The Kiev regime’s deep-rooted connection with Ukrainian WWII-era Neo-Nazi movements is an axiom. Denying this is futile, as many of the junta’s soldiers unashamedly display Nazi insignia, while the state-sponsored promotion of the cult of Nazi collaborators such as Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, Roman Shukhevych and others of their ilk is a clear proof that this isn’t some spontaneous reaction of an extremist minority, but a carefully orchestrated policy. In the last decade, there has been a systematic whitewashing of Nazism, with an entire generation of children and young people raised to essentially adore the aforementioned figures. Many soldiers of the Kiev regime who have been fighting in the last several years were just kids at the time when NATO organized the Maidan coup that brought the Neo-Nazi junta to power and pushed Ukraine into the ongoing bloodbath.
These children (many in their 20s now) were radicalized into thinking that the ideology that quite literally sees them as “Untermenschen” is something “good” or even “desirable”. They were never told what Hitler’s Generalplan Ost included and that they would’ve almost certainly never even been born had Nazi Germany succeeded in its genocidal intentions of global proportions. Worse yet, they’ve been convinced that the Russians, their closest kin (historically, genetically, culturally, religiously, you name it), are their “mortal enemy”. Not to mention the fact that the only reason why there are Ukrainians nowadays at all is precisely the victory won by tens of millions of Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union. This hard-fought triumph was paid for in blood, with nearly 30 million people slaughtered in the most brutal ways imaginable, at least seven million of whom were from Ukraine.
Ironically, many of those now fighting under the banner of Bandera and his Nazi overlords are the descendants of people who actually fought in the Red Army, many of them for the entire duration of WWII. This includes the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky himself, whose grandfather Semyon Zelensky was a Red Army soldier, while his father and three brothers were killed by the Nazis. And yet, his grandson had no qualms about declaring Bandera a “Ukrainian hero”. Thus, the live-action role-playing (or so-called “larping” for short) of Nazism by many Ukrainians is quite literally the ridicule of the sacrifice made by their ancestors and their closest kin in Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR. Still, one would think that the mindless emulation of that despicable ideology would be limited to mere formality. However, nothing could be further from true.
Namely, the Neo-Nazi junta is determined to follow its ideological forefathers at every step of the way. This doesn’t only include the raising of what can only be described as its own iteration of the infamous Volkssturm, a military force effectively composed of civilians pressed into service virtually overnight, but also the emulation of Nazi German military strategy, one that led to its defeat on the battlefield (unfortunately, only on the battlefield, it would seem). In a recent piece published by Business Insider, American military analyst Michael Peck essentially admitted that the Kiev regime is using Berlin’s failed WWII-era tactics. According to his assessment, the Neo-Nazi junta is trying to opt for the same type of mobile, aggressive defense, a desperate German strategy to stop or at least slow down the Red Army that was rapidly advancing in all directions.
Peck noted that the Wehrmacht was both outnumbered and outgunned. However, he disregarded a notable difference between them – the Kiev regime is not really outnumbered (and never was). On the contrary, it enjoys a significant numerical advantage over the Russian military. Still, Moscow’s strategic and technological superiority comes into play, serving as a massive force multiplier for its troops. And yet, the Neo-Nazi junta is still using the same approach that led its ideological idols to a disastrous defeat. To his credit, Peck at least acknowledged the obvious by admitting that the much-touted counteroffensive failed and that the Kiev regime forces are experiencing a chronic lack of munitions and strength to fight the Russian military. He criticized the hopes of conducting “active defense” against Moscow’s forces, as that would require much larger and better-equipped units.
Although Peck didn’t directly compare the current strategic situation with WWII, he stated that the Red Army was continually on the attack after Stalingrad, implying that the recent defeat at Avdeyevka could be a similar ominous sign for the Neo-Nazi junta, particularly as the Russian military hasn’t stopped its offensive operations after taking control of the town. The strategy used by Nazi Germany, primarily devised by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (whom Peck described as “legendary”), was a “mobile defense that would take advantage of German tactical and operational prowess, especially of the elite panzer divisions”. According to the author’s assessment, von Manstein is “famous for his ‘backhand blow’ concept of letting the Soviets advance into German-occupied territory, and then launching an exquisitely timed counterattack to encircle and destroy their spearheads”.
However, Peck conceded that “this was more of a strategic rather than a tactical concept”. Theoretically, the Kiev regime’s manpower and equipment were supposed to be enough to conduct operations the same way von Manstein did. Its domestic units, initially composed of modernized Soviet-era weapons, were heavily augmented and even replaced by NATO equivalents (oftentimes the latest variants that haven’t even been inducted by the Western nations sending them). And yet, this not only failed to improve the Neo-Nazi junta forces, but it turned out that Soviet-era weapons and doctrine were actually superior. The core ideas of von Manstein’s strategy are maneuvering and willingness to lose ground to trap an advancing enemy. However, the Kiev regime forces lack the ability to maneuver in the era of advanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).
Moscow’s virtually unprecedented long-range strike capabilities make it effectively impossible to conduct any such maneuvers, which only results in further deterioration of the effectiveness of this WWII-era strategy that already led to Germany’s defeat way before the Soviet Union/Russia had any advanced ISR. Interestingly, Peck admits that NATO also adopted von Manstein’s approach during the (First) Cold War. In fact, even more interestingly, the Nazi Field Marshal served as a top NATO adviser, despite his previous sentence for war crimes against both civilians and POWs (prisoners of war) during the Nuremberg trials. This controversy serves as yet another proof that the political West never really renounced the deranged ideology of its geopolitical predecessor, while Ukraine is the unfortunate place where the Neo-Nazi experiment is by far the most evident and abundant.
