The Instagram War Desperate Ukrainian Troops Break And Run For Their Lives In Bakhmut

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 The conduct of war as the West knows it has been rewritten in a place called Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. The Russians have assailed this place for the past seven to eight months without seeming to really move forward too aggressively. Until recently.
This is a screen grab of a map of the Bakhmut battle front. (I have taken this from a YouTube video by  https://defensepoliticsasia.com. Defense Politics Asia is an astute observer of the Ukraine conflict. It is run by a young Chinese boy who sounds too Malaysian or Singaporean.)


 
You can see the Bakhmut city area almost enclosed by the Russian pincer encircling them.  But this is not a pincer movement per se. You do not take eight months to make a pincer movement around a city that has little or no strategic value. This was a death trap.
Instagram - before I  forget, the really devastated Ukrainian soldiers, the flower of their youth and the future of their generations, are constantly on Instagram, Twitter and other social media where they make videos of their situation and send it out. So there is first hand "reporting" of the battle front from Ukrainian soldiers. They are cursing their commanders who they say have sent them to die at the battle front.
Everyday hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are dying. The past one week the numbers have increased to about 1,000 dead per day. Folks this is a massacre. The Ukrainians are losing their military strength by about a battalion every other day. Colonel Douglas MacGregor estimates that about 200,000 Ukrainians have died so far and perhaps another 500,000 wounded.

Social media video from Ukrainian soldiers shows them walking past their dead comrades lying around the battle front, more reminiscent of the battlefields a hundred year ago during World War 1. Their situation is really bad.
There have been reports of mutinies and Ukrainian soldiers abandoning their posts and retreating west to save themselves from almost certain death. The life expectancy of a Ukrainian soldier on the front line at Bakhmut has been reduced to between four hours and a day. 
Two days ago the Ukrainian military leadership blew up a railway bridge to prevent their own troops from using it to escape from the battlefront. But the cover story was that they blew up the bridge to slow down the Russian advance. 
The Russians have not really 'advanced' in the true sense of a military advance. This has become an artillery duel where for about eight months the Russians have been using all sorts of stand off artillery weapons (cannons, rockets, missiles, tank fire, mortar) to pulverise the battle front at Bakhmut. By insisting on concentrating fire on this city (and making it appear like a major military objective) the Russians have enticed the Ukrainians to commit larger numbers of troops and material to "defend" Bakhmut. Only to be pulverized and destroyed by Russian artillery fire. A set piece meat grinder.

It looks like the exhausted Ukrainians are finally running out of men and material in Bakhmut. The Russians are now taking over ground vacated by the Ukrainians.  
Like all wars - this is another really useless war.  The US and the UK are squarely behind this mayhem. Besides Russia the real target in this madness is Germany. This is my reading. It is an attempt to weaken Germany and cut Germany down to size from being the largest economic power in Europe. And of course to profit Wall Street and the London bankers. 
The past few days there have been massive protests in Europe against the war in Ukraine. The French and Germans have been protesting not just against this war but some are asking for the dissolution of NATO. This is new. Watch the video closely, there are no 'anti-Russia' banners or slogans. Here is the three minute video:
 




And recently in a vote over Ukraine in the United Nations both China and India voted in favour of Russia. (Actually India abstained - which is read as pro Russian).


The world has changed greatly in Europe. When the Europeans began killing themselves in the First World War there were hardly any democracies involved.  The British empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, the German Kaiser, the Russian Tsar, then the Bolsheviks and the Ottoman empire were not exactly the western democracies that we have today.  
The Second World War was not a whole lot better (for democracies). Germany was under the thumb of Hitler and the Nazis, Russia was authoritarian Communist and Europe was pretty much ruled by kings and dictators (like General Franco in Spain). Plus the British Empire of course.

This is now the 21st century and Western Europe is in the "post"-liberal democratic age.  They say they have up to 97 classifications of gender (between male and female), they have legalised sex with 14 year olds and their ideas of what constitutes a family has to be read and understood from legal definitions. Meaning their parents' and grandparents' idea of family may not be definitive anymore.
So it is going to be a bit of a challenge (fortunately) for the US and the UK to instigate Europeans to put on their boots and helmets and march off to something like Verdun or the Somme (from WW1) or Stalingrad and Dunkirk (WW2).  It is just not going to happen.
What will happen? I believe there will be regime changes - in some countries in Europe and also in Ukraine. Before that the Russians will win the war decisively. There may also be a demise of NATO. Germany will rise again. 
Russia and China will likely be a hugely benevolent influence around the world. 

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
By Syed Akbar Ali 

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