Putin & NATO Agree: Russia CAN’T Take Kharkiv!

Putin and NATO don’t agree on much it seems but they both can agree on one thing that is that Russia is not going to be taking harke I’m Paul US Army Combat veteran let’s talk about why Putin is reversing course on his tactical objective okay so this is what I think one of the most interesting stories that I’ve seen uh Putin has come out and said Russia doesn’t want to capture harke as his troops Advance um but he says actually what we did want is just to create a buffer zone between uh the har region and B garod and this is actually kind of in some ways exactly what uh Ukraine wanted from the start by empowering the freedom of Russia Legion to force Russia to reposition large numbers of its forces um and prevent them from concentrating particularly in the East where they would be more vulnerable um but uh according to Putin on a video in the on a Kremlin website he says go when it comes to what is happening R harke it that’s their fault too because they have been shelling and continue to Target residential neighborhoods in the Border areas including B godod and he says as I’ve said publicly that if this will continue we’ll be forced to create a safe Zone a sanitary Zone that’s what we’re doing he says as for our we have no such plans to capture it today which is always funny when it’s like yeah obviously you’re not capturing it today um but I thought this was even more interesting because Putin has been dropping a few times these hints where he talks about a sanitary Zone and I think this is his way of floating an idea into the public sphere of a kind of version of a I mean not a surrender but this is he’s stating what would view as an acceptable condition on his uh end of the Russo Ukrainian war is my theory and that is of course that he wants to create a North Korean style demilitarized zone and what he may say is listen I I actually want this Zone to extend in the Ukrainian border uh you know a certain distance but I I think that’s what he’s trying to do I think he’s trying to signal to the west by saying these things and emphasizing this sanitary Zone cuz it he’s used that same phrasing in several different statements in several different contexts about Russia’s desire for this and I think it’s a recognition by him that he’s not going to get more territory uh but what he may be able to achieve would be some sort of buffer zone in which Ukraine and Russia agree to a again a North Kore Korea South Korea style DMZ uh separating the two countries now do I think this could be just a Russian trick to get the ukrainians to pull back from uh border regions only for Russia to move in and occupy them uh I think that’s very very possible that would that would follow kind of Russia’s playbook for a lot of their negotiated settlements negotiated ceasefires uh but it still is a sign I think a signal for Putin that even though he won’t say it explicitly he is growing tired of the war and is starting to acknowledge at least what kind of his his exits might look like um but what’s also interesting is that NATO says the same thing about harke NATO says Russian troop numbers insufficient for a harke breakthrough this is coming of course from the uh General Christopher cavoli NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and he say he’s confident ukra Force are going to hold their lines in the region um which again if you follow this channel you didn’t need him to tell you this um you know that on the live stream last week we ran some math and uh we’re actually going to run it here in a second um and I’ll explain to you just why mathematically it is almost impossible for Russia to seize harke um he says quote the Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough um more to the point they don’t have the skill and capabilities to do it to operate at the scale NE necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic Advantage he says they do have the ability to make some local advances and they’ve done some of that and they also have made had some local losses but there’s no figures provided um Alber Bower Chief chair of NATO’s military committee told the press conference he expected quote serious improvements soon in the number the amount of ammunition Ukrainian forces are receiving we’ve talked about that right they’ve gotten a short-term emergency aid but to get a real pipeline flowing it’s it’s the difference between Watering your plants and building a river in your backyard right Watering your plants you can do quickly but if your goal is to uh you know change the landscape it’s going to take more time right you have to build out sort of the literal canals that the water’s going to flow through Logistics no different you can get quick short-term Aid to the front but if you want real sustained logistical assistance you’ve got to build out these Logistics chains build out these pipelines and systems to get Aid to the front consistently um the uh he said Ukraine’s allies are now shipping vast amounts of ammunition and short-range their defense system and significant amounts of armored vehicles that would help Kiev fight right he said I’m in close contact with our Ukrainian colleagues and I’m confident they will hold the line so here’s all I want to give you guys this explanation okay so the in this war in a war of attrition right so in a maneuver War you can often times encircle a city cut it off and isolate the Defenders and Destroy them right um sometimes with disproportionately small forces small highly mobile forces can take large sads of territory um if they get into an enemy’s Back Field they can conduct a route right but in an attrition War where you never gain that tremendous maneuver Advantage right where neither side can really has the speed necessary to outmaneuver the other you end up with a pretty simple type of math now you can see here in the Battle of Bachman right Bachman is a town of a certain size and Russia slowly had to achieve positions on either flank and then sort of push into Central Bachman right that was their M Mo and they ran that same Playbook they ran it in seir denes and lunk but they also ran it in ad divka right you might recall we then have Diva Russian forces pushed hard occupying either flank and then push through the center once the logistics uh lines were isolated that is the Russian Playbook at this point now if they need to and and this is it’s not just a Russian Playbook that is the playbook in an attrition based War uh which we have now settled into so if you wanted to do that in our you can estimate the number of casualties they’re likely to take right we have a fair amount of data so when you look at the Battle of bachet for example uh the Western estimate says that Russia in order to seize bachet expended about 60,000 total casualties with around a 20,000 Kia so we’re going to use the casualties number so you’re looking at about 60k right and the population of Bachman right uh before the war the pre-war population was about 71,000 right so we’re just going to round the math off because we’re doing some estimates here we’re going to say one: one you took about one casualty for every one uh pre-war resident of a city and the reason I’m using this ratio is because cities don’t all share the same shape but fighting in an urban area is comparably difficult right you can see bachet not that dense in the center if it was more dense it would be harder to clear each City Block but it’s got a lot of sprawl and the you know the the the the total occupancy the total size of a city is is best measured in population not for example an area again like you know imagine trying to how long it would take to clear one skyscraper in Manhattan right going floor by floor it’d be impossible uh it wouldn’t be impossible it would just take a long long time and and there know there’s not really skyscrapers and Bachman that’s why we’re using population as a metric in not area so okay Battle of Bachman Russia needed about one casualty for every one pre-war resident now we look at the Battle of a diva and we say per Ukraine they said about 45,000 Kia Ukraine it can it’s a little heavy right but the adiva pre-war population was about 31,000 so if we assume Ukraine’s bumping their casualty estimates up a little bit then you’re going to see about again one to one so if you want to seize a city in an attrition style Warfare in this Warfare in this conflict you’re going to have to take about one casualty for every one pre-war resident what does that mean that means that har population 2021 should give us a rough estimate of the casualties that Ukraine would be looking at to seize this city and the number we get 1.4 million guys Russia’s going to have to find 1.4 million additional troops to seize harke and when you take a look at the map it becomes eminently obvious why this is the case right zoom into harke actually let’s let’s let’s get the the map with the best so volens right here’s volens this is a city where Russia’s main Attack Force is is stalled out right cannot seem to get it together to seize now let’s go into harke right this this is downtown harke guys imagine no I’m sorry that’s not even downtown this is downtown harke right it’s got Rivers it has buildings it has streets it has just residential districts it has medical districts it has a stadium look we’re just imagine you’re a Russian commander and you have just a few thousand troops to seize this city and that’s just seizing the city itself right the requisites are to establish control over the flanks but when you zoom out you see that harke is just it’s such a huge City that the flanks of harke are dozens of kilometers apart so you’re talking about huge sizes of breakthroughs I mean you can see the harke suburbs look to get to the flanks of harke you’re looking at a whole different town right so you might go from here and then it looks like the other flank is about here 177 kilm wide to just to just to flank the city right so you see why this is a massive strategic task for Russia and it’s it’s probably not possible in this war entirely um unless Russia could somehow the only way would be if Russia instituted a general draft if all military age men and a lot of able-bodied women were rounded up and put into this conflict right they would need again about 1 Point my estimate would be about 1.4 um million is is at least the starting point to have this conversation so this is why NATO is saying these things and this is why Putin himself acknowledges that it’s not likely to happen because he’s starting to accept the fact that in this war there’s a limit to what Russia can do even with its defense industrial base ramped up even with its uh you know nonc conscription recruitment Drive running at full bore it can only bring in about 30,000 people a month right so do the math with me guys you see that they need oh to get the 1.4 million men they would need to have to seize and that’s the casualties by the way that’s not the size of the army conducting the operation right so if you’re going to take 1.4 million casualties you probably need a force of around 2 million at least probably more uh again the and yeah like like to be clear Ukraine also takes significant casualties in those fights but the difference is the when you have to see a city right Ukraine wins if Russia stops trying right whereas Russia loses if they stop moving to seize these these areas so for some perspective let’s say Putin needed his 2 million man army to seize harke in this attrition Warfare situation and he was able to mobilize the Russian state currently about 30,000 people a month meaning he needs uh what’s that uh around 6 years of mobilization with no C casualties no attrition before he would be ready to take on harke which is not even the largest Ukrainian city right so again guys that I think is why we’re we’re seeing both sides but particularly Putin acknowledge that there is a limit with the war as it’s currently executed there’s a limit in what’s possible um and again the I find it interesting that there is of course an acknowledgement right yesterday zinsky stressed in an interview with ABC news that the situation arke is very serious agreed that Ukrainian forces cannot afford to lose kke City agreed but zinsky said Russia can’t seize harke City if Ukrainian forces get two Patriot a defense systems to deploy to the area um I think that statement is incorrect I think the the provision of Patriots uh is not the thing that will decide again in the Battle of divka which to be clear like Russia won because they were able to employ their close air support systems uh much closer to the front line due to the shortage of Ukrainian air defense systems that is all true um but the and and I guess it would be possible to lose harke in the sense that Russia could like just bomb it into glass if it had no air defenses um but it’s a sort of a stretch to think that Russia again in any set of scenarios is realistically going to seize harke with the purportedly this offensive in in the vens region 50,000 troops is the estimate and the general opinion of a lot of analysts is that this was actually launched prematurely um or before Russia was fully ready uh I think Russia realized that every week it waited Ukraine was going to get more Western Aid and Ukraine’s forces were getting stronger faster than Russia’s forces were getting prepared and so they simply launched with what they have likely scaling back their objectives heavily moving them again into somewhere like vens instead of instead of like we talked about trying to take harke proper which Russia may have been delusional enough to actually believe they could pull off so um the only other thing I wanted to add of course guys if you feel like your life’s objectives I don’t know are too don’t be potin man don’t be potin right if you’re going to do something make sure you have the energy and the focus that you need to get 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only available on strike gum.com but if you want to order the other stuff it is available on amazon.com so you should definitely check that out as well uh so thanks to everyone that supported us everybody that’s left festar reviews on all the platforms especially Amazon you know that makes a huge difference and thanks to our Colonel tier members of coment news.com check us out new video dropped yesterday see you cheers

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Original Video:
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https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates

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https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates

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50 comments

  2. Ive always wondered what he meant with „sanitary“ zone.
    Feels creepy. Sanitary to me means something like clean, desinfected, empty etc. I really have a bad feeling regarding that. I hope Im wrong and I misunderstand bc English is not my mothertongue.

  4. The Border is the legally defined frontier of Ukraine as it was before the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
    Putins Invasion Must Fail source 24 feb 2022 house of commons unanimous vote ukraine.
    These Occupied Territories are places where dark things are happening and when they are liberated we will know the full details. For those perpetrating crimes in Ukraine they will be hunted in one way or another all their sorry lives.

    a bit of History : wiki ref: The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

    An agreement between Ukraine and Russia, signed in 1997, which fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, and respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. The treaty prevents Ukraine and Russia from invading one another's country respectively, and declaring war.[2] Due to the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, Ukraine announced its intention not to renew the treaty in September 2018.[3] The treaty consequently expired on 31 March 2019.[4][3] The treaty was also known as the "Big Treaty".[5][6]

    Until 2019, the treaty was automatically renewed on each 10th anniversary of its signing, unless one party advised the other of its intention to end the treaty six months prior to the date of the renewal.[1][7]

    Russia–Ukraine relations have deteriorated since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and Russian support for separatist forces in the war in Ukraine's Donbas region.[8] In response, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree not to extend the treaty.

  5. Nothing new here. Throughout history, everyone has wanted buffer zones. Of course, once a buffer zone would be created, the concerns would change to concerns about degradation of buffer zones, how they weren't working, how they were unfair and so on. People just buy into the dangling of an buffer zone, an armistice, an international inspection zone and so forth.

    WW1 ended with an armistice in Europe . . . except that Germany, France and England and America continued fighting with the new Soviet Russia after the armistice.

    The talk of historic empires is part of the same b.s. Americans has their own b.s. – manifest destiny, the Monroe Doctrine. Now, "let's make America great again:. Sure, we can do it. Get rid of the cell phones, student loans, televisions, the car for the non working spouse, make the kids walk to school, re-establish segregation in public jobs and facilities. No medi-care, medi-cal, 3% downpayments on houses.

  6. I am far off an expert and i also don't believe that Russia can take Kharkiv, but the math did not convince me. Maybe it could be interesting to take a look why the Wehrmacht couldn't take Leningrad in WW2.

  8. Long years are what it is going to take to understand the Russian mindset in terms of fighting a war. I have never served in the military, but thanks to Commander Paul I understand that there is nothing to underestimate about what fighting as an infantryman, artillery gunner, helicopter pilot and right down the line etc., takes in terms of training and kit and strategies. What I know though, is that if I were to go into battle it would be with the intention of making sure all of our soldiers had the necessary military hardware like enough tanks and that they knew how to win a firefight and stay alive and take the objective and be able to write home about it… Russian military tactics do not make any sense. Why would you knowingly send in good fighting men to a battlefield massacre just for the sake of staging an attack?

  11. Standard Russian tactic when not succeeding as planned on the battlefield: float the idea of a "diplomatically acceptable" solution that leaves Russia in possession of captured territories from which future advances can easily be mounted. Clever people should see through this generic and by now threadbare ploy.

  12. It is good for the EU if Russia channels all its troops into Ukraine; it is good for Ukraine if Russia keeps attempting to surround Kharkiv – and does so piecemeal.

  14. He was never gonna use phosphorus bomb, never gonna invade Ukraine, any else ?. So a leopard never changes his spot. Just believe he is never telling the truth !

  15. You don't reward bullies with appeasement or saying oh okaY WE WILL FORGIVE YOU AND BE FRIENDS. Bullies are never true friends because they only care about themselves and what is best for them and how they can gain an advantage over you and use you for their own ends. Never trust a bully or appease the bully. To them appeasement is weakness.

  18. Putin is out of mind. A person with IQ would never attack a brotherland. Russia don't need more land. It's so evil and narcissistik. Childish dream to build a imperium.

  22. Watch all the usual trolls swoop in and claim that Paul only watches Ukrainian news sources… while he literally is citing statements Putin directly made

  25. People has to know
    Capturing Cremia lost Mariapol
    Speak about Mariapol gifted bhakmut
    Buy one get one free 👉 got bhakmut so take Avdivkka 😂😂😂

    Next online in Kharkiv

    Indians 🇮🇳 think 💭💬🤔 different

  37. Putin is lying, of course. If he does not take Kharkiv, it will be because it has proven unfeasible.

  40. Putin will say whatever he wants, A buffer even if the fight were to stop today, Russia will just rearrm resupply and start again in a few months or in a year or 3 yrs seizing a city that size would be an absolute nightmare scenario

  43. Paul sorry but your math is a little misleading, eventhough city population is important to understand how big a city, if Ukraine can't pour enough soldiers to form continuous strong defensive lines Russia can easly split city to sections and expose gaps in city defense, so Ukraine also need a lot of soldiers to properly defend a big city…

  44. The Russians really aren’t trying to take Kharkiv. They are trying to push back the area that the free Russian forces use to invade Russia.

  45. So how dumb are you, you can see that this is not a real attack, they used 4000 troops, its a recon probing attack, that was very succesfull, they took a lot of land using minimum number of troops. I expect the main attack to happen in a week or two, when they know what Ukraine has there.

  46. I hope Ukraine is getting more then a lick and a promise to settle this war…hhh especially from a character like Putin. I am not sure Putin will be able to settle this mistake that easily.

  49. We can't trust anything Russia says. Remember they even said they had no intentions of invading Ukraine while having 200,000 troops, tanks, artillery, blood banks and body furnaces at the border.

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