[Guns N' Coffee]

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...khodarenok.jpg

There has been a lot of news coverage recently about Mikhail Khodarenok on Russian state TV's 60 minutes. A show that promotes the Kremlin line on absolutely everything, including on President Putin's so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine. The Kremlin still maintains that the Russian offensive is going according to plan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222

But on Monday night, studio guest Khodarenok, a military analyst and retired colonel, painted a very different picture.

He warned that "the situation [for Russia] will clearly get worse" as Ukraine receives additional military assistance from the West and Russia finds itself completely isolated.

The colonel actually foresaw these events in his 2015 article " How the Third World War Begins."
https://russiandefpolicy.com/2015/03...ld-war-begins/ Where he predicted that the West would supply Ukraine with modern arms and soldiers and how Russia would be no match.

"How does the war in the south-east present itself from the point of view of military art? Essentially, two Soviet armies are fighting. One is a 1991 model (it is the armed forces of Ukraine), the other is a somewhat modernized version of the same Soviet army — better trained in an operational-tactical sense, manned by more competent specialists, and commanded better. And the armed confrontation is currently playing out solely on the ground — with only the forces of combined arms units and sub-units. The south-east doesn’t have its own air forces, and Ukraine’s — formerly small — air forces have gradually dwindled to nothing in the course of the conflict. Practically no serviceable aircraft and trained pilots remain for the [Maydan] Square. Volunteers for the south-east on their TO&E air defense equipment helped the development of such a situation a lot. Sometimes vacationers in their planes acted fairly quietly and unnoticed for the same purpose. But from the point of view of military art, the armed confrontation in the south-east is all just a somewhat modernized variant of World War II in its final stage. Neither this nor that side has identified new weapons and military equipment or new techniques and methods of conducting armed warfare.

As is well-known, volunteer-vacationers are fighting on the side of the south-east. With their TO&E weapons as a rule. But now suppose such a variant (again, purely hypothetical, why not), that volunteers and vacationers from the USA and Western Europe began to arrive in the ranks of the armed forces of Ukraine, also with their TO&E weapons.

Let’s begin with the air forces. Suppose F-15, F-16, F-22, A-10, “Panavia Tornado,” E-8A, E-3A began landing on the airfields of Kharkov, Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye. Previous identification markings and side numbers painted over, and marked in their place is the trident and yellow-blue banners of Ukraine. Prior to this, many flights to Ukrainian airbases delivered fuel and the most modern aviation weapons.

Three CSGs (carrier strike groups) are deployed on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria which has prostituted itself politically for the past 140 years. The typical composition of each is one nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, two-three guided missile cruisers, three-four guided missile destroyers, three-four nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Armored and mechanized divisions of volunteers from the West outfitted with “Abrams,” “Leopard,” “Leclerc” tanks, “Marder” and “Bradley” BMPs, modern artillery are unloaded in the area of ​​Mariupol, Pavlograd, Izyum, and Lozove.

In addition, we should make note of the volunteer units and sub-units (also manned by vacationers from the USA and Western Europe), electronic warfare, communications, unmanned aerial vehicles and so on, and so on. Do not forget also about the volunteer logistics and technical support units, without which modern war is unthinkable.

Now a question. How long would the armed formations of the south-east hold out if a qualitatively different enemy entered the war, if a hail of modern aviation weapons — anti-bunker bombs, laser- and satellite-guided bombs, air- and sea-based cruise missiles showered down on LNR and DNR formations and units? If the order-of-battle were attacked by the newest armored combat vehicles and artillery? And the action of all this military splendor was supported by American intelligence of all types which has not even a close analogue in the world? And the planes of the volunteers of the West chase after every BMP, gun, and tank of the units and formations of the south-east, separately bomb every trench, firing point, and mortar position taken. And destroy the target with margins commensurate with the size of the trench itself.

We’ll repeat the question: how long can the armed formations of the south-east hold out? A day? Two? A week? The answer is unfortunately: several hours would be good."

"We say directly — the success of armed confrontation employing only conventional weapons is obvious in this case. It certainly will be on the side of the West. Unfortunately, the modern Russian Army is still less than qualitatively different from its Soviet predecessor of the 1991 model. And there is not very much of the latest weaponry, meeting the highest demands of the XXI century, in it.

For example, at this time, we do not have a single operational large formation [объединение] of the air forces (which by the way are no longer themselves a service of the Armed Forces), equipped with modern aircraft with supplies of the newest aviation weapons for the conduct of at least 30 days of combat actions.

The Black Sea Fleet today, to our great regret, is a branch of the Central Naval Museum. On the ships of the BSF it would be possible to study the history of Soviet shipbuilding in the 1960-1970s.

Yes, and combined arms formations and units, if you collected everything that is on the territory of the former SKVO(2), you would get not more than 1.5 army corps (by Western standards). You clearly couldn’t form a 1st Ukrainian Front from the available set of forces and resources. There are no operational reserves on the district’s territory. That is, the formations and units clearly do not have the strength for operational-strategic missions on the YuZSN.

To understand the sharpness of the situation, let’s add just one thing: if there are four-six specialized EW aircraft on every American carrier, then we don’t have a single similar aircraft in our entire air forces.

One should note still one more very important point — the operational outfitting of theater of military actions in the South-West Strategic Direction hardly meets the tasks of conducting combat actions successfully. The airfield network, the quantity and quality of roads and railways far from fully meet the demands of pursuing armed confrontation. It suffices to note that some railroads pass through the territory of Ukraine, and the famous quadrangle in which there are generally no railways lies precisely on the YuZSN. In a word, the first railroad parallel to the front line goes through Ukraine, and the next — only through Volgograd. And as is well-known, where the railway ends, and so ends the war."

And his conclusion, "But there can be only one exit from the Ukrainian crisis — under no circumstances should the Russian Federation Armed Forces be allowed to be dragged into the conflict in the south-east. Our country, the army and navy, needs to note objectively that we are still not ready for large-scale armed confrontation employing only conventional weapons. If you sort out all the criteria of the state’s readiness for war (Armed Forces training, preparation of the country’s economy, the preparation of the country’s territory to support the RF Armed Forces, preparing the population for defense), then most of them have very substantial problems."