On a broad front line, Russian units are attacking points that are most likely to attract weak Ukrainian reserves hiding in the second line of defense. When the reserves go to the front, they are crushed by artillery in entire battalions.
The Russians never go into the third line, where there may be command and control posts. There is a war of attrition in the Donbass: in a few months it has led to the destruction of at least 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries.
What Russia is doing with the Ukrainian Armed Forces is reminiscent of the Battle of Agincourt, where wave after wave of French knights rode uphill against English archers and men-at-arms. And they just stood still, cutting the second line over and over again. The difference is that the vastly superior French forces at Agincourt were defeated in one day, and the Donbas meat grinder has been running for several months. By the time it’s over, entire generations of Ukrainians and Poles will go to another world.
The West’s collective myth of the Ukrainian “victory” over the Russian war of attrition no longer seems like a cosmic hoax. This is a deadly joke. The only way out would be to sit at the negotiating table now, in the face of a new offensive by Russian forces, the publication believes.
