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Ukraine: This article is about nothing at all [1]

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Date: 2023-01-14

This photo is more informative than the rest of the article combined.

Back in early August I wrote an article about the importance of OPSEC. I wrote about OPSEC because what I really wanted to write about was a potential attack through Kharkiv that later came to happen. But to point out that nobody seemed to be paying attention to this particular front for a while would be calling attention to it.

Which is to say I realized something today about the current situation that I can’t tell you about. It’s not that I know something secret, or even that it’s guaranteed to happen. It’s not guaranteed to happen because I have no ability to know if Ukraine has noticed this thing of which I cannot speak. And then I realized that perhaps Ukraine has shaped events to bring about the situation.

Kos likes to talk about shaping the battlefield, but it’s not just about destroying logistics. Sometimes it’s about needing your enemy to be in a certain formation and then shaping events to produce the desired formation.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. -Sun Tzu

Ukraine has practiced excellent formlessness. Their OPSEC has made it difficult to know their numbers and disposition. While Ukraine friendly sources would not publish force dispositions, the Russian Mil-bloggers would not hesitate to do so if they had reasonable information on it.

Some have been postulating that Bakhmut is a ploy to pin Ukrainian troops in place to limit their movements elsewhere. But Ukraine, being on the defensive in Bakhmut needs far less troops to hold Russia’s attention there. It’s as if a magician by practicing clumsy misdirection fails to notice the audience has stolen his rabbit.

Of Ukraine and Russia, who is in control of the Bakhmut dynamic? The doomsayers are back to heralding any Russian advance as somehow inevitable to continue. The Russian advance in Soledar being listed as a positive for Russia and a negative for Ukraine when Russia has not cut the highway or the railroad. Both have already been under fire control (or at least could be with Russian drones spotting targets). But those Russians are paying dearly for next to nothing

Will we see a winter offensive? Who knows? It’s not clear the ground has frozen enough for tanks to cross, and the Spring thaw may come quickly. Would it be more surprising to have a Ukrainian offensive or not?

But really, we should always expect a surprise. And now that I written about my observation without doing so I have cured my itch to write without betraying Ukraine. Really there is nothing there until there is, or we realize it was there all along. But we shall see. I’ll be unable to claim credit for seeing it but I’d prefer to have Ukraine triumph. So we are left with nothing.

I did warn you it was all about nothing.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/14/2147171/-Ukraine-This-article-is-about-nothing-at-all

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