In the weeks since tech billionaire Elon Musk challenged Vladimir Putin to a “single combat” duel, he has been scathingly put down by one of Putin’s bubbas, apparently has given up on dueling, and has pivoted to buy Twitter instead.
At the same time, the cobra-faced Putin has called up Russian reserves, replaced his generals, pulled his forces from parts of northern Ukraine, and is now concentrating them in and around Donetsk. A stupendous Russian bulldozer is bent on taking the enormous Yuzivska natural gas fields, the gigantic ArcelorMittal steel complex, the water resources of the Lower Dnieper River, and all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
Under those circumstances, Ukraine’s military will be slowly ground down to combat ineffectiveness under the sheer weight of Russian numbers.
If Musk still wants to take on Putin after getting his tweets off, perhaps he could help create a huge, lethal game of whack-a-mole that the KGB-Guy-Who-Would-Be-Czar could not win? One that would leave Putin bewildered and beaten.
While Musk’s earlier generous provision of scores of Starlink communication units (along with the re-orientation of the satellite constellation which connects them) to Ukraine will enable it to maintain continuity of government, the gargantuan weight of the Russian onslaught eventually will render the Ukraine government unable to function.
Enter “Starlink Plan-B,” the Starlink-guided and very lethal “everywhere guerrilla war,” which would cause losses that Putin, and Russia, could not bear.
While the Ukrainian Special Forces are doing a stellar job right now, there are millions of Ukrainians who may be out of their reach for training and organization as partisans.
Therefore, this guerrilla-war-by-satellite is the ideal methodology for Ukrainian patriots who are cut off from everything in parts of the country. It would enable them to organize and continue to fight. All that is needed are smuggled-in Starlink units, batteries, and solar panels.
Training those people could be accomplished by a “brain bank” of U.S. veterans who have volunteered to assist. They can lend their knowledge and wisdom, essentially with video classes and advice, quadruplexed by Starlink.
Two groups (and their friends) are already trying to help: the OSS Society and Bolotna lysytsya (Ukrainian for “Swamp Fox”). These veterans could instruct small, dispersed groups of Ukrainian partisans in Guerrilla Warfare 101.
Should Ukraine, in fact, become smothered by the Russian Army, the immediate focus of the partisan attacks would be the interdiction and destruction of the Russian Army’s most vulnerable asset: fuel pipelines. These pipelines have been placed hastily by the tactical pipeline battalions of the Material Technical Support Brigades. In simple terms, the partisans could run the bastards out of gas and then destroy them piecemeal.
Using commercial satellite images from companies such as Maxar, American veterans could transmit satellite photos of the positions of the most vulnerable parts of the pipeline.
Given that the pipelines will be miles long, they would be easy to identify and attack. The Russians then would need to dispatch an inordinate number of troops to defend the pipelines, leaving their occupation forces in the cities understrength and more vulnerable to attacks by urban guerillas.
In urban areas, guerillas could learn how to use tire fires to block Russian thermal viewers, use captured anti-tank mines as flying suppression weapons in a built-up neighborhood, and how to booby trap almost anything.
In the woodlands, they would learn how to use a greased cable to initiate an ambush, how to lay out an “L” type ambush, and how to use Semtex or other plastic explosives “imaginatively” on enemy concentrations.
In port cities, they would learn how to use a “bubble charge” in and around harbors, find and cut underwater communications lines; and know where certain types of ships are most vulnerable.
Elon Musk’s quixotic single-combat challenge is amusing and admirable in a way. But if he really wishes to lay waste to Putin’s demonic plans and actions, he has the technology—and many knowledgeable volunteers—to help the Ukrainians to victory.