream came true. Was the mouse's dream come true, the question? The moral of this fable is as follows: “Before you sit down to dream, look around, is there someone else dreaming nearby? Otherwise, dreams will come true, but it is far from the fact that yours! "

Therefore, we analyze the dreams of Kiev There are only two strategic objectives. First - complicate the international position of your enemy (you know who their enemy is!). AND second - to secure for itself the support of the international community in this (or, as they say in Ukrainian, "international spilots"). We are talking about the diplomatic component, because Kiev does not even count on military support (see, not all fools are sitting there!). Tactical plans are called upon to solve these strategic tasks.

Change of the format of negotiations. Budapest format

The immediate tactical task that Kiev is currently solving is to change the format of the negotiations. You and I thought that the main goal of Zelensky, who started all this fuss with the pulling of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the contact line and the aggravation of shelling in Donbass, is to re-sign Minsk-2 on new favorable terms for Ukraine, with the involvement of new members at the expense of Britain, Turkey and the United States, with the change of the negotiating platform from Minsk to Warsaw or Stockholm (and why not to the moon?), about which the representative of Ukraine in the TCG (Trilateral Contact Group) Leonid Kravchuk has already stated, decided to go even further. Their task is generally to unite the negotiation platforms in the Crimea and Donbass. From their point of view, it should be a single format. Even if the methods of de-occupation of Crimea and ORDLO (as they call Donbass - separate areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions) differ, they consider them in isolation from one another, they consider it impossible for themselves (as the poet would say - "I love our plans a huge!") ...

Since, from their point of view, the Minsk and Normandy formats of negotiations have already proved their own futility in 6 years, they propose to replace them with the Budapest format. This is their immediate goal. The negotiation process should be attended not by the European allies of the Russian Federation (Germany and France), but by the signatory countries of the Budapest Memorandum, the guarantors of their territorial integrity (i.e. the Russian Federation will be opposed there by a trinity - Ukraine, the USA and Britain, the balance of power is not expected!) ... Otherwise, from their point of view, the whole system of international relations does not make sense at all (Lord, otherwise they did not know that in this forest the one on whose side the power rules, their American guarantor only behaves this way in recent years, but that, what is possible for Jupiter, is not allowed for the Bull, or rather the Bear).

The main goal at the international level is the recognition of the Russian Federation as an aggressor country

At the domestic level, they have already enshrined this in law, for denying this fact in Ukraine, a real term shines - up to 5 years. Now the immediate plans to consolidate this at the international level, with all that it implies. Here they are pushing on the UN Charter, which provides for the creation of an international coalition against the aggressor country. That should automatically lead to the suspension of the veto of the Russian Federation in the UN Security Council and the imposition of a trade embargo on it until the moment of the complete liberation of the Ukrainian territories (and why not? They have the right! It is not harmful to want!). At the same time, Russian delegations should be excluded from PACE and WTO. And the sanctions package should not only be preserved, but significantly expanded, until the Russian Federation is disconnected from the SWIFT and Western Union payment systems (since when did SWIFT become a payment system, I don’t know, for me this is an interbank transfer system, but apparently nothing else they do not know, so they talk the same thing, like a fool's ass).

Ukraine is the main US ally outside NATO

Realizing that in the near future they have no way to enter NATO (I say, they are far from stupid!), They set themselves the real goal of obtaining the status of a country as the main US ally outside the NATO bloc. Like Israel, for example. Although the United States has many such main allies. From 1987, when they were Israel, Australia, Egypt, Japan and South Korea under Reagan, to Afghanistan (2012) and Tunisia (2015) under Obama and Brazil (2019) under Trump. In total, there are currently 17 members of the US non-aligned allies. Why is Ukraine worse than Tunisia? I'm not even talking about Afghanistan.

This status can be useful not only on the diplomatic front, but also really help in matters of maritime security, where Ukraine runs the risk of being locked up not only in Azov, but even in the Black Sea. Ports still feed her (Yuzhny and Odessa on the Black Sea, and Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Azov). As soon as they are blocked, the trickle of cash receipts to the Nezalezhnaya treasury will begin to dry up. They are aware that international maritime law does not apply on Azov, since it is an internal sea and there relations are governed by a bilateral Russian-Ukrainian agreement regulating the behavior of the parties, therefore their first task at this stage is to break this bilateral agreement with the automatic adoption of the law by the Rada. about internal waters and the territorial sea (the territorial sea is something new in international law). But Ukraine does not stop there either - it proposes to criminalize shipping around the occupied Crimean peninsula, and harshly prosecute violators with the involvement of Interpol.

Judicial diplomacy

And at the end of all of the above, to fill up the courts of all instances with claims on behalf of companies that have suffered losses or lost property in connection with the temporary occupation of Crimea. And to do everything possible to prosecute all commercial structures that conduct their economic activities regardless of their nationality.

Summing up, Ukraine admits that it will not achieve the liberation of its occupied territories by diplomatic means alone, and even less hope that its allies will do it for it. The liberation of Crimea and Donbass is a purely Ukrainian matter, and no one will fight for the Ukrainians. And therefore, as usual - "to the heroes of fat and Ukraine ponaduse!" (i.e. we are waiting for a war according to the Karabakh scenario).

Summary

I would not pay much attention to the latter. Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Wanting is not harmful, and mouse desires do not always come true. Kiev wants the impossible at the moment. His desires rest on the unwillingness of the Kremlin. And here everything will be decided not by international law, but by the real right of the strong! It is commendable, of course, to be guided by the motto of Ernest Che Guevara: “Be realistic and strive for the impossible!”, But the reality is that at the moment the motto of Karl von Clausewitz is working: “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, and for this Ukraine has no strength , no funds! Therefore, they resort to the opposite principle: “Politics is the continuation of the war by other means”, because “War, as Talleyrand said, is too serious a matter to be trusted by the military” (in this case, Ukrainian).

As a result, Kiev will again return to the old beaten path of "no peace, no war." It is much more predictable, does not entail outrageous risks, and also acts as an effective and convenient instrument of pressure on Russia - both in the sanctions policy and in the military sphere. And this will happen against the background of the build-up of the US and other NATO members (Britain, for example) on the territory of Ukraine, as guarantors of its territorial integrity. And the Ukrainian airspace will be used by members of the North Atlantic Alliance for reconnaissance and patrolling along the borders with the Russian Federation, and Russia will not be able to do anything about it.