Comments by "N Velsen" (@nvelsen1975) on "Was Bakhmut worth it? — Reaction to Michael Kofman" video.

  1. Thing is: That means you're weighing another town, against all the lives lost in the weeks where Russia had the place surrounded and could shell Bachmut at their leisure with little to no risk of counter-battery. That's a lot of unknowns and assumptions. I don't think you can conclude either way since: -Which other town? We don't know. -What's it's value, even if we know the town we don't rightly know -Who would've been saved fighting under better conditions elsewhere? What's their military value? We don't know. -How much artillery would Russia have lost extra not having a few weeks of free shots at Bachmut? We can only guesstimate roughly. -Would Russia have paused if Bachmut was given up eventually, or pressed on during winter? We don't know. But if Russia pressed on anyway it would've invalidated Anders' 'Bachmut or have to go offensive' argument. -Would Wagner have been put to the torch elsewhere and still revolted? We don't know. -If Wagner did, would they have captured Gerasimov and Shoigu like they intended? We don't know. -If Wagner didn't, would they have bowed out of the war after Bachmut and just take their surplus manpower to Niger? We don't know. Now I wasn't bad at mathematics in school, but I don't think it's possible to solve an equation with 10+ unknowns in it.
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  2. There's so many unknowns though, that both arguments could be correct. And so many unknowns that require assumptions by both arguments. In this video too: The convicts mostly left Wagner after 6 months? Do we know that for a fact, or is it in assumption? And what about the contracts we know of that involved 1 month cooldown time after which they can be called up again? Would they not simply have been retained in breach of contract or after cooldown? 5:28 Yes they would've been redirected, possibly / probably into less favourable conditions where Russia couldn't shell Ukraine from 3 directions with impunity like happened in Bachmut's final stage, that's part of Kofman's argument and why it's a good argument: Ukraine could've had better results elsewhere. (could have, not saying would have) But that requires us to weigh the tactical situation of the final 3-4 weeks against the situation if other fronts were reinforced, which we simply don't know. 5:58 And we don't know what would've happened if Ukraine withdraw the last 3-4 weeks. Maybe all that saved manpower would've simply been spent on a harder fight against Russia. Heck, maybe Wagner would've captured Gerasimov and Shoigu if they had 2000-3000 extra guys to start the uprising with, who knows? So is destroying Wagner good? Do we even know who exactly was lost in Ukraine? For all we know many defenders lost their lives in crazy streetfighting while they would've been better doing the same in more open territory. Urban combat tends to be an infantry quality equaliser, and we know that most Ukrainian infantry is superior to most Russian infantry, suggesting Ukraine would have at least one advantage extra if Bachmut have been given up 3 weeks earlier. Kofman's argument suffers from the exact same reliance on assumptions though.
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