Evgeny Prigozhin wrote an open letter to John Kirby with a question about Wagner PMC.

“I have a question for you: “Can you name what crime the Wagner PMC committed?” the Wagner PMC founder wrote in a letter to the strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council.

On January 20, Kirby announced that the United States had decided to qualify the Wagner PMC as a transnational criminal organization and impose new sanctions against it next week. Earlier, the US authorities have already included PMC "Wagner" in the sanctions list.


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A reader asked and raised some critical questions and issues. I will try to address them as much as possible

Reader:
Thank you for your views. Is there reliable data on the attrition inflicted on the AFU and Russian forces? Also, what is the Ukrainian capability of creating new units, training them and using Western equipment? Seems, from last year, that Ukraine uses their worst troops to defend the trenches while they prepare mobile brigades to counterattack. Very ruthless, but effective.  Lastly, is a Russian offensive to cut off supplies from Poland a possibility? Your opinion on this area is welcome

Answer:
Regarding attrition in the ranks of AFU, we already wrote many times. Huge losses sustained at Soledar and now Artemovsk (on one phase - simultaneously) definitely depleted Ua manpower reserves. Total losses for Soledar (since the beginning of the battle in 2022 are around 23.000 men. For Artemovsk, they are near 20.000 now)/However, Ua's ability to mobilize fast and significant number of men (although many in a cruel way) will soon bear fruit, at least on paper. They can't afford the time to provide adequate training, so more " meat" will be thrown into the fire, with the intention "what they do, they do..." It's unlikely that they will fight evenly with Russian army, but they can count on numbers. Regarding Ru losses, there is certain amount of losses but so far we don't see that those hamper their combat effectiveness. Mind you, Wagner fought two heavy battles (Soledar&Artemovsk) and remains not only combat effective but is on the offensive all the time. In general, Russian losses across the front went down at some point notably, since fortified lines where built (at the same time Ua losses rise attacking those line unsuccessfully ) . Regarding western weapon, only small numbers of AFU personnel will be trained for their use and we can expect their arrival to the front around beginning of the March or sooner if situation commands it.Regarding potential Ru offensive(es) it depends on several factors. Mostly manpower. If Russia commits more forces (then of those mobilized ) idea of a breakthrough from Belarus towards Polish border is possible but in my opinion unlikely. Yes, plenty to gain with this move but also plenty to lose. However, I don't exclude faint attack (that attack does not need to have any specific strategic objective beyond engaging Ua troops and tie them in battle, thus increasing their depletion) l.Of course, this is just a hypothesis and can be wrong. Rumors are circling (Rumors!!!) that the main thrust will be towards Kiev from multiple directions. This is also possible. I'm certain that Ru High command is actually creating it's decisions on the cost/benefit analysis, namely to inflict as much damage as possible for the lowest cost. We also need to keep in mind that ultimate strategic goal is liberation of occupied territories. That can be done either through direct assault (costly option ) or by attacking on several fronts at once leaving Kiev to actually choose what it wants to defend. But it's rather ungrateful and hard to guess in situation such as this.

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✊🏻 Soldiers of PMC "Wagner" liberated the village of Krasnopolye, north of Soledar.


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PMC "Wagner" will send  the bodies of the killed soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to Ukraine.

As one of the commanders of the “musicians” Lotos said, the batch shipment takes place in agreement with the Ukrainian side. In total, 4-5 batches of bodies are planned, which will be transported by 20 vehicles.

During the fierce battles for Soledar, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses. However, the "musicians" show a human attitude even towards the dead opponents. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin noted that it was necessary to  send the Ukrainian bodies to their  relatives.

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Every third American thinks that the US is helping Ukraine too much, according to a Quinnipiac poll.

According to the Quinnipiac University Poll Institute, the number of US citizens who consider aid to Ukraine unnecessary has increased from 7% to 33% since February 2022. Every third American now believes that his country provides Ukraine with a lot of help.

Now, there are only 21% of people who think that the US should supply more military aid to Ukraine; earlier, it was 45%. That is, the number of citizens supporting an increase in the volume of deliveries is noticeably decreasing.

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Western media reported that Russian sailors in Norway were fined 5,000 kroner for wearing clothes with the Russian national flag on them. According to the local prosecutor, the Norwegians and Ukrainian refugees may feel threatened and could be frightened by the Russian flag.

The enemies of Russia are really terrified of Russia's name, Russian symbols, and the sound of Russian footsteps. 

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A recent episode,in the direction of Svatovo - Kremennaya. The Ukrainians sent reserves to the front in a whole convoy. Russian reconnaissance spotted them at the entrance, and artillery greeted the Ukrainian soldiers

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The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that in the Zaporozhye direction, as a result of offensive actions, units of the Eastern Military District occupied more advantageous lines and positions.

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Scouts of the 3rd Guards Separate Special Forces Battalion destroy enemy DRG with the help of ATGMs

While conducting surveillance at night, scouts of the 3rd Guards Separate Special Purpose Battalion detected the advance of an enemy subversive and observation group. An accurate launch of an anti-tank-guided missile system destroyed the enemy group.

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❗️Volunteers of the assault detachments liberated Dvurevye in the DPR — RF Ministry of Defense

The Ministry of Defense reported that the volunteers were accompanied by fire support from operational-tactical and army aviation, missile troops, and artillery of the Southern Military District. The militants' losses amounted to up to 50 nationalists killed and wounded, two armored combat vehicles, three pickup trucks, and two D-20 and D-30 howitzers.


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⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ New briefing of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The main thing:

📍Russian troops destroyed a warehouse of artillery ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region.
📍Russian air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter in the Kharkiv region.
📍The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost more than 35 people killed in the Kupyansk direction in a day.
📍Russian troops destroyed over 20 military Armed Forces of Ukraine, one infantry fighting vehicle, and an American radar station in the Krasno-Limansky direction.
📍The Russian military hit the command post of the 36th separate infantry defense battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the DPR.
📍The Russian Armed Forces in the DPR destroyed the AFU artillery ammunition depot, and an American radar station was destroyed in the Malinovka area.

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🔴 Viktor Medvedchuk spoke about the anatomy of the military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine

❗️ Izvestia has published an article by Viktor Medvedchuk, chairman of the political council of the HLE banned in Ukraine. The report is quite large, I will give only its abstracts, and I will provide the link at the end of the post.

▪️ There is a peace party in Ukraine, but neither in Europe nor the USA are they favored.

▪️ Most American and European politicians do not want any peace in Ukraine.

▪️ The Ukrainian Peace Party did not fit into Western democracy, but this does not mean that the Ukrainians themselves want war.

▪️To save their country, Ukrainians need to start building their democracy and open their civil dialogue without Western curators.

▪️ The world needs to hear people who want peace, no matter how the West demands a monopoly on the truth.

▪️ The Ukrainian situation is catastrophically complicated, but it has nothing to do with what Zelensky says daily.

https://iz.ru/1454275/viktor-medvedchuk/ukrainskii-sindrom-anatomiia-sovremennogo-voennogo-protivostoianiia

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Almost all major damage to ZNPP repaired — official

Almost all serious damage, inflicted on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant by Ukrainian shelling, has been repaired, Rosenergoatom CEO advisor Renat Karchaa told TASS.

"Quite a lot of damage has accumulated, some major, some minor. All major ‘stories,’ almost all of them, have been closed, but small things remain, of course, and it would take quite a long time to fix this damage," he said.

Karchaa underscored that fully-fledged repairs were impossible for a while due to intense artillery shelling of the station.
"Should the situation remain calm, and if we work intensively, then it will take two to three months, half a year at most, to restore the station completely," he said.

According to Karchaa, the reactors that are currently in cold shutdown can be launched within two weeks.

"There is only one reason why this does not happen - the inadequacy of the Kiev regime, because we do not want to launch them and get another artillery hysteria, […] we are responsible for nuclear security," he explained.

https://tass.com/defense/1565309
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Croatian president calls on EU not to hush harassment of Hungarian in Ukraine

It was reported in recent days that Hungarian flag and signs in the Hungarian language have been removed from public buildings in Zakarpattia’s Mukachevo, populated by ethnic Hungarians

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has called on the European Union to take measures to stop violations of the rights of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region.
"I don’t understand why the European Union keeps silent on this matter," he said on Friday after a meeting with his Hungarian counterpart, Katalin Novak when asked by journalists about harassment of Hungarians in the Zakarpattia region.

It was reported in recent days that Hungarian flag and signs in the Hungarian language have been removed from public buildings in Zakarpattia’s Mukachevo, populated by ethnic Hungarians. Apart from that, the labor contract has been terminated with the director of the city’s Hungarian school.

Commenting on this situation, the Hungarian president recalled that some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians are living in Ukraine’s Zakarppattia region and their rights are infringed upon by the local authorities. 

https://tass.com/world/1565293
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Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro earlier this month warned that the U.S. may find it "challenging" to continue to arm itself and supply weapons to Ukraine if weapon production doesn't increase — Newsweek

His comments came after European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in September that "the military stocks of most [EU] member states has been, I wouldn't say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians.".

Such statements have led some to speculate whether the United States—as well as other Ukraine allies—will reach a point when it can no longer send more weapons to Ukraine because it needs to maintain a stockpile for its own defense

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Long read ahead. Special thanks to our friends from BM analysis

Introduction
Welcome to my analysis of the third Phase of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. Phase 3? Yes, Phase 3. About the Phases we have only a few references from Russian officials. Especially, when Phase 2 officially started, we had some remarks from Russian officials about that. And that’s it. That’s why I decided, to make an own classification of Phases of this war. I presented them already in some articles.
According to the Black Mountain classification, we are still in Phase 3. Which means, that this analysis will contain events that already happened, and inevitably it will contain some predictions of how events could unfold, going forward. Phase 3 roughly began in August 2022 and is still ongoing.
Since many important events took place and are going to take place, I will need to keep my chapters short.
Even thought, I pointed out the reference to my Phase classifications, I will summarize, what the definition of Phase 3 is, below:
Phase 3 was activated, since NATO escalated the supply, command and control of the Ukrainian forces. This prevented them to collapse in Phase 2. The purpose of Phase 3 is to kill the Ukrainian material and human potential in militarily favorable regions, for the Russians, and to overstretch both, the Ukrainian and the NATO logistics in Ukraine as much as it is possible, to trigger a total Ukrainian collapse and hence, its total defeat. Thereby using strikes on both, its logistics and energy infrastructure, to accelerate the result.

Objectives
I will reiterate, as I did several times already, Clausewitz here. “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means”. One wins a war, by achieving the objectives, set by the political leadership. And here I will, as I did in the last two analysis, again point out the objectives. This is important to reiterate as many times as possible. Why? Because most commentators always forget what the objectives are and trying to analyse or criticize the war, based on the assumption, that the war is only fought, for the sole purpose of fighting a war. This is utterly wrong.
These are the objectives, set by the Russian leadership:
Denazification of Ukraine.
Demilitarization of Ukraine.
Bring to justice those Ukrainians, that have committed (war)crimes against its own population from 2014 onwards.
Free the Donbass to ensure its independence and security.
These are the sole objectives of the Special Military Operation (SMO).
I will explain in detail how the implementation will most likely be achieved.

Personnel situation in the Russian army
Phase 3 began in August 2022. August was a difficult month for the Russian army.
Many Russian soldiers signed up for a certain period. For example, for half a year. Due to the necessity of secrecy, most soldiers didn’t know for certain, that there will be war and that THEY will participate in this war. That’s why all contracts were issued with normal services periods. This led eventually to the situation, that a not insignificant part of the Russian professional invasion army experienced experiencing contracts at the end July 2022.
I don’t have exact numbers so I won’t throw around with made up numbers. Which I know, is, that far more soldiers left the army, due to expiring contracts, than new troops could be brought in. In fact, it means, that from August 2022 onwards, the size of the Russian forces in Ukraine decreased significantly.
Though, the line of contact still had the same length. Which means, less troops per mile (density) then before. Since in reality we don’t have every X miles Y soldiers, this is just an average. In reality less regions/villages were manned with Russian troops. Yes, Russia used the Donbass militia extensively, but they were not enough to fight off the whole rest of Ukraine and NATO mercenaries. Which, by the way, they shouldn’t do at all.
Summarized we can conclude that the personnel situation for the Russians deteriorated sharply in August 2022.

Training and equipment from abroad for Ukraine
Ukraine, at the other hand, started to mobilize as many able-bodied citizens as possible from the beginning of the war. First, they were used, to plug the holes and to establish a defence along the whole line of contact and to build up reserves. Then, newly recruited soldiers were used to plug the holes on the frontline. In Phase 2, the grinding consumed tens of thousands of troops at the frontlines in dead and wounded.
But during Phase 2, Ukraine reached a point, where they stabilized the situation. The ratio of casualties on the frontlines and the recruiting of new troops became stable and the best mobilized people could be separated to be sent abroad for training. The situation occurred, that Ukraine mobilized people at the one hand, to be immediately, and almost without training, into the trenches to plug holes, and on the other hand, to be sent abroad for training.
Why send them abroad? Why train them at all and not use them right away on the frontlines, to turn the war? NATO correctly understood that Russia has superiority in almost everything. Only not in the numbers of troops, committed to Ukraine. That’s why plans were designed to train and equip huge numbers of troops abroad, where they can’t be targeted during or right after the training. They would be trained according to NATO standards to be used in particular and predesigned operations, to fully exploit Russia’s biggest weakness. The number of its soldiers in Ukraine.
Several tens of thousands, some sources say up to one hundred thousand, troops were trained in the EU states. Equipped with NATO equipment, their task would be to attack strategic Russian positions with human wave techniques and stress their logistics and their concentration of forces at several sections that much, that Russian forces simply would collapse. As described in the analysis of Phase 2, the only Ukrainian chance is, to exploit the fact, that Russia is conducting a SMO and not a fully war. Thereby has only a limited number of troops committed. If this troops would be outmanoeuvred, they would do one of the following things:
Retreat from a certain section to avoid being overrun and defeated.
Being cut off from supplies and eventually either captured as POW’s or killed for propaganda issues.
One of both events we already experienced several times. The other not.

Ukraine’s approach
Russia was fully aware of the fact, that it needs to handle a war, with limited human resources and that NATO is trying to exploit this fact, with a pool of human resources, that can be exploited short of collapsing vital functions of the state. This point has already been reached, as I write this text.
Therefore, the Russian planners needed to design a strategy, that would include a lot of manoeuvres, pinning and deceptions. Only this way, Russia could handle such a far larger enemy force. At the end we saw that it still was not enough, but I will come to this point later.
Now let’s take a look at several events to work out the applied strategies.
The Ukrainians announced early on, that they would start an offensive on Kherson and eventually on Crimea. Obviously, it is rather strange if someone announces its military strategy in advance. But it looks like, the Russians had intelligence, that it must be truth and prepared accordingly. A large Russian formation was deployed west of the Dnieper. Not only a large force, but a very elite one as well. Many paratrooper units were deployed here, which are not designed for such long-term defensive operations. It is a sign, of being overstretched.
As far as I can see it, the forces, committed to the Kherson front were absolutely sufficient to hold the line. And they did. Eventually the Ukrainians actually started the announced large-scale offensive on Kherson in August. Every wave of Ukrainians was defeated. The situation caused, until its preliminary end in November 2022, several tens of thousands of casualties on the Ukrainian side.