The Washington Post Finally Told The Full Truth About How Poorly Kiev’s Forces Are Faring

It’s understandable if the average Westerner is in shock after reading the Washington Post’s latest report about the Ukrainian Conflict. The truth is that their de facto New Cold War bloc’s side is on the brink of badly losing unless they achieve a military miracle with their upcoming counteroffensive, which some in Kiev are concerned is doomed to be nothing but a suicidal slaughter. Their troops are inexperienced, poorly trained, and in some cases literally unarmed in their fight against Russia.

The evolution of the West’s “official narrative” about the Ukrainian Conflict that began two months ago has just reached its climax upon the Washington Post (WaPo) finally telling everyone the full truth about how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. In their article titled “Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow”, this was achieved via a combination of unnamed Ukrainian and US sources, as well as a brave lieutenant colonel who allowed his call sign Kupol to be included in the report.

Before proceeding, those readers who haven’t been closely following the NATO-Russian proxy war are requested to at least skim the following analyses in order to be brought up to speed about its latest military-strategic dynamics that place WaPo’s unexpected report in its proper context:

* 26 June: “The New York Times Inadvertently Revealed The Qualitative Scale Of Kiev’s Losses”

* 8 January: “Top Ukrainian & Former US Officials Are Panicking That $100 Billion In Aid Isn’t Enough”

* 13 January: “Five Reasons Why Soledar’s Liberation Is So Significant”

*  21 January: “The Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff Just Admitted That Kiev Can’t Defeat Russia”

* 14 February: “NATO’s Self-Declared ‘Race Of Logistics’ Confirms The Bloc’s Military-Industrial Crisis”

In brief, Russia’s partial mobilization of experienced reservists and its robust military-industrial complex have enabled this multipolar Great Power to impressively hold its own against the fully NATO-backed but Ukrainian-fronted fighting force this whole time, which speaks to its enduring resilience.

The reader should also be aware of two recent reports from CNN and Politico about the split between the US and Kiev over Artyomovsk’s/“Bakhmut’s” significance, which the former feels is strategically insignificant while the latter fears Russia will roll through the rest of Donbass if it’s captured:

* 7 March: “Exclusive: Zelensky warns of ‘open road’ through Ukraine’s east if Russia captures Bakhmut, as he resists calls to retreat”

* 12 March: “‘Little fissures’: The U.S.-Ukraine war unity is slowly cracking apart”

The latest WaPo report extends credence to prior observations shared by members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC) that it’s Russia that’s wearing Kiev’s forces out in the Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut” meatgrinder and not the inverse like the Mainstream Media (MSM) falsely insisted up until now.

Having informed the reader of the proper context within which to interpret WaPo’s report, the rest of the present piece will now highlight its most damning details in the order that they were shared. This will take the form of simple one-sentence summaries followed by the relevant excerpt in support of the aforesaid. After proving just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring as evidenced by the details that were just shared by WaPo’s sources, the analysis will then conclude with a few final thoughts on this subject.

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* Kiev Quietly Doubts That Its Much-Ballyhooed Counteroffensive Will Succeed

- “The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.”

* The West Estimates That Ukraine’s Casualties Are Almost 10x Higher Than Kiev Claims

- “U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of Russia’s invasion early last year…Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said in August that nearly 9,000 of his soldiers had died. In December, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said the number was up to 13,000.”

*  The Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) Are Weaker In All Respects Than Ever Before

- “Statistics aside, an influx of inexperienced draftees, brought in to plug the losses, has changed the profile of the Ukrainian force, which is also suffering from basic shortages of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, according to military personnel in the field.”

* All Veterans Have Already Been Killed Or Wounded And Only Inexperienced Recruits Remain

- “’A soldier who has survived six months of combat and a soldier who came from a firing range are two different soldiers. It’s heaven and earth. And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience,’ Kupol added. ‘Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.’”

* Kiev Will Still Launch Its Counteroffensive Despite Concerns That Its Troops Will Get Slaughtered

- “’There’s always belief in a miracle,’ [Kupol] said. ‘Either it will be a massacre and corpses or it’s going to be a professional counteroffensive. There are two options. There will be a counteroffensive either way.’”

* NATO’s Over-Hyped Tank Coalition Is Purely Symbolic & Won’t Change Anything

- “One senior Ukrainian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, called the number of tanks promised by the West a ‘symbolic’ amount.”

* Even Senior Ukrainian Officials Know That The Upcoming Counteroffensive Is Suicidal

- “’We don’t have the people or weapons,’ the senior official added. ‘And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.’”

* Kiev’s Latest Recruits Run Away From Russians Because They Literally Don’t Know How To Fight

- “Kupol, who consented to having his photograph taken and said he understood he could face personal blowback for giving a frank assessment, described going to battle with newly drafted soldiers who had never thrown a grenade, who readily abandoned their positions under fire and who lacked confidence in handling firearms.”

* Over $100 Billion In Aid Thus Far Hasn’t Been Enough To Properly Train & Equip The UAF

- “’We need NATO instructors in all our training centers, and our instructors need to be sent over there into the trenches. Because they failed in their task.’ [Kupol] described severe ammunition shortages, including a lack of simple mortar bombs and grenades for U.S.-made MK 19s.”

* Ukrainian Officials Are Overdosing On Copium Instead Of Urgently Implementing Systemic Solutions

- “’You’re on the front line,’ Kupol said. ‘They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with.’ Kupol said Kyiv needed to focus on better preparing new troops in a systematic way. ‘It’s like all we do is give interviews and tell people that we’ve already won, just a little bit further away, two weeks, and we’ll win,’ he said.”

* New Recruits Are Losing Their Cool In The Trenches Due To Russia’s Never-Ending Shelling

- “Shelling is so intense at times, [Dmytro, a Ukrainian soldier whom The Post is identifying only by first name for security reasons,] said, that one soldier will have a panic attack, then ‘others catch it.’ The first time he saw fellow soldiers very shaken, Dmytro said, he tried to talk them through the reality of the risks. The next time, he said, they ‘just ran from the position.’ ‘I don’t blame them,’ he said. ‘They were so confused.’”

* Kiev Hides Its Casualty Count From The West Out Of Fear That They’ll Cut It Off For Losing

- “A German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said that Berlin estimates Ukrainian casualties, including dead and wounded, are as high as 120,000. ‘They don’t share the information with us because they don’t trust us,’ the official said.”

* Ukraine’s Ground Forces Commander Admits That Russian Recruits Are Better Trained Than His Own

- “Despite reports of untrained mobilized Russian fighters being thrown into battle, (Col. Gen. Oleksandr) Syrsky, (Ukraine’s ground forces commander,) said those now arriving are well-prepared. ‘We have to live and fight in these realities,’ he said. ‘Of course, it’s problematic for us.’”

* Kiev Rejected US Advice & Kept Throwing Thousands Into The Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut” Meatgrinder

- “Given the heavy casualties Ukraine is suffering [in Bakhmut], officials in Washington have questioned Kyiv’s refusal to retreat. The United States has been advising Ukraine to retreat from the city since at least January, the U.S. official said.”

* Many Of Ukraine’s US-Trained Officers From The Past Nine Years Have Already Been Killed

- “Ukraine has lost many of its junior officers who received U.S. training over the past nine years, eroding a corps of leaders who helped distinguish the Ukrainians from their Russian enemies at the start of the invasion, the Ukrainian official said. Now, the official said, those forces must be replaced. ‘A lot of them are killed,’ the official said.”

* Ukraine’s Volunteers Have Evaporated & Now Only Forced Draftees Are Doing The Fighting

- “At the start of the invasion, Ukrainians rushed to volunteer for military duty, but now men across the country who did not sign up have begun to fear being handed draft slips on the street. Ukraine’s internal security service recently shut down Telegram accounts that were helping Ukrainians avoid locations where authorities were distributing summonses.”

* Pentagon Officials Are Already Tempering Expectations About The Scope Of Kiev’s Counteroffensive

- “Even with new equipment and training, U.S. military officials consider Ukraine’s force insufficient to attack all along the giant front, where Russia has erected substantive defenses, so troops are being trained to probe for weak points that allow them to break through with tanks and armored vehicles.”

* The Proxy War Will Likely Be Lost Unless Kiev Lands A Knockout Blow Against Russia Real Soon

-“U.S. officials said they expect Ukraine’s offensive to start in late April or early May, and they are acutely aware of the urgency of supplying Kyiv because a drawn-out war could favor Russia, which has more people, money and weapons manufacturing.”

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It’s understandable if the average Westerner is in shock after reading the above summary of WaPo’s latest report about the Ukrainian Conflict. The truth is that their de facto New Cold War bloc’s side is on the brink of badly losing unless they achieve a military miracle with their upcoming counteroffensive, which some in Kiev are concerned is doomed to be nothing but a suicidal slaughter. Their troops are inexperienced, poorly trained, and in some cases literally unarmed in their fight against Russia.

The military-strategic dynamics have clearly been in Moscow’s favor since at least early January, when they became evident upon the liberation of Soledar, but that last-mentioned development was obviously made possible in hindsight by its logistical and training successes behind the front lines. By contrast, the situation on Kiev’s side of those very same lines has been utterly disastrous as proven by WaPo’s latest report, but the public was deprived of these facts and instead fed never-ending copium.

Everything might be able to quickly unravel if Russia either makes a breakthrough around Aryomovsk/“Bakhmut” in the near future and/or Kiev’s counteroffensive ends up failing even worse than some on its own side expect. This explains the real reason why WaPo published its surprisingly truthful report informing everyone about how poorly the West’s proxies are faring in order to precondition the public for a spree of bad news so that they aren’t completely taken off guard by it.