Kursk

 

It is January, 2024.  I am, in all seriousness, predicting that the Russia-Ukraine War (aka: Russia's "Special Military Operation") will continue for one more "Friedman Unit."  [A "Friedman Unit" is named after airhead Zionist-imperialist Thomas Friedman who wrote propaganda for the New York Times.  Whenever he was asked for his opinion on that catastrophe, he would invariably pull the words "the next six months" out of his stinking anus, and say that something vague, but good, would happen at the end of that period of time.]

In the sidebar on YouTube I've been seeing a thumbnail for somebody's video about the Battle of Kursk.  That 1943 battle was Germany's third, and final, offensive against the Soviets.  Germany did not eliminate the Kursk salient and from then on was on the defensive until its final defeat in 1945.

Last summer, the Ukraine launched a much ballyhooed summer offensive against Russian lines.  They failed to even reach (let alone breach) the Russian's first defensive line.  Ukrainian casualties in that offensive might be as high as 50,000 killed.  These included the best trained soldiers who had been given the best fighting vehicles that Ukraine had received from NATO.  All of these were lost.

I'm giving Ukraine six more months when Germany lasted two years following the defeat at Kursk.  This is based on my fairly ignorant understanding of the comparable industrial, political, economic and military strength of Ukraine in the 2020's and Germany in the 1940's.  It seems to me that Germany still had a first-rate industrial base which, with the rationalization of production achieved by Albert Speer, actually greatly increased its productivity.  The Nazi Party had had over a decade to establish itself at all levels of German society, so as to coerce people into serving it.  On top of that, Hitler's unorthodox economic policy had dragged Germany out of a severe depression in the 1930's and many Germans were still loyal to his government for that reason.

Ukraine was an impoverished state with a terrible corruption problem for decades before the Russian invasion.  Its industrial base was decrepit.  Now it's destroyed.  It has been receiving equipment from NATO countries, primarily the USA, but also the UK, Germany and France.  (This is after the Ukraine went through the remnants of Warsaw Pact-era weaponry from NATO's Eastern European members.)  During the last half-century of peace (with the occasional smashing of Third World militaries such as Iraq's or Libya's) US-American weapons manufacturers have developed a talent for producing expensive, overly-complicated machinery requiring extensive, costly maintenance and upgrades.  They're more concerned with profitability over efficiency.  Germany had a shrinking, but still top-of-the-line airforce.  Ukraine has almost nothing.  Germany had excellent anti-aircraft capabilities.  Ukraine's is borrowed and it's being depleted.  The Ukrainian people elected Zelensky as a peace candidate.  They didn't get peace.  The US-installed Ukrainian fascists demanded war with Russia.  Our media-propaganda system writes a lot of hogwash about Ukrainian patriotism (as well as Russians' hatred of Putin and the war).  But millions of Ukrainians fled when the Russians invaded.  Millions more tried every means they could think of to avoid fighting and most of those who have fought and died in this war were dragooned.  Ukraine was found to be drafting men in their forties and fifties even before this failed summer offensive.

I don't think that Ukraine in January 2024 has anything near the resources that Germany had in August, 1943.  I give them another six months before the current government of Ukraine collapses and is replaced by one more acceptable to Putin's Russia.