Post by James G on Jun 13, 2019 19:12:53 GMT
One Hundred and Eighty–Four
The FSB hadn’t been onto the espionage being committed out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow for very long. While pursuing another angle, they’d caught wind of one of the cut-outs employed by the French DGSE to exchange messages and information with the general assigned as military attaché there. There was serious consideration given to ‘disappearing’ him once discovered. However, the case had been brought to Director Bortnikov and he had decided to have efforts made to feed false information to the West down that chain instead. Efforts were underway as to figure out how to do this when Bortnikov then had a change of heart and decided to send true information out. He was making his play: one to end the war which he saw as lost. As challenging was the case with interfering in the French intelligence operation in a negative way, it was the same with trying to do so in a positive way. Breadcrumbs were laid for the general to pick up. He steadfastly refused to do so! The frustration was galling. This wasn’t just the case for Bortnikov but his subordinates too, men he deceived by telling them what was going out was false. At one point, Bortnikov almost gave up due to how complicated this all was. He had his people stick at it though and, finally, the spy unwillingly cooperated. Bortnikov was reported positive news. Those working for him were pleased to please their boss and told him that the NATO war effort would suffer gravely from what they passed on.
Ah… no that wasn’t the case at all. Things would be entirely the opposite instead.
Given the information on the Russian Army’s upcoming surprise counteroffensive, the Ukrainian general sat on the information. He did nothing with it. It was gold-plated intelligence that only a dummy wouldn’t understand. So why didn’t he pass the information along? Neither Bortnikov nor his FSB people knew. They could only suspect that he was being extremely cautious. They had no idea that the actual matter was his own internal conflict over how to act for the fate of his own country: the FSB was only thinking narrowly on this, unable to read the Ukrainian’s mind to understand the complexities of his emotions and loyalties. He did act in the end though. He made contact with his handler through the chain of cut-outs including the man under FSB control. This allowed a quick confirmation that what had been passed to the general was the same as what was being sent to the West too. Bortnikov’s fears there of some sort of double-cross or anything untoward were misplaced. The Ukrainian played his role and the secrets of Operation Volk were passed to NATO.
Bortnikov waited for the outcome now that things had moved beyond his immediate control.
The French shared the information with their allies. There was the usual sceptical response from some in certain agencies – it was the nature of the game – though the DGSE had been one of the most successful during the war in getting accurate intelligence that was useful for NATO. Now some might argue there that the Russians were playing the long game there, a real maskirovka indeed, but what was delivered from their agent (his details remained a closely-guarded French secret: the Americans and the British were playing a ‘friendly’ game in trying to identify himself) was backed up by evidence pretty quickly.
The internal manoeuvres within the Ukraine by their army, especially the Eighth & Thirteenth Army Corps in the western half of their nation, matched what the DGSE had obtained about this being used as a cover to allow for Russian forces – using similar equipment and structure – to enter the area under the apparent guise of being Ukrainian Army units. The road and rail links on the Ukrainian-Russian border had strange activity when observed from above. NATO already knew that there had been significant troop movements from both the Far East and the North Caucasus with two field armies absent from each region and not having shown up elsewhere. If this was a trick, to get NATO to do something that would somehow benefit the Russian war effort, it was one which didn’t make sense.
What Bortnikov had sent to NATO was the broad outlines of the Russian attack using their Thirty–Fifth & Forty–Ninth Armies from out of the northwest of the Ukraine into the southwest of Belarus. This including the logistical effort of the planned rapid deployment into & through the Ukraine as well as the actual offensive concept and objectives. There was an ORBAT and a timescale too: the timescale included the exact date and time of the attack. It was quite the military intelligence bonanza. They were informed what the Russian Army was about to do, when & where and with what end goal foreseen. It provided too opportunities to prove that this was also to occur when detailing the deployment schedules of the movement through the Ukraine of those two armies before they reached Belarus and tried to hit NATO’s armies on the rear flank. To put it simply, NATO would be able to see those armies moving before they went into attack and know what they were doing whereas if this information was false, there would be no deployment.
French President Sarkozy had the intelligence on this Volk given to fellow heads of government and the NATO senior command structure as well as the DGSE’s counterparts from America, Britain and Germany. He believed in the intelligence himself and didn’t want to sit on it while the time ticked away towards a sudden Russian strike that would imperil the war effort underway. SACEUR and the NATO Military Council discussed it as well as those fellow national leaders of his.
There was a lot of heated discussion on what to do. Much of this concerned what to do about the Russian usage of Ukrainian territory to strike against NATO forces, which was about to be done with Ukrainian cooperation. The disputes on the course of action to take were multi-faceted though could be summarised as opposing positions on whether to act to force the Ukraine to not allow this to happen or to let the Russians roll forward into the waiting guns of NATO’s armies and air power. Both approaches had those who favoured them and those who were opposed to them.
NATO wouldn’t have long to prepare for the Russian attack and it would cost NATO lives if allowed to take place. However, this would be a fight against significant numbers of Russian troops where NATO knew that were going to be. The two armies, if not sent through the Ukraine, were certain to if not go that way then fast appear in Belarus regardless. This was foreseen as something that would see an even greater number of lives lost there. The intelligence that the DGSE had obtained stated that in Kiev, President Yanukovych was going to play the ‘we didn’t know’ game afterwards. This had occurred before – though on a smaller scale – as the Russians had made use of the Ukraine and its territory for its war efforts. It was quite conceivable that when approached, Kiev would deny knowledge of any incoming attack at all. Did NATO want to force a war with the Ukraine by launching pre-emptive strikes? It was believed that Yanukovych didn’t desire such a fight that though had his military forces on-alert since the war had started. NATO was in a military position after a month’s worth of mobilisation through war to take on and defeat the Ukraine (not invading the country though) yet there was no mood for that in NATO either. Air and missile strikes, warning shots against the Ukraine or pre-deployment targeting of the transport infrastructure, could bring about a big and costly conflict with the Ukraine. There was the issue of causing Russia another shattering defeat too. They were staking everything on their Volk operation: risking so much for one big prize. Smashing the attack on the battlefield, rather than stopping it from happening through other means, was something that several NATO political and military figures wanted to see done.
A decision was eventually taken to let the Russians come. If they wanted their fight, they could have it. NATO would ambush them. Last minute objections by some important voices about having to explain later down the line why NATO not let only let the Ukraine get away with their ‘we didn’t see anything’ line but also the resulting casualties that NATO was bound to suffer were pushed aside. Biden, Cameron, Markel and Sarkozy all went for it in the end. General Petraeus agreed with them though maintained his request that once it started, tactical air strikes be made into the Ukraine exclusively targeted against Russian forces using Ukrainian transport links with the aim of minimalizing Ukrainian casualties. The politicians were still considering allowing that.
In Krakow, General Mattis had been party to the intelligence though not the decision-making. The commander of CJTF–East hadn’t been sitting twiddling his thumbs while the politicians hemmed and hawed over how to act. With permission from SACEUR, Mattis had taken steps to ‘ensure the safety of his command’ in light of the French intelligence on Russia’s Volk. He was told not to give the game away to Russian intelligence that NATO had wind of what was coming while doing so though Petraeus gave him wide latitude in doing what Mattis deemed necessary. Mattis favoured meeting the Russians on the Ukrainian-Belorussian border with everything NATO had to offer. He wanted to get his forces ready for the biggest of ambushes possible. Moving the troops to do that straight away was something that he couldn’t yet do at once though and he had to wait. That didn’t stop him having his operations staff make all the preparations. There was a slowdown – not a stoppage – of the advance on Minsk as Mattis prepared to swing the US V Corps to face southwards. Recent planned transfers of fresh units from the rear-area tasked German-Dutch I Corps to the V Corps to aid them in their final drive on Minsk were temporarily halted too. There were two Russian field armies, the intelligence he saw showed, each aiming to make two attacks and he wanted to meet each one head-on with separate corps commands for the purposes of battlefield coordination.
As to that ensuring of the safety of his command, Mattis did move some troops around: just not large units yet. One of the Italian brigades as part of their division fighting in southwestern Belarus (Italian partial neutrality seemed like something so far ago now after all the blood they’d shed in hard fighting) due to enter the fight against recently-arrived Russian Airborne Troops around Kobryń was kept back. The US 11th Cav’ was on the border over which the Russians were soon to cross and new orders went to them to have them prepared for what was coming. That unit was one which Mattis was certain could handle the fight coming their way but more than that, the regimental commander was astute enough to understand how to do that without giving the game away. At his headquarters when SACEUR sent those orders to Mattis, was the British Defence Secretary. Davis, on a visit to CJTF–East now cut short and due to rush off to Brussels, suggested adding a British contribution. The majority of British forces were fighting in the Baltic States with the Allied I & US XVIII Airborne Corps but there were a few elements with the German-Dutch I Corps including a battalion of experienced light infantry. 3 PARA had fought in Copenhagen and been bloodied there. Detached form its parent brigade post-Denmark, it had received casualty replacements and been used under Mattis’ command for a couple of selective missions in engaging Russian hold-outs scattered across Poland. They were currently unengaged and Davis wanted them to play a role in turning back Volk. Mattis agreed to this political interference: he didn’t get the job he currently had due to ignorance of inter-alliance politics. As to whether 3 PARA would ultimately welcome such a politically-based mission when they were in the way of the Russian Army, that was a different matter: they were a combat unit and would fight alongside allies in a vital role within an upcoming mission.
When the French got ahold of that ORBAT for the forces assigned to the Volk mission as it was passed to Mattis, one of his early comments had been that ‘we US Marines have more men!’.
This was true. The Russian Army had put together an impressive force for its counterattack but it wasn’t a numerically huge force overall. They had two armies, each with the main combat component being a pair of heavy divisions. In comparison, the field armies that they’d fought with when invading the Baltic States and Poland had each started the war with twice, even three times as much available sub-units. The prospect of two fresh armies had impressed upon the urgency of the situation to NATO’s leaders rather strongly and while Mattis didn’t discount nor disregard these Russian Army men, there weren’t that many of them. This was all that they had to use: just four divisions. That was all that was left of what could be sent to the fight: two pairs of heavy divisions. They had nothing more! Mattis was soon to receive the re-established US VII Corps which was on its way to Eastern Europe though still a few weeks away from being ready to see action. That force consisted of a trio of Army National Guard divisions and despite the difference in numbers of divisions when counting headquarters units, there were more men overall with the incoming VII Corps than there were the Russian Thirty–Fifth & Forty–Ninth Armies… and the United States too had a lot more national guard divisions going elsewhere in the world to fight too.
Four divisions, coming where and when he knew they would be, weren’t going to turn the tide of the war in Belarus. This was especially true once Mattis would unleash his ground forces on them plus thrown in more air power than the Russians could ever imagine coming their way!
As ready as he could be, Mattis and his CJTF–East had to wait though.
On the afternoon of September 7th, the two Russian armies crossed into the Ukraine from western Russia. Ukrainian Army manoeuvres with their heavy forces (complete with overt signal intelligence waiting for NATO to monitor) took place at the same time. There were a lot of Soviet-era military vehicles shuffling about. While not supposed to look innocent, the Ukrainians were meant to look unthreatening to NATO’s war effort inside neighbouring Belarus. The Russians disguised themselves as Ukrainians as they made their westwards deployment through the rest of the day and then through the night too.
Before dawn the next morning, they attacked into Belarus. Volk was underway: the wolf was let loose.
The Russians went straight into the waiting guns of NATO’s alerted and prepared forces.
End of Part Eight
The FSB hadn’t been onto the espionage being committed out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow for very long. While pursuing another angle, they’d caught wind of one of the cut-outs employed by the French DGSE to exchange messages and information with the general assigned as military attaché there. There was serious consideration given to ‘disappearing’ him once discovered. However, the case had been brought to Director Bortnikov and he had decided to have efforts made to feed false information to the West down that chain instead. Efforts were underway as to figure out how to do this when Bortnikov then had a change of heart and decided to send true information out. He was making his play: one to end the war which he saw as lost. As challenging was the case with interfering in the French intelligence operation in a negative way, it was the same with trying to do so in a positive way. Breadcrumbs were laid for the general to pick up. He steadfastly refused to do so! The frustration was galling. This wasn’t just the case for Bortnikov but his subordinates too, men he deceived by telling them what was going out was false. At one point, Bortnikov almost gave up due to how complicated this all was. He had his people stick at it though and, finally, the spy unwillingly cooperated. Bortnikov was reported positive news. Those working for him were pleased to please their boss and told him that the NATO war effort would suffer gravely from what they passed on.
Ah… no that wasn’t the case at all. Things would be entirely the opposite instead.
Given the information on the Russian Army’s upcoming surprise counteroffensive, the Ukrainian general sat on the information. He did nothing with it. It was gold-plated intelligence that only a dummy wouldn’t understand. So why didn’t he pass the information along? Neither Bortnikov nor his FSB people knew. They could only suspect that he was being extremely cautious. They had no idea that the actual matter was his own internal conflict over how to act for the fate of his own country: the FSB was only thinking narrowly on this, unable to read the Ukrainian’s mind to understand the complexities of his emotions and loyalties. He did act in the end though. He made contact with his handler through the chain of cut-outs including the man under FSB control. This allowed a quick confirmation that what had been passed to the general was the same as what was being sent to the West too. Bortnikov’s fears there of some sort of double-cross or anything untoward were misplaced. The Ukrainian played his role and the secrets of Operation Volk were passed to NATO.
Bortnikov waited for the outcome now that things had moved beyond his immediate control.
The French shared the information with their allies. There was the usual sceptical response from some in certain agencies – it was the nature of the game – though the DGSE had been one of the most successful during the war in getting accurate intelligence that was useful for NATO. Now some might argue there that the Russians were playing the long game there, a real maskirovka indeed, but what was delivered from their agent (his details remained a closely-guarded French secret: the Americans and the British were playing a ‘friendly’ game in trying to identify himself) was backed up by evidence pretty quickly.
The internal manoeuvres within the Ukraine by their army, especially the Eighth & Thirteenth Army Corps in the western half of their nation, matched what the DGSE had obtained about this being used as a cover to allow for Russian forces – using similar equipment and structure – to enter the area under the apparent guise of being Ukrainian Army units. The road and rail links on the Ukrainian-Russian border had strange activity when observed from above. NATO already knew that there had been significant troop movements from both the Far East and the North Caucasus with two field armies absent from each region and not having shown up elsewhere. If this was a trick, to get NATO to do something that would somehow benefit the Russian war effort, it was one which didn’t make sense.
What Bortnikov had sent to NATO was the broad outlines of the Russian attack using their Thirty–Fifth & Forty–Ninth Armies from out of the northwest of the Ukraine into the southwest of Belarus. This including the logistical effort of the planned rapid deployment into & through the Ukraine as well as the actual offensive concept and objectives. There was an ORBAT and a timescale too: the timescale included the exact date and time of the attack. It was quite the military intelligence bonanza. They were informed what the Russian Army was about to do, when & where and with what end goal foreseen. It provided too opportunities to prove that this was also to occur when detailing the deployment schedules of the movement through the Ukraine of those two armies before they reached Belarus and tried to hit NATO’s armies on the rear flank. To put it simply, NATO would be able to see those armies moving before they went into attack and know what they were doing whereas if this information was false, there would be no deployment.
French President Sarkozy had the intelligence on this Volk given to fellow heads of government and the NATO senior command structure as well as the DGSE’s counterparts from America, Britain and Germany. He believed in the intelligence himself and didn’t want to sit on it while the time ticked away towards a sudden Russian strike that would imperil the war effort underway. SACEUR and the NATO Military Council discussed it as well as those fellow national leaders of his.
There was a lot of heated discussion on what to do. Much of this concerned what to do about the Russian usage of Ukrainian territory to strike against NATO forces, which was about to be done with Ukrainian cooperation. The disputes on the course of action to take were multi-faceted though could be summarised as opposing positions on whether to act to force the Ukraine to not allow this to happen or to let the Russians roll forward into the waiting guns of NATO’s armies and air power. Both approaches had those who favoured them and those who were opposed to them.
NATO wouldn’t have long to prepare for the Russian attack and it would cost NATO lives if allowed to take place. However, this would be a fight against significant numbers of Russian troops where NATO knew that were going to be. The two armies, if not sent through the Ukraine, were certain to if not go that way then fast appear in Belarus regardless. This was foreseen as something that would see an even greater number of lives lost there. The intelligence that the DGSE had obtained stated that in Kiev, President Yanukovych was going to play the ‘we didn’t know’ game afterwards. This had occurred before – though on a smaller scale – as the Russians had made use of the Ukraine and its territory for its war efforts. It was quite conceivable that when approached, Kiev would deny knowledge of any incoming attack at all. Did NATO want to force a war with the Ukraine by launching pre-emptive strikes? It was believed that Yanukovych didn’t desire such a fight that though had his military forces on-alert since the war had started. NATO was in a military position after a month’s worth of mobilisation through war to take on and defeat the Ukraine (not invading the country though) yet there was no mood for that in NATO either. Air and missile strikes, warning shots against the Ukraine or pre-deployment targeting of the transport infrastructure, could bring about a big and costly conflict with the Ukraine. There was the issue of causing Russia another shattering defeat too. They were staking everything on their Volk operation: risking so much for one big prize. Smashing the attack on the battlefield, rather than stopping it from happening through other means, was something that several NATO political and military figures wanted to see done.
A decision was eventually taken to let the Russians come. If they wanted their fight, they could have it. NATO would ambush them. Last minute objections by some important voices about having to explain later down the line why NATO not let only let the Ukraine get away with their ‘we didn’t see anything’ line but also the resulting casualties that NATO was bound to suffer were pushed aside. Biden, Cameron, Markel and Sarkozy all went for it in the end. General Petraeus agreed with them though maintained his request that once it started, tactical air strikes be made into the Ukraine exclusively targeted against Russian forces using Ukrainian transport links with the aim of minimalizing Ukrainian casualties. The politicians were still considering allowing that.
In Krakow, General Mattis had been party to the intelligence though not the decision-making. The commander of CJTF–East hadn’t been sitting twiddling his thumbs while the politicians hemmed and hawed over how to act. With permission from SACEUR, Mattis had taken steps to ‘ensure the safety of his command’ in light of the French intelligence on Russia’s Volk. He was told not to give the game away to Russian intelligence that NATO had wind of what was coming while doing so though Petraeus gave him wide latitude in doing what Mattis deemed necessary. Mattis favoured meeting the Russians on the Ukrainian-Belorussian border with everything NATO had to offer. He wanted to get his forces ready for the biggest of ambushes possible. Moving the troops to do that straight away was something that he couldn’t yet do at once though and he had to wait. That didn’t stop him having his operations staff make all the preparations. There was a slowdown – not a stoppage – of the advance on Minsk as Mattis prepared to swing the US V Corps to face southwards. Recent planned transfers of fresh units from the rear-area tasked German-Dutch I Corps to the V Corps to aid them in their final drive on Minsk were temporarily halted too. There were two Russian field armies, the intelligence he saw showed, each aiming to make two attacks and he wanted to meet each one head-on with separate corps commands for the purposes of battlefield coordination.
As to that ensuring of the safety of his command, Mattis did move some troops around: just not large units yet. One of the Italian brigades as part of their division fighting in southwestern Belarus (Italian partial neutrality seemed like something so far ago now after all the blood they’d shed in hard fighting) due to enter the fight against recently-arrived Russian Airborne Troops around Kobryń was kept back. The US 11th Cav’ was on the border over which the Russians were soon to cross and new orders went to them to have them prepared for what was coming. That unit was one which Mattis was certain could handle the fight coming their way but more than that, the regimental commander was astute enough to understand how to do that without giving the game away. At his headquarters when SACEUR sent those orders to Mattis, was the British Defence Secretary. Davis, on a visit to CJTF–East now cut short and due to rush off to Brussels, suggested adding a British contribution. The majority of British forces were fighting in the Baltic States with the Allied I & US XVIII Airborne Corps but there were a few elements with the German-Dutch I Corps including a battalion of experienced light infantry. 3 PARA had fought in Copenhagen and been bloodied there. Detached form its parent brigade post-Denmark, it had received casualty replacements and been used under Mattis’ command for a couple of selective missions in engaging Russian hold-outs scattered across Poland. They were currently unengaged and Davis wanted them to play a role in turning back Volk. Mattis agreed to this political interference: he didn’t get the job he currently had due to ignorance of inter-alliance politics. As to whether 3 PARA would ultimately welcome such a politically-based mission when they were in the way of the Russian Army, that was a different matter: they were a combat unit and would fight alongside allies in a vital role within an upcoming mission.
When the French got ahold of that ORBAT for the forces assigned to the Volk mission as it was passed to Mattis, one of his early comments had been that ‘we US Marines have more men!’.
This was true. The Russian Army had put together an impressive force for its counterattack but it wasn’t a numerically huge force overall. They had two armies, each with the main combat component being a pair of heavy divisions. In comparison, the field armies that they’d fought with when invading the Baltic States and Poland had each started the war with twice, even three times as much available sub-units. The prospect of two fresh armies had impressed upon the urgency of the situation to NATO’s leaders rather strongly and while Mattis didn’t discount nor disregard these Russian Army men, there weren’t that many of them. This was all that they had to use: just four divisions. That was all that was left of what could be sent to the fight: two pairs of heavy divisions. They had nothing more! Mattis was soon to receive the re-established US VII Corps which was on its way to Eastern Europe though still a few weeks away from being ready to see action. That force consisted of a trio of Army National Guard divisions and despite the difference in numbers of divisions when counting headquarters units, there were more men overall with the incoming VII Corps than there were the Russian Thirty–Fifth & Forty–Ninth Armies… and the United States too had a lot more national guard divisions going elsewhere in the world to fight too.
Four divisions, coming where and when he knew they would be, weren’t going to turn the tide of the war in Belarus. This was especially true once Mattis would unleash his ground forces on them plus thrown in more air power than the Russians could ever imagine coming their way!
As ready as he could be, Mattis and his CJTF–East had to wait though.
On the afternoon of September 7th, the two Russian armies crossed into the Ukraine from western Russia. Ukrainian Army manoeuvres with their heavy forces (complete with overt signal intelligence waiting for NATO to monitor) took place at the same time. There were a lot of Soviet-era military vehicles shuffling about. While not supposed to look innocent, the Ukrainians were meant to look unthreatening to NATO’s war effort inside neighbouring Belarus. The Russians disguised themselves as Ukrainians as they made their westwards deployment through the rest of the day and then through the night too.
Before dawn the next morning, they attacked into Belarus. Volk was underway: the wolf was let loose.
The Russians went straight into the waiting guns of NATO’s alerted and prepared forces.
End of Part Eight
