French Classified Docs Leaked to Marianne Magazine - Ukraine War Has Turned Very Badly

Two weeks ago Emmanuel Macron publically pronounced he was considering sending French troops to Ukraine. That did not sit well in many French circles. Apparently in response, someone in the French military leaked a group of classified Ukraine War assessments to a French Political Magazine, Marianne. They paint a grim picture of both the war, Ukraine's status, and of western capacity to support it.

Macron ‘panicked’ over leaked Ukraine reports – Marianne

Here are excerpted quotes from the documents leaked this week, and from French military about them:

quote:

---

“We must make no mistake, facing the Russians, we are an army of cheerleaders!," mocks a senior officer, convinced that “sending French troops” to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable”.
---

European chancelleries wanted to believe that Kiev's counter-offensive in spring 2023 , supported by Western equipment, would send the Russian army back to Moscow. Written this fall, the “retex” (feedback) from the operation is overwhelming. “It gradually got bogged down in mud and blood and resulted in no strategic gain,” writes a confidential defense report on “the failure of the Ukrainian offensive” to which Marianne had access.

... “The planners believed that as soon as the first Russian lines of defense were crossed, the entire front would collapse […] These fundamental preliminary phases were carried out without taking into account the moral strength of the enemy on the defensive: it is "that is to say the desire of the Russian soldier to hold on to the ground", notes this report evoking "the failure of planning"of the Western camp. ... Ukrainian “Year II soldiers” were launched to attack “a Russian fortification line which proved to be impregnable”. Without any air support, with Western equipment that is disparate and less efficient than the old Soviet equipment ... the Ukrainian troops had no hope of breaking through. Let us add “Russian arch-domination in the field of electronic jamming penalizing, on the Ukrainian side, the use of drones and command systems”. “The Russian army is today the “tactical and technical” reference for thinking about and implementing the defensive mode,” writes the report. Not only does Moscow have heavy engineering equipment that has enabled it to build defensive structures ( “almost total absence of this material on the Ukrainian side, and the impossibility of Westerners providing it quickly”) but the 1,200 km of front were mined to enormous extents.

... Moscow reinforces its units before they are completely exhausted, mixes recruits with seasoned troops, provides regular rest periods at the rear... and "has always had a coherent reservoir of force to manage unforeseen events" ... far from the idea, widespread in the West, of a Russian army sending its troops to the butchery without counting...

A French officer summarizes: “It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily.

... the failed 2023 offensive “tactically destroyed” half of Kiev’s 12 combat brigades.

On February 17, Kyiv had to abandon the town of Avdiïvka, in the northern suburbs of Donetsk, which until then had acted as a fortified bastion. “It was both the heart and the symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the Russian-speaking Donbass,” underlines a report on the “battle of Avdiïvka”, drawing a series of damning lessons. ... “The decision to withdraw by the Ukrainian armed forces was a surprise,” notes this latest report, emphasizing “its suddenness and unpreparedness,” raising fears that this choice was “more suffered than decided by the Ukrainian command,” evoking a possible beginning of “disbandment”.

Is it this new strategic situation, where the Russian army seems in a position of force in the face of a Ukrainian army at the end of its tether, which led Emmanuel Macron, “dynamically”, as he put it, to consider troop reinforcements?

LINK

---