Hello everybody!

Because I’m a doomer and always publishing bad news, now for some fantastic news.

Five days ago, on 6 December, Zele has announced a ‘Guarantee’, a ‘new mechanism for distributing recruits’, that’s going to make certain that ‘combat brigades will receive (their fair share of) monthly replenishment’ in replacement troops.

Foremost, you know, this ‘new mechanism’ is including the training of recruits ‘as close to the conditions of the particular brigade as possible’.

….as far as the brigade has its own training centre: 37 of the ZSU’s and NG’s brigades do, the rest... well, help yourself, if you can...

Which means: nobody less than Zele has now delivered a 1000% confirmation that the Glavcom Syrsky and the GenStab-U are so ultimately incompetent they can’t do their job and bring such decisions on their own. He has to do so for them.

Foremost, gauging by Zele’s similar ‘guarantees’ that there will be

- no establishment of additional new brigades, and

- no more ‘no step back’ orders...

…and, considering this, newest Guarantee is including not a word about prohibiting Syrsky from distributing reinforcements at his own discretion: well, you know what to expect from this ‘new mechanism’.

...and that atop of the fact that not only Glavcom and his Buddies in the GenStab-U, but now also Zele, remain insistent on preventing the force-wide standardisation of training...

Simply fantastic, isn’t it?

I knew you would like it. That’s why nowadays there are so many photos and videos showing ZSU troops dancing.

***

But hey! There are yet more positive things to say about the ZSU too.

See here: I’ve discovered a new hobby! It’s called ‘counting bits and pieces of different brigades the Glavcom has deployed in the same sector of the frontline’. That’s abbreviated with ‘Syrsky-Screw-Up’; some are calling it the ‘Syrsky’s 4D Scramble’.

Currently leading is... (drums) ... the Pokrovsk Sector, of course!

There, Syrsky has bunched together:

- company from the 2nd NG Halychyna Brigade

- company from the 2nd NG Regiment

- company from the 4th NG Regiment

- battalion from the 14th NG Chervona Kalyna

- battalion from the 25th Mech

- battalion from the 23rd Engineer Regiment

- battalion from the 25th NG

- battalion from the 31st NG Dnipro

- battalion from the 32nd Mech

- battalion from the 33rd NG Regiment

- battalion from the 35th NIB

- battalion from the 38th NIB (trapped in Myrnohrad)

- battalion from the 68th Jäger

- battalion from the 79th Airborne Assault

- company from the 92nd Mech

- battalion from the 118th TD

- battalion from the 155th Mech...

- battalion from the 425th Assault Regiment (’Skala’; trapped in Pokrovsk)

- battalion from the 762nd Engineer Brigade

...and then left the HQ 7th Corps to sort out the resulting chaos - which, by now, is likely to surpass the chaos Syrsky has created through similar practices in Bakhmut of Jan-May 2023. With such fantastic results.

Which is why I can’t but summarise this as ‘even better than fantastic’. Fantastical. Toogoodtobetrue. I’m currently writing a recommendation for Syrsky’s second Hero of Ukraine Medal. Just as a reminder for Zele: he knows better, of course.

***

I’m sure: after reading the above you’ve started thinking this simply can’t get any better, right?

Ooooooh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! And how much it can!

In reaction to massive critique about constantly rising numbers of defectors from the ZSU, based on the release of official figures, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has classified all such statistics. Henceforth, the growing nubmers of Ukrainian ‘absent without leave’-troops are secret.

Because: this decision complies with the requirements of the law, in particular the norms of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Access to Public Information’ regarding data restrictions in the time of war.

Read: if the problem is hidden, then it’s unknown, and thus no problem.

Man, this is so fantastic… I’m lacking words.

***

Indeed, this is such a fantastic solution, such fantastic news, can’t say. And, of course, any decent Ukrainian, and especially every decent Zele-fan in the West, is promptly going to point out: in no way is declaring unpleasant news for official secrets - bad. No, it’s not. On the contrary: it’s great.

…which, by sheer accident - and certainly, and under no conditions: because when I think about all of the above combined - reminds me of one of fantastic stories from the Stories of 1386 Nights. The same went something like this… - where I’m warning, one again: any similarities to real persons, states, or whatever, is pure coincidence, and by no means intentional.

***

Once, long, long ago, in the land beyond, beyond…

There was a powerful Tsar, named Rajputin.

And Rajputin was super-powerful, and knew everything better.

For example: Rajputin knew that 1+1=3, and also that water is wet.

But, Rajputin had a big problem: the aviation industry of his empire was in the state of chaos: 20+ different corporations and companies, each doing whatever it wanted, not what he wanted them to do.

Therefore, Rajputin came to a brilliant idea. It was in the Year 2006, at the time nobody sane would be as stupid as to appoint a president of any country the chief executive of a high-tech enterprise, that he did not only precisely that, but also - per presidential decree - bunched all these 20+ disparate companies and corporations together, creating the CLOAK… erm, sorry: creating the OAK (also known by its English abbreviation, as the United Aircraft Corporation: UAC).

The OAK/UAC was such a wonderful creation, can’t say. Precisely like all the high-tech enterprises of those times it was run by a board consisting of poets and philosophers - all hand-picked by Rajputin. And, it was organised so that it made certain - per law - that any kind of potential export customers were excluded from decision-making process, and thus the latter would never be based on actual combat experiences, and resulting military requirements. And, because Tsar Rajputin knew everything better, as soon as it turned out that one of board members was a person with experience and proven skills in industrial management: the same was sacked.

Years went by and the OAK was nothing but flourishing. It announced one new aircraft design after the other. It was so successful that it always remained underfunded, so disturbed by endemic incompetence, corruption, and brain-drain that it never managed to develop the electronic industry necessary to manufacture ever more complex avionics its products needed, did not know how to design, research and develop new engines, and never realised even one new project: indeed, it began experiencing problems even in the discipline in which it used to excel - which is rolling out ever additional re-warmed variants of old designs. Arguably, some of its new aircraft designs were particularly sexy, which is why they were even something like pressed into limited production, but: their design was incomplete, their software faulty even after being entirely re-written for three times, and new engines meant to power them were existent in the form of non-functioning (or, simpler expressed: malfunctioning) prototypes only.

Nevermind: the problem was… well, not really swept under the carpet. Instead, the (less than a handful of) journos knowing about all of this, were advised they better do not to report about such problems - if they want to retain their contacts within the OAK and thus remain capable of going places and reporting about it (where, more often than not: it turned out the journos in question knew better about the state of the OAK than Rajputin and his wise board-members).

Because: if the problem remains hidden, then it’s unknown, and thus no problem.

(Sounds familiar…?)

Anyway… As more years went by, the OAK reached a point where it was so super-developed and so much perfect that nobody sane wanted to buy its products any more. Arguably, some did - or at least that was what the OAK was reporting. Even ‘unintentionally leaking’ to the public.

Delighted about such a positive development, and because in 2025 the OAK couldn’t deliver even the stuff ordered in, say, the Year 2018, Rajputin then came to a brilliant idea! He’s offered a ‘full technology transfer’ to one of his allies. Certain minor country named… ugh… the name is escaping me now… could be ‘Indostan’ or something like that…

But, such details are unimportant. What is important is that Rajputin offered the full technology transfer of OAK’s non-existent stealth fighter design, the full technology transfer of OAK’s non-functioning avionics, the full technology transfer of OAK’s under-developed and non-functioning super-turbo-wiz-bang new jet engines… and a full technology transfer of a lot, really a lot of other of Rajputin’s and OAK’s wonders.

Unsurprisingly, the leaders of that ally… Indo… meh, whatever… were so stunned by Rajputin’s fantastic offer: they’ve promptly leased one of his submarines (or not, sources differ).

***

Isn’t that better than fantastic?

So much so, I’m not the least surprised Zele & Co are copying this strategy. After all, they’ve got to outmatch Dumpf in this regards: for Ukraine, there’s no better way to NATO and the EU…

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This text is published with the permission of the author. First published here.