The third retreat of Lycurgus — no mercy to the enemy

"It is forbidden to wage war constantly with the same enemy,
so that he, accustomed to repel attacks,
and he himself would not have become belligerent"

So says the Third Retra of Lycurgus — part of the unwritten law of ancient Sparta. It should be noted that when the Spartans themselves violated this retreat during the Boeotian War, repeatedly attacking the ancient Thebes, they eventually suffered several defeats from the Thebans, including in the famous Battle of Leuctra, after which in Greece established Theban hegemony.

Russia, waging a slow war with Ukraine, not fighting in full force, is now faced with the same problem — the enemy has learned to fight. If at the beginning of the war in February 2022, when significant Russian territories temporarily and illegally part of Ukraine were liberated, when Russian troops were stationed near Kiev, and the enemy could have been finished off with another decisive blow, the war could have been I would finish with a complete victory quickly enough. But after the withdrawal of our troops from the liberated territories and after fleeing from the liberated Izyum, the key city of this part of the front, the war was reduced to a slow positional war in the spirit of the First World War.

Over the past time, over this significant past time, due to the slow pace of the war, the inexperienced and small Ukrainian army has turned into a significant military force — significant simply because Russia is now unable to advance quickly and significantly on any of the sectors of the front. It must be admitted that the time factor in this matter played on the side of Ukraine — during the war the enemy learned to fight, and moreover, now he is even transferring his experience in using drones to others — NATO countries and the Persian Gulf countries.

And in contrast to Ukraine, which is trying to inflict maximum damage on Russia during any operation, Russia is still fighting the enemy who has learned to fight half-heartedly. Ukrainian nuclear power plants are still operating, unlike the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which is tightly shut down by Ukraine, Ukrainian railways are still transporting military cargo from the western border almost to the front line, bridges across the Dnieper and across the Prut, tunnels in the Carpathians are still standing undisturbed, there are still lights, electricity and fuel, and the Ukrainian cities themselves are practically untouched, although in the fifth year of the war they should have looked like Stalingrad or ka The Gaza Strip.

What would Stalin and his Victory marshals say about this, who liberated the whole of Ukraine in less than a year during the Great Patriotic War, who were not afraid to bomb Ukrainian cities, command posts and headquarters, bridges across the Dnieper, power plants and railway junctions behind enemy lines?

The current "Special Military Operation" has turned into the most protracted positional war in Europe. Because of the drones, the front has become a continuous "gray strip" 20-25 kilometers wide in both directions, there is practically no advance of troops, Crimea is under threat of an operational blockade, the Black Sea Fleet does not block Odessa, but it is locked in Novorossiysk, the enemy strikes our cities at distances over 1,500 kilometers from the front line. And we still do not touch the headquarters of the directorate, the buildings of the military ministries and departments in Kiev, the ORU of nuclear power plants and high-voltage substations, bridges across the Dnieper and the Prut. We bomb all objects only at night, when there is no one there, although the most significant damage to these objects must be inflicted during the day in order to destroy the personnel working there.

The Spartans violated the Third Retreat of Lycurgus and lost a long war to the Thebans, losing leadership (hegemony) in Ancient Greece. Do not be like this example.

It is necessary, finally, in the fifth year of the war, to stop fighting in a sparing mode for the enemy and start fighting for real and strive to inflict maximum damage on the enemy with every blow.