Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Defense Politics Asia (DPA)" channel.

  1. It's a spite check in a lost chess game. Malice and spite. No value to anyone.
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  2. That's part of it. Another part of it is that even "winning" many or most of these over-reported skirmishes can leave Ukrainian forces depleted. NATO artillery (including drones) have often proven more accurate than Russian artillery. But the Russians can sacrifice "old" armor and small numbers of soldiers to both expose and deplete Ukrainian artillery and air defenses. And they can do it at relatively low cost to themselves. I'm not saying Russia doesn't have territorial ambitions. Russia always has had ambitions, which is why it grew to be so large in the first place. The collective West has always tried to deny Russia their Holy Grail of warm water ports. Ukraine doesn't directly help them in this regard, but indirectly, it may. With the West being confronted in 3 theaters simultaneously, even as their financial and economic systems are being wrecked by a perfect storm of historical forces and historically bad policy decisions at the top, Russia is on the threshold of having many ports across the Global South. India plays a huge role in this, and their relations with Russia are better (and more predictably positive) than their relations with the West. I think COVID-19 really gave India a bad taste in their mouths. They handled COVID-19 much better by ignoring the "Buy our vaccine!" nonsense from inept and corrupt USA leadership. Russia's had India's back and vice-versa, many times in the past. Relations are very cordial. India's not in Russia's pocket, but they sure enjoy refining and re-selling Russian oil to the feckless West! Sorry for writing a (bad) book. But the daily, detailed blow-by-blow accounts, while habit-forming and monetizable, are not all that informative about the larger scheme of things. The West appears to be in a death spiral of denial and authoritarian mis-rule. Support for Trump offers some hope, but with the bureaucratic and donor class united against him, the odds of the West emerging from the next 5 years in peace and prosperity remain low. Too many psychopaths stand to gain too much from doubling down on insanity, even if Trump wins.
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  3. Excellent "ground/aerial" views! That, or at least a topo map, where the iso-contours bunching up reveals the steepness of the terrain, is something you don't get from other YouTubers. There's rarely any discussion of the actual terrain. Granted, FPV drones negate many traditional terrain (and trench) advantages, but your 3-D images are most helpful, and probably quicker than pausing the video and staring at a topo/iso-contour map. I think everybody uses color coding for elevations, but it's not conducive to showing the tactical situation in enough detail for the tactical-level analysis most YouTubers are spitting out. Nobody is putting out topo maps for these reports. Topo maps reveal all. Most of what I get from YouTube is worthless in this regard.
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  4. The (thankfully) short answer is that Ukraine is also depleting its resources when it repels all the small, but never-ending probes. Maybe they lose a whole minesweeper in an attack, but re-mining territory that's cleared is costly and exposes more Ukrainian forces to attack, along the lines of what you're saying. You say in very few words (become better targets) what the "meat-grinder" theorists have spoken about. The longer Russia took to take Bakhmut, the more pot shots they were able to take on the supply trains to Bakhmut. Actually taking the city was very costly in ammo for the Russians, and the last stormings of underground installations was also dangerous work. But the cost to Ukraine was many times greater in men and equipment.
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  5. Views will go up with better prep and some editing.
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  6. If they lose Bakhmut, it's pretty much open territory beyond. Very difficult to defend. They can make a real fight out of Bakhmut, but not the rolling ground beyond. Ukrainians are in a trap. But they've been in this trap since their oligarchs started cutting deals with western crooks in the political establishment. I think the Ukrainians fear the total breakout, should Russia break through the line through Bakhmut. It's ironic, because I don't think territorial ambitions are driving the Russian war effort. I think their goal is to render the military that's against them inert. I think the Ukrainians are fighting for every inch of territory at enormous cost in men and material, and the Russians are content to sit back and bomb and shell the desperate attempts to rush troops and ammo to the pockets the Russians are "struggling" to pacify. It's bait that Zelensky's government must take. Over and over. Casualties are running somewhere between 6-to-1 and 10-to-1 in favor of the Russians. I don't get caught up in the daily minutiae. But I do try to keep tabs on the human and material cost, and wherewithal to sustain it, and it's looking like Ukraine is about tapped out.
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