"West's Ability to Arm Ukraine Continues to Wane"
The New Atlas (February 16, 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35SBfb9LoEo

Brian Berletic: [shows map depicting] “fighting spreading alone the line of contact in the Donbas region. And this area in particular, Bakhmut, we see the encirclement enveloping more and more of the city and we see these red-rifle icons inside the city. This is a pro-Ukrainian live map admitting that Russian forces have moved into the city. And I want to show you this from the Guardian:

"This was from February 14th, 2023. 'Ukrainian forces have reprtedly blown up a bridge near the eastern city of Bakhmut in a sign that they may be planning to retreat from the area which would give Russia a significant symbolic boost ahead of the first anniversary of the war.' No. It would actually be the elimination of a heavily fortified city that Ukraine controls, forcing Ukraine to retreat to less defendable positions. It would be a major strategic victory for Russia."

1:31 "And just to give you an idea of how much progress Russia has made since just the New Year 2023, this is from Januar 1st to February 15th this is how much progress Russia has made, just to give you an idea of how precarious the situation is for Ukraine right now at this moment, this is what has happened. And this is a process that Ukraine is unable to stop, let alone reverse, as well. And if we go back to liveuamap.com, Russian forces pushing Westward from Cremena. And this is the furthest extent that Ukrainian forces reached during their Kharkov offenses last fall."

2:21 "Now, I'm going to get into a series of articles here from the Western media talking about how the West is more or less acknowledging that they are unable to maintain this level of support for Ukraine. They're running out of weapons. They're running out of ammunition to transfer over to Ukraine. These are things that I've been talking about for months and months. Now the West is finally acknowledging what was a problem they were aware of all along. I just want to point out before I get into that. When Ukraine launched their kharkov and Kherson offensives, I warned people that this was not the beginning of some great Ukrainian victory against Russian forces. It was the beginning of the end of Ukraine's fighting capacity; that they were throwing in all of their reserves, all of their trained manpower, all of these heavy weapons that they, themselves, still had left, or that NATO had transferred to them since the special military operation began, and they were throwing all of this into these two offensives to push them as far as they possibly could and I compared it to the Ardennes offensive during World War Two toward the end. Germany committed what it had left of its reserves to the Ardennes offensive. They made these initial gains. Everyone thought that maybe the tide of the fighting would turn, but then they reached the furthers extent they could push. They were unable to sustain this offensive. First it stopped and then it was rolled back. And that's what Germany would do for the remainder of the war, getting pushed back until its ultimate defeat. And I told people that that is exactly what was going to happen."

3:57 "And I remember, distinctively, comments saying: 'Wow. That prediction really aged poorly, Brian, because look, look at how successful this was for Ukraine.' And, again, the Ardennes offensive was, initially, very successful. But then, because it was unsustainable, it was rolled back. And that is what we're watching right now unfold on this pro-Ukrainian live map. We're watching their gains made during the Kharkov offensive be rolled back by Russian forces."

4:32 "Let's take a look at some of these articles from the Western media. This is from Reuters:"

[reads from article] 'Much of Russia's artillery fire was focused on Bakhmut, a bombed-out city in Donetsk province and a principal target for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian troops there have fortified positions in anticipation of Street fighting which' -- according to the pro-Ukrainian livemap -- has already begun. There is not a single square meter in Bakhmut that is safe or is not in range of enemy fire or drones,' the regional Ukrainian Governor told Ukraine's national broadcaster.'

5:28 "So I guess Ukraine is admitting that this battle for Bakhmut involves a huge amount of artillery, especially on Russia's side. So all these claims we've heard about human waves of untrained convicts among the ranks of Wagner, I guess that wasn't true. Because now they're admitting that that's not true. They're not just doing human waves. There's also a huge amount of artillery, and that is the main problem that Ukraine faces, because they are outgunned in Bakhmut. And I've shown older Financial Times articles where they're outnumbered up to six to one in Bakhmut."

5:59 "And so to counter the lopsided nature of this fighting, because these claims of human wave attacks that is just propaganda, this is what Reuters in their article says: 'U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin said he expected Ukraine to launch its own offensive against Russia in the spring. And Kiev's allies are working to ensure that they had the armor, firepower, and logistics to make it effective.' It also says 'Ukraine has urgent requirements to help it meet this crucial moment in the course of the war. We believe there will be a window of opportunity for them to exercise initiative' Austin told a meeting of allies to discuss options for more military aid. I'm going to get into what more military aid the West has left to give Ukraine in just a moment. 'The Kremlin is still betting it can wait us out, but one year on, we are as united as ever. And that shared resolve will help sustain Ukraine's momentum in the crucial weeks ahead. Ukraine is currently using shells faster than the West can make them.'"

7:14 "So, you can be as united as ever as you want but if you physically cannot send Ukraine the amount of weapons and ammunition that they need to achieve certain objectives on the battlefield, then it doesn't really matter."

. . .

9:46 "From Politico:"

" "

15:00 " ... "

20:39 With fires and then maneuvering there’s a good chance that they’ll require less artillery munitions.’ The UK which has already trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers, which is about as many as Ukraine loses in a single month, according to Kiev themselves, the UK has pledged to train another 20,000 this year. So, over the entire year 20,000, Ukraine is losing 10,000 a month. That’s what they are talking about.

So this is the United States and NATO admitting that Plan A failed. We cannot fight this proxy war against Russia on the same level that Russia is fighting it. We simply don’t have the industrial output to manufacture enough weapons and ammunition to even match Russia’s firepower, let alone exceed it. So, now we’re going to train Ukrainian troops to maneuver on the battlefield in a way that they can somehow defeat this withering firepower that Russia has at it’s disposal and somehow use less ammunition in the process. It is a fantasy, a fantasy that is going to get thousands and thousands of Ukrainians killed and drag this conflict out longer. But it is an admission that the West simply cannot match Russia. And this is them on their way to admitting that this is a failed project, this proxy war against Russia. . . .

22:13 “And I want to point out that Russia has the ability to rush forwards into Ukrainian defenses. They have tanks. They have infantry fighting vehicles. They have armored personnel carriers. They have military aviation. They can carry out combined arms maneuver warfare in and around Ukrainian defenses. But they know that if they do that no matter how successful you are, you will always suffer more losses doing that than the incremental approach that they are using right now taking advantage of their ability to use heavy amounts of firepower at long ranges. Ukraine does not even have that advantage and when they do maneuver warfare they lose even more troops and equipment than if they just stay on the defensive. This is a reality that has been demonstrated over and over again all throughout this conflict.”

23:08 “Now we have this from the Washington Post:

“So, I guess, he said Russia lost, so it must be true. It says General Mark Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff [or Chefs of Stuff] said that Russia has lost strategically, operationally, and tactically, after he met in Brussels with defense chiefs from countries supporting Kiev. And if you’re general Milley and you’re saying things that are obviously untrue that means that there’s nothing true that you can say that suits your objective. And that’s what this is.” I don’t think you can look at what’s going on in Bakhmut and say, yes, it looks like Russia is losing strategically, operationally, and tactically. As a matter of fact, the exact opposite. They’re winning on all three levels.” 24:02 And if you go to the whole transcript . . .

if you read through this whole thing, he goes over the whole array of lies that they repeatedly cite: Russia is suffering tremendous losses referencing the 100 or even 200, 000 they claim Russia has lost, and I’ve pointed out how they’ve never tried to break down this number or give any sort of basis in reality and how when you do see Western organizations try to break down Russian losses, the number they come up with is much closer to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s own numbers that they have publicly stated.

25:00 “General Milley also says ‘This war is extremely dynamic and Ukraine today is fighting while training and involving future operations Ukraine will integrate recent commitments of armored vehicles, inventory fighting vehicles and tanks with fires to achieve the effect of synchronized ground maneuver’ which I have already explained takes years to do. Ukraine doesn’t have years. So that is patently false. Then he says ‘While Russia has waged this war for far too long, they will not outlast Ukrainian people nor the group of allies and partners that met today.’

And this just reminds me of the U.S. saying how they’re never going to leave Afghanistan until Afghanistan -- the client regime they installed into power -- is ready to stand on its own and how, virtually overnight, everything collapsed. That was the rhetoric they were using right before it collapsed because they wanted to convince people that it wasn’t going to happen. And then it did. The same thing happened during the Vietnam War. The U.S. occupation of southern Vietnam and how that all unraveled and collapsed. And this is the same type of rhetoric we’re now hearing about the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. So they’re telling us about how General Millie thinks Russia has completely lost, but then getting back to the Washington Post, this is what they go on and they say, it says: ‘Senior U.S. officials say time is growing short for Ukraine’s backers to dispatch vast quantities of new equipment which its forces are awaiting to launch a spring counter offensive.’ And I am telling you, there is literally not enough time, at all, for Ukraine to learn how to use this equipment and then use it effectively in a spring offensive. It is impossible. It will only happen if NATO is operating these vehicles. That is the only way it is going to happen.”

27:20 “ … It’s not like Russia has been fighting for two long and won’t be able to outlast Ukraine. It sounds like exactly the opposite. And that is listening to General Milley and his rhetoric versus what even the Western media is admitting to at this point. … We need to keep an eye on this. We cannot underestimate the US or NATO but just looking at what the Western media itself is admitting at this point. It looks very grim for Ukraine.”