According to Mykhailo Samus, a former Ukrainian naval officer turned think-tanks analyst, the Ukrainian strategy of dragging Russia into an urban combat nightmare is to buy time for rearming with the heavy weapons provided by the West, to "exhaust, or reduce, the enemy's [Russia's] offensive capabilities."
The Ukrainian operational concepts in play in Severodonetsk, these analysts claim, have their roots in past Russian urban warfare experiences in Aleppo, Syria and Mariupol. What escapes the attention of these so-called military experts, is that both Aleppo and Mariupol were decisive Russian victories; there were no "excessive casualties," no "strategic defeat."
Had The New York Times bothered to check the resumes of the "military exerts" it consulted, it would have found two men so deeply entrenched into the Ukrainian propaganda mill as to make their respective opinions all but useless to any journalistic outlet possessing a modicum of impartiality. But this was The New York Times.
Gressel is the source of such wisdom as:
"If we stay tough, if the war ends in defeat for Russia, if the defeat is clear and internally painful, then next time he will think twice about invading a country. That is why Russia must lose this war." And "We in the West, all of us, must now turn over every stone and see what can be done to make Ukraine win this war."
Apparently, the Gressel playbook for Ukrainian victory includes fabricating a Ukrainian strategy from whole cloth to influence perceptions regarding the possibility of a Ukrainian military victory.
Samus likewise seeks to transform the narrative of the Ukrainian frontline forces fighting in Severodonetsk. In a recent interview with the Russian-language journal Meduza, Samus declares that - 'Russia has concentrated a lot of forces [in the Donbass]. The Ukrainian armed forces are gradually withdrawing to prevent encirclement. They understand that the capture of Severodonetsk doesn't change anything for the Russian, or the Ukrainian army, from a practical point of view. Now, the Russian army is wasting tremendous resources to achieve political objectives, and I think they will be very difficult to replenish, for the Ukrainian army, defending Severodonetsk, isn't advantageous. But if they retreat to Lysychansk, they'll be in more favorable tactical conditions. Therefore, the Ukrainian army is gradually withdrawing or leaving Severodonetsk, and upholding the combat mission. The combat mission is to destroy enemy troops and carry out offensive operations."
The truth is, there is nothing deliberate about the Ukrainian defense of Severodonetsk. It is the byproduct of an army in full retreat, desperately trying to claw out some defensive space, only to be crushed by the brutal onslaught of superior Russian artillery-based firepower.
To the extent Ukraine is seeking to delay the Russian advance, it is being done by the full-scale sacrifice of the soldiers at the front, thousands of people thrown into battle with little or no preparation, training, or equipment, trading their lives for time so that Ukrainian negotiators can try to convince NATO countries to mortgage their military viability, on the false promise of a Ukrainian military victory.
This is the ugly truth about Ukraine today - the longer the war continues, the more Ukrainians will die, and the weaker NATO will become. If left to people like Samus, and Gressel, the result would be hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians, the destruction of Ukraine as a viable nation-state, and the gutting of NATO's front-line combat capability, all sacrificed without meaningfully altering the inevitability of a strategic Russian victory.
Hopefully sanity will prevail, and the West will wean Ukraine off the addiction of heavy weaponry, and push it to accept a peace settlement, which, although bitter to the taste, will leave something of Ukraine for future generations to rebuild.
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