Transcription
According to Michael Kofman, one of the most authoritative military analysts of our time, whose reports land on the desks of the Pentagon's top command, the vast majority of observers, politicians, and even high-ranking military experts make the same fundamental, yet completely non-obvious, mistake when trying to predict the future of this protracted and bloody war. Kofman insists with extreme persistence that all eyes today are fixed on the gigantic, life-grinding meat grinder in the east of Ukraine, on tens and hundreds of kilometers of trenches dug to full height, on endless artillery duels that, with their scale and futility, resemble the darkest pages of World War I battles. However, it is precisely this total fixation on the obvious, on what is shown daily on maps and in news reports, that is the main strategic miscalculation, which prevents one from seeing the real picture of what is happening. The analyst emphasizes very harshly that the true finale of the war, the very turning point when the entire multi-layered defensive line of the Russian army will crumble like a house of cards, will occur not at all where it is so stubbornly and anxiously awaited. It will not be an immediate breakthrough of defenses, but a sudden, rapid, and absolutely devastating collapse for the entire system, which will happen in the sector that now seems secondary, stable, or even frozen to most. To fully understand this non-intuitive logic, Kofman suggests completely changing the optics of perception, ceasing to measure success in war by recaptured or lost kilometers of scorched earth in Donbas. He says that the Kremlin has consciously and, it must be admitted, very successfully turned the entire eastern front into one grand and continuous media spectacle, into a real black hole that effectively draws in all the attention of the world's mass media, all available analytical resources, and all emotional expectations, both within Russia itself and far beyond its borders. Every village taken with enormous losses is presented by state propaganda as the greatest strategic victory, comparable in significance to the storming of the Reichstag. Every subsequent unsuccessful attack or retreat is interpreted as a national tragedy of universal scale, requiring immediate revenge, new sacrifices, and a new inhuman strain of the country's entire strength. But in reality, as Kofman persistently and methodically explains, all this is just an expensive and extremely bloody facade, a gigantic and skillfully constructed set, behind which lie the true, systemic, and deadly vulnerabilities of the entire cumbersome military machine of the Russian Federation. To discern this Achilles' heel, it is necessary to do what the Russian high command, apparently, is organically and mentally incapable of: to stop thinking in terms of the last century and look at the war map through the eyes of an impartial logistician and a cool-headed mathematician, rather than an ideologue or propagandist. Kofman compares the current Kremlin strategy to the strategy of long-gone old imperial armies, which built multi-kilometer and outwardly completely impregnable fortress walls, investing all available state resources in them, but completely forgot about defending a small, inconspicuous gate in the rear, through which the enemy eventually entered at the most inopportune moment, rendering this entire grandiose, expensive, and seemingly eternal defense line absolutely meaningless. The eastern front, in Kofman's deep opinion, is precisely this gigantic fortress wall, into which the Russian command has poured not only hundreds of thousands of lives of its soldiers, but also all its political capital accumulated over decades. However, it is precisely this obsessive, almost maniacal concentration of all forces without exception in one single point that has created a critical, and possibly fatal, weakness in another. Michael Kofman constantly draws the attention of his listeners to the fact that modern warfare, unlike the wars of the 20th century, is primarily a war of logistics, mathematics, and psychology, not a primitive war of frontal assaults and loud propaganda slogans. He says that one can hold the front line in the east for as long as one wants, one can endlessly throw more and more waves of mobilized soldiers there, ruthlessly turning them into cannon fodder. But if, at some point, the entire southern grouping of Russian troops, numbering tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, finds itself cut off from supply routes, then the entire eastern front, with all its illusory successes and symbolic significance, will instantly lose any strategic meaning. It is in the south, as Kofman asserts with absolute certainty, that lies the very Achilles' heel, the very point of no return, one precise strike on which will cause an immediate and organized retreat, not a controlled, rapid cascading collapse of the entire defense system built over many months. The analyst explains in maximum detail that the Southern Front, which covers the strategically important land approaches to the Crimean Peninsula, is held together by only a few extremely thin and incredibly vulnerable supply lines on several railway branches and road bridges, which are currently operating at the absolute limit of their physical capabilities and have no minimal margin of safety. While in the east, the Russian army was able to build a deeply echeloned defense, relying on a powerful and reliable rear within Russia itself with its developed network of railways and roads, the entire southern grouping is effectively hanging in the air, being in complete and humiliating dependence on logistical chains that can be cut by precise and surgically accurate strikes of modern long-range systems. Kofman emphasizes that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is well aware of this critical vulnerability of its adversary. And their entire military strategy of recent months is not built on a desperate and suicidal attempt to break through the concrete fortifications in the east, but on the methodical, patient, and planned destruction of all enemy rear infrastructure without exception, precisely in the south. Every successful strike on a huge ammunition depot in Dzhankoy, every disabled span of the Crimean Bridge, every precise and calibrated attack on a key railway junction in Melitopol or Volnovakha is not just a local tactical success that can be proudly reported in the evening news. It is, in fact, a small, but extremely important step towards creating ideal, almost laboratory conditions for the total and rapid collapse of the entire enemy grouping. Michael Kofman says that the overwhelming majority of people are waiting for the start of some large, almost cinematic counteroffensive, which will look like a massive tank breakthrough in the style of World War II with thousands of units of equipment attacking across a wide steppe. But in reality, the key and most important phase of this complex operation has been going on for a long time. It is simply practically invisible to the general public because it is not happening on the front line itself, but deep in the enemy's operational rear. The essence of this hidden phase is the slow but inexorable strangulation of the entire southern grouping, the deliberate creation of unbearable logistical hunger for it, when tens of thousands of Russian soldiers sitting in trenches will simultaneously and everywhere run out of shells, fuel for equipment, medicine for the wounded, food, and even basic drinking water. It is at this very moment, as Kofman predicts, that what no one expects in this form will happen. The front will not be broken in the classical sense of the word. It will simply suddenly cease to exist as a single and manageable military organism. An unorganized, panic-stricken, and avalanche-like flight will begin. Because an army that physically cannot fight, that cannot return fire, and that has no stable connection with higher command, instantly turns into a disoriented and uncontrollable mob of armed people, whose sole and main goal is to save their own lives at any cost. Kofman provides numerous and convincing historical examples, recalling how entire armies, considered invincible, collapsed not due to brilliant enemy maneuvers, but precisely due to internal decay and paralysis of the central nervous system caused by the complete collapse of the supply system. It is this factor, in his firm opinion, that will be the very trigger for the collapse. And as soon as this process of uncontrolled disintegration begins in the south, it will immediately, like a destructive chain reaction, affect all other sectors of this huge front. The Russian command will have to, in panic and chaos, withdraw its last strategic reserves from the eastern direction to try to somehow plug the giant hole that has formed in the south. But this desperate action will only critically weaken the eastern front, creating more and more points for possible breakthroughs. A destructive domino effect will arise, which can no longer be stopped by any blocking detachments or execution orders. The analyst separately and very thoroughly dwells on the fact that the psychological effect of a sudden and shameful collapse in the south will be tens of times more destructive than any, even the most severe, protracted military defeat in Donbas. It is one thing to retreat slowly and with heavy fighting in the east, ceding one village for weeks, and explaining it on federal TV channels as some cunning tactical maneuver or strategic regrouping of forces to occupy more advantageous defensive lines. And it is completely another, unimaginably terrible for the image of the authorities, to see in live broadcasts of world TV channels shocking footage of a panic-stricken, uncontrolled flight from the southern direction, which for many months was presented by propaganda as a sacred and impregnable fortress on the way to Crimea, as a visible symbol of Russian military power and the irreversibility of historical decisions. Such a devastating blow to morale, in Kofman's deep conviction, the existing political system in Russia will no longer be able to withstand. It will cause a chain reaction of demoralization not only in the ranks of the army itself, but also in the entire Russian society and, most importantly, in the ruling elites themselves. After all, it is precisely the land corridor to Crimea and the peninsula itself that are the main symbolic and political prize of this entire war for the Kremlin, and its rapid, humiliating loss will be perceived by all key players not just as a serious military defeat, but as a complete and unconditional collapse of the entire multi-year military adventure, as a personal and indelible fiasco of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Michael Kofman emphasizes that the exact date of this event, of course, cannot be named, but all military-technical and logistical prerequisites for it have already been undeniably created. He persistently repeats that this is a matter of not months or even years, but rather a matter of accumulating a critical mass of unsolvable logistical problems for the Russian army. At some point, which cannot be predicted with day-to-day accuracy, the number of unresolved problems will transition into a new destructive quality. And the entire system, which just yesterday seemed monolithic and unshakably stable, will collapse within 48 or 72 hours. That is why, Kofman concludes his detailed analysis, one should not look closely at the combat map in the east and meticulously count the meters of advance of the sides. The real clock, counting down to the real end of this war, is ticking in a completely different place: in the south, at railway stations, on road bridges, and deep in the rear of occupied territories, where every precise and calibrated strike relentlessly brings closer the very sudden and shocking finale that will stun absolutely everyone. Kofman analyzes in detail why the southern direction is so critical, and his deep analysis goes far beyond a simple count of battalion tactical groups or artillery systems. He explains that the entire military doctrine of the Russian Federation, inherited from the Soviet Union, is built on two fundamental principles: the principle of strict centralized control and the principle of massive, overwhelming use of artillery. Both of these elements, as Kofman emphasizes, are in 100% total dependence on the uninterrupted and effective operation of railways. An army that has historically been accustomed to fighting by firing 30 or 40,000 shells per day is physically incapable of maintaining such incredible intensity of fire if these shells need to be transported by ordinary trucks along broken and constantly shelled roads for hundreds of kilometers. In Kofman's opinion, many Western analysts at the very beginning of the conflict criminally underestimated this fatal dependence, but now it has become completely obvious that the entire Russian military power literally stands on steel rails. And as soon as these rails start to fail or disappear altogether, the entire cumbersome and unwieldy system goes haywire. In eastern Ukraine, the Russian army has direct and relatively safe access to Russia's own developed railway network, which allows them to maintain supplies at a more or less acceptable level, despite all emerging difficulties. But in the south, and this is the key point, the situation is radically different. There are only a few key transport arteries, and each of them is under constant and increasing fire threat. Kofman points out that even a partial, not complete, disruption of these fragile logistical corridors already leads to regular "shell hunger" at the front, when artillery batteries are forced to strictly conserve ammunition and cannot fully perform their tasks of suppressing the enemy. This, in turn, sharply reduces their ability to contain Ukrainian attacks and forces the infantry to suffer much greater unjustified losses, which leads to a decline in morale. The analyst compares this exhausting process to slow suffocation, when there is less and less oxygen in a closed room. The body is still alive, it still instinctively tries to resist, but its strength is irreversibly melting away with each day, and at a certain moment, the point of no return is reached, after which there is an almost instantaneous failure of all vital systems. It is at this critical stage, in Kofman's precise words, that the entire southern grouping of Russian troops is now. They are still heroically holding their positions. They are even still trying to conduct some local counterattacks, but their rear base is systematically and methodically being destroyed, and this process has long become irreversible. Furthermore, Michael Kofman draws the closest attention to another very important factor that many commentators often overlook. This is geography. The southern steppes in Ukraine are not densely built-up urban agglomerations of Donbas, where one can cling to every basement for months and turn any multi-story building into an impregnable fortress. These are vast, open, and flat spaces where mobility, speed, and situational awareness play a key role. And holding territory depends entirely on the command's ability to quickly redeploy reserves and supply its troops with everything necessary in real-time. In conditions where logistics are paralyzed and command is disrupted, any rapid and unexpected breakthrough attempt by Ukrainian troops on a wide front can lead to the rapid encirclement of very large Russian units. And unlike the east, where the front line is more or less continuous and predictable, in the south it has a pronounced focal character with large, poorly controlled spaces between the main defense nodes. Kofman is absolutely confident that the Ukrainian command will use precisely this unique feature of the terrain in its upcoming operation. They will not storm the most heavily fortified positions head-on, losing people and equipment. Instead, they will deliver several rapid, precise, and unexpected strikes in the weakest and least protected places, instantly penetrating the enemy's operational rear and creating multiple encirclement threats for its garrisons. In such an extremely unfavorable situation, the Russian command will have only two catastrophic options. Either to immediately order a general retreat, which, in conditions of growing panic and disruption of command systems, will almost certainly turn into a chaotic and widespread flight, or to show indecisiveness and take a risk, leaving its best troops in numerous cauldrons, where they will subsequently be methodically and without haste destroyed by artillery and drones. Kofman leans towards the high probability that the first scenario will be implemented. Moreover, the saving order to retreat may be given criminally late, when centralized command of the troops will already be partially or completely lost. It is then that we will all see those shocking shots of abandoned, hastily left operational equipment, huge columns of demoralized prisoners, and a complete collapse of the front. It will not look like a tactical retreat, but precisely like a sudden collapse of command. And the psychological consequences of such a shocking event, as the analyst emphasizes again, will have the effect of an exploding information bomb. The entire picture of the world meticulously constructed by the Kremlin, in which the Russian army is invincible, professional, and capable of holding captured territories forever, will collapse literally in one day. This will cause profound shock and demoralization not only among the remaining military but also among the entire civilian population, which until this very moment has faithfully believed the propaganda. Kofman believes that Putin and his inner circle intuitively understand this existential threat. And that is precisely why they cling so desperately and irrationally to the east, trying to create at least an illusion of some successes there and thus distract attention from the slowly but surely approaching catastrophe in the south. But, as the analyst reasonably notes, the fundamental laws of war, logistics, and mathematics cannot be deceived. One can talk about illusory victories and heroism on television for as long as one wants, but if a particular soldier in a particular trench has no shells, food, or communication, he will not and cannot fight. And this cruel moment of truth, according to Michael Kofman's precise prediction, will arrive completely suddenly and will be a complete and absolute surprise to everyone who stubbornly continues to look in the wrong direction. He says that the entire history of world wars is full of similar examples, when renowned generals prepared for a war that had already passed, building useless Maginot lines and expecting an exact repetition of old familiar scenarios, while their enemy delivered a crushing blow in a completely different place, in a completely different way, and in a completely different dimension. It is precisely such an asymmetric scenario, in his deep conviction, that is unfolding right now in Ukraine. While the whole world watches with bated breath the oppositional archaic war in the east. The real war of the 21st century, a war of logistics, space reconnaissance, precision strikes, and network-centric control, is being won in the south, and its final outcome will determine not only the outcome of this particular battle but also the ultimate fate of the entire multi-year conflict. Kofman even goes further in his detailed analysis, suggesting how this cascading collapse will look in practice. He believes that the trigger will not be one grand and large-scale operation, but a whole series of perfectly coordinated and synchronized actions. The first and most important stage will be the complete fire isolation of the Crimean Peninsula from the mainland part of Ukraine. As soon as this happens, Crimea, from the so-called unsinkable aircraft carrier, as Russian propaganda likes to call it, will instantly turn into a gigantic and deadly trap for hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilians who were rashly brought there. The very realization that they are on an island without reliable supply and without clear escape routes will cause mass uncontrolled panic, which will immediately spread to the Russian troops located north of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The second stage, according to Kofman, is the simultaneous creation of multiple and diverse threats in different sectors of the Southern Front. This will force the Russian command to frantically scatter its already extremely scarce operational reserves, as they will not understand until the last moment where exactly the main crushing blow will be delivered. This deliberate tactic will create unbearable chaos in the ossified and unwieldy command system and force generals to make one wrong decision after another under extreme time pressure. Kofman particularly emphasizes that the Ukrainian army, armed with advanced Western intelligence and communication systems, sees the entire operational situation in real-time and will deliver its strikes precisely where the enemy's defense is most weak and disorganized at a given moment. The third and already decisive stage, as the analyst predicts, will be one or several rapid mechanized breakthroughs to the coast of the Sea of Azov, which will physically cut the entire southern grouping into two or even three isolated parts. The part that ends up to the west will be pressed tightly against the Dnieper and will effectively find itself in a huge cauldron. The part that ends up to the east will be forced to retreat in terrible haste and under constant fire towards the destroyed Mariupol and further towards the borders of Russia, abandoning equipment and heavy weapons. And this very rapid breakthrough, according to Kofman, will look to the whole world like a sudden and shocking collapse. Just yesterday, the front line on the maps seemed absolutely stable and impregnable, and tomorrow Ukrainian tanks will be on the coast, and Russian elite units will either be in complete encirclement or in a state of panic flight. Michael Kofman particularly notes that such a scenario is the Kremlin's worst nightmare, because it leaves absolutely no even minimal chance to somehow save face before its own population. It will become completely impossible to explain to millions of people how the so-called second army of the world lost strategic control over territories that were recently declared with great fanfare to be an eternal and inalienable part of the Russian Federation in just a few days. This will become irrefutable and visual proof of the complete and crushing failure not only of the incompetent military command but also of the entire top political leadership of the country. And it is after this, as Kofman firmly believes, that truly irreversible tectonic processes will begin within Russia itself. A crushing military defeat in the south will become the very powerful catalyst that will launch a ruthless and open struggle for power between various Kremlin clans, because all key players will instantly understand that the current leader is no longer a guarantor of their personal safety and financial stability. Kofman concludes his extensive analysis with a very sober and extremely harsh conclusion. This war will not end at the negotiating table, which some short-sighted politicians in the West naively hope for. It will end on the battlefield, and it will end with the total military defeat of the Russian army in the south of Ukraine. And this defeat will be so rapid, obvious, and humiliating that no one in the world will have the slightest doubt about who won an unconditional victory in this war and who suffered a crushing defeat. Therefore, the next time you hear in the news about heavy fighting for another inconspicuous village in Donbas, remember the words of Michael Kofman, who persistently advises not to look at the noisy waves crashing against the rocks, but at that small, almost imperceptible crack at the very foundation of a giant dam, which with each day and with each precise strike becomes larger and larger, and which at one far from beautiful moment will inevitably lead to the entire cumbersome structure being washed away by a single powerful flow. And this moment, judging by all objective signs, is already much closer than many of us think today.