The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.

The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.
The scholar

2023/08/25

Latest Ukrainian Update

 First whole part of this is on conspiracy theories about the Wagner Group's Prigozhin. Pretty wild stuff. 

Second part brings to mind a German word I learned a long time ago, schwerpunkt. It means focus of effort and is often the difference between success and failure. The invasion of France in 1940 was a marvelous example of a successful application of schwerpunkt. The German army focused upon the Ardennes (it was thought that armored vehicles couldn't penetrate the thick forests, oops!) and the German army stayed together until it hit the English Channel. The German army acted as a single armored fist that succeeded rather quickly.

The Soviet Union was NOT a good example. Der Fuhrer split up the invading army into three more-or-less equal groups and focused first on this area, then on that area, until winter caused the army to stop. The Stalingrad campaign was okay, but by then the army had been weakened, the Soviet army had regained a lot and the Germans really needed to account for the winter calling a halt to everything. 

In 2022, the Russian strategy of having four axes of advance showed rather quickly that it was simply too many axes. The Kyiv and Kharkiv axes were abandoned, and the Donbas and Crimean axes met and formed a "bridge" and then tried to advance Westward. 

According to the blogger, Ukraine has left trying to re-take Bakhmut and has focused all of its efforts to Melitopol in order to break that "bridge" between the Donbas and Crimea.  This approach is very heavily guarded but promises the biggest effect on Russian forces.