Dialogue Works: Russia Unleashes Relentless Troop Waves, Overwhelms Ukrainian Forces!
I take pride in being among Nima Alkhorshid’s prestigious group of regular interviewees for his Dialogue Works broadcasts on youtube.
Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Russia Unleashes Relentless Troop Waves, Overwhelms Ukrainian Forces!
The title (above) which he gave to yesterday’s 45 minute chat is revealing about the art: a certain amount of hype is essential to catch the interest of an audience that has many alternative expert discussions on line to choose from.
To be sure, the daily advances of Russian forces all along the line of confrontation in Ukraine are being recognized even by Kiev’s cheerleaders in Western media, like The Financial Times and The New York Times, although they wishfully attribute this to Moscow’s willingness to take heavy losses, something which is scarcely believable if you follow closely the methods that the Russian high command puts in place before every attack on the Ukrainian positions, namely devastating aerial bombing, rocket, artillery and drone strikes that destroy the defenses of the enemy well before the Russian storm brigades move in for the kill.
On the other side, some of our most respected military commentators, like Colonel Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter are describing the daily Russian advance in such glowing terms that one may well expect the Ukrainian military to capitulate in a week or two, an eventuality which I believe is highly unlikely, precisely because of the deliberateness and caution of the Russian high command, as well as the appearance on the Ukrainian side of ever new schemes to escape their fate, such as the cutthroat mercenaries from Columbia who were shown for the first time by Russian television tonight.
In this interview, I put the battlefield situation in the frame of what I see each day on Russian state television, meaning the Vesti news bulletins and the most authoritative and sober talk show and commentary, Bolshaya Igra (The Great Game) hosted by Vycheslav Nikonov . Russian television reporting still plays down what is happening at the line of confrontation. It is being spoken of in terms of improved positioning, presumably for a major offensive still to come. The reporting from each area of the front calls out the settlements that are being fought over, what parts have already been taken by Russian troops, what parts are held by the enemy. But the war correspondents intentionally do not give you a sense of their strategic importance or of how Russia will move not a couple of kilometers forward per day but the many dozens of kilometers that must be covered to completely liberate the Donbas, not to mention reach the Dnieper river, the midway point in what was Ukraine in 1991.
Nonetheless, as I point out in this interview, there is a very significant change in what the front line soldiers are saying to the reporters today compared to several months ago. Back then it was clear that the Russians were heavily stressed from dodging the drones and return artillery fire. They faced multiple daily counter attacks here and there which they had to snuff out. Now these soldiers are clearly very confident of their superiority in terms of arms, tactics and strategy. They are, as Donald Trump told Zelensky in their recent phone call, ‘a killing machine’ that is prevailing.
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Those of you who watch this interview will appreciate that it also covers a variety of topics from current international developments, beginning with a discussion of the Navy Day celebrations in St Petersburg this past Sunday. Navy Day 2024 was notable for showing off some of the latest additions to the Russian fleet, for the foreign vessels participating in this event for the first time in my decades long experience, for the foreign, mainly BRICS delegations of high navy officers who flew to Russia to take part and for a very important speech by Vladimir Putin on Russia’s response to US plans to install in Germany in 2026 long range nuclear capable Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as still to be manufactured American hypersonic missiles.
As regards the foreign participation, I hasten to add here what I did not say in the interview: that this is yet another proof that Russia’s dramatic successes on the battlefield and the obvious superiority of its weaponry compared to what the United States and NATO are supplying to Ukraine create the conditions for many countries from the Global South to show solidarity with the winner. That is simply a basic law of human behavior.
In our chat, we also touched upon the question of how Russians view Kamala Harris now that she is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President, what to make of Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski’s call for conscription age Ukrainian males in the EU to be sent home to join Zelensky’s army and several other noteworthy news items of the past 10 days since my last time on his program.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024