NATO Expansion and Human Wave Attacks

Today I’m going to talk about this idea of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and a prediction of what’s going to happen in Ukraine this Summer.

Let’s start off with a quote from dear Maria on her Telegram channel condor_the_bird:

Why we will not forgive the West this time round.
When the military operation started I heard a cruel observation:
-Is it true that a Ukrainian blew himself up with a bridge?
– Maybe.
– Well, they are just like you, so you will fight for a long time.
And yes, what makes the war difficult is not Javelins or Stingers. It is people. There is a military term in Russian: “soldier material”. It stands for people available for recruitment in a specific area. History has proven that the best material comes from Russia, Belarus and… Ukraine. So, those brainwashed, сursed, spellbound nazis are made from the same material as we are. And it is painful to fight them. But it is necessary.
And it is something we will never forget or forgive the West for.

About NATO expansion. It’s crazy and it amazes me that any sane person could think this is not crazy. Just the act of making a serious application to join must be having serious political consequences. If they are accepted, I don’t see how Russia would act with anything less than military force. With open warfare in Ukraine, there’s really no plausible reason to tolerate NATO expansion anywhere else. That said, here are a few significant points to remember:

-This seems to play into larger strategy of opening up as many fronts against Russia as possible. Georgia has noticeably refused to participate. They followed the piper in 2008 and it didn’t work out well for them. They suffered a humiliating defeat and loss of territory and they aren’t in a hurry to repeat that mistake, apparently.

-Finland joining NATO would be a violation of the 1948 Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance between The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and The Republic of Finland, not that anyone in the West pretends to care about treaties or promises anymore.

-It’s highly unlikely that all 30 existing members of NATO would vote in favor of Sweden and Finland joining the bloc. I would expect at the very least Hungary and Turkey to veto it. However, with everything that’s happened in the last few months, all bets are off the table. I’m not sure why bother applying if it’s known that the vote will fail. Maybe it’s theater, maybe it’s a way to pressure obstinate outliers for not toeing the line, who knows.

From what I’ve read, it is a true statement that Sweden and Finland enjoy widespread public support for joining NATO, so public referendums would truthfully be a formality. Earlier today I had a conversation with Anya Kochetova (a pseudonym), a Russian IT specialist who lives and works in Finland.

IK: what’s the climate like with this whole NATO thing?

AK: It’s concerning. A lot of Finns are talking about how they kicked Soviet Russia’s ass in the winter war, that’s how they teach it here of course, and are ready to do it again. And believe that joining NATO is either a good idea or won’t affect things much. But there’s still a small percent that believe Finland should stay neutral and strongly oppose joining NATO. The Finnish establishment acts completely deranged though, as you may know. Also I don’t speak Russian in public unless I feel completely safe

IK: Do people not understand that, however well they did in the beginning, they still completely lost the 1939 Winter War?

AK: Mostly no. I don’t even try to argue because it’s useless.

IK: Do they think Russia would be as nice to Finns as they are to Ukrainians, and not just use missiles?

AK That I can’t tell you for certain. With the western propaganda that they’re mainly consuming, surely they don’t believe Russia is being nice to Ukrainians. It seems mostly that they think as soon as Russia dares to step on their land, they will be able to fight back no matter what. It’s mostly hysteria. They don’t have a real understanding of what’s going on, so it seems they can’t really form such a judgement. I saw somewhere on the news that someone started building a freaking fence on the border “to stop the Russian invasion”. Mannerheim line 2, haha.

IK: The irony of course is that the Soviets were very nice to Finland in 1939, and also in 1944-45. They could have been completely conquered and occupied.

AK: I know this very well. Finns were acting like complete shitheads when Stalin was trying to have a proper conversation with them from the start.

IK: You mentioned being afraid to speak Russian. Have you personally thought about what you might do if things get significantly worse between Russia and Finland?

AK: The reason why I’m scared to speak Russian in public is because of the current environment, likely presence of Finnish nazis somewhere around, possible presence of inadequate Ukrainian refugees, and lack of protection from Finnish police. There aren’t that many and the law is pretty, well, non-protective of individuals. I don’t think people like me can fully express themselves without the fear of, well, all sorts of unpleasant consequences which would not be resolved justly by the authorities. For context, a year ago during New Year’s Eve my friend and I were listening to Putin’s speech in my apartment through the phone, as a tradition. When it was midnight and then the anthem started playing, we heard someone screaming ‘sieg heil’ many times on the top of his lungs. There are quite a bit of incidents involving Finnish nationalists in general. I’m pretty much only feeling safe speaking Russian in the presence of my Finnish fiancé, because he knows law very well and knows how to act, fight, etc. He shares my views on everything. We were already talking about possibly moving to Russia in case of rapid escalation, though it wouldn’t be easy for both of us, especially for him.

IK: How has the Finnish economy for the typical person been like recently, after the latest rounds of sanctions? Any visible effect on prices, shortages, or jobs? If so, does this sway people’s opinions, one way or another?

AK: I honestly don’t know about the shortages and jobs. Prices on certain products such as coffee are slightly higher, but not much yet. The gas prices is probably what worries Finns the most at the moment, from my observation, but I don’t see it swaying people’s opinions.

IK: What is the general perception of the Ukraine war, and Russia in general, from your media? It’s strange to me, because from what I’ve read, Finland is a common tourism location for Russians, the two groups don’t seem isolated from each other.

AK: It’s messed up. Mostly Russians, especially young Russians who live here are the “No War” libs, who feel sorry for Ukraine and think that crazy Putin has gone mad and has to be overthrown. So do most Finns. I’m working among these people. Finnish narrative in the media is no different from the American and European. As far as I know, since COVID, regular tourists still cannot come here. I think what we see here is that the Finnish establishment has completely lost the grip of reality, has gone full reactionary in the US interest and don’t consider interests of regular citizens any longer.

IK: I’m guessing COVID was not kind to you then.

AK: Actually, it was pretty okay for me as I was lucky to get my current job before finishing my studies. Not okay in terms of travel of course, through it is easier for me with a work permit.

IK: How long you lived in Finland? Did things used to be better?

AK: 5 years. it was a bit friendlier, but I think it’s because I didn’t encounter everything I did before that. Plus I came to learn history much better only maybe after 1 year of being here, which gives the context that can’t be ignored and explains the views and behavior of modern Finns. A few friendships and my relationship are priceless though.

IK: I have this impression that many, maybe most, Russian expats dislike the Russian government. Do you think this is true?

AK: I think they still keep the image of the hegemonic US and prosperous free democratic Europe in their heads, and refuse to see Russia in a role of a powerhouse that follows its own path and interests. If in reality it does act according to its interest, in their eyes it is seen as an act of aggression and barbarism. No one can have its own interests except for the free democratic world.

IK: So they see the “successes” of the Ukrainian forces, and believe the Finns could relive the glory days of the Winter War?

AK: Pretty much. well, I don’t know what sources they follow on the topic of the war. As far as I know, the sources of collective West are pushing the idea that Ukrainians are closer to victory with each day. So if they’re following those, they can’t know of the real “successes” of the Ukrainian forces. More than that, one guy told me he believes it’s the Russian imperialism that made Putin start the operation.

So much for that. Now, about the impending Ukrainian victory that everyone is talking about. As an example, here’s a Twitter thread from former DOD analyst Trent Telenko. It is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever laid eyes on in my life – if you hate yourself and have nothing better to do with your time than literally torture yourself, you can read his full thread here. Otherwise, stick with the few keynotes I am about to quote below:

Russia is losing 2/3 of a battalion combat group of equipment a day and we are into day 79.

That’s over 52.6 full battalion equipment sets out of the 120 initially sent into Ukraine & ~180 over all in the Russian Ground Forces

IOW, 43% of the total committed Russian mechanized combat vehicle fleet and likely the best 29% of the total Russian combat vehicle fleet have been destroyed or captured.

Percentage casualty rate wise, this is the institutional equivalent of the III Armored Corps in Ft Hood Texas catching a high yield tac-nuke for the US Army.

Per the Oryx visual compilations, Ukraine is losing one vehicle destroyed or captured for every 3.5 Russian vehicles.

If the current Ukrainian casualty rates match the 2014-2015 fighting.

Ukraine is taking about one casualty for between 5 & 7 Russian casualties right now.

If casualties are this disproportionately skewed without a quantifiable advantage in firepower to explain it, then you should really consider the possibility that your numbers are wrong. But Trent is an idiot, apparently, so of course he doesn’t.

The Ukrainian diaspora email list I participated in carefully collated Ukraine versus Russian casualties in the 2014-2015 period of Donbas fighting.

The aggregate Ukraine vs Russia losses in 2014-2015 were:

AFU Losses in total: ~3,000 “KIA”;
AFU Non-Combat Losses: 1,294;
AFU Combat Losses: ~2,000 KIA;
Russian Combat Losses: ~15,000 KIA;

And see, this is how his numbers are so wrong. Maybe he should have relied on something more reliable than a Ukrainian diaspora email list, for fuck’s sake. Anyway, the first and most obvious thing wrong with his numbers is that the Russian armed forces were not “officially” involved in 2014-15, so their total casualties could not have been more than a few dozen, maybe.

As for the separatists, there is no possible way to get “15,000 KIA” unless these Ukrainian expats on Trent’s email list were counting literally every single man, woman, and child the Ukrainian army killed in this period. And actually, that is almost certainly how they in fact got this number. In the minds of Ukrainian nationalists, every person they kill is a “Russian soldier,” regardless of military status, armed or unarmed, age or sex. Interesting insight into their mentality, isn’t it?

Ukraine is going for a one million citizen military mobilization.

The six years of Dombas fighting conscript classes plus prewar Ukrainian military is ~650,000 right there.

Add in the mobilizing territorials, & yeah, one million Ukrainians under arms are here by 30 June.

These Ukrainian reinforcements include the six conscript classes who fought in Donbas in 2016-2021.

That is, the Ukrainians are calling combat veterans back to the colors fighting in the same areas that they served six to nine months of combat in, working with NCO’s

…who are already fighting there.

Russian conscripts present in Ukraine & being called up are barely trained greenhorns with no NCO’s to speak of.

Effectively, 100 Ukrainians are generating the same combat power as 300 Russian troops.

And this combat effectiveness value ratio is increasingly in Ukraine’s favor over time.

As the Russians lose more and more of their best soldiers & vehicles.

Their greenhorn replacements die faster & kill fewer Ukrainians.

The Russian offensives at Izyum and Severodonietsk failing beyond recovery is confirmation that my prediction of the Russian tactical truck fleet collapsing right now is close to the mark.

Russia has lost the ability to do more than a single push out of the Donbas, and then

… only with civilian trucks.

We are in the beginnings of a Russian Lanchester square law curve collapse.

How dare you invoke the Lanchester square law curve collapse. I actually cited the Lanchester law in a previous post, and unlike you, I did it correctly.

When you have a baseline assumption that is this horrendously wrong, it leads you to make exponentially stupid follow-on assumptions, all causing a domino effect culminating in the most disastrously stupid and horrible take of your life. And here it is. The Ukrainian government has this idea, which Trent is cheerleading for, that they can dump a million boys and old men into a meat grinder and that’s going to have some impact on the outcome besides more dead boys and old men.

Anyway, he concludes his shitshow of a thread with this:

Like Japanese airpower in WW2’s Pacific theater. There is no easy way to analytically predict when that sort of collapse happens.

Yes, there is no easy way to analytically predict any of this, but that sure as hell doesn’t stop you from trying anyway, does it?

I’ve publicly stated on Chicago Talk Radio that the end of June is when the trend lines say the Russian Army falls apart.

Ukrainian J2 MGen Budanov was just interviewed & predicting the Russians will break in August.

Kyiv, in the first week of the war, called out for all Ukrainians anywhere with any military experience to come home and fight.

Ukrainians are returning from all over English speaking world. This is a enormous pool of manpower with diverse skills.

Whatever else you want to say, in the manpower game. Russia has lost absolutely.

Look, I’m not a general or an expert in geopolitics, I only have my narrow and limited experience in media relations and military service. But based on that, I have a pretty clear idea of what’s going to happen next in Ukraine. Right now there is a crescendo of fake news almost as loud and overwhelming as it was in late February, early March. Here is a video I would like everyone to watch of a Russian surveillance drone working its way down a Ukrainian slit trench.

It’s all quite methodical, and brutally effective. The Russians seem to have an unlimited number of artillery shells (which makes sense for the world’s largest weapons exporter), and the Ukrainians have absolutely no defense against it. This is a turkey shoot. Russians are also, in all honesty, much more patient than we are. They’re fine with this tactic of whittling down the Ukrainian army 400, 600, or 800 soldiers a day, and destroying 30-50 vehicles a day.

What’s equally amazing about that video, and all the other videos like it, is how the Ukrainians behave. They sit there in the trenches and allow themselves to be killed. Even after the Russians have repeatedly made it clear that they don’t want to kill them, and if a Ukrainian decides to run away, he will be allowed to. But they don’t. They refuse to surrender, refuse to run away, and they die, and completely pointlessly. It’s an extremely admirable quality, but, well, what else can I say?

Both sides have made claims about the other side not properly burying their dead. Such accusations are very effective because they dehumanize the enemy. Respecting the dead are one of humanity’s oldest rituals, even some animal species have been observed doing it. But when you line the two claims up, it’s immediately obvious which one is more plausible.

NATO/Ukraine side of the story: Russians don’t collect and bury their dead because they are evil, stupid, and incompetent. If you think I’m unfairly depicting the pro-NATO side, let me just quote Trent:

Simply _No One_ wanted to see or hear that the Russian Military is really a uniformed version of the movie “Idiocracy.” 25,000 dead Russian soldiers still isn’t enough for many of them right now. “Directed Cognition” does that.

Russian side of the story: Ukrainians don’t collect and bury their dead because they are trying to keep their casualty counts as low as possible, and they can also take pictures of dead Ukrainians and claim they are Russian soldiers.

See this post on Telegram for a classic account of Ukrainians refusing to gather their dead, and actually shooting at Russians who try to collect the dead for them. See, I’m just much more inclined to believe this side of the story because it assigns a logical motive for the Ukrainians’ actions, and matches up with the Ukrainians’ well-established pattern of repeatedly underreporting their losses and exaggerating damage inflicted on the enemy.

Everyone, including Trent, loves repeating this stereotype about Russians being more tolerant of high casualties than we are. I think it’s true that they tried to be humanitarian a lot longer than we would have, but even they have limits. Their days of treating Ukraine with velvet gloves are long since over. They’re not going to be unnecessarily brutal, but they are no longer going to suffer unnecessary casualties trying to be nice.

Here is an interview of Samo Burja, a Slovenian-American analyst living in San Francisco. It is worth watching in full, though I’ll summarize what I thought were some key points below.

His opening statements are among the best from the interview, and I think he is right. If smartphones existed in the 2003 NATO invasion of Iraq, that could have been depicted as a defeat too. Imagine if there were thousands of photos of every burned-out Humvee, crashed helicopter, and garbage-strewn tent, with loud proclamations that the evil, incompetent American invaders were being easily destroyed by the tens of thousands. We have actual, professional analysts with a straight face claiming it is possible, and actually a good idea, to try to estimate losses based off of photos on the internet, which is one of the most profoundly stupid things I have ever heard or seen a human being say. It’s good to finally see at least one mainstream person acknowledge that this isn’t optimal.

Anyway, Samo markets himself as a contrarian, and he is one, which is good but also not good. I do actually find Samo’s analysis more valuable than the “pro-Russia” crowd. As I stated in my earlier gripe, Russia is not the Savior You Want Her to Be, the “pro-Russia” crowd tends to scrutinize Russia through a western world view, and assign her national motivations and goals that don’t have any basis in reality, and aren’t helpful to repeatedly say. Declaring that Russia is a based white-majority Orthodox nation that is going to save us all from the transatlantic globohomo banking cabal isn’t productive and I wish people would stop saying that.

Ultimately, Samo is pro-NATO and isn’t really contrarian in any way except he’s willing to assign Russia actual rational and plausible motives, instead of them just being evil, incompetent, stupid, Asiatic, not sufficiently European, subhuman, racially inferior, etc. etc. That’s setting the bar really low. He also says some things which I find totally absurd, like that Putin is hiding out of fear of a bio-weapon assassination attack. That’s particularly unfortunate because saying wildly absurd things makes me question the validity of the rest of his statements that I did find reasonable and accurate.

I also notice a certain shrewdness in Samo’s choice of words and timeframes. He consistently keeps his predictions specific enough to sound smart, but vague enough so he can walk them back as necessary so they are at least close to coming true. For example, declaring that Putin will probably be replaced in 5 years might sound smart, but it really isn’t. Putin is 70 years old. There’s a pretty good chance that within the next 5 years he’s going to have to retire anyway regardless of what happens in Ukraine, or anywhere else.

Reservations aside, his depiction of Russian military doctrine seems on the mark to me, or at least consistent with what I have seen so far. According to him, NATO is focused on airpower above all else (true) while Russia built their ground forces around the king of battle, artillery. That’s in some ways similar to airpower but also the opposite. Their tanks secure ideal positions for their artillery. Once in play, modern Russian artillery can outrange and overpower all Soviet and NATO equivalents on the other side. That’s yet another reason why Trent’s laughable attempt to invoke the Lanchester law is stupid. Even if the most clownish casualty estimates were true, none of that would change the fact that Russian forces have the foothold they need to grind all opposition to dust and suffer almost no further losses while doing it.

Another equally crucial element that Samo spelled out, and to my astonishment he is almost totally alone in saying this, is that the Russian armed forces have excellent anti-air capabilities, and that’s the Achille’s heel to the entire NATO bloc. We’re extremely risk adverse, intolerant of taking casualties, and all of our doctrine and equipment sets revolve around air supremacy to the point that we literally cannot function without it. I have noticed a consistent trend in this war of Russians keeping their footprint in Ukraine as small and condensed as possible. Their footprint is actually smaller now than it was at the beginning. Their most vulnerable forces were the troops and vehicles encircling Kiev. With those forces withdrawn, there is nothing left for NATO air power to easily attack. F-15s,18s, and 22s would have to go to the extreme limits of their range, possibly bringing along extra fuel tanks (I’m not an expert, just estimating), and would have to go, deep, deep into airspace protected by Russian S-300s and 400s.

The interviewer was spouting propaganda, and outdated propaganda at that, the whole time, but he did say one thing I found profound, actually equally profound as anything Samo said. What would have happened if Trump were in office, and not Biden? Well, there is at least some chance that Trump and Putin would have spoken on the phone, and Trump would have waved him through, and told him that he could do whatever he wanted in Ukraine.

Not mentioned, but in my mind equally possible, likely even, that the escalation that led to the Russians ending their stance of neutrality and recognizing the separatists’ independence might not have happened. Flooding Ukraine with more weapons, actively encouraging Ukrainians to start an invasion of Donbass, and directly targeting the American people with disinformation, all of these things would have required approval from the president. I just don’t think Trump would have been interested in any of these ideas. In hindsight, I think the upcoming planned war in Ukraine was the biggest reason for our establishment to get Trump out of office at all costs, even if that required rigging an entire election.

Okay, here is my prediction for Ukraine, for what it’s worth. Everyone is rambling about some huge counter-offensive against Russia, so why not just take that claim at face value? I do not believe the Ukrainian army, or what’s still left of it, is capable of an offensive; the mobility, communications, training, and coordination such an idea would require simply do not exist for them. But I do think they are truthfully going to forcibly conscript a million boys and old men and march them straight into Russian artillery fire. Maybe those Ukrainian conscripts will have the good sense to run away, or maybe they won’t.

Right now everyone is celebrating the surrender of 300+ Azov militants in Mariupol. I don’t consider that a reason to celebrate. How many militants did Mariupol start out with? 7,000 or 8,000? Out of that huge force, almost all of them fought to the death? A man surrendering when he’s on the brink of starvation isn’t a great morale victory either. Russian propaganda is drumming up every single Ukrainian who gives up, but I think everyone understands that they don’t have much to work with. The vast majority of Ukrainians are choosing death over surrender, and I don’t see any sign of that changing.

There are also these disturbing statements from Biden that he plans to take the 15-20 million tons of grain being stored in Ukraine and release it onto the global market. Well, great. But what are the Ukrainians going to eat this winter? Apparently, nothing. Biden is fine with Ukrainians being killed for literally no reason, and he’s fine with them starving to death for no reason too.

I think Mariupol was a strategic victory to secure control of the coastline, a propaganda victory to destroy and humiliate Azov battalion, and it was also a  test. The results of that test weren’t good. Any city that the Russians assault will have to be destroyed, so they’re going to try to avoid doing that anymore. Ideally, applying enough pressure will cause cities to capitulate without the need for a bloodbath, but maybe they won’t.

So here is my prediction, (finally). This war is going to grind through the summer, with the Ukrainian military death toll doubling or tripling. Mind you, Ukrainians were already dying from hunger in previous years, so it’s only going to get worse. Ukraine was already the human trafficking and child pornography capital of Europe, and all of that is only going to get much worse too.

It’s going to start getting cold again in October, and food will be scarce. That, I think, will be the major decision point if the war is still dragging on at this time. Will Ukraine have the sense to ask for terms, or will they embrace their own demographic destruction?

Featured image source: Donetsk News Agency

Ian Kummer

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