Kung Chan, founder of ANBOUND
Russian military forces have made progress in Soledar and have largely taken control of this ancient city of salt mine. Russia rarely won after losing Kharkiv, Lyman and Kherson. Therefore, Russia won the cheers of long time Kremlin supporters. This mood is probably like watching a soccer match, where the team you support never wins and is beaten by the other team when you get there. Then, without expectations, by the chance of winning one game is probably the mood of Russian supporters now. Therefore, there is something to think about in the Battle of Soledar.
In Soledar, the Wagner Group’s Prigozhin seems to tell the truth when he angrily accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of lying and taking credit for the Russian army. In fact, everyone know that the Russian army now lost 120,000 soldiers. The troops used to have 300,000 men. If the ratio is 1:2, there have been still 240,000 wounded people, which brings the casualty figure to 360,000. Therefore, the Russian army in fact no longer exists, even if there are some “mobilized soldiers” later joined, these troops are just to make up the number of people, combat effectiveness is quite limited.
So the Wagner Group’s Prigozhin says the truth that basically it has nothing to do with the Russian army. The same is true in terms of battle damage to tanks, specialist vehicles and artillery. The Russian forces probably have provided minor artillery preparation and support, with very little involvement. So, the losses are also minor.
In Soledar, the Wagner group was the main force, how exactly did they succeed?
Wagner actually learned from the previous phase of the Ukrainian army’s warfare, which was actually the warfare of the German army in World War II and later carried forward by many countries in the war, including the Soviet Union and China, the infiltration attack of small mobile groups of infantry, which can also be said to penetrate and infiltrate. Wagner group of soldiers formed many light infantry squads of about 10 people, infiltrate into their enemy. Once successfully attacking from behind along the defensive line stationed in the Ukrainian Army, which makes the Ukrainian Army a bit of a mess. The original defensive line of battle was in chaos, and finally then entirely collapse the Ukrainian Army. The Ukrainian Army casualties increased greatly, and retreat could not be effectively organized.
Such a method of warfare, originally the Ukrainian Army’s strengths, the beginning of the war, the Ukrainian Army originally relied on mobile squads of light infantry combat, giving the Russian Army to a great deal of killing and wounding, long-distance armored columns are in trouble and can only passively retreat. Now the Ukrainian Army in the Zelensky doctrine of territorial requirements, abandoned the flexible mobile operations, but began to engage in World War I-era trench warfare, inch by inch, which is one of the important reasons for the failure of the Ukrainian Army in Soledar.
Zelensky stressed the integrity of the homeland, with its political considerations, as a political figure, of course, cannot be said to have made a mistake, but if this rigidity of the will of the homeland doctrine, carried out to the specific Soledar battlefield, it is not right, and the reversal of victory and defeat, and clearly shows the existence of the problem.
The success of the Wagner group in the battlefield of Soledar was not accidental either. A long time ago, the ANBOUND had published a study on “Commercialized Warfare” ( Link: http://www.anbound.com.cn/ViewArticle.php?ArticleID=958ADB57686C2FDEC5796398DE5F317A ), which pointed out that security groups, especially Private Military Company (PMCs) around the world would become an increasingly prominent presence in the future. This study clearly predicted that these security groups would become one of the main forces of warfare in the future. In fact, the Wagner Group has only “brilliantly” implemented the analysis and conclusions of this study. The world is changing, the shape of warfare is changing, and modern warfare is no longer the way it is portrayed in movies, novels, stories and news reports.
I do not agree with the so-called Russian victory, because it was not the Russian army at all, but the Wagner group. I also don’t agree that the “encirclement” has wiped out the Ukrainian forces, which are obviously still fighting, but there is confusion on the battlefield, so much so that the vast majority of Soledar is controlled by the Russians, which is true. As for the future, I believe that even the arrival of tanks from the West may not immediately and effectively change the situation on the battlefield, and that the Ukrainian chain of command must have a more advanced, professional and modern military mindset and implement it with determination. In addition, the West, as well as Germany, must realize that using weaponry to tie down the Ukraine’s armed forces and limit the area of operations. This is not wise and is morally problematic.
The prolongation of the war is in the interest of Ukraine, not Russia, and I think Putin must realize this.
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