Gernot Kramper (star): If this information, which also comes from our NATO, is correct, then Russia has lost the war. You have to say it quite clearly. // Then we will see that the Russians may no longer want to advance in the north, but want to establish a front line along which they can use their superior firepower. // All these forces, which have to try to practically secure the border with Poland, cannot be deployed elsewhere. It is not absolutely necessary for Belarus to actually enter the war in Lemberg or something similar.
Hendrik Holdmann (star): Four weeks of war in Ukraine. How are Russia’s troops progressing? What about the Ukrainian resistance?
Gernot Kramper (star): You can see that after a few days of rapid movement, this war has become relatively static, or the movements are very, very, very much less. The question now is: How do we evaluate this? And it all comes down to which information you trust and which you don’t trust. I would now like to briefly outline the good variant, i.e. the variant that is actually positive for Kyiv and for us. Those who say so, they say in Russia, have not fulfilled any strategic goals. As before, Kyiv is not liberated. There are insignificant terrain gains to the east and south. Kiev’s troops have only minor casualties. But the losses of the Russians are extraordinarily high. Yesterday, not only the government in Kyiv, but also NATO gave a figure of 40,000 to 50,000 men lost. What does that mean? If you assume that the Russians have about 15,000 dead, there is always a certain number of seriously wounded in addition to the dead. So not individual scratches, but people who drop out permanently and people who are trapped or somehow disappear. You can practically calculate it like this. So with 14,000 or 15,000 dead, you have at least 40,000 to 50,000 irretrievable losses for the Russian army. But they marched in with just under 200,000 men: a quarter is missing. However, this quarter is divided among different branches of the army. If we assume 25 percent losses, it would mean that the actual frontline units would have to have almost 40 percent losses. So almost every second soldier is out, not necessarily dead. If this information, which also comes from our NATO, is correct, then Russia has lost the war. You have to say it quite clearly. If that’s true, Kyiv will have to hold out for some time. Russian casualties in this position would increase rather than decrease, and they cannot be offset by the supply of new troops. That’s completely impossible. Unless there was a general mobilization or something like that. In addition, there are reports that Kyiv is not only able to make individual counterattacks, but also to surround or possibly cut off a group of almost 10,000 Russian soldiers north-west of Kyiv or is in the process of doing so. Those would be proper operational movements. So not that you are able to push the opponent out of the edge of a village, but that you really move in the terrain and carry out such manoeuvres. If Kyiv can do that, Putin definitely has a problem. In the long run, if that were to succeed, the entire northern front would collapse and these units, already weakened by 40 percent casualties, would no longer be able to carry out operational attacks. They are then simply smashed these units. So they still exist, maybe they can still defend themselves. But a lot of state can no longer be made with it. That’s the positive variant, where I have to say again, that’s based on the information from our official sources. A variant. Let’s assume that’s not true. The Russians didn’t lose 15,000 men, let alone 45,000 irreparable losses. Because they lose a lot of material. We see that all the time too. But we also see a lot of material just falls out, stays where it is. What do I know. Broken tires, broken engine. Of course you don’t know that from the outside. But one thing is very clear: the crew isn’t dead. The situation can mean that it’s not right now. That is now the “worst scenario”, which would not be good for Kyiv at all, to be completely different. We don’t even know what the Kremlin is planning. Let’s assume: Putin doesn’t really want to take Kyiv, he doesn’t really want to take Kharkov, he just wants to threaten these cities and shell the suburbs. Kyiv can never allow the capital to be lost at all. But does Putin have to take them at all? Is it perhaps just a matter of tying the bulk of the Ukrainian forces in the north around these two cities and their defense lines? This means, however, that it cannot be deployed in the south and east, where the movement has been up to now, and here there is of course still the danger that all Ukrainian forces deployed east of the Dnepr – everything that is attached to them Separatist areas is what is south of Kharkov and north of Mariupol that can be cut off. And these are huge areas, but they also offer little cover and there are only a few crossings over this river. And if that happens, of course, it would not be good for Kyiv at all. So it’s just hard to say because we don’t know what game the Kremlin is playing. And we don’t really know how catastrophic the situation is on the Russian side. So we’re in an uncertainty there, but that uncertainty will certainly clear up in some way, at least in the next 7, 10 days. Because either it is actually as NATO and the Americans assume that the Russians have these huge losses, then they will not be able to hold this position around Kyiv and Kharkov. I don’t think that’s possible. Then this whole war will collapse and there will not be an eternal war on the front either. Or else this information is clearly too optimistic and then we would experience a very ugly war. Then we will see that the Russians may no longer want to advance in the north, but want to establish a front line along which they can use their superior firepower. And we look at how individual raids by infantry groups look like. But they use huge batteries and flatten entire areas with the Ukrainian soldiers in there, of course. So you will see in the next 7 days which of these assumptions is correct. I don’t want to commit myself now.
Hendrik Holdmann (star): Ukraine always warned of a scenario that could involve Belarus in the war. How likely is that and how would that change the war?
Gernot Kramper (star): Belarus is unlikely to openly enter the war. But they could. And what would that possibility be? Not to plug any gaps with the Russians, but simply to cut off Ukraine’s western border to Poland – that is, to advance to the former Lemberg and cut off the entire supply of supplies. They don’t even have to do that. All you have to do then is let tanks drive around. And as long as they do that, Ukraine must somehow arm itself against this threat. Forces have to be made available, then a defensive position has to be included. All these forces, which have to try to practically secure the border with Poland, cannot be used elsewhere. It is not absolutely necessary for Belarus to really enter the war in Lemberg or something similar. And we have to see one thing: so far, for example, the roads and many railway lines have not yet been closed to interrupt supplies. Before you start invading, I would all expect that we would see the railway lines and freeways and interstates in this area being destroyed on a large scale.
Source: Stern
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