Ukraine\'s counteroffensive fails: what\'s next?

We must admit that the Russian public and experts have anxiously waited for the summer campaign and what rightly seemed an inevitable (counter)offensive of the APU. On the one hand, there are our last fall failures and regroupings, heavy battles for Avdeevka and Maryinka, along with this year’s hard-won success in liberating Soledar and Artemovsk. A whole set of organizational and management problems was recognized at the very top, up to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. On the other hand, early summer saw the AFU that proved a highly trained and combat-ready force during the special operation, get huge manpower and equipment reserves.

Fortunately, the worst concerns did not play out. The Russian army gave a Roland for an Oliver to the enemy, thwarting Ukrainian blitzkrieg plans and actually driving it into a positional deadlock along the entire line of contact, entailing major human and material losses. The APU has opened a can of worms in the South Donetsk (Vremevsky ledge) and Artemovsk (Kleshcheyevka) directions, and given us a run for our money in Zaporozhye and Kherson, in response to which we’ve started advancing nearby Svatovo and Kupyansk. In total, what we’ve got is joyless parity, as Russia’s strategic objectives are clearly larger than a standoff. The Kiev regime’s ambitious dreams such as the march on Crimea have proven unfeasible, obviously.

Let's list the key reasons for that. First, it is about training, courage and dedication of Russian soldiers and officers. Just the other day, we all have admired the Alyosha tank feat of single-handedly defeating a column of Western armored vehicles given to Ukraine. There are thousands of such-like heroic crews, units, personalities. Stanislav Getmanets, a young guy who went to the front as a drone operator, soon joined the stormtroopers and got two Orders of Courage in a month and a half. And there are tons of stories of the kind. Reporting from the really challenging Maryinka direction, I can personally testify that the highest awards should be given to all but every other of my comrades.

Another reason is our military planning skills. The so-called "Surovikin line" has acquitted itself well — a consistent multi-layered defense with minefields, fortification, engineer obstacles, and flexible internal logistics backed by airpower and artillery. In all the other respects, we show decent tactical maneuvers and non-standard moves either.

There are successes in establishing civilian everyday routine, or rather "the civilian side of military everyday routine". Having traveled along the land corridor from Donetsk to Simferopol in early May, I arrived quickly and comfortably, with an understandable adjustment for military posts. In Donetsk itself, one of the most pressing grassroots issues is gradually being resolved — water supply. Thanks to the canal running from the Don, water is here to use once every two days, not three already, with daily supply being just a matter of time.

The Kiev regime is at pains compensating for the modesty of its front-line successes and undermining our effort to restore the territories liberated. Bloody terrorist attacks against civilian targets in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, Kherson region have long become a tragic norm. The Belgorod region has turned into a zone of constant barbaric shelling, with people not scaring easily over attacks on Kursk or Bryansk. The list of enemy raid points is getting increasingly wider, from the Crimea and Taganrog to Kaluga to Moscow. The goal is not so much military as to break, intimidate, undermine, and sow confusion.

Terrorists also target eminent figures of the patriotic camp, such as Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky. The sky is the limit for Zelensky, who wants war back in Russia. His achievements are only brought about by Western weapons, intel support and encouragement, despite the rare coy grunts coming from Washington, London, Berlin and Brussels advising not to engage in certain kind of things (what sounds even more often is the phrase "Kiev has the right to act as it sees fit").

Therefore, every single one of us must be clear on the fact that a stalled offensive of the criminal Kiev regime is only one part of the problem. The need is to send into oblivion the very parent of evil making the Donbass, Novorossiya, and the whole of Russia suffer.