The conflict in Ukraine has become a fully-fledged war against a “NATO-standard army"

By mid-May, two and a half months after the start of the special military operation, there are grounds for correcting its meanings. It is not a surprise that from the first day of the special military operation, Russia has acted not only against Ukraine, but also against the entire collective intelligence potential of NATO, the grouping of monitoring satellites, air surveillance stations, military theory and practice.

According to the current data of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the afternoon of May 13, 2022, in total since the beginning of the special military operation, 165 Ukrainian aircraft and 125 helicopters, 845 drones, 304 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,039 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 369 multiple rocket launchers, 1,498 field artillery and mortars, and also 2,882 units of special military vehicles were destroyed

A comparison of these figures with the number of equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as of February 24 suggests that Ukraine's own equipment accounts for less than half of all weapons that are currently involved.

Now we can say with confidence that the Ukrainian army as such in its traditional sense – resembling the Soviet one with rare inclusions of new equipment and with a lower class than the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – no longer exists. From the rather stingy amount of information that comes from the front line and from eyewitnesses on the territory controlled by Kiev, it follows that Western weapons "aid" is already commonplace.

We are not talking about Javelins, NLAW, sniper rifles, etc. Footage of the presence of Czech DANA self–propelled artillery units and American M777 howitzers in UAF combat units has been published, there is information about the presence of M142 HIMARS and M270 on the streets of Kharkov - RUSSTRAT reported earlier about the potential possibility of their appearance and the risks associated with them. The presence of the M113 "Bradley" of the Vietnam War is recorded.

There is reliable footage of the use of British Brimstone missiles – due to the lack of aviation in Ukraine in a broad sense, British products are used in a "sabotage" version: launchers are placed on small trucks, from which it is possible to carry out a quick salvo and change position.

Brimstone is an upgrade of the Hellfire widely used on helicopters and drones, its homing head operates in two modes – radar and passive, by a mirrored laser beam. There is no doubt that such combinations of a truck and missiles on it will be widely used in the future – according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, 10,700 vehicles have been delivered to the country since February 24.

In the near future, the German PzH 2000 should appear on the battlefield, albeit in very modest quantities – perhaps the maximum capabilities of the Ukrainian artillery. If appropriate ammunition is supplied together with self-propelled howitzers, then such installations will be able to strike from a distance of at least 40 kilometres.

Here it is appropriate to recall the regular attacks of the UAF on the civilian population of the Russian border regions, which has already led to casualties among Russian citizens. With the right tools, the Ukrainian side will certainly continue such terrorist attacks.

The aviation cover of Ukraine still leaves much to be desired - Ukrainian planes and helicopters prefer to move very low and in the area of their own air defences. Nevertheless, there is information about the possible expansion of this zone. In particular, due to the transfer to Kiev of the German IRIS-T SLM air defence system, capable of countering aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, MLRS, drones and adjustable bombs.

The fact that the leadership of the Ukrainian army as a whole is carried out by British officers and representatives of any NATO countries, except Ukraine itself, is recognised at various levels. According to information published by RIA Novosti, in Zaporozhye, up to the recently, British military leaders moved between command posts, coordinating the actions of the UAF.

The formal result of the activities of British officers was the compilation of maps of the operational situation on the Ukrainian front for public distribution under the "roof" of the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based in Washington.

There is news on the part of anti-ship weapons. Israel, according to some reports, approved Estonia's request for the transfer to Ukraine of Blue Spear 5G SSM anti–ship missiles with a firing range of up to 290 km, which are a variant of modern Israeli Gabriel 5 PKR. 290 kilometres is about as far from Zatoka in the Odessa region of Ukraine to Sevastopol, the main base of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. By placing such complexes on Snake island, there will be a bonus in the range of another 20 kilometres.

All this – and much more – must be taken into account in further episodes of Operation Z. The result of the perception of reality should be a change not only in tactical techniques – which will have to be learnt on the go, but also a change in the place and role of the domestic military-industrial complex.

In order to save the lives of soldiers in the course of achieving the results of Operation Z, we will simply have to promptly adjust the administrative barriers that have so far prevented the saturation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with specific samples of equipment, change funding priorities and not just give the "green light" to gunsmiths, but also accelerate the movement of such people forward.

The need for a multiple increase and expansion of the nomenclature of tactical drones has been discussed a lot and at different levels. It turned out that even absolutely promising and effective strike complexes are not available in the quantities that are needed.

Battles in urban areas have clearly shown the importance of having effective sniper complexes. For which, in turn, thermal imagers are needed. There was a shortage of secure means of communication in quantities sufficient for coordinated actions of small groups among urban agglomerations. This list can be continued, unfortunately, for a long time.

We should not forget that the Russian army, by and large, is at war with an enemy superior in numbers. According to the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Kiev plans to mobilise up to a million people.

These plans are unlikely to come true even by half, given how many potential soldiers have left Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. But we must remember that Russian troops act as the attacking side. It is difficult to talk about the number of Russian forces involved in the operation – they can be estimated as approximately as 120,000-140,000 people.

Nevertheless, Ukraine is likely to be able to form an approximately from two to three-fold superiority. Military theory assumes a three–fold superiority of the attacker over the defender - and not vice versa. This, by the way, gives an understanding of the difficulty of the task that the Russian army is currently solving.

Attempts to shower the Russian army with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers can only be countered by greater quality and military intellect. There is no doubt about the soldier's ingenuity, but it would be excessive optimism to guarantee the desired result in a given time with minimal losses with such introductory.

Due to objective reasons, the main one of which is the finiteness of the mobilisation resource of Ukraine and a large number of irretrievable losses of the Ukrainian side, the special military operation in Ukraine cannot drag on for years. Actually, Kiev's Western curators do not hide the tasks of the Ukrainian military – to "blunt" the blade of the Russian army as much as possible and to knock out as many qualified personnel and equipment from it as possible in order to strategically weaken Russia's military potential.

The fate of Ukrainians with such a plan is of no interest to anyone except Russia, for which the population of the neighbouring country is still a fraternal nation. But the problem does not come down to how the conflict in Ukraine will end. It cannot be ruled out that in the West the results of the conflict will be interpreted as an opportunity for open aggression against Russia, and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will have to work even harder.

Nuclear weapons remain Russia's guaranteed ultima ratio regis, capable of putting an end to any global conflict, but there are always a large number of options for confrontation that lie below the threshold of the use of nuclear weapons. For example, it is impossible to exclude the emergence of new conflicts along the perimeter of Russia. Let's recall that the year 2022 began with an attempt at an armed rebellion in Kazakhstan, and now the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO is designated.

This means that the Russian army should be able to counteract potential conflicts with other “NATO-standard" armies as soon as possible.

Now the resistance of the UAF depends on the availability of weapons, leadership in the form of NATO officers and the number of UAF troops. The first two points require special attention. So, despite the strikes on the bridges across the Dnieper, they were not brought to a logical result, and the supply of the Ukrainian group in the east of the country was not interrupted. IRIS-T SLM or PzH 2000 is a much more serious threat than the advertised "Bayraktars" or "Javelins", and their appearance on the front line can turn into completely unnecessary losses for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

If there are still some sentiments regarding EU and US citizens who are leading the actions of the UAF, then they should be discarded. A legitimate military target should be considered not only transport with weapons that came from NATO, but also those who command the Ukrainian army and in some cases personally use complex weapons systems against the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

There is hardly any need to fear diplomatic complications or new sanctions – everything that can be applied against Russia will be applied. But the emergence of the "Vietnam syndrome" in London, Brussels or Washington would be beneficial for Russia, especially against the background of political turbulence due to socio-economic negative factors, such as gas and food prices.

The Ukrainian conflict has already given a lot of reasons to attend to the solution of an urgent military task: to give the Russian army not only unique strategic weapons systems, such as “Sarmat”, “Avangard” or “Poseidon” with already spectacularly presented hypersonic weapons. It is necessary to ensure superiority over a numerically superior enemy, which has everything in abundance that NATO arsenals can boast of, at all levels. Because there is every chance that the Ukrainian conflict will be just a warm-up.