Alexander Kovalenko: This Is The Last Convulsion Of The Russian Army

What's wrong with Gerasimov's "maps".

Russia's summer offensive has failed, but Moscow is trying to pass it off as a success. On the map, shown by the Russian General Staff, even the outskirts of Pokrovsk and the Dobropillya area, where Russian troops suffered heavy losses, appeared to be "under control."

What is the reason for this "cartography of victories"? About this site Charter97.org talked to the Ukrainian military-political observer of the group "Information Resistance" Alexander Kovalenko:

- This is elementary propaganda. To divert attention from the failures as much as possible. I cannot say that this is an absolute failure of their offensive summer campaign. After all, they captured a little more than 1500 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory during the three months of summer. But what kind of territory? These are fields, these are forest belts, these are small villages of 10-15 houses destroyed to the ground. That is, the Russian army's achievements are purely tactical.

This is, let's say, their last convulsion. And it has not fulfilled its main tasks. Not a single major city has been captured. Pokrovsk, Konstantinovka, Seversk, Borovaya, Liman, Kupyansk - not captured. Moreover, even those cities for which battles have been fought for not the first month (and even not the first year) have not been captured. This is Chasov Yar, where the defense has been going on for more than two years. This is the Toretska agglomeration, which has not been completely captured by the occupants, and battles have been going on there for more than a year.

That is, the Russian troops simply have nothing to boast about. There is no effectiveness. The tasks for the summer campaign have not been accomplished. That is why they are now trying to make things up, to exaggerate their achievements. Of course, the consumer of Russian information fast food is happy with this, they believe it. But in fact, this is absolutely untrue.

- What, in your opinion, are the main reasons for the failure of the Russian army's summer offensive?

- The Russian army is no longer an army of the model of 2024, 2023, much less 2022. It is significantly depleted. Now it fights mainly with human resources, the infantry component. There is a total shortage of tanks and armored fighting vehicles in the units. There is already a shortage of artillery. This is all a consequence of the colossal losses in the actual fourth year of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

When we say that this war has changed a lot because it has become a drone war, this is partly true. But UAVs stagnate warfare. When it comes to offensive, all-arms offensive operations, classical offensive means are immediately needed. Experiencing a colossal deficit of classical means when conducting all-arms offensive operations, the Russian army showed how insignificant its results were.

For example, during the fall campaign of 2024 - September, October, November - the captured territories amounted to almost 1,800 square kilometers. I should note that the fall period is very difficult for offensive campaigns: rainy season, thaw, difficulties in moving equipment. Nevertheless, more territories were captured then.

In 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine was just beginning, the captured territories in the first months and until the end of 2022 amounted to about 64 thousand square kilometers. We see a big difference.

Now the Russian army is catastrophically depleted. And even though it seems to have 700,000 personnel, these forces are simply not enough to conduct classic all-arms offensive campaigns.

- Now Russia is moving all of its "elite" forces to Pokrovsk and Dobropillya. What are the Kremlin's goals for the fall campaign?"

- The last "elite" Russian forces were eliminated in 2022. Back then, there were indeed professional military personnel with years of service and combat experience in different parts of theaters around the world, from Georgia to Libya. What we have now is not the elite. They are "chmobiki", just expendable material. For example, the 155th Independent Marine Brigade, which was considered elite, was "zeroed out" twice near Ugledar.

The question: who are these elite marines now? They are, in fact, Buryats who have never seen the sea in their lives. The same goes for airborne divisions and other units. These are not the elite, but the mobilized masses who have already "renewed" their units more than once. They simply plug areas with people where there is not enough capacity for offensive campaigns.

Elite units are not left. All that is left is a cycle of "minced meat" that Russian commanders are using to swamp the positions of Ukrainian troops.

In the Pokrovsk area, especially after the failure near Dobropolye where they tried to break through but failed, they will saturate the positions with manpower. They are critically short of forces and resources. They already have a problem with means, but they have forces - they are transferring them from other directions. I think that at some point their pressure in Sumy direction will be so exhausted that the so-called "Sumy buffer zone", which Putin announced, will lose its relevance and simply disappear before it has even been formed. And this will become one of the shameful pages in the history of the Russian army.

The Russian army is starting the fall campaign extremely unsuccessfully, because the summer campaign did not fulfill its main tasks. What were the objectives? To reach Pokrovsk, Konstantinovka, Liman, Borovaya, Kupyansk and Seversk. For what? To start the fall-winter campaign in the conditions of urban battles. They expected to reach these cities to concentrate forces and means for urban battles.

Why exactly so? Because the fall-winter campaign is the rainy season, frost, snowfall, snowdrifts, thaw. These are extremely difficult weather conditions for infantry component assaults in the field. Motorcycles, electric scooters and bicycles are not suitable for storming in such conditions.

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