Great Power contentions

[Kagemusha]

Kadyrov´s Chechen forces spotted apparently at Gostomel airport NorthWest from Kiev.

Heavy artillery fire broken out at Kharkov. Havent heard such intensity before during this conflict:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1497624137891827716

[Montmorency]

The Russians were really reckless to commit VDV to contested insertions. It is reported that Putin ordered a 12-hour pause to consolidate the advance on the southern front overnight (and/or give the Ukrainian government time to come to terms).

EDIT: According to the Russian YTer the Ukrainian Donbas front is starting to perform a fighting retreat in the direction of Dnipro. Any confirmation?

[Furunculus]

Kadyrov´s Chechen forces spotted apparently at Gostomel airport NorthWest from Kiev.

Heavy artillery fire broken out at Kharkov. Havent heard such intensity before during this conflict:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1497624137891827716

looking hella' sexy tho while they rape and pillage through the daily chores:

https://twitter.com/ritafloresss/status/1497541417568194562

[Montmorency]

Can't be understated how valuable having Trump out of office is right now. EU resolve would have been nonexistant, and the Ukrainians would be worse-equipped and demoralized with him in the White House congratulating Putin on Russia's strength.

What a somber situation this all is. In 2013, the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian people, were closer than ever before in history. I'm not one to celebrate "Slavic brotherhood", but it's just so sad that these friendly peer ethnicities have had so much generational - it will last decades - animosity enflamed between them by a few fuckers. All the WW2-era good will, all the propaganda of Soviet heroism (spotted as it was) is now erased by the pure obscenity of irredeemable imperial ambition. Only the Russian people can put this right, if they come around to it. Whatever the United States lost in spirit with the Iraq War pales against this wholly predatory breach against the most dearly-won peace of all history. But there is still time to step down before exceeding what America inflicted in lost life, limb, property. Though so far the Russian invasion is much less brutal than the routine power struggles and ethnic conflicts of Africa and the Middle East that we in the West look down upon, the infamy Putin is accruing is colossal.

This is the battlefield that can arrest the global march of irredentism and fascism, if even for a reprieve of the sort that the collapse of IS afforded against Islamic extremism. Russia needs to get fucked in every way it can be, for the good of us all.


Russia opened the offensive lighter than expected in both manpower and firepower, hoping for a quick Ukrainian collapse by appearances. Even Sumy may still be in Ukrainian hands after heavy back-and-forth fighting yesterday.

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1497319903514308612 [VIDEO]

Russia still hasn't established air supremacy. Someone up top seriously thought they could just rush a bunch of cities with APCs and break through into the interior. Pushing mech infantry through urban concentrations with low support is not good doctrine, and it is not Russian doctrine.

Now that they recognized the error of underestimating Ukraine, Russian armor and heavy artillery is making more of an appearance. Civilians will suffer more as a result.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1497668438789132294 [VIDEO]

https://i.imgur.com/tVh4tYH.jpg

https://twitter.com/michaelh992/status/1497472098876469249 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1497461156457426946 [VIDEO]


Good thing most people have evacuated their homes in Kiev, etc.


According to this (https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news/card/WHye4T1b2gEHOpEz1fKu), the head of the German foreign intelligence service had such low confidence in a Russian invasion that he was trapped in Kiev by the outbreak of hostilities. Oh Germany. When you put this against the German army chief inspector announcing that his branch is but a shell with few capabilities, it is pretty lulzy.

But the situation has turned against Putin to the extent that Germany is now donating a large quantity of AT/AA platforms. The EU opponents of maximal sanctions such as SWIFT are also being brought on board. The longer Ukraine can hold out the less tenable the invasion becomes. If Putin wants to advance through the western uplands to occupy the whole country, not just the east (which can be accomplished within the coming days really), then he won't just have an insurgency on his hands - he'll have a fully mobilized and entrenched Ukrainian regular army to break. With partisan activity ongoing in his immediate rear.


The Russian military’s main effort remains seizing Kyiv in an effort to force the Ukrainian government to capitulate. The Ukrainian General Staff reported at 11am local time February 26 [15 hours ago] that Ukrainian forces halted 14 Russian BTGs northeast of Kyiv and that Russia has committed its northern reserves – an additional 17 BTGs – along this operational direction.[9]
If the Russians have abandoned for now the attempt to encircle Kyiv and committed to frontal assaults from the northwest and east/northeast, then the Ukrainians would be in close to the optimal scenario for defending their capital. The Russians could change that situation either by getting forces from the northeast axis across the river south of Kyiv and encircling in that way, by using forces from Crimea to drive all the way to Kyiv from the south, or by re-attempting and finally succeeding in airlanding airborne troops to the southeast of the capital. Russia’s surprising failure to accomplish its initial planned objectives around Kyiv has given the Ukrainians an opportunity.
[...]
Russian forces entered downtown Kyiv on the west bank of the Dnipro River the night of February 25. Urban combat continued the night of February 25-26.[10] Only lighter Russian units – VDV (Airborne) and Special Forces – have entered Kyiv as of 7pm local time on February 26.[11] Russian forces have not yet committed heavy armor and artillery to urban fighting in Kyiv.

If, somehow, a popular revolt against Lukashenko disrupted that territory as a logistical zone for the Russian military, there's even a small chance they can be stopped outright. Professionalization clearly doesn't count for as much as Putin hoped in an unpopular war of choice.

There is the following very provocative rumor going around, any insight?


We are checking the information that in Russia’s Belgorod 5,000 soldiers staged a riot and refused to go to fight with Ukraine; the report is coming from Obozrevatel and local media.

[Kagemusha]

Kiev still standing at Dawn. Though Russians might be n the early shift this morning around 500 russian armoured vehicles spotted moving towards Kiev from three different directions. Still in a urban fight.It is the infantry that prevails and it seems everyone in Kiev is infantry today.

[Kagemusha]

Russians penetrated into Kharkov.

[Montmorency]

The Ruskie fascist is absolutely outraged that Sumy has fallen back into Ukrainian hands. He claims it's all the work of bloodthirsty criminals calling themselves "territorial militia." Love to see the smug bastard so butthurt for once.

Now, here I should point out one of the pitfalls of realtime observation of a dynamic modern war is that "taking" a city doesn't mean what it used to. So many cities, from Melitopol to Sumy, have already changed hands multiple times, contributing to the confusion of observers and those on the ground alike. But this ought to have been expected when the forces available for fighting in and around in any city at a given time are numbered in the hundreds or low thousands. Somebody rolls in on a BTR, that side can now claim to 'hold' that neighborhood, at least until they drive away again. Dissociated elements of regular units reappearing, and sporadic militia activity, complicate the picture further.

One of the biggest problems with the fascist's overgenerous maps is that he assigns Russian control to any territory that may have had Russian reconnaisance passing through. Compare then to the Wikipedia ("2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine") map, which I am now relying on as my standard.

https://i.imgur.com/OeUMPhY.png
https://i.imgur.com/TQKx2X6.png

Now, objectively, much of this territory is not actually contested or defended by either side, in which case it should be counted by default as Ukrainian, no-man's-land, or at best graphically symbolized in a distinct way from Russian axes of advance or garrisons, if it is known that the area was last cleared by Russian forces.

I suspect Melitopol may be in Russian hands for good though.



Anyway, some memes:


https://i.redd.it/6fxx9e86a4k81.png

https://i.imgur.com/qPCYQNM.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/K0PUp4p.jpg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWClFjsaseE

[Kagemusha]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1497823126918508550

[spmetla]

Amazing to see how well Ukraine is holding, the initial day's actions seem to have galvanized the fighting spirit of the country. I can only hope that they can keep it up.
For the Russians, considering their front-line troops will now have been in various stages of high intensity combat for about 48 hours. Logistics for food, water, ammo, fuel, and medical supplies will need to be constantly topped off. Units that have taken casualties, even if just lots of WIA will need replacements, and most importantly those front-line troops will start to see the effects of sleep deprivation and poor rest from frontline conditions. This together with the morale hit from the slower than expected progress has got to be affecting their Soldiers' performance. Anger, frustration, and mistakes will be made, especially if asked to do unreasonable things without resources. I can imagine those units currently in the fight can probably go another day before they need an 'operational pause' just to get some shut eye besides everything else.
Granted the Ukranian defenders will have the same issues but the morale of the defenders knowing that their efforts are so far successful and considered above and beyond expectations will certainly keep it higher than the attackers for now. I can only hope that they can keep up the fight, those isolated cities in and positions might have food and water stores, but ammo and medical supplies go quickly.

If the Ukrainians keep this up for a few more days I wonder how much the Russian command system can take of shoving troops in the meat grinder. Especially, as this Spartan effort is rallying the world to do things that were off the table like the Germans supply weapons, and the Europeans on board with Swift sanctions.
Zelensky being a King Leonidas is quite something, he has stepped up, certainly a man of the year.

[Montmorency]

Operational thoughts (https://twitter.com/delfoo/status/1497498201527521281):


4/Thirdly battalion tactical groups are terrible units to support operations. They have overload the commander lack support and might not properly integrate with air or do adeqaute scouting as signals and recon are missing along with liasons with them.


9/What people sa wasn't that troops packed spare tanks for long drives. They were carying their fuel reserves on them. The few organic refueling trucks were not enough to make up an actual reserve or depot. They had one full compliment, some spares in one truck , thats it.
10/This didn't seem that crazy in the Kremlin because the prevailing thought in the higher echelons and Putin's inner circle and the FSB was one highly dismissive of Ukraine highly hyped up by Russian army propaganda reporting. They missed that they were buying their own bullshit
11/The release of the information paralyzed them in terms of decision making. But the inherent bias remained and UA delayed mobilising so it didn't dissuade them. For 7 days they ate away supplies rather than actively trying to build them further, they were waiting a go order.
12/The limited supply meant it had to be a mad dash. BTGs were split into smaller sub units traveling on multiple roads to avoid congestion. When they met something they'd wait to coalesce or get into a fight. If the UA was suprised it would work.
13/Were the Ru troops quality ones they'd do better with just surprise on their side. But they were mostly poorly trained as full units were never called up before. Usually a brigade would send only a company and could hand pick.
14/Now it's either confess the lies about readiness or be creative. Because the corruption had created such a rot, brigade commandes chose "creative" (criminal), conscripts were added to the build up. Ghosts soldiers on the roster were hidden. That meant BTGs were far greener.
15/When these hit a city or made contact they'd deploy in unideal formations of platoon to company size. Not their fault all that much, this is what they knew. Then if a UA unit knew in advance where they were and was careful, it would anihilate the BTG splinter formation.
16/Because the timetable had to be kept, supplies were already short with the delay Ru troops would go a step further. They'd keep one sub unit to block and redirect subsequent units, the rest would continue on parallel roads. Again timetable meant usually more major roads.
17/After a couple of road blocks, BTG'd be diluted, lost a bunch of units and fighting to standstill. You'd expect that there would be air or artiller support. But BTGs aren't suited for that, when they move in chunks in parallel the artillery spotters could be in another group.

25/So the air assault fails, part of the pincer moves fail, you can't budge most of the UA troops what do you do? You go for broke, hope you win the race between entrechment in Kyiv and you just throwing all you have and hope if you decapitate UA, regional commands lose faith.
26/Otherwise becuase what remains of your force is split in small groups moving on main roads UA can mobilize move via back roads and just recapture most of the towns as you have few troops for actual 24/7 duties and to even spot them moving back into the town.
27/Can it work? I don't know. Is it a good plan. Hell no. Could they execute anything else, without the entire structure confessing the army has corruption,which yes the boss expected, but it's such a rot it might cost him his throne, yeah not when he's in this mood.
28/ So the spineless bunch decided to throw away 18-19 year old conscripts and veterans and pray they get lucky. Also that Putin hasn't noticed how nuts this is shows that he's either delusional or is completely inept when it comes to military affairs.
PS/ A lot of the commentary prior missed the readiness of the Russian forces and the poor state of affairs. Overreliance on official statements and major military pages missed tons of low level testimonials and regional investigative pieces on how big the rot was.

If true, thank goodness. You love to see corrupt police states implode.

Now for bad news.



There's lot (https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1497725333704896513) of chatter and purported leaks on silovik telegram channels that the General Staff has instructed that Kyiv be taken by Monday, and has overridden the objection of the Airborne forces who think this can only be done at a huge cost of lives.

As a rule I wouldn't trust any of these channels but the info tracks with other info from Kremlin insiders, and it makes sense given what we know of Putin's plans, needs and obsessions. And in this context the surge we see/expect makes sense.

Marco Rubio Marcorubio (https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497776719855591431)

#Russian military leaders should think very carefully before following the orders they recently received

#Putin is 2 years shy of the life expectancy of a Russian male
and you will spend the rest of your lives evading an international tribunal for committing his crimes

Dmytro Kuleba
@DmytroKuleba (https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1497558840606400516)

Russian propaganda has gone off the rails and speculates Ukraine might be preparing to drop a ‘dirty bomb’ on the Russian territory. This is a sick fake. Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons, doesn’t conduct any work to create/acquire them. We are a responsible member of the NPT.

:gah2:



If the Ukrainians keep this up for a few more days I wonder how much the Russian command system can take of shoving troops in the meat grinder. Especially, as this Spartan effort is rallying the world to do things that were off the table like the Germans supply weapons, and the Europeans on board with Swift sanctions.
Zelensky being a King Leonidas is quite something, he has stepped up, certainly a man of the year.

It took a Saratoga for the French to aid the Americans.

[Kagemusha]

Russians looting at Kharkiv. Are these bois hungry? Is the discipline faltering?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1497854775169327109

EDIT: Apparently Russian attack defeated at Kharkov and they are retreating out of the city.

[Pannonian]

March on Kyiv hides Putin’s real aim: Bolton (https://www.afr.com/world/europe/march-on-kyiv-hides-putin-s-real-aim-bolton-20220225-p59zoe)

[Montmorency]

The largest plane in the world, Ukraine's An-225, was destroyed in hangar. I never knew it existed.

German Chancellor Scholz pledges to bump the defense budget up by 50%, build two LNG terminals, and contribute forces to NATO posture in the east. Reichtangle activated.

Mariupol outflanked by amphibious landing. Kharkiv and Sumy still friendly.

The fascist complains that in the besieged cities Ukrainians are starting to form self-defense militias, in his contention not against Russians but against all the marauders and criminals who have emptied out Ukrainian armories and wander the streets menacingly. Lawless uparmed locals are now harassing and violating citizens, whom the fascist government categorizes as saboteurs, even as they themselves demolish Ukrainian bridges and infrastructure.

I don't know advanced Russian vulgarism well, but let's try shtob za yebal'sa.

[Montmorency]

Just what we were looking for. I had hoped this group, whom I linked to many months ago wrt the Azeri-Armenian war, had begun confirming and compiling equipment losses in the Ukraine war. As before, each item is associated with photovisual corroboration. So far...

Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html)

Russia

Tanks (17, of which destroyed: 6, damaged: 1, abandoned: 5, captured: 5)

Armoured Fighting Vehicles (16, of which destroyed: 5, abandoned: 1, captured: 9)

Infantry Fighting Vehicles (24, of which destroyed: 8, abandoned: 9, captured: 7)

Armoured Personnel Carriers (7, of which destroyed: 4, captured: 2)

Infantry Mobility Vehicles (19, of which destroyed: 10, damaged: 1, abandoned: 1, captured: 7)
[these are basically just trucks]

Communications Vehicles (2, of which abandoned: 1, captured: 1)

Engineering Vehicles (15, of which destroyed: 6, captured: 9)

Anti-tank Guided Missiles (4, of which captured: 4)

2 120mm mortar: (1, captured) (2, captured)

[152mm howitzer] (4, of which destroyed: 2, captured: 2)

[122mm BM-21 'Grad'] (7, of which destroyed: 3, captured: 4)

Surface-To-Air Missile Systems (8, of which destroyed: 5, damaged: 1, abandoned: 2)

Aircraft (3, of which destroyed: 3)

Helicopters (3, of which destroyed: 2, damaged: 1)

Trucks, Vehicles and Jeeps (82, of which destroyed: 47, damaged: 2, abandoned: 15, captured: 18)

Ukraine

[T-64BV] (12, of which destroyed: 5, abandoned: 7)

Armoured Fighting Vehicles (15, of which destroyed: 3, abandoned: 11, captured: 1)

Infantry Fighting Vehicles (16, of which destroyed 6, abandoned: 6, captured: 3)

Armoured Personnel Carriers (3, of which abandoned: 2, captured: 1)

Infantry Mobility Vehicles (5, of which destroyed: 2, captured: 3)

[NLAW] (7, of which captured: 7)

2 9K310 Igla-1 [MANPAD]: (1 and 2, captured)

Surface-To-Air Missile Systems (4, of which destroyed: 4)

[152mm howitzer] (2, of which abandoned: 2)

122mm 2S1 Gvozdika [SPG]: (2, of which captured: 2)

Radars (5, of which destroyed: 3, damaged: 2)

Aircraft (5, of which destroyed: 5)

Trucks, Vehicles and Jeeps (35, of which destroyed: 15, damaged: 2, abandoned: 5, captured: 13)

[Shaka_Khan]

If what these Russian POWs said is true then Putin made multiple major wrong moves.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nifxKIhFSuw


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHpeinnZ5hI

[Sarmatian]

Ah, a trip down the memory lane. Not like it used to be, but still miles ahead of typical internet discussion about the topic. Hope you're doing well guys.

[Montmorency]

Maps are starting to diverge more on the axes of advance, for instance on how close to Kiev the Russians are in Chernihiv oblast, and the direction of the advance on Pryluky. Mariupol can be considered encircled.

What I don't understand is, why - despite these unexpected days' reprieve - Ukrainian command hasn't pulled back their 10+ Donbass brigades from the line of contact toward Dnipro at the central Dnieper. Or if they have, I haven't heard about a confirmed substantial movement. Most maps indicate Russian probing actions toward Zaporizhzhia already (the provincial capital south of Dnipro), breakthroughs in Luhansk toward Starobilsk, Krupiansk, and Lysychansk. Russian air support will inevitably step up. Very soon it WILL be too late to avoid being outflanked. It may already be too late to withdraw the bulk of so many troops (low tens thousands?) along a few highways. It has to start tonight. Does no one have any insight on why the Ukrainians have allowed this concentration to remain pinned in the Donbas?

It's understandable if there's a last stand action at Mariupol, but this kind of force would be so much more useful in central Ukraine west of the Dnieper than liquidated by rear echelons at leisure.

[Montmorency]

https://i.redd.it/kdqcwrtspnk81.png


Japan might request the local basing of American nuclear warheads, which... unless they're for Japan's autonomous disposition, I like to think we definitively learned falls in the 'bad idea' category almost exactly 60 years ago.

[spmetla]

What I don't understand is, why - despite these unexpected days' reprieve - Ukrainian command hasn't pulled back their 10+ Donbass brigades from the line of contact toward Dnipro at the central Dnieper. Or if they have, I haven't heard about a confirmed substantial movement.

I think that they probably aren't capable of doing so, large scale movements like the Russians are doing would be vulnerable to Russia aircraft as well as it'd likely be under substantial pressure the moment the Russian's caught wind.
Also, as they've fought there for eight years already it may be a huge morale loss to give it up.

There's a lot of large gaps between the major units and I'm really curious what the heavy push toward Kiev and the potential for direct Belorus involvement will mean for the already stretched Ukrainian army.

All in all the donation of weapons, especially ATGMs and Stingers can't happen fast enough.

As for Germany, I'm happy that it was under a coalition government that they have come to terms with the need for a credible deterrence. Having strength and not using it in favor of diplomacy speaks a lot more than not have strength and depending on diplomacy.

Also happy to the Germans as well as just about every neutral power in Europe (except Austria?) donating weapons to Ukraine. The Swedes and Finns doing this is a huge signal to Russia.

[Furunculus]

Re: Mauripol brigades - i remember back in 2014 russian aripower destroyed an entire ukranian mech brigade on the move in the space of twenty minutes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/05/the-ukrainian-army-learned-the-hard-way-dont-idle-your-tanks-when-the-russians-are-nearby/

[rory_20_uk]

I think that they probably aren't capable of doing so, large scale movements like the Russians are doing would be vulnerable to Russia aircraft as well as it'd likely be under substantial pressure the moment the Russian's caught wind.
Also, as they've fought there for eight years already it may be a huge morale loss to give it up.

There's a lot of large gaps between the major units and I'm really curious what the heavy push toward Kiev and the potential for direct Belorus involvement will mean for the already stretched Ukrainian army.

All in all the donation of weapons, especially ATGMs and Stingers can't happen fast enough.

As for Germany, I'm happy that it was under a coalition government that they have come to terms with the need for a credible deterrence. Having strength and not using it in favor of diplomacy speaks a lot more than not have strength and depending on diplomacy.

Also happy to the Germans as well as just about every neutral power in Europe (except Austria?) donating weapons to Ukraine. The Swedes and Finns doing this is a huge signal to Russia.

They'd be abandoning relatively secure positions, retreating over open ground with no air cover and not really towards anything. Surely if / when they loose the ability to fight a conventional war they'd do better to dissolve into the countryside and if anything destroy targets of opportunity.

The EU et al seem oh so pleased that it took them less than a full week of an invasion do agree to do something and even have the temerity to view themselves as "leading" something. The USA giving weaponry on the condition it was not used in the Donbass region years ago was leadership and strategic planning. Europeans are hoping that the aid can continue to get hundreds of miles through contested territory during a war. Perhaps they intend to use the Stingers to build a safe air corridor as they go.

~:smoking:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The EU et al seem oh so pleased that it took them less than a full week of an invasion do agree to do something and even have the temerity to view themselves as "leading" something....

Sadly, it actually MAY represent improvement on their part. Of course, it could be argued that the baseline for comparison wasn't all that challenging...

[Montmorency]

That Saruman piece of shit Lukashenko could have singlehandedly turned this around by demanding the removal of Russian forces from Belarussian territory. Putin's plans would be enormously complicated by either the loss of or a second war in his logistical space, and simply removing Lukashenko wouldn't overcome, would rather support, this altogether more popular policy of national-level 'civil disobedience.' Instead he reportedly oredered his Uruk-hai toward Helm's Deep at around noon local time on the second of March.

The Russian tells us that the Russians tell him that Ukrainian command has directed Donbas front not to retreat. Whatever the case, it's too late. But I'll answer the comments against that spirit nevertheless.


I think that they probably aren't capable of doing so, large scale movements like the Russians are doing would be vulnerable to Russia aircraft as well as it'd likely be under substantial pressure the moment the Russian's caught wind.
Also, as they've fought there for eight years already it may be a huge morale loss to give it up.

There's a lot of large gaps between the major units and I'm really curious what the heavy push toward Kiev and the potential for direct Belorus involvement will mean for the already stretched Ukrainian army.

All in all the donation of weapons, especially ATGMs and Stingers can't happen fast enough.

As for Germany, I'm happy that it was under a coalition government that they have come to terms with the need for a credible deterrence. Having strength and not using it in favor of diplomacy speaks a lot more than not have strength and depending on diplomacy.

Also happy to the Germans as well as just about every neutral power in Europe (except Austria?) donating weapons to Ukraine. The Swedes and Finns doing this is a huge signal to Russia.

Yes, absolutely, it would be impossible to withdraw the entire front. A sizeable rearguard would need to sacrifice themselves, and would have even earlier on during the best window of opportunity. But what I mean is that there must have been a window of opportunity to retreat elements of every committed formation. Most could have escaped intact during that Russian quasi-standdown, esp. once it was realized that Russian air power was declining to assert itself as much as capability allowed.

There's one main highway between Donetsk (city) and Dnipro. The front is too long along N-S axis to assemble along that road. By distributing and staggering a retreat over two days and dozens of secondary roads and side roads, the Russians would not have been able to substantially interdict the retreat, I believe. Consider hundreds of small detachments covering (in actual transit) 100-200 miles.

And I wonder if it would be better to retain, say, 50% of a veteran formation to fight from behind a river, than lose almost all of it in a fight to the finish/surrender. Assuming Militaryland's deployment map reflects current dispositions, the central Dnieper is barely defended on either side.

What happens when the Ukrainian Donbas front collapses and 3 of 4 current Russian fronts can converge uninhibited toward the center of the river and country?


Re: Mauripol brigades - i remember back in 2014 russian aripower destroyed an entire ukranian mech brigade on the move in the space of twenty minutes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/05/the-ukrainian-army-learned-the-hard-way-dont-idle-your-tanks-when-the-russians-are-nearby/

I mean, the article does note that:


Ukrainian commanders exposed themselves to attack when they failed to appreciate the inherently mobile—and independent—nature of tank operations. Instead of commanding their units while on the move, they clustered around a command post, awaiting orders. That made them a target.
[...]
Armor fights from the hatch,” he added. “Armored formations are built for unencumbered activity. They are not meant to be tethered, whether digitally or physically, to static command posts.” Fox cited U.S. Army general George Patton’s leadership of his own armored forces during World War II. Patton understood that tank units should move quickly to exploit gaps in enemy defenses.


They'd be abandoning relatively secure positions, retreating over open ground with no air cover and not really towards anything. Surely if / when they loose the ability to fight a conventional war they'd do better to dissolve into the countryside and if anything destroy targets of opportunity.

The EU et al seem oh so pleased that it took them less than a full week of an invasion do agree to do something and even have the temerity to view themselves as "leading" something. The USA giving weaponry on the condition it was not used in the Donbass region years ago was leadership and strategic planning. Europeans are hoping that the aid can continue to get hundreds of miles through contested territory during a war. Perhaps they intend to use the Stingers to build a safe air corridor as they go.

~:smoking:

A reasonable alternative, but:

1. The countryside is also open ground. The Russians have covered the most ground in the south of the country because it is the most open terrain in Ukraine.
2. It's harder to dissolve into the countryside under condition of a double envelopment.
3. Ukrainian partisans will be ineffective if attempting to operate within Luhansk or Donetsk (more forested than Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia oblasts bordering westward), they being the home base of the numerous Russian-aligned paramilitaries who've figured in the conflict for decades lolwut, years.
4. This region was practically a green zone for the German occupiers during WW2 due to aforementioned terrain and topography.
5. All the heavy equipment and armored vehicles fall into Russian hands.

There are no uncomplicated options here.

Or maybe they'll break out right through the Donbas and make a thunder run all the way to Moscow to assassinate Putin. :shrug:

Pertaining to your comments about equipment donations to Ukraine, all that stuff is going to support the defense in the west, functionally. Some of it will trickle through to partisans in the east, or into besieged cities, but only light items such as rifles, medical stock, etc.

For the heaviest equipment, such as the dozens of Soviet-era fighters, I wonder if Ukraine even has enough trained pilots to fly them all, or moreover if any of them can survive on the ground once the Russian air force gets serious. The subject of a limited no-fly zone is incredibly fraught and uncertain (the only certainty is that NATO countries vocally reject the suggestion), but if we don't impose one then I can't see any point in trying to prop up Ukraine's air force. Or allow Ukrainian pilots to base in Poland/Romania, but that's functionally equivalent to a no-fly zone.

[NB. Poland has announced that it intends to do just that - host Ukrainian fighters at its airfields - which has the potential to assimilate wider NATO policy. But let's wait and see, since the US may veto such an escalation.]

Actually, you have to consider that a lot of this equipment is going to diffuse internationally to criminals, rebels, and terrorists, or simply get 'lost.' There's no way to keep account of it in an active war zone with a losing recipient. So that's fun.

[Montmorency]

If Putin keeps his grip on power long enough to see the conventional war through to conquest, that's it, game over - he'll die in office long after. Even a hundred thousand dead Russians wouldn't prevent the victory from cementing his authority, because the result is all that matters to him; it's not like he'd be gearing up to attack a NATO country just the next year. Ukraine would be devastated for a generation. Millions would become refugees. (Any post-war insurgency would predominantly kill Ukrainian civilians and LDPR-type collaborationst militia, not Russian soldiers, so that's no difficulty.)

Putin would in my view be willing to take Russia to the status of a larger, still less isolated, North Korea in the course of reunifying the Russian Empire. Central Asian countries might begin looking for implicit or explicit Chinese defense guarantees. China would have an interest in cultivating a Kim-type subordinate status for Putin. His eventual death would be our one and only long-anticipated opportunity to perhaps resolve the Second Cold War with new Russian leadership. And China would probably have taken the chance to open conflict with Taiwan by that time, and who knows how that would develop. What a disaster.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is for us to stop fascism in its tracks while Putin is at his most vulnerable.

[spmetla]

There's one main highway between Donetsk (city) and Dnipro. The front is too long along N-S axis to assemble along that road. By distributing and staggering a retreat over two days and dozens of secondary roads and side roads, the Russians would not have been able to substantially interdict the retreat, I believe. Consider hundreds of small detachments covering (in actual transit) 100-200 miles.

And I wonder if it would be better to retain, say, 50% of a veteran formation to fight from behind a river, than lose almost all of it in a fight to the finish/surrender. Assuming Militaryland's deployment map reflects current dispositions, the central Dnieper is barely defended on either side.

What happens when the Ukrainian Donbas front collapses and 3 of 4 current Russian fronts can converge uninhibited toward the center of the river and country?

I agree wholeheartedly on the impending dilemma you lay out, I'm just going to have to assume that the Ukrainian army has some sort of plan to prevent the majority of their army being encircled or cut off, who knows though, news from the East is the least forthcoming.


Pertaining to your comments about equipment donations to Ukraine, all that stuff is going to support the defense in the west, functionally. Some of it will trickle through to partisans in the east, or into besieged cities, but only light items such as rifles, medical stock, etc.

For the heaviest equipment, such as the dozens of Soviet-era fighters, I wonder if Ukraine even enough trained pilots has to fly them all, or moreover if any of them can survive on the ground once the Russian air force gets serious. The subject of a limited no-fly zone is incredibly fraught and uncertain (the only certainty is that NATO countries vocally reject the suggestion), but if we don't impose one then I can't see any point in trying to prop up Ukraine's air force. Or allow Ukrainian pilots to base in Poland/Romania, but that's functionally equivalent to a no-fly zone.

I too see this mostly going to try and stop/blunt any attack on or encirclement of Kiev or the western provinces. Additionally, I'm curious on what type of training they'd be able to provide internally while distributing. New supplies of weapons they already have are easy to distribute as replacements but introducing new weapons like Panzerfaust-3s and Carl Gustavs/AT-4s will require some sort of training period to ensure they are used effectively.

As for the pilots and older MIG-29s, I expect that Ukraine does have enough as undoubtedly the older veteran pilots from a few years ago are stepping up for this duty as opposed to being used as infantry. This aspect however is the trickiest as they may be MIG-29s but they've been integrated into NATO standards, who knows what differences there are in the flight systems, weapons systems, communications systems and so on that a pilot needs to rely on like second nature in order to be effective.
Additionally, I'm wondering about the delivery of these. If these are being flown in that in many ways would make the originating NATO airfields legitimate targets for Russia though I don't think they'd dare to trigger Article 5 now that everyone and their grandma is turned against them in Europe.
The talk about a no-fly zone though is a bridge too far at this point. If it had been considered before the war started then it may have been feasible. Integrating into Ukrainian air-defense to avoid friendly fire would be difficult, doing ground attack on Russians while discriminating from Ukrainian units using almost identical equipment would be extremely difficult (thermals sights don't see chalked on V's or flag colors). Not to mention the obvious danger that directly engaging Russian air units would mean in terms of escalating to a WW3, even if the no-fly zone was restricted to just the Ukraine it would require neutralizing in some form Russian and Belarus air defenses, radars, etcs... on their side of the border.

The 'international legion' is about the closest that NATO/EU members can get to directly supporting Ukraine as if the concept were taken further it could consist of Flying Tigers and Condor Legion type units though this would be only a step away from outright war with Russia.
Here's the current steps to joining it if you're curious:
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3415272-how-to-join-international-legion-to-defend-ukraine-algorithm.html


If Putin keeps his grip on power long enough to see the conventional war through to conquest, that's it, game over - he'll die in office long after. Even a hundred thousand dead Russians wouldn't prevent the victory from cementing his authority, because the result is all that matters to him; it's not like he'd be gearing up to attack a NATO country just the next year. Ukraine would be devastated for a generation. Millions would become refugees. (Any post-war insurgency would predominantly kill Ukrainian civilians and LDPR-type collaborationst militia, not Russian soldiers, so that's no difficulty.)

Putin would in my view be willing to take Russia to the status of a larger, still less isolated, North Korea in the course of reunifying the Russian Empire. Central Asian countries might begin looking for implicit or explicit Chinese defense guarantees. China would have an interest in cultivating a Kim-type subordinate status for Putin. His eventual death would be our one and only long-anticipated opportunity to perhaps resolve the Second Cold War with new Russian leadership. And China would probably have taken the chance to open conflict with Taiwan by that time, and who knows how that would develop. What a disaster.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is for us to stop fascism in its tracks while Putin is at his most vulnerable.

Your above is why I'm full-hog behind supporting Ukraine, Putin NEEDS to fail, Russia must not successfully conquer Ukraine. Even if this means that the government of Ukraine can only rule over a rump state in ethnic Ukrainian-super-majority areas while the rest of the country remain in conflict.
The EU and NATO backing of Ukraine is 100% the template for keeping Taiwan independent, all the stupid far-right people in the US media saying this is making us weaker in confronting the PRC are short-sighted simpletons. Supporting and defending Ukraine even without direct involvement must be successful in order to demonstrate that a great-power can not willy nilly take provinces they think belong to them due to 'history' or demographics.

On a slight side note I do see a lot of interesting conversations in people trying to equate Russia's invasion with NATO actions. The war in Kosovo was to stop a genocide, the war in Libya though stupidly done was to stop a brutal dictator crushing a democratic uprising. The intervention in Syria was more country specific and not a NATO action, the war in Afghanistan though in the long run badly run was a response to 9/11, not a casual attempt to invade and impose a system in the middle of South Asia.
The Iraq War is about the closest thing in equivalence to the Russian invasion as it was about regime change and in hindsight completely inexcusable. Russia's reasoning for this war is absolutely insane and indefensible. The expansion of NATO which up to 2014 was an incredibly hollow force was zero threat to Russia itself; though it is a threat to Russian revisionist/expansionist dreams.

Also, I see a lot of people calling the EU racists for their open arms for Ukraine but not for other migrants from Africa and the Middle East. Ukraine is on the border of the EU, it is in the neighbor, they share cultural, religious, and yes racial ties with their EU neighbors to the West, of course they'll be more welcomed as it is also caused by an invasion from the common threat/enemy to the East. Just like I help my neighbors out when they have trouble as opposed to people at the other end of the district I don't know, this applies to countries too.

On the flip side though, the abysmal treatment of all 'colored' refugees from Ukraine trying to flee the war must be rectified as it is certainly racist. Indian, African, and Arab students and workers are being stopped at the borders to Poland, Hungary, and Romania and told to go contact their embassies which have mostly left the country. I know those receiving countries may be thinking that these are opportunist migrants going into the Ukraine to try and enter the EU but that is a bonkers thought train, it is a war zone, and they must be allowed to flee it like every other white person in Ukraine that tries. The EU must take care of these people too, most of which are looking to go home and not seek asylum in the EU but first they need to get out of the Ukraine.

[Montmorency]

Kherson almost fully under Russian control. Main disagreements in maps for March 1 are whether (and if so, where) the Russians have advanced north toward Krivy Rih, bypassing Mykolaev, and how far Russians have penetrated south of Kharkiv (Donbas envelopment). Kyiv and Kharkiv have seen few direct incursions today, as bombardment escalates and Russia continues to assemble assault forces and close off the cities. We hope that the mud comes early this year, courtesy of climate change, such that Russian operations west of the Dnieper halt for an extended period.

Spmetla, what are your opinions on the feasibility, in principle, of a standoff-range no-fly-zone over Western Ukraine (just to the limit of Ukrainian control once that front consolidates following the fall of the East). Assume the US would lead, with at least minimal NATO approval (primarily Polish bases). Could our assets ever be enough to degrade Russian CAP/CAS? And would it be enough to keep Ukrainian conventional forces in the fight for an extended duration? And would it reinforce, or undermine, a rallying effect around Putin?

TBH if there turns out to be a considerable operational pause in early spring, with most of the West entrenched, there's a case to be made for NATO uniting on pushing troops forward into the West and demanding an immediate truce from Moscow; presumably a 'successful' diplomatic outcome would entail the partition of Ukraine (Kiev the new Berlin???). If Putin isn't out of power in a month's time after all, there's no reason to expect more time to outweigh diminishing Ukrainian capacity to resist and to hold ground, or in other words no reason to expect our/Ukraine's bargaining position to improve.

And I'm glad you brought up the refugee racism. It's an unhappy impulse, imminently stupid - holding back non-aligned civilians from leaving a warzone is just a drag on the defender's resources. Also, the Ukrainian policy of conscripting any 18-60 y/o man they can get their hands on is pretty foolish. Maybe we've unlearned a lot of lessons in the 21st century, but putting a rifle in the hands of untrained, unwilling people will almost never contribute to combat effectiveness in defense. The vast majority of these Volks conscripts will flee or surrender upon encountering combat. Though this may change in the west over time, depending on how much time the regulars have to offer minimal training.


approximately 80% of the Russian forces that surrounded Ukraine are inside the country

Reminder that in many cases the Russians at from D0 have had only numerical parity with the Ukrainians, and nevertheless have advanced about as far into the country as the US did into Iraq during Iraqi Freedom (which lasted more than a month in its conventional stage). Despite the tactical failures of Russian units, pound for pound they still look to be superior to Ukrainian units and soldiers. Someone on Twitter compared the tenacity of Ukrainians to Armenians in 2020, pointing out that tenacity can't compensate for lack of firepower. A Russian army with improved logistics and morale would certainly be a legitimate foe for US grunts.

An article (https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/mysterious-case-missing-russian-air-force) considering possibilities for why the 300+ combat jets Russia assembled for the operation didn't finish off the Ukrainian air force D1 and have been largely grounded until this month. Breaking down the theory of avoidance of collateral damage, a component of which is that the Russian air force has limited experience with and supply of precision munitions. Another potential explanation is fear of friendly fire from SAM systems, which strikes me as an odd explanation given that Ukrainian aircraft fly single-digit sorties and don't seem to be facing any Russian SAM reaction anyway (so why would there be a sudden jump in Russian SAM activity with the sky full of Russian planes?). The last theory is that Russian fixed-wing pilots are poorly-trained and distrusted by command.


The Verkhovna Rada stated that the Armed Forces of Belarus had joined Russia's invasion and had entered the Chernihiv Oblast earlier that morning. UNIAN stated that a column of 33 military vehicles had entered the region. The US disagreed with these claims, saying that there was "no indication" that Belarus has invaded.[331] Hours prior, Belarus's president Lukashenko said that Belarus would not join the war, and said that Russian troops were not attacking Ukraine from Belarusian territory.[332]

Huh... I mean, I have to admit the track record of US intelligence in this crisis, but a number of analysts do accept that Belarussian forces have entered Ukraine (maybe just garrisoning border villages and checkpoints for now??).


It is being speculated that Russian troops are also going to invade Moldova, which is not a NATO member, after Belarusian president Lukashenko revealed a map seemingly showing the Russian military's main offensives in Ukraine in the form of red arrows; one of the arrows points at Moldova.[338] It is possible that such an invasion would only target the pro-Russian separatist entity of Transnistria.[339]

Perhaps Moldova should violate its constitution for a second and invite a few of the NATO units up north to picnic. A constitution is not a suicide pact after all.



Ukraine is getting new Soviet-era jet aircraft from Eastern European partners:
#Bulgaria is sending 15 MiG-29s and 14 Su-25s.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov explained that his country does not have enough serviceable aircraft and spare parts, as well as not enough fighters to protect its own airspace.

lol


Russian efforts within and in the immediate vicinity of Kyiv have reportedly relied on saboteurs and reconnaissance elements, often out of uniform or wearing Ukrainian uniforms, rather than on attacks by regular combat forces.[7]


There have been videos showing, cumulatively, many dozens of saboteurs and Spetsnaz captured or neutralized. I wish we knew the biggre picture of how successful or not this aspect of the operation has been for Russia.


The Azovites et al. are already surrounded, and I have no problem with their fighting to the death for their country, but this is a reminder of how thoroughly fascist Putin's Russia has become.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1344004873096982534 [VIDEO] (The interviewee explicitly identifies himself as a Nazi at the outset)


Russian Nazi Alexei Milchakov, who fought on the side of the LPR in 2014, talks about how he cut off the ears of the Ukrainian military and got high on the smell of burnt human meat. In Russia, this is called "anti-fascist" and "defender of Donbass"

[spmetla]

Spmetla, what are your opinions on the feasibility, in principle, of a standoff-range no-fly-zone over Western Ukraine (just to the limit of Ukrainian control once that front consolidates following the fall of the East). Assume the US would lead, with at least minimal NATO approval (primarily Polish bases). Could our assets ever be enough to degrade Russian CAP/CAS? And would it be enough to keep Ukrainian conventional forces in the fight for an extended duration? And would it reinforce, or undermine, a rallying effect around Putin?

I just can't see any scenario in which the US wouldn't then be forced to neutralize Belarus and Russian air defense systems/networks which would require strikes outside of Ukraine and likely escalate to a general state of war.
US and NATO assets would definitely be able to not just degrade but defeat Russian air power, even with Russian's having the homefield advantage for basing. Primarily because the US and NATO are the best at modern 'network' warfare where stealthy platforms like the F-35 essentially can 'suck' the data of enemy signatures and pass it onto other forces to actually do the striking, this together with the US/NATOs superior systems and experience/tactics at jamming/spoofing radars and their launch batteries the Russian's would surely lose.
US airpower would I think lead to a relatively 'easy' defeat of the Russians (in Ukraine at least) when paired with a strong ground component like the Ukrainian army has now in their morale and staying power. That convoy of Russian vehicles would look like Saddam's highway of death retreat from Kuwait of the USAF had their way.
The problem is of course that would lead to WW3. If it was stated before the war that we would intervene to stop any regime change and provide a no-fly zone to protect Ukrainian ground forces, I could see that as something Putin may have been deterred by or at least limited his ambition. However, if we were to try and do the same no when he's at his weakest he may just see that as us being as opportunistic as him and see it as a direct threat to his Russian state and escalate to WW3.


TBH if there turns out to be a considerable operational pause in early spring, with most of the West entrenched, there's a case to be made for NATO uniting on pushing troops forward into the West and demanding an immediate truce from Moscow; presumably a 'successful' diplomatic outcome would entail the partition of Ukraine (Kiev the new Berlin???). If Putin isn't out of power in a month's time after all, there's no reason to expect more time to outweigh diminishing Ukrainian capacity to resist and to hold ground, or in other words no reason to expect our/Ukraine's bargaining position to improve.

This is why I think Belarus will enter the fray, to completely isolate the combat in the center and east of the country from EU/NATO resupply and any threat of NATO intervention.
You are right though, there is a case to be made for pushing troops in on behalf of Ukraine, though it would need to be in some clear cut and visible manner such as securing a 100mi buffer or something for humanitarian aid and prevent fighting from spreading into NATO/EU countries.

I think the best we can realistically hope for is that the Ukrainians can keep weathering Russian attacks in the cities, defeat/minimize any Belarus invasion, and bleed the Russians so badly that their unit's defect, surrender, or just refuse to fight. I'm praying for a miracle of some sort on the battlefield but just cannot see an endgame that results in Ukrainian victory so long as the Russians use numbers and firepower to compensate for any lack of finesse or tactical ability.


Reminder that in many cases the Russians at from D0 have had only numerical parity with the Ukrainians, and nevertheless have advanced about as far into the country as the US did into Iraq during Iraqi Freedom (which lasted more than a month in its conventional stage). Despite the tactical failures of Russian units, pound for pound they still look to be superior to Ukrainian units and soldiers. Someone on Twitter compared the tenacity of Ukrainians to Armenians in 2020, pointing out that tenacity can't compensate for lack of firepower. A Russian army with improved logistics and morale would certainly be a legitimate foe for US grunts.


I'll point out though that in the US case and despite now popular perception, the US approach was a bit slower because it was a lot more deliberate. Civilian targets were avoided, gaps in the front weren't evident, and the terrain, though smaller than Ukraine was much more constrictive in that the Euphrates and Tigris areas are a mass of population, canals, and agriculture. Additionally, all the logistics pretty much were limited to one freeway to/from Basrah that then had to support the operations in rugged desert conditions on the flanks of the river/canal regions.
The US way of war in Iraq resulted in only about 200 coalition casualties though the civilian casualties were certainly in the high thousands. Granted that if the Iraqis had even a quarter of the technical and tactical competence and will to fight as the Ukrainians it would have been a lot slower and costlier.
The Iraq war though was against a brutal and relatively unloved dictator, if the US hadn't blown the 1–2-month period of relative calm and somehow prevented the the sectarian violence that escalated into a general civil war who knows how it would have turned out in the long run. As it is now it is a stain on the US both for the reasons for invading and the complete lack of a post-war plan. It looks like Putin is adding the factor of military incompetence and ham-handedness in his invasion with thousands of his own already dead and who knows how many wounded or captured not to mention the horrific and deliberate attacks on civilians with unknown levels of destruction and casualties.

[Montmorency]

Mearsheimer's (https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine) worldview is seriously illogical. He believes in his specific model so strongly that it becomes low-key normative for him.


I just can't see any scenario in which the US wouldn't then be forced to neutralize Belarus and Russian air defense systems/networks which would require strikes outside of Ukraine and likely escalate to a general state of war.
US and NATO assets would definitely be able to not just degrade but defeat Russian air power, even with Russian's having the homefield advantage for basing. Primarily because the US and NATO are the best at modern 'network' warfare where stealthy platforms like the F-35 essentially can 'suck' the data of enemy signatures and pass it onto other forces to actually do the striking, this together with the US/NATOs superior systems and experience/tactics at jamming/spoofing radars and their launch batteries the Russian's would surely lose.
US airpower would I think lead to a relatively 'easy' defeat of the Russians (in Ukraine at least) when paired with a strong ground component like the Ukrainian army has now in their morale and staying power. That convoy of Russian vehicles would look like Saddam's highway of death retreat from Kuwait of the USAF had their way.
The problem is of course that would lead to WW3. If it was stated before the war that we would intervene to stop any regime change and provide a no-fly zone to protect Ukrainian ground forces, I could see that as something Putin may have been deterred by or at least limited his ambition. However, if we were to try and do the same no when he's at his weakest he may just see that as us being as opportunistic as him and see it as a direct threat to his Russian state and escalate to WW3.

Fair. In partial acknowledgement I would say we ought to be willing to allow the newer, longer-range SAM platforms to operate in most of Belarusian, and certainly Russian, territory if that's what they do, even at the cost of some losses. Though this isn't a fixed fact I also note that Russian AA has been surprisingly ineffective in both Syria and Ukraine from what I can tell. Not as a technology necessarily, but in its deployment.


I think the best we can realistically hope for is that the Ukrainians can keep weathering Russian attacks in the cities, defeat/minimize any Belarus invasion, and bleed the Russians so badly that their unit's defect, surrender, or just refuse to fight. I'm praying for a miracle of some sort on the battlefield but just cannot see an endgame that results in Ukrainian victory so long as the Russians use numbers and firepower to compensate for any lack of finesse or tactical ability.

God damn it all. Such a tenuous hope could as well be matched by relying on Putin's lackeys to blow his brains out should a Western action happen to provoke omnicidal orders.

Various commentators make the point that it is immoral to stoke resistance, rhetorical and material, in Ukraine if the inevitable result is greater destruction and loss of life unto and under Russian occupation. And I mean, this is merely logical if you accept that endless conflict and death are bad. Yet I don't accept that any country being invaded should get everyone on their knees in supplication so as to avoid death and destruction. There's also this very urgent need in the present circumstances to stall the ramifications of a fascist war of conquest, the success of which would generate negative knock-on effects for all of us and would utterly devastate Ukraine as a country forever.* It cannot be a sound principle for victims of aggression to instantly submit as to maximize peace. Otherwise we should have never imposed new sanctions on Russia, indeed should have just removed existing ones immediately when Putin cast the die by invading Ukraine; without a concrete strategic objective in mind, such as regime change or an armistice, the sanctions would just constitute a petulant expression of disapprobation of Russian policy, to no real effect but causative of the impoverishment of ordinary Russians.

Thus the most logically coherent alternative is to decide the war in Ukraine's favor by whatever means, or at a minimum prevent Ukraine's comprehensive collapse. But Western leaders don't feel politically licensed, the logistics aren't there, and the decision-makers fear the tail risk of nuclear escalation.

Everything is bullshit.

*According to the IMF last year, Ukraine's GDP per capita indicator has seen about zero percent growth since the end of the Cold War. Ukraine's population meanwhile has shrunk every single year since 1990, down by over 15% since its peak before independence.


More concretely, what do you make of the Polish statement that Polish airfields will support Ukrainian combat operations. For context, Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia all reneged on their initial offers to donate combat planes yesterday. Internal governmental divisions? Faltering resolve after the proud rhetoric of the first three days? Hungary, for example, on Monday denied access to its territory for military aid in transit. Are we just going to reclaim all this undelivered aid, stuck on the Polish border or elsewhere, if Belarus attacks and severs the arteries between Ukraine and Poland? Notice how I'm inadvertently managing to reinstantiate the logical dilemma I just raised...

[Pannonian]

Russian statement recognises Zelensky as the legitimate leader of Ukraine. Is this a significant change?

[spmetla]

double post

[spmetla]

God damn it all. Such a tenuous hope could as well be matched by relying on Putin's lackeys to blow his brains out should a Western action happen to provoke omnicidal orders.

Various commentators make the point that it is immoral to stoke resistance, rhetorical and material, in Ukraine if the inevitable result is greater destruction and loss of life unto and under Russian occupation. And I mean, this is merely logical if you accept that endless conflict and death are bad. Yet I don't accept that any country being invaded should get everyone on their knees in supplication so as to avoid death and destruction. There's also this very urgent need in the present circumstances to stall the ramifications of a fascist war of conquest, the success of which would generate negative knock-on effects for all of us and would utterly devastate Ukraine as a country forever.* It cannot be a sound principle for victims of aggression to instantly submit as to maximize peace. Otherwise we should have never imposed new sanctions on Russia, indeed should have just removed existing ones immediately when Putin cast the die by invading Ukraine; without a concrete strategic objective in mind, such as regime change or an armistice, the sanctions would just constitute a petulant expression of disapprobation of Russian policy, to no real effect but causative of the impoverishment of ordinary Russians.

Thus the most logically coherent alternative is to decide the war in Ukraine's favor by whatever means, or at a minimum prevent Ukraine's comprehensive collapse. But Western leaders don't feel politically licensed, the logistics aren't there, and the decision-makers fear the tail risk of nuclear escalation.

We can keep sending arms, encourage volunteers and providing the extremely valuable intelligence that's allowing the Ukrainians to marshal their limited resources effectively.

Bear in mind my negative assessment has been wrong so far, the Ukrainians have fought so much better and the Russians so much worse than myself and many proper analysists thought. I was one of the many that thought Ukraine could resist a few days before the Russians broke through and it was a done deal. However, Zelensky rallying his nation has been a boon to the fight together with battlefield success. The war is certainly not decided by any means and I think people like me overstate Russia's ability to absorb losses, it's not 1941, Stalin is not in charge, the current Russian state looks increasingly fragile given the international reaction.
Who knows, if the Ukraine keeps stunting Russian advances effectively the internal pressure in Russia may grow overwhelming. I highly doubt anyone in Russia imagined such a unified international condemnation and such harsh sanctions. A month ago SWIFT was off the table, Nordstream-2 was debatable and Germany sending arms and rearming itself was unimaginable, there's been a sea change in the European political dynamic.

I don't think this is a lost cause as for once there is a strong international reaction to go alongside the action on the ground. I can't imagine that this is a popular war in Russia, the casualties are high, the troops on the ground were not properly prepared for a war and their casualties are immense. Who knows what the actual casualty count is for Russia though, if the Ukrainian numbers are accurate the Russians have taken a third as many losses as their entire war in Afghanistan but in a matter of a week, if the US numbers are accurate, it's still a disaster as its more than the US lost in 20 years in Afghanistan too. Looking at the Russian 'official' numbers those are clearly unbelievable as they've lost more vehicles in verifiable pictures than the Russians say they've lost troops.


More concretely, what do you make of the Polish statement that Polish airfields will support Ukrainian combat operations. For context, Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia all reneged on their initial offers to donate combat planes yesterday. Internal governmental divisions? Faltering resolve after the proud rhetoric of the first three days? Hungary, for example, on Monday denied access to its territory for military aid in transit. Are we just going to reclaim all this undelivered aid, stuck on the Polish border or elsewhere, if Belarus attacks and severs the arteries between Ukraine and Poland? Notice how I'm inadvertently managing to reinstantiate the logical dilemma I just raised...
Honestly I don't know enough on this to really weigh in. I imagine for the aircraft that the logistics of it are too difficult (they've been NATO upgraded and the Ukrainian pilots would need to train up in probably NATO countries first). Additionally, at a time that NATO is trying to guard their border, sending aircraft piecemeal to a war zone with no replacement available only weakens one's own ability to defend.
As for the military aid, I'm sure it will get through somehow, the transiting countries though are understandably worried about Russian reaction.
There are also strong pro-russian elements in a lot of these countries that may be having an effect despite the popular change in opinions.


Also, the Ukrainian policy of conscripting any 18-60 y/o man they can get their hands on is pretty foolish. Maybe we've unlearned a lot of lessons in the 21st century, but putting a rifle in the hands of untrained, unwilling people will almost never contribute to combat effectiveness in defense. The vast majority of these Volks conscripts will flee or surrender upon encountering combat.
I meant to comment on this earlier, I actually fully support it. Not that all those men would be really drafted to fight but that their 'duty' right now is to save their country which can be done many ways, hospitals, fire brigades need help, supplies need to be gathered and distributed. The shock of the invasion and the successful defense of the first few days have apparently had a Pearl Harbor effect on the Ukrainian population, there are a lot that are now determined to do their part which may not necessarily be fighting. Those images of construction vehicles recovering tanks and other combat systems or digging trenches and anti-tank ditches are good examples.
I think the only real negative downside is that on the Russian side they could arguably say that if the whole country is at war with them that there are no true civilian areas and that everything is a legitimate target.

[Shaka_Khan]

They'd be abandoning relatively secure positions, retreating over open ground with no air cover and not really towards anything. Surely if / when they loose the ability to fight a conventional war they'd do better to dissolve into the countryside and if anything destroy targets of opportunity.
That reminds me of the fall of South Vietnam. After getting in danger of being flanked when Ban Me Thuot fell, the South Vietnamese soldiers who were holding relatively secure positions at the Central Highlands were ordered to withdraw and regroup to a smaller area. The withdrawal process was organized badly and became a disaster.



Bear in mind my negative assessment has been wrong so far, the Ukrainians have fought so much better and the Russians so much worse than myself and many proper analysists thought. I was one of the many that thought Ukraine could resist a few days before the Russians broke through and it was a done deal.

It didn't make sense to me that Putin would invade with just 100K soldiers in groups so far away from each other when Ukraine has 200K. And Ukraine isn't a small country. I assumed that Putin would invade if he deployed more soldiers, but he added only about 7K. When he invaded, I initially thought maybe there were a lot more hidden near the border. It turned out that he was underestimating Ukraine. It seems that last year's Afghan situation influenced his opinion. NATO sending anti-tank weapons to Ukraine gave me hope. That reminded me of Afghanistan when the USSR invaded. But now, two-thirds of Russia's soldiers are involved. Ukraine will continue to need supplies.

What happened in Afghanistan last year is different. The Afghans experienced unexpected gaps in their defense and didn't have time to prepare. The garrisons who defended ran out of supplies. Those are just a couple of numerous reasons that Afghanistan fell so quickly. In Ukraine, the president is staying in Kyiv despite the Russians approaching close to the city. NATO continues to supply the Ukrainian military. And Ukraine isn't geographically isolated away from the NATO countries.

[Montmorency]

The Oryx blog (https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1498708685572485127) I've linked that verifies equipment losses.


I’ve lost all hope of accurately depicting Russian equipment losses. They’ve become too numerous. For every entry two new losses pop up. Its carnage.

And I covered the collapse of the Afghan Army in August:

https://i.imgur.com/IENH2MV.jpg

A different style of visual representation of the conflict than "zone of control."
https://twitter.com/i/status/1499048268512493568
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1499041856772276230
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1499042158753742850


The Russian fascist is focused on recounting stories of Ukrainian militias falling afoul of friendly fire and killing 15-20 of each other (it's always 15-20). In discussing captured towns, he makes a big show of how acquiescence will return citizens to a normal, stable existence (under the watchful sentinel of Russian soldiers, who protect them from marauders), whereas shows of resistance by fanatical nationalists will be crushed into a fine potato salad.

Also, he gave Konotop as an example of a town that negotiated peaceful coexistence with the Russians, yet here's the mayor today... (watch that embedded video!!!)
https://news.sky.com/video/ukraine-crisis-konotop-mayor-urges-residents-to-fight-as-russian-troops-surround-city-12555707

When switching between Latin and Cyrillic in the course of keeping up with events, the name "Konotop" is viscerally frustrating, because (is there a term for this?) the lexeme "Konotop" in Latin alphabet is - transliterated - Kopotor" in Cyrillic. It routinely trips me up.



I don't think this is a lost cause as for once there is a strong international reaction to go alongside the action on the ground. I can't imagine that this is a popular war in Russia, the casualties are high, the troops on the ground were not properly prepared for a war and their casualties are immense. Who knows what the actual casualty count is for Russia though, if the Ukrainian numbers are accurate the Russians have taken a third as many losses as their entire war in Afghanistan but in a matter of a week, if the US numbers are accurate, it's still a disaster as its more than the US lost in 20 years in Afghanistan too. Looking at the Russian 'official' numbers those are clearly unbelievable as they've lost more vehicles in verifiable pictures than the Russians say they've lost troops.

But the majority of Russian people are only exposed to state-approved media, if any at all; it takes active effort even in the "Free World" to seek out detailed information and analysis of current affairs, and in Russia requires some level of technical savvy besides. If you take the fascist Youtuber Yuri Podolyaka I keep citing, his videos on Youtube alone routinely pull hundreds of thousands to low millions of views (and there will be more on native Russian platforms such as Telegram and Vkontakte). I wish you could understand the stuff he says. This is what typical Russians hear *if* they seek out information at all.

It would take a long time, months, for news of casualties to really filter through and percolate, and Ukraine can't hold out for that time, nor inflict sufficient casualties anyway: one or two hundred thousand at a minimum. Russians today basically accept their leadership and system, whereas in the late 1980s the condition of Russian society was altogether more chaotic and disgruntled. Moreover, under Gorbachev's glasnost the information environment was in some ways more liberal than now, which was a driving factor for the soaring unpopularity of the war by the late 80s.


which can be done many ways, hospitals, fire brigades need help, supplies need to be gathered and distributed.

True.


I wonder if in 10-20 years we're going to lament a missed opportunity for a decisive Coalition intervention, though to be clear I entertain many doubts myself on the issue.

[spmetla]

But the majority of Russian people are only exposed to state-approved media, if any at all; it takes active effort even in the "Free World" to seek out detailed information and analysis of current affairs, and in Russia requires some level of technical savvy besides. If you take the fascist Youtuber Yuri Podolyaka I keep citing, his videos on Youtube alone routinely pull hundreds of thousands to low millions of views (and there will be more on native Russian platforms such as Telegram and Vkontakte). I wish you could understand the stuff he says. This is what typical Russians hear *if* they seek out information at all.

That is true and a large hurdle to overcome, however because Russia has conscription it does make people a bit more politically aware and engaged once caskets start returning in place of their sons, brothers, and fathers as the US saw in Vietnam.
I have no doubt that most Russians are proud of their country and want to support their troops, however, to have their families killed in a war of choice against their fellow Slavs that are unbelievably called 'Nazis' is probably a bit too much.

You're also right in the slowness that the casualties may cause an effect at home. The economic effects however are immediate and the standard of living and access to the rest of the world that so many have enjoyed for decades has in one fell swoop disappeared. Propaganda can only do so much for blaming everyone else as this is a country normally engaged in the world, not a hermit state like North Korea.
The Beginning of the End for Putin?
Dictatorships Look Stable—Until They Aren’t
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2022-03-02/beginning-end-putin?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter_posts&utm_campaign=tw_daily_soc

But there are also good reasons that the tides might turn. Despite the repression, protests have taken place in more than 58 cities across Russia. The early demonstrations are remarkable not just for the bravery that they reflect, but also for the potential that they hold—protests in highly repressive regimes are more likely to be successful than protests in less repressive environments. That is because when people take to the streets even when the costs of doing so are high, it sends a powerful signal to other citizens that their dissent is shared. In this way, these early antiwar protests have the potential to trigger cascading opposition. The fact that Russians view Putin’s war as being unjust and egregious makes it especially likely to prompt widespread backlash.

Is Poland Sending Fighter Jets to Ukraine?
The short answer is “maybe.” But, well, it’s complicated
https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/is-poland-sending-fighter-jets-to-ukraine/

Ukrainian pilots are currently in Poland, New Lines can confirm, following reporting by Yahoo! News. But they are there not for training purposes but for “consultations” with Warsaw on completing the relevant paperwork for a possible handover of aircraft, according to a former high-ranking Polish military official, who added that “no decision at the political level has been made” as to whether this transaction will occur.

That source also told New Lines that Poland has 28 MiG-29s it could deliver to Ukraine, and R-73s short-range air-to-air missiles, all of which would be of enormous use to Ukraine in its war against Russia. Some Polish aviation experts think that, in reality, only 23 of them are operational.

“The problem is Poland needs MiG-29s, too, because our Air Force works in pairs. Two jets always fly together to intercept or escort any foreign aircraft, such as Russian Su-27s [fighters], that come anywhere near Polish airspace.”

“The Ukrainians got ahead of themselves,” the former official noted, by announcing the transfer of foreign MiG-29s as more or less done and dusted.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command posted to Facebook on March 1 that it was receiving 70 MiG-20s and Su-25s from Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria, adding that 28 MiG-29s would not only come from Poland but “if necessary … be able to base themselves at Polish airports, from which Ukrainian pilots will perform combat tasks.”

The Polish MiG-29 have been modernized over the years and have been equipped with NATO communications and reconnaissance systems. These jets would have to be stripped of this equipment and reflagged before being transferred to the Ukrainian air force.

Another issue involves the logistics of getting the planes to Ukraine. As a NATO member state, Poland would not allow Ukrainian pilots to simply fly them from its runways into Ukrainian airspace because doing so would risk provoking Russia and making Poland (and NATO) direct parties to the conflict. It is unclear, the former Polish military officer told New Lines, how the planes would be imported into Ukraine. There is almost no chance that Ukrainians would be able to base these jets on Polish territory.

Initial reports suggested that the U.S. would backfill Poland’s inventory of MiG-29s with the U.S.-made F-16, of which Poland currently has 48 in its inventory. However, Polish pilots tend to prefer the more familiar Soviet-era MiG, which they view as a “better” fighter jet, according to one of them.

Furthermore, Polish technicians have greater experience fixing the Soviet-era planes than they do their American counterparts.

The above explains the lag in the MiG-29 problem a bit better than my assumptions.

[Montmorency]

Just good technical information (https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944) from an expert:


This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.

For the sin of being the new guy, I was the DCMA quality auditor in charge of the US Army's FMTV "vehicle exercise program" at the contractor manufacturing them from the Mid-1990's to the mid-2000's Then we got more new guys.

Short form: Military trucks need to be......turned over and moved once a month for preventative maintenance reasons.

In particular you want to exercise the central tire air inflation system (CTIS) to see if lines have leaks or had insect/vermin nests blocking the system.

One of the biggest reasons for the repositioning, per TACOM logistic Representatives, was that direct sunlight ages truck tires.

The repositioning of Trucks in close parking prevents a lot of this sun rotting and cycling the CTIS keeps the tire sidewalls supple.

When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end. The side walls get rotted/brittle such that using low tire pressure setting for any appreciable distance will cause the tires to fail catastrophically via rips.

See early video:

Now look at the same Pantsir-S1 tire sidewalls after the Ukrainians tried to tow or drive it out of the mud.

The right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up.

No one exercised that vehicle for 1 year

There is a huge operational level implication in this. If the Russian Army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1. They were too corrupt to exercise the trucks & wheeled AFV's now in Ukraine.

The Russians simply cannot risk them off road during the Rasputitsa/Mud season

And there is photographic evidence of this.

There are 60(+) Russian army trucks crowded & parked on this raised road bed to avoid the fate of the mud-bogged Pantsir-S1.

Given the demonstrated levels of corruption in truck maintenance. There is no way in h--l that there are enough tires in the Russian army logistical system.

So their wheeled AFV/truck park is as road bound as Russian Army columns were in the 1st Russo-Finnish War.

What that means is that as long as and where ever the Spring Rasputitsa is happening. The Russian Army attack front is three wheeled AFV's wide.

When the Ukrainians can block the road with ATGM destroyed vehicles. They can move down either side of the road like Fins in 1939

Jesus, if true, it's practically to the standard of the lazy days of the Soviet Army.

[Furunculus]

https://www.eurointelligence.com/

Not so swift after all

FAZ informs us that the Swift sanctions are essentially dead in the water. Only seven banks, representing a quarter of the Russian banking sector, are subject to the sanctions. What happened is that once this sanctions list went through the mill of talks with member states, only this pared-down lists survives. The EU originally promised to hit 70% of the Russian banking system. One reason for the exclusion of Sberbank is the deposits held by savers in the bank’s EU subsidiaries. It would have triggered massive deposit insurance claims.

The reduced ambitions embed an important piece of hard information. It is telling us that EU member states will not be ready to impose transactional sanctions on Russia in areas deemed vital to the EU economy, especially the import of Russian gas, oil and coal. What this will also tell us is that we have no means to crush the Russian economy, as Bruno Le Maire suggested. Vladimir Putin has run into big problems with his military campaign. But he will be able to finance the war.

Putin did not anticipate the central bank sanctions. That has turned out to be a real problem for the Russian economy. But he anticipated correctly that the west would continue to buy Russian gas and oil. We think the Russian leadership is also right in their assumption that the main effect of the Nord Stream 2 closure is not so much to make us less dependent on Russian gas, but to increase the price of gas. It will only make us less dependent on Putin if we were to invest in alternative sources of energy. The main fiscal effect of the Russian war against Ukraine is the massive increase in defence spending in Germany and France. Do we have the fiscal capacity to do both, defence and renewable energy investments, at a time when interest rates start to normalise?

The seven banks affected by the Swift exclusion are VTB, Bank Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Rossiya Bank, Sovcombank und VEB. Notably, the two Russian banking giants, Sberbank und Gazprom Bank, are excluded. The ban will only come into effect in ten days, which will allow the Russians to reorganise their banking system, and we presume, re-route payments through banks that are not affected by the sanctions. What this means is that the Swift ban falls into the SINO category: sanctions in name only. The EU is cheering on the Ukrainian side from a safe distance, watching from warm living rooms, heated by Russian gas.

[Shaka_Khan]

China is clearly watching to see what the consequences of an invasion on Taiwan would be.

[Montmorency]

They finally dropped the Bayraktar propaganda.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSzZT6VwENo


A poll for Finland’s state broadcaster Yle showed 53 per cent of Finns supported joining Nato, 28 per cent were against and 19 per cent did not know. The last time Yle conducted such a poll in 2017 only 19 per cent were in favour of joining while 53 per cent were against.

In Sweden, a late February poll commissioned by public broadcaster SVT found 41 per cent of Swedes supported NATO membership and 35 per cent opposed it, marking the first time that those in favor exceeded those against.

Goes to show how anti-entanglement the Swedish (https://globalnews.ca/news/8656956/finland-sweden-nato-russia-ukraine-war/) and Finnish (https://www.ft.com/content/83deaf3e-6db9-43dd-a2dc-5e9493265c2d) publics were, if even now you can't guarantee bare majority support for NATO accession.



https://www.eurointelligence.com/

I found the Reuters article (https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/eu-excludes-seven-russian-banks-swift-official-journal-2022-03-02/) the writeup was based off of. Comparing them, I'm not sure the writeup adds any value, and it excludes some useful information to make room for editorializing.


Sberbank (SBER.MM), Russia's largest lender, and Gazprombank were not included because they are the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas, which EU countries are still buying despite the conflict in Ukraine.

The EU official added that these two Russian banks were nevertheless subject to other measures.

Officials have been concerned about disrupting energy flows to Europe and the official said it was not possible simply to allow energy-related transactions and exclude others as SWIFT was unable to differentiate between types of payments.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the decision to exclude Sberbank and Gazprombank from sanctions due to "transactions related to energy supplies to the EU" was unacceptable.

"As Poland, we demand that all Russian entities, thanks to which Russia finances the war in Ukraine, be effectively and fully covered by sanctions," he wrote on Facebook.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told a news briefing that more Russian banks could be excluded from SWIFT, which has 11,000 members and no clear global rival.

Although China has set up its own system, it remains small, EU officials said, and despite the existence of a Russian system as well, SWIFT is still used for some 70% of transfers there.

Banks could still carry out transfers through work-arounds such as faxes or bilateral messaging systems, if they existed.

VEB said it was largely focused on domestic projects which were unaffected. For overseas-related businesses it would use SPFS, a messaging system developed by Russia's central bank.

Sovcombank said SWIFT would not impact it because other sanctions had already blocked its ability to make overseas payments. Promsvyazbank said it was prepared for the disconnection from SWIFT and it would not have a significant impact on the bank's operations.

[Montmorency]

The International Brigade (https://euobserver.com/world/154476)is forming. To their victory this go around. But there isn't much time.

As many as 16,000 foreigners have so far answered the call from some 20 nationalities, Zelensky said Thursday, according to the Reuters news agency.
[...]
There were some 400 fighters coming from Sweden, media there said. Another 70 volunteers, including 50 former soldiers, were also coming from as far afield as Japan, Reuters reported.



If NATO won't commit, at least we should return to Cold War tactics of (im)plausible deniability. Donate a wing of F16s, F18s, and their supply/technical train to Ukraine. How will they pilot them? No problem, I'm sure there are ""mercenaries"" around with plenty of relevant experience. Far from unprecedented.

[Furunculus]

the surprising lack of exposure of UK banks to russian money - relative to our european neighbours:
(article is paywalled, but its the graph at the start that is interesting)

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/03/05/european-banks-have-most-to-lose-in-russia?utm_medium=social-media.content.np&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=editorial-social&utm_content=discovery.content

Also relevant to the UK Politics thread, Pann?

On a similar line of who Ukraine finds to be the most valuable ally - in supporting Ukraine rather than punishing Russia - surprisingly Johnson appears to be the go-to man:
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1499823048005926919

[Montmorency]

The fascist calmly laid out - and I can't say this isn't evidenced in most conflict zones - that according to predictable human psychology the people of occupied Ukraine will gradually be reprogrammed not to fear or resist Russians by instituting a change of government and by replacing their media with Russian-approved content. People will habituate and return to their normal, peaceful, lives in pursuit of their private better futures.

It's true. Guerrillas are always a very tiny proportion of the population. Most people can't sustain intrinsic rage and will to action. It's much easier to prop up an actively-resisting military formation than to foment an insurrection...

He also claims government officials in Ukrainian-held territory are either fleeing en masse or preparing to give over their towns.

Relatedly, the Russians have declared the Kherson People's Republic. Seems to me they're going to be installing puppets in every oblast they occupy. So far Kherson is the only oblast that has been more or less fully occupied, other than the pre-existing seperatist republics.

In operational news, he's confident that there are no Ukrainian regulars to contest the Russian advance outside Mykolaiv in the southern area of operations west of the Dnieper. He also vehemently declaimed Ukrainian soldiers, as Putinists have been for a while, that it is necessary to shell schools and residential buildings because they're used by snipers, artillery spotters, and other no-goodniks. (It's no coincidence he mentioned snipers. The US trained (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/05/ukraine-russia-war-putin/) many of them, and they've been killing Russian officers (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10578783/Two-Russian-commanders-killed-frontline-Ukraine-Western-official-claims.html) pretty good.)



And here (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/covid-vaccine-judge-navy-warship-religious-freedom.html) I used to think the authority of the Commander in Chief was absolute, but it seems this doesn't apply when you're a far-right judge under a Democratic president. Lawless Republicans are an intense threat to security of every kind, including national.


But the Navy cannot currently deploy this warship, because it has lost trust in its commanding officer, an anti-vaxxer who has repeatedly disobeyed lawful orders, misled superiors, and allegedly exposed dozens of his crew to COVID-19 due to a refusal to get tested.

The Navy wants to remove this officer, whom I’ll call John Doe, from command of the destroyer. But it can’t, because a single federal judge in Tampa has forbidden it. This judge has overruled multiple admirals and captains who assert, under oath, that deploying the ship with Doe in charge would imperil national security. He instead ordered the Navy, under threat of sanction, to keep this disobedient officer in charge of a $1.8 billion warship. The federal judiciary is quite literally preventing the nation from defending itself at sea.

That judge, Steven Douglas Merryday, is a George H.W. Bush nominee who sits on a federal trial court in Florida. He gained notoriety in 2021 after blocking a CDC order that limited cruise ship operations due to the pandemic. So, when the far-right Liberty Counsel sought to halt President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the armed forces, they took their case to Merryday’s court. Predictably, they prevailed: In February, Merryday ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, siding with the plaintiffs, Navy Commander John Doe and Lieutenant Colonel Jane Smith. (I’ve applied these pseudonyms to the officers because the court granted them anonymity.)

But Merryday did not merely exempt Doe and Smith from the mandate. Rather, he handed down a sweeping restraining order that prohibited the Navy from taking any “adverse action” against the plaintiffs because of their unvaccinated status. Specifically, he barred the Navy from reassigning them for any reason whatsoever.

This order created immediate problems. An active-duty member of the Marine Corps, Smith is slated to take command of a Combat Logistics Battalion later this year. As Lieutenant General W.M. Jurney attested, this commander must disembark at ally nations all over the world. Many of these countries require all U.S. service members to be vaccinated against COVID before stepping on their shores. Because she is unvaccinated, Smith is not “worldwide deployable,” in Jurney’s words. And yet Merryday has forced the Navy to deploy her.

But Doe poses the bigger threat. He is currently the commanding officer of a warship that may soon set sail. If he falls seriously ill at sea—which is more likely because he refuses the vaccine—he may thwart the entire mission. The issue, however, goes deeper than that. In declarations, Vice Admiral D.W. Dwyer and Captain Frank Brandon explained that Doe’s anti-vax beliefs are part of a broader pattern of insubordination. Brandon testified that last November, he spoke with Doe on Doe’s ship one day before its scheduled departure. Doe was experiencing multiple symptoms of COVID, and appeared to have a relatively severe case; he could, Brandon recalled, “barely speak.” Yet Doe refused to get tested—a clear violation of protocol—and attended a briefing in a cramped room with about 60 other people. Brandon ordered Doe to get a test, which revealed that he did, indeed, have COVID, and exposed dozens of others to the virus.

Doe engaged in other deceptive behavior. For instance, when requesting leave, he concealed the fact that he was flying to another state, which would have triggered a mandatory risk assessment. After Brandon discovered this subterfuge, he learned that Doe had traveled to a high-risk area, requiring five days’ quarantine upon return. Doe did not inform his Executive Officer of this extended absence, creating a “significant and very rare” disruption “across the waterfront” during a crucial phase of ship preparation. Brandon concluded that Doe “intentionally deceived me,” “put his crew at risk,” “failed to comply with the Navy’s COVID-19 policies,” and engaged in “negligent behavior” in “performance of his duties.”

light of these fears, the Department of Justice pleaded with Merryday to pause his decision. On Wednesday, he declined. Merryday scorned the notion that Doe might get sick, writing that he is “triumphantly fit and slim and strong.” He also implied that Navy leadership may be lying about Doe’s insubordination in retaliation against his religious beliefs. Merryday declined to fully credit their testimony until he could subject them to cross-examination. He concluded that the plaintiffs’ right to religious liberty trumps the Navy’s profound national security concerns.

The Navy and the federal judiciary are therefore in a standoff. The Navy will not deploy Doe’s warship until he is stripped of command. Merryday will not allow it to do so. As a result, Merryday has effectively taken a 10,000 ton, $1.8 billion guided-missile destroyer out of commission. As the Navy builds up its naval presence in Europe to guard against further Russian aggression, it is down a ship—solely because an unelected judge in Tampa has inserted himself into the chain of command.

[Montmorency]

Illustration:

Well-watched videos filmed in occupied Melitopol and Kherson, apparently by rando civilians, and not the only. They emphasize how everything is safe and peaceful and in good order, and the comments almost universally express relief that the situation is so calm, everyone is doing a good job, everything is fine, glory to Russian soldiers, soon this will all be over, etc. This is the typical framework for Good Russians.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ18DCGz8Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbq-wRPcm_Y


Though not necessarily more representative, here are a bunch of videos from the past day or two of Ukrainians in the named cities protesting Russian occupation.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1499401416221200391 [Melitopol]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1500118411912916996 [Melitopol]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1500001665277120515 [Kherson]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1500044763306897409 [Kherson]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1500062758007623687 [Kherson]

[Montmorency]

The fascist says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5x0px8TNr8) this isn't a war between Ukraine and Russia, but a war between the US (and the UK) and Russia (and China) over Ukraine, a Third World War of a hybrid sort that began long before 2014. This (phase of the) war was inevitable and is not the result of individual decision-makers. That the Americans - though he hangs himself with the un-introspective proviso that he has no idea how - must have secretly provoked Russia in such a way that it was forced to try to resolve the Ukrainian question with haste, in 2022. All of this was preplanned; Poland allegedly prepared to absorb millions of refugees starting a year ago. All the unpleasant videos being shared in Russia and Belarus? Fakes, venomous blanks in the American information war. The world has crossed the Rubicon and Russians will never again return to normalcy and comfort. They must prepare for intensifying hybrid war with the United States, suppressing their "hearts" so as to focus their minds on utmost service to their government (implying "total war").

And the Goebbels-looking rat bastard mumbles it all so coolly.

This is the sort of fascist derangement that needs to be utterly eradicated from the planet in order for peace to obtain. No, you low-human filth, you are the very font of conflict and misery. Eat shit and die and all this sort of trouble magically vanishes faster than your head spins. It's the fascist element, those who wish to realize pride through blood and soil, who clutch the right to rule against their bosom, who have no other concept of existence, that stirs strife, not some abstract law of nations.

Anyway, he naturally doesn't remark on the facts that China has no stake in Russia's conquests, and would rather prefer fewer dramatics disrupting its economic balance, or at least would prefer both Russia and the US keep each other out of China's own hair. Nor can he allow that France and Germany and the rest of the continent are sick of Russia's bullshit and ready to back up their ire with arms under popular approval. (Actually, his only comment on France and Germany is that they are being "forced" by the Anglo-Saxons into a confrontation with Russia.) The worldview is obdurately Manichean, never mind that to the extent Russia can even be called a partner to China, it is a junior one.

Fucking sick pieces of shit.

He's an extreme manifester of Duginism, the obscene dream that Russia and the United States must perpetually compete for world domination. It's literally reading 1984 as a manual. The only (family-friendly) cure for this depth of perversion is to break all the toys and votives about which the ideology swards. Who will de-Nazify and demilitarize Russia? Only the proles can renounce Eurasia.

He's adding hundreds of thousands of subscribers daily on Youtube alone; I won't bother to make guesses as to their geographic distribution.

And some buddy thinks the risk of nuclear escalation should we give Putin's army a booboo, while it's at its weakest, is too high?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJ5UKKoycI


You can forget about being a world power
As you were recognized by the world before
Now you don't even have the right
To say you are right

[Furunculus]

Who is "the fascist"? Are we talking about Putin...

[Montmorency]

I linked the Youtuber Yuri Podolyaka earlier, but also at the top of my previous post. I've commented on him and his analysis in most of my posts for a week. If you can't get an independent translation of his content, you'll have to take my word for it. People like him see the world in terms of a paraphysical confrontation between Russian-Eurasian and Anglo-American civilizations.



You know how small children sometimes playfully count objects around them? She's counting burned houses (https://twitter.com/i/status/1499665972449492994). [VIDEO]

[Montmorency]

I loved this song back in the day.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-rdzMo1MU&list=LL&index=1

Puts one in mind of Andy Samberg.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1499341576518217730 [VIDEO]



Another clip, captured by New York Times reporters on the ground, demonstrates the chaotic nature of artillery fragmentation. For some bizarre reason, the Russians lobbed a single shell into an open street, with no discernible nearby fighting or military target, nor any followup. Just one shell.

The man talking to the reporters at the beginning was standing out in the open, maybe 10* meters from the blast. He was seemingly unaffected, at least externally. But a family of four walking much further away, 30* meters say, was totally wiped out. Just random death from above.

Poetically, the first man was saying something about civilians ("evacuating 200 children, peaceful population") the second the shell struck.

*These are very approximate distances. I am not apt at estimating distance

https://twitter.com/i/status/1500428472505839618
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-irpin-civilian-death.html

[Montmorency]

spmetla I'm going to need your help on this one.

I want to start figuring out what sort of assets, manpower, the Russian military has brought to bear in its war, and still can.

US intelligence estimates that 95% of the entire assembled invasion force has entered Ukraine. Some of that remainder has to be naval infantry (brigade's worth?) kept ready in Crimea for amphibious assault against Odessa. Various sources report or suggest modest reserves or reinforcements are starting to be brought to the AO.

The Russian armed forces today are built on a contract-professional base with cadre-conscript backfill. Something like a quarter of Russian troops should be conscripts in the active service. We will return to this point.

Both Ukraine and Russia are both reportedly deploying elite special response police in military function, but we'll ignore that and other bits and bobs.

According to IISS Military Balance, the personnel counts for the active service in 2021 are (red for non-frontline):


ACTIVE 900,000
Army 280,000
Navy 150,000 [Naval Infantry (Marines) ε35,000; Naval Aviation ε31,000]
Air 165,000
Airborne (VDV) 45,000
Special Operations Forces 1,000
Strategic Rocket Force 50,000
Railway Forces 29,000
Command and Support 180,000)

Paramilitary 554,000 [Border Guard Service ε160,000; Federal Guard Service ε40,000–50,000; Rosgvardia ε340,000; Alfa & Vympel SF ε4,000]

Conscript liability 12 months (conscripts now can opt for contract service immediately, which entails a 24-month contract

This article (https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/explainer-russian-conscription-reserve-and-mobilization) is a good primer on the Russian system of conscription. Conscripts serve for a term of 1 year, of which 3 months is basic training and 3 months is advanced training. There should currently be at least 100 thousand conscripts undergoing training in Russia, spread across all branches. In April the next round of conscription was scheduled to begin, but Putin mustered early just days before the invasion. "Current law precludes conscripts from deploying to combat with less than four months of training; however, martial law or general mobilization could supersede the current policy, allowing for the immediate employment of new conscripts or mobilized reservists."

The conscripts whose term is up next month (drafted April 2021) will almost certainly not be released. However, figure 130 thousand conscripts (drafted October 2021) in training and yet unassigned. We can assume conscripts are spread evenly through the armed forces, but regardless Putin will probably choose to rely on the class still training as a reserve of first call for reinforcing the infantry.

Russia has a 2-million reserve, of which virtually none is active reserve, making the potential Russian reservist hardly better in quality and motivation than an "Enemy at the Gates"-style conscript. Because of the political and disruption invited by mass mobilization, we should expect Putin to rely foremost on active military sources of manpower. We also ignore the reserve for the purposes of our calculation because reservists will always be directed as replacements for unit casualties, and won't be constituted in their distinct formations short of total mobilization.

Now, to the structure of the Army. It was in recent years reformed around the Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) concept, with infantry BTGs integrating various elements around a core of 3 mechanized infantry companies and 1 armored company; for armored BTGs the ratio is reversed. AFAIK only the Army has been structured around BTGs, with airborne, naval infantry, Rosgvardia, and others developing along different lines. BTGs are said to be 600-1000 personnel; at the battalion level I believe almost all are frontline combat personnel. Russia maintained something like 170 BTGs as of last year, which with an average strength of 800 (fudging) would represent 136 thousand out of 280 thousand, which would roughly track with a guess that 50% are non-combat, maybe. This would be flawed if it turns out the Logistical service branch directly serves the Army and other branches (i.e. that this function is not internal to the Army).

A number we'll return to is that at least 100 BTGs (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-intel-nine-probable-russian-routes-ukraine-full-scale-n1288922) were assigned to the invasion force by mid-February. I'm not going to look for accountable estimates of the invasion force at D0, but IIRC it ranged from 150 thousand to over 200 thousand. We can clearly tell then that BTGs can't account for the size of the invasion force, and that VDV, Rosgvardia, etc. must have been included. I'm not sure if the operation has relied on naval infantry overland yet, but we do know that VDV and Rosgvardia have taken a prominent role in battle against the Ukrainians. So have separatist militias, but AFAIK their losses are not included among Ukrainian or other estimates of Russian losses, nor were their forces counted among estimates of Russian buildup.
(Interesting note from link: "In one approach outlined in the assessment, the Russian military would take over most Ukrainian territory east of the Dnipro River, which includes about 50 percent of Ukrainian military forces, including their most capable units." I read elsewhere that the bulk of the Ukainian military started out as operational reserve in the West.)


So let's begin subtracting.

First, forces stationed abroad (not including UN peacekeeping contribution). For now, I'm ignoring equipment such as aerial platforms. The Transnistria garrison will never be discounted from the invasion force.


ARMENIA: 3,500
AZERBAIJAN: 817
GEORGIA: 7,000;
KYRGYZSTAN: ε500
MOLDOVA/TRANSDNIESTR: ε1,500
SYRIA: 4,000
TAJIKISTAN: 5,000

Call it 23 thousand RU personnel abroad. I can't think of any way to adjust this figure in a way that doesn't fall afoul of double counting, but I'll call it a flat reduction of around 10 thousand from the whatever the final tally comes out to be. Non-frontline branches sum to 540/900 thousand. We need a way to exclude the 130 thousand training conscripts not yet assigned without double counting from the non-frontline services, so still assuming proportional distribution of conscripts in practice we should get the percentage for 540/900. This is a clean 60% non-frontline, so 0.4*130 = 52 thousand still in training. 360-52 = 308 thousand, 300 thousand after the flat reduction. But how many are non-combat oroles? I could very crudely estimate that, as a contemporary military, around 50% of all Russian servicemembers are admin, technical, logistical, etc. That is, non-combat or support roles of any sort. What complicates my ability to apply this estimate with respect to evaluating combat strength of frontline units is the existence of a whole separate logistical branch (see above). Indeed, if I halve 300 thousand I get 150 thousand, which entails a low ball for the invasion force but also that Putin deployed almost all of Russia's conventional striking power to Ukraine. But then again, there's the issue that the estimates on the size of the invasion force itself have never been clear on whether the figures include or exclude support personnel. If anyone knows the answer, it could dramatically improve my exercise.

If I haven't been clear enough up to now, I'm trying to isolate the pre-war component of the Russian military that was deployable groundpounders alone. Serious gaps, to summarize:

1. How many men in the initial invasion assembly?
1.a. How many of them in support roles?
1.b. How many in what I termed "non-frontline" branches, such as Air Force?
2. How many in the Army/Marines/Naval Infantry/Rosgvardia in support roles nationally?
3. How many separatists are there?


Provisionally then, I'm going to make the leap that on Feb 24 this year there were at a very minimum 200 thousand in the Russian military available for frontline duty. Some of these must be permanently stationed in various parts of the country, especially border regions other than Ukraine.

But that's not where we stop, because we haven't counted paramilitaries yet.

Recall


Paramilitary 554,000 [Border Guard Service ε160,000; Federal Guard Service ε40,000–50,000; Rosgvardia ε340,000; Alfa & Vympel SOF ε4,000]

Border guards might be a future source of manpower, but for now discount them. The Federal Guards/Protective Service are internal police so for now discount them. The majority of Russian SOF have apparently been deployed to Ukraine, but there are so few of them that I'll work towards round numbers without reference to them. So we're left with Rosgvardia, the National Guard. Low-quality light mechanized infantry.

Once again, I have no idea how to enumerate support vs. combat personnel, so I'll rely on ranges again. Say 150-250 thousand Russian paramilitary available

So on Feb. 24 there would have been at least 400 thousand personnel, active military and paramilitary, available for combat duty in Russia, beside over 100 thousand conscripts finishing up their training in the near future. While many of these must be permanently stationed in various locations around the country, they can be redeployed to Ukraine more readily than reservist in bulk.

However much these figures do or don't overlap with estimates of the invasion force, it's pretty clear that Russia has plenty with which to reinforce its operation before resorting to significant reserve callup. If we accept a moderate-high estimate of 10 thousand Russian casualties so far, adjusting for losses among Air Force and support personnel the Russians may have only lost as little as 1% of their ground combat personnel. That's not nearly enough considering Ukraine doesn't have unlimited reserves. To say nothing of their precious trained regulars. I don't believe they've been inflicting much better than a 2:1 loss ratio against Russia so far. Russia will bury Ukraine with its resources unless:

1. The military is paralyzed by mutinies and other mass resistance.
2. The ability to sustain multiple simultaneous operations is crippled by shortages of materiel or other logistical resources.
3. Russian tactics never pivot to reliance on artillery to neutralize enemy defenses (as opposed to feeding AFVs into urban traps).

[Montmorency]

Here's another mapper, this one attempting to represent combat formations. I'm scanning ~105 BTGs in Ukraine on the current maps, though I can't tell how or whether he represents Rosgvardia and VDV.
https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman

https://i.imgur.com/M15sCrM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/d0Lnvvh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TIGI2YP.jpg

[Furunculus]

A stark view that supports your pessimism, Monty:
https://twitter.com/defencewithac/status/1501006258899460103

[Montmorency]

Correction, I've seen analysts speaking of the VDV in terms of BTGs, so I'll take it that they inherit that structure as well. Though according to IISS Military Balance,



SPECIAL FORCES
1 (AB Recce) SF bde
MANOEUVRE
Air Manoeuvre
1 AB div (1 tk bn, 3 para/air aslt regt, 1 arty regt, 1 AD
regt)
1 AB div (1 tk bn, 2 para/air aslt regt, 1 para/air aslt bn, 1
arty regt, 1 AD regt)
2 AB div (2 para/air aslt regt, 1 arty regt, 1 AD regt)
1 indep AB bde
3 air aslt bde


A little tough to interpret, since the BTG system is supposed to deprecate regiments and integrate two or three artillery batteries and one or two air defense batteries per battalion.

But let's see...

2 tank btn, 9 assault regiments, 5 brigades. Reported total force inventory of 160 tanks (T72).

Brigade = 3 battalions, regiment = 2? = 35 battalions... (Count the 4 AD, 4 arty reg separate or distribute among?) Yeah, I suppose it more or less tracks with 45 thousand personnel total. But then VDV battalions can't be structured just like Army battalions, because an Army armored battalion would have 3 tank companies, 3x10 = 30 tanks, and an infantry/mech battalion would have 1 tank company = 10 tanks. Either the VDV tank battalions are superloaded with tanks and the VDV assault battalions don't integrate tanks, or that contingent of tanks is not actively allocated in full.



Tangentially, I think Oryx remarked that at least one VDV battalion has been destroyed just by confirmed equipment nixed.



The Donbas front is closer and closer to the precipice.

More than destroying enemy forces, the Ukrainians have been doing well in destroying columns of trucks (https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1500213943012319252) and artillery. The Russian military is agreed by all to be hobbled by logistics failures, and the more trucks and trains they lose, the more infantry they have to devote to securing rear areas, the slower they can build up supplies and replenish damaged or broken vehicles, the fewer axes they can advance along and slower... and so on. This buys the Ukrainians time.

At any rate, the Russian military is a sham and even its latest technologies (often based on final Soviet designs) aren't worth a great deal. Big win for Turkey's arms industry (they also make helicopters).

Speaking of Turkey, in 2019 they brutally carved out a security corridor in Northern Syria on the pretext of enhancing border security adjacent to a chaotic, terrorist-packed territory. Poland needs to be licensed by its allies in staking a similar claim in Western Ukraine down from the Belarus border to the Southern Bug. After all, Poland, like Turkey, is veritably absorbing millions of refugees (a million in just over a week). Good stepping stone for escalation against Russia within a range of options, and well within contemporary standards of deniability. Other NATO countries, and US, can backfill the missing dispositions in Poland itself. Frees Ukrainian reserve brigades to move up. If we're worried about ballistic missile strikes splashing against Polish forces, their deployment can be publicly disclosed and away from typical counterforce targets such as Ukrainian airfields and depots. Just do it.

[spmetla]

A little tough to interpret, since the BTG system is supposed to deprecate regiments and integrate two or three artillery batteries and one or two air defense batteries per battalion.

But let's see...

2 tank btn, 9 assault regiments, 5 brigades. Reported total force inventory of 160 tanks (T72).

Brigade = 3 battalions, regiment = 2? = 35 battalions... (Count the 4 AD, 4 arty reg separate or distribute among?) Yeah, I suppose it more or less tracks with 45 thousand personnel total. But then VDV battalions can't be structured just like Army battalions, because an Army armored battalion would have 3 tank companies, 3x10 = 30 tanks, and an infantry/mech battalion would have 1 tank company = 10 tanks. Either the VDV tank battalions are superloaded with tanks and the VDV assault battalions don't integrate tanks, or that contingent of tanks is not actively allocated in full.

The BTG system is like the US Brigade system but it is hard to estimate a strict heirachy and quantity because Russia, just like the US and most countries does 'force tailoring' and will add and take away units under Brigade "Task Forces" or BTGs for the Russias to add capabilities as needed.
I do agree on the assessment though, the VDV has taken a pounding and they've likely lost in KIA a Battalion at least and I think a brigade in casualties and equipment damage/loss.

This guy on twitter is doing a good job of mapping and is actually trying to estimate the Ukraininan forces as well which is something we haven't seen much of.
https://twitter.com/JominiW
25367

More than destroying enemy forces, the Ukrainians have been doing well in destroying columns of trucks and artillery. The Russian military is agreed by all to be hobbled by logistics failures, and the more trucks and trains they lose, the more infantry they have to devote to securing rear areas, the slower they can build up supplies and replenish damaged or broken vehicles, the fewer axes they can advance along and slower... and so on. This buys the Ukrainians time.
Absolutely correct, and the Russian's being a mechanized/motorized force are tied to the roads and open areas for combat so their axises of advance are somewhat predictable now, especially so the supply lines.
This was a good video that educated me a bit on Russia's supply system and doctrine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4wRdoWpw0w


At any rate, the Russian military is a sham and even its latest technologies (often based on final Soviet designs) aren't worth a great deal. Big win for Turkey's arms industry (they also make helicopters).
I wouldn't so much negate the value of their technologies but would instead emphasize their poor integration. The US and NATO in general focuses heavily on Joint operations and co-planning of air, sea, ground, and how to fully integrate all the enablers such as intel, artillery, air power, and so on. Apparently, the Russians have not been successful in that integration like NATO has and without it each system on its own is extremely venerable. Just seeing the numbers of tanks that have been knocked out due to lack of infantry and the convoys with no escort trucks shows a real failure to assess vulnerabilities and adapt, likely a result of being a no-failure tolerated leadership system serving a dictator.
Examples of poor integration of US technology is see very easily in the Saudi Army which has lost multiple M1A1 tanks to the houthis due to poor integration into other combat arms to provide mutual support, same with the Turkish use of Leopard 2 tanks in Syria.
The F-35 may be a game changing aircraft but if used by a country that doesn't support it as needed it's just a very expensive jet, same is true for Russia as we see daily.

Good interview with General McMaster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaqZ9ZYFP6U

[Pannonian]

The authorities of the Republic of Poland, after consultations between the President and the Goverment, are ready to deploy – immediately and free of charge – all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America.

At the same time, Poland requests the United States to provide us with used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities. Poland is ready to immediately establish the conditions of purchase of the planes.

The Polish Government also requests other NATO Allies – owners of MIG-29 jets – to act in the same vein.

Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland in connection with the statement by the US Secretary of State on providing airplanes to Ukraine (https://www.gov.pl/web/diplomacy/statement-of-the-minister-of-foreign-affairs-of-the-republic-of-poland-in-connection-with-the-statement-by-the-us-secretary-of-state-on-providing-airplanes-to-ukraine)

[Montmorency]

Ukraine has (https://www.overtdefense.com/2022/03/08/rundown-western-anti-tank-weapons-for-ukraine-overt-defense/) one of the most varied stocks of ATGM and RPGs in the world.



The BTG system is like the US Brigade system but it is hard to estimate a strict heirachy and quantity because Russia, just like the US and most countries does 'force tailoring' and will add and take away units under Brigade "Task Forces" or BTGs for the Russias to add capabilities as needed.
I do agree on the assessment though, the VDV has taken a pounding and they've likely lost in KIA a Battalion at least and I think a brigade in casualties and equipment damage/loss.

This guy on twitter is doing a good job of mapping and is actually trying to estimate the Ukraininan forces as well which is something we haven't seen much of.
https://twitter.com/JominiW
25367

Absolutely correct, and the Russian's being a mechanized/motorized force are tied to the roads and open areas for combat so their axises of advance are somewhat predictable now, especially so the supply lines.
This was a good video that educated me a bit on Russia's supply system and doctrine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4wRdoWpw0w


I wouldn't so much negate the value of their technologies but would instead emphasize their poor integration. The US and NATO in general focuses heavily on Joint operations and co-planning of air, sea, ground, and how to fully integrate all the enablers such as intel, artillery, air power, and so on. Apparently, the Russians have not been successful in that integration like NATO has and without it each system on its own is extremely venerable. Just seeing the numbers of tanks that have been knocked out due to lack of infantry and the convoys with no escort trucks shows a real failure to assess vulnerabilities and adapt, likely a result of being a no-failure tolerated leadership system serving a dictator.
Examples of poor integration of US technology is see very easily in the Saudi Army which has lost multiple M1A1 tanks to the houthis due to poor integration into other combat arms to provide mutual support, same with the Turkish use of Leopard 2 tanks in Syria.
The F-35 may be a game changing aircraft but if used by a country that doesn't support it as needed it's just a very expensive jet, same is true for Russia as we see daily.

Good interview with General McMaster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaqZ9ZYFP6U

I mean that Russian armored and air defense platforms, even of the latest vintage, look unimpressive, like so many tin cans, compared to cheaper, less operationally-complex alternatives. (They were losing their luster in Syria as well.) Defensive/denial platforms have been proving their worth in Ukraine relative to prestige legacy platforms. The customers of Russian arms tend to be smaller or poorer countries that can't rely on extensive combined arms tactics anyway - so at least buy at a discount from now on.

In Bret Devereaux's series on the history of fortifications, he made the comment that in the Modern System of dynamic warfare the advantage may now be shifting back to the defense. He wrote that a few months ago. I wonder.

So, leaving aside the BTG angle, what do you make of my attempt to calculate theoretically available Russian combat personnel? How are support personnel distributed in the Russian military and National Guard? What roles were covered by Western estimates of the Russian invasion force?

The best I could do within my assumptions is that anywhere from a quarter to a half of all Russian ground combat power (including paramilitary) readily available short of total war has been committed to Ukraine.

McMaster overreaches in way too many pundits have in assuming too much about Putin's goals and beliefs. Even if we can infer some things with extensive circumstantial evidence (such as swift neutralization of political resistance, excessive organizational/operational secrecy, intent on mass detention/murder of dissidents), we can't say that he's 'lost by not winning instantly.' The state of the Russian armed forces or economy at the end of this is beside the point, after all.

The Jomini map is yet another interesting design philosophy, but it's surprisingly-discrepant with other maps I've seen that include Ukrainian formations and dispositions, such as Militaryland's. Half the number of brigades is visible in this map for instance.

But in general every design philosophy can contribute to our understanding of the campaign. Weekly movement of the front/contested space:

https://i.imgur.com/0xPkz9l.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/dMjbSM0.jpg

[Pannonian]

The US have said no to the Polish proposal.

[Pannonian]

Apparently, part of the problem for the Russians is that their actions have not been joined up with their equipment. Their brand new secure communications system relies on 3G to function. One of their priorities in the first days was to knock out all 3G towers. Which meant their secure communications was no longer functional, and they had to rely on commercial networks. If something as fundamental as this was failing at such a basic level, then their enactment of combined arms elsewhere probably isn't very joined up either.

[Montmorency]

No NATO for Sweden according to PM.

Ukrainians have done better than I expected in keeping Kharkiv and Donbas supplied, it seems. NLAWs arriving in Kharkiv (https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1501218570562420752).

The incapacity of the Russian air force has been a gift.

Recent US assessment: 4-10% material losses and 2-4 thousand deaths for Russians.


Ukrainians call a pilot POW's contact and threaten his well-being.
https://twitter.com/NovaGorlivka/status/1500097040071766016 [VIDEO]

https://i.imgur.com/IJg9EJh.png

Same POW as in this video. (https://twitter.com/ArmedForcesUkr/status/1500101999945306116) Also seen in a photo-op with Putin and Assad years ago, but I can't pull that up for you. There have been a number of videos of Ukrainians threatening POWs, on top of some of the POW interview clips clearly being coached for public consumption (which is a Geneva Convention violation). And the earlier threat to execute artillerymen on the spot and the recent proposal to put POWs to work (which is permitted under limited, compensated conditions). I hope we don't see any excesses on the defense's part.

[spmetla]

The POW 'confessions' have been disgusting to see and I wish that Ukraine would be more professional about it. I know they're doing it as part of their info operations aimed at the Russian people but still inexcusable. Just like we've seen some Russian pilot's kit displayed in immaculate condition but the the pilot himself dead and a bloody mess, it points at beating and execution of some that should be POWs.
Given that it is a Russian invasion I can understand the emotions on the Ukrainian side but the need to try and be professional about it. Difficult to enforce when so many are reservists and part of the mass conscription combined with the massive loss of life on the Ukrainian side. The Ukraine should try harder to push the proper guidelines to its lowest level Soldiers in regard to POWs, war is hell but let's try and at least follow some of the rules even if the Russians don't.


The US have said no to the Polish proposal.
It is certainly a difficult situation to work out. The US would have to have the Ukrainian pilots train up on and receive them in Ramstein which would require the tacit okay from Germany too. Then the aircraft would have to be delivered somehow. If flown in they'd likely be tracked by the standard transponders all the way to a NATO nation on the border of Ukraine before they are trucked or flown over, both of which would open up the ire of Russia on said nation. Slovakia and Hungary are the least likely to need to worry about retaliation of Russia but this war is not done and can go any way.


McMaster overreaches in way too many pundits have in assuming too much about Putin's goals and beliefs. Even if we can infer some things with extensive circumstantial evidence (such as swift neutralization of political resistance, excessive organizational/operational secrecy, intent on mass detention/murder of dissidents), we can't say that he's 'lost by not winning instantly.' The state of the Russian armed forces or economy at the end of this is beside the point, after all.
He does overreach, but was a good interview anyhow.


So, leaving aside the BTG angle, what do you make of my attempt to calculate theoretically available Russian combat personnel? How are support personnel distributed in the Russian military and National Guard? What roles were covered by Western estimates of the Russian invasion force?

Honestly, I don't know enough about the Russian organization in the support echelons to comment. I think you're likely not too far from the truth. I'm curious about some things we can't calculate and will be hidden by the Russians for years such as how many of those troops were conscripts and how many are being withdrawn now that the Russian people are aware that conscripts were essentially tricked into a war.
I'm sure the Western estimates were of what they could observe via satellite in temporary bases and camps so that's not going to include the railroad troops, the air force operating out of at least the Russian bases and so on. Seeing as Russia hasn't done a large military operation out of its borders since Afghanistan in the '80s it probably has failed to build up the logistical side of operations as its major deployments have been internal or right on the border.


No NATO for Sweden according to PM.

Ukrainians have done better than I expected in keeping Kharkiv and Donbas supplied, it seems. NLAWs arriving in Kharkiv.

The incapacity of the Russian air force has been a gift.

Recent US assessment: 4-10% material losses and 2-4 thousand deaths for Russians.

The Ukraine has been surprisingly good at pushing supplies forward to the various sectors, priority of course is to Kiev but glad to see supplies reaching other fronts.
As for Russian losses, seeing as they have about 55% of their entire army in the Ukraine right now, I don't think they can continue to sustain these losses for several more weeks. The personnel and equipment losses are irreplaceable in the time period for which they're looking to get a victory.
If the fighting goes on into spring and summer when foliage returns and gives even more advantage to the largely leg infantry Ukrainian reservists/territorial troops the Russians will suffer even greater losses outside of the cities too. Especially as NATO/EU countries get more comfortable with sending equipment, weapons, and ammo.

The incapacity of the Russian air force has been one of the most surprising things of the campaign and looking at the losses they are taking and the heavy sortie rate I think we'll see an increasingly absent Russian Air Force. Pilots can't be replaced easily, and the equipment wear and tear, even outside combat will drastically reduce the availability rate. Something that will force them to either fly formations without the full complement of aircraft (what we see now) which will cause more losses, or to just hold them back for special surges and operations which will make Russian ground forces more vulnerable to attack.
With the donation of lots of MANPADS this should force Russian aviation to fly higher which makes them poorer for Close Air Support and makes them easier to track and target by the remaining Ukrainian legacy ADA systems such as S300 and SA8. Not to mention any MiG-29s if those do ever get to the Ukraine.

[Pannonian]

The Ukraine has been surprisingly good at pushing supplies forward to the various sectors, priority of course is to Kiev but glad to see supplies reaching other fronts.
As for Russian losses, seeing as they have about 55% of their entire army in the Ukraine right now, I don't think they can continue to sustain these losses for several more weeks. The personnel and equipment losses are irreplaceable in the time period for which they're looking to get a victory.
If the fighting goes on into spring and summer when foliage returns and gives even more advantage to the largely leg infantry Ukrainian reservists/territorial troops the Russians will suffer even greater losses outside of the cities too. Especially as NATO/EU countries get more comfortable with sending equipment, weapons, and ammo.

Do you think the Russians will look to interdict this supply of the Ukrainians with materiel? Considering we're in the Internet Age, would this operation be called Trolling Thunder?

[Montmorency]

I haven't seen the dead pilot one. Well, I've seen a dead pilot, but he was smashed by a failed chute, so that can't be it. Link?

The genuine POW performances I don't really get worked up about (such as the most viewed POW video on the Internet - you know the one). Like, I understand that in a networked digital world having one's face plastered all around the Internet in the status of POW can have all sorts of downstream complications, but compliance to GDPR privacy standards doesn't feel that important in wartime. On the other hand captors being verbally malicious and abusive is a bad sign that can spiral out of control if not checked. It's not like one has to be a sensitive bleeding heart at the sight of a humbled man.

And never practice categorical refusal to take prisoners.

Here's an exemplary interaction IMO.
https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/status/1500105899461038081 [CLIP]


It is certainly a difficult situation to work out. The US would have to have the Ukrainian pilots train up on and receive them in Ramstein which would require the tacit okay from Germany too. Then the aircraft would have to be delivered somehow. If flown in they'd likely be tracked by the standard transponders all the way to a NATO nation on the border of Ukraine before they are trucked or flown over, both of which would open up the ire of Russia on said nation. Slovakia and Hungary are the least likely to need to worry about retaliation of Russia but this war is not done and can go any way.

One of the operations that, conveniently, would be much easier than Towers of Hanoi if Poland occupied a security corridor in Western Ukraine (including one airfield).

Speaking of which, do we know how many SRBM Russia has left after firing off so many hundreds? I keep reading that they can't replace any of them in the near future.


The incapacity of the Russian air force has been one of the most surprising things of the campaign and looking at the losses they are taking and the heavy sortie rate I think we'll see an increasingly absent Russian Air Force. Pilots can't be replaced easily, and the equipment wear and tear, even outside combat will drastically reduce the availability rate.

I read somewhere that the Russian arms industry has been producing around a few dozen fighter/strike jets a year for a long time. It's supposed to be worth it for getting the Russian Air Force to almost all new or modernized frames. (Whereas existing US facilities could surge an F35 a day in theory.)


With the donation of lots of MANPADS this should force Russian aviation to fly higher which makes them poorer for Close Air Support and makes them easier to track and target by the remaining Ukrainian legacy ADA systems such as S300 and SA8.

Ukrainian artillery units at the front are likely depleted. I don't know if this is current or sound doctrine, but I would permanently assign one or two MANPAD to each battery.

[Montmorency]

Audio clip allegedly of Russian soldier(s) bragging about looting luxury goods and executing people in the forest to his partner back home. I'm not sure which would be worse between the clip being authentic and being a propaganda fabrication. https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/taf8t1/russian_soldiers_in_ukraine_call_their_close_ones/

Germany is a key obstacle to EU sanctions on Sberbank and stopping purchase of Russian petro.

US has activated its strategic materiel stockpile (https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/russia-should-worry-the-us-military-has-activated-its-strategic-materiel-stockpile/) in Europe. Before this is over, I predict we will sorty SSBN subs and swear retaliation against any military detonation of a nuclear device in Europe.

Great look at small-unit action. Anti-tank buffet.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gezu6A9zcLU


The weapons we saw in this video range from regular RPG-7s over to Panzerfaust 3s, NLAWs, possible RPV-16 and even M141 BDMs.


It's almost odd to post it in this thread, but here's a brief (https://patrickfox.substack.com/p/chinas-dilemma) published a month ago arguing that China doesn't have the tools or the institutional knowledge (nor does anyone) to "Overlord" Taiwan.

[spmetla]

Philippines ready to back US if it gets embroiled in war
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/philippines-ready-to-back-us-if-it-gets-embroiled-in-war/ar-AAURvUo?ocid=msedgntp

The Philippine president is ready to open the country’s “facilities” to American forces under a 1951 mutual defense treaty if Russia's war against Ukraine turns for the worse and embroils the United States in the fighting, Manila’s ambassador to Washington said Thursday.

Just an example of how Xi's short sighted policies and attitudes toward the neighboring 'vassal states' has backfired and sent Duterte and the PHI back to the US fold despite Duterte wanted to pivot to China.


Great look at small-unit action. Anti-tank buffet.
I was pleased to see the Panzerfaust-3s in there already, made it to the frontline very quickly. Crazy to see such a variety of anti-armor weapons in one anti-armor patrol.

I'm sure you've seen the clips of that BTG NE of Kiev that got driven back today. Crazy to see how poor the Russians are operating. Vehicles bunching up crazy close, no real advancing or retreating in covered bounds and come to find out it's part of the 90th Guards Tank division, just piss-poor training.
I'm just absolutely amazed that after a year of Putin sounding the war drum in ever increasing tone that his army just wasn't ready at all, with even the most basic elements of ground movement beyond their capability. I guess the Generals in charge pocketed the money for training and readiness and ensured that they could put on a good 'show' and make some 'hooah videos' for the fan boys.
I can't imagine the morale is even moderate of the units that have tried and failed repeatedly to surround Kiev or take any of the NE cities. I'm betting that the average RU soldier is just fighting to keep alive as opposed to a sense of patriotism or trust in their leader's orders. Perhaps that's why we see so many mid- high ranking Officers dying, there's no else that can get the troops out front without that personal example of at least a field grade.



It's almost odd to post it in this thread, but here's a brief published a month ago arguing that China doesn't have the tools or the institutional knowledge (nor does anyone) to "Overlord" Taiwan.
This inept Russian invasion is probably going to prove to be the biggest safeguard against any Chinese adventurism in regard to Taiwan anytime soon. The Russians actually have recent military experience and are doing abysmally, I can't expect that a PRC war for Taiwan would go well without some prior conflict to 'practice' how to execute a large scale military campaign.

[Montmorency]

I wonder if the transition to contract/professional soldiers - ~70% of current active military - along with downsizing of combat formations just enabled corruption and misappropriation along the way. The Soviet army (https://twitter.com/bazaarofwar/status/1424919605072605203) was feared for good reason.

Unfortunately, the separatist militaries appear to overmatch their Russian masters, having been exposed to continuous low-grade combat for 8 years (whereas the large majority of Russian soldiers have probably never been shot at by opposition). They are reportedly primarily responsible for the large gains made east/northeast of Mariupol and northwest of Luhansk City. Just today they took out at least 5 Ukrainian tanks (https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1502320535186903052). And now multiple heavy cargo planes are transiting between Russia and Syria, according to Putin loading up thousands of Assad's goons. It's dirty, but I wonder if we have any assets remaining whom we can induce to escalate their operations.


EDIT: Mig 29 memes.
https://twitter.com/SubwayCubano/status/1501344377872044035 [VIDEO]

https://i.imgur.com/Oegpi5R.jpg

[Pannonian]

I wonder if the transition to contract/professional soldiers - ~70% of current active military - along with downsizing of combat formations just enabled corruption and misappropriation along the way. The Soviet army (https://twitter.com/bazaarofwar/status/1424919605072605203) was feared for good reason.


Conscript does not equal fearsome. The Soviet Army wasn't feared because it was a conscript army. It was feared because it was conscript army sized, battle hardened, and was at the cutting edge of warmaking technology. The current Russian army isn't conscript army sized, it wasn't battle hardened, and it's clear it's not at the cutting edge of warmaking technology. They can improve on any of these factors.

[Montmorency]

Holy hell, the fascist is legit clowning himself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al0uvkrw0F0).

According to Yuri, by nationalizing foreign commercial properties and refusing to pay its debts in foreign currencies, Russia will revenge Western sanctions multiple-fold and even gain in the process. The Americans have fallen into a trap by giving the Russian state an excuse to reject the rules of America's game. By detaching itself from all international codes and institutions, Russia will achieve vigorous autarky.

It would be funny if people like this weren't alloted enough power to destroy humanity. I wonder if he would have enough self-consciousness of guilt to off himself in the bunker in the final stages of his dream society.



Conscript does not equal fearsome. The Soviet Army wasn't feared because it was a conscript army. It was feared because it was conscript army sized, battle hardened, and was at the cutting edge of warmaking technology. The current Russian army isn't conscript army sized, it wasn't battle hardened, and it's clear it's not at the cutting edge of warmaking technology. They can improve on any of these factors.

Or as the tweeter said:


Read this entire thread to understand why the Soviets were considered to be superior at operational art, despite being over-centralized and generally worse at the tactical level. This is the kind of insane detail needed to plan movements of entire army groups across continents.

[Pannonian]

Or as the tweeter said:

"Soviets were considered to be superior at operational art"

Operational art wasn't studied as intensively back then as now, and wasn't understood to such an advanced level. As such the Soviets understood it better than others at the time, but not as well as western militaries today. Also, the Soviets had the advantage of being supplied with logistics components by the US, and could thus rely on that all-important aspect of it which the US was always superb at. Without that crutch, the Soviets (and now the Russians) are much, much worse off.

[Pannonian]

Would it be fair to say that A-10s and other manned ground support aircraft are now obsolete?

[rory_20_uk]

Would it be fair to say that A-10s and other manned ground support aircraft are now obsolete?

Surely it depends on the foe and their current weaponry. The A10 especially was designed from the ground up to take a horrific amount of damage - one engine and half of one wing can be lost, there's two hydraulic systems to fly and a mechanical backup.

Sure, flying into an area where the S300 is deployed is probably suicidal, but there are probably cases where the risk is worth the reward.

Long term drones are almost certainly the way forward but as yet there are just not the numbers.

~:smoking:

[spmetla]

Surely it depends on the foe and their current weaponry. The A10 especially was designed from the ground up to take a horrific amount of damage - one engine and half of one wing can be lost, there's two hydraulic systems to fly and a mechanical backup.

Sure, flying into an area where the S300 is deployed is probably suicidal, but there are probably cases where the risk is worth the reward.

Long term drones are almost certainly the way forward but as yet there are just not the numbers.


Were the US to do a 'no fly zone' the A-10 would certainly not be in the initial lineup, it'd have to be F-35s and more modern platforms at first. Once those S300s, S400s and so on were neutralized to a certain degree the A10 would then be an ideal CAS platform even with MANPADs in the area for the reasons you've listed.
Just like the B-52 isn't a frontline bomber anymore it is extremely useful in the various roles the USAF have for it, not all platforms need to be top tier high end at all.

Was the same in desert storm, it took F-117s to pave the way in the most contested air space together with the full support of EW platforms and simultaneous strikes on supporting radars, SAM batteries, and command nodes. This type of "Joint" operations is what makes the US so effective and clearly as we've seen by the Russians, hard to imitate as it goes beyond just having systems but the right planning to mesh it all together.

Drones are definitely the way forward but I don't think there will ever be a true replacement for manned aircraft in the CAS role as the descriptions from ground observers to the pilot can be very vague and sometimes take some creative actions to describe or mark where the enemy is and importantly where the friendlies are. Current drones with limited fields of vision can't have the full situational awareness a pilot of a manned aircraft can.



I wonder if the transition to contract/professional soldiers - ~70% of current active military - along with downsizing of combat formations just enabled corruption and misappropriation along the way. The Soviet army was feared for good reason.

The Russian leadership seems to not have really looked at their 'whole force' when doing reforms. They may have more professional soldiers but looking at their performance the last few weeks it looks like their training hasn't been anywhere near combat standards. From what I understand Russian and Chinese 'wargames' are not like US/NATO ones. In their armies the wargames are highly scripted and rehearsed which deprives them from identifying the problems and doesn't allow for the development of low-level leadership.
The US Army had similar problems in the post-Vietnam army but the development of NTC and JRTC for high level training at the closest possible to combat as can be safely replicated allowed for the US Army to become a 'learning organization' which is why the Army that went into desert storm did not look at all like the army that went into Vietnam or Grenada.
At NTC and JRTC, the opposing force (OPFOR) is designed to beat you, they are supposed to stress every element of whatever unit goes in for a rotation so that problems can be found and fixed. I doubt that the highly centralized and political loyal Russian and Chinese armies allow for such realistic training.

Looking at the poor combat formations, poor maintenance, and poor integration of all their various enabling capabilities (artillery, UAVs, engineers, other combat arms) I think the Russians focused too much on systems instead of their organization. They certainly have the technology but that's clearly not be spread to the lowest Soldier as we look at AK-74s with no optics, no night vision and so on. Same in the other branches, the amount of outdated hardware being sent into a major conflict is surprising. The T-72 tank was proved as obsolete decades ago yet they are more common than the T-80s and T-90s. The Russian air force has the capability to do EW like the US but we don't seem to see that so perhaps they are short on platforms too.


I read somewhere that the Russian arms industry has been producing around a few dozen fighter/strike jets a year for a long time. It's supposed to be worth it for getting the Russian Air Force to almost all new or modernized frames. (Whereas existing US facilities could surge an F35 a day in theory.)
At the losses they are taking right now that production rate won't be sufficient, especially when you consider the spare parts that need to be made just to keep the current airframes air worthy. That's of course assuming those parts aren't dependent on things in their supply chains that just got sanctioned, thinking microchips for avionics, navigation, and targeting systems specifically.
The F-35 is looking to be ramped up anyhow in production and as more nations have bought it the unit cost has reduced drastically though still much higher than legacy airframes.
Lockheed Martin will deliver “133-139 aircraft this year [calendar 2021], 151-153 aircraft in 2022, and anticipates delivering 156 aircraft beginning in 2023 and for the foreseeable future,” it announced. The company did not say how many of each variant will be delivered. Defense officials have said the pre-pandemic goal was to achieve deliveries of 155 airplanes a year by the end of 2022.
https://www.airforcemag.com/f-35-production-set-156-per-year-until-completion/#:~:text=More%20than%20300%2C000%20parts%20from,Texas%2C%20Lockheed%20Martin%20production%20facility .

Russia counts on sanctions help from China; U.S. warns off Beijing
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russia-says-nearly-half-its-reserves-are-frozen-counts-ties-with-china-2022-03-13/

But U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was warning China not to provide it.

"We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing, that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions, evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them," Sullivan told CNN.

"We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world," added Sullivan, who is due to meet China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday.
Watching how China plays out in this war will be extremely interesting. Russia supposedly asking for help from China in UAVs and other things isn't surprising but should be a giant sign to the Russian fanboys that Putin has misled Russia which is now needing help from what really is its biggest rival if they could just stop trying to recreate the USSR in Europe.
I imagine that China will of course support Russia but not in terms of hardware as this sudden show of western unity could backlash hard on China and lead to a serious 'de-coupling' in the future if given reasons to do so. I'd expect China to support economically, probably provide plenty of aid and buy as much Russian energy as they need but nothing beyond that. Risking western sanctions when China is economically precarious too risks internal unrest, something I think Chinese leadership will consider not worth the cost, especially for the last 'colonial power' in Asia.

[Montmorency]

Article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/13/tanks-bombs-shootings-ukrainians-describe-russian-takeover-of-villages) on terror violence and killing in the villages of Ukraine.

Russian war power needs to be irreparably degraded expeditiously.

This isn't sentiment or bloodthirst. The simple truth is that the world must consider itself in a war of annihilation against the Russian military by any means. A hundred thousand dead regulars in short order, or better yet seriously WIA, ought to be enough to grind the Russian maneuver elements to a standstill as the losses are replaced by decreasingly-trained conscripts and reservists inferior to the Ukrainian territorials. And in terms of combat systems destroying artillery is paramount, since it's killing the largest share of Ukrainian regulars (see this brutal clip for just one example) and the Ukrainians usually have no response; at best they can expose their own artillery for counter-battery fire.
https://funker530.com/video/russian-mod-releases-strike-against-ukrainian-patrol/

Are there any sources of loitering drones out there that could push a few hundred units into Ukraine on short notice? Anyone know? A few dozen Bayraktar prove very cost-effective, but they're not enough.

Or...

spmetla Do we have any Predator drones left on hand? We still possessed a few hundred when they were retired in 2018. If they're still in storage, operable, then a hundred Predators with a thousand Hellfire missiles would make it quite daunting for Russian artillery to operate anywhere in West or North Ukraine, given the 500-mile (I'm also reading 750-mile) combat radius. American operators, either ex- or "ex-"military, also training Ukrainians, whether operating from the Polish or the Ukrainian side of the border. Predators are completely disposable military surplus, so any losses are a write-off. While bulky and obsolete, it remains to be seen whether Russian IADS is competent enough to intercept them.

A better idea than A-10s. And if Turkey can ship their much-feared TB2s into a warzone, we can certainly deliver some retired equipment.

I think so far Ukraine has destroyed 5% of the Russian active military. While impressive, their own casualties are unsustainable, and lost ground usually irrecoverable. Destroying or capturing at least 10% of all Russian active-service T-80s by visual confirmation is illustrative: cool and all, but not nearly enough.

Also, why don't NATO forces on scene in Poland train Ukrainian militia and foreign volunteers in a safe environment before they head to the AO? A good way to keep themselves frosty just in case, moreover.


Recent news: Kadyrov himslf claimed to be in Hostomel (Antonov) Airport. Snipe the SOB and watch Chechnya descend into chaos, right? Would be great if the bulk of Russia's National Guard had to stay out of Ukraine to peacekeep in Chechnya for a bit.



The T-72 tank was proved as obsolete decades ago yet they are more common than the T-80s and T-90s. The Russian air force has the capability to do EW like the US but we don't seem to see that so perhaps they are short on platforms too.

Most of the active service models are modernized, though some models are older than others. The large majority of the T-72s were modernized in the past decade


T-72B3 model 2011 (~2010)
Upgrade for T-72B tanks, including Sosna-U multichannel gunner's sight, new digital VHF radio, improved autoloader, 2A46M-5 gun to accommodate new ammunition. Retains older V-84-1 840 hp (630 kW) engine and Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour, and lacks satellite navigation.[39]
T-72B3 model 2016 or T-72B3M
Upgrade for T-72B3, with Relikt explosive reactive armour on the sides, side skirts with soft-container reactive armour and slat screens, 2A46M-5 gun capable of firing 9M119M Refleks guided missile, V-92S2F 1,130 hp (840 kW) engine, automatic transmission, digital display and rear-view video.[40][41][42] Often incorrectly referred to as "T-72B4"

and are apparently considered to be superior to the Soviet models of the T-80, which was based on the T-64. The majority of Russian T-80s are Soviet models. Relevant video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VJNcE6hQu4&t=308s

[spmetla]

This isn't sentiment or bloodthirst. The simple truth is that the world must consider itself in a war of annihilation against the Russian military by any means.

I absolutely agree, Putin/Russia need to be defeated to prevent further escalation down the line as well as secure the rights of neutral countries pursuing their own course.


Are there any sources of loitering drones out there that could push a few hundred units into Ukraine on short notice? Anyone know? A few dozen Bayraktar prove very cost-effective, but they're not enough.

Or...

@spmetla Do we have any Predator drones left on hand?

No clue on both of them, I'm sure the stockpiles exist but everyone in NATO is so worried about escalation to a degree that's extremely frustrating.
I wish our diplomats engaged in a bit of the tongue in cheek sarcasm of the Russians too in their retorts ie: "if you aren't really invading Ukraine and there's no war then there clearly is no reason to oppose our selling/giving weapons to an independent state."
The Russians know NATO/EU weapons and intel are killing their troops, giving Ukraine, drones, aircraft, and even ground vehicles is no more an escalation in my mind than the thousands of ATGMs and MANPADs we are currently giving. Where I'd see the line as too far would be if we were to give Ukraine ballistic missiles or strike capabilities to hit Russia proper.
But tools to defend their own borders should not be such a difficult situation. I think on this point the Biden admin is too weak, they've got the intel and all to guide their decisions but I don't think Putin would dare conduct strikes on NATO territory now that he's seen how hollow his vaunted Army is in dealing with a well armed neutral power. A no-fly-zone and direct action is a bridge too far but selling/giving weapons to the side we support is exactly what the US has always done. Arsenal of democracy and all that.


Also, why don't NATO forces on scene in Poland train Ukrainian militia and foreign volunteers in a safe environment before they head to the AO? A good way to keep themselves frosty just in case, moreover.

I personally think they are doing that on a very low scale already as I can't imagine those weapons systems are being handed over without some initial training on use and maintenance.


ost of the active service models are modernized, though some models are older than others. The large majority of the T-72s were modernized in the past decade
Modernized but still obsolete, sorta like the M-60s in Turkish service. The lack of crew survivability if the ammo is struck, lack of true'hunter killer' capabilities with better commanders independent sights, and the inability of reactive armor to makeup for the ancient passive armor against modern AT weapons is evident. I'm curious to see if the Russians will push any of their T-14's into the fight to see if that has a chance seeing as the T-90s upgrades don't seem to makeup for the weakness of the basic turret/hull design.

Though seeing that the Russians weren't expecting an actual fight the late winter timing of their attack hasn't helped them as the the current mud effect doesn't allow for the off-road ability to be take advantage of. Even the disunity and watered-down sanctions that myself and many others thought would be a result of a winter/Olympics timed attack haven't played out which means that Putin has conducted a disastrous attack in the worst time of the year for type of warfare his army excels at with no real political advantage from European winter fuel dependency.

Saw the same video you posted, good analysis.
Ukraine: Demoralised & incompetent, Putin’s army is doomed | Taras Kuzio interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2awysdmPhQ

Much like in Afghanistan the Russian army is becoming bogged down and broken. As we enter into the third week of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Russia winning its war? To discuss the state of the Russian armed forces and the war in Ukraine Steven Edginton is joined by Ukraine expert Dr Taras Kuzio of the Henry Jackson Society. Watch the full episode above or listen on your podcast app by searching “Off Script”.


Good interview, an hour long but excellent explanations from this guy, certainly more aware of the topic than I am.

[Sarmatian]

Article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/13/tanks-bombs-shootings-ukrainians-describe-russian-takeover-of-villages) on terror violence and killing in the villages of Ukraine.

Russian war power needs to be irreparably degraded expeditiously.

This isn't sentiment or bloodthirst. The simple truth is that the world must consider itself in a war of annihilation against the Russian military by any means.

This is an interesting take. Are you basing that on the assumption of threat to NATO's supremacy?

China is definitely a far greater long term threat in that regard.

[Montmorency]

To crosspost with the Trump thread, notice how aligned these psychological impulses are between American and Russian fascisms.

'Cosmopolitan elements are teaching Ukraine, which is Russia, to hate Russians, who are the Real Russians. We must secure a solution to the Ukrainian question before it is too late.'
'Cosmopolitan elements are teaching White children, who are the Real Americans, to hate [racism and sexism], which is our heritage and destiny. We must secure a victory in the Culture War before it is too late.'

It's always been about violent backlash from aggrievance toward loss of dominance, but it hits different to see it iterated up close and personal in so many places and with such escalating detriment.

It's a good time to admit that I was naive to expect for the past years that Putin's fascism would remain "moderate", that this was a stable category for 21st century great politics.

To preface my response to the quoted, the harder Putin fails - not that under any circumstances could Russia be deNazified like Germany or Japan - the less potentiated other authoritarians will be in their delusions.


This is an interesting take. Are you basing that on the assumption of threat to NATO's supremacy?

China is definitely a far greater long term threat in that regard.


My premise is that, as of now, both Putin and the typical Russian soldier are prepared to employ total war tactics against Ukraine, which both exacerbates the humanitarian aspect of the conflict during and after, and dims Ukraine's prospects in the conventional struggle. Of course I want Ukraine to win, and not at the cost of WW2-scale human or infrastructural damage.

Given some of the firmer numbers I laid out in an earlier post (cf. the Pentagon's estimate today that 10% of the pre-staged invasion force has been neutralized), the Russian manpower/formation pool capable of conducting major offensive operations - as opposed to holding villages - is limited. The more and faster come the Russian KIA and WIA, the sooner the front stabilizes. With bountiful UAV and strike fighters in Ukraine's inventory, equipment NATO is likelier to deliver the longer the conflict drags, a static Russian army can't win a war of attrition.

Therefore I wish Ukraine could kill Russian soldiers at a higher rate than it has been.

Remember the front line as it stands allows Ukraine to maintain lines of communication to all its cities somehow, except for the conquered south (Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol.) Not even Sumy is truly cut off yet last I checked. The fight becomes much harder the more Russia can consolidate its front, at least until it reaches the Dnieper cities.

I'm frightened of the DNR/LNR fighters though. They started out more experienced than most Russian soldiers, have reportedly been responsible for much of the ground taken in Donbas so far, and are even pretty good at propaganda (https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tcppo5/dpr_firing_rockets_in_southern_ukraine/). No way Putin garrisons them in Donbas if they clear the provinces.


(I think the West should pressure Ukraine, in favorable scenarios, to abandon their claim on Crimea. At best it could be demilitarized.)

[Pannonian]

To crosspost with the Trump thread, notice how aligned these psychological impulses are between American and Russian fascisms.


I've seen an article which says that Putin talking points have crossed from English speaking alt righters to Russian speakers, with the added credibility of having come from English speakers. Who, of course, got their material from Putin. Also instructions from Russian agencies to emphasise Tucker Carlson and other bought alt righters as much as possible. Anglo-American politics has been thoroughly infiltrated by Russia, and their followers have invested too much pride in their beliefs to question their talking heads.

[Sarmatian]

My premise is that, as of now, both Putin and the typical Russian soldier are prepared to employ total war tactics against Ukraine, which both exacerbates the humanitarian aspect of the conflict during and after, and dims Ukraine's prospects in the conventional struggle.

On what are you basing this premise?


Given some of the firmer numbers I laid out in an earlier post (cf. the Pentagon's estimate today that 10% of the pre-staged invasion force has been neutralized), the Russian manpower/formation pool capable of conducting major offensive operations - as opposed to holding villages - is limited. The more and faster come the Russian KIA and WIA, the sooner the front stabilizes. With bountiful UAV and strike fighters in Ukraine's inventory, equipment NATO is likelier to deliver the longer the conflict drags, a static Russian army can't win a war of attrition.

Therefore I wish Ukraine could kill Russian soldiers at a higher rate than it has been.

Remember the front line as it stands allows Ukraine to maintain lines of communication to all its cities somehow, except for the conquered south (Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol.) Not even Sumy is truly cut off yet last I checked. The fight becomes much harder the more Russia can consolidate its front, at least until it reaches the Dnieper cities.

I'm frightened of the DNR/LNR fighters though. They started out more experienced than most Russian soldiers, have reportedly been responsible for much of the ground taken in Donbas so far, and are even pretty good at propaganda (https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tcppo5/dpr_firing_rockets_in_southern_ukraine/). No way Putin garrisons them in Donbas if they clear the provinces.


I do not think Ukraine can win this conflict militarily. For Russia, this is not a quick land grab. They consider NATO in Ukraine a grave threat to their own security. If push comes to shove, chances are, they will up the intensity as much as they need to win.

There is a breaking point for Russia, certainly, but is much further than people believe it is, and I'm not sure reaching it would be a good idea anyway.

[Furunculus]

(I think the West should pressure Ukraine, in favorable scenarios, to abandon their claim on Crimea. At best it could be demilitarized.)

I tend to agree that Crimea is gone (and as a population is happy to remain gone!), but demilitarise Russia's only warm-water military port?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sarmatian:

Russia is the greater geopolitical threat because of its cultural traditions for authoritarian rule, it's cultural 'chip on the shoulder' about being viewed as kulturny, and its (admittedly not without some justification) quasi-paranoic attitude towards international relations.

China, by contrast, is prone to bureaucratic oligarchy, views itself as the acme of culture (turning it's focus inward from time to time for long stretches of history), and has a culturally 'long-term' outlook.

Mind you, that may leave China the eventual hegemonic ruler of all of us -- but not any time soon. For the most part China absorbs, it does not conquer. After all, the Mongols conquered China...right up through and until they became Chinese.

[Montmorency]

The West must push for a negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine war and may have only a two-week window to achieve it, Tony Blair says.

The former prime minister argued the key disputes – over Nato membership, the stationing of Western weapons and the futures of Crimea and Ukraine’s eastern regions – could be settled in talks.

Mr Blair said he understood the view that “Putin deserves nothing but total defeat”, but warned: “The burden of this struggle is being borne by Ukrainians, not by us.”

He pointed out that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has pursued “ad hoc” talks – but called for the US and Europe to throw their full weight behind that effort.

And he warned: “The next two weeks may be the last chance to achieve a negotiated settlement before the assault on Kyiv becomes worse, the Ukrainian people become hostile to any negotiation, or Putin faces a binary choice between “double down” or retreat.”

However, “Ukraine would require binding guarantees from the West to contemplate giving up on Nato membership”.

Equally, it might be possible to “construct a process” to decide the future status of Crimea and the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Mr Blair argued.

That was “provided Putin doesn’t add a demand to keep the territory he is currently taking with considerable brutality in the corridor between Rostov and Odessa, a demand Ukraine could never accede to”.

On Nato ruling out military involvement, Mr Blair wrote: “I accept the reasoning behind our stance.

God, Blair is always just such a nitwit. Putin committed the majority of his country's military to a conventional war against a country he claims is an existential threat to his own, and has backed up his position with nuclear threats that many authorities in the West insist are credible. Obviously whatever was on offer before the war did not satisfy Putin. Thinking it serious to offer it again is, what was the colloquial term...?




On what are you basing this premise?

The increasing violence of the invasion in terms of both conventional warfare and security techniques, as documented by changes in available video documentation and media reports, as well as the Russian government's intensifying post-textual rhetoric to justify the war. Namely, that not only is Zelensky a genocidal Nazi who may pose a nuclear threat to Russia in the future, he is already a nuclear, and chemical and biological, existential threat to Russia under the active management of the United States. Zelensky's cry of genocide against Ukraine was a ridiculous exaggeration, but it might well become reality soon. I'm seeing multiple recommendations on Russian TV to begin executing "provocateurs", which is to say anyone offering any resistance or unrest.


Some toplines from English-language media reports in the past couple of days:

Russia: 'The USA is harvesting Slavic DNA in Ukraine to develop bioagents targeted against ethnic Russians'
US/UK: "Both sides report progress in the fourth round of negotiations"
Russia: 'In light of the Kiev regime's desperate terror bombing of the people of Donetsk, there is no point in negotiating with such a ruthless group'


I do not think Ukraine can win this conflict militarily. For Russia, this is not a quick land grab. They consider NATO in Ukraine a grave threat to their own security. If push comes to shove, chances are, they will up the intensity as much as they need to win.

Depends on what you mean by winning militarily. Without direct NATO intervention the best outcome for Ukraine would be to keep Russia from the outskirts of Kyiv, secure Odessa, and maintain some foothold east of the Dnieper. Putin's breaking point is far from view, but what I'm trying to say is that the Russian military's breaking point is closer. Over the medium-term, Ukraine can replenish its supplies and equipment better than Russia, and train up quality replacements better than Russia. The main thing is to not lose major formations in pockets and sieges while giving up as little territory as possible. After that, the case is that Ukraine's parameters for "victory" loosen up as Russia will be unable to win militarily for their own part. The alternative for Putin is total mobilization of the Russian population and economy, which at this rate might genuinely imperil his authority.

In summary, stalemate is good for Ukraine while it is in total mobilization and Russia is not. It can't reach stalemate without inflicting horrendous losses to Russia in the coming weeks.

TLDR: It is easier for Ukraine to not lose than to win.


There is a breaking point for Russia, certainly, but is much further than people believe it is, and I'm not sure reaching it would be a good idea anyway.

I perceive that you're referencing Putin's nuclear escalation threats. My opinion on that is the US should set the rules of engagement publicly and transparently. That is, even a single nuclear detonation by Russia would be preemptively warned as prompting immediate and irrevocable retaliation against a single Russian target, probably a military target in Siberia. This is the only way to deter Putin (and moreover, his inner circle), since his moving first without the West settling on a plan would leave us visibly disorganized and weakened as we struggle for a meaningful response - so Putin might indeed leap as his adventure becomes more fraught. The violation of the nuclear taboo would be so catastrophic for world politics in the 21st century that we should be aggressive in preempting it. Otherwise, logically speaking, if Western governments are so concerned about "World War 3" then they should cease all military support for Ukraine and encourage its people to take an unfavorable settlement. But of course that's rubbish. We musn't be blackmailed.

A lot of leaders and analysts in the West seem to be willing to be blackmailed, based on how they've responded to the idea of NATO escalation. They prioritize not "inciting" Putin and take it for granted that he isn't bluffing. Well... if they're correct in their assessment of Putin's psychology, if Vladimir Putin is the sort to take this to the brink no matter what, as these Western analysts/governments are assessing, then of course we must eliminate him at some point as the unexaggeratedly-worst, most dangerous tyrant on Earth - EVER. By this characterization the existence of Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to the West (and the rest). So better act sooner than later, because if one believes all this about Putin, there will be a later. The only alternative in this framework is appeasement, cutting off aid to Ukraine to bring it to capitulation, because the foregoing analysis of Putin implies that he will go nuclear to protect his power whether NATO looks set to beat him, or Ukraine can do it on its own. So why support Ukraine beyond the extent to which it could lose as slowly, yet assuredly, as possible?

Yet as I said I'm not seeing that sort of logical process in those who fear WW3 above all, which leads me to believe that opponents of escalation are either deceptive or not calculating risk rationally.

(There are of course those advocating for the withdrawal of Western support to Ukraine in order to expedite the end of the conflict, but most of them are in China and India.)


I tend to agree that Crimea is gone (and as a population is happy to remain gone!), but demilitarise Russia's only warm-water military port?

Versailles demilitarization didn't remove all of Germany's military infrastructure. A demilitarization of Crimea would involve treaty limits on the number of troops and ships that could be based there. Again, in the best-case scenario for Ukraine.


Sarmatian:

Russia is the greater geopolitical threat because of its cultural traditions for authoritarian rule, it's cultural 'chip on the shoulder' about being viewed as kulturny, and its (admittedly not without some justification) quasi-paranoic attitude towards international relations.

China, by contrast, is prone to bureaucratic oligarchy, views itself as the acme of culture (turning it's focus inward from time to time for long stretches of history), and has a culturally 'long-term' outlook.

Mind you, that may leave China the eventual hegemonic ruler of all of us -- but not any time soon. For the most part China absorbs, it does not conquer. After all, the Mongols conquered China...right up through and until they became Chinese.

There is a more down-to-earth framing one could use, which is that, going by the near-consensus expressed by Western politicians and analysts, Putin is the type of autocrat who would go nuclear out of fear or out of sour grapes spite. That condition, if applicable, is a much more immediate geopolitical threat than civilizational analysis could identify.

I think this war reveals, as it is the nature of wars to be revelatory or even apo-calyptic, that Russia isn't much of a threat, outside the much-discussed 'nuclear madman' angle or the ability to manipulate elections (which is just a nudge to our internal fascist decay that China could reproduce equally well) particular to its current government.

[Montmorency]

https://i.imgur.com/1A3gU9L.jpg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0we3Nmsn4M

Remake when?

[Sarmatian]

Sarmatian:

Russia is the greater geopolitical threat because of its cultural traditions for authoritarian rule, it's cultural 'chip on the shoulder' about being viewed as kulturny, and its (admittedly not without some justification) quasi-paranoic attitude towards international relations.

China, by contrast, is prone to bureaucratic oligarchy, views itself as the acme of culture (turning it's focus inward from time to time for long stretches of history), and has a culturally 'long-term' outlook.

Mind you, that may leave China the eventual hegemonic ruler of all of us -- but not any time soon. For the most part China absorbs, it does not conquer. After all, the Mongols conquered China...right up through and until they became Chinese.

Well, China certainly has had a much longer tradition of authoritarian rule.

Inward looking is a natural trend when there's lack of clear outside threats. Nevertheless, I can accept that it is a matter of opinion to a large degree. China might indeed prove to be less inclined to militarily oppose NATO.




The increasing violence of the invasion in terms of both conventional warfare and security techniques, as documented by changes in available video documentation and media reports, as well as the Russian government's intensifying post-textual rhetoric to justify the war. Namely, that not only is Zelensky a genocidal Nazi who may pose a nuclear threat to Russia in the future, he is already a nuclear, and chemical and biological, existential threat to Russia under the active management of the United States. Zelensky's cry of genocide against Ukraine was a ridiculous exaggeration, but it might well become reality soon. I'm seeing multiple recommendations on Russian TV to begin executing "provocateurs", which is to say anyone offering any resistance or unrest.


Some toplines from English-language media reports in the past couple of days:

Russia: 'The USA is harvesting Slavic DNA in Ukraine to develop bioagents targeted against ethnic Russians'
US/UK: "Both sides report progress in the fourth round of negotiations"
Russia: 'In light of the Kiev regime's desperate terror bombing of the people of Donetsk, there is no point in negotiating with such a ruthless group'


Outside the typical media hysteria, the numbers don't support that. Up to March 14th, there have been 691 confirmed civilian deaths. The number is likely higher but still very small for a military operation of this size after 20 days.

I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.


Depends on what you mean by winning militarily. Without direct NATO intervention the best outcome for Ukraine would be to keep Russia from the outskirts of Kyiv, secure Odessa, and maintain some foothold east of the Dnieper. Putin's breaking point is far from view, but what I'm trying to say is that the Russian military's breaking point is closer. Over the medium-term, Ukraine can replenish its supplies and equipment better than Russia, and train up quality replacements better than Russia. The main thing is to not lose major formations in pockets and sieges while giving up as little territory as possible. After that, the case is that Ukraine's parameters for "victory" loosen up as Russia will be unable to win militarily for their own part. The alternative for Putin is total mobilization of the Russian population and economy, which at this rate might genuinely imperil his authority.

In summary, stalemate is good for Ukraine while it is in total mobilization and Russia is not. It can't reach stalemate without inflicting horrendous losses to Russia in the coming weeks.

TLDR: It is easier for Ukraine to not lose than to win.


I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties.

Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be. They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.


I perceive that you're referencing Putin's nuclear escalation threats. My opinion on that is the US should set the rules of engagemenpublicly and transparently. That is, even a single nuclear detonation by Russia would be preemptively warned as prompting immediate and irrevocable retaliation against a single Russian target, probably a military target in Siberia. This is the only way to deter Putin (and moreover, his inner circle), since his moving first without the West settling on a plan would leave us visibly disorganized and weakened as we struggle for a meaningful response - so Putin might indeed leap as his adventure becomes more fraught. The violation of the nuclear taboo would be so catastrophic for world politics in the 21st century that we should be aggressive in preempting it. Otherwise, logically speaking, if Western governments are so concerned about "World War 3" then they should cease all military support for Ukraine and encourage its people to take an unfavorable settlement. But of course that's rubbish. We musn't be blackmailed.

A lot of leaders and analysts in the West seem to be willing to be blackmailed, based on how they've responded to the idea of NATO escalation. They prioritize not "inciting" Putin and take it for granted that he isn't bluffing. Well... if they're correct in their assessment of Putin's psychology, if Vladimir Putin is the sort to take this to the brink no matter what, as these Western analysts/governments are assessing, then of course we must eliminate him at some point as the unexaggeratedly-worst, most dangerous tyrant on Earth - EVER. By this characterization the existence of Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to the West (and the rest). So better act sooner than later, because if one believes all this about Putin, there will be a later. The only alternative in this framework is appeasement, cutting off aid to Ukraine to bring it to capitulation, because the foregoing analysis of Putin implies that he will go nuclear to protect his power whether NATO looks set to beat him, or Ukraine can do it on its own. So why support Ukraine beyond the extent to which it could lose as slowly, yet assuredly, as possible?

Yet as I said I'm not seeing that sort of logical process in those who fear WW3 above all, which leads me to believe that opponents of escalation are either deceptive or not calculating risk rationally.

(There are of course those advocating for the withdrawal of Western support to Ukraine in order to expedite the end of the conflict, but most of them are in China and India.)

Not as such. I'm talking about a scenario where Russian economy collapses and the country with 1600 nuclear warheads descends into chaos. Such a scenario would be extremely unpleasant.

Even if Putin's existence is an "existential threat to the West", Putin is 70 years old. He won't live forever. Even if someone would subscribe to the narrative pushed by the western media and TV analysts, would escalating the conflict be the most sensible approach?

Then, there's the fact that outside media hysteria and politicians picking up brownie points, everyone knows that Putin and Russia are not existential threat to the West. Everyone understands why Russia did this. The surprise came from the fact that no one believed they had the balls to do it, and they will eventually back down and accept the fait accompli, like they did several times in the past. That narrative is a bit flawed, and one has to wonder who is in charge of US foreign policy regarding Russia, as Russia made good on the promise that Ukraine and Georgia are red lines twice before this already.

Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.

[Montmorency]

Inward looking is a natural trend when there's lack of clear outside threats. Nevertheless, I can accept that it is a matter of opinion to a large degree. China might indeed prove to be less inclined to militarily oppose NATO.

Well, the only NATO country China has militarized tensions with is the United States. After all, NATO is centered on the Atlantic Ocean. And the only points of concern the US really has in China's neighborhood are Taiwan and South Korea. The US would never go to war over Vietnam, and maybe not even over the Philippines (imagining a Chinese excursion there). There really is more contact area in Europe, which is why it is and was so useful to consolidate everyone into a single cooperative faction.


Outside the typical media hysteria, the numbers don't support that. Up to March 14th, there have been 691 confirmed civilian deaths. The number is likely higher but still very small for a military operation of this size after 20 days.

Ukraine has already reported many thousands of civilian fatalities (such as at least 2500 in Mariupol), and even that is a likely underestimate. Every day sees hundreds of deaths at a minimum. Casualty rates will increase even without Russian deliberate targeting as the conflict goes on and residential buildings get demolished, and we know they're deliberately targeting civilians, for example by their repeated shelling of humanitarian corridors. Clips are clips, but of course there are also a number of well and lesser-known clips of Russian soldiers killing individual civilians.


I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.

Russians don't watch/read Sputnik and RT in Russia, those are for the international audience. Some of the sources for claims about bioweapons and the like are TASS and Major General Konashenkov, spokesperson for the RF Ministry of Defence. Look for the content promoted on their mainstream news programs, whose primary audience is Putin's natural social base.

By the way, a quick search on Russia Today and Sputnik English language pages reveals 10 (RT) and 7 (Sputnik) stories on bioweapons in the past week, and I'm not going to bother to look up the nuclear, chemical, or genocide/terrorism angles. The far-right in America is very loudly promoting these narratives, which noise in turn cycles back into Russian media.


I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties. Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be.

We'll wait for the evidence.


They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.


They haven't demonstrated that ability yet, and they may want to deploy it soon given the lower bound for their ground force fatalities has risen in 20 days to par with what the US lost in 20 years of the War on Terror.


Not as such. I'm talking about a scenario where Russian economy collapses and the country with 1600 nuclear warheads descends into chaos. Such a scenario would be extremely unpleasant.

Russia descending into chaos in this sense would be nothing more than some North Caucasian and Siberian ethnic territorialities seeking greater autonomy. Russia's nuclear arsenal won't be any less secure than it is now. The core Russian state has enough institutional and national identity that it wouldn't dissolve into feuding warlord statelets. Even Syria is by now almost entirely divided betwen two major factions, and Russia is a lot more cohesive than Syria.


Even if Putin's existence is an "existential threat to the West", Putin is 70 years old. He won't live forever. Even if someone would subscribe to the narrative pushed by the western media and TV analysts, would escalating the conflict be the most sensible approach?

If Putin's threats are taken as credible, deterring NATO intervention to avert Russian victory, then they would remain credible in the absence of a decisive victory in Ukraine even when Ukrainians are the ones doing all the fighting. In other words, the nuclear threat is essentially generated by the continuation of Ukrainian resistance. And to be clear, this resistance will persist regardless of NATO's actions.

Given that we want Ukraine to preserve its independence and integrity, if one credits Putin's threats, one should expect that threat to manifest eventually. The logic is pretty straightforward. If Putin is bluffing, we could lick him right quick. If Putin is not bluffing, he needs to be eliminated as someone too dangerous to live.

But I don't really want to escalate the conflict to war between NATO and Russia at this point, even if I'm more inclined to dismiss Putin as a bluffer or judge him deterrable (in nuclear matters). I just want everything short of war. The Cold War began with Russian pilots killing American pilots, and ended with American special forces killing Russian conscripts...


Then, there's the fact that outside media hysteria and politicians picking up brownie points, everyone knows that Putin and Russia are not existential threat to the West. Everyone understands why Russia did this. The surprise came from the fact that no one believed they had the balls to do it, and they will eventually back down and accept the fait accompli, like they did several times in the past. That narrative is a bit flawed, and one has to wonder who is in charge of US foreign policy regarding Russia, as Russia made good on the promise that Ukraine and Georgia are red lines twice before this already.

The US government warned everyone that Russia planned to invade, and given the widespread disbelief in the face of warnings to the morning of the war, I doubt everyone understands why Putin did this.

We have red lines too. If Turkey can have a security corridor in Syria, why doesn't Poland deserve one when it's absorbing the same number of refugees (2 million so far just in Poland)? If China's red line was the Yalu in 1950, why isn't Poland's the Bug or the Dnieper? Putin can still partition Ukraine with difficulty, but he would be an utter fool to think he has the power to take the whole thing. Foolishness isn't to be pardoned in geopolitics.


Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.

I think there are more Ukrainians than Russian soldiers to exchange, but the measures I reach out for in my musings are exactly designed to further imbalance the ratio in favor of Ukraine.

[spmetla]

Well, China certainly has had a much longer tradition of authoritarian rule.

Inward looking is a natural trend when there's lack of clear outside threats. Nevertheless, I can accept that it is a matter of opinion to a large degree. China might indeed prove to be less inclined to militarily oppose NATO.

China is certainly the bigger long-term threat but as they have stuck to economic bullying and grey-zone escalations but not outright conflict it is right for the US to focus on Russia which is blatantly attacking a neighboring country. To allow Russia to do so with few consequences would be to encourage it to happen again elsewhere, perhaps they take Moldova, Finland, central Asia, and the Caucuses.


I do have access to some Russian media, like Sputnik and RT and I haven't seen such claims. Granted, I might have missed it, but I can state with a rather high degree of certainty that it is not the majority of their reporting.
From what I understand those things have been circulating on 'social media' instead of the mainstream news. Sorta like how in the US the anti-vac things are spread mostly on social media sites.


I think your premise is flawed. You are assuming that Russia won't increase the intensity if need be. Their current pace is more due to the desire to minimize civilians casualties.

Time is on their side. They are prepared to withstand this for a few years, if need be. They have the ability to destroy most of NATO military shipments before they reach Ukrainian armed forced.
From what seems to be happening, minimizing civilian casualties hasn't been a priority for about two weeks.

I'd argue also that time is not on their side as the economic repercussions continue to pile up as well as the casualty rates. The fact that the Russians have had to ask Assad and others for help and troops is a pretty clear indicator that the casualty rate is unsustainable.

On the point of destroying most NATO shipments before they reach the Ukraine, that seems to be clearly false. The Germans only started shipping Panzerfaust-3s after the invasion started and they've made it to the front lines, same with other equipment for other contributing nations. Considering the fact that Ukraine still has an air force somehow and manages to conduct limited sorties against the Russians everyday despite the Russian air force operating off home bases and infrastructure I severely doubt the Russians have the capacity to destroy most shipments of anything other than large easily tracked hardware, stuff that hasn't been sent, yet.


Of course, this conflict doesn't hurt US much. They can theoretically keep fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. For Europeans, it is much less pleasant.
It doesn't hurt the US much but it is forcing the US to devote significant things to Europe at a time when it'd prefer to focus on China. Were the US to not give this the attention it deserves it would undermine confidence in NATO at a time that the EU and its member states are too weak to be a deterrent on their own. Perhaps in a few years when Germany's renewed defense investments pay off the US can focus on China but for now we are firmly involved in Europe again.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment
https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Operations%20Assessments%20Mar%2015.pdf

Key Takeaways
• Russian forces are unlikely to launch offensive operations to encircle Kyiv larger
than the scattered Russian attacks observed northwest of Kyiv targeting Irpin on
March 14 and Guta-Mezhyhirska on March 15 within the coming week but may
launch further tactical attacks.
• Russian forces continued to assault Mariupol from the east and west.
• Russian forces did not conduct major offensive operations toward northeastern
Kyiv in the past 24 hours.
• Russian forces attempting to encircle Kharkiv continue to face supply shortages,
particularly regarding ammunition.
• The Russian military falsely claimed to have captured the entirety of Kherson
Oblast on March 15 but did not conduct any major operations toward either
Zaporizhya or Mykolayiv.
• Russia is unlikely to launch an unsupported amphibious operation against Odesa
until Russian forces secure a ground line of communication to the city, but Russian
Naval Infantry retain the capability to conduct a landing along the Black Sea coast.

In military terms it seems that the Russia attack has culminated. They have no reserves to continue a general offensive until they start to clean up the various front lines. If they can take Mariupol and push back the Eastern front of Ukraine they can shorten their lines and perhaps take the offensive elsewhere again. Their offensive in the NE will not make any further progress until they can take Sumy and Kharkiv as those currently exposed spider webs of supply lines are extremely vulnerable to attack.

The Russians haven't take any major cities since Kherson and seem to be limited to small probing attacks. Could be indicators of poor supply, motivation, or just know how as attacking enemy held urban operations requires skill and close coordination unless you intend to just shell them into surrender.

In the meantime, the Western public's cry for more action and support will hopefully push the leaders of NATO and the Biden admin to be more proactive in supplying Ukraine with weapons and training including newer systems. More UAVs, counter UAV devices, mortar systems, and continuous supplies of ATGMs and MANPADs will allow the Ukrainians to continue to attrite the Russians.
If the US and NATO start to supply the Ukraine with those MiG-29s, counterbattery radars, and more potent air defense systems it may be possible for the Ukraine to begin to seriously damage the protective factor of Russian artillery. If the Ukrainians find a way to suppress or neutralize Russian artillery in certain pockets (Kiev and NE in particular) then they may have the ability to attack the exposed lines of supply and communication of the Russians and start to isolate Russian units enabling them to be attacked or expend supplies to the point of ineffectiveness.

In the long run, a negotiated settlement is absolutely key of course, but it needs to be Zelensky driving it as if it's the West pushing for him to accept terms that are too harsh it will still have the morale effect of betrayal. I could see Crimea being recognized as Russian and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk as well though not the whole Oblasts.

Denying the Russians victory makes negotiations possible, if the Ukrainians manage to actually cause irreversible local defeats and retake territory that may drive the Russians to a negotiated settlement.

Edit:
Home » Russian Aggression »

Russian soldiers are refusing to redeploy to Ukraine, citing reasons including unwillingness to become ‘cannon fodder’
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/03/16/russian-soldiers-are-refusing-to-redeploy-to-ukraine-citing-reasons-including-unwillingness-to-become-cannon-fodder-photographic-proof
The source above is of course biased but if the above are true then the morale is certainly as bad as seems to be reported. Formal refusals to return to the front are quite something, especially if the reasons listed are essentially failures of the army to assist the common soldier as opposed to moral reasons.

[Sarmatian]

Ok, guys, I'm not going to go point by point on this, I will just summarize my position.

I certainly believe Ukrainian officials are vastly exaggerating civilian deaths when they speak to the media, and I'm even going to skip the part of weapons being distributed to tens of thousands of civilians in Ukraine.

For Russia, this is a carefully planned operation. They perceive NATO in Ukraine as a grave threat to their security. They will not stop until they achieve their goals. It is very hard to predict duration, but based on what;s going on. I think realistically we can expect some sort of settlement in May or June.

Russia's major goals are recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and firm political guarantees about Ukraine not joining NATO. I think Ukraine still has a chance of keeping Donetsk and Lugansk if they show a willingness for a constitutional change that would allow those regions to be self governed, although probably with Russian peacekeeping force stationed there for a time.

[spmetla]

It's a fair position and I think we all know we won't see where things are until this concludes due to the fog of war etc...

The Ukrainians are undoubtedly upping the estimates in civilian casualties and in damage they are doing to the Russians, with Russian media banned in the West and Russia banning facebook, twitter, and instagram it's created an internet dominated by Ukrainian info operations.

Estimates from 6 March by UN and Red Cross though: OHCHR said that 1,123 civilian casualties in Ukraine have been verified: 364 killed, including 25 children, and 759 injured. The casualties are undoubtedly a lot higher though but hard to count and verify in a war zone. Also, this is from ten days ago, a lot has changed in Russian targeting of cities in that time.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113372#:~:text=OHCHR%20said%20that%201%2C123%20civilian,25%20children%2C%20and%20759%20injured.

As for the operation, as an outside observer this looks to be a poorly planned operation due to some extremely optimistic intelligence assessments on the part of the Russians. Just like the US was wrong in Iraq, Russia was wrong about the Ukrainians ability to resist. Zelensky's leadership has also galvanized his country and the West against Russia.

You are right about their worry about NATO, however this attack has resulted in a strengthening of NATO and closer ties among the local neutrals. Russia may get the Ukraine to be neutral in regards to NATO but I think Ukraine intends to stick with EU accession at some point so not true neutrality.

As for duration, well no one knows, your estimate seems about right as the Russians are not making a lot of progress and the Ukrainians can't push them back with the current equipment they have.

As for the Russian demands, well they've changed drastically in tenor the last few weeks. If regime change wasn't a goal though then why the attack toward Kiev and the Northern cities? Russia's only real successes have been in the South. We'll see how it plays out though, I don't think the Ukraine will want the separatist parts of Donetsk and Luhansk any more as they are just fuel for potential future conflict and would hinder any EU accession.

I appreciate your contrary opinion, no need for the backroom to just be an echo-chamber.

[Pannonian]

It's a fair position and I think we all know we won't see where things are until this concludes due to the fog of war etc...

The Ukrainians are undoubtedly upping the estimates in civilian casualties and in damage they are doing to the Russians, with Russian media banned in the West and Russia banning facebook, twitter, and instagram it's created an internet dominated by Ukrainian info operations.

Estimates from 6 March by UN and Red Cross though: OHCHR said that 1,123 civilian casualties in Ukraine have been verified: 364 killed, including 25 children, and 759 injured. The casualties are undoubtedly a lot higher though but hard to count and verify in a war zone. Also, this is from ten days ago, a lot has changed in Russian targeting of cities in that time.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113372#:~:text=OHCHR%20said%20that%201%2C123%20civilian,25%20children%2C%20and%20759%20injured.

As for the operation, as an outside observer this looks to be a poorly planned operation due to some extremely optimistic intelligence assessments on the part of the Russians. Just like the US was wrong in Iraq, Russia was wrong about the Ukrainians ability to resist. Zelensky's leadership has also galvanized his country and the West against Russia.

You are right about their worry about NATO, however this attack has resulted in a strengthening of NATO and closer ties among the local neutrals. Russia may get the Ukraine to be neutral in regards to NATO but I think Ukraine intends to stick with EU accession at some point so not true neutrality.

As for duration, well no one knows, your estimate seems about right as the Russians are not making a lot of progress and the Ukrainians can't push them back with the current equipment they have.

As for the Russian demands, well they've changed drastically in tenor the last few weeks. If regime change wasn't a goal though then why the attack toward Kiev and the Northern cities? Russia's only real successes have been in the South. We'll see how it plays out though, I don't think the Ukraine will want the separatist parts of Donetsk and Luhansk any more as they are just fuel for potential future conflict and would hinder any EU accession.

I appreciate your contrary opinion, no need for the backroom to just be an echo-chamber.

What's to stop the EU/NATO from arming and training the Ukrainian military in preparation for round 3? Ukraine can even pay for it in token amounts, or with the aid of loans that are never meant to be repaid. Ukraine can modernise in every facet in contrast to a still-sanctioned Russia, whilst being formally neutral and not a member of EU/NATO. And unlike Afghanistan, I doubt the Ukrainians will skim off the military aid in the knowledge that Russia will be preparing for another round.

[Sarmatian]

It's a fair position and I think we all know we won't see where things are until this concludes due to the fog of war etc...

The Ukrainians are undoubtedly upping the estimates in civilian casualties and in damage they are doing to the Russians, with Russian media banned in the West and Russia banning facebook, twitter, and instagram it's created an internet dominated by Ukrainian info operations.

Estimates from 6 March by UN and Red Cross though: OHCHR said that 1,123 civilian casualties in Ukraine have been verified: 364 killed, including 25 children, and 759 injured. The casualties are undoubtedly a lot higher though but hard to count and verify in a war zone. Also, this is from ten days ago, a lot has changed in Russian targeting of cities in that time.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113372#:~:text=OHCHR%20said%20that%201%2C123%20civilian,25%20children%2C%20and%20759%20injured.

As for the operation, as an outside observer this looks to be a poorly planned operation due to some extremely optimistic intelligence assessments on the part of the Russians. Just like the US was wrong in Iraq, Russia was wrong about the Ukrainians ability to resist. Zelensky's leadership has also galvanized his country and the West against Russia.

You are right about their worry about NATO, however this attack has resulted in a strengthening of NATO and closer ties among the local neutrals. Russia may get the Ukraine to be neutral in regards to NATO but I think Ukraine intends to stick with EU accession at some point so not true neutrality.

As for duration, well no one knows, your estimate seems about right as the Russians are not making a lot of progress and the Ukrainians can't push them back with the current equipment they have.

As for the Russian demands, well they've changed drastically in tenor the last few weeks. If regime change wasn't a goal though then why the attack toward Kiev and the Northern cities? Russia's only real successes have been in the South. We'll see how it plays out though, I don't think the Ukraine will want the separatist parts of Donetsk and Luhansk any more as they are just fuel for potential future conflict and would hinder any EU accession.

I appreciate your contrary opinion, no need for the backroom to just be an echo-chamber.

I don't think Russian position has changed drastically. The goals always were

1) demilitarization (read: limits on armed forces)
2) military neutrality
3) Crimea recognition

Political and economic considerations were not a part of equation at any point. Obviously, Russia would prefer Ukraine in their own economic zone, but those were never red lines for Russia. There are multiple statements from Russian officials from the last decade that they don't mind Ukraine joining EU.

Regarding poor planning and execution... well, it is certainly a possibility. The problem I have with that is that we don't really know what the Russians expected. No one ever said it would be an easy operation. It was western analysts who said that Russia expected no resistance.

On the other hand, this operation was very carefully planned by Russia. They worked it out with China to get their backing. A major meeting between Putin and Xi happened on the 15th December, with Xi declaring that Russo-Chinese relations are "more than an alliance".
On the same day Russia delivered their demands to NATO.
They have also carefully prepared with OPEC to ensure oil production isn't increased, thus ensuring that the West pays for their own sanctions to a degree.
All that tells me they didn't expect this will be an "quick in an out" operation, like the one that happened in Crimea. Ukraine is a huge country with a large population, and most of that population is very anti-Russian at the moment. They knew that Ukraine has been upgrading their army and had NATO equipment and instructors, for years now. I do not think anyone was naive enough to think this would be quick and easy.


What's to stop the EU/NATO from arming and training the Ukrainian military in preparation for round 3? Ukraine can even pay for it in token amounts, or with the aid of loans that are never meant to be repaid. Ukraine can modernise in every facet in contrast to a still-sanctioned Russia, whilst being formally neutral and not a member of EU/NATO. And unlike Afghanistan, I doubt the Ukrainians will skim off the military aid in the knowledge that Russia will be preparing for another round.

Well, it will probably be based on verification. After demilitarization, it would be impossible for Ukraine to increase their combat capabilities without Russia knowing about it. That would include tight limits on foreign military involvement.
Most importantly for Russia, that would certainly include Ukraine being legally forbidden from allowing any NATO military equipment on its territory.

Such treaties are usually in effect as long as they are enforceable. So, we can probably expect it will for sure be in effect for at least a few decades, and after that it will depend on the balance of power in the region and the world.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Ok, guys, I'm not going to go point by point on this, I will just summarize my position.

I certainly believe Ukrainian officials are vastly exaggerating civilian deaths when they speak to the media, and I'm even going to skip the part of weapons being distributed to tens of thousands of civilians in Ukraine.

For Russia, this is a carefully planned operation. They perceive NATO in Ukraine as a grave threat to their security. They will not stop until they achieve their goals. It is very hard to predict duration, but based on what;s going on. I think realistically we can expect some sort of settlement in May or June.

Russia's major goals are recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and firm political guarantees about Ukraine not joining NATO. I think Ukraine still has a chance of keeping Donetsk and Lugansk if they show a willingness for a constitutional change that would allow those regions to be self governed, although probably with Russian peacekeeping force stationed there for a time.

I believe your estimate of the Russian goals to be fairly accurate. It fits the data/scope of operations I am seeing. I am sure it was planned and thought out, but so were the Schlieffen Plan and Hull's Invasion of Canada -- no plan survives contact with the enemy and the Russians do not appear (so far) to have been well prepared to adapt to changes.

As to Ukrainian exaggerations, it is almost a cliche to note that truth is an early casualty in warfare. Some of this is purposeful deception and some of this is misperception. I believe the Russians to be using deception to a greater degree, but believe both nations assessments are inaccurate for a myriad of perceptual reasons.

[Montmorency]

Ok, guys, I'm not going to go point by point on this, I will just summarize my position.

I certainly believe Ukrainian officials are vastly exaggerating civilian deaths when they speak to the media, and I'm even going to skip the part of weapons being distributed to tens of thousands of civilians in Ukraine.

For Russia, this is a carefully planned operation. They perceive NATO in Ukraine as a grave threat to their security. They will not stop until they achieve their goals. It is very hard to predict duration, but based on what;s going on. I think realistically we can expect some sort of settlement in May or June.

Russia's major goals are recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and firm political guarantees about Ukraine not joining NATO. I think Ukraine still has a chance of keeping Donetsk and Lugansk if they show a willingness for a constitutional change that would allow those regions to be self governed, although probably with Russian peacekeeping force stationed there for a time.

Commenting further on the point of civilian casualties. I would ask if you have seen some of the images of cities on the frontline. There are kilometer-swathes of flats and houses ruined or even leveled, WW2-style. Several million civilians were and still are resident in these cities. It's basically infeasible to only produce hundreds of deaths with such tactics, which we also know killed countless thousands in Syria. Thousands of civilians were killed in the Battle of Mosul, amid less intense fighting, and over a slower advance.

Just one mass grave.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1502759855689457665


This is all before you take into account the known deliberate targeting of individual civilians, which includes shooting at almost every single humanitarian corridor. It remains to characterize today's worst incident, the likely killing of hundreds of civilians in a bombing on a Mariupol theater designated as a civilian space.



I don't think Russian position has changed drastically. The goals always were

1) demilitarization (read: limits on armed forces)
2) military neutrality
3) Crimea recognition


Why launch an extremely costly invasion for all that when it would have been easily achieved by negotiations in 2014? Ukraine's military poses no independent threat to Russia, and barely existed in 2014. Putin made a mess for himself by annexing Crimea, even when Russian military basing there was under no threat. He could have negotiated a favorable arrangement with a new Ukrainian government 8 years go, a path he very deliberately foreclosed. Unless we do judge Putin insane, the rational explanation is that his goals were more maximalist.

I've always understood the goal to be political and economic domination over Kyiv, which are the motives claimed by Putin and relayed through state media to the Russian public, and are demonstrated by such actions as the abduction of Ukrainian politicians and activists, and the attempt to install a Kherson People's Republic.


Political and economic part were not a part of equation at any point. Obviously, Russia would prefer Ukraine in their own economic zone, but those were never red lines for Russia. There multiple statements from Russian officials from the last decade that they don't mind Ukraine joining NATO.

Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea and the creation of Novorossiya after the Ukrainian people rebelled when he directed his puppet to reject EU integration. NATO and EU membership, or the pursuit of it, have always been linked, with the notable exception of the UK.


Regarding poor planning and execution... well, it is certainly a possibility. The problem I have with that is that we don't really know what the Russians expected. No one ever said it would be an easy operation. It was western analysts who said that Russia expected no resistance.

It was inferred by the lack of supply, organization, and preparation for a conventional conflict, and the insistence on driving unsupported columns into city centers (a tactic limited to the first week for some reason). While this could also reflect an overall lack of capability on the Russian military's part, the consensus that Putin did not expect protracted conventional resistance is well-founded. There was also that captured document implying a 15-day timetable for the operation.

It remains possible that Putin's goal was always something very limited, but such scenarios do not conform to Occam's Razor, and anyway cannot really redeem Russian performance in its particulars.

To couch my words in a balanced manner, the level of careful planning on the part of the Russians, or how much Putin even allowed to be performed below the political level, remains unclear. (An example of Russian planning, though one I can't verify in mainstream media, is that rented storage space in Kyiv was filled with a stockpile of Russian dress uniforms.)


On the other hand, this operation was very carefully planned by Russia. They worked it out with China to get their backing. A major meeting between Putin and Xi happened on the 15th December, with Xi declaring that Russo-Chinese relations are "more than an alliance".

Has the backing proved more than moral yet?


They have also carefully prepared with OPEC to ensure oil production isn't increased, thus ensuring that the West pays for their own sanctions to a degree.

Cite?


OPEC, Russia Agree to Keep Boosting Oil Output, Jolting Prices
(https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-russia-agree-to-keep-boosting-oil-output-sending-prices-lower-11638457503)
OPEC and a group of Russia-led oil producers agreed to continue pumping more crude, betting that pent-up demand in a post-lockdown world will outweigh any hit to economic activity by the recent permutations of Covid-19.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers led by Russia said Thursday they would raise their collective production by another 400,000 barrels a day in January. The group agreed earlier this year to boost output in such increments each month until production reaches pre-pandemic levels.

The White House had put pressure on the group to accelerate that pace. Many market watchers, meanwhile, expected the group, which calls itself OPEC+, to pause in opening taps any wider. That expectation came amid the uncertain economic impact of new travel bans going up to curb the Omicron variant and fresh lockdowns in places like Europe, which is suffering through another wave of the older, Delta variant.

Oil Price Rise Blamed in Part on OPEC, Russian Output Shortfalls (https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-russian-oil-output-increases-fall-short-of-promises-stoking-prices-11643108001)

PEC and its Russia-led partners have promised to increase oil production to pre-pandemic levels this year but are falling short of those public commitments, stoking fast-rising global crude markets.

Last month, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Russia-led allies increased their collective production by 250,000 barrels a day, or 60% of what the two groups promised for the month, according to the International Energy Agency. Overall, the group is pumping 790,000 barrels a day below its publicly stated targets, said the Paris-based watchdog, which advises industrialized nations on energy.
[...]
OPEC+ cut its production deeply in early 2020 by a collective 9.7 million barrels a day, equivalent to about 10% of global demand at the time. The group has since agreed to restore 6.4 million barrels a day of those cuts. It has promised to further increase output each month by 400,000 barrels a day until the group is back at pre-Covid-19 pumping levels.
[...]
In December, Nigeria, a top African producer, pumped 460,000 barrels a day below its quota, after a malfunctioning barge triggered the shutdown of a major export terminal. In Angola, technical issues and a lack of investment have sent production to 17-year lows.

Last month, Russia pumped below its OPEC+ quota for the first since the group cut output. It had promised to boost output in the month by 20,000 barrels a day, but instead cut output by 10,000 barrels a day, the IEA said, blaming slower-than-expected development of some fields. A Russian Energy Ministry spokesman said he couldn’t immediately comment.

The IEA cut Iraq’s sustainable capacity estimates by 140,000 barrels a day due to lingering bottlenecks in aging southern infrastructure. Pipelines are frequently targeted by insurgents or fail due to lack of maintenance. In the most recent outage, a key oil pipeline to Turkey was knocked out by an explosion blamed on a falling pylon.

Those and other obstacles leave Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. as the world’s only major producers with sizable spare capacity, about 3.25 million barrels a day, according to the IEA.

Since 2014 Russia has always, as far as I know, opposed production cuts, even when the OPEC loosening in 2014-15 dovetailed with sanctions to cause considerable stress to the Russian economy. It took some conflict with the Saudis at the beginning of the pandemic for Russia to agree to a cut. The Saudis are set to return to pre-pandemic quotas in a few months under current protocol. Record profit margins are a more likely barrier to dipping into their limited spare capacity than some secret pact with Russia.


All that tells me they didn't expect this will be an "quick in an out" operation, like the one that happened in Crimea. Ukraine is a huge country with a large population, and most of that population is very anti-Russian at the moment. They knew that Ukraine has been upgrading their army and had NATO equipment and instructors, for years now. I do not think anyone was naive enough to think this would be quick and easy.

It would be naive to overestimate the minds of autocrats.

Here's a bit from Putin's latest address:
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1504116136966828043 [video]

Yes, undoubtedly, they will try to wager on a so-called fifth-column, on national traitors, on those who make money here, with us, but live there. Live there not even in a geographical sense of the word, but by their intentions, by their slavish consciousness. I'm not talking about those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera [*wink wink*], who can't get by without foie gras, or so-called gender freedoms. The problem is absolutely not in that. I repeat, it's that many of such people, by their essence [?], find themselves namely there, but not here with our people. Not with Russia. This is, by their opinion - by their opinion - a sign of membership in a higher caste, a higher race. Similar people are ready to sell their dear mother if only for permission to sit in the entry hall of this uppermost caste. And they want to resemble it, in every way imitate it. But they either forget or don't understand at all, that this so-called higher caste, if it even needs them, then only as consumables, so as to utilize them for the carrying through of maximal damage to our people.

[video=youtube;ZCh53fvuqHk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCh53fvuqHk


Well, it will probably be based on verification. After demilitarization, it would be impossible for Ukraine to increase their combat capabilities without Russia knowing about it. That would include tight limits on foreign military involvement.
Most importantly for Russia, that would certainly include Ukraine being legally forbidden from allowing any NATO military equipment on its territory.

Such treaties are usually in effect as long as they are enforceable. So, we can probably expect it will for sure be in effect for at least a few decades, and after that it will depend on the balance of power in the region and the world.

Ukraine's military is the only thing protecting it from Russia, so it seems highly unlikely that they will concede to demilitarization. NATO neutrality on the other hand was always on the table, and even more so now, because if Ukraine can throw off Russia without NATO's direct intervention (assuming this remains the case), why would they need to join NATO?

[Montmorency]

Ни одной пяди чужой земли не хотим. Но и своей земли, ни одного вершка не отдадим.

Macron seems to be imitating Zelensky chic. He looks pretty good though.

https://i.imgur.com/2g0X0BT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/a0eAhDi.jpg

Elon Musk (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503828461235982339) is very good at getting into Twitter fights, and now he's gone and trolled Ramzan Kadyrov into Navy SEALing by proxy at him.

https://i.imgur.com/8l8pPg7.jpg

The Pentagon reports that Russia has committed 75% of its BTGs to the Ukraine war. Unclear if this refers specifically to Russia's ~170 Army BTGs, or includes VDV and Marines. 75% of 170 would accord with previous estimates of 120-125 BTGs in the AO, but it's a little unclear since we know VDV and Marines have been fighting on the ground as well.

Also assessed was that Ukraine and Russia each have lost 10% of their initial forces, which is rough for Ukraine until more Territorials can be trained.

Biden has agreed to send Ukraine 100 Switchblade loitering munitions!

https://i.imgur.com/Qlx09H0.jpg

Other NATO countries will contribute Starstreak, S-300, SA-8 Osa, and SA-13 Strela systems. NATO also preparing to deploy "substantially" more forces near Ukraine.

Poland is calling for a NATO peacekeeping mission with self-defense ROE in Ukraine, which sounds a lot like the security corridor I keep recommending.

That noble wrath may yet boil over, however slowly. I'm increasingly willing to defer to Biden's diplomatic process.

Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly planning to deforest the occupied regions to reduce cover for insurgents. This form of pillage is what Erdogan and Assad did in Afrin, so the allegation checks out, and fits with long-term plans of annexation or occupation.

As a reminder, here is Ukraine's eco-geography. Green is fantastic guerrilla terrain, and the forest steppe is quite hilly west of the Dnieper. There's a reason we've heard so much about irregular activities along the Kyiv-Sumy axis.

https://i.imgur.com/oN3qytD.png



Two important points to balance:

1. Don't take the step that could lead to rapid escalation until you've prepared for the possibility of going all the way.
2. If the most powerful military, and military alliance, are deterred solely by nuclear posturing, then the potent lesson for all states is that acquiring nukes allows you to do whatever you please. Cf. North Korea.




I believe your estimate of the Russian goals to be fairly accurate. It fits the data/scope of operations I am seeing. I am sure it was planned and thought out, but so were the Schlieffen Plan and Hull's Invasion of Canada -- no plan survives contact with the enemy and the Russians do not appear (so far) to have been well prepared to adapt to changes.

As to Ukrainian exaggerations, it is almost a cliche to note that truth is an early casualty in warfare. Some of this is purposeful deception and some of this is misperception. I believe the Russians to be using deception to a greater degree, but believe both nations assessments are inaccurate for a myriad of perceptual reasons.

To offer an example, Russia claimed more TB2 Bayraktar downed than Ukraine ever possessed. Not a single loss has been documented as far as I know.

Ukraine claims (https://index.minfin.com.ua/russian-invading/casualties/) 430 Russian tanks eliminated. The verifiable number (Oryx) alone is 233.

[Pannonian]

Well, it will probably be based on verification. After demilitarization, it would be impossible for Ukraine to increase their combat capabilities without Russia knowing about it. That would include tight limits on foreign military involvement.
Most importantly for Russia, that would certainly include Ukraine being legally forbidden from allowing any NATO military equipment on its territory.

Such treaties are usually in effect as long as they are enforceable. So, we can probably expect it will for sure be in effect for at least a few decades, and after that it will depend on the balance of power in the region and the world.

Demilitarisation? Why on earth would anyone agree to demilitarisation after their neighbour had invaded them and taken chunks of their territory?

[Sarmatian]

I believe your estimate of the Russian goals to be fairly accurate. It fits the data/scope of operations I am seeing. I am sure it was planned and thought out, but so were the Schlieffen Plan and Hull's Invasion of Canada -- no plan survives contact with the enemy and the Russians do not appear (so far) to have been well prepared to adapt to changes.

As to Ukrainian exaggerations, it is almost a cliche to note that truth is an early casualty in warfare. Some of this is purposeful deception and some of this is misperception. I believe the Russians to be using deception to a greater degree, but believe both nations assessments are inaccurate for a myriad of perceptual reasons.

I am not saying that all is going perfectly. We have no way of knowing what they expected. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that they expected it would be quick and easy*.

Quick and easy in this case is relative. If they achieve their goals after a few months, it could still be argued that it was quick. But, I do not think they expected it would be over in a few days, or even weeks.


Commenting further on the point of civilian casualties. I would ask if you have seen some of the images of cities on the frontline. There are kilometer-swathes of flats and houses ruined or even leveled, WW2-style. Several million civilians were and still are resident in these cities. It's basically infeasible to only produce hundreds of deaths with such tactics, which we also know killed countless thousands in Syria. Thousands of civilians were killed in the Battle of Mosul, amid less intense fighting, and over a slower advance.

Just one mass grave.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1502759855689457665


This is all before you take into account the known deliberate targeting of individual civilians, which includes shooting at almost every single humanitarian corridor. It remains to characterize today's worst incident, the likely killing of hundreds of civilians in a bombing on a Mariupol theater designated as a civilian space.



I am going by UN numbers. Anything easily verifiable would have already been included in that number. 691* deaths was a figure from two days ago.

The real number is probably considerably higher. How much, we can only guess. The lowest estimates for Iraq invasion put the number at around 4000 civilian deaths during 40 days of combat operations. More realistic estimates place civilian deaths at more than 7000, and there are also estimates that go over 10000.

There doesn't seem to be a huge discrepancy between civilian deaths in those two invasions, which points me to think that there's no deliberate targeting of civilians as a policy of the Russian army.

*That number includes civilian deaths in Donbas areas by the Ukrainian armed forces.


Why launch an extremely costly invasion for all that when it would have been easily achieved by negotiations in 2014? Ukraine's military poses no independent threat to Russia, and barely existed in 2014. Putin made a mess for himself by annexing Crimea, even when Russian military basing there was under no threat. He could have negotiated a favorable arrangement with a new Ukrainian government 8 years go, a path he very deliberately foreclosed. Unless we do judge Putin insane, the rational explanation is that his goals were more maximalist.

One would think that, but any attempts by Russia to do exactly that were rebuffed by US and Kiev.



I've always understood the goal to be political and economic domination over Kyiv, which are the motives claimed by Putin and relayed through state media to the Russian public, and are demonstrated by such actions as the abduction of Ukrainian politicians and activists, and the attempt to install a Kherson People's Republic.


Well, you've always been wrong.

Russian position regarding NATO expansion has been clear for decades now. In 2008, US ambassador to Moscow wrote to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”






It was inferred by the lack of supply, organization, and preparation for a conventional conflict, and the insistence on driving unsupported columns into city centers (a tactic limited to the first week for some reason). While this could also reflect an overall lack of capability on the Russian military's part, the consensus that Putin did not expect protracted conventional resistance is well-founded. There was also that captured document implying a 15-day timetable for the operation.

It remains possible that Putin's goal was always something very limited, but such scenarios do not conform to Occam's Razor, and anyway cannot really redeem Russian performance in its particulars.


I would disagree with that. Occam's Razor is applied when we don't have enough information, so we assume the simplest answer is more likely to be correct. Since it is has been well documented that Russia's primary concern is not allowing NATO in Ukraine there's no need to even consider using it. And even if we did apply it, your conclusion certainly wouldn't have been within its confines, because it involves a lot of jumping through hoops to get to it.



Has the backing proved more than moral yet?

There's no need for it to be anything more than moral yet.


Cite?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/13/white-house-us-joe-biden-oil-output-prices-saudi-arabia-uae

"Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations."


It would be naive to overestimate the minds of autocrats.

Here's a bit from Putin's latest address:
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1504116136966828043 [video]

Yes, undoubtedly, they will try to wager on a so-called fifth-column, on national traitors, on those who make money here, with us, but live there. Live there not even in a geographical sense of the word, but by their intentions, by their slavish consciousness. I'm not talking about those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera [*wink wink*], who can't get by without foie gras, or so-called gender freedoms. The problem is absolutely not in that. I repeat, it's that many of such people, by their essence [?], find themselves namely there, but not here with our people. Not with Russia. This is, by their opinion - by their opinion - a sign of membership in a higher caste, a higher race. Similar people are ready to sell their dear mother if only for permission to sit in the entry hall of this uppermost caste. And they want to resemble it, in every way imitate it. But they either forget or don't understand at all, that this so-called higher caste, if it even needs them, then only as consumables, so as to utilize them for the carrying through of maximal damage to our people.

[video=youtube;ZCh53fvuqHk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCh53fvuqHk

Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.

In 1997, almost 50 US foreign policy experts wrote a letter (https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/opposition-nato-expansion) to Clinton calling NATO expansion "policy error of historic proportions"

"In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the "ins" and the "outs," foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included;"

There was no notion of Putin in 1997.

I do not understand what is your point with the video.


Ukraine's military is the only thing protecting it from Russia, so it seems highly unlikely that they will concede to demilitarization. NATO neutrality on the other hand was always on the table, and even more so now, because if Ukraine can throw off Russia without NATO's direct intervention (assuming this remains the case), why would they need to join NATO?


Demilitarisation? Why on earth would anyone agree to demilitarisation after their neighbour had invaded them and taken chunks of their territory?

In this case, they will accept it because they have no other choice. Otherwise, they would be committing suicide out of the fear of death.

[spmetla]

Biden Announces $800 Million in New Ukraine Assistance
https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-announces-new-assistance-after-zelenskyy-asks-for-more-us-help/6488192.html

“This new package on its own is going to provide unprecedented assistance to Ukraine,” the president added. “It includes 800 anti-aircraft systems to make sure the Ukrainian military can continue to stop the planes and helicopters that have been attacking their people and to defend their Ukrainian airspace.”

In addition to the 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems that Biden mentioned, the package includes 2,000 Javelin and 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems; hundreds of grenade launchers, shotguns and machine guns; thousands of rifles and pistols; more than 20 million rounds of ammunition and tens of thousands of sets of body armor and helmets.

Seeing that the US is in addition to the above also working to transfer former Soviet air defense systems from several NATO nations to the Ukraine I still can't see why the MiG-29 transfer is off the table. Put the damn planes on a flat bed truck and drive them over if need be, they don't need to be flown from NATO countries to Ukraine. Those S-300 air defense systems are just as big a system and signature for moving over the border and would be a hell of a lot more useful with some fighter aircraft to complement their attacks.


I am not saying that all is going perfectly. We have no way of knowing what they expected. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that they expected it would be quick and easy*.

Quick and easy in this case is relative. If they achieve their goals after a few months, it could still be argued that it was quick. But, I do not think they expected it would be over in a few days, or even weeks.

Based on Putin putting the head of the FSB under house arrest and the loss of several Major Generals to combat in the last week there is no doubt that this war is going poorly for Russia and not as expected. Lossing a fifth of the tank force sent in is an absolutely crazy level of losses.

The indicator of the quick and easy though was the use of the VDV to go and seize forward airfields and getting repulsed. Airborne forces are extremely vulnerable without support and so far forward of their own lines so to commit them as happened is an indicator that they expected a much easier fight than happened, just like the Allied powers when they did Operation Market Garden.


Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.

In 1997, almost 50 US foreign policy experts wrote a letter to Clinton calling NATO expansion "policy error of historic proportions"


The expansion of NATO will always end up being a what if type of event. However, it's not like NATO has invaded and forced these countries into the fold, its those countries not trusting Russia due to a history of mistrust. It's a chicken egg situation, did Russia become revisionist because of NATO expansion or was that going to happen anyway which makes the expansion of a NATO a prudent policy in view of a Russia that remained at odds with the West.

As for Ukraine specifically, I'm happy with them not being in NATO however I'd like them to be eventually admitted to the EU. If Mexico for some reason became a Chinese ally that'd be a certain threat the US and would make sense for the US to oppose however it would not justify the US invading to topple that government or demand neutrality.
The requirements for EU accension are high though so it will take a long time. Having the Ukraine demilitarize though is ludicrous as without outside security guarantees they'd be at the mercy of the will of the Kremlin in regard to anything they choose to do as a nation. The Ukraine didn't invade Russia, or threaten it. All they did was overthrow a pro-Moscow government and put in one that wanted a future with the EU. Russia invading Crimea the moment the government in Kiev wasn't manned by their puppet certainly shows that they had no intention of letting Ukraine decide it's own course.

[Pannonian]

The indicator of the quick and easy though was the use of the VDV to go and seize forward airfields and getting repulsed. Airborne forces are extremely vulnerable without support and so far forward of their own lines so to commit them as happened is an indicator that they expected a much easier fight than happened, just like the Allied powers when they did Operation Market Garden.


How prevalent is the theory that airborne infantry exists for the purpose of being rescued by ground forces?

[Furunculus]

How prevalent is the theory that airborne infantry exists for the purpose of being rescued by ground forces?

thinkdefence.co.uk looked at this a few years ago, and i believe the conclusion was that their use is a niche requirement for specific (and permissive) environments, and outside of that their usage would bring more peril than benefit.

if you're looking at parachute forces, then no more than two companies out of the entire three para 'battalions' are jump qualified.
if you're looking at airborne forces, then 16AAB has long been incapable of being deployed (let alone sustained!), by the RAF trasnport fleet.

[Sarmatian]

Based on Putin putting the head of the FSB under house arrest and the loss of several Major Generals to combat in the last week there is no doubt that this war is going poorly for Russia and not as expected. Lossing a fifth of the tank force sent in is an absolutely crazy level of losses.

The indicator of the quick and easy though was the use of the VDV to go and seize forward airfields and getting repulsed. Airborne forces are extremely vulnerable without support and so far forward of their own lines so to commit them as happened is an indicator that they expected a much easier fight than happened, just like the Allied powers when they did Operation Market Garden.

I don't particularly disagree with any of that. Furthermore, my knowledge of actual combat operations, equipment and manpower involved is rather limited.

Still, the point remains that Russia can apply more pressure, if need be. While the western sanctions are hurting Russian economy, Ukrainian economy is basically not functioning. US and EU can not and will not cover the bill of that size.

Russia doesn't have to do much more to get what it wants.


The expansion of NATO will always end up being a what if type of event. However, it's not like NATO has invaded and forced these countries into the fold, its those countries not trusting Russia due to a history of mistrust. It's a chicken egg situation, did Russia become revisionist because of NATO expansion or was that going to happen anyway which makes the expansion of a NATO a prudent policy in view of a Russia that remained at odds with the West.

As for Ukraine specifically, I'm happy with them not being in NATO however I'd like them to be eventually admitted to the EU. If Mexico for some reason became a Chinese ally that'd be a certain threat the US and would make sense for the US to oppose however it would not justify the US invading to topple that government or demand neutrality.


Well, it is certainly an interesting question. Morally, I would certainly support the position that all nations should be able to choose their own path, regardless of what their neighbours think.

Unfortunately, that's not how it works, even though it should.

Cuba is an example of that. It all thankfully worked out in the end, but US administration was ready to go as far as it took. Soviet missiles on Cuba were a red line for them, plain and simple.

US still has enough political and economic clout that most of the time it does not need to intervene militarily, although they will do that with impunity when it suits their interest. They will usually first try to bribe, or assassinate, or foster a civil war if the usual political and economic isolation doesn't solve the problem.

What Russia is doing here is basically implementing Monroe's doctrine on a much smaller scale.



The requirements for EU accension are high though so it will take a long time. Having the Ukraine demilitarize though is ludicrous as without outside security guarantees they'd be at the mercy of the will of the Kremlin in regard to anything they choose to do as a nation. The Ukraine didn't invade Russia, or threaten it. All they did was overthrow a pro-Moscow government and put in one that wanted a future with the EU. Russia invading Crimea the moment the government in Kiev wasn't manned by their puppet certainly shows that they had no intention of letting Ukraine decide it's own course.

There will certainly be outside guarantees.

It depends how you look at it. Zelensky did call on his western allies to force Russia to return Crimea. The options discussed were purely diplomatic. But, if you're in position of Russia, and all NATO members recognize Crimea as Ukrainian territory, Ukraine joins NATO and activates article 5, on the account that a foreign country has troops in its territory - what happens then? Russia can not fight NATO, so their choice is either accept NATO demands or destroy the world.

Calling Yanukovich a Russian puppet is pushing it. He was a democratically elected president of Ukraine. His approval numbers were abysmal around 2014, but so were pretty much all of Ukrainian politicians, due to widespread corruption. His predecessor, Yuschenko, a western darling, was polling in the single digits before Yanukovich was elected. It was a trend. A highly inefficient and corrupt government institutions tend to have that effect. And every time a new face is elected, people are initially overjoyed that it is finally turning around, and they end up leaving the office with abysmal rating.

In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.

I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.

[spmetla]

Calling Yanukovich a Russian puppet is pushing it. He was a democratically elected president of Ukraine. His approval numbers were abysmal around 2014, but so were pretty much all of Ukrainian politicians, due to widespread corruption. His predecessor, Yuschenko, a western darling, was polling in the single digits before Yanukovich was elected. It was a trend. A highly inefficient and corrupt government institutions tend to have that effect. And every time a new face is elected, people are initially overjoyed that it is finally turning around, and they end up leaving the office with abysmal rating.


And he remained in power until he pulled the Ukraine off the path of joining in the EU leading to the Euromaiden revolution.

Zelensky didn't have overwhelming support either until it was clear he was willing to stay in Kiev and not flee to the West. Had he fled as offered by the US, who knows how long Ukraine would have had the political will to continue resisting.


In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.
Neutrality is fine with me but not a disarmed neutrality.


I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.
If you put the window back to:from WW2 to present I think the Warsaw pact actually has a worse history in regards to interfering and propping up every revolution in the third world. Not to mention when France left NATO in the 60s they weren't invaded, the US just closed it's bases there. Not like the USSR invading Hungary or Czechoslovakia to keep them in the Warsaw Pact. Propping up and funding a communist revolution movement in almost every African and South American country certainly wasn't the kindest, nor was the US supporting the cruel dictatorships that tried to fight those communist revolutions.
If the window is post USSR, then yes, NATO countries have been involved in more wars and interventions but not necessarily as NATO. I know the intervention in Yugoslavia/Serbia is a touchy subject, the next 'NATO' war was the reaction to 9/11 which involved fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Libya was the only real 'adventurism' of NATO.

I think it's important to separate NATO and the US though because US foreign policy is not equal to NATO. There's no shortage of flawed US interventions but that doesn't equal NATO. Same with France and the UK, their intervention in former colonies does not equal NATO. That's why the Falkland War did not get NATO support behind the UK just some intel support from the US an France pausing their exocet missile sales to Argentina.

Bottom line though, NATO is not a direct threat to Russia as nuclear deterrence will prevent any direct NATO aggression. Russia demanding to keep a sphere of nation's that don't necessarily want to be vulnerable to Russian bullying isn't exactly fair either.

It's not like NATO is posturing itself right now to march on Kaliningrad and hit the Russians while they're tied down in Ukraine. No one is advocating retaking Crimea to punish the Russians. NATO and the EU are instead helping the Ukraine to the best degree possible short of direct intervention fight off unwarranted Russian aggression. The troops sent to the east of the alliance is because those countries very understandably fear Russia trying to reclaim its old empire.

Imagine Austria demanding South Tirol from Italy and an annexation of Slovenia, it'd be ludicrous. Pulling up old maps of when country X controlled countries Y and Z doesn't justify invasion. This is why the efforts to support Ukraine are so important in keeping any future deals with Taiwan to remain in the peaceful realm. If the PRC ever undertakes reforms that make Taiwan want to join them again cool, the PRC invading to rule something they've never ruled and only the last dynasty of China conquered is not acceptable.

[Pannonian]

Neutrality is fine with me but not a disarmed neutrality.


The demand for disarmament makes me think of the Sudetenland. A negotiated settlement that removes the most significant obstacles to a future repeated push.

Whatever the settlement turns out to be, Ukraine needs to be rapidly and heavily re-armed in anticipation of a future Russian attack. It's happened twice already, and we can expect another once they've re-armed and regrouped. Even if NATO does not directly involve itself, we owe it to the Ukrainians to be as well resourced as we can manage it so they can fight on our behalf. All the equipment we don't use any more, but which is still a level and more above nothing.

[Montmorency]

I am not saying that all is going perfectly. We have no way of knowing what they expected. I'm just saying I find it hard to believe that they expected it would be quick and easy*.

Quick and easy in this case is relative. If they achieve their goals after a few months, it could still be argued that it was quick. But, I do not think they expected it would be over in a few days, or even weeks.

How do you confront the evidence against this? Your only evidence for it is that you don't believe the Kremlin could be so stupid or arrogant.


There doesn't seem to be a huge discrepancy between civilian deaths in those two invasions, which points me to think that there's no deliberate targeting of civilians as a policy of the Russian army.

It is a fact, protested by the UN, that the Russians have been targeting civilians, on many occasions, documented by reporters and third parties on the ground, as well as the actual victims. That is what we know so far.

And for reference, after two weeks the Iraqi Body Count (democracynow.org/2003/4/4/we_dont_do_body_counts_says) project was estimating


The site estimates between 574 and 733 Iraqi civilians have died since the attack began.

Major conventional fighting would basically end in Iraq by three weeks after D0, with the fall of Baghdad, so most of the civilian casualties must have been priced in by the time the quoted estimate was published. The IBC would in a few months revise its estimate of civilian casualties upward by an order of magnitude.

In Mariupol, the city government (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/world/europe/mariupol-death-toll-ukraine.html) - people on the ground - claimed two days ago that 2400 civilian deaths had been confirmed. This is in a city that has been under siege, under heavy bombardment, for 2 weeks. Here is some aerial footage (https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1504461492527185925) of Mariupol.

One would have to muster very strong evidence to discount such a figure as "vastly exaggerated."


Opposition to Ukraine in NATO and NATO in Ukraine is not Putin, it is Russia. It is Yeltsin, and before him Gorbachev, and every single policy maker of note in Russia for that last three decades.

I did not disagree that Russians dislike NATO as a concept. The problem for your construction was always that the Russian government's actions have not been consistent with a limited opposition to Ukrainian NATO accession, which was not a remote possibility in February 2014, when Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea and the partition of Ukraine hours after Yanukovych's flight. While these and subsequent encroachments are not consistent with the goal of mitigating a perceived security threat from Ukraine, they are consistent with colonialism.


Well, you've always been wrong.

Russian position regarding NATO expansion has been clear for decades now. In 2008, US ambassador to Moscow wrote to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”


And yet, consistently, the Kremlin has reacted to Ukraine moving toward the EU, whereas NATO accession was never a short-term or medium-term prospect from the perspective of the US or of actual Ukrainian governments since 2014. At the same time, from 2014 to the declaration of war, Russian media and political discourse up to the President's office has objected to Ukraine's economic and cultural "separation" from Russia.

At some point we must admit that the NATO angle is discredited as propaganda for outsiders.


I would disagree with that. Occam's Razor is applied when we don't have enough information, so we assume the simplest answer is more likely to be correct. Since it is has been well documented that Russia's primary concern is not allowing NATO in Ukraine there's no need to even consider using it. And even if we did apply it, your conclusion certainly wouldn't have been within its confines, because it involves a lot of jumping through hoops to get to it.

...

The only choice we have is to assess the Russian government and military by their words, actions, and results, not alternate universe hypotheticals. What I described is what's going on; we have a lot of information. The Russian government gives such-and-such reasons for its invasion. The Russian media presents such-and-such stories to justify the government. The Russian military's tactics are such-and-such, their losses are such-and-such, their progress on the ground is such-and-such. It's all verifiable. When assessing a situation one must account for a well-documented set of facts; it is never fruitful to generate facts from first principles. A comprehensive explanation that captures what we observe involves various manifestations of malice, corruption, and incompetence.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...udi-arabia-uae

"Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations."

I just referenced early-year reporting that shows that OPEC+, led by Russia and the Saudis, just prior to the invasion agreed to gradually return their output to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022, and the Saudis continue to produce up to their quota, which is indeed for their part already at its pre-pandemic level (https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/031622-no-saudi-uae-promises-for-more-crude-oil-despite-uk-prime-ministers-trip).

Especially when the Saudis now only have about 1 million bpd (https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/blogs/oil/022222-fft-opec-russia-oil-market-geopolitics) in spare capacity, whereas in late 2019 they maintained 2 million bpd (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec-capacity-explainer/explainer-attack-on-saudi-leaves-world-without-spare-oil-capacity-idUSKBN1W00V9) spare capacity (with overall OPEC spare capacity being over 3 million bpd, as opposed to non-Saudi OPEC having no spare capacity today). From all the information I have in front of me your theory is not much more credible or substantive than the Republican Party theory that JCPOA was designed to enable Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

https://i.imgur.com/sgrXufZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/YYzw89v.png


I do not understand what is your point with the video.

That when Putin says he upholds fascism, we ought to believe him, and ought to have believed him all the other times he advanced Russian ultranationalism in the vein of Ilyin, Galkovsky, and Dugin, and worked to rearrange Russian society on the basis of their conspiratorial, anti-liberal hierachies. The final metastasis into imperial expansion was by those qualities a barely-repressed matter of time - we just dared to hope otherwise. When Putin claims he is fighting for the "right to be and remain Russia (https://ria.ru/20220316/rossiya-1778549049.html)", take him seriously and literally.

The video meme alludes to the classic nature of the rhetoric of self-purification and purges of cosmopolitans to strengthen the nation and its cohesion.


What Russia is doing here is basically implementing Monroe's doctrine on a much smaller scale.

The Monroe Doctrine was abandoned nearly 100 years ago, and the US has not attacked another country to annex territory since the 19th century. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the watershed event that henceforth guaranteed geographic buffers between superpowers in terms of nuclear missile deployments up to the present day, and foreclosed the possibility of Ukraine hosting American missiles even if it or the Americans wanted it, which neither ever did, and which the Russian government never believed they did.

This "smaller scale" is the largest military operation in Europe since WW2, with whose instigator it shares common designs.


It depends how you look at it. Zelensky did call on his western allies to force Russia to return Crimea. The options discussed were purely diplomatic. But, if you're in position of Russia, and all NATO members recognize Crimea as Ukrainian territory, Ukraine joins NATO and activates article 5, on the account that a foreign country has troops in its territory - what happens then?

This was never a possibility, including for the reason that NATO traditionally does not consider candidates who have compromised territorial integrity and maintain claims on territory they don't control. That disqualification is precisely what Putin triggered by severing parts of Georgia in 2008. The idea that Ukraine had to be destroyed following Russia's attempt to conquer it for fear that it would expeditiously be admitted to NATO for the purpose of activating the alliance's self-defense clause against Russia is very obviously a false pretext. Not that it is too false for the Russians to wield in concept, but it is not even one the Russians themselves invoked.


Russia can not fight NATO, so their choice is either accept NATO demands or destroy the world.

Germany cannot sustain its economy without expanding, so either it abandons remilitarization or conquers the world.

:thinking:

As the Russians used to say, смерть фашизму.


In regards to neutral status, Finland's example suggest it is quite possible, even if they were at war twice in recent years before that agreement was signed. USSR forced them to lease several naval bases after WW2 for 50 years. After the agreement was signed in 1955 or 56, can't remember, in which Finland agreed to neutrality, USSR cancelled the lease, returned all naval bases to Finland, demilitarized the border and there was a generally very prosperous relationship. Finland was free to pursue economic ties with both the West and USSR and develop in peace. It lasted over 70 years, and is currently still going on. I assume it will still go on unless Finland joins NATO.

The actual Finnish people unsurprisingly hated the imperial yoke of Finlandization, and they did not demilitarize - they maintained a strong, well-motivated conscript army to deter the Soviet Union. Poetically, today a majority of Finns report backing NATO accession for Finland for the first time in its history.


I know people in the West tend to see NATO almost purely in a positive light, but for the rest of the world, it is not so. Objectively, NATO countries have started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats etc... since WW2, by a very large margin.

This is false on two accounts. First, it conflates NATO with the specific, independent, policies of the United States (and sometimes the UK and France). Second, it ignores that the USSR, and later Russia, match the US on the score of "started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats."

In Europe, it's really just Serbia and Russia who hate NATO, and they hardly count.

[Furunculus]

And yet, consistently, the Kremlin has reacted to Ukraine moving toward the EU, whereas NATO accession was never a short-term or medium-term prospect from the perspective of the US or of actual Ukrainian governments since 2014. At the same time, from 2014 to the declaration of war, Russian media and political discourse up to the President's office has objected to Ukraine's economic and cultural "separation" from Russia.

At some point we must admit that the NATO angle is discredited as propaganda for outsiders.

Entirely agreed.

Russia fears the single market, and most particularly the possibility that its economic 'near abroad' will be annexed away behind a regulatory curtain.

It's ability to maintain its own economic independence - from both china and the west - is entirely dependent on keeping hold of a zone of satellite nations that it can trade into: Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine(!!!), the 'stans.

NATO is irrititating, but it can never be an aggressive threat to a nuclear armed nation.

[Sarmatian]

How do you confront the evidence against this? Your only evidence for it is that you don't believe the Kremlin could be so stupid or arrogant.

And your evidence is? Was there a statement from any high ranking Russian official that it would last a few days?
They may have hoped it would be quick and easy. They may have underestimated Ukraine's ability to resist, but they weren't banking on it.
They're not going "oh my God, it's been longer than 10 days, what are we going to do now????". They were prepared for this, and they will not back down.


It is a fact, protested by the UN, that the Russians have been targeting civilians, on many occasions, documented by reporters and third parties on the ground, as well as the actual victims. That is what we know so far.

And for reference, after two weeks the Iraqi Body Count (democracynow.org/2003/4/4/we_dont_do_body_counts_says) project was estimating

Well, if we take that US army during Iraq and Russian army now employ similar precautions to preserve civilian lives, I would expect civilian casulties in Ukraine to be higher due to two factors primarily. First, Russian army is less high tech than US army, and second, Ukrainian army is much more competent than Iraqi army.

Now, if the Russian are deliberately targetting civilians, how many civilians do you think they would have been able to kill so far, considering they have effectively encircled several major cities, with total population in the millions. You mentioned "total war" tactics. Do you know how many civilians died in total war situations, when a major city was within artillery range?


Major conventional fighting would basically end in Iraq by three weeks after D0, with the fall of Baghdad, so most of the civilian casualties must have been priced in by the time the quoted estimate was published. The IBC would in a few months revise its estimate of civilian casualties upward by an order of magnitude.

Well, we will see after the war is over.


In Mariupol, the city government (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/world/europe/mariupol-death-toll-ukraine.html) - people on the ground - claimed two days ago that 2400 civilian deaths had been confirmed. This is in a city that has been under siege, under heavy bombardment, for 2 weeks. Here is some aerial footage (https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1504461492527185925) of Mariupol.

One would have to muster very strong evidence to discount such a figure as "vastly exaggerated."

I have seen similar exaggerations in the past. Civilian deaths are often used as a way of propaganda, by inflating numbers and sometimes even deliberately causing them. A true and tried tactic in Sarajevo was to close a street, fire a couple of shells from a motorized artillery, move and open the street for traffic again. Croatian army placed artillery on top of hospitals and schools. Serbian army in 1999 place AA guns in schools (empty at that time, thankfully). NATO didn't take the bait most of the time, but Serbian AA wasn't really much of a threat to NATO planes.

Most of all, I'm taking into account cui bono. Killing of civilians galvanizes the rest of the population and boosts the will to resist, makes them less likely to surrender, and makes the rest of the world even more hostile to your position. I also have trouble believing that either Russian or Ukrainian army would deliberately target civilians. For the various hastily formed Ukrainian units, their civilians who took up arms and nationalistic components of the army like Azov battalion, I'm far less certain.

In the end, I'm not saying I'm absolutely certain that the numbers are exaggerated, I'm just saying I'm sceptical.


I did not disagree that Russians dislike NATO as a concept. The problem for your construction was always that the Russian government's actions have not been consistent with a limited opposition to Ukrainian NATO accession, which was not a remote possibility in February 2014, when Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea and the partition of Ukraine hours after Yanukovych's flight. While these and subsequent encroachments are not consistent with the goal of mitigating a perceived security threat from Ukraine, they are consistent with colonialism.

I would disagree there. Even though early protests appear to have been spontaneous, US and NATO quickly jumped in and ended up even setting up the government of Ukraine. Do you think that Russians needed the recording of Victoria Nuland to know that?


And yet, consistently, the Kremlin has reacted to Ukraine moving toward the EU, whereas NATO accession was never a short-term or medium-term prospect from the perspective of the US or of actual Ukrainian governments since 2014. At the same time, from 2014 to the declaration of war, Russian media and political discourse up to the President's office has objected to Ukraine's economic and cultural "separation" from Russia.

At some point we must admit that the NATO angle is discredited as propaganda for outsiders.

This is blatant disregard of the facts. If you ignore three decades of warnings from Russia, the rhetoric from Kiev and the West, the presence of NATO arms and instructors, then yes, you might construe that it has nothing to do with NATO.


The only choice we have is to assess the Russian government and military by their words, actions, and results, not alternate universe hypotheticals. What I described is what's going on; we have a lot of information. The Russian government gives such-and-such reasons for its invasion. The Russian media presents such-and-such stories to justify the government. The Russian military's tactics are such-and-such, their losses are such-and-such, their progress on the ground is such-and-such. It's all verifiable. When assessing a situation one must account for a well-documented set of facts; it is never fruitful to generate facts from first principles. A comprehensive explanation that captures what we observe involves various manifestations of malice, corruption, and incompetence.

Your information is coming from the western and Ukrainian media and government officials, neither of which are independent, unbiased observers. Western reporters on the ground are within Ukrainian units and within Ukrainian controlled territory. How many of them are in Donbas with the separatists? How many reports have there been that Ukrainian army is shelling Donbas population centers daily? A few maybe, if you look hard enough. They create their own echo chamber. How many reports there are about 2500 civilian deaths in Mariupol? Dozens and dozens. All traced back to a statement by city official in Mariupol, a possibly biased source.
Like the report in Syria about Russians shelling a hospital. When you trace that back through several reports, you get to a report by MSF in French that says that a shell hit a different building further away, and the blast caused some windows to open and glass to break in the hospital.


I just referenced early-year reporting that shows that OPEC+, led by Russia and the Saudis, just prior to the invasion agreed to gradually return their output to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022, and the Saudis continue to produce up to their quota, which is indeed for their part already at its pre-pandemic level (https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/latest-news/oil/031622-no-saudi-uae-promises-for-more-crude-oil-despite-uk-prime-ministers-trip).

Especially when the Saudis now only have about 1 million bpd (https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/blogs/oil/022222-fft-opec-russia-oil-market-geopolitics) in spare capacity, whereas in late 2019 they maintained 2 million bpd (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-opec-capacity-explainer/explainer-attack-on-saudi-leaves-world-without-spare-oil-capacity-idUSKBN1W00V9) spare capacity (with overall OPEC spare capacity being over 3 million bpd, as opposed to non-Saudi OPEC having no spare capacity today). From all the information I have in front of me your theory is not much more credible or substantive than the Republican Party theory that JCPOA was designed to enable Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

I am talking about a more recent demand, by Biden, for OPEC to increase production which was rebuffed. You can see the date on the article.


That when Putin says he upholds fascism, we ought to believe him, and ought to have believed him all the other times he advanced Russian ultranationalism in the vein of Ilyin, Galkovsky, and Dugin, and worked to rearrange Russian society on the basis of their conspiratorial, anti-liberal hierachies. The final metastasis into imperial expansion was by those qualities a barely-repressed matter of time - we just dared to hope otherwise. When Putin claims he is fighting for the "right to be and remain Russia (https://ria.ru/20220316/rossiya-1778549049.html)", take him seriously and literally.

The video meme alludes to the classic nature of the rhetoric of self-purification and purges of cosmopolitans to strengthen the nation and its cohesion.

And you accuse me of engaging in hypotheticals? NATO enlargement was real and verifiable. Russian opposition to it has been real and verifiable. Russian warnings have been real and verifiable.


The Monroe Doctrine was abandoned nearly 100 years ago, and the US has not attacked another country to annex territory since the 19th century. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the watershed event that henceforth guaranteed geographic buffers between superpowers in terms of nuclear missile deployments up to the present day, and foreclosed the possibility of Ukraine hosting American missiles even if it or the Americans wanted it, which neither ever did, and which the Russian government never believed they did.

Monroe Doctrine appears to be dead when not needed and is resurrected when it is needed again. Last one to say that it is still alive and well was John Bolton just a few years back.


This "smaller scale" is the largest military operation in Europe since WW2, with whose instigator it shares common designs.


Smaller scale in terms of geographic area.


This was never a possibility, including for the reason that NATO traditionally does not consider candidates who have compromised territorial integrity and maintain claims on territory they don't control. That disqualification is precisely what Putin triggered by severing parts of Georgia in 2008. The idea that Ukraine had to be destroyed following Russia's attempt to conquer it for fear that it would expeditiously be admitted to NATO for the purpose of activating the alliance's self-defense clause against Russia is very obviously a false pretext. Not that it is too false for the Russians to wield in concept, but it is not even one the Russians themselves invoked.

Well, then NATO officials should have been encouraging Ukraine. There are examples of NATO countries with disputed territory. Parts of Serbian and Croatian borders are still disputed. Slovenia and Croatia have a dispute about territorial waters.


The actual Finnish people unsurprisingly hated the imperial yoke of Finlandization, and they did not demilitarize - they maintained a strong, well-motivated conscript army to deter the Soviet Union. Poetically, today a majority of Finns report backing NATO accession for Finland for the first time in its history.


They hated it so much that they have never been in favour of joining NATO. They have became an EU member states, they have developed cooperation with NATO but their refusal to join NATO and allow foreign military bases on its territory has kept them safe. This is the first time there's a bit over 50% support for NATO, in the midst of an ongoing major crisis and unprecedented media hysteria. I am not sure it will last.


This is false on two accounts. First, it conflates NATO with the specific, independent, policies of the United States (and sometimes the UK and France). Second, it ignores that the USSR, and later Russia, match the US on the score of "started most wars, invaded most countries, meddled the most in other countries affairs, both overtly and covertly, fostered and encouraged civil wars, propped up dictators and autocrats."

I said "NATO countries", not "NATO". As for the numbers, do a count and compare.


In Europe, it's really just Serbia and Russia who hate NATO, and they hardly count.

In the end, I think this statement is the crux of the issue. The very problem with NATO is that they think they get to decide who counts.



Neutrality is fine with me but not a disarmed neutrality.

Well, I doubt it will be total disarmament.


If you put the window back to:from WW2 to present I think the Warsaw pact actually has a worse history in regards to interfering and propping up every revolution in the third world. Not to mention when France left NATO in the 60s they weren't invaded, the US just closed it's bases there. Not like the USSR invading Hungary or Czechoslovakia to keep them in the Warsaw Pact. Propping up and funding a communist revolution movement in almost every African and South American country certainly wasn't the kindest, nor was the US supporting the cruel dictatorships that tried to fight those communist revolutions.
If the window is post USSR, then yes, NATO countries have been involved in more wars and interventions but not necessarily as NATO. I know the intervention in Yugoslavia/Serbia is a touchy subject, the next 'NATO' war was the reaction to 9/11 which involved fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Libya was the only real 'adventurism' of NATO.

1946 Iran Troops deployed in northern province.
1946-1949 China Major US army presence of about 100,000 troops, fighting, training and advising local combatants.
1947-1949 Greece US forces wage a 3-year counterinsurgency campaign.
1948 Italy Heavy CIA involvement in national elections.
1948-1954 Philippines Commando operations, "secret" CIA war.
1950-1953 Korea Major forces engaged in war in Korean peninsula.
1953 Iran CIA overthrows government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Read More
1954 Vietnam Financial and materiel support for colonial French military operations, leads eventually to direct US military involvement.
1954 Guatemala CIA overthrows the government of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.
1958 Lebanon US marines and army units totaling 14,000 land.
1958 Panama Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens.
1959 Haiti Marines land.
1960 Congo CIA-backed overthrow and assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
1960-1964 Vietnam Gradual introduction of military advisors and special forces.
1961 Cuba CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.
1962 Cuba Nuclear threat and naval blockade.
1962 Laos CIA-backed military coup.
1963 Ecuador CIA backs military overthrow of President Jose Maria Valesco Ibarra.
1964 Panama Clashes between US forces in Canal Zone and local citizens.
1964 Brazil CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government of Joao Goulart and Gen. Castello Branco takes power. Read More
1965-1975 Vietnam Large commitment of military forces, including air, naval and ground units numbering up to 500,000+ troops. Full-scale war, lasting for ten years.
1965 Indonesia CIA-backed army coup overthrows President Sukarno and brings Gen. Suharto to power.
1965 Congo CIA backed military coup overthrows President Joseph Kasavubu and brings Joseph Mobutu to power.
1965 Dominican Republic 23,000 troops land.
1965-1973 Laos Bombing campaign begin, lasting eight years.
1966 Ghana CIA-backed military coup ousts President Kwame Nkrumah.
1966-1967 Guatemala Extensive counter-insurgency operation.
1969-1975 Cambodia CIA supports military coup against Prince Sihanouk, bringing Lon Nol to power. Intensive bombing for seven years along border with Vietnam.
1970 Oman Counter-insurgency operation, including coordination with Iranian marine invasion.
1971-1973 Laos Invasion by US and South Vietnames forces.
1973 Chile CIA-backed military coup ousts government of President Salvador Allende. Gen. Augusto Pinochet comes to power.
1975 Cambodia Marines land, engage in combat with government forces.
1976-1992 Angola Military and CIA operations.
1980 Iran Special operations units land in Iranian desert. Helicopter malfunction leads to aborting of planned raid.
1981 Libya Naval jets shoot down two Libyan jets in maneuvers over the Mediterranean.
1981-1992 El Salvador CIA and special forces begin a long counterinsurgency campaign.
1981-1990 Nicaragua CIA directs exile "Contra" operations. US air units drop sea mines in harbors.
1982-1984 Lebanon Marines land and naval forces fire on local combatants.
1983 Grenada Military forces invade Grenada.
1983-1989 Honduras Large program of military assistance aimed at conflict in Nicaragua.
1984 Iran Two Iranian jets shot down over the Persian Gulf.
1986 Libya US aircraft bomb the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, including direct strikes at the official residence of President Muamar al Qadaffi.
1986 Bolivia Special Forces units engage in counter-insurgency.
1987-1988 Iran Naval forces block Iranian shipping. Civilian airliner shot down by missile cruiser.
1989 Libya Naval aircraft shoot down two Libyan jets over Gulf of Sidra.
1989 Philippines CIA and Special Forces involved in counterinsurgency.
1989-1990 Panama 27,000 troops as well as naval and air power used to overthrow government of President Noriega.
1990 Liberia Troops deployed.
1990-1991 Iraq Major military operation, including naval blockade, air strikes; large number of troops attack Iraqi forces in occupied Kuwait.
1991-2003 Iraq Control of Iraqi airspace in north and south of the country with periodic attacks on air and ground targets.
1991 Haiti CIA-backed military coup ousts President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1992-1994 Somalia Special operations forces intervene.
1992-1994 Yugoslavia Major role in NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
1993-1995 Bosnia Active military involvement with air and ground forces.
1994-1996 Haiti Troops depose military rulers and restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to office.
1995 Croatia Krajina Serb airfields attacked.
1996-1997 Zaire (Congo) Marines involved in operations in eastern region of the country.
1997 Liberia Troops deployed.
1998 Sudan Air strikes destroy country's major pharmaceutical plant.
1998 Afghanistan Attack on targets in the country.
1998 Iraq Four days of intensive air and missile strikes.
1999 Yugoslavia Major involvement in NATO air strikes.
2001 Macedonia NATO troops shift and partially disarm Albanian rebels.
2001 Afghanistan Air attacks and ground operations oust Taliban government and install a new regime.
2003 Iraq Invasion with large ground, air and naval forces ousts government of Saddam Hussein and establishes new government.
2003-present Iraq Occupation force of 150,000 troops in protracted counter-insurgency war
2004 Haiti Marines land. CIA-backed forces overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Soviets/Russians are not much better, but they do have a shorter list.

In the end, I'm not excusing Russian aggression. I am a pacifist and I detest wars. I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.



I think it's important to separate NATO and the US though because US foreign policy is not equal to NATO. There's no shortage of flawed US interventions but that doesn't equal NATO. Same with France and the UK, their intervention in former colonies does not equal NATO. That's why the Falkland War did not get NATO support behind the UK just some intel support from the US an France pausing their exocet missile sales to Argentina.

NATO is primarily a way for US to remain the primary decision maker in Europe. It is a tool of US foreign policy. In most cases, you can use US and NATO interchangeably. Germany and France were vehemently against extending invitations to Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucurest summit in 2008, but relented under immense US pressure. They were aware of the risk.


Bottom line though, NATO is not a direct threat to Russia as nuclear deterrence will prevent any direct NATO aggression. Russia demanding to keep a sphere of nation's that don't necessarily want to be vulnerable to Russian bullying isn't exactly fair either.

It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works. I personally detest NATO, but I would still be opposed to Serbia taking any hostile actions towards it, even if they were legally and morally right. The discrepancy in power is hundreds of times bigger than between Russia and Ukraine, of course, but it is the principle. Could Russia place missiles in Serbia to bypass NATO missile shield in eastern Europe? Legally, why not. Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.

Anyway, I think we have exhausted all avenues of dialogue here. I like to visit backroom from time to time to gauge what slightly more informed westerners think of a given issue. Granted, the sampling size is too small right now, but, it's a force of habit.
It's been a nice trip down the memory lane. Have fun guys and stay safe.

[Montmorency]

Entirely agreed.

Russia fears the single market, and most particularly the possibility that its economic 'near abroad' will be annexed away behind a regulatory curtain.

It's ability to maintain its own economic independence - from both china and the west - is entirely dependent on keeping hold of a zone of satellite nations that it can trade into: Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine(!!!), the 'stans.

NATO is irrititating, but it can never be an aggressive threat to a nuclear armed nation.

As this Twitter thread (https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1491837537949736975) said it, "Moscow's worst nightmare isn't hypersonic missiles in Ukraine -- it's the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism."

See also from this week:


EU countries support plan for world-first carbon border tariff (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-countries-back-plan-world-first-carbon-border-tariff-2022-03-15/)

European Union countries on Tuesday backed the bloc's plan to impose a world-first carbon dioxide emissions tariff on imports of polluting goods, although the finer details will need to be worked out in upcoming negotiations.

The EU wants to introduce CO2 emissions costs from 2026 on imports of steel, cement, fertilisers, aluminium and electricity -- a move aimed at protecting European industry from being undercut by cheaper goods made in countries with weaker environmental rules.

A three-year transition phase for the levy would begin in 2023, so EU countries and the European parliament are racing to negotiate and approve the rules this year. Finance ministers from EU countries on Tuesday agreed on their negotiating position.



And your evidence is? Was there a statement from any high ranking Russian official that it would last a few days?
They may have hoped it would be quick and easy. They may have underestimated Ukraine's ability to resist, but they weren't banking on it.
They're not going "oh my God, it's been longer than 10 days, what are we going to do now????". They were prepared for this, and they will not back down.

Sarmatian, don't think I'm being mean to you when I insist that you can't rely on a prior favorable image of the Russian government/military to guide your judgement in a developing situation. Very few analysts envisioned the war developing the way it has, in part because of how highly they rated Russian capabilities. But good analysts change their opinions with new facts.

The evidence has been laid out throughout the thread, including the immediately preceding posts. That the Russians did not expect strong resistance on the ground, or did not expect resistance to be effective, is overwhelmingly indicated at this point. There are the captured timetables for one, and the state media essay published on Feb. 26 proclaiming the dawn of a new world order and the resolution of the "Ukrainian question", in which Ukraine had been "returned" to Russia (the essay was immediately retracted upon publication).

On the ground, troops and officers were not informed of the operation prior to D0, and were not allowed to organize their assets appropriately, as Putin concealed his intent from almost everyone (except Western intelligence). Russian forces were rushed from the border into Ukrainian cities without support or combined arms tactics, and without securing their lines of communication. Their units were not provisioned for determined combat and its expenditure of basic resources such as fuel and ammo, to the point that widespread hunger and equipment abandonment was observed days into the invasion, continuing even after all this time. Some tankers, lacking reactive armor for their vehicles, improvised birds' nests on their cupolas in an attempt to defend against AT rockets. Their air force - an estimated quarter of all Russian combat frames were allocated to the theater - has, as of a week ago, been running half as many sorties as aircraft on hand on paper, leaving air supremacy elusive. Issues of missing or unmaintained equipment have been widespread to the point of helping paralyze operations. Whatever materiel they stockpiled at the staging areas has run low enough that Russian cities near the border are being requisitioned for civilian food, trucks, and other supplies for the war effort. Days into the war, Putin asked Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Syria to supplement the effort with manpower; Russian international deployments in the Caucasus and elsewhere have been drawn down to reinforce the war effort. Irregular Ukrainian forces, whether small units, special forces, or militias, continue to strike at Russian supply columns and depots with regularity. The invaders still have not sorted out the lack of coordination between units and axes and combat arms, nor discovered an efficient way to resupply the frontlines's daily activities while stockpiling supplies for a new offensive. Russian forces are so overstretched and disorganized that besieged Ukrainian formations out of Mykolaiv and Kharkiv have been able to prosecute successful deep counteroffensives. In the past days, Russian forces near Kyiv and elsewhere were first observed entrenching and fortifying their positions - an acknowledgement of the transition to more static battle.

Russia has taken at least as many casualties in 3 weeks as it did in 10 years of Afghanistan. Of the 3500 tanks in Russian active service, around 10% have been lost in the course of the invasion to date.

Just for a start. I'm not even including more speculative incidents like Western intelligence assessing that Putin has begun purging his siloviki, and has asked China to supply him with food and other basics that one would think any "great power" (let alone superpower) could self-provision. Or other items I've posted in this thread alone that I missed in the roundup.

Now, it's possible that all of the above does reflect Putin's best and considered preparation, that the Russian military's competence in all domains of conventional war just happens to be at or below the level of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army, with that lack of ability producing the results we observe - but that just brings us right back to the issue of underpreparation. If Putin could not rationally guarantee the superiority of his own force at peak capacity over that of his opponent's at the time of decision, he was acting with lack of preparation by that fact at a minimum.

Saddam Hussein too thought he had prepared a quick seizure, a question of days, of Khuzestan beyond the Shatt al-Arab. He calculated that the young Iranian regime was too disorganized and unpopular to resist, that the concentrated Arabic-speaking plurality of the border province would joyfully rise to greet him as a liberator - but he was wrong. Hussein was unprepared for war with Iran. At least he could replace his lost equipment with imports, and suffered from no shortage of young men...

The only evidence for Russian foresight that I am aware of is the government's effort to expand conscription between late 2021 and the immediate prelude to the war.

Why do you think the Russian military has been so ineffective against Ukraine when all of Russia's worst enemies, including the US, expected so much more? Why is there a consensus among both Western and Third World or independent analysts that Russia is horribly underperforming? Even Caspian Report (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeacXBxPARQ) characterizes this war as "the biggest strategic blunder of Putin's life", and he assumes Russia can still overwhelm the Ukranian army. There is no such thing as preparing to underperform. Any branching plan should predict and account for inadequacy, not permit it. If your answer ever veers in the direction of assuming that Putin must have intended the decimation of the RF Armed Forces, stop immediately and reconsider.

This all demands an answer, not a glib reliance on the sobriety and wisdom of a totalitarian government (who as a historical matter tend to fail miserably at warmaking). I expect more than "Trust the plan (https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/history-politics/trust-the-plan-the-rise-of-qanon-and,will-sommer-9780008466763)." Is that unfair?


A few links on the matter to flesh out the case:

A 2017 analysis that predicted all the flaws the Russian military is manifesting today. (https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1503760866851840000)
Reports of severe challenges of discipline and provisioning among Russian soldiers assembled in Belarus prior to the invasion. (https://twitter.com/kshmatsina/status/1494655948912267264)
How the defense routed a Russian BTG at the Battle of Voznosensk (https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-russia-voznesensk-town-battle-11647444734) (nearly eliminating the threat to Mykolaiv and Odessa).
Visual explainer of Russian performance (https://ig.ft.com/russias-war-in-ukraine-mapped/)


Now, if the Russian are deliberately targetting civilians, how many civilians do you think they would have been able to kill so far, considering they have effectively encircled several major cities, with total population in the millions. You mentioned "total war" tactics. Do you know how many civilians died in total war situations, when a major city was within artillery range?

Civilians in WW2 overwhelmingly died from starvation, disease, or organized mass murder and execution, not day-to-day fighting, even bombing. But they were still dying from combat and bombing, and both sides were targeting them.

The reporting indicates that the Russians have been escalating their conduct against civilians day by day - the first week actually did somewhat conform to your interpretation - so we should expect to see casualties increasing over time for one thing.

There are also countervailing factors. The first is that the country has been largely depopulated around the frontlines, with the large cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol excepted. They're still densely-populated on top of being the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war so far. Overall though, going by the latest UN estimate (https://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/wp-content/uploads/Update-on-IDP-Figures-in-Ukraine-18-March.pdf) of 10 million refugees/internally-displaced (out of 38 million sans the occupied territories), much of the less-dense East must be a proverbial ghost town. Moreover, Ukrainian cities, whether as Cold War remnant or a product of the past decade's militarization, are densely built with bomb shelters or equivalent. Even when people remain in the battle zone, they are often going to be spending at least nights in a relatively-safe space. As an example, the Drama Theater in Mariupol that was leveled the other day happened to house a bomb shelter, which hopefully mitigated the human damage of the bombing.

But all in all, even a tally of ten thousand civilian deaths nationally up to now really ought not stretch the imagination.


I have seen similar exaggerations in the past.

When one's position relies on numerous actors on the ground being publicity-seeking liars with the exception of the invading armies who happen to have extensive track records of civilian-targeting and war crimes, one rightfully won't get traction. I can't think of any instances in history in which denial of atrocities has been vindicated. It puts me in mind of the people who claim that reports of civilian casualties from drone strikes are presumptively fabrications by malicious terrorists and credulous media outlets. The mere insinuation of exaggeration is also beside the point when we have physical conditions against which to judge claims; this doesn't happen in a vacuum.


Most of all, I'm taking into account cui bono.

This entire invasion, and indeed most war, is an insoluble question of cui bono. But war is not rational (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/16/most-wars-are-not-fought-for-reasons-of-security-or-material-interests-but-instead-reflect-a-nations-spirit/), and any benefits are usually more emotional than anything.


In the end, I'm not saying I'm absolutely certain that the numbers are exaggerated, I'm just saying I'm sceptical.

One Ukrainian think tank, about a week ago, released an estimate for Russian casualties of 45000, including the "demoralized." One can compare such a figure to various facts, starting with other available estimates - there skepticism is justified.

Skepticism at the claim of a few thousand civilian deaths over three weeks of a conflict involving half a million combatants, hundreds of aircraft, over a thousand guided missiles, and thousands of artillery pieces fighting block-by-block through large cities is entirely unreasonable and demands rigorous justification. So too does an orientation that discounts the statements or recordings of dozens of eyewitness reporters, civilians, and government officials across many locations and times, that they are being attacked.

You can't treat this in the same way you would treat a claim by the Ukrainian government that all Ukrainians are ready to fight to the death for the motherland, or a Russian government claim that civilians are lining up in the streets to thank and cheer advancing columns.


Your information is coming from the western and Ukrainian media and government officials, neither of which are independent, unbiased observers.

Like the report in Syria about Russians shelling a hospital. When you trace that back through several reports, you get to a report by MSF in French that says that a shell hit a different building further away, and the blast caused some windows to open and glass to break in the hospital.

The problem lies with your own bias. Russia, the state aggressor, routinely makes provably-false claims, from battlefield fakes and over-successful updates up to cynical planetary conspiracies (https://www.thedailybeast.com/you-dont-know-about-russias-bioweapons-propaganda-in-the-ukraine-war); normal people on the ground have no such track record in war, period. The evidence for many specific Russian war crimes (https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/02/27/russias-strong-arm-diplomacy/) in Syria is unassailable (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/03/un-commission-inquiry-syria-unprecedented-levels-displacement-and-dire?LangID=E&NewsID=25638). The pernicious desire to take the Russian government's (or their allies') word for everything on probity, but immediately dismiss anything said against them regardless of source or corroboration as intrinsically tainted, does not merit debating. Beginning from a pro-Russian stance is not neutrality or objectivity, and there is no neutral or objective way to compile and assess all available claims and conclude otherwise.

It's honestly shameful, intellectually and morally. It's even worse than automatically dismissing the long history of American war crimes and criminal wars as the raving of a freedom-hating Communist, since those people are likely not straying from their asserted values when they BS.


I am talking about a more recent demand, by Biden, for OPEC to increase production which was rebuffed. You can see the date on the article.

You claimed that Putin formed a secret agreement with the Saudis and/or OPEC to prevent production rises but didn't present evidence that there was either an agreement or that production rises have been prevented.

Don't be this way:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7l0Rq9E8MY


I would disagree there. Even though early protests appear to have been spontaneous, US and NATO quickly jumped in and ended up even setting up the government of Ukraine. Do you think that Russians needed the recording of Victoria Nuland to know that?

That is, as we say, fake news.


And you accuse me of engaging in hypotheticals? NATO enlargement was real and verifiable. Russian opposition to it has been real and verifiable. Russian warnings have been real and verifiable.

Russian rhetoric and justifications for war in Ukraine have been verifiable too, in terms of their having been promulgated. The issue is "Anglo-Saxon" interference in the Russian sphere of influence (the perception is that the EU is driven by Anglo-Saxon interests as well). Russian security is not the stake here. The Putin regime's worldview, and indeed its own survival, is on the contrary deeply implicated.


I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.

And it's just so damn sad to think some people believe Russia is mechanistically doomed to be governed by fascist tyrants (even though Putin is the most brutal and aggressive Russian leader in 70 years), let alone that fascist tyrants deserve to be catered to and appeased. But if this is your genuine belief you have dramatically misunderstood both Russia and Putin, to ill. In extremity there is a specific category of Russian nationalist, properly fascist, who believes in national and global rebirth in the competition for world domination between Anglo-Saxon and Eurasian civilizations. What's up is that Putin went all in on this manifesto. National purification and restoration through the reclamation of ancestral living space is the name of the game. There is no doubt that Putin preferred to suppress Ukrainian dissent without firing a shot, but think how perverse it would be to frame Western efforts to integrate Ukraine with Europe as at fault for "provocatively" encouraging Ukraine to reorient from Russia.

Abraham Lincoln had something to say about this in his famous Cooper Union speech:


When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication. Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. This, plainly stated, is your language.
[...]
Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me - my money - was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

I just wish Putin had tried it on Kazakhstan first, so that China would have kicked his ambitions to the curb.


This is blatant disregard of the facts. If you ignore three decades of warnings from Russia, the rhetoric from Kiev and the West, the presence of NATO arms and instructors, then yes, you might construe that it has nothing to do with NATO.


The facts are that Russia at no point attempted to use its extensive political or economic leverage to guarantee a limited guardrail against NATO presence. Never. Every action it took was toward capturing Ukraine geopolitically and geoeconomically. The issue between 2015 and 2021 was not that Ukraine was somehow verging on dragging in NATO against Russia, or vice versa, but that Russia was relentlessly warring against Ukraine and trying to seize even more of its territory. Russia could have secured Ukrainian neutrality any time it wanted. It didn't because Russia, that is to say Putin, wanted more than neutrality.

It's not 2014 anymore. There's just too much evidence on hand, and you're not analyzing any of it to stick with well-worn prewar agitprop. The picture you present is one the Kremlin has long promoted to the West, but it does not fit with their behavior, Ukrainian behavior, or Western behavior.

Your insistence on scapegoating NATO is also logically self-defeating, since if Russia is so inherently warlike and aggressive, it is too dangerous not to proactively contain. Which propagandist's bright idea was it to posit a zero-sum contest between Russia and the West without realizing that someone might not like Russia's side of that equation?


Monroe Doctrine appears to be dead when not needed and is resurrected when it is needed again. Last one to say that it is still alive and well was John Bolton just a few years back.

Russia has never tolerated the level of economic and political independence of its neighbors that ours have with us today. Should we be less tolerant, or Russia more? Which governments are treated as possessing agency?


NATO is primarily a way for US to remain the primary decision maker in Europe. It is a tool of US foreign policy.

It's uncomfortable to hear this when Slovenia, Czechia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark all express willingness to dispatch a humanitarian expeditionary force into Ukraine, with other members on the verge of signing on, and the US role so far has been that of the guy holding his friend back from a bar fight.


Well, then NATO officials should have been encouraging Ukraine. There are examples of NATO countries with disputed territory. Parts of Serbian and Croatian borders are still disputed. Slovenia and Croatia have a dispute about territorial waters.


Why would they have encouraged Ukraine to abandon its annexed territories? After 2014 the US, and most of NATO outside Eastern Europe, had near-zero will to pursue NATO membership for Ukraine, whereas they had significant will, and interest, in stopping Russian annexations from succeeding.

Anyway, since at least the 1990s one of the principles of NATO candidacy has been


States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.

The Baltic countries had to conclude a treaty settling their internecine disputes over the marine shelf, plus claims over other Polish and Russian borders, and guarantee the rights to ethnic Russians, in order to join (e.g. the NATO Madrid Summit). A more proximate example, Romania had to give up its claims on... Bukovina, IIRC. The whole point of NATO is of course to promote close political cooperation between member states, which they cannot do if they're consumed by irredentist jealousy. We can see it's not absolute, given that Spain sometimes acts like it wants to dispute Gibraltar's status, and Turkey and Greece often resent the very existence of one another (there's also the Cyprus backdoor), but these have not interfered with the functioning of the alliance. Indeed, the alliance is goes far to deconflict outbursts along these lines. I don't know anything about Croatia (http://opiniojuris.org/2021/11/26/prospects-for-judicial-settlement-of-the-danube-border-dispute-between-croatia-and-serbia/), but I would say the puny area under their claims, the low risk/absence of attendant conflict, and Croatia's willingness to at least work with international legal frameworks to mediate disputes is decisive. On the other hand, that Ukraine was in a de facto state of war with Russia - of all countries - was also decisive in the other direction.


I said "NATO countries", not "NATO".

That's a rather profound difference, but the contraction may be revealing. If some actor, the Russian government or otherwise, just doesn't like Western countries as a category (regardless of the existence of NATO as an overlapping category) because they're 'mean to Russia', then screw 'em.


They hated it so much that they have never been in favour of joining NATO. They have became an EU member states, they have developed cooperation with NATO but their refusal to join NATO and allow foreign military bases on its territory has kept them safe.

Finnish refusal to join NATO was not conditional on any love they had for being subordinate to the Soviet Union. Nor did love for the Soviets generate a large and sophisticated military built on mandatory service and trained to fight just one hypothetical adversary.

Finnish strength of arms is what "kept them safe" during the Cold War. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, despite Kekkonen's neutrality policy, the new weakness of Russia, and the very engraving at the 18th-c. Helsinki Sveaborg fortress - "Progeny, stand here on your own foundation, and do not rely on foreign help" - Finland speedily chose to pursue de facto NATO integration and cooperation.

You rely too much on the language of a wife-beater. Should "we" smack your country around a little, or something? You could always choose safety to make it stop. You say it's how the world works, no?


This is the first time there's a bit over 50% support for NATO, in the midst of an ongoing major crisis and unprecedented media hysteria. I am not sure it will last.

I don't believe your track record on media hysteria and geopolitical intuition looks strong (over 60% in the latest polling btw). If Finland does join NATO, please don't lay accountability onto the Finnish people for their treacherous aggresssion towards poor put-upon Russia, or on Western media for tricking them with "hysteria."


As for the numbers, do a count and compare.

You would be displeased if I were to produce an accounting of every war, proxy war, military deployment, and act of political interference that Russia was involved in over 70 years. More awkward should be the realization that for the first time in generations US forces are involved in almost no hostilities anywhere on Earth, whereas Russia is at this very moment the country doing the Hitlerism. Not unimportant details for pacifists to take into account.


In the end, I think this statement is the crux of the issue. The very problem with NATO is that they think they get to decide who counts.

Why does Russia get to decide? I'd much rather NATO decide than any other bodger.

Maybe it's time to stop framing things in terms of national teams or blocs to arbitrarily support and think consequentially. What kind of values are harmed or promoted by a given foreign policy stance? What principles will one use to measure world events? As a leftist and an anti-fascist, it's very obvious to me that calamitous, world-raping reactionaries ought to be destroyed, and I choose my friends according to those values. The question is how to assemble the resources and coalition to secure my priorities. The sole credible option is American and European power.


It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works.

I hate this handwave so much. It's a normative statement that reflects personal preferences, not an actual description of "how the world works" nor an ethically-just premise. I have preferences too, in which I put much more stock.

I'll leave you with this: Why does every European country occupied by either, or both, Germany or the Soviet Union prefer to be in an alliance with Germany over an alliance with the Soviet rump? Why does Russian militarism produce an environment of instant consensus support for German militarization?

ONE SIDE IS GOOD GUYS ANTIHEROES
THE OTHER IS BAD GUYS SUPERVILLAINS

It's not brain surgery.


Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.

Tangentially, Serbia's relationship with Russia almost comes across like that between Donald Trump and his loyalists. Serbia is part of NATO's Partnership for Peace program and hosts a Russian military base (Nis). (To be clear, I'm not saying Serbia should be prohibited from hosting Russian bases in principle, though wartime would be a different matter.)

[Montmorency]

Spmetla, Ukraine maintained an arsenal of 100mm AT cannons before the war. Is there any point in keeping them crewed these days? Have they managed to kill anything?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1504390459296305167

I'm not sure I have confidence any longer that the Russians retain sufficient fresh and capable mobile elements to develop and exploit any breakthroughs toward a rapid double envelopment of the Donbas front.

https://i.imgur.com/zDRHVYb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ymD2C10.jpg



For 8 years, Ukraine studied the blade.
While Russia was bombing hospitals in Syria, Ukraine practiced the blade.
While Putin trolled the West for the sake of vanity, Ukraine used the blade.
Now that the war is here everyone is unprepared. Except for Ukraine.
For Ukraine studied the blade.

(Not enough is made of the fact that Ukraine spent all the time between Maidan and now transforming its moribund military into the second-most powerful - even on paper - ground force in Europe. So this is the power of militarization. Had Russia spent the same time copying Ukraine at scale, their military could be a genuine threat to Euro-NATO.)

War_Mapper has been creating frequently-updated maps of territorial control in the conflict. Here is an interactive version (https://soar.earth/maps/12212?pos=48.871747432905835%2C35.83012930799183%2C8), though it may not be updated as often as the static images.


The fascist Yuri's maps, also about a week apart, are quite funny when juxtaposed with his impertinent brashness about Russian progress. I wonder if any of his viewers notice this?

https://i.imgur.com/a6vVLhk.png
https://i.imgur.com/scfV4n0.png

https://i.imgur.com/4yVn3YU.png
https://i.imgur.com/bCP4UMj.png

[Montmorency]

EDIT: Wrong thread

[Pannonian]

The Baltic countries had to conclude a treaty settling their internecine disputes over the marine shelf, plus claims over other Polish and Russian borders, and guarantee the rights to ethnic Russians, in order to join (e.g. the NATO Madrid Summit). A more proximate example, Romania had to give up its claims on... Bukovina, IIRC. The whole point of NATO is of course to promote close political cooperation between member states, which they cannot do if they're consumed by irredentist jealousy. We can see it's not absolute, given that Spain sometimes acts like it wants to dispute Gibraltar's status, and Turkey and Greece often resent the very existence of one another (there's also the Cyprus backdoor), but these have not interfered with the functioning of the alliance. Indeed, the alliance is goes far to deconflict outbursts along these lines. I don't know anything about Croatia (http://opiniojuris.org/2021/11/26/prospects-for-judicial-settlement-of-the-danube-border-dispute-between-croatia-and-serbia/), but I would say the puny area under their claims, the low risk/absence of attendant conflict, and Croatia's willingness to at least work with international legal frameworks to mediate disputes is decisive. On the other hand, that Ukraine was in a de facto state of war with Russia - of all countries - was also decisive in the other direction.


There's a hilarious youtube video that explores the border in dispute between Croatia and Serbia. The border was settled some time ago as being the course of the river. The problem being that the river has changed course over the years, so the two countries have been claiming the river at various historical points as being the true border. With a small territory ending up being unclaimed by both sides, as either claiming it would mean accepting an argument for a border that's unfavourable to them. I think there's an understanding between the two countries that no one outside those two are allowed to move in, and anyone from those two moving in will be expelled by them.

[Montmorency]

Boris Romanchenko, 96, who lived through imprisonment at Buchenwald, Peenemunde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen, was killed by bombing or shelling in Kharkiv last Friday. Definitely a new world order being built by Russia.

The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda yesterday printed the following, before it was hastily edited out.


According to preliminary estimates of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, from the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine to March 20, the RF Armed Forces have lost 96 aircraft, 118 helicopters and 14.7 thousand military personnel.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation refutes the information of the Ukrainian General Staff about the alleged large-scale losses of the RF Armed Forces in Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed, 16153 people were injured.

Читайте на WWW.KP.RU: https://www.kp.ru/online/news/4672522/

9861 people killed, 16153 people injured would be below Ukrainian estimates (themselves unclear as to whether they are restricted to the Russian armed forces alone) but on the higher end of US estimates.

The entire Russian armed force in active service, including conscripts in advanced training, was 900000 at the start of the war, or 360000 when comprising just the Army, Airborne, and Marines. Losses among Rosgvardia, mercenaries, and separatists are not figured.

10% losses from total national maneuver elements in less than a month would have been staggering in WW2. Today it is paralyzing.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Boris Romanchenko, 96, who lived through imprisonment at Buchenwald, Peenemunde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen, was killed by bombing or shelling in Kharkiv last Friday. Definitely a new world order being built by Russia.

The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda yesterday printed the following, before it was hastily edited out.



9861 people killed, 16153 people injured would be below Ukrainian estimates (themselves unclear as to whether they are restricted to the Russian armed forces alone) but on the higher end of US estimates.

The entire Russian armed force in active service, including conscripts in advanced training, was 900000 at the start of the war, or 360000 when comprising just the Army, Airborne, and Marines. Losses among Rosgvardia, mercenaries, and separatists are not figured.

10% losses from total national maneuver elements in less than a month would have been staggering in WW2. Today it is paralyzing.

Nice Post

[spmetla]

Spmetla, Ukraine maintained an arsenal of 100mm AT cannons before the war. Is there any point in keeping them crewed these days? Have they managed to kill anything?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1504390459296305167
.

There's not really too much point in 100mm AT cannons. They can kill anything but MBTs but require a crew, can't track moving targets well, and are vulnerable once found. They do have a good a rate of fire. They could be used as direct fire short range artillery or attacking things behind walls and a few other specialized tasks. Modern disposable rockets and ATGMs are much better but in this type of war AT guns may used for territorial forces and other lower tiered forces or maybe even for training.



I'm not sure I have confidence any longer that the Russians retain sufficient fresh and capable mobile elements to develop and exploit any breakthroughs toward a rapid double envelopment of the Donbas front

Looking at the videos of the Russians moving hardware out of South Ossetia and the Kuril islands I think they're scraping the barrel for serviceable equipment with some levels of modernization.

Also, considering losses of vehicles, the replacements for crew members will degrade crew proficiency if they don't get a chance to work together a bit before combat so I think with the casualty rate as it is will still end in a net result of degraded combat ability for their armored platforms of all types.

The laying of minefields and digging trenches and fighting positions are certainly proof that in most areas the Russian attack has culminated and outside the Eastern front it will be a battle of attrition as each side tries to gather enough offensive ability to mount an effective attack.

The Ukrainians still can't muster enough armor and artillery in reserve yet to conduct anything more than company sized local counter-attacks and considering the lower numbers of these weapons in their hands the losses are felt a bit more firmly than the Russian losses. The Russians can still rely on overwhelming artillery power to stop any effective larger attacks.

I think the Russians are most vulnerable NE of Kiev on those thin lines but seeing the reinforcement of their positions west of Kiev I think this is where the Ukrainians will concentrate most of their newly raised forces. Getting the Capital out of artillery range and eliminating the threat of encirclement seems to be the main effort for the Ukraine while they hold on other fronts with secondary efforts to the NE front to keep lines open to the East. The southern front seems to be a economy of force mission to just deny the Russians an advance North along the river or West toward Odessa.

The shipping of more capable ADA systems like the S300 will go a long way in denying the Russians use of CAS and CCA though the Russian capability with even better systems denies the Uk AF the ability to mount sorties near any border regions.



Soviets/Russians are not much better, but they do have a shorter list.

In the end, I'm not excusing Russian aggression. I am a pacifist and I detest wars. I'm just explaining why Russia felt this was necessary. I also think the Ukraine's neutrality is the fastest and safest way to end the crisis and return to some semblance of normalcy for the foreseeable future.

Seeing as you listed plenty of cases in which the US sent troops in support of an existing government and by their request can you really count those as invasions? The US defense of South Korea was not an offensive war for just one example on your list and this was also a UN backed mission against the North Korean aggressors that were backed by the PRC and USSR.

And once again those are not NATO wars, by your same logic every US war is a UN war too.

Ukraine was already neutral and was not on the verge of joining NATO despite its urgent appeals. Russia is the aggressor, that is indisputable, the victim nation is not the one that must cave to demands of its bully neighbor.
WWI could have been avoided had Serbia caved into Austro-Hungary's outrageous demands however they were right to reject them. WW2 could have been avoided/delayed had Poland caved into Germany's demands, but they were also right to reject them. Peace by appeasement has not demonstrated any success in realizing long term peace when dealing with autocratic states like present day Russia.


It is not fair. Unfortunately, it is how the world works. I personally detest NATO, but I would still be opposed to Serbia taking any hostile actions towards it, even if they were legally and morally right. The discrepancy in power is hundreds of times bigger than between Russia and Ukraine, of course, but it is the principle. Could Russia place missiles in Serbia to bypass NATO missile shield in eastern Europe? Legally, why not. Serbia is a sovereign nation, we have every legal and moral right to decide our own alliances. Realistically? Of course not.

Anyway, I think we have exhausted all avenues of dialogue here. I like to visit backroom from time to time to gauge what slightly more informed westerners think of a given issue. Granted, the sampling size is too small right now, but, it's a force of habit.
It's been a nice trip down the memory lane. Have fun guys and stay safe.

It's fine if you detest NATO, I'm not trying to convince you that it is good and all else is bad, especially as your nation was at war with NATO not too long ago which tends to not help its reputation.

Russia's ICBMs, geography around the Arctic circle, and boomer submarines already bypass any missile shield but yeah, Serbia could have Russian missiles. Serbia could outright ally with Russia or China too, no one will invade it for doing so.

You haven't really engaged in much dialogue though, you claim the Russians campaign is going fine despite proof to the contrary. The Russians have much more capacity for war, this is true, however do the Russian people want to make the blood and treasure sacrifices necessary to legalize what they already had defacto?

NATO expansion didn't lead to this war as there was no change in status in regards to NATO and the Ukraine prior to the start of this war. The Euromaiden revolution was pro-EU not pro-NATO, only the subsequent Russian invasion of Crimea and stoking of revolution in the east has lead the Ukraine toward pursuing NATO membership, something that has been repeatedly rebuffed by NATO.

Time will show this war will go but based on what's evident on the ground right now the Russian invasion has been a strategic failure that recognition of Russian ownership of Crimea and a few other provinces don't seem to justify. It has only strengthened NATO and EU unity and resolve and recalibrated the West's views toward the US away from the negative effects of the Afghan debacle last year.

The blood and treasure expended by Russia is immense and though this is true of Ukraine too it has resulted in more Ukrainian unity and sense of national identity as the winter war did for Finland and Gallipoli did for the ANZAC countries.

The Ukrainians may still lose this war and even larger swathes of their country, but Russia has lost several future generations friendly ties by a brother east-slavic nation while severely damaging its own reputation as resurgent great-power to challenge declining US super-power.

All in all though, I will miss your responses even if I do vastly disagree with them. I'm usually here to read the contrary views though declining membership has made the number of different posters far fewer.

[Pannonian]

spmetla or anyone else who can answer. There have been reports of Soviet ships moving out of the far east with materiel. How are they going to get them to the battlefield? Haven't the Turks closed the straits?

[Montmorency]

Most powerful confirmation yet that Putin thought the boys would be home by — by now.
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1498367647125319681



A Russian Armor Vehicles in the town of Bucha that was Broadcasting the Propaganda Message, "Citizens, stay calm, everything is under control" was blown up by a Ukrainian Paramilitary Member earlier today with an RPG.


Yuri the fascist is alarmed that the Russian occupation does not appear to be providing adequate food and economic relief to the denizens under Russian control. He hopes his government will rectify this oversight before the occupied grow disgruntled. I'm surprised he would publish this sort of thing, and by the looks of the comments so are his viewers, who aren't having the notion that the special military operation could have a flawed implementation in some regard.



Nice Post

Unfortunately, there's little cause for excitement. DoD estimated recently that despite more than 10% of in-theater Russian combat power being lost, Ukraine had lost a similar proportion of its own combat power. The biggest killer for Ukraine's forces is artillery, which is very hard to counter when Ukraine has less artillery and almost no air cover. Both sides have drones, but the increasing fielding of Russian drones is most prominently a multiplier for the pre-existing Russian advantage. DoD also assessed that Russia retains the majority of its inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles, despite having fired over 1100 in a month. Knowing more about Russia's military now than I did previously, I suspect Russia's ability to simultaneously strike at critical infrastructure in all NATO countries except the US is a factor in Biden et al. ramping things up very deliberately and gradually. Maybe this is still too low a risk tolerance when a few hundred Russian missiles reaching their targets spread across a continent is barely a nuisance - Ukraine is comfortably in the fight despite having absorbed a thousand - but it would be politically undesirable to suffer more damage than necessary through haste. Ultimately Ukraine needs, besides more ammo and fuel, a hell of a lot more UCAV, to make it untenable for Russia to operate extended bombardments.

As Russia's campaign takes a pause for refit and reconstitution, and the Russians adapt their assault tactics and spend more time attriting Ukrainian defenses with artillery, the danger for all of Eastern Ukraine remains high (as I have repeatedly emphasized).

Moreover, if Ukraine does substantially "win" by their own efforts, that is without direct NATO intervention, the patriotic fervor infusing the war could combine with success to inculcate undesirable sociological tendencies. It has come to the point that in a short period of time Putin subverted a "brotherly nation" into pure loathing for Russians. This isn't just bad for Russian cultural reach and prestige; it could lead to the kind of animosity that Russians, for example, felt for Germans after WW2. One of the best available cases would be Ukraine becoming another Poland, which is notorious for its suspicion and resentment toward Russia.

There's also so much anger in Ukraine that it would take a lot of time and suffering during war for it to wane naturally. The implication is that Zelensky might not even be politically licensed to broker a deal returning Donbas but not Crimea to Ukraine. The political imperative is to liberate all occupied land. Sentiment plus abundant weapons plus the brutalization of war could foster insurgent and terrorist activity well into the future if Ukraine can only manage to restore the (territorial) status quo ante.

The reality, as Zelensky himself said, is that neutrality vis-a-vis NATO was always the easiest concession Ukraine could offer - yet also the one Putin is least interested in.


Someone finally experimenting with no-man's-land formatting, as expected from Ruser. Is Konotop (the blue blob NW of Sumy, itself the larger blue blob surrounded by red near the NE border w/ Russia) still holding out? Holy crap, IIRC it's only been defended by local militias (Territorials). Let's have a reminder of the mayor cinematically exhorting the townsfolk to resist at the beginning of the war. There's even a humorous aside from 0:16-19 where the filmer asks the mayor why he didn't want to fight the day before; the mayor tells him to shut up before resuming his rabble-rousing.

[video=youtube;AjK19z0lLh8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjK19z0lLh8

https://i.imgur.com/Dg5Oedw.jpg

[spmetla]

@spmetla or anyone else who can answer. There have been reports of Soviet ships moving out of the far east with materiel. How are they going to get them to the battlefield? Haven't the Turks closed the straits?

I imagine they'll just go to Vladivostok and then over the trans-Siberian railroad, should take weeks if true but a indicator of Russian high command's resolve to keep fighting.


As Russia's campaign takes a pause for refit and reconstitution, and the Russians adapt their assault tactics and spend more time attriting Ukrainian defenses with artillery, the danger for all of Eastern Ukraine remains high (as I have repeatedly emphasized).

That's where I'm cautiously optimistic for the Ukrainian situation now. The Russians in country aren't being allowed a pause for refit or reconstitution as the UA is able to take the fight to them though on a smaller scale. US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine so that seems that units are being fed right into combat or the troops and equipment are being used purely as replacements. Both are indicators to me that Russia won't be able to adapt their tactics at the lower level Company and below and are going to be forced to rely on artillery.
This artillery reliance would usually be a good thing but considering the poor logistics situation as well as the security of those supply lines I think front line units won't be able to use their artillery as liberally as their doctrine would like. We haven't been seeing the massive rocket barrages of the first few weeks pop up in a while so that to me says they're being used at Battery and lower level as Battalion and greater sized barrages aren't sustainable right now.

The danger in East Ukraine is absolutely high as you've mentioned, Mariupol can't hold forever but it amazes me how well they've done so far.

If the UA is actually threatening Kherson as the rumor mill suggest this may draw more Russian units off of Mariupol too.

Also, I'm hearing through OSINT rumor mill of increased UA counterattacks NW of Kiev which makes me wonder about the situation if several BTGs get cut off from their lines of supply. Without air superiority they can't rely on aerial resupply, it's winter and they've already alienated the population so they can't forage off the land. It'd be a Stalingrad type of omen for the course of the war that even the staunchest pro-Putin supporters would struggle to paint as positive or a fluke.
If the UA somehow pulls off an encirclement of any BTGs in the NW Kiev salient that'll be a huge loss for the Russians and may eliminate any potential goading of Belarus into the conflict. Not to mention it'd enable the UA to have some strategic reserves to affect the same elsewhere.
This is all way too optimistic at this point and I get ahead of myself though the above is what I hope for. The war is far from won by any means but us armchair generals get excited when seeing vulnerable salients to cut off.


Moreover, if Ukraine does substantially "win" by their own efforts, that is without direct NATO intervention, the patriotic fervor infusing the war could combine with success to inculcate undesirable sociological tendencies. It has come to the point that in a short period of time Putin subverted a "brotherly nation" into pure loathing for Russians. This isn't just bad for Russian cultural reach and prestige; it could lead to the kind of animosity that Russians, for example, felt for Germans after WW2. One of the best available cases would be Ukraine becoming another Poland, which is notorious for its suspicion and resentment toward Russia.

I'm actually not too worried about this aspect as so many Ukrainians are part Russians or have close ties there so that they won't blame the Russian people just the government. Same for Russian citizens, this gamble and potential loss is clearly at the feet of Putin and his corrupt cronies. Sorta how the Nazis blamed the 'stab in the back' and 'the Jews' rather than acknowledge their defeat.

I could see the Russians angrier at the US specifically and the West generally than at Ukraine for somehow 'tricking' Putin into this war. I just wonder what this means for the future political environment of Russia. Will it be revanchism and meddling in Europe or will they do their historically turn eastward and focus on their influence in Central Asia and the Far East.

[Montmorency]

They still haven't been able to excavate the rubble from the Mariupol Drama Theater, (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60835106) which was bombed a week ago. Nevertheless hard to imagine civilian casualties in Mariupol though.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1506630965766070272 [VIDEO]

It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply (https://news.trust.org/item/20220317150413-vw08m/) and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).

Is it the general consensus by now that making battalions with 4 maneuver companies, integrated artillery and AD batteries, recon, engineering, etc. the primary operational unit of a military overloads the battalion commander and leaves the unit non-resilient to disabling casualties?
https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/earmor/content/issues/2017/spring/2Fiore17.pdf

Tangential brigade success story (Patton's wet dream).


Zubrowski’s Raid: In early August 2014, Ukraine’ 95th Air Assault Brigade (Mechanized) conducted the largest and
longest armored raid behind enemy lines in recorded military history. The 95th was comprised of
two mechanizedinfantry battalions, one tank battalion and a battalion of self-propelled artillery. The brigade attacked on multiple
parallel axes of advance, and combined-arms company-sized teams penetrated the thinly defended separatists’
positions and regrouped in the rear. The brigade then penetrated in depth along the two separatist regions’
internal border and maneuvered 200 kilometers east along the southern border of the Donbass. They destroyed
and captured Russian tanks and artillery, relieved several isolated Ukrainian garrisons and, finally, returned to their
starting position near Slovyansk. They marched 450 kilometers behind enemy lines and brought back captured
Russian armor and heavy artillery as well.
17 The raid achieved its objective of relieving Ukrainian forces in the
separatist provinces, and it proved that Russian regular units were operating in Ukraine. However, the gains were
undone in November 2014 when Russia deployed BTGs to the conflict in overwhelming numbers to support the
separatists directly.
 Lessons for a BCT: Look for opportunities to penetrate and inflict maximum damage. Even though 95th was
inside enemy lines for days, the unit consistently surprised enemy units, including Russian regulars. This
suggests the absence of theater-level battle tracking, cross-unit communication and a difficulty transmitting
orders to create a coordinated response to the marauding Ukrainian brigade.



That's where I'm cautiously optimistic for the Ukrainian situation now. The Russians in country aren't being allowed a pause for refit or reconstitution as the UA is able to take the fight to them though on a smaller scale. US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine so that seems that units are being fed right into combat or the troops and equipment are being used purely as replacements. Both are indicators to me that Russia won't be able to adapt their tactics at the lower level Company and below and are going to be forced to rely on artillery.

This artillery reliance would usually be a good thing but considering the poor logistics situation as well as the security of those supply lines I think front line units won't be able to use their artillery as liberally as their doctrine would like. We haven't been seeing the massive rocket barrages of the first few weeks pop up in a while so that to me says they're being used at Battery and lower level as Battalion and greater sized barrages aren't sustainable right now.

Depends on what your interpretation of a pause is. Going by the ISW reports, for a couple of weeks now the Russians have generally only been fielding companies and battalions on the offensive along any given axis, albeit frequently overall, with offensive operations now almost at a total standstill in the northern half of the AO. (It's been reasonable to persist in Donetsk/Luhansk.)

To be precise, Putin would have to be really stupid to keep attacking piecemeal in net excess of Russia's capacity to resupply and reconstitute comprehensively, but we'll see... Winter has ended, so assuming there is a low-intensity stalemate until May, both sides will build up their operational reserves. For Ukraine this will mean training up their territorials to replace lost regulars and National Guard, as well as recruiting new territorials and organizing the partisan element for stay-behind and for areas already occupied. For Russia it will mean summoning as many reserves as combat units can absorb and/or be removed from the economy, and refreshing their training. Russia would also recruit as many mercenaries as possible and perhaps flood the rear areas with them alongside Rosgvardia and other internal security in order to stamp out resistance. This would be necessary since if Russia ever does bring the bulk of their force to bear against the Dnieper, having at least twice the area behind them that they do now, their LOC will be that much more vulnerable. Especially so given past performance, and the fact that they would be investing major cities from across the river (i.e. high expenditure of bulky supplies).


US intel doesn't seem to report any new BTGs lining up as reinforcements anywhere outside the Ukraine

Various sources since early in the month have been referencing Russian reinforcement units being brought up to the AO. I can't say I remember details, but for the most recent examples there were elements of naval infantry from around the country (ISW), an engineering detachment (Militaryland), and elements drawn from international deployments such as in the Caucasus and Syria (various sources).


If the UA is actually threatening Kherson as the rumor mill suggest this may draw more Russian units off of Mariupol too.

Kherson is like the holy grail for armchair generals, because of how overstretched the Russian advance is on that front. If a covert squad could properly blow the bridge, the only bridge over the Dnieper for 150 miles (Zaporizhzhia), and the only bridge the Russians control, then anywhere from 7-14 BTG of regulars (from what I've read), a bundle of artillery brigades, some air defense units, and some Spetsnaz and Rosgvardia in the AO will be cut off by ground. At least until the Russians can get bridgelayers on the scene (if they're good, they already have bridgelayers in Kherson in reserve). Best of all would be to blow the bridge at both banks, so a risky diversionary Ukrainian attack out of the Mykolaiv salient wouldn't even be needed and any restoration by the Russians would take weeks too long to rescue trapped assets.

If an uprising in Kherson could be triggered, it would be worth hundreds of lives to trap up to 20K Russian forces as well as an enormous quantity of artillery and AD systems.

Many of the Russians could still be evacuated by air while abandoning their equipment, but something like half their contingent is operating forward near Mykolaiv or at the provincial border near Kryvyi Rih, 50 or more miles out from Kherson. Thousands would be forced to surrender en masse.

Re-anchoring along the Dnieper while liquidating an entire Russian corps at low cost would be a watershed victory for Ukraine. It would also allow the transfer of several brigades to Kyiv (though the captured heavy equipment would take a long time to repurpose).

It would be legendary.

Sadly for the fantasy the Ukrainians probably don't have the capability.

NB. To my recollection the nearby bridge at Nova Kakhovka was blown at the beginning of the war. If it wasn't then the tactical picture is rather more complex for Ukraine.


I'm actually not too worried about this aspect as so many Ukrainians are part Russians or have close ties there so that they won't blame the Russian people just the government. Same for Russian citizens, this gamble and potential loss is clearly at the feet of Putin and his corrupt cronies. Sorta how the Nazis blamed the 'stab in the back' and 'the Jews' rather than acknowledge their defeat.

Almost all Ukrainian speakers a decade ago were Russian speakers, and heavily acculturated to Russian hegemony. Now, while the dust will take a long time to settle regardless of outcomes, I'm picking up on a very intense hatred of Russia and all things Russian among the Ukrainian populace. This sensitivity was cultivated over the past 8 years as well to be sure, but something has boiled over and a profound delinking with Soviet/Russian heritage is being carried forward. Just one video that captures the sentiment is a Ukrainian soldier surveying a destroyed Russian column and vowing, in Russian, to forswear the Russian language after the war. The universal resort to the framing of "orcs" and various highly-antiquated ethnic slurs isn't something that gets buried easily.

Let's not forget that part of the Russian ultranationalism that led to this war was the self-glorifying, unrepentant categorization of "fascist" as denoting "German", and then just anything couched as anti-Russian. If the Russian military, the one that singlehandedly saved the world from "fascism", can turn any opponent in the world into radioactive dust - as Russian TV personalities crowed - then of course Great Russia has the right and the means to do it again.

Notice how former President Medvedev, and Russian state TV, have been running trial balloons on the need to invade all of Eastern Europe in order to teach it some respect, and to renew deNazification.

(For another glimpse at the successful Fox-Newsification of the Russian people:)


Unfortunately, there are some [pro-Russian] minded people in Kharkiv. They hide in the shelters and eat the humanitarian aid that comes from Europe and is distributed by Ukraine. And they still sympathize with Russia — it’s just delusional, if you ask me. I know [these kinds of people personally], of course. They think Ukraine is bombing itself.

I’m friends with some of my relatives from Crimea on [Russian social media site] Odnoklassniki. It’s my dad’s sisters and their children. I wrote: “We don’t need to be saved from anyone. We live on our own land and we want to live in Ukraine. Please get out of here.” Then came a barrage of negative comments. “It was different in the Soviet Union,” “You’re Nazis,” “You worship Bandera.” “I want to get in a tank myself and come greet you all.” And those are my relatives. So we cut them off. I’m not going to talk to them anymore. I don’t see the point.

My dad is currently in Crimea serving in the army; his wife and his wife’s son are there with him. I messaged him, “Did they send you to ‘save’ Ukraine, too?”

“Yes,” he responded.

“You don’t need to save us from anybody,” I wrote.

“You don’t understand anything," he wrote back. "People want us to save them from the Nazis."

Beyond specific national relations, my point was that Ukraine winning the war 'on its own' could combine to engender a certain chauvinism or overconfidence. Chauvinism and brutalization are a toxic brew. The West must invest in normalcy and peaceful flourishing in Ukraine, pull it away from the likes of Poland and, to quote Rod Dreher again, "make the Donbass safe for genderqueers and migrants."

I have no thoughts on what shape the program of disarmament would take, but additionally an immediate practical necessity for a victorious Ukraine - besides clearing away mines, ordnance, and rubble - will be to account for and confiscate as many small arms, RPGs, and heavy weapons from the general population as is feasible. Recall how the resistance movements of occupied Europe prominent included all sorts of unsavory political types, as well as gangsters and opportunists; it took years of diligent work to keep that threat to the state from festering.


I could see the Russians angrier at the US specifically and the West generally than at Ukraine for somehow 'tricking' Putin into this war. I just wonder what this means for the future political environment of Russia. Will it be revanchism and meddling in Europe or will they do their historically turn eastward and focus on their influence in Central Asia and the Far East.

Any further Russian Dolschtosslegend-ing is a whole other subject. It will never be possible to impose a comprehensive military defeat upon them. It's yet another crying shame; before the war most Russians were at a minimum neutral about American influence on their society.

[Pannonian]

They still haven't been able to excavate the rubble from the Mariupol Drama Theater, (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60835106) which was bombed a week ago. Nevertheless hard to imagine civilian casualties in Mariupol though.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1506630965766070272 [VIDEO]

It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply (https://news.trust.org/item/20220317150413-vw08m/) and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).


The problem in many areas with food supply issues is war, not the general availability of food. As long as that's not solved, you're not going to solve the local food supply problem.

[rory_20_uk]

Food and water are tools of control in many countries in the world. Used correctly it can even be a way to monetise one's own population who are too poor to pay conventional taxes - but when the UN comes a-running with fee food that can be stolen, permits and other import taxes can be demanded and things can be sold to their staff. All that lovely hard currency - and the poor, starving peasants are unlikely to revolt.

And this of course is excluding when just starving people to death is the aim.

Lack of access therefore isn't a problem to be "fixed", it is something to use.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Holy crap, the Russian military has released a war map. It's surprisingly conservative, in some places even compared with most Western mappers. Meanwhile, Yuri insists that Makariv is under Russian control and the Kyiv regime is momentarily to flee the city.

https://i.imgur.com/52YmviM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/rKHLGCY.jpg


Kherson is reportedly contested again.

DoD's cutting F-35 procurement?

Seems like Azerbaijan is officially recommencing its designs on Karabakh while Russia is distracted. Restraint is just too much to ask for in the Degenerate Age. I can't think of anyone else on the planet who wants this, other than Turkey, who always takes an opportunity to kick down at Armenia by all appearances.


The problem in many areas with food supply issues is war, not the general availability of food. As long as that's not solved, you're not going to solve the local food supply problem.

True, but only to a point - and Afghanistan and Yemen are in a 10-year lull for internal warfare anyway. There's a difference between persistent nutritional insecurity and mass famine, and these are very particular times for global and regional food supplies.


Food and water are tools of control in many countries in the world. Used correctly it can even be a way to monetise one's own population who are too poor to pay conventional taxes - but when the UN comes a-running with fee food that can be stolen, permits and other import taxes can be demanded and things can be sold to their staff. All that lovely hard currency - and the poor, starving peasants are unlikely to revolt.

And this of course is excluding when just starving people to death is the aim.

Lack of access therefore isn't a problem to be "fixed", it is something to use.

~:smoking:

The usage is that we don't have a mechanism for controlling millions of starving people. I know Europe is relatively enthusiastic about absorbing millions of Ukrainian refugees, but one would think the lesson was learned by 2015. Or else, you'd better be sure that all those people will croak before they get a chance to cause impinge on you if there's no money or resources to take care of them abroad.

[Montmorency]

Ukraine's allies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn4QhlMTnKs), in the first week of the war, sent 17,000 MANPAT. Unless this war ends this spring, it is almost certain Russia will suffer more total casualties than the US did in the entire Vietnam War.

One factor in Ukraine's persistent defense of trans-Dnieper Zaporizhzhia and Donbas I callously hadn't considered before is that it is in Ukraine's long-term national interest to preserve as many of its major population/urban centers as possible. Unless the military necessity is absolute, allowing major cities like Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia to come under withering and extended barrage against entrenched and west-bank defenders would lead to the permanent loss of tens of thousands of civilians and irreplaceable national heritage, to say nothing of damage to commerce, industry, infrastructure, and even tourism that would long hamper any Ukrainian recovery.

Better to expend many thousands of soldiers if doing so averts the sacrifice of national viscera. At least with Mariupol and other border cities it was understood that they would never survive any proper war - hence their anochronistic designation as a Hero Cities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Fortress) by Zelensky.

[spmetla]

It's about time for transgovernmental management of the global food supply and its distribution (almost all Yemenis and Afghans are suffering food scarcity).


I agree but local agriculture needs to be encouraged in these areas too. I recall all too well the southern Afghan poppy and marijuana fields abound because no one grew food as it wasn't profitable enough and didn't come with cash/seed lending from the smugglers. If there were trans-governmental subsidies to staple crop growers as well to encourage food growth instead of cash crops this would help to alleviate the problem to some degree and reduce the cycle of aid dependency.
Part of the problem is of course the destroyed economies in those areas so that even though food may be available it remains out of reach. This problem can't be really fixed though in Yemen or Afghanistan where years of war of upset the local economies and the continuing hostilities and political problems prevent any reinvestment in countries that no one really cares about until their refugees arrive. A problem that's exasperated by these populations continuing to grow despite an inability to sustain even the current population.
Yemen won't have peace until Iran and the Saudis solve their problems. The Taliban continue to renege on promised reforms which will continue to result in reduced aid support.


Seems like Azerbaijan is officially recommencing its designs on Karabakh while Russia is distracted. Restraint is just too much to ask for in the Degenerate Age. I can't think of anyone else on the planet who wants this, other than Turkey, who always takes an opportunity to kick down at Armenia by all appearances.

Georgia too has rumblings in parts of their establishment to try and retake South Ossetia and Abkhazia too, even Japan has been underlining their claims to the Kuril Islands. Guess that's the problem when conflicts are 'frozen' instead of resolved. Moldova would like to have the Transdniestria enclave resolved too. A lot of hyenas hoping for a Russian collapse, something that'd also be a disaster for the world in essentially allowing for landgrabs to lead to several more small regional wars. I want Putin's regime to change to something a little less at odds with the world order, not the total collapse of the Russian Federation.


DoD's cutting F-35 procurement?
That caught me by surprise too. I think this is some DoD 4D chess happening, by spending their budget on other things and leaving something absolutely necessary underfunded with a reduction to the order their lobbyists and pocket politicians can push for an increased budget.
There's also the possibility that this may allow the production line to send those F-35s to the buyers in Europe that are still waiting for more to arrive given that even Germany has finally settled on it as its Tornado replacement. Think the F-35 will be essentially the NATO/Western standard multirole aircraft in future decades.


Kherson is reportedly contested again.
I'm tracking the area around it is contested for sure but it's the type of terrain the heavily favors the Russians more heavily mechanized and motorized forces. Given the lackluster performance of the Russians in urban combat so far I can't see them holding Kherson if the UA gets a good foothold in the city but a decent chance of holding it if they can keep the fight on the open plains to the west. Seems to be just about all open farmland with only scattered houses, a few villages, and very few forested areas so the absolute ideal for mounted warfare, even if restricted to the major roads as flanks are mostly in clear view.

Given the stalemate NW and NE of Kiev I'm actually surprised that the Russians aren't just pulling back from those areas completely to focus their efforts on the East and South. They've still been a better army when fighting in open areas so why not focus on the areas that seem to line up with the reduced campaign goals. Perhaps Putin also has the 'no step back' mentality of Hitler.
Just makes me wonder what the current military objectives are for the Russians. Taking the country seems to be off the table so if the new goals are land corridor to Crimea and all of the contested East the focus efforts there. If they really intend to just dig in and try to negotiate terms, I think we'll see the encirclements I hope for. Being on defense gives the initiative to the enemy and generally is harder on morale than the offense (so long as the attacks are well planned, not cannon fodder style). If the Ukrainians start making any significant gains in their counterattacks the morale effect on the Russians will be much more magnified than if they just left areas that have stalemated and focused on areas that line up with political objectives and the strengths of their own army.

[Montmorency]

The Russian MoD briefing today, from which I posted their official war map, included the claim that everything is going to plan because Russia only ever intended to seize the rest of Donestk and Luhansk - the only territory they're having much success in.

I suspect this is a face-saving gesture, for all the reasons covered in the thread. But I can acknowledge the possibility of branching plans in Russian stretegy. Even so, for an opportunist like Putin the dream of taking the whole country was at the forefront, and the current disposition is as near to total failure as Russian planners could have envisioned.

In the plausible case that Russia contests over the currently-occupied territory for months to come, the time is ripe for NATO to send non-Soviet equipment and train Ukrainian operators on it. A couple months' training will be an adequate start for Ukraine on many systems; old Cold War-era stocks can't hold out forever.

[Pannonian]

The Russian MoD briefing today, from which I posted their official war map, included the claim that everything is going to plan because Russia only ever intended to seize the rest of Donestk and Luhansk - the only territory they're having much success in.

I suspect this is a face-saving gesture, for all the reasons covered in the thread. But I can acknowledge the possibility of branching plans in Russian stretegy. Even so, for an opportunist like Putin the dream of taking the whole country was at the forefront, and the current disposition is as near to total failure as Russian planners could have envisioned.

In the plausible case that Russia contests over the currently-occupied territory for months to come, the time is ripe for NATO to send non-Soviet equipment and train Ukrainian operators on it. A couple months' training will be an adequate start for Ukraine on many systems; old Cold War-era stocks can't hold out forever.

Can't they just hand over the equipment and tell them to google for instructions? It seems to be how untrained Ukrainian operators have been learning how to use captured Russian equipment.

[Montmorency]

Potential Ukrainian war crimes - the serious kind - against POWs. Terribly stupid if true - and it looks legitimate.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1507975846384082945 [VIDEO - CW]
https://twitter.com/i/status/1507975823290216448 [VIDEO - CW]

And some potential war crimes against Ukrainian POWs.
https://twitter.com/KremlinTrolls/status/1506306637694476304 [VIDEO - CW]

[Montmorency]

Chief presidential adviser Arestovich confirmed that the footage merits an investigation and reasserted the need to treat POWs (even) better than civilians. Very acute intellect on that man btw, so this is reassuring to hear from him.

It's increasingly probable that Azerbaijan (https://twitter.com/wwwmodgovaz/status/1507825644444467205) will go loud (https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-azerbaijan-enters-russian-peacekeepers-zone-nagorno-karabakh-2022-03-26/) in Karabakh, not that there's much standing in their way. On the other hand it would be quite a break from Azerbaijan's formerly-foremost ally, and would demand some kind of severe response from Putin as a greater blow to his prestige and authority than anything in Ukraine so far. Though it's not clear what options Russia would have.


On March 25, during the telephone conversation between #Azerbaijan Defense Minister Col Gen Zakir Hasanov and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the situation in the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping forces are temporarily stationed, was discussed.

The Azerbaijani side stated that the positions and deployment locations are being clarified on spot.

However, in the morning of March 26, members of #IllegalArmenianarmeddetachments attempted to sabotage the #AzerbaijanArmy Units. As a result of immediate measures, members of illegal Armenian armed detachments were forced to retreat.

The Defense Ministry states that Azerbaijan is committed to the Joint Statement of November 10, 2020 and has not violated any of the provisions.

We regretably inform that the withdrawal of the remnants of the Armenian army and illegal Armenian armed detachments from the territory of Azerbaijan in accordance with article 4 of this Statement has not yet been completed.

Therefore, it is Armenia, not Azerbaijan, that violates the provisions of the Statement.

The Ministry of Defense states that the statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation contradicts the essence of bilateral relations and the Declaration on Allied Interaction signed between the two countries on February 22, 2022.

There is no administrative and territorial unit called "Nagorno-Karabakh" in the territory of Azerbaijan. The name of the village mentioned in the statement is not Furukh, but Farrukh.

The MoD of the Republic of Azerbaijan requests the MoD of the Russian Federation to completely withdraw the remnants of the Armenian army and illegal Armenian armed detachments from the territory of ���� recognized by the international community.

In accordance with the provisions of the Joint Statement, Azerbaijan asks not to use the term "Nagorno-Karabakh" and correctly indicate the names of the territories of Azerbaijan.


Russia says Azerbaijan enters peacekeepers' zone in Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku denies it (https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-says-azerbaijan-enters-russian-peacekeepers-zone-nagorno-karabakh-2022-03-26/)

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday Azeri armed forces had entered a zone policed by Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, in a violation of an agreement, but Azerbaijan challenged these claims.

Russia said it had called on Azerbaijan to pull out its troops, and was "applying efforts" to move forces to their initial positions. It also said Azerbaijan had carried out four drone strikes in Nagorno-Karabakh.


Astonishing headline (https://twitter.com/i/events/1508136996899852295): "Some foreign fighters eager to join the Ukrainian cause have found the experience unexpectedly frightening and dangerous"

[spmetla]

Chief presidential adviser Arestovich confirmed that the footage merits an investigation and reasserted the need to treat POWs (even) better than civilians. Very acute intellect on that man btw, so this is reassuring to hear from him.

I'm sure there's countless abuses on both sides, glad that it's being investigated but doubt many resources will be allocated to that. Given the poor training of a lot of the troops on both sides (especially the newly mobilized Ukrainians and Russian conscripts) I'm sure we'll see plenty more. War saps people's humanity.


It's increasingly probable that Azerbaijan will go loud in Karabakh, not that there's much standing in their way. On the other hand it would be quite a break from Azerbaijan's formerly-foremost ally, and would demand some kind of severe response from Putin as a greater blow to his prestige and authority than anything in Ukraine so far. Though it's not clear what options Russia would have.


I'm worried that they'll go to war too. Russia was not capable of much intervention last year and now look almost powerless and with Turkey as the security guarantee the Azeris will probably never see such another opportunity in a long time to 'fix' their borders. If Georgia didn't share a border with Russia, I'm sure they'd be seriously considering the same.


Astonishing headline: "Some foreign fighters eager to join the Ukrainian cause have found the experience unexpectedly frightening and dangerous"
Given that so many western volunteers are coming from rich, well-funded militaries, with a high premium on individual welfare I'm not surprised that they'd be shocked by the low-quality equipment, training, and extreme danger. Even 'veterans' of the last 20 years of small wars won't know the terror of enemy artillery, tanks, UAVs, and having to live and fight in extreme conditions for days on end. No FOB to go home to and watch Netflix while facetiming the wife.
The killing potential in high intensity conflict is terrible, I think a lot of Americans forget that the US was expected up to 15,000 casualties to force Iraq out of Kuwait, it was to be the "Mother of All Battles" as no one expected the Western technological advantage to so completely overwhelm a 'veteran and battle-hardened' force like the Iraqis, especially the Republican Guard.

Too many people, especially in the US think that war is easy and that technology makes the hard parts unnecessary or avoidable. They forget the US has fought 'easy' opponents recently. Like I said a few weeks ago, imagine how hard the Iraq war would had been if the Iraqis had actually tried as a whole nation to fight the US invasion. The US was very lucky that Iraqi morale and sense of national patriotism over tribal affiliation wasn't stronger, not to mention that they didn't 'study the knife' as you've pointed out Ukraine has done the last eight years.

[Montmorency]

I understand all sides in all wars commit at least some excesses, but it's still stupid. In the most mediatized war ever, it doesn't take compassion - short currency amid the brutalization of violent masculinity - to hold back from vengeful destruction in cold blood, and documenting it at that. It's on a whole other level from demeaning or berating prisoners, which we've seen in other footage. Even the crudest instrumentality requires Ukraine to maximize its prisoner-taking potential among the target, the Russian soldier.

This is very important to handle during the war so that it doesn't become an albatross for future generations. We're not even close to publicly reckoning with the follies of the War on Terror in the US, let alone the specific atrocities numbered within it; even recognizing that slavery was bad is a locus of catastrophic political struggle. Russia's failure to understand the crimes of the Stalin era, and of the USSR during and before WW2, go a long way toward explaining why it fell to fascism the way it did. Russia's post-war self-conception and historiography has been even more jingoistic and self-glorifying than America's, hard as that may be to believe.

Truth and reconciliation sooner rather than later is always in humanity's interest beyond borders. Even better is to do one's best to play it clean in the first place.

EDIT:


According to @bellingcat (https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1508092951997595650) the Russian FSB paid billions of $ to ensure that some shadowy political class in Ukraine supported this war & created an internal coup d'état immediately after the invasion. But Ukrainian agents who took the money ditched them.They just screwed them over

I think this report must be legit, because Yuri had a video complaining about just this a week or two ago. I may also have posted about his bitter proclamation that the double-agent debacle should become an opportunity to cleanse Ukraine of oligarchs as Russia rebuilds it in Russia's vision.

[Montmorency]

I sense a buddy comedy script.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og18vn9aqIQ

[Seamus Fermanagh]

While heartened that the Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russians back during this enforced operational pause, as the last map in post #363 above makes clear, the Ukrainians are NOT encircling and entrapping the movement echelons but cutting them off. They are attriting them and pushing them back.

[rory_20_uk]

While heartened that the Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russians back during this enforced operational pause, as the last map in post #363 above makes clear, the Ukrainians are NOT encircling and entrapping the movement echelons but cutting them off. They are attriting them and pushing them back.

Realistically, if they were able to cut them off Russia would have no choice but to pull out all the stops to break out since the loss of prestige with such a calamity would be worse than further sanctions. And as a complete amateur I would have thought man portable weaponry are great at ambushes but poor at properly seizing and holding in a battalion or so. If the equipment Russia is fielding continues to be of poor quality, won't constant pressure ensure morale remains rock bottom and heavy material is dumped as soon as there's a glitch, lest there's another missile from some fox hole?

~:smoking:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Realistically, if they were able to cut them off Russia would have no choice but to pull out all the stops to break out since the loss of prestige with such a calamity would be worse than further sanctions. And as a complete amateur I would have thought man portable weaponry are great at ambushes but poor at properly seizing and holding in a battalion or so. If the equipment Russia is fielding continues to be of poor quality, won't constant pressure ensure morale remains rock bottom and heavy material is dumped as soon as there's a glitch, lest there's another missile from some fox hole?

I rather think it does, and the Ukrainians have been using this to good effect so far. I am just lamenting that the Ukrainians do not appear to have the offensive combat power necessary to surround one or two of the penetrations and crush them. As was noted above, such losses would be concentrated among maneuver forces and erode Russian capability even more. But things are as they are, not as we would wish.

[Montmorency]

As it happens, the Russians have professed (https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1508774654940520448) that as a show of good faith during the ongoing negotiations, they will "fundamentally cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernigiv” in order to “increase mutual trust for future negotiations to agree and sign a peace deal with Ukraine.” The DoD and other Western observers are marking the withdrawal of some units north of Kyiv into Belarus. They speculate that Russia is using the time to reconstitute units, potentially to reposition to Donbass, or even to correct the forward line in the Kyiv suburbs, that famous salient. Similar developments have been observed throughout the northeast of Ukraine, around still-standing Chernihiv and Sumy.

https://i.imgur.com/t2p0pZt.jpg

Thermal mapping of Kyiv (https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1509073918304342018) and Mariupol (https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1508997712167174145) fronts (can reflect both source and target).

https://i.imgur.com/p3C34qF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/6Qdtk19.jpg

[spmetla]

Meanwhile in other news Russia may annex South Ossetia soon:
South Ossetia has legal grounds to join Russia — parliament speaker
Alan Tadtayev noted that since 1774, when Ossetia joined Russia, there haven’t been a single document declaring its secession from Russia
https://tass.com/world/1429977
utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=google.com&utm_referrer=google.com
South Ossetia to hold referendum to join Russia in future - report
Officially, South Ossetia is recognized by most countries as being part of Georgia, though Georgia has no de facto control over it
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702755

The pro-Russian Georgian breakaway South Ossetia is set to hold a public referendum to fully join Russia, South Ossential parliament Speaker Alan Tadtaev told Russia's TASS news agency on Wednesday.

"We have every reason to join the Russian Federation and there are no legal obstacles to this," Tadtaev added.

"I believe that unification with Russia is our strategic goal, our path, the aspiration of the people," President Anatoly Bibilov, was quoted as saying by the press service of the United Russia Party.

"We will take the relevant legal steps in the near future. The republic of South Ossetia will be part of its historical homeland - Russia."

All necessary legal procedures for South Ossetia to join Russia will be finished around April 10 to coincide with the South Ossetian presidential elections, presidential press secretary Dina Gassieva told TASS.

While I'm kind of the opinion that if the people of South Ossetia really don't want to be part of Georgia they shouldn't have to be, especially as they've been defacto independent for decades. However, Russia annexing another country that's internationally still recognized as part of Georgia seems a big 'no no' for me.

Finding a way to 'correct' borders still remains a major problem within the UN framework. Creating new countries like Kosovo or South Ossetia is a major problem that should require buy-in from the country they are seceding from in some form.
This is why things like Taiwan will remain major problems for a long time as there isn't a way for the country losing said province to 'save face' and accept what may be de facto conditions forever.

[Montmorency]

Joe Biden has authorized the release of 1 million bpd from the Strategic Oil Reserve over the next 6 months. It was a much-promoted option for reducing inflationary pressure at the gas pump (and beyond), and therefore buying the midterm votes of the common clay. This is what applied political science looks like.

Japan has rejected all negotiations with Russia over the Kuril Islands and proclaimed them illegally-occupied territory. I highly doubt the presence of any military component to this policy change.

DoD estimated that 70-75% of total Russian military power is committed to Ukraine, presumably of the ground force in particular.

The Russians have abandoned Hostomel (Antonov) Airport (https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1509630424007553028), just north of Irpin/Kyiv. Here is a POV video taken from an apartment maybe a kilometer away from the airport on the day of the invasion, when a swarm of helis brazenly inserted VDV into the airport with Ride of the Valkyries blaring (I like to imagine). The same day that CNN reporters on the scene encountered the Russian vanguard and filmed them from a block away exchanging fire with the Ukrainians. More than a month ago now, and much of the area has since been devastated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ts1lku/first_day_of_the_war_attack_on_hostomel_airport/

Speculation (https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1509287796065845250) that Russians stationed in the Chernobyl (https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1509726266039152640) exclusion zone have been coming down with acute radiation poisoning for not minding the hotspots.

US Air Force procurement (https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/air-space-brief-space-seeks-40-budget-boost-mars-rover-gets-mothballed-air-force-cut-150-planes/363751/) proposals. My only qualm is investment in nuclear (presumably beyond maintenance).


AF proposes cutting 150 aircraft: U.S. Air Force leaders want to shed hundreds of “unnecessary” planes and drones and spend more on nuclear and high-tech weapons they say are better suited for a war with China or Russia. They lay out their proposal in the service’s $169 billion 2023 spending request, which is $13.2 billion higher than last year’s request. The service is asking for approval to retire 150 aircraft, including eight E-8 JSTARS radar planes, 21 A-10 attack planes, 33 F-22 training jets, 15 E-3 Sentry AWACS-carrying radar planes, 13 KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, 10 C-130H cargo planes, and 50 T-1 trainers.

AWACS replacement: Speaking of AWACS, the Air Force’s new budget request includes about $225 million to start replacing decades-old E-3s with...well, it’s not quite decided. But a “leading candidate” is the E-7 Wedgetail, a Boeing aircraft flown by several allies, Marcus Weisgerber reports.


https://i.imgur.com/HdC2ogc.jpg



Meanwhile in other news Russia may annex South Ossetia soon:
South Ossetia has legal grounds to join Russia — parliament speaker
Alan Tadtayev noted that since 1774, when Ossetia joined Russia, there haven’t been a single document declaring its secession from Russia
https://tass.com/world/1429977
utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=google.com&utm_referrer=google.com
South Ossetia to hold referendum to join Russia in future - report
Officially, South Ossetia is recognized by most countries as being part of Georgia, though Georgia has no de facto control over it
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-702755


While I'm kind of the opinion that if the people of South Ossetia really don't want to be part of Georgia they shouldn't have to be, especially as they've been defacto independent for decades. However, Russia annexing another country that's internationally still recognized as part of Georgia seems a big 'no no' for me.

Finding a way to 'correct' borders still remains a major problem within the UN framework. Creating new countries like Kosovo or South Ossetia is a major problem that should require buy-in from the country they are seceding from in some form.
This is why things like Taiwan will remain major problems for a long time as there isn't a way for the country losing said province to 'save face' and accept what may be de facto conditions forever.

It's a battle between international order and the law of the jungle.

Contemporary IR scholars have been foolish to discount the geoeconomics of conquest, as though raw resources and population somehow no longer mattered in the digital age. It's just that corporate hegemony is a preferable weapon to war for the ruling classes; doesn't mean war can't possibly pay, even if in most cases it won't. The Project for a New American Century neocons wanted to do the same thing in Iraq after all, just without the annexation - they too badly miscalculated. What Putin, another stupid authoritarian, overlooked is that there's more ruin in an America than there is in a Russia.

[rory_20_uk]

Finding a way to 'correct' borders still remains a major problem within the UN framework. Creating new countries like Kosovo or South Ossetia is a major problem that should require buy-in from the country they are seceding from in some form.
This is why things like Taiwan will remain major problems for a long time as there isn't a way for the country losing said province to 'save face' and accept what may be de facto conditions forever.

Although there has so far not been a way to codify how countries morph over time, reality continues with a much simpler "might is right" approach where if an area can be either overcome by another, or resist domination then there is essentially a change in countries. Tibet isn't a country whereas Taiwan is.

That countries that cede land are the exception rather than the rule is why all those at the UN are more interested in keeping what they have rather than assisting - democratic countries are all about the wishes of the people until they want to leave (as we can see in examples such as Spain).

But then the UN has its rules mainly outlined by international lawyers whose lives are cloistered to a point where hardship is pretty much unheard of. I think we also see this with the "rules of war" which do not seem to have asked what those who have been at the edge of the meat grinder - often forgiving senior commanders who direct the bombing whilst expecting soldiers to be able to act as robots with treating those who have just killed their comrades as utterly neutral persons. It is a nice thought where the person needs to be distinct from the soldier but surely a yardstick as opposed to a criminal code. But invariably the rules are only enforced on the loosers.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

Holy shit. The Russians are outright abandoning the North, along with an indeterminate quantity of men and materiel. Also today, it appears the Ukrainians sent gunships to strike a fuel depot in Belgorod, on the Russian side of the border (https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/45020/ukrainian-mi-24-attack-helicopters-fly-daring-cross-border-strike-on-russia-reports). This entire war so far has been Ukraine coming up aces.

https://i.imgur.com/c28wn4K.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/SXMxWZP.jpg


whilst expecting soldiers to be able to act as robots with treating those who have just killed their comrades as utterly neutral persons. :

Don't have to be robots, this is acceptable from the available footage.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/tslw1x/translation_dpr_soldiers_surrendered_to_ukrainian/ [VIDEO]

It must be acknowledged that seeing POWs activates my vestigial nurturing instincts in some special way though.

[Montmorency]

For some reason, the towns Russia is abandoning are lined with civilian corpses. The most reassuring thing that can be said about it is that the Russians have left behind literal heaps of their own as well.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1509985789404459011 [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/J_B_E__Zorg/status/1510005388950876168

Rory, just for interest here is a legal analysis of the role of commanders in war crimes.
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/command-responsibility-ukraine-conflict/


The concept of command responsibility, also known as superior responsibility, stems from IHL (see Amann), being rooted in Article 1(1) of the 1899 Hague Regulations and eventually codified in 1977 in Articles 86(2) and 87 of Additional Protocol I (AP I). It is now deemed a norm of customary nature applicable to all States (see Commentary to Rule 153 of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law).

While the Allies prosecuted commanders after the Second World War (e.g., Yamashita, von Leeb) one had to await the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (Article 7(3)) and that of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Article 6(3)) for a codified and refined definition of command responsibility. The latest international iteration is found in Article 28 of the Statute of the ICC. The Court has clearly stated that command responsibility is a sui generis mode of liability used to hold criminally responsible military superiors for the crimes committed by their subordinates (paras 171, 174).

[rory_20_uk]

The Allies did charge and convict enemy commanders yet none of their own - not just they were not found guilty but none of them did anything worth looking into.

How many commanders from the conflicts in Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Palestine, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc have been investigated let alone charged? Any at all? And in the USA the President is Commander in Chief, so he should be the one to be held accountable.

Without an unconditional surrender in Ukraine by Russia which is bordering on impossible, only Ukrainian soldiers and commanders would be held responsible which seems risible. Again, white collar lawyers codifying something of itself doesn't really achieve anything.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

The Allies did charge and convict enemy commanders yet none of their own - not just they were not found guilty but none of them did anything worth looking into.

How many commanders from the conflicts in Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Palestine, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc have been investigated let alone charged? Any at all? And in the USA the President is Commander in Chief, so he should be the one to be held accountable.

Without an unconditional surrender in Ukraine by Russia which is bordering on impossible, only Ukrainian soldiers and commanders would be held responsible which seems risible. Again, white collar lawyers codifying something of itself doesn't really achieve anything.

~:smoking:

I can see that. On the other hand - you could look at it as better than nothing. Should then the Americans never have charged anyone involved in My Lai (and there were many lesser such incidents) on account of the North Vietnamese getting away with their crimes? More broadly, should there be no courts or jails in one country because criminals in another aren't effectively brought to justice? While an eliminationist would assent to that as a backdoor to their ends, it seems backwards enough that no one would agree with the logic outright I think.

Chief executives are usually commanders in chief, so in principle you charge them with decisions to go to war or with specific criminal policies/orders.

[CrossLOPER]

Someone should make a bingo chart of this conflict, because that would be the only salvageable thing from whatever this was.

My apologies, I am being too enthusiastic. The conflict IS.

[Montmorency]

Numerous reports (https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas) of recaptured areas around Kyiv being strewn with corpses and mass graves, with civilians reporting that the occupation was characterized by theft, torture, rape, and execution, seemingly in line with the Kremlin's pre-war assessed intent to eliminate political dissent and named anti-Russian elements of society.

https://i.imgur.com/VWrd3Um.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ox12hbC.jpg

Elsewhere, the Wagner Group (Liga) is alleged to have assisted two weeks ago in mass murder in Mali (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_de_Moura), where they maintain a presence.

Why do the Russophobes always smear Russia so in all of its self-defense efforts? :bigcry:

The situation in Russia described perfectly. (https://medium.com/@kravchenko_mm/what-should-russia-do-with-ukraine-translation-of-a-propaganda-article-by-a-russian-journalist-a3e92e3cb64) (Tip: It tells the whole truth, but inverted exactly) :clown:

Summary: The vast majority of Ukrainians are passive Nazis who must be reeducated and subject to severe cultural-ideological suppression and reeducation (De-Ukrainization and De-Europeanization, since "Nazi Ukraine" is a European project). Ukraine must pay (atone) for its crimes against Russia through terror and violence and be treated as an enemy until that generational reconstruction is complete. It will involve total Russian government control over Ukrainian society and the division of the unnatural Ukrainian state into dozens of non-threatening statelets. Banderists cannot be reeducated and must be liquidated (killed) as a class. All of this is the writer's exact terminology, published in some of the most elite of Russian state media. It's the same outlet that on February 26 published and retracted an article describing the ideological need for Russia to restore itself in the contest for world domination against Anglo-American civilization by conquering Ukraine.

So yeah, Russian fascism demands genocide as resolution to the Ukrainian Question, genocide of the Stalinist character. Not that the Russians should be genocided in the way the writer lays out, but some vigorous cleansing is certainly in order.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense commissioned a study (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA753-1.html) into civilian harms during the Battle of Raqqa. With such instruments one can at least hope for improvement:


The battle for Raqqa, Syria, seemed like a perfect storm of strategic and operational challenges. When the city was finally liberated from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in October 2017, 60 to 80 percent of it was estimated to be uninhabitable. In fact, the battle for Raqqa is a cautionary tale about civilian harm in 21st-century conflicts.

The purpose of this report is to discuss how the U.S. military — which is the best-trained and most technologically advanced military in the world, is supported in Operation Inherent Resolve by an international coalition of more than 80 countries, and was partnered in Raqqa with a well-respected militia force on the ground — could cause significant civilian harm despite a deeply ingrained commitment to the law of war.

In this report, RAND researchers study the causes of civilian harm in Raqqa and provide insights into how the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) can reduce civilian harm in future operations.

Key Findings
U.S. strategic choices, such as the encirclement of Raqqa, likely increased civilian harm.
The coalition made considerable efforts to protect civilian life, but there remains room for improvement.
Civilian casualties in Raqqa were not as high as one might predict, given the high levels of structural damage.
ISIS's defensive tactics deliberately put civilians in harm's way.
Extensive structural damage in Raqqa undermined post-battle governing prospects and long-term U.S. interests.
Airpower was not used to shape the battlefield in Raqqa, which made civilian-harm mitigation more difficult.
Restrictions on U.S. ground forces made preventing civilian harm more difficult.
Irregular partner forces were less precise than U.S. forces would be and increased the risk of civilian harm.
A lack of sources to provide better local information impeded civilian-harm mitigation efforts.
Flawed DoD processes and poor collection of civilian casualty data hindered the military's ability to assess and analyze civilian harm in Raqqa.
Recommendations
Prior to the start of military operations, DoD must take a broader approach to civilian harm that considers how strategic choices might affect civilian-harm risks.
DoD can improve its application of targeting processes, targeting tools, and force preparation.
DoD should harness the considerable lessons learned from Raqqa — and from past operations — to better prepare ground forces, pilots, and targeting teams for future urban engagements, partly through improved education and training.
An increased emphasis on information operations could reduce civilian-harm risk.
Partnering efforts between the United States and local forces should prioritize strategies and tactics to mitigate civilian harm during military operations.
The U.S. military and intelligence community should investigate opportunities to develop tools and practices that improve understanding of the civilian environment and better leverage open-source intelligence, publicly available information, and human intelligence.
DoD must take several steps to improve its ability to assess and investigate civilian harm, including improving collection and analysis of civilian casualty data, simplifying reporting procedures and making them consistent, and establishing criteria for when the military should conduct site visits.
DoD must go beyond the identification of lessons regarding civilian harm — exemplified in this study but also in past studies on civilian harm — and ensure that they are acted on.



In military affairs, I'm reading that the Russian military is releasing its termed-out conscripts per protocol, presumably to be replaced only by the class now having completed advanced training (though even these are not to be sent to Ukraine according to Russian law and persistent assurances). This is a very surprising development to me, since the Russian armed forces really cannot afford to shed more than one-hundred thousand trained soldiers while protracting a war that has absorbed almost all Russian active military combat potential.

Meanwhile, it seems like they're really just going to cast about another 100K enlisted from all nationally-available forces plus the survivors of the northern theater at a narrow front around the Donets River. (For context, up to now the large majority of all Russian forces committed to the invasion were assessed to be operating between Kharkiv and Kyiv.)

If they fail to at least dislodge the Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, the Russian military simply does not retain available manpower to continue offensive operations in Ukraine at scale. The war cannot continue as a "special military operation." Either Putin breaks the Donbass front this month, fails and declares total war in a multi-year national mobilization, or gives up.

In the first scenario the Ukrainians WILL eventually reconquer all occupied territory other than Crimea. It would be inevitable.


Schlotmann's map overlaying the LiveUA map with Russian formation deployments is here. Unfortunately, while it probably identifies Russian parent formations well, it's typically unable to suggest a determination on the principal AOs of maybe half of Russia's BTGs in the theater. It will also likely be much more of a historical resource than a quasi-real time one.
https://uawardata.com/


Eventually we have a page for each Russian unit with its starting equipment, commander, history, awards. Ukrainian unit information will be added following the conclusion of hostilities. We will also go back and add information for each day

[spmetla]

Someone should make a bingo chart of this conflict, because that would be the only salvageable thing from whatever this was.

My apologies, I am being too enthusiastic. The conflict IS.
I know, there's only a few items of warfare missing like surface naval battles, bayonet charges, cavalry charges, chemical warfare, and of course nuclear warfare.


Numerous reports of recaptured areas around Kyiv being strewn with corpses and mass graves, with civilians reporting that the occupation was characterized by theft, torture, rape, and execution, seemingly in line with the Kremlin's pre-war assessed intent to eliminate political dissent and named anti-Russian elements of society.

These atrocities certainly make it difficult for peace to come, even were Zelensky willing to cave to all of Russia's demands right now for peace these atrocities make it so the Ukrainian populace won't accept such terms.
It's absolutely disgusting what the Russians have done there, it's only been a few weeks too, not like its revenge on some long running insurgent band of anti-Russians.

It is crazy though to see how people still seem in such denial that the Russian Army did this. They really think these are all staged massacres or 'false flag' operations to smear the Russian state.


Meanwhile, the US Department of Defense commissioned a study into civilian harms during the Battle of Raqqa. With such instruments one can at least hope for improvement:


The US may be callous in regard to 'collateral' but it at least does try. Our common Soldiers generally do the right thing and the record has shown that the US tends to get better at minimizing civilian casualties overtime.


Meanwhile, it seems like they're really just going to cast about another 100K enlisted from all nationally-available forces plus the survivors of the northern theater at a narrow front around the Donets River. (For context, up to now the large majority of all Russian forces committed to the invasion were assessed to be operating between Kharkiv and Kyiv.)

If they fail to at least dislodge the Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk, the Russian military simply does not retain available manpower to continue offensive operations in Ukraine at scale. The war cannot continue as a "special military operation." Either Putin breaks the Donbass front this month, fails and declares total war in a multi-year national mobilization, or gives up.


It will be interesting to watch, the terrain favors the Russians but the time of the year and weather the Ukraine. The numbers are impressive but I'm just wondering how effective it will be, the element of surprise is gone, the UA sees victory as possible, morale is high, and they are getting continued support from the West. Even some armored vehicles and more potent systems too though nothing yet from top-tier NATO stores besides man-portable missiles.
The Russians on the other side will certainly have learned a lot too but given the casualties and equipment losses they've taken, especially around Kyiv just to give all that ground up will have a negative effect on morale, especially in the units that bleed out taking that ground. The replacement stocks of equipment seem to be sub-par, precision munitions don't seem all to prolific, and I can only see them really succeeding through superior firepower (ie Artillery). They'll still be stuck mostly to roads given the time of the year and weather. If they can gain local air superiority and provide effect close air support they may do well but with MANPADS having proved very effective we'll see if the Russian Air Force will risk itself that much for the sake of the Russian Army.

EDIT:
Also, with those larger numbers on a smaller front I wonder how the RU logistical system will be able to cope. Unless they're able to use railways they don't seem to be capable of providing good logistical and maintenance support via road networks to the present number of troops. A surge of troops may only further tax the logistical system and lead to even slower offensive progress after using up the initial supplies.
Also, was thinking, the mixing of units from other theaters to this one may have the effect of poisonous negative morale seeping into other units that may currently be on the up.

[Montmorency]

It's fucking insane, on the downslope of a failing invasion of conquest, to publish what almost amounts to a governmental memo, calling for the extermination of Ukrainian nationhood, intellegentsia, and armed resistance.

Are they trying to rouse their opposition to fanatical determination?

And people thought it was a gaffe when Biden coyly alluded to Putin's illegitimacy.


It is crazy though to see how people still seem in such denial that the Russian Army did this. They really think these are all staged massacres or 'false flag' operations to smear the Russian state.



Evolution of apology (https://twitter.com/BeauTFC/status/1510640140284219393):
The west is lying, Russia won't invade.
Russia invaded but is winning.
Gerasimov Doctrine! They'll send in their good troops soon.
They'll take Kyiv any day.
They're slow because trying to save lives.
Nazis did Mariupol.
They never wanted Kyiv.
They're luring them to a cauldron. They meant to leave like that.
The footage is fake.
Ok it's real but it's being upplayed to manufacture consent.
Russia had no choice but to war crime.
Stop covering this! Why don't you cover something else?

[CrossLOPER]

I know, there's only a few items of warfare missing like surface naval battles, bayonet charges, cavalry charges, chemical warfare, and of course nuclear warfare.
I hate to make light of anything against the backdrop of depravity, but what I meant was more in-line with Russian soldiers fighting each other over food. As others mentioned, with the collapse of the northern front, it is hard to say what the condition is of the troops in the south and east. The supply and deployment problems are probably just as bad if not worse. Ukrainians will probably fight and rebel harder after hearing about the mass graves.

Ukraine has proven to be resilient and disciplined. I don't know how they will feel once they begin pushing back on the other fronts and potentially finding something worse.

My thoughts on whataboutism: I don't think the word "hypocrisy" should stop one from doing what is right, but I do think this would be a good time to reflect.

[Furunculus]

Also, with those larger numbers on a smaller front I wonder how the RU logistical system will be able to cope. Unless they're able to use railways they don't seem to be capable of providing good logistical and maintenance support via road networks to the present number of troops. A surge of troops may only further tax the logistical system and lead to even slower offensive progress after using up the initial supplies.
Also, was thinking, the mixing of units from other theaters to this one may have the effect of poisonous negative morale seeping into other
you have to imagine the ukranians have at least a few of the short range ballistic missiles they lobbed at the amphibious ships, and that one is queued in on the railway bridge the russians built to link crimea to the russian mainland...

[Tuuvi]

It's fucking insane, on the downslope of a failing invasion of conquest, to publish what almost amounts to a governmental memo, calling for the extermination of Ukrainian nationhood, intellegentsia, and armed resistance.

Are they trying to rouse their opposition to fanatical determination?

And people thought it was a gaffe when Biden coyly alluded to Putin's illegitimacy.

On the original website the article is dated March 4, just a couple of weeks after the invasion started. At any rate, what really stood out to me about the article was how similar Russia's justifications for the invasion are to Imperial Japan's justifications for invading China in the lead up to WWII.

Imperial Japan used Western racism and aggression against China as a justification for its own imperialism by presenting itself as a defender of Asia from Western colonialism and anti-asian racism. Of course, the Japanese were also racist themselves and believed that the Chinese were hopelessly backwards and needed to be colonized in order to save the Chinese from themselves, and they went on to massacre hundreds and thousands of Chinese people in the course of their invasion.

I see very similar arguments and dynamics being played out in the Russian article. It's true that the US is a chauvinistic, imperialist power, and Ukraine in recent years has lurched towards the far-right, passed laws to repress the Russian language, and integrated Nazi militias into its National Guard. The author of that article is taking those grievances and running with them, trying to present Russia as some sort of defender of underdeveloped nations against Western exploitation. He even uses the word "decolonization", a term usually employed by leftists and left-leaning academics.

However, as was the case with Imperial Japan, Russia's anti-imperialism isn't progressive, it's reactionary. The author even says that Russia needs to "realize itself as the last instance of protecting and preserving those values of historical Europe (the Old World) ". And much like Imperial Japan's attitude towards the Chinese, the Russian article is claiming that Ukrainians need to be invaded and have their culture destroyed in order to save them from themselves, because they've been manipulated by the West.

[Crandar]

A good analysis in English on the military situation. He's openly pro-Ukrainian, but he consults both sources and, in my opinion, largely succeeds in distinguishing facts from his emotions, unlike most pundits and amateurs:

Kiev and Chernihiv Front

After weeks of stalling, I think it's obvious that Russia has failed to resolve the logistical issues around both of these areas. The situation was effectively a stalemate for three to four weeks, with both sides unable to make significant progress. The decision could made itself, and Russia executed a full withdrawal from both Kiev and Chernihiv, and seemingly, most of Sumy as well. Now whereas the Institute of War is calling the retreat "disorderly", something I really struggle with getting my head around, I will simply call it an organized retreat that was well executed. There do not seem to be any significant casualties as a result of this maneuver.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that the Russian Army has failed to meet any major objectives here and Ukraine achieved a significant strategic victory. The fierce resistance put up by Ukraine has forced Russia to completely re-orient it's operational goals, and likely, it's long-term strategic goals.

Donbass Front

Since the war begun, the Russian Army has achieved significant progress from both the Donbass and the Southern Axis of assault. Russian forces have claimed most of Luhansk Oblast, they've entrenched themselves in parts of and around Kharkiv, they are in position to strike Zaporozhia and completely encircle the JFO. You can spin this how you want, Ukraine has fought for every mile and they've had to give up considerably more territory here than anywhere around Kiev.

The logistics in this area are much better, and the terrain readily lends itself to Russia's typical emphasis on artillery and armor. Russia has been steadily winning the attrition war on this front and the progress speaks for itself.

Currently, the most dangerous axis of advance is Izyum. Just today I've seen a destroyed column at Barvinenkovo. In a sense, it's good, the Russian probing attack sent here has clearly suffered a catastrophic defeat. However, the Russian advance this far South is not a good sign for the overall operational picture.


Even a siege of Barvinenkovo, essentially blockades the last major roadway in and out of Slavyansk. This sets up Russian forces well for either a complete encirclement of Ukranian positions in the JFO, or a powerful offensive on the entire front. Concurrently, there is a low-intensity offensive towards Pokrovsk, which is a major highway hub.

With the total withdrawal of Russian forces from the Northern Front, it is likely that these units, along with fresh units generated from other parts of the country, are going to be deployed to this front. Russia is hungry for a decisive victory that cannot be denied by Western media.

Much has been said about manpower shortages, I believe I've also mentioned it once or twice. Russia is trying to avoid switching to a war-time footing. Effectively, it cannot generate any more troops without some sort of mobilization. The hastily constructed BARS system, may generate a few more Battalions at most, but I doubt it. Not to mention, the losses of enormous amounts of equipment... and this offensive needs to either succeed, or suffer very few losses.

To be fair, the Russian Army has been operating significantly better. The rate of losses, as I mentioned many times now, is significantly more sustainable than the opening few days of war.

Southern/Kherson Front

Look, I realize many Western media outlets tend to... gloss over this area, to put it nicely. I mean you can Ctrl+F Kherson for yourselves here. Now the truth is, Ukraine has been announcing offensives and counter-offensives in this area for the last two weeks, likely emboldened by the successful counter attack in this area two-three weeks ago. Sorry to say, but the fact that Ukranians aren't saying much in terms of whether these offensives succeeded or failed, speaks for itself. I've seen enough footage to conclude that Ukraine's constant probing attacks have been miserably failing and they've been needlessly losing armor and artillery in this AO.

I've heard on podcasts and from analysts that a lot of Ukrainian forces are working on ad-hoc command structure where local governors have some degree of control over the armed forces in their area. This explains why the Mayor of Mykolaiv has been such a... fascinating source of information. If these claims are true, than the Mayor or Governor of Mykolaiv or whatever, is single-handedly responsible for losing a lot of Ukrainian lives and armor rather pointlessly. It's clear that Russia is not planning any major operations on this axis, so he needs to stop wasting precious resources trying to retake Kherson. It is a fool's errand. This is not Kiev, where you can fight block by block.

https://i.imgur.com/SykArub.png

This is the battlespace between Kherson and Mykolaiv. Lots of woods, lots of open areas, small, sporadic, populated centers that make defense, artillery recon-fire, and Russia's general strengths, all the more emphasized. Counter-attacking along this position has been rather fruitless.

So if you're wondering why this AO has been so "glossed over" by Western media and analysts relative to other areas, well this is a minor reason why. Only failure to report. The main reason, is obviously that the stakes and size of forces involved, is a lot smaller.


Notable Incidents

I think we need to mention the successful attack on Belgorod and the sinking of a Russian ship in Berdyansk.

These are notable successes by Ukranians where they identified holes in Russian PVO coverage. Well done.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

State of Ukrainian Military

Look, there's a reason why they're asking for more aid now, especially armor. I think that Ukraine's units have been suffering terrible casualties. These constant counter-offensives cannot be cheap, especially since Ukraine does not have as much armor and artillery availability as Russia does. Especially their Territorial Defense units, which is essentially lightly armed militia. The more important question is of course how many "professional" troops they have left, because these are probably the only troops that can carry out real offensives to retake territory.

Now I am obviously of the mind that Ukraine simply doesn't need to attack to win. They just need to defend really well. However, it's obvious to me that the Ukrainian command disagrees with myself and other analysts and has other ideas. They are intent on retaking their country back. I think it is a very real possibility that Ukraine may run out of their best troops, well before Russia runs its own clock out, if it even has one. For all the doom and gloom, Russians may welcome a mobilization and a total war, and I wouldn't be making assumptions about war weariness or troop attrition. Too many unknown variables at this point.

[CrossLOPER]

My only guess is that they are trying to keep up with the momentum. That, and perhaps the remainder of the Russian force is in even worse shape than people think.

[Montmorency]

On the original website the article is dated March 4, just a couple of weeks after the invasion started. At any rate, what really stood out to me about the article was how similar Russia's justifications for the invasion are to Imperial Japan's justifications for invading China in the lead up to WWII.

Russia uses the day-month-year dating convention along with the rest of Europe. 3/4 means April 3rd.


Ukraine in recent years has lurched towards the far-right, passed laws to repress the Russian language

But it should be noted that this isn't remotely the case. It's a pernicious Russian libel and one that really ought to be cleared up now that the region has drawn our special attention.


A good analysis in English on the military situation. He's openly pro-Ukrainian, but he consults both sources and, in my opinion, largely succeeds in distinguishing facts from his emotions, unlike most pundits and amateurs:

Do you have a link to the source? The only adjustment I would currently make is that ISW only assessed that the retreat was "disorderly enough" in implementation to abandon some personnel - not in the capacity of a screening force by implication. They also commented on orderly aspects. But that's tactics. A reason the decision for total withdrawal was a questionable one operationally, as I might have mentioned, is that it also inevitably meant abandoning large quantities of equipment that could not be successfully transported on short notice, or would break down during the movement, in the context of Russian aims to consolidate their combat power. As the quotation mentions, the Ukrainians have limited counterattack potential, so leaving a large rearguard to invite the Ukrainians to grind across forest and suburb would have been a better outcome for Russia.

On the new consolidated front, an obvious aspiration from the defenders' perspective would be to conduct deep operations into the enemy rear (behind the Donets River out from Kharkiv) while the enemy has a large concentration across the river in Donets Oblast (forward of Izyum). There is also the political imperative to hold strategic territory in Donetsk. And it is strategic territory, since besides the politically-unacceptable scenario of Putin just digging in for permanent occupation once the oblast borders are secured, an occupation Ukraine would never be able to dislodge, the densely-urbanized province (with more forest cover than nearby areas and a northern border to a good river barrier in the Donetsk) hinges all defenses east of the Dnieper, up to Kharkiv. Beyond Slovyansk is a lot of rural steppe. Whether in this war or a future one, losing all of Donetsk would force Ukraine to defend back from the river itself, losing many towns by default, grievously weakening Kharkiv's flank, and exposing the major Dnieper cities (Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kremenchuk) to a direct siege and destruction that they have so far avoided. So both sides are bound to follow a certain strategic logic in the next phase that could leave either of them more vulnerable and less flexible.

Adaptation is a certainty for any side in war, eventually, but so far betting on the Russians here has been shown up for folly every time.

[Crandar]

Montmorency

I'll send you the link shorty.

In other news, Zhelensky made his speech today in the Greek parliament and he completely screwed up. The speech itself was kinda meh, just a few banal references to Greek history and the relationship with Ukraine, but that's alright. However, just in the middle, he let two Ukrainian fighters join him. One of whom confirmed that he was a volunteer in the Azov battalion. Obviously that caused quite a controversy (while also violating the Greek parliament's rules) and the government's representative thanked Zhelensky for his intervention, but criticised him for the Azov part. Comically enough, the prime-minister of Greece had previously released an (obviously pre-recorded announcement) wholeheartedly congratulating Zhelensky on his "flawless" speech.

Quite an amateurish move. Firstly, it soured the relations of the two governments, because Zhelensky going off-script put the prime-minister in an embarrassing position. Secondly and more importantly, bringing forward an Azov battalion volunteer fit straight into the Russian narrative of right-wing extremists controlling Ukraine.

[Furunculus]

[MENTION=74339]One of whom confirmed that he was a volunteer in the Azov battalion. Obviously that caused quite a controversy (while also violating the Greek parliament's rules) and the government's representative thanked Zhelensky for his intervention, but criticised him for the Azov part.

Why does everyone get their knickers in a twist about the azov battalion?

a) it has very few nazi's in it these days , and nothing to say our witness was one - always a minority, now a very small minority.
b) it has been front and centre in the defence/devestation of Mauripol - and would provide useful witnesses from the frontline.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60525350

[spmetla]

Why does everyone get their knickers in a twist about the azov battalion?

a) it has very few nazi's in it these days , and nothing to say our witness was one - always a minority, now a very small minority.
b) it has been front and centre in the defence/devestation of Mauripol - and would provide useful witnesses from the frontline.

Because it's been in the front and center of right-wing pro-Russian media as proof that the UKR govt are all nazis or neo-nazi leaning. Their imagine versus their reality is a bit out of whack. Sorta like a handfuls of 'professional anarchists' allowing all BLM protests to be portrayed as threats to the US Govt.

Czech Republic sends tanks, infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/czech-republic-sends-tanks-ukraine-czech-tv-reports-2022-04-05/

PRAGUE, April 5 (Reuters) - The Czech Republic has sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, a Czech defence source told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming a local media report.

Public broadcaster Czech Television initially reported the shipment, showing footage on Twitter of a train loaded with five tanks and five fighting vehicles. It said the shipment was a gift agreed with NATO allies.

This is exactly why I'm still irritated that MiG-29s aren't being transferred over, the hardware has gone from man portable weapons to legacy MBTs and IFVs. Manned aircraft are not an escalation, especially as it's to help a country's fight for territorial integrity, not expansion.

S Senate votes to resurrect World War II-era policy to help Ukraine amid Russian invasion
The original lend-lease program enabled the U.S. to send weapons to the Allies in World War II
https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-senate-votes-to-resurrect-world-war-ii-era-policy-to-help-ukraine-amid-russian-invasion

The U.S. Senate voted to resurrect the lend-lease program that enabled America to send weapons to Britain and other allies in World War II, in order to bolster Ukraine's effort against the Russian invaders.

The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, S.3522, passed the Senate by voice vote late Wednesday. The bill aims "to provide enhanced authority for the President to enter into agreements with the Government of Ukraine to lend or lease defense articles to that Government to protect civilian populations in Ukraine from Russian military invasion."

I hope this means that the US will start to lend/gift/sell some more substantial systems to the Ukraine. Start training their pilots on F-16s, Abrams tanks, land/air launched harpoon missiles, Patriot ADA systems or whatever. If the US does believe that the combat will go on for years more then lets help Ukraine adopt and build up a years long out defense posture. Now that the battle of Kyiv is won and the Ukrainian govt looks safe there's no reason to not invest substantially in their self-defense.

I also hope that the US and EU are already trying to get funding to rebuild key infrastructure in the North and West of the country that's been destroyed. Key bridges, power plants, hospitals, water/sewage treatment plants that should be safe from RU bombing should be reconstructed now to enable some return to normality while the war continues in the South and East.

[Hooahguy]

Because it's been in the front and center of right-wing pro-Russian media as proof that the UKR govt are all nazis or neo-nazi leaning. Their imagine versus their reality is a bit out of whack. Sorta like a handfuls of 'professional anarchists' allowing all BLM protests to be portrayed as threats to the US Govt.


Something that seems to get lost on a lot of people is that Russia has just as many, if not more, nazis in their ranks. Case in point (https://twitter.com/ColborneMichael/status/1511025612277915652).


This is exactly why I'm still irritated that MiG-29s aren't being transferred over, the hardware has gone from man portable weapons to legacy MBTs and IFVs. Manned aircraft are not an escalation, especially as it's to help a country's fight for territorial integrity, not expansion.

Agreed. If the Czechs can send tanks, why cant we send MiGs? I get the hesitation around giving them heavier weaponry to not provoke Putin to use nukes, but at a certain point a bluff can be called. As long as NATO isnt directly attacking Russia I think we can start pushing some boundaries. Especially as Russia gears up for a renewed offensive in the east, so Ukraine will need all the help it can get.


I also hope that the US and EU are already trying to get funding to rebuild key infrastructure in the North and West of the country that's been destroyed. Key bridges, power plants, hospitals, water/sewage treatment plants that should be safe from RU bombing should be reconstructed now to enable some return to normality while the war continues in the South and East.
I do hope we pour money into Ukraine after to help rebuild, perhaps with seized Russian money. However, I dont think right now is the right time to start to rebuild, not when the war is still raging in the south and east. But more importantly, Russia is still hitting (https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1512169446638501889?s=20&t=LGvuwt7v5r6xykI4GFYPRw) critical infrastructure. They have hit numerous fuel depots in recent days, and I am actually a bit worried that Ukraine will start to run low on fuel which would be catastrophic.

[Montmorency]

My God, such a beautiful steppe, marred by war.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1511867981596434434 [VIDEO]

Ukrainian getting heated in his Call of Duty match.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1511850466111418369 [VIDEO]

Want to know what this Russian propaganda campaign says?


Defend me today — I will be able — To defend you tomorrow

Abortion: Not a "matter of personal conscience", but the taking away of a person's life

#WeDon'tAbandonOurs

https://i.imgur.com/8VUnzsq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/afOO4Lf.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/a5viDX8.jpg


Typical Balkan Slavic conversation (https://twitter.com/lijukic/status/1511630489483894788):

https://i.imgur.com/dLBkZ2T.jpg

[Montmorency]

EDIT: Peskov announced (https://tass.com/defense/1434331) today that "We have significant losses of troops. And it's a huge tragedy for us." Russian forces on the west bank of the river may be planning a withdrawal to consolidate the perimeter around Kherson.

Yuri claims that the Mariupol battlegroup has largely been wound down and diverted to the Zaporizhzhia front; I wonder what the latest reporting is. His most gif-worthy line: "The local garrison of Mykolaiv, as in Kharkiv, are awaiting the assault in horror."

But Youtube suddenly banned his account, and I had a backlog of some of his takes I needed to get through. At least there's a Rutube backup.


DoD assesses that of 130 Ru AF BTGs committed throughout the invasion, at least 80 are still in the AO today. That comports with my loose mental framework of the fronts, say at the beginning of the month (by oblast):

Kherson: 10-15 BTG
Zaporizhzhia: 5+ BTG
Donetsk/Luhansk: 30-40 BTG (of which 5+ Mariupol)
Kharkiv: 20-25 BTG

Not counting separatists, Rosgvardia, or PMC of course.

*****

The Ukrainian government is urging all civilians to evacuate the southeast in anticipation of even larger-scale warfare in the area. The American government meanwhile is finalizing some sort of Lend-Lease legislation (as spmetla reported) and the Pentagon has announced that Ukrainian cadres are being trained in the operation of the donated Switchblade drones. We'll need to send a lot more than 100 then.

But Czechoslovakia has already delivered some of its Soviet surplus armor to Ukraine, with more on the way.

The EU's Foreign Affairs High Representative admits that the EU has paid Russia €35bn for energy since the war began. Imagine Putin had spent the past 20 years funneling all this money into a sovereign wealth fund while preparing the Russian energy sector for global decarbonization and diversifying Russia's economy, instead of being a Goering.

German foreign intelligence (https://www.spiegel.de/politik/butscha-soldaten-besprachen-graeueltaten-gegen-zivilisten-ueber-funk-a-9e01662c-aa7e-4828-bf6f-f662d9b6164e) suggests a role for PMCs in Bucha massacres.


Montmorency

I'll send you the link shorty.

OK


Why does everyone get their knickers in a twist about the azov battalion?

a) it has very few nazi's in it these days , and nothing to say our witness was one - always a minority, now a very small minority.
b) it has been front and centre in the defence/devestation of Mauripol - and would provide useful witnesses from the frontline.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60525350

Because it's been in the front and center of right-wing pro-Russian media as proof that the UKR govt are all nazis or neo-nazi leaning. Their imagine versus their reality is a bit out of whack. Sorta like a handfuls of 'professional anarchists' allowing all BLM protests to be portrayed as threats to the US Govt.

They're more January 6 than BLM - even scarier really. If the Azov essence had held sway over the 1/6 atmosphere, federal troops would have had to storm the Capitol to rescue Congress.

The OG Azov Battalion was absolutely stacked with ultra-right thugs, but they're almost all casualties by now. Real Kadagar types, often implicated in brutal street violence and hate crimes. But since they came under formal military command structure the government has weeded out the worst elements. Recently the brand has actually grown to see ~three new Azovite battalions stood up between Kharkiv and Kyiv, all being components of the National Guard Azov Regiment I believe. I have no idea what the organizational or ideological relationship between the OG battalion and these new ones is, besides the branding. They are however more ideologically mixed than the original militia.

While it is always a problem for fascists and other far-rightists to gain combat experience and fame, the most dangerous part of the frontline is the best place for them in a full conventional war where they're going to be fighting anyway. All told one would be hard-pressed to make the case that the Ukrainian military is more compromised by the far-right than major European militaries, let alone the American armed forces. Gratefully Ukraine has recruited/permitted leftist cadres as well.

As for the Greek volunteer Zelensky presented, I would suspect he was vetted beforehand, but I could be wrong and the impulse to find a Greek-Ukrainian (the subject was born in Mariupol) involved in the fighting overrode other considerations - someone has probably doxxed him by now. His prior service history could offer some clues.


Something that seems to get lost on a lot of people is that Russia has just as many, if not more, nazis in their ranks. Case in point (https://twitter.com/ColborneMichael/status/1511025612277915652).

Right, the Wagner Group and core separatist forces (plus outside volunteers and mercs) are predominantly neo-Nazi and the like. I mean, this is all beside the point of Russia itself being a fascist state.

[Furunculus]

Boris is making waves in Ukraine:

New - 120 armoured vehicles
New - Antiship missiles
New - Another 500m in loan guarantees
New - Removing tariffs and regulatory barriers on UK <> UKR trade

Oh, and he seems remarkably popular with the Ukrainian citizenry when he was taking a stroll around Kiev with Zelensky

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1512897668246384640

But he's just the worst, so we won't talk about it. :D

[Montmorency]

I don't know if this is a good or a bad sign, but this month the Russian domestic media have widely discarded the phrase "special military operation" for plain old "war." Hard to think of this as anything but a calculated rhetorical shift.

Yuri claims that Russian intelligence has obtained official lists of names of Ukrainian stay-behind personnel (partisans) - and he's gone into witness protection?? Also claims aRussian offensive SW of Izyum toward the Dnieper (Zaporizhzhia) - deep envelopment rather than envelopment through Slovyansk - will commence on April 12th according to sources.


Oh, and he seems remarkably popular with the Ukrainian citizenry when he was taking a stroll around Kiev with Zelensky

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1512897668246384640

But he's just the worst, so we won't talk about it. :D

Are you being cynical or serious?

[Hooahguy]

I don't know if this is a good or a bad sign, but this month the Russian domestic media have widely discarded the phrase "special military operation" for plain old "war." Hard to think of this as anything but a calculated rhetorical shift.

Yuri claims that Russian intelligence has obtained official lists of names of Ukrainian stay-behind personnel (partisans) - and he's gone into witness protection?? Also claims aRussian offensive SW of Izyum toward the Dnieper (Zaporizhzhia) - deep envelopment rather than envelopment through Slovyansk - will commence on April 12th according to sources.


My guess is that they want to achieve something major by May 9th, their Victory Day. Im skeptical it will commence on April 12th- repositioning and reconstituting units takes time, if you do it right of course. So they might just start the offensive anyways but I guess we will see soon enough.

An interesting development, if this turns out to be true: a report (https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1513160129272762377?s=20&t=pI3EGC2t2Twlzq-mGJ6Yuw) that Putin and Lukashenko are going to be meeting on the 12th about the war and doing a press conference after. However, it doesn't make sense that they would be meeting all the way on the Pacific side of Russia? Thats why I am skeptical. However, if this does turn out to be true I wonder if it would be the announcement of Belarus joining the war. While there is no way that Belarus could take Kyiv, I do think that they could apply just enough pressure to ensure that Ukraine wouldn't be able to divert as many forces east as it might want to to stop a major Russian advance there.

[Furunculus]

"Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
Oh, and he seems remarkably popular with the Ukrainian citizenry when he was taking a stroll around Kiev with Zelensky
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/st...97668246384640
But he's just the worst, so we won't talk about it. :D"


Are you being cynical or serious?

Bit of both. Dryly amused at the level of visceral hatred people have to our clownish Bozza:

It drives them at such a deeply emotional level it prevents rational thought. Worse, it creates a cognitive dissonance where actions that do not fit the clownish persona simply do not compute.

He is a flawed man, he is also an inadequate man, and not one that I can truly say I really like, but people need to remember that a very large chunk of that clownish persona is artifice. And that in treating the clown'ish behaviour is 100% genuine leaves these people unable to comprehend that others do not view his every act through the same cloud of hate.

It's a funny world, it amuses me.

[CrossLOPER]

While there is no way that Belarus could take Kyiv, I do think that they could apply just enough pressure to ensure that Ukraine wouldn't be able to divert as many forces east as it might want to to stop a major Russian advance there.
I am having difficulty visualizing a positive outcome for Belarus if their armed forces join the war directly.


He is a flawed man, he is also an inadequate man, and not one that I can truly say I really like, but people need to remember that a very large chunk of that clownish persona is artifice. And that in treating the clown'ish behaviour is 100% genuine leaves these people unable to comprehend that others do not view his every act through the same cloud of hate.
I heard the exact same rhetoric about Trump when his supporters were trying to convince themselves that he isn't intellectually subnormal.

[Montmorency]

china is said to be accelerating its expansion of its nuclear arsenal because of a change in its assessment of the threat posed by the US. :uhoh:

The Germans have been flaky throughout the war, but the latest budget legislation appears to lack any of the spending increases promised, nor establishes the 100-billion-euro fund.

This is VERY interesting.

25384


My guess is that they want to achieve something major by May 9th, their Victory Day. Im skeptical it will commence on April 12th- repositioning and reconstituting units takes time, if you do it right of course. So they might just start the offensive anyways but I guess we will see soon enough.

An interesting development, if this turns out to be true: a report (https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1513160129272762377?s=20&t=pI3EGC2t2Twlzq-mGJ6Yuw) that Putin and Lukashenko are going to be meeting on the 12th about the war and doing a press conference after. However, it doesn't make sense that they would be meeting all the way on the Pacific side of Russia? Thats why I am skeptical. However, if this does turn out to be true I wonder if it would be the announcement of Belarus joining the war. While there is no way that Belarus could take Kyiv, I do think that they could apply just enough pressure to ensure that Ukraine wouldn't be able to divert as many forces east as it might want to to stop a major Russian advance there.

The Ukrainian government claims the offensive has already begun. I've seen it reported that in the daily assaults around Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, and Popasna, the Russians have been persisting with the tactic of feeding redeployed units from the north as they come. If the case, this is a bad practice when one needs to consolidate decisive combat power. It may yet be the case that Putin still prioritizes political objectives above military ones. Well, you know what they say about enemies and mistakes.

In terms of armor, it has been estimated that the Russians have lost the equivalent of a full-strength tank army up to now, just based on confirmed losses.


Bit of both. Dryly amused at the level of visceral hatred people have to our clownish Bozza:

It drives them at such a deeply emotional level it prevents rational thought. Worse, it creates a cognitive dissonance where actions that do not fit the clownish persona simply do not compute.

He is a flawed man, he is also an inadequate man, and not one that I can truly say I really like, but people need to remember that a very large chunk of that clownish persona is artifice. And that in treating the clown'ish behaviour is 100% genuine leaves these people unable to comprehend that others do not view his every act through the same cloud of hate.

It's a funny world, it amuses me.

I'm not British, but I would question how much he is disliked (https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1513225441938653198) for clownishness.


I am having difficulty visualizing a positive outcome for Belarus if their armed forces join the war directly.

Considering the repeated reports of mutinies among Belarusian troops on the border, and railroad workers sabotaging internal infrastructure, their ~18-thousand strong regular ground force would likely have trouble mustering even two brigades to attack with. Not much point inserting them unsupported when local Ukrainian militias could eviscerate them.

[Hooahguy]

I am having difficulty visualizing a positive outcome for Belarus if their armed forces join the war directly.


I agree, it definitely wouldnt end well for Belarus or Lukashenko. But something tells me that Lukashenko isnt fully in control here. I wouldnt be surprised if Putin says something like "help us in Ukraine or the next time there is unrest in Belarus, you are on your own."

[Furunculus]

I heard the exact same rhetoric about Trump when his supporters were trying to convince themselves that he isn't intellectually subnormal.
there really is very little to recommend the argument that Boris is substantially similar in character, capabilities, or outlook.
the trivial, sure, and he does play to that. whether we choose to believe his deliberate artifice is on us.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/jeremy-corbyn-like-donald-trump-not-boris-johnson/601957/



I'm not British, but I would question how much he is disliked (https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1513225441938653198) for clownishness.


I don't believe that is representative of the visceral hatred with which some hold him.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/boris-johnson-minister-of-chaos/619010/


Frank Luntz, an American pollster who was friends with Johnson at Oxford, told me. “People are more patient with him, they are more forgiving of him, because he’s not a typical politician.”

And there’s been a lot to forgive.

Johnson has written about Africans with “watermelon smiles” and described gay men as “tank-topped bumboys.” As foreign secretary, he put a fellow citizen at risk when he mistakenly claimed that she was in Iran to teach journalism, giving Tehran an excuse to charge her with spreading propaganda. As prime minister he has erected a trade barrier within his own country as the price of Brexit—subjecting Northern Ireland to EU regulations while the rest of the country is free to do its own thing.

That nothing ever seems to stick drives his opponents mad. He won the Conservative leadership just weeks after it was reported that an argument with his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, became so heated, neighbors called the police. He won the biggest parliamentary majority in a generation despite breaking promises over when and how he would secure a Brexit deal. Time and again, when controversy has engulfed him, he has emerged unscathed.

Part of his electoral genius lies in his ability to stop his opponents from thinking straight: In their hatred for him, they cannot see why he is popular, nor what to do about it.

[CrossLOPER]

there really is very little to recommend the argument that Boris is substantially similar in character, capabilities, or outlook.
I didn't say he was.

[Furunculus]

I didn't say he was.

i'd equally suggest there is little to recommend a comparison between a man of some academic accomplishment who acts the fool and a second of little accomplishment who does little else but tell people how clever he is.

you might make an argument that Boris is morally sub-normal.

[Montmorency]

spmetla
This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/u0spgi/allegedly_a_russian_tank_firing_into_a_group_of/ [VIDEO]

Looks like the French election is almost an exact re-run of 2017's.

Speaking of fascism, reminder of what a fascist Yuri is: One of his videos today is titled "One of the consequences of the war for Ukraine will be the self-purification of Russia." He asserts, as usual, that we are operating amid the birth of the new world order, the entirety of Russian society is united in support of the specops, anyone who doesn't understand this will flee the country never to return, similar to the development of the Russian Civil War of 1917-21. Shit's gon' be great, because after those trials of a century ago Russia blossomed, won the Great Patriotic War, achieved nuclear parity with the United States, and beat them in the Space Race, so just imagine what the future holds. Russia will crush the independent Ukraine now just as it crushed the Ukrainian republic a century ago, though war - war never changes, so expect resolution to take 3 or 4 years this time around as well. Russia has been gripped by a civil war for the past 30 years, a civil war that has been a war fomented against the existence of Russia and its people, and to survive Russia and the post-Soviet sphere must adopt a new, independent, ideological model, one that expectedly ought to take form by the end of the year. Failure would be tantamount to a failure in the battlefield against Nazi Germany, with all due implications for the survival of Russia. This is a war for Russia's right to exist. Russians must be united like never before. There must be a total and absolute consolidation of society; there can be no differences of opinion between the population and the power structure. Struggle means struggle. Only unconditional surrender of the enemy is permitted. Europe is undergoing the process Germany experienced in the 1930s, when Jews were counted as the source of Germany's problems - so too have Russians been scapegoated for persecution and extermination. This is all because Europe has been Ukrainized - Ukrainism being Nazism - in all of 8 years that the Russian government allowed it to ferment. This is a struggle for the development of all world civilization.


https://i.imgur.com/bTFkQZ0.png

He publishes this sort of video pretty constantly, I mentioned them before, I just prefer not to watch them, for obvious reasons. It's a pretty common mood in Russia nowadays, as I've touched on. Here (https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/comments/kto-my-gde-my-za-chto-my-i-pochemu/) was a more moderate commentator who, like Yuri, has pronounced February 24th the dividing line between the new world and the old, proclaiming that Russia must find its way to uphold the ancient national values in the new world order, etc.


Russia's current break with the West is much deeper than the denial of Mikhail Gorbachev's new political thinking or the "shaking of the ashes" of the communist period of Russian history.
In fact, we are talking about the rejection of part of the legacy of Peter the Great - a three-hundred-year tradition of positioning Russia not only as a great European power, an integral part of the balance of power on the continent, but also an integral part of the pan-European civilization.

Don't mistake Russian fascist discourse as possessing some ideological 'sophistication' (trompe l’oeil), it's just more externally-focused than what you'll read in American Conservative or First Things. The Western fascists too believe the existence of liberal autonomy is an infringement of their own right to exist, as even some of the essays I've excerpted before have asserted. (The broadcast TV media political commentary is no-brow, it ranges from Tucker Carlson to Alex Jones.)

As for Yuri's view of war developments, Zelensky has issued a directive for Ukrainian forces to attack across the border into Russia from Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts, in order to divert Russian attention from the south, Russian forces are pushing toward Lyman (to help illustrate what this would mean I will correct the oversight of the Donets River in the representation of most war maps), and one prong of the Russian offensive will move along the Dnieper toward Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine has dispatched up to 100K soldiers to the Donbass front, including National Guard and Territorials. Russia should conduct information war against Ukrainian NG and militia to surrender, because they are demoralized and just need a push. Kherson partisans have been neutralized and local concentrations of Ukrainian units have been smashed. The Mariupol defenders tried to escape and were destroyed or captured.


The blue line is the Donets, which is a very windy river so visually approximated here. Not conveyed in my representation to avoid covering names, but the Russians probably hold almost everything to the east bank of the river north of Izyum and east of Chuhuiv, with Balakliya contested. Major river crossings along the front are the Severodonetsk/Lysychansk/Rubizhne complex, SE and SW of Lyman, Balakliya (minor crossings to E & W), SW and W of Slobozhanske, several minor crossings S of Chuhuiv, and Chuhuiv. I do this, again, because I've seen few maps that represent this operationally-significant physical geography.


https://i.imgur.com/9Xidsw1.png



there really is very little to recommend the argument that Boris is substantially similar in character, capabilities, or outlook.
the trivial, sure, and he does play to that. whether we choose to believe his deliberate artifice is on us.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/jeremy-corbyn-like-donald-trump-not-boris-johnson/601957/

I don't believe that is representative of the visceral hatred with which some hold him.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/boris-johnson-minister-of-chaos/619010/

You believe people dislike him because they don't understand what he's doing, that he seems silly? The more typical commentary I've seen about Johnson indicates he is disliked because it is known what he's doing. The ones who disliked Trump for his tweeting, to make the comparison, were mostly (establishment) Republicans.

e.g.


Johnson has written about Africans with “watermelon smiles” and described gay men as “tank-topped bumboys.” As foreign secretary, he put a fellow citizen at risk when he mistakenly claimed that she was in Iran to teach journalism, giving Tehran an excuse to charge her with spreading propaganda. As prime minister he has erected a trade barrier within his own country as the price of Brexit—subjecting Northern Ireland to EU regulations while the rest of the country is free to do its own thing.

That nothing ever seems to stick drives his opponents mad. He won the Conservative leadership just weeks after it was reported that an argument with his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, became so heated, neighbors called the police. He won the biggest parliamentary majority in a generation despite breaking promises over when and how he would secure a Brexit deal. Time and again, when controversy has engulfed him, he has emerged unscathed.

Strong substantive disagreements obviously exist. Whether that ouvre can keep enough supporters to wield power, or offer opponents an opening for them to gain power, is really a distinct question.


a man of some academic accomplishment

Has there been a British Prime Minister who wasn't of some academic accomplishment?

[CrossLOPER]

i'd equally suggest there is little to recommend a comparison between a man of some academic accomplishment who acts the fool and a second of little accomplishment who does little else but tell people how clever he is.

you might make an argument that Boris is morally sub-normal.
I might make the argument that he is lazy and incompetent who has spent the better part of his time learning how to lie to the massive detriment of others.

We call this a proof by contradiction.

[Furunculus]

spmetla

Has there been a British Prime Minister who wasn't of some academic accomplishment?

quite. he is perhaps unremarkable in that regard.

[Montmorency]

Good point on Polish Mig-29s - they carry NATO upgrades that the US might want removed before rendition to Ukraine. An alternative might be Egypt's Mig-29s, which it already operates alongside F-16s.

Oryx is keeping a list of heavy equipment (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html) promised or donated to Ukraine. The Harpoon missiles are not included, perhaps because of a lack of clarity on what, if any, launch platform exists. Instead he lists the Brimstone Sea Spear for anti-ship missiles.

According to him the US is now also sending Switchblade 600s, the larger variant, and that the "100" systems Switchblade 300 systems announced last month actually include 1000 munitions (100 launchers, 10 launchers for the 600). Now that's cooking with gas. Unfortunately, I don't see how the US can get away without recruting operators for heavier drones piloted from a long range at some point. The SB300 is only rated for 10km operating range at 15 minutes, leaving it incapable of attriting Russian artillery and IADS.


Stomach-churning atrocity in Bucha (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/11/world/europe/bucha-terror.html):


On March 9, Mr. Shepitko, a retired water engineer, slipped back to fetch some food from the house and found Russian soldiers living there. He described them as “kontraktniki” — contract soldiers, men who are often experienced fighters but notorious for abuses and acting with impunity. They had parked their armored vehicles across the street and were sleeping and heating water in the house, Mr. Shepitko said.

The soldiers made a sarcastic comment about Ukrainian fascists, testing his loyalty. “I thought I would be shot,” he said, “and I kept silent.” They demanded his cellphone but his dog barked so furiously at them that they backed off and let him go.

It was only when he returned after the Russians pulled out of Kyiv that Mr. Shepitko discovered just how far the Russian soldiers had gone. His house had been ransacked, filled with rubbish and beer bottles. Then, in a cellar under the garden shed, his nephew discovered the body of a woman. Slumped sitting down, bare legs akimbo, she wore a fur coat and nothing else.

The body of a woman shot in the head was found in a cellar. Torn condom wrappers and a used condom were found upstairs.

She had been shot in the head, and he found two bullet casings on the ground. When the police pulled her out and conducted a search, they found torn condom wrappers and one used condom upstairs in the house.

The abuse of the woman was one case of many, said Ukraine’s official ombudswoman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova. She said she had recorded horrific cases of sexual violence by Russian troops in Bucha and other places, including one in which a group of women and girls were kept in a basement of a house for 25 days. Nine of them are now pregnant, she said.


On the question of whether Russia is using chemical weapons against the Azov fortress: Well, we know the Russians are comfortable operating with chemical weapons deployments, a fixed fortification is a good use case, they're fighting a war for the survival of Russia in their view, their immediate hostile targets are their most propagandized foe, and, uh, the DNR Defense Spokesman (https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2022/04/11/17553800.shtml) demanded the use of chemical weapons against the Azov fortress hours before the attack was first reported.


The Russian armed forces can use special non-lethal weapons in the assault on Azovstal, but not chemical weapons. This was told to Gazeta.Ru by a former member of the UN Commission on Biological Weapons , military expert Igor Nikulin .

“There are chemical weapons, and there are so-called special non-lethal weapons. They mean it. These were used during the release of hostages during the terrorist attack on Dubrovka and in other places. Such weapons are typically used to put terrorists to sleep. It is unlikely that our country will use chemical weapons if we still have them. But special equipment is possible, ”said Nikulin.

Earlier, the deputy head of the People's Militia Department of the Donetsk People's Republic, Eduard Basurin, said that during the assault on the "underground fortifications of Azovstal" in Mariupol, it is necessary to turn to chemical troops in order to "smoke the moles out of their holes."

Let's recall that, technically speaking, we all subscribe to the illegality of the use of "crowd-control agents" such as tear gas in war.

[Tuuvi]

Russia uses the day-month-year dating convention along with the rest of Europe. 3/4 means April 3rd.

I should've known, that was a dumb mistake on my part.


But it should be noted that this isn't remotely the case. It's a pernicious Russian libel and one that really ought to be cleared up now that the region has drawn our special attention.

First things first: I want to make it clear that I agree Russia is a reactionary state, and I don't condone it's invasion of Ukraine in any way, shape, or form. I thought I made that obvious by comparing Russia to Imperial Japan, but I don't know anymore.

Either way, I still think we are being fed a one-sided narrative by the Western press. In the years leading up to the current Russian invasion, it was openly reported that the far-right was gaining a huge amount of influence in Ukraine. But now that the US wants to send weapons to Ukraine, the Ukrainian far-right is being ignored or downplayed, and its influence dismissed as "Russian propaganda".

Does this mean that Ukraine is a Nazi state like Russia claims? Of course not. But this doesn't mean that the Ukrainian far-right has had no influence on Ukrainian politics either. I know that supposedly the Azov battalion has been "de-politicized", but I don't buy it. I think it's more plausible that the Azov battalion agreed to clean up their image and hide their more extreme views in exchange for being given official status in the Ukrainian military. Sure, maybe the overall membership of Azov isn't as extreme as it was before, but this doesn't mean there aren't still nazis in the ranks, influencing the newer members and waiting for a time when they can be more open with their views again.

If a reactionary, right wing militia like the Oath Keepers were incorporated into the US military in some way, and then claimed to be de-politicized, would any political person who wasn't right wing buy it? Of course not, and for good reason. We shouldn't believe that Azov has been completely de-politicized either.

I really dislike how the media has taken to reflexively framing any political claim or idea that comes out of a rival to US hegemony as post modern Orwellian double-think that should be automatically disregarded as cynical lies, because this way of thinking prevents critical, objective analysis of the situation at hand. Of course there are cynical lies in Russian propaganda, but there are truths also. Some of the lies contained in Russian propaganda probably aren't even conscious lies but rather beliefs held by Putin and the Russian ruling class. If we want to gain an objective understanding of what the Russian government is thinking and what is compelling them to act, we need to be willing to analyze the propaganda and pick apart the true facts and sincerely held beliefs from the deliberate lies, not plug our ears and scream "lalalalala" out of some childish fear that listening to Russian propaganda will poison our minds.

We also need to be willing to concede that the US and NATO are no angels and that Russia might have some legitimate grievances against the West. This doesn't mean that I support Putin or condone his foreign policy, it just means that sometimes evil begets evil, reality is nuanced and we should be just as critical of Biden's claim that the war in Ukraine is a war of democracy vs. authoritarianism as we are of Putin's claim that Ukraine is a nazi state based on a fake ethnicity designed to destroy Russia.

The reason I brought up Imperial Japan in my last post wasn't just because I found the ideologies and propaganda to be similar, it was also because I find the history behind Japan's fascist turn instructive for our current moment. Japan was absolutely justified in seeing the US and the other Western powers as a dangerous threat, but it responded to the threat by becoming an imperialist power in its own right and eventually adopting fascist ideologies. What we can learn from this is that if an "authoritarian" leader says they're trying to protect their people from US imperialism, they probably aren't lying, but that doesn't mean they are a progressive force in the world or that they aren't capable of committing aggressive acts themselves.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't understand this dynamic, so there are too many out there who think Putin is a cartoon super villain that needs to be stopped by making ordinary Russians miserable and pumping arms into Ukraine risking WW3 and nuclear annihilation, and there are too many "anti-war" leftists who think that Putin is actually a progressive anti-imperialist since he opposes US hegemony. Neither side has a complete grasp of the truth or a good solution. I'm horrified by the invasion and part of me is glad that Ukraine is receiving support, but I have to admit that in the long run what the US is doing in Ukraine is really just exacerbating tensions and stoking the flames of war.

[Montmorency]

First things first: I want to make it clear that I agree Russia is a reactionary state, and I don't condone it's invasion of Ukraine in any way, shape, or form. I thought I made that obvious by comparing Russia to Imperial Japan, but I don't know anymore.

Either way, I still think we are being fed a one-sided narrative by the Western press. In the years leading up to the current Russian invasion, it was openly reported that the far-right was gaining a huge amount of influence in Ukraine. But now that the US wants to send weapons to Ukraine, the Ukrainian far-right is being ignored or downplayed, and its influence dismissed as "Russian propaganda".

Reported by whom? It's really not. Not compared to Poland, and certainly not compared to Western Europe or the United States. It's the Russian far-right that's been demonstrably increasing repression in its country. Check the narrative.


If a reactionary, right wing militia like the Oath Keepers were incorporated into the US military in some way, and then claimed to be de-politicized, would any political person who wasn't right wing buy it? Of course not, and for good reason. We shouldn't believe that Azov has been completely de-politicized either.

You don't have to believe that these people are plush toys to see that a mythicized narrative has deliberately been constructed around them. Neo-Nazis almost-openly operate in the Marine Corps and the Air Force is dominated by theocrats. If the United States were to be impoverished and invaded by foreign enemies, you can bet the Oath Keepers would be part of any "Second Amendment Solution."

You have to be able to take stock of the existence of a far-right - one that exists everywhere - and assess its influence on society and politics.


I really dislike how the media has taken to reflexively framing any political claim or idea that comes out of a rival to US hegemony as post modern Orwellian double-think that should be automatically disregarded as cynical lies, because this way of thinking prevents critical, objective analysis of the situation at hand. Of course there are cynical lies in Russian propaganda, but there are truths also. Some of the lies contained in Russian propaganda probably aren't even conscious lies but rather beliefs held by Putin and the Russian ruling class. If we want to gain an objective understanding of what the Russian government is thinking and what is compelling them to act, we need to be willing to analyze the propaganda and pick apart the true facts and sincerely held beliefs from the deliberate lies, not plug our ears and scream "lalalalala" out of some childish fear that listening to Russian propaganda will poison our minds.

Sure. Political analysts specializing in just that are all over Russian propaganda. It deserves understanding, not credence, a judgement we could also make on the subject of Republican propaganda about woke tyranny and the death of America.


We also need to be willing to concede that the US and NATO are no angels and that Russia might have some legitimate grievances against the West. This doesn't mean that I support Putin or condone his foreign policy, it just means that sometimes evil begets evil, reality is nuanced and we should be just as critical of Biden's claim that the war in Ukraine is a war of democracy vs. authoritarianism as we are of Putin's claim that Ukraine is a nazi state based on a fake ethnicity designed to destroy Russia.

So what's the nuance in your view? What are the concrete legitimate grievances, and why does Biden's statement get compared to a genocidal lie?


What we can learn from this is that if an "authoritarian" leader says they're trying to protect their people from US imperialism, they probably aren't lying, but that doesn't mean they are a progressive force in the world or that they aren't capable of committing aggressive acts themselves.

We can objectively assess Japan's geopolitical context and compare it to contemporary Russia's. Russia does not face the threats Japan did, and has not for a long time. Ukraine, meanwhile, was under more immediate and concrete threat from Russia than Japan was from anyone else.


Unfortunately a lot of people don't understand this dynamic, so there are too many out there who think Putin is a cartoon super villain

Hitler and Hirohito weren't cartoon supervillains either.


that needs to be stopped by making ordinary Russians miserable

I haven't heard of a way to avoid it yet.


and pumping arms into Ukraine

How do we achieve the best possible conditions for Ukraine without considerable material support in its ongoing war? Your personal activism doesn't have to align with state foreign policy - there are millions of refugees to support and Ukraine will eventually need economic reconstruction - but we have to be realistic about outcomes.


risking WW3 and nuclear annihilation

If supporting Ukraine risks WW3 and nuclear war, then doesn't it seem like not supporting Ukraine and laying the path for years of brutal full-scale warfare in the region, or for Putin to establish his control over the territory, risks the same? Because the premise of the first requires that Putin is the sort of supervillain who poses an ongoing threat to the international community.



but I have to admit that in the long run what the US is doing in Ukraine is really just exacerbating tensions and stoking the flames of war.

Should I invoke that MLK quote? The only way to support peace in this conflict is to help Ukraine blunt the Russian war machine as quickly as feasible. That's the benchmark for how involved countries should orient themselves.

Recommended reading (https://commons.com.ua/en/une-guerre-genante-en-ukraine-pour-la-gauche/) (auto-translate works well).

The Allies were no angels in WW2 - including the Soviet Union - and I'm glad we won. Independent Ukraine and its people have never done a tenth of the awful things that any WW2-era Allied power had, and that's the cold truth.

[Furunculus]

Does this mean that Ukraine is a Nazi state like Russia claims? Of course not. But this doesn't mean that the Ukrainian far-right has had no influence on Ukrainian politics either. I know that supposedly the Azov battalion has been "de-politicized", but I don't buy it. I think it's more plausible that the Azov battalion agreed to clean up their image and hide their more extreme views in exchange for being given official status in the Ukrainian military.

Literally, who cares?
n.b. i say this in geopolitical terms
Having a 'Nazi' battalion (who are subject to the rules of the land as is anyone else), has never been a justification for any foreign policy action, let alone the divine right to throw Westphalian Sovereignty in the ditch.
Not ever a justification for anything!

[Montmorency]

There is mainstream, but unsubstantiated, reporting that Sweden and Finland will apply for NATO membership at the Madrid NATO summit in June.


Literally, who cares?
n.b. i say this in geopolitical terms
Having a 'Nazi' battalion (who are subject to the rules of the land as is anyone else), has never been a justification for any foreign policy action, let alone the divine right to throw Westphalian Sovereignty in the ditch.
Not ever a justification for anything!

The far-right is always a threat to be taken seriously, as we in the West are very painfully learning. The relevant part for this war however is that Ukraine has less of a far-right problem than most countries in Europe and the Americas, and we don't hand out our solidarity to aggressors over victims. It's no surprise that many of those demanding solidarity for Russia are the same people who insist on privileging the perspectives of far-right white men in America and Europe.

The biggest threat of the Azov types is that they might be glorified for their feats of combat in the event of a Ukrainian victory, since after all a people's war tends to fortify nationalisms, such nationalisms being a big part of what got Russia into this mess. But this is a challenge to be confronted through civil society, as the US and EU have been doing through their cultural diplomacy, rather than throwing baby with bathwater into Lake Karachay.

[Hooahguy]

Reported by whom? It's really not. Not compared to Poland, and certainly not compared to Western Europe or the United States. It's the Russian far-right that's been demonstrably increasing repression in its country. Check the narrative.


To reinforce this, Svoboda, the only real far-right party currently in Ukraine, only got a single parliamentary seat (out of 450) in the last election.

Meanwhile here in the US we have multiple members of Congress cavorting with known white nationalists.


There is mainstream, but unsubstantiated, reporting that Sweden and Finland will apply for NATO membership at the Madrid NATO summit in June.

Looks to be substantiated (https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1514198882250596356?s=20&t=N9S-9zvTvgXVbWBx-SwTcg).

[Montmorency]

On the topic of announcing things before accomplishing them, Zelensky publicized stamps (https://mobile.twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1514219160473149445) commemorating the Snake Island defenders' defiance of the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva, which Ukrainian Neptune missile batteries sank shortly after. Because Ukraine just sank Russia's battleship (cruiser).

BTW, spmetla, do you buy now that a swarm of Iranian ASM could sink a carrier in the Strait of Hormuz?

How's this for an idea: ammo buyback program for Ukraine. Private Americans have billions of rounds of 5.56 and 7.62 lying around, and the Ukrainians must be using millions daily, so the math is obvious. (Obviously it wouldn't work because it would just turn the right completely against Ukraine, but in principle it's a good way to redirect American 'assets.')

[Hooahguy]

How's this for an idea: ammo buyback program for Ukraine. Private Americans have billions of rounds of 5.56 and 7.62 lying around, and the Ukrainians must be using millions daily, so the math is obvious. (Obviously it wouldn't work because it would just turn the right completely against Ukraine, but in principle it's a good way to redirect American 'assets.')
Conveniently, a thread (https://twitter.com/RealCynicalFox/status/1514584956797956099?s=20&t=x7F-JjK07vU1dalq28Lg6A) on twitter popped up earlier today on this subject.

To sum up, with a daily combat load of about 210 rounds per soldier, and with about 100k soldiers, Ukraine is burning through ~21 million rounds of rifle ammunition a day. If we include pistol ammunition that goes up a few million. And thats not including machine guns since they burn through ammunition so quickly its hard to even begin counting. I read recently that Ukraine had an abundance of manpower so they even stood a bunch of volunteers down because they had too many people and not enough equipment. Personally I think it would be smarter to keep them, but send them across the border to get trained by NATO forces and then sent back when equipment becomes available. I mean one can practice basic soldiering skills with a stick.

There's also the issue of artillery ammunition- per the thread, a single battery can fire a thousand shells in a day in an intensive engagement. As the commentator says, NATO forces are largely still geared up for COIN, not conventional warfare. As another example, the US has already given Ukraine about 1/3 (https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1513928788987596801?s=20&t=clRuvmGrpFy5-acVNC6AIg)of its Javelin stockpile, and I bet that the tap on those closes sooner rather than later- the US obviously cannot give them all away lest another theater heats up, like the Korea peninsula. The production process to replace those systems should be ramped up ASAP.

[Furunculus]

Ukraine just sank Russia's battleship (cruiser).

BTW, spmetla, do you buy now that a swarm of Iranian ASM could sink a carrier in the Strait of Hormuz?



this was always possible, and has become formalised in doctrine as the Royal Marines and USMC reconfigure away from mass over the beach to distributed operations. the risk from large and long range ASM's pushes vulnerable amphibious ships too far off shore for it to be their main role.

but the Moskva sinking appears to be incompetence rather than obsolescence:

https://twitter.com/alessionaval/status/1514529987101175811

there are counters to all these problems, and they simply require that you use naval assets in a different way than was true before. but then it was ever thus; although lip-service is often paid to the military as a learning organisation generally, the ones that win wars do so by evolving their operation faster than their adversary can adapt to.

in the case of hormuz, not only is the threat growing but the importance of the gulf is diminishing. so, the US simply won't put capital assets there in future. it is notable that the UK's indo-pac strategy focuses on Oman rather than Bahrain. the Royal Navy's Indo-Pac role should be seen as 'guardian of the SLOCs' rather than 'guarantor of the Sheiks'.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...BTW, spmetla, do you buy now that a swarm of Iranian ASM could sink a carrier in the Strait of Hormuz?

The carrier driver folks I knew back in Virginia was always concerned by that stuff. USN damage control approach is top notch, the ships up-to-date and maintained, the defense layered...but in a narrows with limited maneuver and given enough incoming then nothing is guaranteed. You can never discount the "golden BB" effect when you are the one getting hit.

[Montmorency]

26 FEB 2020, 03:11 (https://tass.com/society/1123855)
Christian relic, a True Cross piece, to be kept at Russia?s Black Sea fleet flagship

WTAF this is some movie shit. Hail Satan.



this was always possible, and has become formalised in doctrine as the Royal Marines and USMC reconfigure away from mass over the beach to distributed operations. the risk from large and long range ASM's pushes vulnerable amphibious ships too far off shore for it to be their main role.

but the Moskva sinking appears to be incompetence rather than obsolescence:

https://twitter.com/alessionaval/status/1514529987101175811

there are counters to all these problems, and they simply require that you use naval assets in a different way than was true before. but then it was ever thus; although lip-service is often paid to the military as a learning organisation generally, the ones that win wars do so by evolving their operation faster than their adversary can adapt to.

in the case of hormuz, not only is the threat growing but the importance of the gulf is diminishing. so, the US simply won't put capital assets there in future. it is notable that the UK's indo-pac strategy focuses on Oman rather than Bahrain. the Royal Navy's Indo-Pac role should be seen as 'guardian of the SLOCs' rather than 'guarantor of the Sheiks'.

It must also be noted that Russia cannot afford to maintain such a large and varied surface fleet.

But maintaining open seas has been the US grand strategy since 1945, so the UK is late to the game, though I'm sure it's worth its weight in anti-piracy operations, whatever good those are.

I wasn't referring to amphibious operations in Iran; an invasion itself would be suicidal (as was known long before the middle-state precision revolution unfolded), a contested landing on the coast doubly so. I just mean the mere presence of an American fleet in the strait might be too risky to allow during high tensions or wartime given Ukraine AARs and the additional context of Iran's entire naval strategy being oriented around sinking or damaging carrier fleets.

Smaller militaries can hit hard under the right conditions. It's not just China that needs to take lessons from this debacle.


but the Moskva sinking appears to be incompetence rather than obsolescence:

From what has been reported, the Ukrainians used the double cover of a storm and a UAV distraction to strike through the blind interval of the ship's radars. Presumably the IADS on the vessel would have easily countered the incoming missiles in a straight fight, since there were only two of them.

Speaking of lessons, if Ukraine wins the war the Ukrainian Army (and AF) will have survived to veritably attain the status of the most skilled and experienced military organization on the planet (in conventional warfare). They should be demanding debt forgiveness and other benefits in exchange for training NATO militaries. :beam:

[Montmorency]

How the Russians could have propagandized Moskva:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMbUrqDhims

What they went (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster) with:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=robLjYLW91A

[Pannonian]

How the Russians could have propagandized Moskva:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMbUrqDhims

What they went (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster) with:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=robLjYLW91A

The Russians will raise the Moskva for a space-faring mission.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6LFkMniuTk

[spmetla]

BTW, spmetla, do you buy now that a swarm of Iranian ASM could sink a carrier in the Strait of Hormuz?

It could of course, it is always possible. A US Carrier Task Force though does have a lot of defensive firepower though so it'd take a few factors to get through the missile defense and screening ships.
The USS Cole was almost sunk by a zodiac with a bomb aboard, no ships are invulnerable. The USS Missouri was almost hit in the Gulf War by Iraqi ASMs too, a Carrier could also be targeted though generally they'd be farther off shore (something the Persian Gulf naturally makes difficult). The UK Task Force in the Falklands lost several ships to ASMs too. They are a very capable threat but just like ATGMs are a threat to Tanks it doesn't make them obsolete either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDfDnZ7FiZg

The Moskva wasn't exactly a top-notch air defense platform though, despite the limited upgrades over time. It's employment also does make it seem as if the Russians didn't take a Ukrainian ASM threat seriously as its screens couldn't protect it.
This together with the Russian Navy not having really had modern threat exercises or any combat experience beyond shore bombardment/support probably means their tactics to defend against modern threats was sub-par.

Also, if the Russian Navy is anything like its army and air force then we can expect poorly trained crews with poor equipment and leadership attempting to do damage control and failing. Looking at the Russian coverup of the Kursk incident in peace-time I can't imagine we'll get any new light shed on this from the Russian side anytime soon.

Edit: Interesting video using the DCS game to try and see how it could be sunk in this flight sim as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxwh6MGLJNc

[Montmorency]

It is undeniable that any American fleet will have a much stronger defensive screen than a lone cruiser (for comparison, the Slava-class cruiser is equivalent in size to a WW2-era Brooklyn-class cruiser, of which the USS Phoenix/ARA General Belgrano was an example). But by the same token, the Slava-class experienced catastrophic secondary damage from just two missiles, of which the Ukrainian Neptune arsenal could potentially fire 72 near-simultaneously (18 launchers x 4 tubes each, carrying 330lb warheads). So the interesting exercise is to scale the offense to the defense and see how it hashes out, in theory.

Speaking of which, torpedo drone (http://www.hisutton.com/Iran-IRGC-Weaponized-UUV.html) - that's a new one. Maybe we could procure some from Iran?

Another lesson of the war: China could never concentrate enough ground power in Taiwan to clear the eastern, mountainous, half of irregular resistance with even moderate foreign naval intervention to contend with.

[Pannonian]

It is undeniable that any American fleet will have a much stronger defensive screen than a lone cruiser (for comparison, the Slava-class cruiser is equivalent in size to a WW2-era Brooklyn-class cruiser, of which the USS Phoenix/ARA General Belgrano was an example). But by the same token, the Slava-class experienced catastrophic secondary damage from just two missiles, of which the Ukrainian Neptune arsenal could potentially fire 72 near-simultaneously (18 launchers x 4 tubes each, carrying 330lb warheads). So the interesting exercise is to scale the offense to the defense and see how it hashes out, in theory.

Speaking of which, torpedo drone (http://www.hisutton.com/Iran-IRGC-Weaponized-UUV.html) - that's a new one. Maybe we could procure some from Iran?

Another lesson of the war: China could never concentrate enough ground power in Taiwan to clear the eastern, mountainous, half of irregular resistance with even moderate foreign naval intervention to contend with.

There's a gamer youtube channel called The Mighty Jingles, who used to serve in the Royal Navy. During the Gulf War, his ship, a relatively non-essential vessel, was used to provide defensive cover for a hospital ship. This took the form of interposing its broadside between the hospital ship and any possible incoming missiles, so the missiles would hit it and not the hospital ship.

[spmetla]

It is undeniable that any American fleet will have a much stronger defensive screen than a lone cruiser (for comparison, the Slava-class cruiser is equivalent in size to a WW2-era Brooklyn-class cruiser, of which the USS Phoenix/ARA General Belgrano was an example). But by the same token, the Slava-class experienced catastrophic secondary damage from just two missiles, of which the Ukrainian Neptune arsenal could potentially fire 72 near-simultaneously (18 launchers x 4 tubes each, carrying 330lb warheads). So the interesting exercise is to scale the offense to the defense and see how it hashes out, in theory.

A massive volume of missiles would certainly test the defenses of any surface group, looking at the Slava class itself that's exactly what it was designed to do as well, massive launch of super-sonic SSM to attack US Carrier Groups while providing a strong air-defense against those same carrier strike aircraft and missiles too.

The US Aegis system is designed exactly against such a threat, it's not perfect and missiles will always get through though, which is why battle damage control drills are so damn important. Consider how many US ships have actually sunk from enemy actions and accidents over the last few decades. Almost all have been recovered and put back into service. Crew drills, training, low-level initiative are absolutely important in the chaos of a successful enemy attack. Fleet drills in supporting other ships in duress and good salvage teams/fleet tug boats are all part of what make the USN so successful too and it can't be done on the cheap when projecting power away from your home ports.

That two missiles knocked it out, is in itself not too crazy, they are designed to take out ships. I'm more amazed that they got through the Moskva's air defenses, it has a lot and looking at the footage of it listing, the sea state and weather doesn't appear to have been an inital factor.

Interesting Twitter thread on looking at the eventual sinking:
https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1515837566356008961

So it's likely been fully abandoned. It's possible that some people remain down below but staying in the engine room without proper boundary cooling and topside assistance from trained shipboard firefighters would be suicidal.
By most accounts, this flagship ship was critical to these war efforts. My best assumption - again based on too little evidence - is because of
1) the importance of this ship to the war effort
2) because the Montreux convention prevents Russia from sending a replacement
3) the calm weather, reserve buoyancy, and the fact she still had power means she could possibly have been saved
4) the fact the helideck was smoke-free

For these reasons my best guess is the captain of the Moskva abandoned his ship too early.
Edit: Interesting videos on some discussion on what failures enabled the sinking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgM4tAvnlL4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjfbj_EwW4 These guys aren't experts but are fairly knowledgeable.


Another lesson of the war: China could never concentrate enough ground power in Taiwan to clear the eastern, mountainous, half of irregular resistance with even moderate foreign naval intervention to contend with.
Absolutely, I think China is seeing that they need to absolutely be able to create a blockade to prevent any weapons making it in after any open war starts.
For the counter-insurgency, guerilla fight I imagine they saw the value that Ukrainian connectivity to the world was for rallying resistance and international support so somehow cutting Taiwan off completely from the internet/outside world would be key to allow for the authoritarian style crushing of resistance currently pursued by Russia.
Also, I think they've seen the value that a real leader like Zelensky can have on rallying people to the flag. A lesser man would have fled the country as we offered him and who knows what that would have meant to the Ukrainian war effort. A decapitation strike or some sort of initial civil unrest (perhaps contesting election results....) may be needed to ensure a lack of Taiwan unity against a PRC invasion.

As for the foreign naval intervention, I think China is seeing that the only thing keeping the West limited in its support to Ukraine is the nuclear threat. Banking on the West being soft and not wanting to suffer economic consequences is probably no longer viable (except perhaps Germany and Austria cough cough).
If nuclear force is threatened that may be the only thing that deters the US. However, I think the US would call the bluff and attempt to resupply Taiwan under US flagged ships thereby making any outright act of war a PRC action so that the US isn't seen as escalating it.

To me though, this only underscores the absolute necessity of some sort of 'trip-wire' force in Taiwan to ensure that no number of weak-knees and spinelessness cause the US to back out of supporting Taiwan. Doing so would force any future union between the PRC and ROC to be done mutually and diplomatically, perhaps in a future in which the PRC has somehow liberalized or the ROC populace has bought into authoritarian-mercantilist-communism. Either way, a peaceful unification or divergence down their own paths should be the goal.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There's a gamer youtube channel called The Mighty Jingles, who used to serve in the Royal Navy. During the Gulf War, his ship, a relatively non-essential vessel, was used to provide defensive cover for a hospital ship. This took the form of interposing its broadside between the hospital ship and any possible incoming missiles, so the missiles would hit it and not the hospital ship.

That is actually part of the training for all escort vessels. At the last instance they are to interpose themselves between the protected ship(s) and low flying missiles or torpedoes if possible. Not the part of the job that goes into the recruiting videos.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The time frame of the sinking does lead me to think it was a damage control issue. That said, it only took one missile to bring about HNS Sheffield's demise -- as you note, they are designed to break ships.

[Montmorency]

I've now seen at least two videos of BMPs with 30mm autocannons conflagrating or seriously damaging a Russian MBT (T-72/80). The extreme effectiveness of artillery against armor in this war was already something else, but a 30mm gun killing an MBT is brain-breaking. I'm far from a military buff, but I've had to throw out much of what I thought I knew about military hardware, and strategy. Even in WW2 the universal 37mm AT guns at the outset of the war were almost immediately obsolete against common tank types.

So does this mean a Sherman tank could knock out an Abrams without an unreasonable amount of luck?




A massive volume of missiles would certainly test the defenses of any surface group, looking at the Slava class itself that's exactly what it was designed to do as well, massive launch of super-sonic SSM to attack US Carrier Groups while providing a strong air-defense against those same carrier strike aircraft and missiles too.

The US Aegis system is designed exactly against such a threat, it's not perfect and missiles will always get through though, which is why battle damage control drills are so damn important. Consider how many US ships have actually sunk from enemy actions and accidents over the last few decades. Almost all have been recovered and put back into service. Crew drills, training, low-level initiative are absolutely important in the chaos of a successful enemy attack. Fleet drills in supporting other ships in duress and good salvage teams/fleet tug boats are all part of what make the USN so successful too and it can't be done on the cheap when projecting power away from your home ports.

That two missiles knocked it out, is in itself not too crazy, they are designed to take out ships. I'm more amazed that they got through the Moskva's air defenses, it has a lot and looking at the footage of it listing, the sea state and weather doesn't appear to have been an inital factor.

Interesting Twitter thread on looking at the eventual sinking:
https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1515837566356008961

Edit: Interesting videos on some discussion on what failures enabled the sinking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgM4tAvnlL4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snjfbj_EwW4 These guys aren't experts but are fairly knowledgeable.


Absolutely, I think China is seeing that they need to absolutely be able to create a blockade to prevent any weapons making it in after any open war starts.
For the counter-insurgency, guerilla fight I imagine they saw the value that Ukrainian connectivity to the world was for rallying resistance and international support so somehow cutting Taiwan off completely from the internet/outside world would be key to allow for the authoritarian style crushing of resistance currently pursued by Russia.
Also, I think they've seen the value that a real leader like Zelensky can have on rallying people to the flag. A lesser man would have fled the country as we offered him and who knows what that would have meant to the Ukrainian war effort. A decapitation strike or some sort of initial civil unrest (perhaps contesting election results....) may be needed to ensure a lack of Taiwan unity against a PRC invasion.

As for the foreign naval intervention, I think China is seeing that the only thing keeping the West limited in its support to Ukraine is the nuclear threat. Banking on the West being soft and not wanting to suffer economic consequences is probably no longer viable (except perhaps Germany and Austria cough cough).
If nuclear force is threatened that may be the only thing that deters the US. However, I think the US would call the bluff and attempt to resupply Taiwan under US flagged ships thereby making any outright act of war a PRC action so that the US isn't seen as escalating it.

To me though, this only underscores the absolute necessity of some sort of 'trip-wire' force in Taiwan to ensure that no number of weak-knees and spinelessness cause the US to back out of supporting Taiwan. Doing so would force any future union between the PRC and ROC to be done mutually and diplomatically, perhaps in a future in which the PRC has somehow liberalized or the ROC populace has bought into authoritarian-mercantilist-communism. Either way, a peaceful unification or divergence down their own paths should be the goal.

The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe helped set Russia on the path to downsizing its military severalfold (even if Russia would trend in that direction anyway with ). The last great Cold War arms control treaty IIRC. That the Russian military at its peak can only be a feeble shadow of the Soviet one at any point in the Cold War is one of those latent decisive factors in the present war. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has reportedly signalled its intent to reach 1000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade (on top of its unprecedented peacetime militarization).

I don't think the US government has moved quite fast enough in its volume and caliber of assistance to Ukraine, but assuming a Russian TKO by the end of the year, we have a truly historic opportunity to pursue mutually-deescalatory arms control agreements between all three nuclear great powers. Everyone has been engaging in nuclear rearmament over the past 5-10 years, and a Russian defeat would probably be the very last opportunity to reverse course within the existing global order. That's in everyone's interest, as is less-overheated conventional production.

Obviously, abruptly pushing troops into Taiwan kills any chance at diplomacy and puts us in a bad light internationally (one of the most important geopolitical aspects of the Ukraine war is that Russia is so self-evidently the aggressor and instigator of conflict). I don't have anything against our administration privately intimating that such an option is on the table depending on the course of negotiations however. Parallel to the effects of arms control treaties, it's also noteworthy that moderate Western sanctions played a significant role in limiting Russia's capacity to rearm even when Putin made it a priority. A lot in the realm of economic integration has come on the table with China, which is another bargaining chip for the US either way.

Next consider that one of the causes of the Ukraine war was the dramatic lack of understanding of either side on the other. Most of the West interpreted Putin as a pragmatic bluffer; Putin saw the West as on the verge of decay and collapse (well, more so than it really is). Putin probably was bluffing to an extent during the winter - very very few world leaders beyond the age of warlords prefer the waging of war to successful coercion - but as his unhinged maximalist, yet indirect, demands left no room but for NATO to easily rebuke them, he painted himself into a corner where delusions of a low-risk gamble were his only alternative to capitulation. Imagine if world leaders were so up front as to drop the rhetoric of "grave disappointment" and "severe consequences" and just say what they meant - if Putin told us up front that Ukraine could not in his worldview be allowed to drift away from the Russian sphere as a matter of national identity, or if NATO offered a unified ultimatum against Putin describing all the military and economic support it would deliver Ukraine in the event of war. Actually forcing everyone to be realistic instead of pretending that what they were seeing was what they wanted to see.

The foreign policies of both the USSR and USA during the Cold War were a notorious cavalcade of stupid, blindly-stumbling bullshit by hawks who had no idea what they were doing and didn't understand the first thing about their adversaries. But even in the 21st century, lack of communication and understanding continues to beset great power politics. It's quite likely that Russian, Chinese, and American foreign policy elites persist in holding stereotypical, poorly-supported worldviews regarding each other. If we have an opportunity for radical transparency and engagement, at least behind closed doors, it's far preferable to once again filling in the blanks toward mutually-assured (conventional) destruction.

It's time to retire the idea that geopolitical facts are merely, reciprocally, obvious to all actors as a matter of higher knowledge or impulse. We keep finding out that organizations and countries are led by humans, not by esoteric poli-sci algorithms.

(A vigorous good-faith effort on our part is also useful in sussing out Xi's intent regardless of outcome; the State Department could probably gain a lot of information out of the process.)


The US Aegis system is designed exactly against such a threat, it's not perfect and missiles will always get through though, which is why battle damage control drills are so damn important. Consider how many US ships have actually sunk from enemy actions and accidents over the last few decades. Almost all have been recovered and put back into service. Crew drills, training, low-level initiative are absolutely important in the chaos of a successful enemy attack. Fleet drills in supporting other ships in duress and good salvage teams/fleet tug boats are all part of what make the USN so successful too and it can't be done on the cheap when projecting power away from your home ports.

Do the publicized series of USN snafus over past few years point to a slippage of discipline and standards though? There was that government brief last year condemning failures of leadership and training in the USN.


Side note: Unlike Russia, China is absolute bottom-tier in the field of anti-American propaganda.

https://i.imgur.com/p1e5eQ5.png
https://i.imgur.com/vuiqByW.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zUizTej.jpg

By analogy, imagine using this music video as anti-Russian propaganda.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3O80q1D2Q

[Suraknar]

While I do not want to derail the current military & warfare turn of this discussion, I am replying here based on the Original Thread.

I think overall, Humanity seems to have learned nothing from its past and the lessons of History. Greed and Lust for Power still reign supreme in the motivations of so called Leaders of Nations & the World along with their associates whom they cater to and often are the ones pulling the strings and lobbying policy at the expense of the people and the planet.

Especially those that sit on the Geopolitical Table playing its Game, move after move.

And on top of it the entire world has managed to ignore the issues of the environment and climate and has continued its business as usual day by day further destruction of the earth upon which the geopolitics happen.

Some speak of the Thucydides Trap, and how rivalry between a declining power and a rising power has led to terrible wars in the past starting with Sparta in Decline falling for the trapping and waging war on rising Athens of ancient Greece.

Today it is the declining USA and the rising China which constitute the powers with the potential to fall in that trap. Will they fall for it and wage war on each other? It remains to be seen and we can only hope that this rivalry ends peacefully as it has happened in some few occasions where the rivals did not fall for the trap.

Yet, again, no matter one's optimism and wishful thinking, in the end the facts are what counts. So in a more factual thinking mode, I am afraid that it may not end well for humanity the way things are going now and if there is no change. If there is no space for pause and if no one gives in and compromises a bit for their own good first and the good for all as a side effect.

Russia's War on Ukraine is a testament to this. Russia has been provoked by broken promises (NATO) and failed accords (MINSK, MINSK2) by its rivals and a foreign policy by the world which mishandled a Civil War waging in Ukraine for 8 years.

Where was the UN and its peace keeping forces? Where were the Blue Helms. There should have been immediate Diplomatic Effort along WITH Russia to mitigate the conflict in Ukraine and ensure peace instead of 14,000 casualties during 8 years. With peace and proper oversight then the right to self determination for the Russophone Ukrainians of the East could have been respected and handled properly even advance to Referendums of the population while the whole world was looking. Of course Ukraine and the people of teh west will have to make a concession and let some territory go allong their brethren of the east wishing to be independent.

Is that too much of a price to pay for Democracy, Sovereignty and Self-Determination in today's world order?

We all are called upon to defend Ukraine's rights of Self-Determination yet itself Ukraine has not led by example. Instead shady dealing and dirty policy of opportunism happened not to mention some questionable movements with Nazi allures (Azov Battalions, and Training Camps etc) which triggered much concern all over too.

In addition, Trump/Biden debacle taking place on Ukrainian affairs, and Ukraine being categorized as the most Corrupt Country in Europe. I think Ukraine is not innocent completely and did mishandle this situation with the civil war and bombings of schools in the east etc (Ref: Human Rights Watch). nevertheless it did not deserve War upon it. The world should have handled this differently.

On the other hand, Russia made a huge mistake as well, a folly really, that I condemn equally, to fall for it and decide to pull the trigger instead. Cause death and suffering and destruction for so many innocent people while using the above as justifications for it. And because the saddest part of these Wars is that the innocent. once more are the collateral to the machinations of the players of the Geopolitical game.

I knew that Russia was a bit backwards in many ways, I estimated some 40-50 years backwardness in terms of Socio-Economical progress compared to the west and many Asian countries. Yet was making progress nevertheless. Historically if you think about it, the Russian people never really lived under a Democracy, direct, participatory or representative. It was from the authority of kings to Tsars to Soviet Regime...so to a point there is the understanding that there were still some milestones to its roadmap.

But to see it respond with same Tsarist concerns and motivations of some 200 years ago was somehow surprising to say the least.

Factually thinking about all this one can but wonder if the provocation was planned or if it resulted from reckless mishandling of issues by the recent leaders of involved nations.

As surprising as Russia's response was it is equally surprising to think that foreign policy makers acted in such incompetent and near sighted ways for these issues.

Which cause me to evaluate another view, the one of a planned policy for years, to provoke again and again ever for tightly having foreseen and calculated the other side's reaction.

Which then begs the question of why, and also, how does the US. NATO and EU benefit from the current Polarization in the world. Why do we want this polarization and how do we benefit from China (and others) being put in a position where they have to refuse to condemn Russia's actions?

Is this an attempt to put everyone in the same basket and say "hey look, Russia is the big bad wolf and anyone else's that supports it" so that China becomes a target too in the eyes of the world?

What is the goal here? Is this an indication of the US & Co failing for Thucydides Trap leading us towards an eventual armed conflict where the whole world is mainly split in between the two and will end in Armageddon?

Or a new Economical reality? Do we realize that Russia, China India, South Africa and Brazil alone constitute half of the word's population? What is the goal here to split the global economy in two separate financial, banking and trading systems?

Can all this end well? I really do wonder... and look foreword to hear from any interested patron here own thoughts on all this. (unless these aspects were already discussed in the thread then kindly point me to those posts).

I really think that we need to put a collective and to Geopolitics period lest we risk to lose our Human Civilization. I really think that we have to shift our minds and put people value above some arbitrary border delimitation on a map and above the value of the land these people live upon.

We need to put lives above materialism, we need to end Greed and Lust for Power and start thinking before whom we vote in to power seriously and for what Agenda. We may even need to change our Democracies to be more participatory structure and decision making, the technology is there to do so, lets use it, for the benefit of the many and stop being used by it for the profit and benefit of the few. And for an earth whose inhabitants live in peace and prosperity equally with one another and in all our diversity as one Humanity.

[rory_20_uk]

There's a lot to unpack here.

NATO never made any promise to Russia. President Bush might have said something but it isn't up to the USA. It is not up to other countries to make Russia feel good about itself. When the USSR it had to give up its occupation by force of many countries - and far from feeling any guilt for 50 years of oppression Russia thinks it is owed something??!?

Why isn't the UN involved... The same reason the UN doesn't get involved in any conflict that one of the Security Council doesn't want them to - and with China, Russia, UK, USA and France that rules out most of the world.

I am unclear how exactly Europe has provoked Russia - unless we pretend that Russia somehow owns Eastern Europe. Europe has been investing in Russia, buying a lot of (and IMO far too much) of its energy from Russia, receiving investments from Russia, all whilst leaving Europe's Eastern flank practically unarmed. In the meantime, Russia undertook several assassinations in Europe where the response was pretty limited.

Ending a post that we should in essence just ignore reality would have been better to start the post so I could have not bothered reading it.

~:smoking:

[spmetla]

Which then begs the question of why, and also, how does the US. NATO and EU benefit from the current Polarization in the world. Why do we want this polarization and how do we benefit from China (and others) being put in a position where they have to refuse to condemn Russia's actions?

NATO benefits from a renewed sense of purpose but this is due to Russia's starting a conventional war to conquer neighboring territories, something that NATO is designed to stop for its members.
For the US and EU, there's not really much benefit, economically everyone is still recovering from the COVID problems. The US and EU would love to have no conflicts and just truck along making money so the increased tensions really are harmful, especially as the various global corporations try and resolve even more disrupted supply chain issues.
I think the only real benefit to this polarization is in granting more credibility to those like myself that keep stamping the floor and saying that authoritarian regimes like Russia and the PRC are threats to our way of life and we need to limit our exposure to them lest we be forced into an untenable situation in the future.


Is this an attempt to put everyone in the same basket and say "hey look, Russia is the big bad wolf and anyone else's that supports it" so that China becomes a target too in the eyes of the world?

Russia is being targeted because of what it did, China, India and a lot of other countries are trying to hedge their bets on both sides. CHina however does have a vested interest in the success of Russia as it is its only significant ally in the world. China made itself a target though when it started to try and force its claims on its neighbors like India as well as throughout the South China Sea with its aggressive 'grey zone tactics' using maritime militias and building islands on atolls to reinforce its claims.



What is the goal here? Is this an indication of the US & Co failing for Thucydides Trap leading us towards an eventual armed conflict where the whole world is mainly split in between the two and will end in Armageddon?


The US and its allies generally bend over backwards to avoid war with its larger rivals. Honestly, the big danger is China assuming a lack of resolve on the part of the US in supporting its allies. The view of the US and the West in general as 'paper tigers' was the same mistake the Imperial Japanese made.



Or a new Economical reality? Do we realize that Russia, China India, South Africa and Brazil alone constitute half of the word's population? What is the goal here to split the global economy in two separate financial, banking and trading systems?

Of course those countries are hugely populated and important, if they don't want to work in a 'rules based' world system and instead go back to the times of 'might makes right' then that's on them. The goal of the US and West in general has almost always (post cold-war) been one of more or less 'open for business' through increased trade and business. The divestment of the West's industrial base to east and south Asia is proof of that.
It's less a split of the economy into two spheres (which we already had in the cold war anyhow) but into a determination of how countries should interact in the future. Economic measures and sanctions are surely preferable to military measures and blockades, right?


I really think that we need to put a collective and to Geopolitics period lest we risk to lose our Human Civilization. I really think that we have to shift our minds and put people value above some arbitrary border delimitation on a map and above the value of the land these people live upon.

We need to put lives above materialism, we need to end Greed and Lust for Power and start thinking before whom we vote in to power seriously and for what Agenda. We may even need to change our Democracies to be more participatory structure and decision making, the technology is there to do so, lets use it, for the benefit of the many and stop being used by it for the profit and benefit of the few. And for an earth whose inhabitants live in peace and prosperity equally with one another and in all our diversity as one Humanity.
These are nice ideas but how do they get implemented? This is like saying that the way to end violence is everyone just disarms and stops fighting, how does one make the entire species to that?
Transcending borders and economics is something to aspire for but not realistic in the current environment. Even the friendliest of cooperative groups like the EU struggle to work together, doing so with other regional groups is even harder, that's why the UN is sort of just window dressing as it essentially powerless unless the security council advocates action all together.

[Montmorency]

While I do not want to derail the current military & warfare turn of this discussion, I am replying here based on the Original Thread.

I think overall, Humanity seems to have learned nothing from its past and the lessons of History. Greed and Lust for Power still reign supreme in the motivations of so called Leaders of Nations & the World along with their associates whom they cater to and often are the ones pulling the strings and lobbying policy at the expense of the people and the planet.

There's something even more important to human affairs than greed these days: ethnonationalism, tribalism, and social reaction. Another general tendency to record: Dictators get sloppier, stupider, more paranoid, and more self-absorbed the longer they stay in power. More often than not.


Some speak of the Thucydides Trap, and how rivalry between a declining power and a rising power has led to terrible wars in the past starting with Sparta in Decline falling for the trapping and waging war on rising Athens of ancient Greece.

It has been suggested that the Thucydides Trap is a misconstrued concept without explanatory power, and that its usual application really reflects a peaking (formerly-rising) power seizing its last opportunity to compete. Through this lens Sparta attacked Athens because it was losing hope of overtaking the Athenian Empire.


Russia's War on Ukraine is a testament to this. Russia has been provoked by broken promises (NATO) and failed accords (MINSK, MINSK2) by its rivals and a foreign policy by the world which mishandled a Civil War waging in Ukraine for 8 years.

Where was the UN and its peace keeping forces? Where were the Blue Helms. There should have been immediate Diplomatic Effort along WITH Russia to mitigate the conflict in Ukraine and ensure peace instead of 14,000 casualties during 8 years. With peace and proper oversight then the right to self determination for the Russophone Ukrainians of the East could have been respected and handled properly even advance to Referendums of the population while the whole world was looking. Of course Ukraine and the people of teh west will have to make a concession and let some territory go allong their brethren of the east wishing to be independent.

I would challenge this concept of the conflict in its totality - it's the Russian government's version of the story, twisted in fact and actualized by its own broken promises - but will leave it at the following for now: Blue Helmets are peacekeepers, not peacemakers. They can't force anyone, let alone a nuclear state, to act a certain way.


Which then begs the question of why, and also, how does the US. NATO and EU benefit from the current Polarization in the world. Why do we want this polarization and how do we benefit from China (and others) being put in a position where they have to refuse to condemn Russia's actions?

They don't. Thinking of geopolitics in terms of grand conspiracies is the most dangerous mistake one can make. The desperation of Western desires to avoid conflict with Russia and China is amply demonstrated by the West's persistent and ongoing economic entanglements with them, and the consistent emphasis on avoiding securitized foreign policy or "provocations." German/French/Italian/Austrian Ostpolitik, British plutophilia, etc. Trump's administration was just the exception that proved the rule.


I really think that we need to put a collective and to Geopolitics period lest we risk to lose our Human Civilization. I really think that we have to shift our minds and put people value above some arbitrary border delimitation on a map and above the value of the land these people live upon.

We need to put lives above materialism, we need to end Greed and Lust for Power and start thinking before whom we vote in to power seriously and for what Agenda. We may even need to change our Democracies to be more participatory structure and decision making, the technology is there to do so, lets use it, for the benefit of the many and stop being used by it for the profit and benefit of the few. And for an earth whose inhabitants live in peace and prosperity equally with one another and in all our diversity as one Humanity.

Slavoj Zizek (https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/hot-peace-putins-war-as-clash-of-civilization-by-slavoj-zizek-2022-03) commented last month,


There is no longer ethnic cleansing without poetry, because we live in an era that is supposedly post-ideological. Since great secular causes no longer have the force to mobilize people for mass violence, a larger sacred motive is needed. Religion or ethnic belonging serve this role perfectly (pathological atheists who commit mass murder for pleasure are rare exceptions). Realpolitik is no better guide. It has become a mere alibi for ideology, which often evokes some hidden dimension behind the veil of appearances in order to obscure the crime that is being committed openly. This double mystification is often announced by describing a situation as “complex.” An obvious fact – say, an instance of brutal military aggression – is relativized by evoking a “much more complex background.” The act of aggression is really an act of defense. This is exactly what is happening today. Russia obviously attacked Ukraine, and is obviously targeting civilians and displacing millions. And yet commentators and pundits are eagerly searching for “complexity” behind it. There is complexity, of course. But that does not change the basic fact that Russia did it. Our mistake was that we did not interpret Putin’s threats literally enough; we thought he was just playing a game of strategic manipulation and brinkmanship. One is reminded of the famous joke that Sigmund Freud quotes: “Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. ‘Where are you going?’ asked one. ‘To Cracow,’ was the answer. ‘What a liar you are!’ broke out the other. ‘If you say you’re going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow. So why are you lying to me?’” When Putin announced a military intervention, we didn’t take him literally when he said he wanted to pacify and “denazify” Ukraine. Instead, the reproach from disappointed “deep” strategists amounts to: “Why did you tell me you are going to occupy Lviv when you really want to occupy Lviv?” This double mystification exposes the end of realpolitik. As a rule, realpolitik is opposed to the naivety of binding diplomacy and foreign policy to (one’s version of) moral or political principles. Yet in the current situation, it is realpolitik that is naive. It is naive to suppose that the other side, the enemy, is also aiming at a limited pragmatic deal.

In other words, Putin is trying to impose a new model of international relations. Rather than cold war, there should be hot peace: a state of permanent hybrid war in which military interventions are declared under the guise of peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

Ultra-nationalism thus signals the death agony of national authority... Russia refuses to use the word “war” for its “special military operation” not just to downplay the brutality of its intervention but above all to make clear that war in the old sense of an armed conflict between nation-states does not apply... Within the four spheres of influence, there are only peacekeeping interventions. War proper happens only when the four big bosses cannot agree on the borders of their spheres

On March 17, the Russian ambassador to Bosnia, Igor Kalabukhov, explained that, “If [Bosnia] decides to be a member of any alliance [such as NATO], that is an internal matter. Our response is a different matter. Ukraine’s example shows what we expect. Should there be any threat, we will respond.” Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has gone so far as to suggest that the only comprehensive solution would be to demilitarize all of Europe, with Russia with its army maintaining peace through occasional humanitarian interventions. Similar ideas abound in the Russian press. As the political commentator Dmitry Evstafiev explains in a recent interview with a Croatian publication: “A new Russia is born which lets you know clearly that it doesn’t perceive you, Europe, as a partner. Russia has three partners: USA, China, and India. You are for us a trophy which shall be divided between us and Americans. You didn’t yet get this, although we are coming close to this.”

Civilizing our civilizations will require radical social change – a revolution, in fact. But we cannot afford to hope that a new war will trigger it. The far more likely outcome is the end of civilization as we know it, with the survivors if there are any organized in small authoritarian groups. We should harbor no illusions: in some basic sense, World War III has already begun, though for now it is still being fought mostly through proxies. Abstract calls for peace are not enough. “Peace” is not a term that allows us to draw the key political distinction that we need. Occupiers always sincerely want peace in the territory they hold. Nazi Germany wanted peace in occupied France, Israel wants peace in the occupied West Bank, and Russian President Vladimir Putin wants peace in Ukraine. That is why, as the philosopher ?tienne Balibar once put it, “pacifism is not an option.” The only way to prevent another Great War is by avoiding the kind of “peace” that requires constant local wars for its maintenance."

There is almost no popular national consciousness of universal solidarity in the vein you describe, let alone international popular consciousness. Zizek doesn't have much to offer about it - "Something like a new non-aligned movement is needed, not in the sense that countries should be neutral in the ongoing war, but in the sense that we should question the entire notion of the “clash of civilizations.” - but I believe any plausible direction for a transnational popular front would have to be rooted in some sort of ideological non-alignment, which is to say a different sort of "clash of civilizations" than has previously been conceptualized. It would reflect an active clash between the global 'progressive civilization' and the individual national reactionary/imperialist civilizations.




Why isn't the UN involved... The same reason the UN doesn't get involved in any conflict that one of the Security Council doesn't want them to - and with China, Russia, UK, USA and France that rules out most of the world.

Scholars have pointed out that the Security Council is a highly-successful institution, as it was only ever intended with one (two depending on how you cut it) purpose in mind. That purpose was to integrate the United States into an international system, and to establish that international system such that the represented powers - the UK, France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States - never went to war with one another.



Russia is being targeted because of what it did, China, India and a lot of other countries are trying to hedge their bets on both sides. CHina however does have a vested interest in the success of Russia as it is its only significant ally in the world. China made itself a target though when it started to try and force its claims on its neighbors like India as well as throughout the South China Sea with its aggressive 'grey zone tactics' using maritime militias and building islands on atolls to reinforce its claims.

I don't know if the ethno-fascist wing in American politics would ever not have scapegoated China as the next great external enemy, but let's be real, the political Establishment in the United States (Nixon-Reagan-Bush-Clinton consensus) never would have given a damn about Chinese political repression or ethnic cleansing had the CCP not undertaken disruptive militarization in the SCS. Most of the political/blob/business class would in principle have been quite happy to help China mortgage Global South commodities and grow its nominal economy to twice the American's size.


I think the only real benefit to this polarization is in granting more credibility to those like myself that keep stamping the floor and saying that authoritarian regimes like Russia and the PRC are threats to our way of life and we need to limit our exposure to them lest we be forced into an untenable situation in the future.

If that's the goal then the US needs to learn to wield its IMF veto toward those generous developmental economics that we discussed earlier. Over the past few years, the IMF has repeatedly returned to its underhanded roots and imposed austerity requirements on struggling countries while charging them exorbitant fees (including half a billion $ from Ukraine just during the pandemic).


The goal of the US and West in general has almost always (post cold-war) been one of more or less 'open for business' through increased trade and business. The divestment of the West's industrial base to east and south Asia is proof of that.

It's very much been a kind of anarcho-capitalist wag-the-dog deal for us, and I've emphasized many times how exporting corruption that only undermines our superficially rules-based order was one of our greatest failures (specifically America's). As the discussion shows, including my quotations earlier in this post, both China and Russia want to take advantage of an international rules-based order, but only with a set of rules favorable to their authoritarian mode. For the West, corporatocracy is suicide, as it promises the worst of both worlds. It's also not tangential that a bit of EU and NATO "war communism," or less provocatively-said direct industrial management of world-war vintage, would probably allow Germany and the like to surmount their dependence on Russia in the short term and apply maximal pressure through total economic embargo. Was it 40 billion euros spent on Russian oil and gas since the war broke out so far? "And in the West, we allow the market to dictate the strength of our commitment to human rights in Ukraine and elsewhere."

[Suraknar]

First of all, I would like to specify for all, that my reply here is made from a context for several years spanning from the dissolution of the USSR to today including the events in Ukraine in the past 20 years, and specifically since Maidan and 2014 outbreak of the Civil War in the Donbas area.

Russia did not just decide to start this war from one day to another. Putin has been giving everyone indication of Russia's continued frustration since the early 2000's. Over and over. We simply ignored it it seems.

And every time a new Country closer to Russia joined Nato for Russia it was felt like a provocation which we also ignored. By "we" I mean the West, including NA, and EU and NATO.

Also in a general mode, I am discussing with the goal to progress my understanding, and hopefully everyone who is participating, in relation to the topics we engage in. It is not a who is right and who is wrong kind of discussion or at least that is not how I am discussing, thought to specify. I understand all here may have own views on the topic and I respect that, I just am exchanging views and ideas and possible solutions not only for teh specific crisis but also in the long terms for humanity at large.

I think that just discussing the current crisis without trying to identify possible ways to avoid similar crisis in the future does nothing in helping us to create a better future as a Race of intelligent beings populating and shaping this planet that we all share.

Having said this...


There's a lot to unpack here.

NATO never made any promise to Russia. President Bush might have said something but it isn't up to the USA.

Politifact (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/28/candace-owens/fact-checking-claims-nato-us-broke-agreement-again/)


Shifrinson, an associate professor of international relations at Boston University, wrote that while no formal agreement restricted NATO’s expansion, Baker and other diplomats had offered the Soviets verbal assurances that NATO would not enlarge to the east.


Can we safely assume that from the Russian Perspective the US is the leader of NATO? or at least its most influential member, to put it more diplomatically.

The point is that there is factual evidence to such promises having been made, and while not technically official, in the form of written agreement etc we cannot deny that assurances were given to Russia during official negotiations.

Also, my point here is not to say that NATO or the US actually broke some agreement, you cannot break an agreement which does not exist right, rather my point is to show that there is basis for Russia to have a grievance which contributes to the list of elements constituting as a provocation.


I am unclear how exactly Europe has provoked Russia - unless we pretend that Russia somehow owns Eastern Europe.

While I never specifically said that Europe itself (the EU) provoked Russia I think Europe did take part in facilitating the Minsk and Misnk 2 accords, but did nothing thereafter as the Civil War raged in Ukraine.


Ending a post that we should in essence just ignore reality would have been better to start the post so I could have not bothered reading it.

If that is your interpretation then you misunderstood my words. Reality is what is, the sad present state of it that we are still in. I spoke of what we could do for a better future reality. This is part of what I personally think we should do, so I closed my post with my personal thoughts that are not about ignoring reality but rather how can we move forward from here to avoid, in the future similar realities.

The fact is that we have several thousand years of History and the Human Race still fights with itself for the same old reasons without having evolved past its basic Greed and Lust for Power that motivates these geopolitics leading to these conflicts.

It is good to talk about all these but I think part of the thinking that goes in to a debate and a discussion should also be dedicated to identify ways and solution of how to avoid the same situations from happening again moving forward. And of course IF like myself, you as well, discuss for the purpose of progressing one's thinking towards the topics of discussion.



NATO benefits from a renewed sense of purpose but this is due to Russia's starting a conventional war to conquer neighboring territories, something that NATO is designed to stop for its members.
For the US and EU, there's not really much benefit, economically everyone is still recovering from the COVID problems. The US and EU would love to have no conflicts and just truck along making money so the increased tensions really are harmful, especially as the various global corporations try and resolve even more disrupted supply chain issues.
I think the only real benefit to this polarization is in granting more credibility to those like myself that keep stamping the floor and saying that authoritarian regimes like Russia and the PRC are threats to our way of life and we need to limit our exposure to them lest we be forced into an untenable situation in the future.

Heh. And so I tend to agree with you that there is no Benefit to polarize the world in two once again, but to just agree on this, I think is insufficient. See I ask not only for a response but for a reflection. If there is no benefit then maybe we should not just react to what is happening, and start thinking of how to be pro-active too. Proactive towards resolving this crisis but also towards finding ways to avoid such crisis from plaguing the world in the future.


Of course those countries are hugely populated and important, if they don't want to work in a 'rules based' world system and instead go back to the times of 'might makes right' then that's on them. The goal of the US and West in general has almost always (post cold-war) been one of more or less 'open for business' through increased trade and business. The divestment of the West's industrial base to east and south Asia is proof of that.
It's less a split of the economy into two spheres (which we already had in the cold war anyhow) but into a determination of how countries should interact in the future. Economic measures and sanctions are surely preferable to military measures and blockades, right?

Yes this part of the crux of the issue I think though. When you say "rules based" whose rules are we referring to? Who puts these rules in place? What happens when some do not agree with these rules and want some changes?

Maybe the divestment is actually a reaction to a failed imposition of one's rules? The US is not open for business, the US is often open for business according to its rules and benefit. There is a difference.

Yes of course sanctions are better than military measures especially since the danger for a nuclear war is a possibility and this is something we should all, all sides, strive to avoid.

There will be no winners in a nuclear War, only losers. MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is the only reality and deterrent to it.

Nevertheless, some of my question here is in context with the events of several years, not just the events of the past month of so. Because the reality is that Policy is also made for the long term, it is not a day by day precess.



These are nice ideas but how do they get implemented? This is like saying that the way to end violence is everyone just disarms and stops fighting, how does one make the entire species to that?
Transcending borders and economics is something to aspire for but not realistic in the current environment. Even the friendliest of cooperative groups like the EU struggle to work together, doing so with other regional groups is even harder, that's why the UN is sort of just window dressing as it essentially powerless unless the security council advocates action all together.

Well thank you. And I am not saying it is easy, the full answer could be a Book :)

Suffice it to say it all starts with ourselves, if you think it is a good idea, then make it your own and talk about it with those you care about. That is all it takes to start.


There's something even more important to human affairs than greed these days: ethnonationalism, tribalism, and social reaction. Another general tendency to record: Dictators get sloppier, stupider, more paranoid, and more self-absorbed the longer they stay in power. More often than not.

Greed and Lust for Power are common denominator causes of all the suffering in all of history in the world, including the issues you mentioned, they all can be simplified and reduced to a combination of Greed and Lust for Power. This is why, while I agree that each one is important in their own respect for the sake of simplicity I speak only about the two foundational ones. There is of course Ignorance too but that is slightly different problem.

If we manage to address Greed and Lust for Power, I think we would eliminate the majority of causes for suffering on this planet.



It has been suggested that the Thucydides Trap is a misconstrued concept without explanatory power, and that its usual application really reflects a peaking (formerly-rising) power seizing its last opportunity to compete. Through this lens Sparta attacked Athens because it was losing hope of overtaking the Athenian Empire.

Maybe this has been suggested, yet I think it is a false position. The fact remains that the Thucydides Trap is not just a concept, but actual events leading to it and faced by the competing power which they have to deal with the situation they face one way or another, or at least compelled to deal with it. In the last 500 years the situation of the Trap has risen in 16 occasions, 12 of these ended up in War. and only 4 averted it.

In more specific terms, Thucydides Trap explains how rising and declining powers are destined for conflict, yet this is not done for the sake of prediction but rather for the sake of prevention. The goal here is not to explain why America and Chine could and will come in to conflict but rather to help us find ways to avert and void such conflict.


I would challenge this concept of the conflict in its totality - it's the Russian government's version of the story, twisted in fact and actualized by its own broken promises -


They don't. Thinking of geopolitics in terms of grand conspiracies is the most dangerous mistake one can make. The desperation of Western desires to avoid conflict with Russia and China is amply demonstrated by the West's persistent and ongoing economic entanglements with them, and the consistent emphasis on avoiding securitized foreign policy or "provocations." German/French/Italian/Austrian Ostpolitik, British plutophilia, etc. Trump's administration was just the exception that proved the rule.

I would offer this short read in response to both your replies.

the root causes of the war in ukraine (https://arretsurinfo.ch/the-root-causes-of-the-war-in-ukraine/)


Without going back to Ukraine, the ? historical and religious cradle ? of Russia, the root cause of this war traces back to 1997 when Zbigniew Brezinski, the most influential adviser to American presidents for thirty years, published his book “The Great Chessboard”, in which he explained that the strategic goal of the United States is to seize Ukraine and dismember Russia to break its power in Europe and prevent it from joining Germany. 1997 was also the year in which the first phase of this plan was set up with the entry into NATO of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary…

PS: The referred book is The Grand Chessboard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard) I think the title got lost in Translation (the original article is in French).

Geopolitics would never work if they are not conducted in the fashion of "grand conspiracies", or rather long term plans with specific goals (in this case the continued Primacy of the US), the word conspiracy has a negative connotation. But here in lies the issue. Because long term plans for the well being of one or one group also means long term plans for the continued suppression of another.

This is why we have what we have as a world and not a better one, albeit, admittedly, it could also be a much worse one too. Yet, my goal is continued progress for everyone, this is why I advocate that the root of the problem is the way we have been doing things and also make it a point to say that we have not been learning from our past mistakes and keep making new ones. It is no longer proper or enough that Geopolitics are conducted in such a way as to ensure the Primacy of a select few.


but will leave it at the following for now: Blue Helmets are peacekeepers, not peacemakers. They can't force anyone, let alone a nuclear state, to act a certain way.

I understand very well the role of the Blue Helms as a Canadian ;) Yet, I think you missed or misunderstood what I was referring to or maybe I was not specific enough.

I was talking about bringing in the Blue Helms in 2014 when the Donbas declared its independence, in order to keep the peace between the Eastern and Wester Ukrainians, and avoid 14,000 deaths in the 8 years that followed.

I think that the world had an opportunity there that was missed. And I think that we were very slow to act properly too. Was it because acting in such a way was against some geopolitical agenda and goal or simply because of negligence and lack of competence? This is still an area of inquiry.

Yet if we had acted in such an effort, not only would we have saved live but also shown genuine intentions towards peace and stability plus may even have prevented the current War since Russia would have even less Justification or Causus Beli for it.


There is almost no popular national consciousness of universal solidarity in the vein you describe, let alone international popular consciousness. Zizek doesn't have much to offer about it - "Something like a new non-aligned movement is needed, not in the sense that countries should be neutral in the ongoing war, but in the sense that we should question the entire notion of the “clash of civilizations.” - but I believe any plausible direction for a transnational popular front would have to be rooted in some sort of ideological non-alignment, which is to say a different sort of "clash of civilizations" than has previously been conceptualized. It would reflect an active clash between the global 'progressive civilization' and the individual national reactionary/imperialist civilizations.

True there may not be any popular national consciousness of universal solidarity as I describe, if there were, we would not be having the crisis and suffering that we have now. yet that is kinda the point of expressing it. So, there is at least one person having that thinking, and I really do not think that I am the only one with this thinking. So we could safely say that there is at least some quantity of people which could form a group sharing this universal solidarity, which is just not popular yet.

I think, the fact that this vain of thinking as I describe it is not popular, does not invalidate its value as a possible solution to the suffering and eventual self-destruction of the people of this world. Appeal to popularity constitutes a fallacy right?

What matters firstly is if the suggested solution has that value towards solving the intended problem, and, if yes then we should acknowledge that it has the potential to become popular and therefore, thirdly, it only needs to be further shared and proliferated.

---

Finally, does anyone care to say anything about the right to self determination? If we are expected to defend Ukraine's right to self Determination, do you think that Ukraine itself should be also expected to do defend that right for others? How about for its own people who wish to part ways? How about the Russophone population in Donbas?

It feels to me that there is a double standard going on (in more than one ways if we start thinking Yemen, Cyprus, Syria and even Iraq), don't you?

[Montmorency]

First of all, I would like to specify for all, that my reply here is made from a context for several years spanning from the dissolution of the USSR to today including the events in Ukraine in the past 20 years, and specifically since Maidan and 2014 outbreak of the Civil War in the Donbas area.

Russia did not just decide to start this war from one day to another. Putin has been giving everyone indication of Russia's continued frustration since the early 2000's. Over and over. We simply ignored it it seems.

And every time a new Country closer to Russia joined Nato for Russia it was felt like a provocation which we also ignored. By "we" I mean the West, including NA, and EU and NATO.

In the end we ignored it by not confronting Russia thoroughly enough. We rewarded Putin's provocations.


Also, my point here is not to say that NATO or the US actually broke some agreement, you cannot break an agreement which does not exist right, rather my point is to show that there is basis for Russia to have a grievance which contributes to the list of elements constituting as a provocation.

Anyone can claim anything as a grievance. The US has claimed many grievances against many countries. That a grievance exists doesn't make it credible, legitimate, or productive. But again, it is a huge mistake to think of this war as having arisen out of some grievance against the West. The casus belli for Russian nationalists is much more inward-looking. It's anxiety about the imagined integrity of their "Russian World," not any hostile actions of the European World or the American World.


While I never specifically said that Europe itself (the EU) provoked Russia I think Europe did take part in facilitating the Minsk and Misnk 2 accords, but did nothing thereafter as the Civil War raged in Ukraine.

With all due respect, there was no civil war. We can't prevent conflicts in the future if we don't understand their causes and their nature.


Yet if we had acted in such an effort, not only would we have saved live but also shown genuine intentions towards peace and stability plus may even have prevented the current War since Russia would have even less Justification or Causus Beli for it.

Why would Putin have allowed Blue Helmets into Donbas? He claimed to be sending Russian soldiers as peacekeepers! Orwell warned us.

As I said, peacekeepers don't make peace. Only the armed groups involved, and their leadership, can do that. The United Nations could not have acted without the consent and cooperation of Russia.


If we manage to address Greed and Lust for Power, I think we would eliminate the majority of causes for suffering on this planet.

The great dilemma of anarchism is, how can one eliminate or repress power without power?


What matters firstly is if the suggested solution has that value towards solving the intended problem, and, if yes then we should acknowledge that it has the potential to become popular and therefore, thirdly, it only needs to be further shared and proliferated.

But it's not a solution, it's a desirable end-state depicting what comes after the solution(s). It's like saying immortality is a solution to death - how is that condition brought about? Everyone wishes for peace and prosperity in the abstract (do you think Putin wants war for its own sake?) but if wishes were ponies, everyone would ride. Gandhi wanted peace, and though he didn't get it he did work for it. Hitler wanted peace too, peace under the Thousand-Year Reich, and we had to deliver peace to him at the barrel of a gun.

So we have to be more sophisticated than just expressing approval of good concepts and cogitate in terms of right and wrong, and cause and effect. What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?


Finally, does anyone care to say anything about the right to self determination? If we are expected to defend Ukraine's right to self Determination, do you think that Ukraine itself should be also expected to do defend that right for others? How about for its own people who wish to part ways? How about the Russophone population in Donbas?

The reality is that the rhetoric of self-determination with respect to - by now pre-war - Russian-controlled Donbas is only Russian propaganda. The double standard is in only listening to a dictator's side of the story. Putin did not respect the locals' self-determination when he installed military government in Crimea and Donbas, expelled pro-Ukrainian people from their homes, imported Russian colonists, and forcefully kept the Ukrainian government from exercising its sovereignty. The Ukrainian government never violated any group's or region's right to self-determination in this way. The common people of the region, before the confrontation began, did not want to secede from Ukraine. It is only the case that Putin's government and Russian nationalists wanted to grab territory for Russia. Imagine if Napoleon annexed Switzerland in the name of the self-determination of French-speaking peoples; obviously that wouldn't have been the motivation. At least the Austrians and Sudetenland Germans whom Hitler annexed actually did want to join the Reich for the most part. But either way, you can't name anschluss "self-determination," or else we're going to start seeing a whole lot more "self-determination" around the world soon.

Now, as a result of sorting and other social effects between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled regions over 8 years, there is actually a significant divergence between the attitudes of the populations - or there was before the war, it's harder to say now. Unsurprisingly, people living under Russian control became more pro-Russian than people living under Ukrainian control. But even so, an honest referendum in even Russian-annexed Donbas would probably choose to remain part of Ukraine. Just because a dictator doesn't like that fact is not a provocation toward him - it should rather be a provocation for every one of us who rejects a world ruled by greed and lust for power!!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/17/russia-wants-recognize-independence-two-eastern-ukraine-republics-what-do-people-there-think/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/
https://www.zois-berlin.de/en/publications/attitudes-and-identities-across-the-donbas-front-line-what-has-changed-from-2016-to-2019

https://i.imgur.com/DenQBjU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DaT4K95.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/JgQ8VfX.png
https://i.imgur.com/8p8Kd9x.png


I would offer this short read in response to both your replies.

the root causes of the war in ukraine

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Without going back to Ukraine, the ? historical and religious cradle ? of Russia, the root cause of this war traces back to 1997 when Zbigniew Brezinski, the most influential adviser to American presidents for thirty years, published his book ?The Great Chessboard?, in which he explained that the strategic goal of the United States is to seize Ukraine and dismember Russia to break its power in Europe and prevent it from joining Germany. 1997 was also the year in which the first phase of this plan was set up with the entry into NATO of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary?


PS: The referred book is The Grand Chessboard I think the title got lost in Translation (the original article is in French).

I've read this book. Two things, and both are important. First, there is zero evidence that American foreign policy in Ukraine is or has ever been some sort of calculated spiteful suppression of Russia's place under the sun. Second, that is not what Brzezinski wrote. THAT IS A LIE - MADE UP. Whoever that Swiss commentator is, they were trying to deceive their readers.

What Brzezinski wrote about was Russian national recovery and its democratization and "Europeanization," and the peril of Russian nationalists rediscovering "messianism" over pragmatism.


The end of the division of Europe should not precipitate a step back to a Europe of quarrelsome nation-states but should be the point of departure for shaping a larger and increasingly integrated Europe, reinforced by a widened NATO and rendered even more secure by a constructive security relationship with Russia. Hence, America's central geostrategic goal in Europe can be summed up quite simply: it is to consolidate through a more genuine transatlantic partnership the U.S. bridgehead on the Eurasian continent so that an enlarging Europe can become a more viable springboard for projecting into Eurasia the international democratic and cooperative order.

Most troubling of all was the loss of Ukraine. The appearance of an independent Ukrainian state not only challenged all Russians to rethink the nature of their own political and ethnic identity, but it represented a vital geopolitical setback for the Russian state. The repudiation of more than three hundred years of Russian imperial history meant the loss of a potentially rich industrial and agricultural economy and of 52 million people ethnically and religiously sufficiently close to the Russians to make Russia into a truly large and confident imperial state. Ukraine's independence also deprived Russia of its dominant position on the Black Sea, where Odessa had served as Russia's vital gateway to trade with the Mediterranean and the world beyond. The loss of Ukraine was geopolitically pivotal, for it drastically limited Russia's geostrategic options. Even without the Baltic states and Poland, a Russia that retained control over Ukraine could still seek to be the leader of an assertive Eurasian empire, in which Moscow could dominate the non-Slavs in the South and Southeast of the former Soviet Union. But without Ukraine and its 52 million fellow Slavs, any attempt by Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire was likely to leave Russia entangled alone in protracted conflicts with the nationally and religiously aroused nonSlavs, the war with Chechnya perhaps simply being the first example. Moreover, given Russia's declining birthrate and the explosive birthrate among the Central Asians, any new Eurasian entity based purely on Russian power, without Ukraine, would inevitably become less European and more Asiatic with each passing year

Russia's only real geostrategic option?the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself?is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO. Such a Europe is taking shape, as we have seen in chapter 3, and it is also likely to remain linked closely to America. That is the Europe to which Russia will have to relate, if it is to avoid dangerous geopolitical isolation. For America, Russia is much too weak to be a partner but still too strong to be simply its patient. It is more likely to become a problem, unless America fosters a setting that helps to convince the Russians that the best choice for their country is an increasingly organic connection with a transatlantic Europe
[...]
Only a Russia that is willing to accept the new realities of Europe, both economic and geopolitical, will be able to benefit internally from the enlarging scope of transcontinental European cooperation in commerce, communications, investment, and edu-cation... It also implies that if Russia pursues this path, it will have no choice other than eventually to emulate the course chosen by post-Ottoman Turkey, when it decided to shed its imperial ambitions and embarked very deliberately on the road of modernization, Europeanization, and democratization. No other option can offer Russia the benefits that a modern, rich, and democratic Europe linked to. America can. Europe and America are not a threat to a Russia that is a nonexpansive national and democratic state. They have no territorial designs on Russia, which China someday might have, nor do they share an insecure and potentially violent frontier, which is certainly the case with Russia's ethnically and territorially unclear border with the Muslim nations to the south. On the contrary, for Europe as well as for America, a national and democratic Russia is a geopolitically desirable entity, a source of stability in the volatile Eurasian complex... Most important in that respect is the need for clear and unambiguous acceptance by Russia of Ukraine's separate existence, of its borders, and of its distinctive national identity

Russians will eventually have to come to recognize that Russia's national redefinition is not an act of capitulation but one of liberation. They will have to accept that what Yeltsin said in Kiev in 1990 about a nonimperial future for Russia was absolutely on
the mark. And a genuinely nonimperial Russia will still be a great power, spanning Eurasia, the world's largest territorial unit by far. In any case, a redefinition of "What is Russia and where is Russia" will probably occur only by stages, and it will require a wise
and firm Western posture. America and Europe will have to help. They should offer Russia not only a special treaty or charter with NATO, but they should also begin the process of exploring with Russia the shaping of an eventual transcontinental system of security and cooperation that goes considerably beyond the loose structure of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). And if Russia consolidates its internal democratic institutions and makes tangible progress in free-market-based
economic development, its ever-closer association with NATO and the EU should not be ruled out. At the same time, it is equally important for the West, especially for America, to pursue policies that perpetuate the dilemma of the one alternative for Russia. The political and economic stabilization of the new post-Soviet states is a major factor in necessitating Russia's historical self-redefinition. Hence, support for the new post-Soviet states?for geopolitical pluralism in the space of the former Soviet empire?has to be an integral part of a policy designed to induce Russia to exercise unambiguously its European option. Among these states, three are geopolitically especially important: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.
[...]
Russia, despite its protestations, is likely to acquiesce in the expansion of NATO in 1999 to include several Central European countries, because the cultural and social gap between Russia and Central Europe has widened so much since the fall of communism.
By contrast, Russia will find it incomparably harder to acquiesce in Ukraine's accession to NATO, for to do so would be to acknowledge that Ukraine's destiny is no longer organically linked to Russia's. Yet if Ukraine is to survive as an independent state, it will
have to become part of Central Europe rather than Eurasia, and if it is to be part of Central Europe, then it will have to partake fully of Central Europe's links to NATO and the European Union. Russia's acceptance of these links would then define Russia's own decision to be also truly a part of Europe. Russia's refusal would be tantamount to the rejection of Europe in favor of a solitary "Eurasian" identity and existence. The key point to bear in mind is that Russia cannot be in Europe without Ukraine also being in Europe, whereas Ukraine can be in Europe without Russia being in Europe. Assuming that Russia decides to cast its lot with Europe, it follows that ultimately it is in Russia's own interest that Ukraine be included in the expanding European structures.
[...]
In that manner, in the course of the first two decades of the next century, Russia could increasingly become an integral part of a Europe that embraces not only Ukraine but reaches to the Urals and even beyond. An association or even some form of membership for Russia in the European and transatlantic structures would in turn open the doors to the inclusion of the three Caucasian countries?Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan?that so desperately aspire to a European connection. One cannot predict how fast that process can move, but one thing is certain: it will move faster if a geopolitical context is shaped that propels Russia in that direction, while foreclosing other temptations. And the faster Russia moves toward Europe, the sooner the black hole of Eurasia will be filled by a society that is increasingly modern and democratic. Indeed, for Russia the dilemma of the one alternative is no longer a matter of making a geopolitical choice but of facing up to the imperatives of survival.

More within

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia.
[...]
The above quotations define well?even though with some animus?the dilemma that the United States faces. To what extent should Russia be helped economically?which inevitably strengthens Russia politically and militarily?and to what extent should
the newly independent states be simultaneously assisted in the defense and consolidation of their independence? Can Russia be both powerful and a democracy at the same time? If it becomes powerful again, will it not seek to regain its lost imperial domain,
and can it then be both an empire and a democracy? U.S. policy toward the vital geopolitical pivots of Ukraine and Azerbaijan cannot skirt that issue, and America thus faces a difficult dilemma regarding tactical balance and strategic purpose. Internal Russian recovery is essential to Russia's democratization and eventual Europeanization. But any recovery of its imperial potential would be inimical to both of these objectives. Moreover, it is over this issue that differences could develop between America and some European states, especially as the EU and NATO expand. Should Russia be considered a candidate for eventual membership in either structure? And what then about Ukraine? The costs of the exclusion of Russia could be high?creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in the Russian mindset?but the results of dilution of either the EU or NATO could also be quite destabilizing.

Europe also serves as the springboard for the progressive expansion of democracy deeper into Eurasia. Europe's expansion eastward would consolidate the democratic victory of the 1990s
[...]
Such a larger Europe would be able to exercise a magnetic attraction on the states located even farther east, building a network of ties with Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, drawing them into increasingly binding cooperation while proselytizing common democratic principles. Eventually, such a Europe could become one of the vital pillars of an American-sponsored larger Eurasian structure of security and cooperation

Not only did German-Polish trade literally explode (in 1995 Poland superseded Russia as Germany's largest trading partner in the East), but Germany became Poland's principal sponsor for membership in the EU and (together with the United States) in NATO. It is no exaggeration to say that by the middle of the decade, Polish-German reconciliation was assuming a geopolitical importance in Central Europe matching the earlier impact on Western Europe of the Franco-German reconciliation. Through Poland, German influence could radiate northward?into the Baltic states?and eastward?into Ukraine and Belarus.

Neither France nor Germany is sufficiently strong to construct Europe on its own or to resolve with Russia the ambiguities inherent in the definition of Europe's geographic scope. That requires energetic, focused, and determined American involvement, particularly with the Germans, in defining Europe's scope and hence also in coping with such sensitive?especially to Russia?issues as the eventual status within the European system of the Baltic republics and Ukraine.

In any case, it ought to be axiomatic that Europe's political unity and security are indivisible. As a practical matter, in fact it is difficult to conceive of a truly united Europe without a common security arrangement with America. It follows, therefore, that states that are in a position to begin and are invited to undertake accession talks with the EU should automatically also be viewed henceforth as subject in effect to NATO's presumptive protection.
[...]
Somewhere between 2005 and 2010, Ukraine, especially if in the meantime the country has made significant progress in its domestic reforms and has succeeded in becoming more evidently identified as a Central European country, should become ready for serious negotiations with both the EUand NATO.

In the meantime, it is likely that Franco-German-Polish collaboration within the EU and NATO will have deepened considerably, especially in the area of defense. That collaboration could become the Western core of any wider European security arrangements that might eventually embrace both Russia and Ukraine. Given the special geopolitical interest of Germany and Poland in Ukraine's independence, it is also quite possible that Ukraine will gradually be drawn into the special Franco-German-Polish relationship. By the year 2010, Franco-German-Polish-Ukrainian political collaboration, engaging some 230 million people, could evolve into a partnership enhancing Europe's geostrategic depth (see map above). Whether the above scenario emerges in a benign fashion or in the context of intensifying tensions with Russia is of great importance. Russia should be continuously reassured that the doors to Europe are open, as are the doors to its eventual participation in an expanded transatlantic system of security and, perhaps at some future point, in a new trans-Eurasian system of security. To give credence to these assurances, various cooperative links between Russia and Europe?in all fields?should be very deliberately promoted. (Russia's relationship to Europe, and the role of Ukraine in that regard, are discussed more fully in the next chapter.) If Europe succeeds both in unifying and in expanding and if Russia in the meantime undertakes successful democratic consolidation and social modernization, at some point Russia can also become eligible for a more organic relationship with Europe

The deliberately friendly posture adopted by the West, especially by the United States, toward the new Russian leadership was a source of encouragement to the post-Soviet "westernizers" in the Russian foreign policy establishment. It both reinforced its proAmerican inclinations and seduced its membership personally. The new leaders were flattered to be on a first-name basis with the top policy makers of the world's only superpower, and they found it easy to deceive themselves into thinking that they, too, were the leaders of a superpower. When the Americans launched the slogan of "the mature strategic partnership" between Washington and Moscow, to the Russians it seemed as if a new democratic American-Russian condominium?replacing the former contest?had thus been sanctified. That condominium would be global in scope. Russia thereby would not only be the legal successor to the former Soviet Union but the de facto partner in a global accommodation, based on genuine equality. As the new Russian leaders never tired of asserting, that meant not only that the rest of the world should recognize Russia as America's equal but that no global problem could be tackled or resolved without Russia's participation and/or permission. Although it was not openly stated, implicit in this illusion was also the notion that Central Europe would somehow remain, or might even choose to remain, a region of special political proximity to Russia. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon would not be followed by the gravitation of their former members either toward NATO or even only toward the EU.
Western aid, in the meantime, would enable the Russian government to undertake domestic reforms, withdrawing the state from economic life and permitting the consolidation of democratic institutions. Russia's economic recovery, its special status as America's coequal partner, and its sheer attractiveness would then encourage the recently independent states of the new CIS?grateful that the new Russia was not threatening them and increasingly aware of the benefits of some form of union with Russia?to engage in ever-closer economic and then political integration with Russia, thereby also enhancing Russia's scope and power. The problem with this approach was that it was devoid of either international or domestic realism. While the concept of "mature strategic partnership" was flattering, it was also deceptive. America was neither inclined to share global power with Russia nor could it, even if it had wanted to do so. The new Russia was simply too weak, too devastated by three-quarters of a century of Communist rule, and too socially backward to be a real global partner. In Washington's view, Germany, Japan, and China were at least as important and influential. Moreover, on some of the central geostrategic issues of national interest to America?in Europe, the
Middle East, and the Far East?it was far from the case that American and Russian aspirations were the same. Once differences inevitably started to surface, the disproportion in political power, financial clout, technological innovation, and cultural appeal made
the "mature strategic partnership" seem hollow?and it struck an increasing number of Russians as deliberately designed to deceive Russia.
Perhaps that disappointment might have been averted if earlier on?during the American-Russian honeymoon?America had embraced the concept of NATO expansion and had at the same time offered Russia "a deal it could not refuse," namely, a special cooperative relationship between Russia and NATO. Had America clearly and decisively embraced the idea of widening the alliance, with the stipulation that Russia should somehow be included inthe process, perhaps Moscow's subsequent sense of disappointment with "the mature partnership" as well as the progressive weakening of the political position of the westernizers in the Kremlin might have been averted. The moment to have done so was during the second half of 1993, right after Yeltsin's public endorsement in August of Poland's interest in joining the transatlantic alliance as being consistent with "the interests of Russia." Instead, the Clinton administration, then still pursuing its "Russia first" policy, agonized for two more years, while the Kremlin changed its tune and became increasingly hostile to the emerging but indecisive signals of the American intention to widen NATO. By the time Washington decided, in 1996, to make NATO enlargement a central goal in America's policy of shaping a larger and more secure Euro-Atlantic community, the Russians had locked themselves into rigid opposition. Hence, the year 1993 might be viewed as the year of a missed historic opportunity.
Admittedly, not all of the Russian concerns regarding NATO expansion lacked legitimacy or were motivated by malevolent motives. Some opponents, to be sure, especially among the Russian military, partook of a Cold War mentality, viewing NATO expansion not as an integral part of Europe's own growth but rather as the advance toward Russia of an American-led and still hostile alliance. Some of the Russian foreign policy elite?most of whom were actually former Soviet officials?persisted in the long-standing geostrategic view that America had no place in Eurasia and that NATO expansion was largely driven by the American desire to increase its sphere of influence. Some of their opposition also derived from the hope that an unattached Central Europe would
some day again revert to Moscow's sphere of geopolitical influence, once Russia had regained its health. But many Russian democrats also feared that the expansion of NATO would mean that Russia would be left outside of Europe, ostracized politically, and considered unworthy of membership in the institutional framework of European civilization. Cultural insecurity compounded the political fears, making NATO expansion seem like the culmination of the long-standing Western policy designed to isolate Russia, leaving it alone in the world and vulnerable to its various enemies. Moreover, the Russian democrats simply could not grasp the depth either of the Central Europeans' resentment over half a century of Moscow's domination or of their desire to be part of a larger Euro-Atlantic system.
On balance, it is probable that neither the disappointment nor the weakening of the Russian westernizers could have been avoided. For one thing, the new Russian elite, quite divided within itself and with neither its president nor its foreign minister capable
of providing consistent geostrategic leadership, was not able to define clearly what the new Russia wanted in Europe, nor could it realistically assess the actual limitations of Russia's weakened condition. Moscow's politically embattled democrats could not
bring themselves to state boldly that a democratic Russia does not oppose the enlargement of the transatlantic democratic community and that it wishes to be associated with it. The delusion of a shared global status with America made it difficult for the Moscow
political elite to abandon the idea of a privileged geopolitical position for Russia, not only in the area of the former Soviet Union itself but even in regard to the former Central European satellite states. These developments played into the hands of the nationalists, who by 1994 were beginning to recover their voices, and the militarists, who by then had become Yeltsin's critically important do-mestic supporters. Their increasingly shrill and occasionally threatening reactions to the aspirations of the Central Europeans merely intensified the determination of the former satellite states?mindful of their only recently achieved liberation from Russian rule?to gain the safe haven of NATO.

The post-Soviet Russian elite had apparently also expected that the West would aid in, or at least not impede, the restoration of a central Russian role in the post-Soviet space. They thus resented the West's willingness to help the newly independent postSoviet states consolidate their separate political existence.
[...]
In this regard, Ukraine was critical. The growing American inclination, especially by 1994, to assign a high priority to AmericanUkrainian relations and to help Ukraine sustain its new national freedom was viewed by many in Moscow?even by its "westernizers"?as a policy directed at the vital Russian interest in eventually bringing Ukraine back into the common fold. That Ukraine will eventually somehow be "reintegrated" remains an article of faith among many members of the Russian political elite. As a result,
Russia's geopolitical and historical questioning of Ukraine's separate status collided head-on with the American view that an imperial Russia could not be a democratic Russia. Additionally, there were purely domestic reasons that a "mature strategic partnership" between two "democracies" proved to be illusory. Russia was just too backward and too devastated by Communist rule to be a viable democratic partner of the United States. That central reality could not be obscured by high-sounding rhetoric about partnership. Post-Soviet Russia, moreover, had made only a partial break with the past. Almost all of its "democratic" leaders?even if genuinely disillusioned with the Soviet past?were not only the products of the Soviet system but former senior members of its ruling elite. They were not former dissidents, as in Poland or the Czech Republic. The key institutions of Soviet power?though weakened, demoralized, and corrupted?were still there. Symbolic of that reality and of the lingering hold of the Communist past was the historic centerpiece of Moscow: the continued presence of the Lenin mausoleum. It was as if post-Nazi Germany were governed by former middle-level Nazi "Gauleiters" spouting democratic slogans, with a Hitler mausoleum still standing in the center of Berlin

In brief, neither the objective nor the subjective preconditions for an effective global partnership existed in the immediate years following the Soviet Union's collapse. The democratic "westernizers" simply wanted too much and could deliver too little. They desired an equal partnership?or, rather, a condominium?with America, a relatively free hand within the CIS, and a geopolitical no-man's-land in Central Europe. Yet their ambivalence about Soviet history, their lack of realism regarding global power, the depth of the economic crisis, and the absence of widespread social support meant that they could not deliver the stable and truly democratic Russia that the concept of equal partnership implied. Russia first had to go through a prolonged process of political reform, an equally long process of democratic stabilization, and an even longer process of socioeconomic modernization and then manage a deeper shift from an imperial to a national mindset regarding the new geopolitical realities not only in Central Europe but especially within the former Russian Empire before a real partnership with America could become a viable geopolitical option

In its narrowest form, the "near abroad" priority involved the perfectly reasonable proposition that Russia must first concentrate on relations with the newly independent states, especially as all of them remained tied to Russia by the realities of the deliberately fostered Soviet policy of promoting economic interdependence among them. That made both economic and geopolitical sense. The "common economic space," of which the new Russian leaders spoke often, was a reality that could not be ignored by the leaders of the newly independent states. Cooperation, and even some integration, was an economic necessity. Thus, it was not only normal but desirable to promote joint CIS institutions in order to reverse the economic disruptions and fragmentation producedby the political breakup of the Soviet Union

A typical but by no means extreme example was the argument made by Y. Ambartsumov, the chairman in 1993 of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and a former advocate of the "partnership" priority, who openly asserted that the former Soviet space was an exclusive Russian sphere of geopolitical influence. In January 1994, he was echoed by the heretofore energetic advocate of the pro-Western priority, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who stated that Russia "must preserve its military presence in regions that have been in its sphere of interest for centuries." In fact, Izvestiia reported on April 8,1994, that Russia had succeeded in retaining no fewer than twenty-eight military bases on the soil of the newly independent states?and a line drawn on a map linking the Russian military deployments in Kaliningrad, Moldova, Crimea, Armenia, Tajikistan, and the Kuril Islands would roughly approximate the outer limits of the former Soviet Union, as in the map on page 108. In September 1995, President Yeltsin issued an official document on Russian policy toward the CIS that codified Russian goals as follows:
[...]
One should note the emphasis placed on the political dimension of the effort, on the reference to a single entity claiming "its" place in the world system, and on Russia's dominant role within that new entity. In keeping with this emphasis, Moscow insisted
that political and military ties between Russia and the newly constituted CIS also be reinforced: that a common military command be created; that the armed forces of the CIS states be linked by a formal treaty; that the "external" borders of the CIS be subject to centralized (meaning Moscow's) control; that Russian forces play the decisive role in any peacekeeping actions within the CIS; and that a common foreign policy be shaped within the CIS, whose main institutions have come to be located in Moscow (and not in
Minsk, as originally agreed in 1991), with the Russian president presiding at the CIS summit meetings. And that was not all. The September 1995 document also declared that Russian television and radio broadcasting in the near abroad should be guaranteed, the dissemination of Russian press in the region should be supported, and Russia should train national cadres for CIS states. Special attention should be given to restoring Russia's position as the main educational center on the territory of the post-Soviet space, bearing in mind the need to educate the young generation in CIS states in a spirit of friendly relations with Russia. Reflecting this mood, in early 1996 the Russian Duma went so far as to declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be invalid

As early as the mid-1920s, this case was articulated persuasively by Prince N. S. Trubetzkoy, a leading exponent of Eurasianism, who wrote that [c]ommunism was in fact a disguised version of Europeanism in destroying the spiritual foundations and national uniqueness of Russian life, in propagating there the materialist frame of reference that actually governs both Europe and America ...Our task is to create a completely new culture, our own culture, which will not resemble European civilization ... when
Russia ceases to be a distorted reflection of European civilization ... when she becomes once again herself: Russia-Eurasia, the conscious heir to and bearer of the great legacy of Genghis Khan.
[...]
Gumilev warned that adaptation to the West would mean nothing less for the Russian people than the loss of their own "ethnos and soul." These views were echoed, though more primitively, by a variety of Russian nationalist politicians These views were echoed, though more primitively, by a variety of Russian nationalist politicians. Yeltsin's former vice president, Aleksandr Rutskoi, for example, asserted that "it is apparent from looking at our country's geopolitical situation that Russia represents the only bridge between Asia and Europe. Whoever becomes the master of this space will become the master of the world." Yeltsin's 1996 Communist challenger, Gennadii Zyuganov, despite his Marxist-Leninist vocation, embraced Eurasianism's mystical emphasis on the special spiritual and missionary role of the Russian people in the vast spaces of Eurasia, arguing that Russia was thereby endowed both with a unique cultural vocation and with a specially advantageous geographic basis for the exercise of global leadership.

To a degree, the attempt to assign to the "near abroad" the highest priority in Russian geopolitical thinking was justified in the sense that some measure of order and accommodation between postimperial Russia and the newly independent states was an absolute necessity, in terms of security and economics. However, what gave much of the discussion a surrealistic touch was the lingering notion that in some fashion, whether it came about either voluntarily (because of economics) or as a consequence of Russia's eventual recovery of its lost power?not to speak of Russia's special Eurasian or Slavic mission?the political "integration" of the former empire was both desirable and feasible. In this regard, the frequently invoked comparison with the EU
neglects a crucial distinction: the EU, even allowing for Germany's special influence, is not dominated by a single power that alone overshadows all the other members combined, in relative GNP, population, or territory. Nor is the EU the successor to a national
empire, with the liberated members deeply suspicious that "integration" is a code word for renewed subordination. Even so, one can easily imagine what the reaction of the European states would have been if Germany had declared formally that its goal was to
consolidate and expand its leading role in the EU along the lines of Russia's pronouncement of September 1995 cited earlier.
The analogy with the EU suffers from yet another deficiency. The open and relatively developed Western European economies were ready for democratic integration, and the majority of Western Europeans perceived tangible economic and political benefits in
such integration. The poorer West European countries were also able to benefit from substantial subsidies. In contrast, the newly independent states viewed Russia as politically unstable, as still entertaining domineering ambitions, and, economically, as an obstacle to their participation in the global economy and to their access to much-needed foreign investment. Opposition to Moscow's notions of "integration" was particularly strong in Ukraine. Its leaders quickly recognized that such "integration," especially in light of Russian reservations regarding the legitimacy of Ukrainian independence, would eventually lead to the loss of national sovereignty. Moreover, the heavy-handed Russian treatment of the new Ukrainian state?its unwillingness to grant recognition of Ukraine's borders, its questioning of Ukraine's right to Crimea, its insistence on exclusive extraterritorial control over the port of Sevastopol?gave the aroused Ukrainian national-ism a distinctively anti-Russian edge. The self-definition of Ukrainian nationhood, during the critical formative stage in the history of the new state, was thus diverted from its traditional anti-Polish or anti-Romanian orientation and became focused instead on opposition to any Russian proposals for a more integrated CIS, for a special Slavic community (with Russia and Belarus), or for a Eurasian Union, deciphering them as Russian imperial tactics.
Ukraine's determination to preserve its independence was encouraged by external support. Although initially the West, especially the United States, had been tardy in recognizing the geopolitical importance of a separate Ukrainian state, by the mid1990s both America and Germany had become strong backers of Kiev's separate identity. In July 1996, the U.S. secretary of defense declared, "I cannot overestimate the importance of Ukraine as an independent country to the security and stability of all of Europe,"
while in September, the German chancellor?notwithstanding his strong support for President Yeltsin?went even further in declaring that "Ukraine's firm place in Europe can no longer be challenged by anyone ... No one will be able any more to dispute
Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity." American policy makers also came to describe the American-Ukrainian relationship as "a strategic partnership," deliberately invoking the same phrase used to describe the American-Russian relationship.
Without Ukraine, as already noted, an imperial restoration based either on the CIS or on Eurasianism was not a viable option. An empire without Ukraine would eventually mean a Russia that would become more "Asianized" and more remote from Europe.
Moreover, Eurasianism was also not especially appealing to the newly independent Central Asians, few of whom were eager for a new union with Moscow.
Uzbekistan became particularly assertive in supporting Ukraine's objections to any elevation of the CIS into a supranational entity and in opposing the Russian initiatives designed to enhance the CIS. Other CIS states, also wary of Moscow's intentions, tended to
cluster around Ukraine and Uzbekistan in opposing or evading Moscow's pressures for closer political and military integration. Moreover, a sense of national consciousness was deepening in almost alt of the new states, a consciousness increasingly focused
on repudiating past submission to Moscow as colonialism and on eradicating its various legacies. Thus, even the ethnically vulnerable Kazakstan joined the other Central Asian states in abandoning the Cyrillic alphabet and replacing it with the Latin script as
adapted earlier by Turkey. In effect, by the mid-1990s a bloc, quietly led by Ukraine and comprising Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and sometimes also Kazakstan, Georgia, and Moldova, had informally emerged to obstruct Russian efforts to use the CIS
as the tool for political integration.

In brief, the ultimate geopolitical inadequacy of the "near abroad" priority was that Russia was not strong enough politically to impose its will and not attractive enough economically to be able to seduce the new states. Russian pressure merely made them seek more external ties, first and foremost with the West but in some cases also with China and the key Islamic countries to the south. When Russia threatened to form its own military bloc in response to NATO's expansion, it begged the question "With whom?" And it begged the even more painful answer: at the most, maybe with Belarus and Tajikistan. The new states, if anything, were increasingly inclined to distrust even perfectly legitimate and needed forms of economic integration with Russia, fearing their potential political consequences. At the same time, the notions of Russia's alleged Eurasian mission and of the Slavic mystique served only to isolate Russia further from Europe and, more generally, from the West, thereby perpetuating the post-Soviet crisis and delaying the needed modernization and westernization of Russian society along the lines of what Kemal Ataturk did in Turkey in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's collapse. The "near abroad" option thus offered Russia not a geopolitical solution but a geopolitical illusion.

The second requirement may be even more difficult to swallow. A truly cooperative relationship with the transatlantic community cannot be based on the notion that those democratic states of Europe that wish to be part of it can be excluded because of a Russian say-so. The expansion of that community need not be rushed, and it certainly should not be promoted on an anti-Russian theme. But neither can it, nor should it, be halted by a political fiat that itself reflects an antiquated notion of European security relations. An expanding and democratic Europe has to be an open-ended historical process, not subject to politically arbitrary geographic limits.

For Ukraine, the central issues are the future character of the CIS and freer access to energy sources, which would lessen Ukraine's dependence on Russia. In that regard, closer relations with Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have become important to Kiev, with Ukrainian support for the more independentminded states being an extension of Ukraine's efforts to enhance its own independence from Moscow. Accordingly, Ukraine has supported Georgia's efforts to become the westward route for Azeri oil exports. Ukraine has also collaborated with Turkey in order to weaken Russian influence in the Black Sea and has supported Turkish efforts to direct oil flows from Central Asia to Turkish terminals

In other words, if Russia keeps wanting to conquer Ukraine, it will show that it is turning away from peace and democracy, while the West should try its hardest to grow cooperatively with Russia so it isn't captivated by such a lust for power and instead joins the EU and NATO. Both Germany and the US understood from the beginning that Russia in friendship with an independent Poland and Ukraine was the key to promoting a healthy democratic relationship on the continent. Sounds like you and Brzezinski would agree on a lot. You should revisit your appraisal of commentators who lie to you with a pro-fascist axe to grind. The root of the conflict is Russian, particularly Putinist, arrogance and imperialism, not European provocations or some obscure American machination.

On a lighter note, here's a quite funny aside from the book: "However, a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsighted enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously."

[Suraknar]

Nice reply, I have to say you given me some food for thought which I appreciate. Overall I do not think that we are in any grand disagreement.

Where I do not wholly agree is when it comes to the narrative that Western Media (especially US Media) is pushing on to us all. So I read with a huge grain of salt, ignoring narratives and opinions and sticking only to pure reporting of events and generally read them on a peripheral mode just to know what they say and push but they hold little actual value and since they always have an agenda of their own which is biased.

That said...


In the end we ignored it by not confronting Russia thoroughly enough. We rewarded Putin's provocations.

I agree from our perspective in the west, but I would disagree if I put myself in Putin's shoes.

From Putin's perspective, Russia is not the one establishing bases all around the world pushing and imposing its economic and political interests. And thanks to Wikileaks and Assange's Efforts we know how it all works now. But most importantly Russia is not acting like if the world is unipolar and it is the sole superpower that has a "carte blanche" of action. Which brings us to the matter of grievances...

You say...


Anyone can claim anything as a grievance. The US has claimed many grievances against many countries. That a grievance exists doesn't make it credible, legitimate, or productive. But again, it is a huge mistake to think of this war as having arisen out of some grievance against the West. The casus belli for Russian nationalists is much more inward-looking. It's anxiety about the imagined integrity of their "Russian World," not any hostile actions of the European World or the American World.

Yet what comes off as : "We do not care what anyone has to say, we do not care about their concerns"...and that has been an arrogant mistake, in international diplomacy.

Grievances are a way that Diplomats communicate in reality during International Diplomacy and should always be taken seriously with due attention.

Putin did not wake up one day and told himself "oh lets invade Ukraine" following a stroke or one too many drinks the night before or out of feelings of isolation and loneliness, nor did he make a deal with teh Devil to be the arch Evil Master of the Universe.

Putin has been expressing himself through grievances that he, as representative of the interests of Russia, considers important on many occasions since 2005 and especially his address in Munich in 2007.

Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability (https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/world/europe/11munich.html)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-idUSL1053774820070210
https://www.dw.com/en/putin-slams-us-for-making-world-more-dangerous/a-2343749

Any serious Diplomat and Politician would take this seriously and not dismiss it.

Interestingly with recent actual Russian-Ukrainian War going on, some have been thinking about all this in retrospect, a nice read here I find.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/18/putin-speech-wake-up-call-post-cold-war-order-liberal-2007-00009918


With all due respect, there was no civil war. We can't prevent conflicts in the future if we don't understand their causes and their nature.

May I remind you that there has been a Civil War in Ukraine since 2014 when the Donbas Regions declared their Independence and the Ukrainian Government Chose to use force.

Lets not get sidetracked here by Some mainstream media narrative mixing in the annexation of Crimea giving the impression that Russian Military Forces were in Donbas fighting against Ukrainian forces for all this time in some Ukrainian-Russia Conflict and undeclared War.

Yes of course Russia helped the Separatists, gave them weapons etc even Russian Passports, but it is the Ukrainian Russian Speaking people of the area that have been receiving bombs and fighting back.

There are many European media that went on the terrain to Document the situation speak with the people that exist. Here is one from ARTE, ENG Subs.


https://youtu.be/m6sCulycTpQ

It is why I say that we the West missed an opportunity to avert the Civil War's Casualties and it duration for 8 years. Which could very possibly have averted the current Russia-Ukraine War.

Mind you, we also help militarily Ukraine during that time providing both weapons and training, since 2015, the mission started after Maidan.

Here Lt-Col, M. Lake.

https://youtu.be/7OUfYYHNBuE



Why would Putin have allowed Blue Helmets into Donbas? He claimed to be sending Russian soldiers as peacekeepers! Orwell warned us.

Because he said so in his speech in Munich in 2007.


I am convinced that the only mechanism that can make decisions about using military force as
a last resort is the Charter of the United Nations. And in connection with this, either I did not
understand what our colleague, the Italian Defence Minister, just said or what he said was
inexact. In any case, I understood that the use of force can only be legitimate when the decision
is taken by NATO, the EU, or the UN. If he really does think so, then we have different points
of view. Or I didn’t hear correctly. The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the
decision is sanctioned by the UN. And we do not need to substitute NATO or the EU for the
UN. When the UN will truly unite the forces of the international community and can really
react to events in various countries, when we will leave behind this disdain for international
law, then the situation will be able to change. Otherwise the situation will simply result in a
dead end, and the number of serious mistakes will be multiplied

The Speech here as a reference, the quote around 11:20

https://youtu.be/hQ58Yv6kP44


As I said, peacekeepers don't make peace. Only the armed groups involved, and their leadership, can do that. The United Nations could not have acted without the consent and cooperation of Russia.

With all due respect, I believe I said that I understand well the role of the Blue Helms. And that along with above and previous explanation, I strongly think that we missed an opportunity to show Putin that everyone including NATO and the US are subject to International Law and the Importance of the UN in maintaining peace.

Instead, what we have repeatedly shown to Putin and Russia is that the US its Alliance NATO and its Allies EU can when they want to act and decide irrespective of the UN and above its Law.

This is precisely the sum of what he pointed out in 2007 in my view, and we the west fell for its trap by dismissing the grievance and continuing to do as we pleased according to our own volition. We failed to show that we do not consider ourselves "above the Law" and that we stand equally with everyone else.

American Imperialism is not a unknown.

American Imperialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism)

Now it maybe that Putin knew that the West will ignore the grievance and simply sprang the Trap for us to fall in and open the way for him to follow his own agenda if an Imperialist Russia rather than the Democratic Russia everyone was hoping about.

Of course this is Speculation on my part of a "Conspiracy Theory" or scenario for Putin's scheme that I am advancing here, yet it is also a plausible one.

Lets consider a few statements:
If we assume that Putin is a "good guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense of justice and against the unjust, to the benefit of all.

If we assume that Putin is an "ugly guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense to own agenda and against its obstacles, to own benefit.

If we assume that Putin is an "bad guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense of injustice and against justice, to the benefit of none.

The real question is, what are we truly fighting for? I do not think that we fight for no one's benefit. So do we fight for the benefit of all or for our own benefit? Because if we are fighting for our own benefit then we are also ugly and not in a good position...to dictate anything to anyone...

Putin may have put the world to the test in 2007....


The great dilemma of anarchism is, how can one eliminate or repress power without power?

Indeed a great dilemma. In my view, "Si vis pacem, para bellum", seems to be the answer till now.

However I think this is a vicious circle that can only lead to the self destruction of the Human Race one way or another. Either we will die from the destruction of the Ecosystem during the competition with one another or we will find a way to launch those nukes.

The Solution, I think lets say on a philosophical level, would be to have the courage to decide to mutually give up all power in favor of unified peace. Win by not playing the game.

Since however, the Human Race is not as enlightened yet, the second best solution could be, to gradually transfer that power towards a global organization with mandate to keep and make the peace upon earth.

With enough re-organization such power could be the UN, and the ideal situation would be for each country to take a portion of its armed forces and industries and dedicate them to the UN authority and then dismantle and retire any National Armed forces all over the planet.

Like so, the only Standing Army of the world would be the UN Defense Forces and will now have the additional role of peace makers on top of peace keepers. This UN Defense Force would be subject to the Democratic Authority.

With as basis the Human Rights Charter a Global Constitution can be drafted, and the UN reorganized in Judiciairy, Legislative, Executive and Oversight bodies of elected representatives from all the Nations and Cultures of the world.


But it's not a solution, it's a desirable end-state depicting what comes after the solution(s). It's like saying immortality is a solution to death - how is that condition brought about? Everyone wishes for peace and prosperity in the abstract (do you think Putin wants war for its own sake?) but if wishes were ponies, everyone would ride. Gandhi wanted peace, and though he didn't get it he did work for it. Hitler wanted peace too, peace under the Thousand-Year Reich, and we had to deliver peace to him at the barrel of a gun.

So we have to be more sophisticated than just expressing approval of good concepts and cogitate in terms of right and wrong, and cause and effect. What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?

Yes I know you want a technical answer, but I do think that is a mistake, that will simply lead us to the same position in which we are here now. And because this is eaxctly how everyone functions now.

the West considers this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?"..Russia considers this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?", China Considers this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?"...Everyone considers this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?"

The only result is ... many enemies that conflict with our goals. ;)

Change, requires us to change Twice.

We really have to acknowledge that the way to win is to not play the game first, we have to truly acknowledge the good concepts first yes. And then upon that new way of thinking upon that new world view we work on the technicalities and the details of how we all TOGETHER want to make that world view a reality.

Any other way can only lead to competition and conflict. And the answer is not competition, but rather cooperation.

"Yes but what happens when some disagree and refuse to Cooperate?" you may say, well then we must sit down and try to understand why, and find solutions to solve disagreement and create the environment of agreement so that cooperation can take place towards the common world view.

This is NOT what we are doing now. What we are doing is trying to suppress or eliminate or check mate whomever disagrees and refuses to get onboard. It can only lead to further conflict. "My way or the Highway"..is not the way...though, in my view.


The reality is that the rhetoric of self-determination with respect to - by now pre-war - Russian-controlled Donbas is only Russian propaganda. The double standard is in only listening to a dictator's side of the story. Putin did not respect the locals' self-determination when he installed military government in Crimea and Donbas, expelled pro-Ukrainian people from their homes, imported Russian colonists, and forcefully kept the Ukrainian government from exercising its sovereignty. The Ukrainian government never violated any group's or region's right to self-determination in this way. The common people of the region, before the confrontation began, did not want to secede from Ukraine. It is only the case that Putin's government and Russian nationalists wanted to grab territory for Russia.

Now, as a result of sorting and other social effects between Ukrainian and Russian-controlled regions over 8 years, there is actually a significant divergence between the attitudes of the populations - or there was before the war, it's harder to say now. Unsurprisingly, people living under Russian control became more pro-Russian than people living under Ukrainian control. But even so, an honest referendum in even Russian-annexed Donbas would probably choose to remain part of Ukraine. Just because a dictator doesn't like that fact is not a provocation toward him - it should rather be a provocation for every one of us who rejects a world ruled by greed and lust for power!!"

This is a Narrative from Western Mainstream Media which mixes two events in to one blurring reality which neglects to take under account the wishes and desires of some 800 thousand to a million people in the Donbass who want to have the right to decide for themselves.

As for the Double standard, I refer to the treatment of Yemen, Syria, even Iraq and certainly Cyprus, where was the outcry for sanctions then? Where was the Cancellation of the Invaders? Where were the Billions of Dollars in armaments to defend from the Invaders? Where was the quick reception of Refugees?

We knew how to use the Blue Helms in Cyprus but not in Ukraine...uh huh.

https://greekreporter.com/2022/03/01/turkey-cyprus-invasion-ukraine-russia/

Back to current crisis,

Again, there is ample record and on the field Documentaries that expose the situation in the last 8 years in the region. Of course Putin as politician with own Agenda for Russia and as per previous comments above will side with the people who side with him and try to help them to achieve their independence or merging with the Russian Federation.

But I feel like we are neglecting these people just out of our poise to counter Putin. I feel like to some degree there is a level of discrimination against Russia all together.

And also, there is this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?", which compels the West to dismiss Russia and Putin and fail to take under account his grievances and those of anyone who supports Russia.

The 14,000 deaths of the Ukrainian Civil War are all Documented here year after year:

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/ukraine
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016/country-chapters/ukraine (https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/ukraine)

In addition to these I invite you to watch and consider the following videos recording the advent of Nationalist Groups and Batallions in Ukraine in the past years harboring NAzi allures (which are of course what Russia and ex and ousted Ukrainian President refer to as Nazis)

Mind you all these are from Western Media.

From BBC


https://youtu.be/5SBo0akeDMY
and

https://youtu.be/sEKQsnRGv7s
and

https://youtu.be/hE6b4ao8gAQ

And this one from The Guardian


https://youtu.be/jiBXmbkwiSw


These cannot, but now have, been ignored, in favor of anti-Putin narrative.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2022/03/01/greek-in-mariupol-fascist-ukrainian/

Mind you this from European Union Parliament, just days before Russian Invasion.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-000678_EN.html?fbclid=IwAR1wZpaz4hqXYgG4RjrIJ7VHCVag4gDN4CJg9Y4awDdxb7_NTwr0862CgXE


Ukrainian fanaticism has already claimed the first lives in this fresh conflict. On 13 February 2022, two Ukrainians of Greek descent were perceived as enemies and killed and two others were injured in a act perpetrated by individuals who were, in all likelihood, fanatical Ukrainian soldiers.

According to the ‘Save Donbass’ representative, the circumstances surrounding the two deaths, the identity of the soldiers, their unit and the likelihood of them being brought before a military tribunal have not been elucidated.

The area is being terrorised by not only Ukrainian soldiers but also mercenaries and neo-Nazi security forces. Although Ukraine has ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, it appears that non-Ukrainians are, without exception, no longer welcome in the country.

The attack took place in the village of Hranitne, which is home to a community of around 3 500 Greeks that has been living there for about 2 500 years and speaks a dialect similar to that spoken in the Georgian district of Tsalka. The first Greek church and school were erected there in the 7th century.

Personally I have parents who lived during NAZI occupation of Athens. And just watching these stirs bad feelings to me, could be the stories that my parents shared with me and even some epigenetic memory of that terrible period. Suffice it to say that in many countries of Europe the memory of Nazism is still quite vivid.


I've read this book. Two things, and both are important. First, there is zero evidence that American foreign policy in Ukraine is or has ever been some sort of calculated spiteful suppression of Russia's place under the sun. Second, that is not what Brzezinski wrote. THAT IS A LIE - MADE UP. Whoever that Swiss commentator is, they were trying to deceive their readers.

I have not read the Book yet. But I ordered a copy. So I go witch what you linked and I appreciate the correction. It is interesting that another writer, (R?GIS DE CASTELNAU) wrote something very similar, and I quote but it is in French I do not know if you read French (I speak several languages actually) but I will translate for you.

https://www.vududroit.com/2022/03/le-spectacle-de-la-la-fin-du-monde-ancien/


Le r?veil des adeptes occidentaux du court-termisme a ?t? brutal et douloureux. Et c’est ainsi que la question russe est devenue primordiale. Tous les ?tudiants de ce pays qui envisagent des ?tudes historiques, politiques ou diplomatiques sont tenus de lire int?gralement le livre de Zbigniew Brzeziński Le grand ?chiquier o? le conseiller ?cout? des pr?sidents am?ricains expose avec franchise, voir cynisme, la th?orie selon laquelle l’am?lioration du monde et sa stabilit? d?pendent du maintien de l’h?g?monie des ?tats-Unis. Tout pays devenant concurrent est d?s lors consid?r? comme une menace pour la stabilit? mondiale. Et pour lui, la Russie doit ?tre neutralis?e, voire d?mantel?e. Pour la bonne raison qu’il faut la d?tacher d’une Europe qui ainsi ne peut pas redevenir une puissance, restant ainsi soumise ? l’h?g?monie am?ricaine. Les ?tats-Unis pouvant ainsi se tourner vers le Pacifique et la Chine o? ils savent qu’aura lieu l’affrontement pr?vu par Thucydide.

Basically it says this :

"The awakening of Western followers of short-termism has been brutal and painful. And this is how the Russian question became paramount. All students in this country who are considering historical, political or diplomatic studies are required to read Zbigniew Brzeziński's book 'The Grand Chessboard' in its entirety. In it, the adviser, listened to by American presidents, exposes frankly even cynically, the theory that improving the world and its stability depend on the maintenance of the hegemony of the United States. Any country becoming a competitor is therefore considered a threat to global stability.

And for him, Russia must be neutralized, even dismantled. For the simple reason that it must be detached from a Europe which thus cannot become a power again, thus remaining subject to the hegemony of America. The United States can thus turn to the Pacific and China where they know that the confrontation planned by Thucydides will take place."

According to this it looks like, Brzezinski would agrees with you in turn, when you say "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?" kind of approach. Which will inevitably lead to War for all as I already explained above.

Having said this, I cannot really debate the meaning or the book since I have not read it yet myself. Thus, I will come back to this point in the future :)


What Brzezinski wrote about was Russian national recovery and its democratization and "Europeanization," and the peril of Russian nationalists rediscovering "messianism" over pragmatism.

In other words, if Russia keeps wanting to conquer Ukraine, it will show that it is turning away from peace and democracy, while the West should try its hardest to grow cooperatively with Russia so it isn't captivated by such a lust for power and instead joins the EU and NATO. Both Germany and the US understood from the beginning that Russia in friendship with an independent Poland and Ukraine was the key to promoting a healthy democratic relationship on the continent. Sounds like you and Brzezinski would agree on a lot. You should revisit your appraisal of commentators who lie to you with a pro-fascist axe to grind. The root of the conflict is Russian, particularly Putinist, arrogance and imperialism, not European provocations or some obscure American machination.

Yes the excerpts that you quoted showed as much and I gathered as much, and you are right I find myself elated to read some passages because indeed they seem, at least in a wishful way to agree with me or me with them (being younger and such lets show respect), part of the reason which compelled me to order the book ;)

What I am most curious about, is that of the case where Russia does not follow the wishful path of becoming Democratic and in line with the west. What is the recommendation for the US and the west then? I suppose I will have to read that when the Book arrives.

Nevertheless, one thing is certain, Putin follows the path that is not wished by the west. Russia chose to be Imperialist instead. I think we are all in agreement here. More specifically I think that Russia seems to follow the path explained in this Book.

Foundations of Geopolitics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)


Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.

The point I like to make however in closing is that we knew, since 2007 that Russia made that Choice.

And what I have come to conclude is that either :

1- We continued acting in such a way as to bring Russia (provoke?) to make such decisions hoping to destabilize and dismantle Russia and cripple it, in accordance to our plan.

or,

2- We were so naive and Putin played us all, maneuvered the world to make mistakes so he can justify his ambitions according to imperialistic path and his plan.

or,

3- A combination of the two, like a revolving Ying Yang.

Time will tell, once more we are all assisting in the making of History. I just wish so many people did not suffer for it :cry: :sad:


On a lighter note, here's a quite funny aside from the book: "However, a coalition allying Russia with both China and Iran can develop only if the United States is shortsighted enough to antagonize China and Iran simultaneously."

Now that is indeed funny in an ironic way HAHA :laugh4:

[Montmorency]

"Who says dumb artillery rounds can't kill armor? (https://imgur.com/gallery/gIjCo)"

"THE PLA’S EVOLVING OUTLOOK ON URBAN WARFARE: LEARNING, TRAINING, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TAIWAN (https://www.understandingwar.org/report/pla%E2%80%99s-evolving-outlook-urban-warfare-learning-training-and-implications-taiwan)"

What the heck is the Phoenix Ghost (https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/meet-phoenix-ghost-the-us-air-forces-new-drone-designed-for-ukraines-war-with-russia/)? US DoD claims to have developed it as a loitering munition in the past month, for Ukraine-specific use cases, with 121 samples (?) committed just now. There's apparently a lot of GLOMAR around them.


From Putin's perspective, Russia is not the one establishing bases all around the world pushing and imposing its economic and political interests. And thanks to Wikileaks and Assange's Efforts we know how it all works now. But most importantly Russia is not acting like if the world is unipolar and it is the sole superpower that has a "carte blanche" of action. Which brings us to the matter of grievances...


The existence of American bases - Russia seeks bases abroad too - can't be used to justify whatever one pleases. It's a non-sequitur.


Yet what comes off as : "We do not care what anyone has to say, we do not care about their concerns"...and that has been an arrogant mistake, in international diplomacy.

there is a difference between understanding an actor's perspective and accepting or acceding to it.


Putin has been expressing himself through grievances that he, as representative of the interests of Russia, considers important on many occasions since 2005 and especially his address in Munich in 2007.

These grievances, as presented here for the sake of precision, are awful and ought to be rejected. Imagine if Donald Trump came to Denmark and said, in his opinion, the United States by its interests deserves to "own Greenland." Who would accept that the US' "grievances" deserve a respectful hearing, let alone fulfillment? Or alternatively, when American power forced the UN to give George Bush a hearing over a year as he asserted that Iraq's existence constituted an existential threat to American interests and security? As I said, merely claiming a grievance doesn't make it legitimate. We should have a grievance against Putin's grievances.


May I remind you that there has been a Civil War in Ukraine since 2014 when the Donbas Regions declared their Independence and the Ukrainian Government Chose to use force.

It is why I say that we the West missed an opportunity to avert the Civil War's Casualties and it duration for 8 years. Which could very possibly have averted the current Russia-Ukraine War.

But it's not true. Who declares independence? Anyone who can roll into a police precinct or government office with guns and claim to be in charge? Russia sent soldiers to occupy a region of Ukraine. The large majority of separatists were Russian nationals supplied and supported by Russia. The leadership of these movements were all Russian military, ex-military, KGB, FSB, etc. Most of the native manpower of the separatist militaries following the Minsk ceasefire were forcibly conscripted. That is conquest, not a declaration of independence. Ukraine's government was perfectly reasonable in fighting back. Mandatory surrender to whomever threatens you with violence is a terrible standard in human terms, and it's not even a standard I can recall applied anywhere else in the world except Russia's areas of interest.

Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine fought back. Most people occupied by Russia did not want it to happen, and by doing so Russia violated their right to self-determination and Ukraine's rights as a country. There. Was. No. Civil. War. Even if we could stipulate that the situation represented a civil war in an alternate scenario, for the West to have done something to force Ukraine to cede this territory to Russia on fabricated and coercive pretenses would have been an extreme injustice. All the worse then to advocate it in our timeline.


Because he said so in his speech in Munich in 2007.

You have to notice that he lied. Politicians can do that. Compare their words (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBHLvNrZh9Q) to their actions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV6SWyXDXCQ).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBHLvNrZh9Q

Exactly so. If Putin wanted UN peacekeepers around, he would have invited them himself, as the actual influential party. But he didn't, because he was the one instigating the conflict, and he was instigating the conflict because he believed it would benefit himself and his government's power, regardless of the human cost.


Instead, what we have repeatedly shown to Putin and Russia is that the US its Alliance NATO and its Allies EU can when they want to act and decide irrespective of the UN and above its Law.

It doesn't make sense to me. Putin breaks international law, so to show how much we value international law we should reward him? Is that supposed to convince him to respect international law?


This is precisely the sum of what he pointed out in 2007 in my view, and we the west fell for its trap by dismissing the grievance and continuing to do as we pleased according to our own volition. We failed to show that we do not consider ourselves "above the Law" and that we stand equally with everyone else.

The way you express your perspective on the Ukraine conflict's goes against my values, and I think it contradicts your statement of your own as well. If we applied your reasoning to the United States, Iraq should be the 51st state, or maybe even the 69th or something. If we want to uphold humanist values and international law and anti-imperialism, we should do that for and by our own account, not help aggressive countries uphold terror and imperialism and wreck international law. Using the Saudis as an example, it would hardly further international law or Yemen's peace to pick a side directly and bomb Yemenis with our own planes. There's no logic I can see here other than 'the most aggressive can do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts, if they oppose the West in some way.'

Why is this any better for the world than advocating for Washington DC to settle all matters however it pleases (but especially by force)?


If we assume that Putin is a "good guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense of justice and against the unjust, to the benefit of all.

If we assume that Putin is an "ugly guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense to own agenda and against its obstacles, to own benefit.

If we assume that Putin is an "bad guy", then it must follow that he is acting in defense of injustice and against justice, to the benefit of none.

All of those propositions are fallacious. To the extent you can characterize any person as "good" or "bad" per se, their character is judged by the nature and result of their actions, not their actions by a preconception of their character.

If a "good guy" rapes a 10-year old, that doesn't make it a "good rape" compared to a "bad guy" doing the same thing. That's - very strange reasoning.

Even before the war, Putin was a strongman who pillaged his country, destroyed internal democracy, and promoted extreme social and economic inequality. That makes him a pretty bad guy by most standards. Based on such character and prior actions, we would expect him to do further bad things we might find detestable. Therefore:


Putin may have put the world to the test in 2007....

I agree, but not in the way you seem to think.


The real question is, what are we truly fighting for? I do not think that we fight for no one's benefit. So do we fight for the benefit of all or for our own benefit? Because if we are fighting for our own benefit then we are also ugly and not in a good position...to dictate anything to anyone...

Resisting fascism is always a good thing, but especially now that the world is becoming increasingly violent, chaotic, unequal. It's a very simple calculus for us as individuals. What are the implications for the people of Russia, of Ukraine, of the world, if Putin and his military are defeated, compared to if they are helped in conquering Ukraine? On one hand, brutal dictatorial aggression will have been punished in the eyes of the world, and both Russia and Ukraine might have a chance to recover from their suffering and overall post-Soviet stagnation. If Ukraine is conquered on the other hand, everyone sees that imperialism pays and democracy is for chumps, while Ukraine ceases to exist as a country, with way over ten million Ukrainians fleeing to Europe and elsewhere with all the costs and tragedies that implies, hundreds of thousands of those left behind executed or deported by their new overlords, the rest suppressed under ethnonationalist totalitarianism, and Putin himself empowered to rule his country with an iron fist in search of new wars.

It's very obvious to me what is wrong and what is right.




Any other way can only lead to competition and conflict. And the answer is not competition, but rather cooperation.

Competition is cooperation. The trick we're looking for is how to expand the circle of cooperation maximally, such that all people have, and feel they have, a responsibility toward all of one another.


"Yes but what happens when some disagree and refuse to Cooperate?" you may say, well then we must sit down and try to understand why, and find solutions to solve disagreement and create the environment of agreement so that cooperation can take place towards the common world view.

This is NOT what we are doing now. What we are doing is trying to suppress or eliminate or check mate whomever disagrees and refuses to get onboard. It can only lead to further conflict. "My way or the Highway"..is not the way...though, in my view.

The only result is ... many enemies that conflict with our goals. ;)

and the details of how we all TOGETHER want to make that world view a reality.

Well, yes. All human sociality is characterized by the conflict of goals and interests. Who is this "together" and where does its unity come from?

You can't handwave the genesis and maintenance of this "common world view", as that's the entirety of the problem! People like Hitler and Pol Pot tried to confront it by the physical destruction of everyone who stood in the way of their common worldview, but of course that didn't and doesn't work. The promotion of human unity, from the global species down to the smallest groups and family units, has been one of the thorniest problems in all of political sicience, sociology, and philosophy. If you want to succeed where all others have failed, an excellent technical solution to the problem surely needs to be presented.

All the same, if someone accosts you in the street and demands all your belongings, you can't rely on creating an "environment of agreement so that cooperation can take place" to resolve the conflict. That's not to say that you should immediately resort to violence, but that negotiation will rarely help you in that kind of circumstance. Sometimes people create mutually-antagonistic, zero-sum, conflicts, and one side might even be better than the other, and worth protecting.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjK97pzWoAIkWNO?format=jpg&name=900x900


This is a Narrative from Western Mainstream Media which mixes two events in to one blurring reality which neglects to take under account the wishes and desires of some 800 thousand to a million people in the Donbass who want to have the right to decide for themselves.

It's just the objective fact of the matter. It is Russian propaganda to say that because a minority have political disagreements with a government - not even secession, just political disagreement - then rather than seeking a peaceful negotiation a neighboring country can simply annex that whole area by force and rule it.

Few* contradicted Yeltsin and Putin on Russia's right to destroy the Chechen rebellion as a threat to Russian territorial integrity and security on internationally-recognized Russian soil - Bill Clinton and European leaders went so far as to express their support - and vastly more Chechens wanted autonomy from Russia than residents of Donbass from Ukraine, and Russia was vastly more brutal to its separatists than Ukraine was to its own, and Chechens in Russia had fewer rights than Donbass residents in Ukraine.

*Interestingly, Brzezinski was part of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Committee_for_Peace_in_Chechnya), which only even went to the point of petitioning "Russia to take constructive steps toward negotiating a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the leadership of the Chechen government."

Should we take into account the views of all separatists everywhere and perhaps demand Russia hold independence referendums (maybe a success threshold of 40 or 20% would make it extra-fair?) in every one of its provinces? If it doesn't, will the US or any other country be justified in sending soldiers and volunteers, and arming insurgents against the Russian government? Is this what self-determination looks like?


As for the Double standard, I refer to the treatment of Yemen, Syria, even Iraq and certainly Cyprus, where was the outcry for sanctions then? Where was the Cancellation of the Invaders? Where were the Billions of Dollars in armaments to defend from the Invaders? Where was the quick reception of Refugees?

Whataboutism is a cogntive fallacy. Take a stance on right and wrong, and apply it to events as they come. Advocate for the government policies that best match your version of the Good. One example might be a network of trade agreements that enforce high labor and environmental standards in all the members, because this promotes the common welfare. A bad example would be to cancel labor and environmental standards because some country doesn't accept or live up to them, because it cynically harms the common welfare.

NATO could promote a sort of peace on Cyprus when the conflict flared because both Greece and Turkey were members, and therefore could be brought to concede to a process of international diplomacy. Had Greece and Turkey not been part of the same alliance, given their historical relationship they would have been mired in endless destructive conflict with each other and Turkey would simply have conquered all of Cyprus, probably after years of war. I'm not even saying one outcome is better than the other when it comes to the people of Cyprus specifically, but you have to be able to understand what happens and why.


But I feel like we are neglecting these people just out of our poise to counter Putin.

Whatever people you identify do not hold special status above others.

If the United States government can find a thousand people in Ottawa, perhaps mostly Americans, who might want to live in the United States, it serves no one's rights for the US to conquer Ottawa, a terrible crime. What's next, maybe conquering Quebec? Some say those people don't want to be Canadian anyway!

Or to make sweat run down Putin's neck, think of all the territories Russia has taken from China in the past. There are countless thousands of Chinese living in Russia who might wish to live under Chinese governance; should Xi Jinping send the People's Liberation Army to secure their "self-determination?" Or moreover, there are millions of Russians of Siberian or Turkic heritage - maybe the Chinese government could argue they are ethnically-closer to Han Chinese than to Russian Slavs, and so deserve to live under Xi rather than under Putin. How exciting to live in a world where large military powers can choose their own adventure.

In 2014, anyone who disagreed with the policies of the new government had the opportunity to follow the usual practices of a democratic civil society. They could participate in politics to advance their viewpoint peacefully, they could live with the decisions of the majority, or they could relocate. Putin could have promoted a democratic discourse in Ukraine by showing Russia as an attractive country with something to offer, the way Germany does, and convinced more people in Ukraine to support Russia-leaning policy. But he didn't. Instead he installed a puppet government on whatever territory he could carve away from Ukraine.

I have never heard of a political philosophy that says the most extreme and violent minorities, such as the few thousand single-citizenship Ukrainians who supported rebellion in 2014, have more rights than everyone else. There are principally two options for people who wage war on their own country on behalf of another: imprisonment or exile. In the case of Ukraine, everyone who falls under this rubric was awarded Russian citizenship, so after everything that has happened Ukraine should pursue a repatriation exchange for such people if it can evict the Russian military.


I feel like to some degree there is a level of discrimination against Russia all together.

What sort of dscrimination is it, and why is it wrong? If we disagree with Russian policies, why shouldn't we act on it? Let me just PM you my Paypal details, so you can transfer me $100. If you don't that's discrimination!Yes, that would be discrimination, and perfectly reasonable at that.

Promote good things, mitigate bad things.


And also, there is this "What is it that we want, how do we get it, and who is in conflict with our goals?", which compels the West to dismiss Russia and Putin and fail to take under account his grievances and those of anyone who supports Russia.

The reality is that we failed to take into account the grievances of the people who don't support Russia, who are not somehow subhuman to those who do.

To come with a gun and force people to join your country or die, as Putin is currently doing, is not and never will be self-determination. Anyone who supports it is fully opposed to self-determination! This is closer to the logic of the Islamic State and its claims to supervision of the self-determination of Muslim peoples, than the idea that collectives have a right to peacefully shape their own destinies.

Previously you laid out a vision for a new world order. You described what you wanted and how you plan to get it, though less on how to overcome resistance to your goals. I and everyone else just does the same. There was nothing special or high-minded about my phrasing. The question every person must ask themselves is which goals and ends are worth supporting and how they can support them.


The 14,000 deaths of the Ukrainian Civil War are all Documented here year after year:

Ukraine defeated the rebellion in 2014. The Russian Army intervened to restore its gains. Had Putin withdrawn his forces from Ukraine, there would be no conflict. How this is Ukraine's fault escapes me.


In addition to these I invite you to watch and consider the following videos recording the advent of Nationalist Groups and Batallions in Ukraine in the past years harboring NAzi allures (which are of course what Russia and ex and ousted Ukrainian President refer to as Nazis)

If one opposes neo-Nazism, it's clearly contradictory not to oppose Russia's government. This kind of statement:


These cannot, but now have, been ignored, in favor of anti-Putin narrative.

is incoherent. To place condemnation of neo-Nazis as somehow in opposition to an "anti-Putin narrative" implies that Putin is not far-right - which he is - or is even on the left or anti-fascist - which he isn't.


https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo...7_NTwr0862CgXE

Ironically, this uncorroborated complaint was introduced by a member of Greek Solution, a Greek ultranationalist party. This oversight is symptomatic of self-defeating bias. It is a contradiction to condemn a country to destruction because Neo-Nazis exist within it, as they do in all countries, yet uncritically endorse countries, groups, or individuals that are specifically neo-Nazi, such as this Greek member or the Russian ultranationalists composing the Donbass separatist leadership.

Does it make something better the more Nazis one adds? I'm put in mind of a sort of political homeopathy where one Nazi molecule (person) in a bottle makes it more potent than a whole jug of Nazi Juice.

Rather, the starting point to curb fascism, Nazism, ultranationalism, etc. in Ukraine and worldwide is as follows:

1. Break Vladimir Putin's power, a murderous, militaristic far-right dictator who has ruined his country and promotes similar figures throughout Europe and elsewhere.
2. Stabilize Ukraine so that it is not under permanent threat or in a permanent state of war.
3. Cancel Ukraine's debts and invest in its recovery and improving democratic participation so that it can develop as a country and society.


Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.

This is the opinion of the fascist Alexander Dugin, which was indeed infused into in Putin's speech (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828) just prior to the war. Unfortunately the chauvinism most Russians felt toward Ukraine in the past has gradually, under Putin, metastasized in this direction. It's a pretty evil sentiment, no?


2- We were so naive and Putin played us all, maneuvered the world to make mistakes so he can justify his ambitions according to imperialistic path and his plan.

As Putin elaborated in his wartime speeches - and these should be most representative of his personal beliefs - he wants a world order in which China, Russia, and the US (and maybe a handful of other countries) hold some spheres of influence in which they dominate completely. By your own criticism of conflictual worldviews, you should recognize that he has the same 19th-century mindset of all the various kings and colonizers who lived at the time.

From the very beginning of his tenure, remember, Putin announced that the decline in Russian imperial power was a great tragedy. His ambitions have been telegraphed for a long time; the surprising part is how far he would gamble for them.

Yes, this mindset, these ambitions, are exactly the kind that could bring humanity to extinction this century. That's why it's so strange for me to hear that they deserve to be appeased (but apparently only when they come from a Russian president?).


What I am most curious about, is that of the case where Russia does not follow the wishful path of becoming Democratic and in line with the west. What is the recommendation for the US and the west then? I suppose I will have to read that when the Book arrives.

If you're planning to read the book for yourself, the Russia chapters are mostly Ch. 3-4. Brzezinski was a 20th century liberal realist, but also an idealist advocate of the liberal international order. He saw American primacy as supporting that order through its economic and military might by taking "the threat of war off the table." Of course the United States usually could not leverage its status to prevent wars outside Europe, and abused its power to greater or lesser degrees at various points. But everyone of any ideology had more or less the same answer for a Russia resurgent in its European imperial ambitions following the Cold War; it involved collective self-defense, because it is against a country's interests to be militarily threatened and destabilized. A lot of people just didn't think imperialism could rise within (as opposed to without) Europe again following two world wars.

For all it's flaws, and really for all American government did to undermine its own project, the liberal international order is incalculably preferable and more workable than the 19th-century concert of great powers, where only military power mattered.y

[spmetla]

Excellent post Montmorency!

Only thing to add. In regard to the Azov BN and any neo-nazi groups, they were formed in reaction to Russia's invasion in 2014 so it doesn't serve any narratives that people have about this always being a factor. I can see the point some people have in their concerns about the Azov as it is now a part of the Ukrainian military but I don't feel concerned myself as it's better that it's operating under some central control instead of being out in the fringe right now conducting terrorism and so on. Like in WW2, best to work with the French Resistance to include the communist ones so that there's a united effort against the common foe. After the conflict, be sure to reign them in again.



What the heck is the Phoenix Ghost? US DoD claims to have developed it as a loitering munition in the past month, for Ukraine-specific use cases, with 121 samples (?) committed just now. There's apparently a lot of GLOMAR around them.

It's like a cheaper Switchblade made to order for Ukraine.
My guesses on what's different:
1) Ukrainian and Russian language in initial design
2) Probably designed to work with their Comms systems so that if they are doing EW Jamming or something it's not the freqs they typically use.
3) Probably some cheaper parts as it is going straight to combat and not necessary to survive in storage for years before use.
4)Perhaps a standard shaped charge warhead for penetrating top armor of tanks

Large fire at oil depot in Russia's Bryansk, near Ukraine
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/large-fire-oil-depot-russias-bryansk-near-ukraine-agencies-2022-04-25/

April 25 (Reuters) - A large fire was reported early on Monday at an oil storage facility in the Russian city of Bryansk, Russian news agencies said, citing the emergency services ministry, but gave no details.

There was no immediate indication the fire was related to the war in Ukraine, although Russian officials said last week that Ukrainian helicopters hit residential buildings and injured seven people in the area.

Fire in Tver:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/apr/22/russia-multiple-reported-dead-in-fire-at-defence-institute-in-tver-video#:~:text=Seven%20people%20have%20been%20killed,of%20Moscow%2C%20according%20to%20reports.

Seven people have been killed after a huge fire broke out at a key Russian defence research institute in Tver, north-west of Moscow, according to reports.

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1517885222150303745

This is allegedly the Moscow Oblast Governor, Andrey Vorobyov's mansion, on fire today. This mansion is over 2000 m? (21,500 ft?). Vorobyov's family also own real estate in Italy.

I'm starting to wonder if there's a major campaign of Ukrainian saboteurs in Russia's 'deep areas' or if this is from Russians in protest to the war. Seems a bit too many in too many days to be merely accidents and bad wiring.... Guess that's the problem when starting a war with a 'brother nation,' harder to keep internal security in check with so many common ties.

[CrossLOPER]

Looks like there is another "accidental" fire.

Someone should update the fire suppression.

In other news:

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1518615779985534978

My favorite is the brand new clothing that clearly has creases in it. I am purposefully ignoring the lower hanging fruit here.

[spmetla]

Explosions reported in Tiraspol, Transnistria near the building of State Security committee "MGB"
https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/25-april-explosions-reported-in-tiraspol-transnistria-near

Some in Transnistria too

[Montmorency]

Maybe (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/23/ukraine-belarus-railway-saboteurs-russia/) it's the legendary Belarusian partisan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_resistance_during_World_War_II).


The Russians hadn’t taken into account the railway saboteurs of Belarus.

Starting in the earliest days of the invasion in February, a clandestine network of railway workers, hackers and dissident security forces went into action to disable or disrupt the railway links connecting Russia to Ukraine through Belarus, wreaking havoc on Russian supply lines.
[...]
The attacks were simple but effective, targeting the signal control cabinets essential to the functioning of the railways, members of the activist network said. For days on end, the movement of trains was paralyzed, forcing the Russians to attempt to resupply their troops by road and contributing to the snarl-up that stalled the infamous 40-mile military convoy north of Kyiv.

The Cyber Partisans launched the first attack, hacking into the railway’s computer network in the days leading up to the invasion and snarling rail traffic before Russian troops had even crossed the border. Infiltrating the railway network’s computers was relatively easy, said Yuliana Shemetovets, a spokesperson for the group who is based in New York, because the railway company is still using Windows XP, an outdated version of the software that contains many vulnerabilities.

In early April, security police captured three alleged saboteurs near the town of Bobruisk and shot them in the knees. State television broadcast footage of the bleeding men, their knees bandaged, and claimed they had been shot while resisting arrest.

The shootings have had a chilling effect on the saboteur network, Azarov said. Belarusian troops are patrolling and drones have been deployed to monitor the railway lines. “It has become too dangerous to do attacks,” he said.


Speaking of subterfuge, hopefully the Russians are not better at it than they appear in this episode: The FSB has claimed to have uncovered a plot to kill Russia's Alex-Jones-if-he-were-on-Fox-News, Vladimir Solovyov. Among the paraphernalia presented were copies of the game Sims 3 (https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518596830661066752) and a confession letter signed "Signature illegible (https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1518624438358626304)" in the same font as the rest of the text.

[CrossLOPER]

Maybe (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/23/ukraine-belarus-railway-saboteurs-russia/) it's the legendary Belarusian partisan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_resistance_during_World_War_II).






Speaking of subterfuge, hopefully the Russians are not better at it than they appear in this episode: The FSB has claimed to have uncovered a plot to kill Russia's Alex-Jones-if-he-were-on-Fox-News, Vladimir Solovyov. Among the paraphernalia presented were copies of the game Sims 3 (https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1518596830661066752) and a confession letter signed "Signature illegible (https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1518624438358626304)" in the same font as the rest of the text.

...as well as the shirts that were clearly just taken out of the packaging.

Do you have me on ignore, bro?

[Montmorency]

https://i.imgur.com/sJEhFxF.png

Well then.

[Pannonian]

https://i.imgur.com/sJEhFxF.png

Well then.

What's that about?

[spmetla]

A failed soviet offensive in WW2 in the same Donbas region as today with front lines that are very similar. Just interesting how the geography of the same rivers, towns, rail networks remain the deciding points in today's war in Ukraine.

The above battle is part of Manstein's operations in which he was able to do his typical 'backhand stroke' to allow Soviet forces to attack and then defeat them while the major Kursk battle was happening a bit farther North yet was still able to defeat the Soviets here though his portion of Kursk still were defeated a few weeks later.

[Montmorency]

Also, the size of the forces available, as well as the likely losses, though maybe to month rather than to week timescale.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A failed soviet offensive in WW2 in the same Donbas region as today with front lines that are very similar. Just interesting how the geography of the same rivers, towns, rail networks remain the deciding points in today's war in Ukraine.

The above battle is part of Manstein's operations in which he was able to do his typical 'backhand stroke' to allow Soviet forces to attack and then defeat them while the major Kursk battle was happening a bit farther North yet was still able to defeat the Soviets here though his portion of Kursk still were defeated a few weeks later.

...and still more amused chuckling sounds from Santayana.

[Montmorency]

https://i.imgur.com/mY3rgiF.jpg

1. We can see that the Ukrainians have generally maintained something less than parity across the fronts, counting with 3 BTG-equivalents per UA brigade.
2. The major exception on the map is the Kherson front, making reports of a planned renewed Russian offensive toward Mykolaiv very perplexing.
3. The defense has had the hardest time between Izyum and Severodonetsk, fitting for the offense's axis of concentration, yet still far from a breakthrough.
4. Kharkiv oblast west of the Donets is steadily being cleared of opposition.
5. AFAICT around a third of existing Ukrainian ground forces are being held as reserve or garrison out of the immediate AO.

One caveat is that Schlottman can't locate 15 Russian BTGs, which he lumps into the Donetsk axis. At some points there were reportedly twice as many BTGs near Kherson as this current map specifies, and I wonder if some aren't still there. Still, the picture here doesn't radically change even if we instead assign the missing BTGs evenly across sectors.

[spmetla]

Yeah, I saw this graphic come out today too, it is interesting, but I wonder how those BTGs translate into troops and equipment as both sides are undoubtedly heavily attritted with the attackers more so.

The Russians certainly maintain the advantage still in numbers though that doesn't seem to be counting for much so far.

The limited Ukrainian counter-attacks NE of Kharkiv are promising and into the forested type of terrain the Russians have shown a lack of ability so far in their earlier attacks in the North and Kiev suburbs.

Overall, I hope that the Ukrainians can continue to hold and make limited counter-attacks in the Kharkiv area and affect some sort of more significant counter-offensive to retake Kherson and threaten the land bridge to Crimea.

The Russian and Transnistrian threats seem to me to be a distraction to keep Ukrainian forces tied down. The loss of the Moskva, yesterday's drone attacks against the Russian patrol boats and the overall pummeling that Russian marines seem to have taken doing normal infantry work in other offenses make an amphibious landing at the extreme end of the theater extremely unlikely.

Russia's potential declaration of war to enable using conscripts won't likely change their capabilities on the ground unless Russia intends to pause and try and do an attack next year after retraining and mustering resources. I do think it may make the general population there, a bit more politically 'aware' as conscripts are sent into a poorly executed meatgrinder of a war. Though given the overall support for the war I doubt this will create any grassroots opposition so long as the media is state controlled.
Ukraine on the other considering using territorial forces outside of their oblasts is an indicator that they too have reached their full manpower potential and will need to husband personnel and resources carefully in counter attacks and determining where to do positional versus mobile defenses.

Gotta say I'm glad that the Germans have finally got on board with heavier weapons, 50x Gepards ADA, 7x PzH200s are a great start and I hope to see those Leo1s and Marder1s sent down the road too. They may be less capable than modern MBTs but a Leo1A5 is still capable of killing most Russian MBTs, though I see its use more in the infantry support role as it should still be capable of withstanding auto-cannon fire across the frontal arc.
More importantly though, these would be great steppingstones toward non-soviet derived equipment types outside of what Ukrainian home industry produces which makes it easier for further donations down the road.

Here's an interesting video by the Austrian military academy breaking down the ambush of the Russian BTG from many week's ago. It has English subtitles too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeXbNY3HYQ

[Montmorency]

Yeah, I saw this graphic come out today too, it is interesting, but I wonder how those BTGs translate into troops and equipment as both sides are undoubtedly heavily attritted with the attackers more so.

The Russians certainly maintain the advantage still in numbers though that doesn't seem to be counting for much so far.

The limited Ukrainian counter-attacks NE of Kharkiv are promising and into the forested type of terrain the Russians have shown a lack of ability so far in their earlier attacks in the North and Kiev suburbs.

Overall, I hope that the Ukrainians can continue to hold and make limited counter-attacks in the Kharkiv area and affect some sort of more significant counter-offensive to retake Kherson and threaten the land bridge to Crimea.

The Russian and Transnistrian threats seem to me to be a distraction to keep Ukrainian forces tied down. The loss of the Moskva, yesterday's drone attacks against the Russian patrol boats and the overall pummeling that Russian marines seem to have taken doing normal infantry work in other offenses make an amphibious landing at the extreme end of the theater extremely unlikely.

Russia's potential declaration of war to enable using conscripts won't likely change their capabilities on the ground unless Russia intends to pause and try and do an attack next year after retraining and mustering resources. I do think it may make the general population there, a bit more politically 'aware' as conscripts are sent into a poorly executed meatgrinder of a war. Though given the overall support for the war I doubt this will create any grassroots opposition so long as the media is state controlled.
Ukraine on the other considering using territorial forces outside of their oblasts is an indicator that they too have reached their full manpower potential and will need to husband personnel and resources carefully in counter attacks and determining where to do positional versus mobile defenses.

Gotta say I'm glad that the Germans have finally got on board with heavier weapons, 50x Gepards ADA, 7x PzH200s are a great start and I hope to see those Leo1s and Marder1s sent down the road too. They may be less capable than modern MBTs but a Leo1A5 is still capable of killing most Russian MBTs, though I see its use more in the infantry support role as it should still be capable of withstanding auto-cannon fire across the frontal arc.
More importantly though, these would be great steppingstones toward non-soviet derived equipment types outside of what Ukrainian home industry produces which makes it easier for further donations down the road.

Here's an interesting video by the Austrian military academy breaking down the ambush of the Russian BTG from many week's ago. It has English subtitles too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNeXbNY3HYQ

I wonder if the Ukrainian Kharkiv push is aiming at gaining the approach to Belgorod. It would make some sense operationally, as the ability to readily bombard military installations around Belgorod would provide high ROI in Russian supply disruption and materiel losses. Moreover, attacking Russian territory is a strategic beacon that by the nature of the Kremlin's war forces a disproportionate response, implying diversion of manpower from their central effort to correct the insult.

On the other hand, the Ukrainians would have to be smart and capable enough to work harder than almost any army in history to avoid civlian losses.

[spmetla]

I can see the Ukrainians continuing UAV and Commando strikes in the Belogrod area but think that dedicating any artillery to things on the other side of the border beyond staging areas and others stuff directly supporting Russian efforts to the South is probably not a good use of resources. Ukraine has limited amounts of these assets and they need to be focused at wherever they are achieving decisive operations. There's also the factor that if Ukraine tries and extend the war into Russia with ground forces (I'm including artillery in this) that may be an escalation that makes NATO nations more wary of sending weapons so that it's not their equipment being used to 'expand the war' into Russia proper.

I think the Ukrainians would be happy with a restoration of the border there and then establish new border defenses, having a truly hot border area is probably beyond the scope for what Ukraine wants for their national objectives or regaining their own territory. I think the current fires that are popping up all over Russia, probably due to a fair number of saboteurs is having the strategic affects you hint want.

I think the current Kharkiv push is more to just secure that city again for the most part, it is a major industrial center, especially in military production (tanks and their parts especially). Also, as the second largest city of Ukraine it would allow some internally displaced people to return home despite the danger and start somewhat in rebuilding their lives within the limits of the ongoing war.
Additionally, if they are able to exend that push farther East they threaten the lines supplying Russian forces South at Izyum, though Ukrainian capabilities in the attacks have shown only a limited scale so far so likely this is beyond what they can do.

[Montmorency]

That makes sense, no Battle of Kursk for Summer 2023. There is another way to trigger Stavka and damage logistical chains.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-and-how-russian-occupied-crimea-can-fall-ukraine

AP estimates (https://apnews.com/article/Russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-theater-c321a196fbd568899841b506afcac7a1) 600+ killed in the Mariupol theater bombing.

This (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/us-wont-rule-out-military-action-if-china-establishes-base-in-solomon-islands) isn't a good look for the US right now.

[spmetla]

Taking Crimea would be interesting but I think the article overstates how isolated it is. Russia can still resupply by air and sea if that bridge is cut, however were Ukraine to try and take it they'd be also operating off a single road network over the isthmus without the ability to resupply by sea or air. Additionally, after eight years of Russia rule, this is likely to be more Russian home turf than Ukrainian as any pro-Kyiv folks likely have left in that time period.

For the Solomon islands, I think the US statement is a nothing burger. It's the usual "all options are on the table" when we all know that's not the case. I imagine this is more for protecting the executive branch from Republican attacks for letting the PRC expand by sea again as the atoll expansions happened under Obama's watch previously. Also, in the Australia, UK, and US alliance only the US is currently positioned to make any threats as Australia and the UK are in no way able to rattle a saber credibly at the PRC.

As for it being a red-line, I don't think that it'd be one for military action however it'd be one for intelligence action and build up of military infrastructure to contain any protentional Chinese threat. The most overt action I could see would be the old trying to overthrow the now 'hostile government' of the Solomons by fomenting the already popular opposition to them. This type of action though is probably unlikely at least from the US side as our past experiments in this ended poorly and once again would show the double standard of the international order in favor the US and friends. The location is the exact same as the Imperial Japanese used to try and cut the Pacific in half and separate the US from Australia so a Chinese military presence there would be something dangerous if conflict ever broke out.

[Montmorency]

Taking Crimea would be interesting but I think the article overstates how isolated it is. Russia can still resupply by air and sea if that bridge is cut, however were Ukraine to try and take it they'd be also operating off a single road network over the isthmus without the ability to resupply by sea or air. Additionally, after eight years of Russia rule, this is likely to be more Russian home turf than Ukrainian as any pro-Kyiv folks likely have left in that time period.


There is exactly one scenario for the recapture of Crimea along the lines in that essay. I don't agree with the author's suggestion that Ukraine would besiege Crimea, in part for your noted challenge of interdicting Russian naval resupply (at least of Sevastopol).

It's an incredibly complex and conditional scenario, so it's hard to imagine Ukrainian command would really be planning for it.

But let's say Ukraine can ensure the neutralization of the Kerch bridge shortly before or during the operation. The operation would most likely be executed during a distracting Russian offensive phase in the Eastern theater. For it to succeed Ukrainian forces would have to have a significant bridgehead into Crimea - which is almost an island - by around D+3.

1. A very violent thrust right toward Kherson, supported by partisans in the city (to preserve the bridge most of all), with Russian forces extended north of Kherson pinned by simultaneous attacks. Presumably Ukraine begins with the kind of numerical superiority some assessments assign to it in the sector currently.
2. Kherson and Nova Kakhovka are occupied, with at least one of the two bridges intact, and Ukrainian brigades are rushed out into the expanse of southern Ukraine, which is presumably lightly-garrisoned. For maximal success the Russian forces isolated west of the Dnieper have to be brought to surrender or disperse ASAP.
3. Ukrainian columns must push out to Melitopol and secure it in order to anchor the offensive's flank. Partisans must again play a major role.

If Ukrainian troops actually rampaged through Crimea's garrison it would invite considerable panic among Russian high command, especially if the Kerch Bridge is no longer a viable path to reinforce the defense. The Russians have for most of the war been flying 200-300 sorties per day (not including helicopters?), generally for standoff actions or CAS near the frontline. If Crimea were imperiled Russia would throw all available air assets at Ukrainian columns regardless of losses. It would probably launch a hundred missiles at Kherson alone in hopes of destroying the bridge and damaging assembled units or supplies. A lack of any bridges across the Dnieper in the area would put an end to any forward movement, which fact itself must do a lot to deter the ambition to such an operation. Even if the Ukrainians did inflict unsustainable losses on Russian aerial assets, they would probably need multiple AD brigades and most of their fighter craft on scene to avoid taking enough losses to stall the offensive on that account alone.

4. The Russian main force would definitely peel off large formations to redeploy toward Melitopol in an attempt to defeat the offensive. To disrupt Russian efforts Ukraine would have to counterattack all along the line of contact just as opposing elements begin to withdraw, with results ranging from Russian delay to a Russian rout and pursuit in detail. This would relieve the flank defense at Melitopol for at least a few days.
5. As Ukrainian forces advance into Crimea and push aside garrison troops, they will seize Russian military bases, airfields, and depots, relying on the speed of their action to preempt the local assembly of reserves or militias to counteract them.

If this scenario could ever occur, it would have to be during the summer, before the latest wave of Russian conscripts and reserves complete basic training and after some Ukrainian reserve brigades under construction become available. If Ukraine could pull off such a feat, on top of everything else they've accomplished, the US would have no choice but to beg Ukraine with major economic favors to join NATO and train our cadets and recruits in combined arms warfare.


For the Solomon islands, I think the US statement is a nothing burger. It's the usual "all options are on the table" when we all know that's not the case. I imagine this is more for protecting the executive branch from Republican attacks for letting the PRC expand by sea again as the atoll expansions happened under Obama's watch previously. Also, in the Australia, UK, and US alliance only the US is currently positioned to make any threats as Australia and the UK are in no way able to rattle a saber credibly at the PRC.

This kind of language raises an eyebrow in the present historical moment:


“We wanted to outline for our friends in the Solomons, what our concerns are,” said Kritenbrink. “Prime minister Sogavare indicated that in the Solomon Islands’ view, the agreement they’ve concluded has solely domestic implications. But we’ve made clear that there are potential regional security implications of the agreement not just for ourselves, but for allies and partners across the region.”

On Tuesday, Kritenbrink reiterated the US’s willingness to act in the region if a military base were established by China.

“Of course, we have respect for the Solomon Islands sovereignty, but we also wanted to let them know that if steps were taken to establish a de facto permanent military presence, power projection capabilities, or a military installation, then we would have significant concerns, and we would very naturally respond to those concerns,” he said.

Of course the universal language of threatening nations and mafiosi in terms of "dear friends/partners" amplifies the distaste.

[Pannonian]

What is the point of western governments saying that they contributed in such and such a way to Ukraine's campaign? Boris Johnson did it (personally), and now the Biden government has done it.

[Montmorency]

Why more maps need to indicate rivers.

https://i.imgur.com/xOC1MQh.png

Unfortunately, the Russians have downed and captured a Phoenix Ghost (https://t.me/zhest_belgorod/11460).



What is the point of western governments saying that they contributed in such and such a way to Ukraine's campaign? Boris Johnson did it (personally), and now the Biden government has done it.

Signaling to domestic audiences, signaling to Ukrainian audiences, to emphasize resolve to the Russian government, and perhaps most importantly to advertise to potential allies. They're going to need to after the past generation of Western warfighting.

[Montmorency]

Indications that some of the recent American statements on American intelligence and material aid to Ukraine may have been unauthorized and undesirable.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2022/05/06/its-stupid-its-unnecessary-00030762
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/07/us-spies-ukraine-russia-military-intelligence


Putin believes 'doubling down' will improve Ukraine war outcome, CIA director says (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-believes-doubling-down-will-improve-ukraine-war-outcome-cia-director-says-2022-05-07/)
"He's in a frame of mind in which he doesn't believe he can afford to lose," said Burns, who was speaking at a Financial Times event in Washington. "I think he's convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress."

This is what Nixon and others believed for Vietnam. Escalate to de-escalate. But he had several war machines to dispose of.


Russian generals turning on each other to avoid Putin’s purge, says Ben Wallace (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-generals-turning-on-each-other-to-avoid-putins-purge-says-ben-wallace-tkg5m3c9z)
Russian generals are “turning in on themselves” because the war in Ukraine is not going to plan, the defence secretary said today. During a visit to Finland, Ben Wallace said military leaders were blaming each other for the “disaster” and feared being purged if the “quagmire” turns into a panicked retreat.

It seems a critical mass of Russian leadership might be too invested in this war to re-evaluate. And Stoltenberg thinks the Russian offensive proper hasn't even begun yet?

While Russian mass mobilization of reserves or conscripts is quite plausible as a decision point rn, I no longer believe Russia is even capable of carrying out a successful and full mobilization this year. The resources and organization just aren't present. The core of a mass training element, thousands of battle-hardened officers and enlisted, certainly exists*, but to gather enough of them to train huge numbers of conscripts to a reasonable standard of discipline, to allocate and refurbish enough equipment to allow the formation of units that aren't mere footbound light infantry with surplus DShK machineguns, to ensure that the logistical infrastructure can actually accommodate them without paralysis, to restructure the entire civilian economy toward war production, would surely require Stavka to essentially withdraw its most capable units from combat and immediately adopt a defensive posture lasting through the end of the year. The existing standing army would also probably just have to be reorganized on the spot to reconstitute elite units with individual experienced and committed soldiers from across the deployed formations who won't be held back in their outfits by corruption, incoherence, malingering, and poor leadership, with the rest of the standing army forming a dumping ground for the lower-tier troops. Also, the general staff probably have to be thoroughly purged and successfully replaced through battlefield promotion.

But in the meantime the Ukrainian armed forces will have doubled in size since the beginning of the war...

The Ukrainians have quite a lot of will to bleed to restore their lost territory (and strategically, to give it up is fatal anyway); they have the will, and arguably capability to match.


*With the further consideration that attrition among Russian officers and elite units has been particularly high since the beginning. If the vDV started with 45K personnel, and 2/3 were in maneuver elements (high-end?), of which half (>> 1/3) were infantry (my understanding of infantry BTGs at least is that they are never more than 1/2 infantry by TOE), and the Russian active military as a whole has lost (by now a lower bound) 15K killed with at least 25K dischargeably wounded going by some of the Russian reported ratios we've seen, it should not at all be surprising if more than 33% (5000 of 15000) of all VDV infantry have been lost by now. For an illustration, here is a helicopter full of Spetsnaz getting merked while relieving Snake Island following (or amid?) continual targeting of the island by Ukrainian drones and air force.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523215868179714048
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523309892429176833

[Montmorency]

Here was a BBC-style (https://zona.media/article/2022/04/25/bodycount) (e.g. obituaries) independent Russian media analysis of Russian losses, from two weeks ago. In this graphic casualties are attributed across military services.

https://i.imgur.com/8XzTrbk.png

Now of course databases of publicly-reported individual casualties remain woefully underspecified against the totality of losses, and a plurality of identified losses even lack details for attribution here (and both the BBC and this analysis find officers overrepresented in the public data), so we can't place that much confidence in the representativeness of this breakdown.

But it is suggestive that the VDV here take the largest share of attributable losses at 20% (the next-biggest categories are motor rifle, armor, and marines). Reusing the 40K+ irrecoverable RuAF casualties estimate I relied on, that would correspond to at least 8K overall VDV irrecoverable casualties, which suits my estimate from a day ago (such as 5K infantry, 3K crews and others). I'm comfortable estimating at the lowest end that 15% of the entire initial VDV has been lost, with more among the combat personnel. Without extended replenishment and refit the VDV would cease to exist as a combat-ready formation by the end of the year.

On the overreliance on the most capable units to accomplish tasks: Regimenter sterben zenmahl (Regiments die ten times).



For another reference point to the way I approach the subject of casualty rates, a Vietnam War analysis I glanced at earlier found 45% of US wounded would return to duty within 3 days. Accepting that return rates plummet after 3 days, 0.5x is a reasonable multiplier for dividing US wounded in Vietnam between light and heavy (e.g. dischargeable) categories. For various reasons I think the multiplier can be provisionally carried over to this war, and coheres well enough with a default overall wound rate of >3x fatalities.)



Damn, 30mm again (https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1523040384376782849).


A Ukrainian T-72B survived, with obvious damage, 7x 30x165mm autocannon hits (Fired from BMP-2, BTR-82A, etc).

https://i.imgur.com/FQcMNKv.jpg

[spmetla]

I think the analysis is about right and the over reliance on the elite formations will certainly have an outsized effect. The prolific ATGMs and MANPADs make even the platforms that usually dominate conventional conflicts (attack aviation and armor) vulnerable with such a low chance of survival.
The major fallacy of the way they've been conducting the war though is that the best tactical leaders will lead from the front and put themselves into harms way but when doing so for such a poorly planned and coordinated operation like the initial invasion just leads to outsized casualties.
I'm sure the Russians are trying to adapt but may be too often exposed to danger that they become slow and too conservative because they can't rely on their own support system to get their Soldiers and equipment out of danger once they get stuck in. The very slow creeping progress in certain parts of Eastern Donbass seems to reflect this, very slow offensive, creeping at WW1 speeds because the combined arms warfare just isn't capable of providing support to elements that have achieved any local breakthroughs.

The next few weeks will be telling. Curious what reactions the Russians can even do given that its likely that Finland and Sweden will apply for NATO next week.

[Montmorency]

Everyone keeps comparing the pace of operations to WW1 warfare, but isn't it more similar to the typical mode of offensive action by the Allies against German lines? The kind of simpler trench networks we see in the Donbass were also the norm in WW2.

Speaking of which, it's just more striking because of the erstwhile universality of mobility on the modern battlefield. Everything the soldiers in the current war are doing would have been done by rail or by footmarch 80 years ago, whereas in the present war I don't think soldiers ever march more than a couple of kilometers without relying at the very least on sedans. A lot of Ukrainian soldiers not on active defensive duty around the decisive points even get to 'commute to war', driving out from Kyiv or another city to participate in a village clearing one day, then driving back home or to their quarters after it's done. Most troops even on the defense appear to get the opportunity to be rotated onto leave quite frequently. Seems like the Work From Home trend has diffused down even to militaries.


I noticed that in 2011, Boeing fulfilled a $12 billion contract to upgrade our 76 B-52s' displays and datalinks. That's more than the cost of a new F-35B per B-52 just to partially refit a plane that has been flying since before ICBMs existed. For reference, the unipolar-era B-1 and B-2 bombers are supposed to be retired next decade. I get that the Air Force intends to put these frames on parade for the third centenary (https://www.airforcemag.com/article/buff-up/) of the Declaration of Independence, but this kind of investment seems a bit much.

https://i.imgur.com/zP0sYuF.png


The impressive current list of US materiel transfers to Ukraine (though I'm not sure it's even complete on the public commitments).

https://i.imgur.com/tDlyX0H.jpg

This (https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-120-st-javelin-lockheed?s=w) is what happens when you have an anti-competitive command economy like the - er...

So why not take it in-house?

https://i.imgur.com/a4EoEDL.png

This is nothing more than a scene out of the old Blitzkrieg RTT games.

The Russians made one of their many attempts to cross the Donets river, this time near Lysychansk.


We count (https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1524413089579511808) 6x T-72B-series MBT, 14x BMP-1/2 variants, 7x MT-LB, a tugboat & 5+ other armoured vehicles destroyed/abandoned/damaged. Note precise ID is very hard.

There were probably more losses not captured in these images. And it's unlikely most of those vehicles were parked or empty or destroyed. When you consider that most Russian BTGs in the area have to be considerably understrength, this foiled bridgehead represents the neutralization of an entire BTG for potentially no cost to the defender. Cold War-era systems of warfighting are just obsolete in the face of awesome strides in firepower and precision. Even the Ukrainians' trenches would effectively just be deathtraps if they weren't complemented by surrounding mobile defense.

https://i.imgur.com/9BVWXsl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/42dIyUp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xigi2Ba.jpg

[spmetla]

Everyone keeps comparing the pace of operations to WW1 warfare, but isn't it more similar to the typical mode of offensive action by the Allies against German lines? The kind of simpler trench networks we see in the Donbass were also the norm in WW2.

The pace of the fighting certainly is typical of a lot of the hard fought slogs like the Gothic line in Italy, the hedge country fights in Normandy, and the Siegfried line/Hurtgen Forest fighting before the Battle of the Bulge. The thing that stands out has been the inability, after the first few days of the war for any breakout by the Russians. WW2's hard fights usually would result in breakthroughs and exploitations at some point.

Right now though, the lethality of the weapons and the lack of survivability of Russian mobile platforms due to poor combined arms and contested air space makes the war look much more WW1. Both sides conduct an offensive of limited gains, reposition artillery, do a recon/counter-recon fight and then continue the attack if there's still capability. The fact that the towed artillery that the US is providing will likely be a game changer in providing decisive counter-battery fires where deployed is just an indicator of how slow the warfare is. The tank/IFV/infantry fight so far seems wholly dependent on artillery to get to the assault line and then defend gains against counterattacks.


Speaking of which, it's just more striking because of the erstwhile universality of mobility on the modern battlefield. Everything the soldiers in the current war are doing would have been done by rail or by footmarch 80 years ago, whereas in the present war I don't think soldiers ever march more than a couple of kilometers without relying at the very least on sedans.

The abundance of cars and trucks make road marches in this type of country unnecessary until right on the front line and both sides have enough APCs/IFVs that those should take you up to the dismount point. I imagine that the only true dismount forces in this fight are snipers and SOF type units doing behind the lines stuff. The dismounted infantry though seem absolutely vital for conduct the recon and patrolling that builds the intel for stuff that drones can't pickup, we've also seen lots of examples of anti-armor patrols doing their thing.


I noticed that in 2011, Boeing fulfilled a $12 billion contract to upgrade our 76 B-52s' displays and datalinks. That's more than the cost of a new F-35B per B-52 just to partially refit a plane that has been flying since before ICBMs existed. For reference, the unipolar-era B-1 and B-2 bombers are supposed to be retired next decade. I get that the Air Force intends to put these frames on parade for the third centenary of the Declaration of Independence, but this kind of investment seems a bit much.

In all fairness to the air force that upgrade to me still makes sense. The role for the B1s and B2s are in a war such as the current one in Ukraine, over contest air space. B-52s are just simple bomb-trucks doing a simple job. Just like the air force has realized that not all their fighters need to be stealth and have adjusted their plans to keeping newer F-15EXs around to complement the F35 and F22 force. The high end platforms are just not cost effective to be the standard multirole so you want to keep the older but still relevant multirole around. Same with the B-52s, once enemy air space is neutralized they can carry a lot of ordnance and we have a lot of those air frames available. Also, look at the Russian sorties being conducted, their Tu-95s are still doing sorties regularly but launching munitions from their side of the border. B-52s can do the same carrying cruise missiles and in the future hypersonic missiles of various sorts to go and conduct strikes from well outside enemy air defenses while the B1s and B2s conduct the more dangerous missions in contested environments.
I have the same gripe with the Humvee replacement, the JTLV in that there's a lot of jobs that just require a 4x4 truck in the army, not necessarily an armored vehicle. The JTLV is good for a lot of action, but I doubt it's weight makes it good for off road use. Same like I also think the US Army should bring back mule teams for the few mountain units as it's a timeless and effective way to do logistics where trucks and helicopters can't.


This is what happens when you have an anti-competitive command economy like the - er...

So why not take it in-house?

Part of that is that those larger companies have bought up the smaller defense firms. Same as what happened with Britain's aircraft industry in the 50s which was pretty much consolidated from dozens of firms into a handful.
The surface ship production and US ship building in general though are a product of blind US and UK policies under Reagan and Thatcher to make it more competitive and not subsidize ship building leading to most ship building going to China and Korea.
I'm happy that the current tensions and the COVID disruptions have led to the wool falling from our collective eyes in seeing that maintaining domestic supply chains of strategic resources is rather important even if it's not cost effective from a free market stand point. The US restarting stinger production after realizing that it takes 18 months to build a 'cheap' shoulder fired rocket is a marker for sure.

Perhaps the defense industry will finally get the scrutiny that it deserves as we help ourselves and NATO rearm but outside of us being in a state of war too so that graft and corruption can't be so easily hidden under the guise of patriotism.


This is nothing more than a scene out of the old Blitzkrieg RTT games.

The Russians made one of their many attempts to cross the Donets river, this time near Lysychansk.
Certainly, looks like a nightmare of a fight for the Russians, sorta looks like the river crossing scene from Kelly's Heros too though definitely Blitzkrieg RTT memories too (excellent series of games, too bad the new one is mediocre). River crossings are damn difficult, this is why so many Russian vehicles are supposed to be amphibious though it doesn't look that's being employed much in this war. When you look at how few bridging units exist in NATO formations right now you can see a severe engineer capability gap in addition to not having had to build fortifications against modern weapons too.

[Montmorency]

On the subject of communication and (mis)understanding in international affairs, it seems bin Laden's (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/osama-bin-laden-documents-american-support-60-minutes-2022-04-24/) primary aim in attacking the US and Western societies... let me preface by saying that his ideology was always to drive the "far Satan" (Western interference) out of the Middle East so that the fundamentalist movements could overwhelm the "near Satan" (more secular Arab governments). But according to bin Laden's personal archive, the process for him involved using terror to generate popular unrest in Western countries against continuing political or security involvement in the Middle East.

Stop to think how stupid that concept is, that bombing Americans or Europeans would enflame their isolationism rather than their racism and pugnacity. Maybe even stupider than imagining that Iraqis would quickly self-organize a US-friendly government peddling cheap oil...


Lahoud says the terrorist's intention was to incite protests in the U.S., to turn the American people against their government because, as a letter from 2010 read, direct pressure can only be applied to the "White House, Congress and Pentagon .. when [al Qaeda] directly influences the American people."

Bin Laden sought to strip the U.S. of its sense of security, in hopes it would cause the U.S. to pull troops out of the Middle East.

In the years that followed 9/11, bin Laden had plans for other attacks designed to incite "popular anger and domestic opposition" on US soil. In a 2005 letter, Nelly Lahoud translated in her book, bin Laden wrote that al Qaeda should prioritize attacks in America, but only in those states that had voted for Bush in 2004.

It's unnatural to study people and groups objectively. It requires special training, social conditioning, or even temperament. The reality is that all policymakers and state or substate leaders are at risk of acting without objective grounding, much of the time. It's almost like we should pay more attention to the old insights of postmodern academia...

More and more I'm of the opinion that international relations should drop the screen of "constructive ambiguity" and encourage leaders to share all their dumbass opinions with each other in candid exchanges and force a reckoning between actually-existing worldviews.


According to this researcher (https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-setbacks-strategy-generals-putin/31839737.html), the Ukraine war is extremely popular among the Russian military, where the consensus is that all the problems they face are caused by NATO and by internal intelligence and political failures. It's a shame, but when faced with florid fascism you really can't get around just killing as many fascists as possible. A lot of Russian enlisted and conscripts may be drunk, undisciplined, even insubordinate louts from time to time, but the lack, or perhaps even declining incidence, of significant mutinies and surrenders, illustrates the cohesion of the RuAF. I projected such cohesion at the beginning of the war based on Russian as well as general military history, but the extent of it might even be more than I expected.

Although the real test would be in how many surrender under condition of Ukrainian breakthrough exploitation rather than the current static warfare (the attacking Soviets in the Winter War never really broke or surrendered either, during the dismal first phase.)


Illustration (https://twitter.com/i/status/1525167553244536832) of decentralization of firepower and surveillance in action:

1. A single Russian towed artillery piece fires.
2. All the crew and support personnel flee to a nearby house.
3. Eventually a single Ukrainian gun gives desultory counterbattery fire, damaging the Russian ordnance.

It makes sense for the US military (https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-war-validates-pursuing-very-long-range-artillery-army-says) to prioritize expanding its technological advantage in those domains.

Speaking of technology, another next-big-thing may be continuous solar refueling of electrified equipment during missions, though this decentralization probably wouldn't fit with US massive logistics doctrine beyond SOF (https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/commander-in-ukraine-wants-quiet-electric-bikes-for-his-sniper-teams).


The pace of the fighting certainly is typical of a lot of the hard fought slogs like the Gothic line in Italy, the hedge country fights in Normandy, and the Siegfried line/Hurtgen Forest fighting before the Battle of the Bulge. The thing that stands out has been the inability, after the first few days of the war for any breakout by the Russians. WW2's hard fights usually would result in breakthroughs and exploitations at some point.

Right now though, the lethality of the weapons and the lack of survivability of Russian mobile platforms due to poor combined arms and contested air space makes the war look much more WW1. Both sides conduct an offensive of limited gains, reposition artillery, do a recon/counter-recon fight and then continue the attack if there's still capability. The fact that the towed artillery that the US is providing will likely be a game changer in providing decisive counter-battery fires where deployed is just an indicator of how slow the warfare is. The tank/IFV/infantry fight so far seems wholly dependent on artillery to get to the assault line and then defend gains against counterattacks.

Of June through December 1944 the West Front only saw any significant maneuvers in August and September, 2 months out of 7, despite overwhelming Allied superiority on all material metrics. On the Italian front, it took half a year to surge from Naples to Rome. Then, once the front advanced from Rome to Florence, the Allies were stuck there for another half a year until the last month of the war (Operation Grapeshot). The Russians here, meanwhile are on the offensive with a theater-wide 1:1 ratio, following enormous losses during the initial maneuver phase, against an opponent with evidently-high tactical skill and fielding most of the same armored and artillery platforms they rely on. They've also been conservative with their air force for various reasons, including on account of when in early March they put their air force through the full range of superiority operations and suffered combat loss of multiple airframes confirmed in a single day (2 Su-30 and 2 Su-34 on March 5, with 2 Su-25 lost the day before, according to Oryx). It's far past time to admit that the only logical reason for widespread and continuing expectations of Russian deep operations throughout Ukraine are underestimation of Ukrainians as hapless chimps ("retarded Russians" as some say) and overestimation of Russians as Slavic supermen.

If the Russian Army found ten ready divisions in its couch cushions, or sleeping by the banks of the Donets, the picture would change.


Same like I also think the US Army should bring back mule teams for the few mountain units as it's a timeless and effective way to do logistics where trucks and helicopters can't.

That would make it difficult for the grunts to joke about opposition being donkey:daisy:.

But I think DoD is too far along the development chain for autonomous mechanized portage systems, or whatever they call them, to downgrade to muscle.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...I noticed that in 2011, Boeing fulfilled a $12 billion contract to upgrade our 76 B-52s' displays and datalinks. That's more than the cost of a new F-35B per B-52 just to partially refit a plane that has been flying since before ICBMs existed. For reference, the unipolar-era B-1 and B-2 bombers are supposed to be retired next decade. I get that the Air Force intends to put these frames on parade for the third centenary (https://www.airforcemag.com/article/buff-up/) of the Declaration of Independence, but this kind of investment seems a bit much. Nothing, but nothing is quite like "The BUFF!"

[Montmorency]

I've checked the scale in ISW maps against Gooogle Earth and they appear to be systematically marking it up by around 33%. I'll take this opportunity to disclose my opinion that in general ISW's maps rank as one of the less useful major mappers I know of, in part for their flawed choice of base map.

You may have heard that the documented Russian vehicle losses were upped to more than double the early figures. I don't know what they based it on, but the other day ISW estimated 550 Russian troops on the scene, of whom ~500 were casualties. Yuri Podolyaka, my fascist, was one of the Russian milbloggers noted to have inveighed against Russian leadership over the incident.

Speaking of which, this comparison (https://twitter.com/partizan_oleg/status/1526199389764874240) of Oryx open source captured Russian documents from the 1st Guards Tank Army dating up to March 15th indicate that Oryx's tracker recorded 80% of Russian T80U losses up to that point. This supports a heuristic like taking the average of Oryx's tank hit count and the Ukrainian government's claimed tank count (always less than double Oryx's); a similar calculation could apply to other vehicles, though they have crept over a 2x ratio to Oryx over time, and artillery to over a 3x ratio (granting the difficulty of ID). I would still call the Ukrainian aviation hit claims a lie though.

[Montmorency]

Another report (https://twitter.com/robcrilly/status/1526926893055979522) on the Afghan War's end. Our inept and hubristic top military/intelligence leadership, aided by many civilians, completely mismanaged the reconstruction and establishment of the Afghan Republic and its military even measured against the difficulty of the task. They approached the situation like it was Ukraine, did a much worse and more corrupt job than with Ukraine, and had their pants down when the bill came due.

A lot of Americans made a lot of money in Afghanistan, but our relationship with the ANA always doomed it to rapid defeat. In this regard our general staff have not been much better than their Russian counterparts today.


A lot to unpack here. But one of the key new things for me is that Afghan commanders did not know what was in the classified annexes of the Feb 2020 deal between Trump administration and the Taliban 1/-
'One senior Afghan official told us that he had never seen the classified annexes to the U.S.Taliban agreement; only after recognizing unfamiliar trends on the battlefield did he gain some understanding of the United States’ post-agreement tactics.'
The Taliban appeared to change their tactics, apparently because they knew the new U.S. rules of engagement. eg They knew they would not be attacked unless directly engaging Afghan forces
'A senior Afghan official told us that after the U.S.-Taliban agreement, the Taliban began splitting their units to fight in waves, a strategy devised to exploit the reduced U.S. military support to the ANDSF.'
So - 'Afghan troops had not only lost U.S. support for offensive operations, they no longer knew if or when U.S. forces would come to their defense. U.S. inaction fueled mistrust among the ANDSF toward the United States and their own government.'
Also @SIGARHQ was unable to obtain the secret annexes or an interview with Gen Miller, the top US commander.
Once again, it is a reminder of the despicable attitude of some American leaders who suggested the Taliban takeover was the result of Afghan soldiers failing to fight.



Intensely interesting (https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1526412208468639745) to look at. A reminder that while small units in conventional warfare can easily get demolished in short order, it's far from insurmountable for a modern military to regenerate them with replacements on the go. Large militaries have a lot of slack. Despite the appalling overall performance of the Russian military, it's one of the few global militaries that can claim an ability to sustain large-scale combat and regenerate damage to combat elements over an extended period of time. The last time we saw anything like this - reminder - was the Iran-Iraq war, which just emphasizes the point that a military doesn't have to be particularly effective to have strong sustainment and regeneration capacities; the latter specifically demands high throughput for meat and metal.

https://i.imgur.com/inPPdtu.jpg

Let's be frank. The vast majority of NATO militaries, almost definitely including the British and French, would not be able to sustain their deployable ground formations in battle on the Eastern Front for more than like a month at full intensity. Not that they would really need to with the Ukrainians and Americans doing most of the lifting, but the point stands. LOL @ "expeditionary capability." (Needless to say countries like Germany and North Macedonia would best stick to non-combat contributions.)

Technological advantage, range, precision, and firepower are of course essential to the American way of war, but this war is a reminder that the US also has to plan around losing lots of soldiers and lots of platforms and lots of ordnance with the capacity to replace them continuously. If DoD can't commit to that kind of fight on paper, it should touch grass and adopt a formal stance discouraging politicians from trying to stick them in one for real. The brass should understand that while they could afford to fuck around in Afghanistan or Iraq or Somalia, we can't afford to fuck around in the Pacific.




But let's recall that Putin's theory of Western commitment leading up to the war was not irrational. It's taken a lot of active pressure and work on the Biden admin's part to keep the Continent's Big Three - Germany, France, and Italy - from flaking out entirely. Even now Macron, Scholz, et al. still hold a preference for peace with honor.
https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-leaders-fall-out-of-key-on-ukraine/


Responding to a question about Draghi’s call for peace negotiations, Karen Donfried, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, said that while the U.S. believed the conflict would ultimately be resolved through diplomacy, the administration’s priority remained helping Ukraine to defend itself.

“Our focus today is on strengthening Ukraine’s hand as much as possible on the battlefield, so that when the time does come, Ukraine has as much leverage as possible at the negotiating table,” she told reporters on Friday.

Even as European leaders sympathize publicly with Ukraine’s struggle and in some cases have gone to great lengths to support the country, they also fear that what French President Emmanuel Macron last week called a “humiliation” of Russia could create a whole new set of problems, Western officials say.

One big concern is that a Ukrainian win could destabilize Russia, making it even more unpredictable and putting a normalization of energy links further out of reach. That’s why some western European capitals quietly favor a “face-saving” resolution to the conflict, even if it costs Ukraine some territory.

Even as Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have said repeatedly it would be up to Ukraine to determine the conditions for a halt to hostilities, they’ve recently underscored their preference for a ceasefire, sooner rather than later.

“We are not at war with Russia,” Macron said in an address at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, stressing that Europe’s “duty is to stand with Ukraine to achieve a ceasefire, then build peace.”

Macron also declared that, after peace was achieved, Europe would have to construct “new balances of security” — the kind of phrase that sets off alarm bells in Central and Eastern European countries, where it is seen as code for rewarding Putin with a say over what happens on their territory.

Scholz struck a similar note during a lengthy telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. After the call, Scholz said via Twitter that he had pushed three points with Putin, the first of which was: “There must be a ceasefire in Ukraine as quickly as possible.”

A demand that Russia immediately retreat and withdraw all its forces from Ukrainian territory was notably not among the three points. In an interview over the weekend with German news outlet T-Online, Scholz, who delayed sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine, said Germany would continue to support sanctions against Russia, while repeating his call for a diplomatic solution.

After meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington last week, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi also said it was time to start thinking about a peace deal.

“We agreed that we must continue to support Ukraine and put pressure on Moscow, but also begin to ask how to build peace,” he told reporters, adding that the effort must also include Ukraine.

“People … want to think about the possibility of bringing a ceasefire and starting again some credible negotiations. That’s the situation right now. I think that we have to think deeply on how to address this,” Draghi declared.

And the referenced Ipsos poll (https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022-04/Global%20Advisor%20-%20War%20in%20Ukraine%20-%20April%202022%20-%20Graphic%20Report%20_2.pdf) of a spread of European and other countries indicates limited popular readiness to spend resources on Ukraine's behalf. When you look at the polling for Turkey, Israel, and Hungary, Turkey's strategy looks downright pro-Ukrainian.
(Though of course they're asking NATO for a very very handsome reward in return.)

https://i.imgur.com/nWqfBxs.jpg

Japan's surprisingly-sensitive and bellicose public sentiment responsive to the war tells us that Russia is paying a price for having failed to normalize relations over Sakhalin for all these years.


Anyway, what might Putin's strategy be in the abjuration of general mobilization?

1. Rely on current conscription cohorts, announced (limited) reserve callups, voluntary enlistment, and the rumored (https://www.currenttime.tv/a/v-rossii-soobschayut-o-prinuzhdenii/31844524.html) "covert mobilization" to bring two to three hundred thousand men to minimal standards of soldiering within 3 months (or by the end of summer).
2. Prioritize training riflemen - light infantry - over initiating specialist training that would take further months to complete.
3. Restore/modernize a few hundred BTRs and BMPs from storage for these green light brigades.
4. Meanwhile, complete the eviction of Ukrainian troops from Luhansk (Severodonetsk/Lysychansk) and Donetsk at all costs.
5. Declare a unilateral ceasefire and go on the defensive, stocking the regions trenches and towns in depth with the fresh light brigades.
6.a. Ukraine accepts the ceasefire and abandons the initiative, weakening its economy while Russia declares glorious victory, rebuilds its army, pillages/annexes occupied territory, and exterminates all dissent and ethnic Ukrainian social infrastructure/networks while establishing collaborationist power.
6.b. Ukraine rejects the ceasefire, losing international support on the margins as Russia cries foul, having to swap roles with Russia and thereby exchanging the disparity in expenditure of personnel, money, fuel, and supplies in an attempt to retake lost territory in positional warfare.
7. Hold as many gains as possible with cannon fodder absorbing most of the Ukrainian blows until Ukraine or its coalition runs out of energy, leaving the situation ripe for highly disadvantageous terms to be wrung out of a settlement.

Putin would count such a scenario as a satisfactory victory, regardless of cumulative damage to the Russian military, finances, and economy. There are however - assuming Putin does have this strategy in mind - a number of factors or events that could intervene to disrupt the necessary chain of events, since the opposition does get a say too.

The Biden administration has done a pretty good job leading the coalition so far. I think Trump, besides taking the country to Russian levels of repression and corruption, would rather 50K American soldiers back in Afghanistan than $50 billion to Ukraine in aid.

[Montmorency]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1kwq52NKmo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1kwq52NKmo

In contrast, Russian elections are rigged, political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the political process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq - I mean of Ukraine (Iraq too). Anyway... I'm 75.

RIP Iraq War
2003-2022
'Old enough to serve'

[spmetla]

Australia election: Anthony Albanese vows unity after Labor seizes power
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61534732

Australia has elected its first Labor government in almost a decade and Anthony Albanese as prime minister, ousting Scott Morrison's coalition.

Mr Albanese told jubilant supporters that Australians had "voted for change". However it is still unclear whether he can secure a majority.

The centre-left leader vowed to bring people together, invest in social services and "end the climate wars".

Mr Morrison thanked the "miracle of the Australian people" after conceding.

In perhaps the election's greatest twist, support also surged for Greens and independent candidates running on climate platforms.

They could wield greater influence if Labor fails to secure 76 lower house seats to govern in its own right. Late on Saturday it had 72 seats to the Coalition's 55, the ABC projected.

I just hope for Australia that the new government can remain coherent for a while, the rapid turnover before Morrison came in was a bit mind boggling to watch from afar. Will be happy to see an emphasis on the environment, with the new switch to challenging China in the region I'm sure it'll make it easier to switch Australia away from mineral exploitation and export to China as such a dominant part of its economy to hopefully things a little more sustainable in the long term both geo-politically and environmentally.
It's a challenging time for a new government economically and politically so best of luck to them, may they do well for Australia.


After his speech, Mr Albanese told the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil he strongly supported the Aukus defence alliance with the US and UK, and hoped to be a world leader on climate action.
Mr Albanese will fly to Tokyo on Monday for a summit with the leaders of Japan, India and the US. As he will be representing Australia as it's prime minister, he will be sworn into office quickly - perhaps as early as Sunday.
I just hope that he keeps on with the current sub procurement strategy as the nuclear infrastructure needed is something I could see a opposed by environmentalists.

[Montmorency]

I sure hope Biden knows what he's doing with this Rubicon.

I wonder if the upcoming announcement was already known among national leaderships (in the same fashion that the Kremlin was informed of Finland/Sweden NATO application before the world was). From May 19:


China warns of dangerous situation developing ahead of Biden Asia trip (https://thehill.com/policy/international/3494146-china-warns-of-dangerous-situation-developing-ahead-of-biden-asia-trip/)

China warned the U.S. that President Biden’s visit to East Asia this week could put their relations in “serious jeopardy” if officials play the “Taiwan card” during the trip.

In a phone call with national security adviser Jake Sullivan, China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi warned the U.S. against speaking out on the independent sovereignty of Taiwan, a self-ruling democratic island in the Indo-Pacific that China claims is historically part of the mainland and should be under Beijing’s control.

“If the U.S. side persists in playing the ‘Taiwan card’ and goes further down the wrong path, it will surely put the situation in serious jeopardy,” Jiechi said, according to a readout. “We urge the U.S. side to get a clear understanding of the situation, strictly honor its commitments and abide by the one-China principle.”

[spmetla]

I think he does, the new statement that the US will use military force to defend Taiwan is a clear line in the sand that should deter Chinese military aggression as it is difficult to slow/stop escalation if the US and PRC even exchange shots in earnest.

I think the reason for the statement is because frankly it's necessary, if China chose to blockade Taiwan there's no land route to resupply or help them resist the PRC. If the US intends to support Taiwan should China invade then there's absolutely no way to let the Chinese know the cost may include war with the US unless we say so clearly.

If Taiwan ever chooses to unite with the mainland then cool, the PRC invading Taiwan to 'reunify' something they have never controlled should be unacceptable.
If China had been a bit wiser it wouldn't have clamped down on Hong Kong unnecessarily as that was the single biggest factor that demonstrated that Taiwan within the PRC is no longer the Taiwan its people enjoy. Now the PRC should either reform itself to make reunification more appealing, do an influence/political lobbying campaign in Taiwan to encourage reunification, or invade and impose its way.

With Russia's hands tied, the "West" and NATO unified, the Quad reinvigorated and more focused, and China dealing with the repercussions of its zero-COVID policy for the more infections Omicron variant the US and friends are actually in far more of a position of strength than six months ago.

If Biden could get his domestic game a bit better and regain the losses due to inflation and sanctions fallout he'd be looking pretty strong overall as the Russia/China strategy has so far been outshining the Afghan withdrawal debacle.

[rory_20_uk]

China last fought Vietnam in 1979 - and lost. They've almost no combat experience anywhere. Most current soldiers are going to be single children that venerates family. For any army on the planet to undertake an amphibious assault over 100 miles of water onto prepared positions with a determined foe would be a meat grinder the likes of which we've not seen for decades. I don't think that China has the landing craft - even ignoring the attrition rates slow moving craft filled with troops and materiel would have through the missiles / mine fields / heavy artillery etc. China would suppress as much as they can - but that is expected. So in almost any realistic scenario there's some sort of blockade situation. Perhaps even shipping scared off rather than anything official. A clear line that would suck in the USA? I doubt it.

China seems to be building alliances in the Pacific which upsets Australia and the USA, who are the only ones allowed to oversee the indigenous people. Yes, I'd rather a world where the dominant powers are as friendly to where I am as possible for purely selfish reasons but I am aware that this is self-serving rather than a legal framework.

I would imagine that China is looking to have some resupply bases that would make its fleet - especially its submarines far more problematic. Obviously controlling Taiwan is best but this would enable them to have assets deployed in front of the first island chain and would be oh so much easier.

~:smoking:

[CrossLOPER]

With Russia's hands tied, the "West" and NATO unified, the Quad reinvigorated and more focused, and China dealing with the repercussions of its zero-COVID policy for the more infections Omicron variant the US and friends are actually in far more of a position of strength than six months ago.
But is it worth having to pay more to drive my F150 3 hours to/from work? What about MY freedom?

In all seriousness, the project to repair NATO and other international relations seems to have moved forward with its timetable. What needed four years was done in a couple of months due to the war.

[rory_20_uk]

In a few months, Putin should be a strong contender for either the Peace and / or Environmental Nobel Prize.

~:smoking:

[Pannonian]

In a few months, Putin should be a strong contender for either the Peace and / or Environmental Nobel Prize.

~:smoking:

Are they given posthumously?

[Montmorency]

This is cool. (https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1528500822442647554) Storage and container transport logistics.

https://i.imgur.com/o94fxlw.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TSNJB46.png

The evolving Russian operational exploitation (~20 mile salient) around Popasna over the past half-month shows the importance of both concentration of forces (particularly artillery on Russia's part) and of hinges in positional warfare. The most important downrange implication of the Russians turning the flank at Popasna is really the integrity of the entire Donbas line. It could even take the whole summer, but using Popasna as the fulcrum to eject Ukraine from its Donetsk province fortifications, and thence from their half of the province, should be feasible in the absence of significant Ukrainian counterattacks. Ukraine wouldn't have given up Popasna and the surrounding hills if it didn't have to, which implies a lack of an extant strategic reserve, or at least unwillingness to commit it, on the Ukrainian part. E.g. in mid-May it was reported that 25 of 32 Territorial (paramilitary) brigades had been committed to combat, with some number of regular brigades and training elements I could not determine stationed in the interior, or places like Odessa and the northern border; by comparison Russia is said to be digging into its training elements, reservists in retraining, and undeployed miscellanea, to compose a new - operational - reserve by the next month or two.

The long-hypothesized overall Russian medium-term strategy of consolidating and transitioning to defense over delineated territories strikes me as abundantly evidenced by now. The scale of the Russian advance is equivalent in time and space to the prior Ukrainian advance north of Kharkiv, but in the current context a square mile of Donbass is more strategic than any other in the country. As Ukraine can't expect to overtake Russian artillery superiority at any point, any future counteroffensives would have no choice but to be channeled into the more vulnerable Russian flanks themselves (Kherson, Kharkiv) to counteract the disadvantage. Even original-run T-62s and trenches filled with untrained cannon fodder infantry would delay the Ukrainians by a lot in Donetsk if supported by surviving Russian first-tier assets and artillery. The best case for Ukraine remains that in which this analysis is wrong and Russia never ceases attacking.



I think he does, the new statement that the US will use military force to defend Taiwan is a clear line in the sand that should deter Chinese military aggression as it is difficult to slow/stop escalation if the US and PRC even exchange shots in earnest.

I think the reason for the statement is because frankly it's necessary, if China chose to blockade Taiwan there's no land route to resupply or help them resist the PRC. If the US intends to support Taiwan should China invade then there's absolutely no way to let the Chinese know the cost may include war with the US unless we say so clearly.

The CCP will appreciate that the US still affirms the One China policy I guess. But Torschlusspanik is real and has caused quite a few wars in history, so barring the unlikely event that a bloodless coup can be engineered in Taiwan in the short-term, the American red line amid souring relations, Taiwanese military reform, and cultural drift between China and Taiwan could well have amplified the chances of war in the coming years by a lot. We have little recourse but to defer to the possibility of the admin's hidden knowledge. If the decade at least passes without war then it's possible to hope one will never come to pass.

OTOH, China is doing a great job offering alternative value propositions to most of Africa and Latin America (https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/23/argentina-china-us-imf-bri-debt-economy-summit-americas/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921), and in general the US government over the past generation has seemed to care shockingly little about what goes on in Latin America (beyond feeble gestures at the existence of international crime). We share a landmass, so our socioeconomic problems are of very real and immediate concern to one another. What has the US done for Latin America, or what does it plan to do?




China last fought Vietnam in 1979 - and lost. They've almost no combat experience anywhere. Most current soldiers are going to be single children that venerates family. For any army on the planet to undertake an amphibious assault over 100 miles of water onto prepared positions with a determined foe would be a meat grinder the likes of which we've not seen for decades. I don't think that China has the landing craft - even ignoring the attrition rates slow moving craft filled with troops and materiel would have through the missiles / mine fields / heavy artillery etc. China would suppress as much as they can - but that is expected. So in almost any realistic scenario there's some sort of blockade situation. Perhaps even shipping scared off rather than anything official. A clear line that would suck in the USA? I doubt it.

China seems to be building alliances in the Pacific which upsets Australia and the USA, who are the only ones allowed to oversee the indigenous people. Yes, I'd rather a world where the dominant powers are as friendly to where I am as possible for purely selfish reasons but I am aware that this is self-serving rather than a legal framework.

I would imagine that China is looking to have some resupply bases that would make its fleet - especially its submarines far more problematic. Obviously controlling Taiwan is best but this would enable them to have assets deployed in front of the first island chain and would be oh so much easier.

~:smoking:

Binkov's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRvRzzCmzX0) is not a deep analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z67BZ1T0ehU), but it shows sufficiently well how China's navy is already meeting the task, since after all that capability is almost the whole reason for PLAN's existence. But yes, China wouldn't invade out of the blue because it would need to very visibly correlate forces for many months to have a prospect of conventional success. Any previous hopes for a relative blitz beachhead (~3 months) before the US could properly react have probably faded with Russia's performance in Ukraine, so a future operation would likely seek to test opposition resolve with gradual escalation by building up a blockade and occupying outlying islands.

A pretty obvious material indicator to track would be the level of the Chinese economy's adaptation over time to any blockade of the Chinese coast or Taiwan's exit from global supply chains. (If a country is taking visible pains to prepare for war then it's plausibly preparing for war.)

China is indeed seeking Oceanic partners, including but beyond the Solomon Islands that I posted about above (and to which the US government replied ominously). One useful aspect for China is that a few strategic bases in the Pacific could seriously delay a full US response from the mainland in the interest of caution, which in principle would probably incentivize Japan and South Korea to invite more forward-based US assets on their own territory over time.

[Pannonian]

Q for spmetla: Russia are considering trying the Azovsteel prisoners for war crimes and presumably executing them in retaliation for the Ukrainian trial of a Russian prisoner. Here's the question: what kind of war crimes are possible for soldiers fighting on their own turf and who haven't been advancing and capturing enemy? We know the accusations will be false, but what kinds of stuff can they make up that fits the above scenario?

[spmetla]

Q for spmetla: Russia are considering trying the Azovsteel prisoners for war crimes and presumably executing them in retaliation for the Ukrainian trial of a Russian prisoner. Here's the question: what kind of war crimes are possible for soldiers fighting on their own turf and who haven't been advancing and capturing enemy? We know the accusations will be false, but what kinds of stuff can they make up that fits the above scenario?

I don't think it's in retaliation at all, this would probably have happened no matter what. However, seeing as for their internal media and messaging they've been saying that the Azov BN are the super nazis that needed to be cleansed from Ukraine I don't see how they'd let them go as it would defeat their own domestic message.
Defenders can absolutely commit war crimes too, shooting/threatening Russian collaborators and sympathizers, looting, and so on. Using protected (red cross marked) buildings, vehicles, and the like for any sort of military means is also against the rules of war. No field ambulances should be transporting any ammo or weapons aside from the crews own sidearms, same applies to field hospitals.


The long-hypothesized overall Russian medium-term strategy of consolidating and transitioning to defense over delineated territories strikes me as abundantly evidenced by now. The scale of the Russian advance is equivalent in time and space to the prior Ukrainian advance north of Kharkiv, but in the current context a square mile of Donbass is more strategic than any other in the country. As Ukraine can't expect to overtake Russian artillery superiority at any point, any future counteroffensives would have no choice but to be channeled into the more vulnerable Russian flanks themselves (Kherson, Kharkiv) to counteract the disadvantage. Even original-run T-62s and trenches filled with untrained cannon fodder infantry would delay the Ukrainians by a lot in Donetsk if supported by surviving Russian first-tier assets and artillery. The best case for Ukraine remains that in which this analysis is wrong and Russia never ceases attacking.

I'm curious how Russian manpower is holding up, the recent raising of the conscription age limit to draft older men is surprising to me. Guys getting recalled to service at a point in their life when they have families and careers and their previous military services were a lifetime ago will probably cause more problems than conscripting youths.
The T-62s being put back into 2nd echelon duties is absolutely an indicator of how they've burned through most of their stock of serviceable frontline modernized tanks. Also hurts the logistics as it used a different 115mm ammo than every other tank in their inventory.

I think the media is too worried about the slow Russian successes in the Donbass, the Ukrainians are making every mile cost Russia dearly. I worry more about the Ukraine needing to divert manpower to get agriculture into action and general war-weariness by frontline troops. I think the greatest worry for me though is the constant teetering by folks like Macron and Scholz trying to broker a deal with Putin and without Zelensky. Negotiating concessions on behalf of Ukraine without their involvement is more likely to cause a loss of morale and will than Russia taking the Donbass.

On a side note, I hope that the US can get Turkey to approve Finland and Sweden, I know Turkey wants to be back on F-35s and a few other things too. Perhaps something cheeky can be made into a deal like having Turkey donate their S-400s to Ukraine as that caused them to be kicked from the F-35 program in the first place. Erdogan certainly knows how to take advantage of a crisis.

[Montmorency]

I'm curious how Russian manpower is holding up, the recent raising of the conscription age limit to draft older men is surprising to me. Guys getting recalled to service at a point in their life when they have families and careers and their previous military services were a lifetime ago will probably cause more problems than conscripting youths.

One thing this war has reminded the developed world is that people in their 30s and 40s are just as capable of combat duty as teenagers (even if they usually have more valuable societal responsibilities nowadays). Although it also serves to remind you that while a gaggle of filthy young men can resemble a frat party, when you age them up it just looks like a dispiriting hardcore homeless encampment, which is closer to the reality of soldiering.

How the recent slaying of the real-life (Russian) Top Gun (https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/05/24/russian-major-general-shot-down-over-ukraine-bbc-russian-a77788)


Major General Kanamat Botashev has become the highest-ranking Russian pilot to be killed in the skies over Ukraine, the BBC?s Russian service reported Tuesday.

The 63-year-old retired general had been flying a Su-25 fighter jet over the Luhansk region on Sunday when the aircraft was targeted by a Stinger shoulder-fired missile system, the BBC reported, citing three of Botashev?s former subordinates who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The pilot did not have time to eject from his aircraft and died.

Botashev had been a regimental commander until he was forced to retire in 2012 after being found guilty of crashing an Su-27 fighter jet while performing acrobatics.

It is unclear how the retired commander ended up flying a fighter jet on the frontlines of the Ukraine war. His former subordinates who spoke to the BBC suggested that ?he just couldn?t stay on the sidelines.?

relates to this issue is up for debate.


The T-62s being put back into 2nd echelon duties is absolutely an indicator of how they've burned through most of their stock of serviceable frontline modernized tanks. Also hurts the logistics as it used a different 115mm ammo than every other tank in their inventory.

According to ISW and other sources the T-62s are to be used either as pillboxes or in rear security detachments, which was my rough estimation of their utility. Indeed, there have been reports and videos of fresh T-72s and T-80s coming up as well. It's not either-or.

Here are some other considerations. Even if we take a plausible estimate of 1000 Russian/separatist tanks lost on net (over 100 Ukrainian tanks have fallen into opposition hands so far), of which a high proportion of modern models during the first two months, and estimate that RuFOR through 2022 calls upon up to - that is, a ceiling - 3500 active and 5000 stored tanks, then reactivating Cold War models outside first echelon duties makes good sense in the context of a hypothetical 'defensive swing' strategy. They could lose a further 1000 tanks through the remainder of the year, equivalent to a near-quarter of all possible Russian tank power in the near-term, all without exposing a single further 21st-century model or T-90, though they probably won't act to that conservative an extent. Russia is not reckless enough to expend a hundred T-90s against a non-NATO combatant when a T-72B would achieve 90% of the same mission.

"Quantity is its own quality" - Kon Mari


I think the media is too worried about the slow Russian successes in the Donbass, the Ukrainians are making every mile cost Russia dearly. I worry more about the Ukraine needing to divert manpower to get agriculture into action and general war-weariness by frontline troops. I think the greatest worry for me though is the constant teetering by folks like Macron and Scholz trying to broker a deal with Putin and without Zelensky. Negotiating concessions on behalf of Ukraine without their involvement is more likely to cause a loss of morale and will than Russia taking the Donbass.

Considering Ukraine's recruitment oversupply (relative to capacity) and the agricultural sector not being nearly as labor intensive as it was 80 years ago, I wouldn't worry about manpower per se.

I'll elaborate on defensive anchors/hinges vis-a-vis RuFOR 's best-available strategy of salami-slicing territory. Falling within Russia's demonstrated and projected short-term logistical and manpower means are but a few operational plays. Simply put, RuFOR has no ability to coordinate multi-brigade attacks and maneuvers across multiple sectors simultaneously, which is what it would need to do to shock and disrupt and degrade Ukrainian defensive lines to the point where a breakthrough and chaotic Ukrainian retreat occurs. They just can't do it. And even if they stopped everything to prepare for a month just for the chance, Ukraine would evidently be launching frequent spoiling attacks.

So salami-slicing is the best RuFOR could hope to achieve. But this is not nothing. By the principles of positional warfare, taking certain key positions along or around an opponent's line will by sheer force of the characteristics of terrain compel repositioning on the latter's part. In some cases this just amounts to a tactical shift, but at the extreme it can shift the entire theater a hundred-plus miles, including a transition to maneuver warfare where the retreating side's units can become vulnerable to being overwhelmed in detail. Examples closer to the extreme include the periodic loss of crucial anchoring mountains by the Germans during the WW2 Italian campaign prompting a long-distance withdrawal to the next prepared line. A hybrid example would be when the Coalition was forced to abandon Kunar province in Afghanistan when the Taliban made their FOBs untenable through relentless tactical pressure.

Contextualizing maps from John Helin, Nathan Ruser, and MilitaryLand respectively.

https://i.imgur.com/DEYa0Qr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qe4jdtO.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/G5AOio6.jpg

It took basically a full month for RuFOR to develop this Popasna salient (the pinker-shaded area in the second map between Pervomaisk and Horlivka). In part because Popasna is a heavily-fortified city, in part because Popasna is set in a hill cluster, in part because those hills were in turn (reportedly) fortified. Many of the areas beyond Popasna are simply less defensible under any circumstances, so ceteris paribus will be easier and quicker for an attacker to push through.

By expelling UFOR from such a fantastic position, possibly the best in all contested areas, RuFOR thus achieves two things:

1. Enables exploitation into less-defensible areas.
2. Threatens the flank of the whole fortified UFOR defensive line in Donetsk province.

For example, if you look at the second map again, between Popasna and Horlivka you will see Svitlodarsk. This was a well-defended town with an excellent position sandwiched between lakes - forming a formidable killzone to the defender's advantage. UFOR had to give up this town without a fight a week ago, withdrawing to more defensible positions to the northwest, because RuFOR encroachment SW from Popasna compromised their rear. We thus observe that positional warfare domino effect where the loss of one good position diminishes the value or tenability of another good position, and so on.

Meanwhile attacks toward the Donets River from Popasna and along it from Izyum are aimed at, among other things, disloding the UFOR flank from the river, so that RuFOR formations can ford the river in relative peace and force UFOR to defend along a much broader front from disadvantageous positions. In concept a successful RuFOR advance along the river from the west and to the river from the south could simply have compelled UFOR to abandon a swathe of territory, everything east of the Slovyansk/Kramatorsk cluster with the possible exception of Bakhmut. With positional warfare, one can selectively take a little territory so that a lot more falls into your grasp without a direct confrontation. In whole-country terms this doesn't amount to much, but if we interpret every square mile of Donbass as politically significant, then RuFOR gains when it can move UFOR into a pitfall.

Contemporaneously with the main events near Popasna and the Donets River, since the second phase began RuFOR has attempted to drive wedges into other parts of the UFOR line: between Donetsk (City) and Horlivka, west of Donetsk, and in Zaporizhzhia east of Huliapole. These are marked with arrows in the third map. The principle of unhinging the UFOR defenses is the same, though RuFOR has failed pretty much everywhere but the main effort so far. With success at two of these axes RuFOR could have unhinged UFOR defenses from both flanks, ensuring their withdrawal and repositioning, itself likely to prompt a cascading effect that left other parts of the UFOR lines untenable for many miles.

The overall effect politically would be to enable the eventual capture of the Donbass. Militarily this is synergized by the systematic removal of UFOR from their original fixed fortifications amid hillier, more urban, more forested locations toward flatter, more rural terrain to the west featuring fewer prepared defensive emplacements. In other words, this difficult, systematic work, if accomplished, would almost guarantee that UFOR's vulnerability toward subsequent local offensives.

Even if RuFOR can only resource a couple brigades in the theater at a time to perform these limited offensives, maybe only for a week or two out of a month, the fruition of such an operational plan would generate consistent returns as long as UFOR is never in a position to counterattack to retake lost positions. It would take months, but over time the effect of limited shaping operations would be undeniable:

Slice.
Consolidate.
Slice.
Consolidate.
UFOR reconfigures the front.
Slice.
Consolidate...

Keeping up a sustainable pace of such operations over two, three, four, months would ensure the capture the entirety of Donbass so long as UFOR cannot consistently rebuff and retake, or does not assemble theater-wide superiority in personnel and materiel, or immediately-available Russian formations do not become so attrited as to lose all ability to take ground anywhere. Here we're deep into the unknown-unknowns about either side's capabilities of course...

Follow these rules to consolidate control over all of Donbass, shift wholesale onto the defensive, flood the zone and its fortifications with cannon fodder until first-tier units refit and recuperate, annex the captured territories, declare victory, and cry foul when Ukraine doesn't back down. I'm not saying this will happen, but it's really the only available "winning" strategy for Putin that I can discern.


On a side note, I hope that the US can get Turkey to approve Finland and Sweden, I know Turkey wants to be back on F-35s and a few other things too. Perhaps something cheeky can be made into a deal like having Turkey donate their S-400s to Ukraine as that caused them to be kicked from the F-35 program in the first place. Erdogan certainly knows how to take advantage of a crisis.

Having established better relations with Iran since a decade ago would have gone a long way toward not just checking Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East, but also Turkish expansionism...

[Montmorency]

Correction: I cited one of my reposted maps to MilitaryLand when it was obviously War_mapper's. Maybe I was originally planning to use the former's.

[Crandar]

Some more analysis of the situation:


There are several things going on at once.

1. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv ended a few days ago, it failed to achieve most of its operational objectives and a lot of the troops in that offensive are redeploying in other areas or directions. However, it did gain enough ground to allow them to bombard the supply link between Russia and Izyum. Izyum is a major staging point for Russia's offensive into Donbass. The fact that their logistics train is within the range of Ukrainian artillery, prevents Russia from using rail transport to Izyum. This is a significant constraint, because using motor transport for supply simply isn't as fast or efficient, it lengthens resupply times, which imposes additional constraints on the operational planning of any maneuvers around Izyum.

Currently, Russia has managed to recapture Rubizhne and Ternovoye. So there is a bit of back and forth here. This obviously keeps Ukraine off-balance and prevents them fortifying the area and shelling the other side of the Severskiy Donets river (Izyum's side) with impunity.

https://i.imgur.com/2d1vyZE.png

2. In the Donbass area there are generally three main Areas of Operations (AOs). First, is the Izyum direction. These are Russian forces pushing out of Izyum into Barvinkove (South-West) and around the Liman/Slavyansk (South-East). The offensives in this direction are relatively stalled. Russians are taking their time in securing key hills and areas. They are advancing steadily and carefully, and this area has been a total meat-grinder for Ukrainian troops.

Ukraine has been trying to maintain a cohesive defensive perimeter around the Liman area. Weeks earlier, they were attempting to break the Russian offensive here through counter-attacks and by contesting key terrain and urban areas. These gambits have largely failed. Russians have steadily taken tactically important areas around Liman. Logistics haven't been completely cut off, but all major lines of communication and supply are within the range of Russian artillery.

At this point, Ukraine is focusing on maintaining the defensive perimeter and bleeding off Russian troops. The assault on the city of Liman itself has reportedly started today and Russians are reporting that they occupied most of the city and pushed Ukrainians to the Western half of the city. So far, I cannot confirm this directly, but it's likely to take days to capture the city anyway, so we'll know one way or another.

3. The second AO in Donbass is around the Severodonetsk salient. This is the Lysichansk-Severonetsk pocket that has been the main focus of both military analysts and Russia's forces. The cities are slowly being choked off. Russia captured the key city of Popasna a couple weeks earlier. The city of Popasna is surrounded by hills, these hills are the tallest point in the immediate area of several hundred kilometers. A week ago, Russia launched a major offensive out of Popasna.

https://i.imgur.com/CTCCQsZ.png

This offensive has been very successful, but it still hasn't achieved it's main operational objectives. Those objectives are, the tallest hill in the area (I'm not sure if they captured this yet or not, hard to tell), and the city of Soledar. The city of Soledar is the next major point from where Russia can threaten the entire river valley, and definitively control the highway between Bakhmut and Lysichansk. Russians have already captured most of the hills that are next to that highway, so in the next few days Lysichansk and Severodonetsk is finally going to be "operationally encircled", with all major supply and communication lines cut off for good.
There are several thousand troops stuck in this salient, and Ukraine has already lost the capability for an organized retreat. At this point, any retreat is likely going to take losses and will require a significant rear-guard action. Within the next few days, even that possibility is going to be lost. So Ukraine has to make some hard choices in this area.
Furthermore, the Popasna offensive has given Russia the opportunity to go more South, and surround Svetlodarsk. There is also a sizeable Ukrainian contingent there. Reportedly, there have been mass evacuations attempted from that city, but it is likely that it is too late to get those troops and people out of that city. There are only a few towns between Russia and total encirclement of Svetlodarsk.

3. The third AO is the area is directly next to Donetsk, which is pretty much the most fortified area of the Joint Force Operations line. The city of New York and Avdeevka, as well as areas South-East of that line, are difficult to take in a head on assault. Throughout the entire war, this line has been largely static. Russians have been inching in this direction, and they've seized some key intersections, but right now, the offensive is largely on hold while operations in other areas continue.

Once Russia has more force availability or perhaps, command resources to organize a proper assault, we are likely to see Russia attempt to avoid major strongpoints, and come at both New York and Avdeevka from the rear or other vulnerable directions. There is a lot more to write about this general AO, but as this front is largely static (as is everything South and East of it), there is no necessity to get in the details at this time.

4. Finally, the last major area is the South, in Kherson Oblast. In the past few weeks, Russians have recaptured 80% of what they lost in Ukraine's counter-offensives in May. Kherson Oblast is now completely under Russian control, and Russian forces are in position to threaten both Mykolaiv and Krivoi Rog.

The fighting in this area over the last two months has essentially been Russia controlling the entire engagement. This is definitely the area where Russia has been the most competent, retreating in a timely a manner, and effectively counter-attack and destroying Ukrainian artillery. The only real slip-up here was much earlier in the war when Ukrainian artillery destroyed an entire airfield of helicopters (8-10 attack helicopters + a rather large supply train).

According to Russian and Western sources, Russians have been digging in and preparing a defensive cordon around their captured territory in this region. It is likely they intend to keep Kherson. Furthermore, both Russians and Ukrainians report that they are preparing a large counter-offensive in this direction. We saw the first sign of this counter-offensive today, with a fairly significant artillery barrage across the line of contact in this area.

The re-capture of Kherson Oblast is a realistic goal for Ukraine. They are well supplied in this area, and infrastructure is mostly intact here. They have direct lines to Western aid and Russia has been reluctant to use a lot of their air-power here. However, Russian forces in this area are also well-supplied, they're also competently lead and they are expecting an attack.

So, if this major counter-offensive materializes, this'll probably be the first time where Russia is a defender expecting an assault, and Ukraine is the attacker. It'll be interesting to observe the results.

https://i.imgur.com/yQNs9KU.png

These comments were made in Discord, so obviously there's no link available, but I remembered to add one (https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?813994-Russia-US-Ukraine-and-the-Future&p=16102422&viewfull=1#post16102422) for the most recent update (yay!):


Northern Front

The Kharkiv offensive stalled out a few weeks ago, Ukraine re-deployed most troops in other areas. Russia has been grinding some of their losses here back under their control.

This is the latest Russian claimed map.

https://i.imgur.com/xCb95WN.png


Donbass AO

Russia is effectively rotating troops. They are also taking turns with sustaining offensive action. I.E., if there is an offensive out of Popasna, when it stops, there will be an offensive out of Izyum or Donetsk. This effectively keeps pressure on Ukranian forces pinned in the Donbass AO.

Russia's breakout of Popasna since mid-May has been effective. They have occupied part of the Bakhmut-Lysichansk highway, rendering this pathway unusable. Routes in an out of the salient still exist, but they are all well within the range of Russian artillery. Further South, Svetlodarsk has largely fallen without a big fight.

The Izyum axis is currently centered around Liman. Ukrainian forces fled the city after fiercely fighting for a few days. Russians purposely left an "escape" route open to encourage Ukrainian military forces to exit the city, lest the path be closed off completely. Russians claim that they closed the path anyway, to catch the soldiers retreating. I cannot verify that claim and I am skeptical of boisterous Russian claims for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, it is highly likely that some retreating units were indeed captured, though that numbers is probably very small.

Either way, the capture of Liman was swift and possibly suggests Russia's new-found expertise with urban warfare. One thing people overlook with Mariupol, is that the siege period was over relatively quickly. The "mop-up" took a long time due to a small number of Russian units committed. It was clear that Russia favored a very systematic approach that minimized casualties and manpower requirements. Speed was not a major factor. Hence why Azovstal was surrounded for several weeks afterwards. At least that's what Kofman and Rob Lee suggested when this subject came up on a video conference a couple weeks ago. This "expertise" has reportedly transferred over to Russia's other units as they've taken key concepts out of that siege and applied them to other cities. The capture of Liman was lightning quick, Ukraine's willingness to retreat here has certainly helped, but the assault itself was definitely competently executed.

With the Fall of Liman, the entire northern side of the Donetsk river is now firmly under Russian control. Russia does not need to necessarily force a crossing, as they already control a major crossing point at Izyum, and they are likely going to seize Lysichansk. The next few objectives in the Donbass AO is thus the destruction of the Severodonetsk salient, the capture and crossing of the Bakhmut valley, and then, perhaps, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

Kherson AO

Kherson Oblast has been under Russia's full control for roughly 3-4 weeks now. Reportedly, Ukraine has gathered up to 30 Battalions to reclaim this area. The first two attacks were battalion sized in the area of Davidy Brod, and a couple other towns that I don't know the name of in English. Either way, these offensives have been reportedly crushed, and I'm not getting a lot of chatter from Ukrainian channels about any real offensive success, so I am inclined to believe Russian claims.

However, these are small attacks, the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson has not really started at all. I would expect at least a massive artillery barrage before a major offensive. A Brusilov treatment, so to say. This hasn't happened yet. 30 Battalions is a big force, that's 18-26,000 troops and a lot of armor. Moreover, this equipment will be fresh and Western-supplied. Ukraine has the force concentration needed for a breakthrough. Russia's defenses consist of... maybe 10-14 confirmed BTGs? Either way, VERY ROUGHLY, some 10,000 troops. These troops have seen combat for 30-45 days straight. They've taken losses (albeit light ones). However, they've been dug in for 3 weeks and expecting a major attack. This will be the first time where Ukraine is the attacker and Russia is the Defender.

As you can see, the 3:1 adage of Attackerefender here is met. Moreover, this ratio will only increase due to Ukraine being the attacker, and therefore, having their choice of the battlefield and time of the attack. Local superiority can be easily achieved here. I am expecting an assault on the Northern half of Kherson Oblast, to throw the Russian forces back across the river. Then, an offensive to force Russian forces back into Kherson, before finally, besieging and taking the settlement. The time span for this operation could be weeks if not months, so don't be in too much of a hurry.

[Montmorency]

Severodonetsk is kind of a red herring - the twin city of Lysychansk is the key in Ukraine's strategy of using the Donets River as a barrier to Russian concentrations. It's within a mile of Severodonetsk, just across the river, so fording under fire is basically impossible for the Russians so long as Lysychansk remains in Ukrainian hands. Whereas if Ukraine loses Lysychansk by storm or by withdrawal, the river becomes almost useless as Ukraine will hold too little of the Southern bank to anchor their lines, with the eventual result being full withdrawal back to Slovyansk/Kramatorsk.

Indeed, the latest news is that over the past two days Severodonetsk has been abandoned without much of a fight by Ukraine, in much the same way that Lyman itself was.

The question for June is whether Russia can expand its Popasna salient to force a Ukrainian retreat from Lysychansk. Of course the troops garrisoning Severodonetsk will be redeployed to strengthen defenses around that salient, but at some point Ukraine does need to reclaim some of that Popasna salient just to relieve the constant pressure on the defenders.

In the medium-term the loss of bridgeheads across the river is a hindrance to Ukraine's objectives of retaking all this territory east/north of the river, but I've never understood all the discussion of the Battle of Donbass as though Severodonetsk were of supreme and immediate tactical significance.

The Izyum salient has AFAICT literally not budged a square kilometer since late April; both sides are in a holding pattern there.

I'll need to catch up on what's going on in Kherson Oblast; so far it seems like Ukraine wants to force out the Russians north of Nova Kakhovka and threaten the city itself (holding Nova Kakhovka is necessary for the security of the Kherson City rear area).

[Montmorency]

Looks like I was wrong about Severodonetsk. Over the past couple of days the defenders have reportedly launched a sweeping counterattack through the city. Is the idea to invite Stalingrad attrition?

https://i.imgur.com/mhCtAgS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tha8o1I.jpg

Pro-Russian milblogger Yuri claims the origin of the counterattack in the political leadership of Ukraine countermanding the military's strategy, a reversal which will certainly lead the Luhansk defenders to their doom. This debacle is being orchestrated on behalf of the interests of the US and UK, who have nevertheless already cut Ukraine loose, and naturally the only remaining matter for discussion is how the former Ukraine will be divided between Russia, Poland, Romania, and Hungary following its imminent collapse (maybe once some patriotic generals assassinate Zelensky).

Elsewhere he expressed cultivated disgust toward the Ukrainian military promoting an upcoming Ukrainian LGBTQ Pride event in Poland this month. To repost:

https://i.imgur.com/K0PUp4p.jpg


Here's a contrarian essay (https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/would-we-do-better-hubris-and-validation-in-ukraine/) about what lessons to take from the Ukraine war. It basically argues, since we have to acknowledge the indispensability of high throughput of men and materiel in high-intensity conventional warfare, both Russian and American (and NATO) doctrines of warfare are wrong and we wouldn't execute any better than Russia against Ukraine despite our alleged advantages in technology and quality.

I agree with the premise and have addressed it before, but I do think the author underestimates the effect of technology, training, sustainment, leadership, discipline, and the like in conventional warfare. If only raw manpower, materiel, and other resources counted then the Soviet Union should have conquered continental Europe by 1944 without ever iterating on their organizational practices from 1941 (something the author explicitly notes as opposite the case). Endless T-26s and Enemy at the Gates infantry swarms would have done the trick. But my point about the US acceding to mass-casualty wars is supported; whether it's naval war or land war, the US does stand at risk of stumbling into the kind of situation the BEF, the Regular army, did in 1914.


What is comforting about blaming the Russian failures on their practice, rather than their doctrine, is that it relieves Western militaries of any requirement to thoroughly examine their own doctrine. This is important because, as the various articles note, the doctrine for a river crossing operation is similar across militaries.
[...]
The river-crossing story highlights the real ailment afflicting both the Russians and their Western observers: chronic inexperience in offensive combat against a competent adversary that is able, in today?s description, to contest all domains in a protracted war that generates high numbers of casualties. Neither Russia nor the West has had operational or combat experiences relevant to the war in Ukraine in over a generation, if not actually since World War II.
[...]
Consequently, in Ukraine, we are seeing the return of the imperative for force preservation, rather than force protection. This is currently beyond the consciousness of Western militaries and current combat casualty care capacity.

Importantly, these levels of casualties in the Ukraine war also call into question the ability of Western armies to maintain adequate fighting strength in other than short wars with modest casualties. Much is being made of the Russians relying on hastily mobilized reserves to replace losses. Ironically, as has been demonstrated since the Napoleonic Wars, the lev?e en masse is a requirement for protracted state warfare at this level.

This new reality essentially means that there is nowhere for a relatively large formation to hide. Surprise, particularly at a limited number of potential crossing points on a river, may not be possible. Thus, these types of physical deception operations may also be pointless. Finally, given the sophistication of many sensors, smoke screens may be less useful than in the past.

Consequently, the analysis of the Ukraine war needs to address another unasked question: What if this view that quality people and leaders are the most important ingredient in modern warfare is wrong? What if Stalin was correct that quantity has a quality all of its own? If that is the case, then the Ukrainians may need much greater assistance if they are to survive a Russian-style grinding war of attrition.

Additionally, as the United States plans for how it will compete and potentially fight China and Russia in the future, the approach should be characterized by humility and an intense desire to challenge existing assumptions, concepts, and capabilities, rather than to validate current approaches.



But we should well remember that the same type of Red Army destroyed the vaunted Nazi Wehrmacht during World War II in a long, grinding war of attrition supposedly suffered from the similar centralized leadership and hastily trained soldier maladies as today.
[...]
What should have been considered then and now is why the German forces were crushed by such an inferior adversary? Perhaps enough people, materiel, and an indomitable will to fight despite privations and setbacks are exactly what are really necessary to endure and win in peer warfare.

Yes, and without superior leadership, training, and tactics Germany would never have had the chance to even start a second world war. Because they would have lost horrendously in a couple of years the first time. The author's dichotomous analysis strays into over-reductiveness.

Obligatory Fat Leonard - but Fat Leonard was veritably just Milo Minderbinder.

[Montmorency]

Another article (https://breakingdefense.com/2022/06/the-navy-is-broken-congress-must-launch-a-commission-to-find-the-path-forward/) purporting that the contemporary US Navy is fatally flawed.

I posted earlier about a US strike in Syria that may have been improperly undertaken, with the resultant death of dozens of civilians. DoD claims to have investigated (https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/world/pentagon-finds-no-wrongdoing-in-2019-syria-strike-that-killed-civilians/ar-AAXoiBL) and found that almost everyone affected by the strike was a combatant. No procedural improprieties were admitted either.


"No Rules of Engagement or Law of War violations occurred," the investigation said.

In addition, the commander "did not deliberately or with wanton disregard cause civilian casualties," it said.

The report said that "administrative deficiencies" delayed US military reporting on the strike, giving the impression that it was being covered up.

The Times cited an initial assessment of the incident saying that about 70 civilians could have been killed.

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said that 52 combatants were killed, 51 of them adult males and one child, while four civilians died, one woman and three children.

Another 15 civilians, 11 women and four children, were wounded, he said.

Asked if anyone was being punished for the civilian deaths, Kirby said the investigation did not find the need to hold any individuals accountable.

The probe "did not find that anybody acted outside the law of war, that there was no malicious intent," Kirby said.


Over the past month we've had a lot of reporting about munitions depletion on both sides of the Ukraine war, reaching out into European inventories as well. All of Russia's reported advances since April have come about according to a reversion to conservative artillery-heavy doctrine, with potentially a majority of active RuAF infantry having been eliminated since the start of the war. Recently Ukrainian government and military voices disclosed an even more extreme depiction, that even with the accelerating incorporation of NATO-standard 155mm platforms to frontline units, the Russian artillery maintains a 10-15-time proportional advantage over Ukrainian artillery, of which the gun artillery has become limited to "5000-6000" shells fired daily.

In other words, Ukraine can only field a few hundred tubes at any given time - across the entire frontline - due to the reliance on legacy Soviet platforms and resource constraints. No wonder they are willing to field NATO-donated 155mm caliber Caesar, Krab, and M777 given only a few weeks' training. And of course the Switchblade 300 loitering drones are of almost no use against opposing artillery, being very short range (there are apparently still no Switchblade 600 in Ukraine yet, and the specs of the Phoenix Ghost are obscure).

I don't know how many shells Russian armament industry has been producing monthly this year, or what their projected capacity is, but it seems certain that even Russia's Cold War stocks will have to be exhausted by the end of the year, no matter how massive - many millions of shells and rockets expended. On the other hand, to my knowledge there is no other country in Europe that can still produce Soviet-grade munitions, whereas 155mm caliber and other such items are manufactured worldwide. Even the US to my knowledge only has about a million 155mm shells stockpiled, though NATO-wide production is surely well in excess of the practical throttle of the ceiling of donatable artillery pieces.

We relearn the lesson that there is no stockpiling for peer-peer war. Shell hunger is inevitable.

Since the Ukrainian military has a relative surplus of infantry compared to Russia, the ongoing struggle over Severodonetsk makes some sense. The Ukrainian president's office has estimated that Ukraine has lately suffered 200 personnel killed daily, which extrapolates to the total loss of a brigade weekly (American generals shit their pants at the prospect). If the vast majority of these losses are inflicted by opposing artillery, it's to Ukraine's advantage to shift the proportions while enduring the same losses. But Ukraine is not a totalitarian country, so it can't really funnel militia light infantry into meat grinders while protecting professional units to the extent Russia can.



Russian Ministry of Affairs (https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1534978070293139456) summarizing a recent talk Putin gave:

President Vladimir Putin: There is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is #sovereign, or it is a #colony, no matter what the colonies are called. And a colony has no historical prospects.

If a country is not able to make sovereign decisions - it's a colony.

In that talk he also compared himself to Peter the Great, who "returned" land from Swedish occupation to Russia.

:creep:

How much does one have to hate America in order to uphold Russian fascism?


This is why (https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/why-putin-might-be-pleased-with-the-results-of-his-war-in-ukraine/) many in the commentariat are failing to appreciate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably happy with how his invasion of Ukraine is turning out, he says.

The Western foreign policy community has assumed for a long time that Russia under Putin had similar notions of what it means to be a world power, had more or less accepted the rules of the post?World War II international order, and was moving?albeit with setbacks?on a similar neo-liberal economic trajectory.

But, argues Wilson, something completely different has been going on in Putin?s mind. He has only been marginally interested in building stability and prosperity as the West would understand it. Rather, his entire project has been about building Russia?s ability to be a coercive, expansionist and undeniably great power, with control concentrated in the hands of one person.

The Russian translation of ?great power? is velikaya derzhava, the second part of which is a cognate of a verb that means to seize or to hold, and Putin?s worldview represents a continuum of Russia?s imperial mythos.

Wilson points to the work of historian Stephen Kotkin, who has calculated that, over a period of about 450 years, Russia expanded outwards at a rate of 100 to 150 square kilometres a day, in the process engulfing 184 different nationalities or ethnic groups.

And that expansion continues, Wilson says: Russia now claims roughly half of the Arctic.

This imperial worldview has always been in evidence, he says.

For example, in 2005, Putin established a commission to rewrite Russian history textbooks. ?It produced a textbook for history teachers. In that book was the remarkable paragraph that said most of the Russian politically conscious class rejects the present boundaries of the Russian Federation. They are inadequate to protect Russia?s security.?

?Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was then the secretary-general of NATO, goes to Moscow, and says to Mr Putin, ?I?ve come with a package of proposals to reform Russian NATO relations.? And Putin says to him on camera, ?I don?t want to reform Russian NATO relations. I want NATO abolished.??

Also in that year, Wilson notes, a senior Russian official came to Chatham House in London. The official said, ?Putin is not so silly as to think that he can recreate the Soviet Union, but there is a core of the former Soviet Union that is properly ours?Belarus, Ukraine and northern Kazakhstan. And it would be nice to have it back.?

In 2018, Putin unveiled what Wilson describes as a ?rather frightening array of new doomsday weapons, including a nuclear-armed torpedo that says, ?You didn?t listen to us. Look at these weapons and listen to us now.??

All of this was accompanied by ?lurid and strident propaganda 24/7 on Russian television, pushing anti-Western messages,? explains Wilson. An important part of this propaganda campaign was the idea that Ukraine is not a country or a people. ?Putin said that very early on to George Bush. Again, we didn?t listen,? he says.

It?s therefore likely that Russia believes it is now demonstrating strength on its own terms by being able to wage what Wilson refers to as the ?Russian way of war?.

?There?s an expression in Russian that translates as ?To be tender-hearted does not become a sword?,? says Wilson. What this means in practice is the exercise of extreme brutality towards civilians, combined with an indifference to Russia?s own casualties.

right now, Putin may not be feeling dissatisfied with the way things are going, despite all the assertions that the invasion is a disaster for him.

According to Wilson, Russia?s Black Sea blockade and destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure means that what Putin has achieved is the probable end of Ukraine as a viable nation-state.

?Yes, the losses have been far higher than expected, in terms of both manpower and material. Yes, the attempt to take Kyiv was a notable failure. But if you look at how Putin defines winning, it would be, if Ukraine can?t be reintegrated back into the Russian empire, then no one will have it.?

We really wound up falling into the same trap as the Interwar world (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuAUlCemH68) did with Germany, though until 2014 it was quite excusable for overwhelming contextual reasons.

[Pannonian]

The key is western rearmament, and we need evidence that it's happening (not "going to happen"). If we do actually rearm, we have a common standard across NATO, and we collectively have a far bigger industrial base than Russia. If Ukraine gets a chance to retrain, we can pipeline these materiel to Ukraine even as we're equipping ourselves, until there is no material difference between Ukrainian and NATO military. However, if we talk about rearming, but do nothing of the sort, then we're not using our industrial base.

[Montmorency]

Excellent piece consolidating flaws in economic sanctions strategy, which has always been "under-theorized."
https://scholars-stage.org/of-sanctions-and-strategic-bombers/

Sanctions are like strategic bombing, in that they often seem to be conceived and applied as a way to pressure "the masses" to turn on their elites and thus bring change to governmental policy undesirable to the sanctioning agent.


There are many plausible reasons one might inflict economic harm on an opposing country: pain might be used to try and compel a foreign power to change its behavior. Restrictions might be intended as a bargaining chip for the eventual war settlement negotiations. Or they might be kept in place to degrade the Russian economy over the long term, thus frustrating Russian attempts to modernize their military in the decades to come. The use of sanctions may be principally about credible deterrence—the threat of sanctions will only deter hostile powers from taking actions if they believe we are willing to accept the costs of employing economic weapons. We must act now to make those threats credible in the future.

It is not clear to me which, if any, of these rationales motivate our current sanctions regime. The popular press shows an extraordinary disregard for this question. New York Magazine asks “Are the Sanctions Against Russia Working?” without ever stating what work the sanctions should be doing (see also Michael McFaul’s argument that “sanctions are working, but need to work better” ). The Washington Post describes “why sanctions can be so effective” without telling us what they are effective at achieving. The New York Times reports a list of every sanction the United States has levied to “pressure” Russia without writing a line on what this pressure aims to accomplish.10

The aims matter. There is a difference between a sanction campaign that attempts to destroy an enemy industrial complex vs. a campaign aimed at compelling an enemy to change their aggressive behavior. In security parlance, that second sort of campaign is labeled coercive diplomacy. “Escalation is the currency of coercive diplomacy,” writes Richard Nephew in The Art of Sanctions. ]If your aim is “to inflict some measure of pain in order to change [the] policy” of an enemy state, then 12

But in order to offer this choice, the sanction setters must also “define [the] [B]minimum necessary remedial steps that the target state must take for pain to be removed.”13 Have we done this? Do we have any clear idea of what specific steps the Russians should take for the West to let up on the pain it now inflicts? On the other hand, can we credibly commit to escalate the pain we impose if Moscow does not change course? Or have we repeated the error of sanction’s regime against Iraq, where the sanctions were so onerous to begin with that the U.N. could neither negotiate easily nor threaten further?
[...]
In the realms of diplomacy and hard power we have reduced the linkage of ends, ways, and means down to formula. This is not true when it comes to economic coercion. Earlier I quoted from Lawrence Friedman and Jeffrey Michael’s The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. The book is a compendium of the debates theorists and practitioners have had about the nature of nuclear forces and nuclear posturing from 1945 to the present day. It is 804 pages long. It references hundreds of sources. A similar compendium of sanctions strategy—perhaps it would be titled The Evolution of Economic Coercion—could not be written. There simply is not a comparable wellspring of theory and practical experience to draw on.
[...]
But for the moment we grope in the dark, as the strategic bombers once did. We, like them, are condemned to inflict mass suffering because we lack the theory to do otherwise.

But regardless of how thoroughly or fatuously our governmental actors theorize it, sanctions aren't merely a tool against Russia's invasion - they must comprehensively degrade Russia's state capacity, which 'surgical' sanctions against the military-security complex can not accomplish even if they could be invented. We should hesitate to dismantle the adversarial sanctions regime before the Russian state renounces imperialism. And that's just not a promise a Putinist government could deliver credibly even if brought to those terms. If Cuba and Iran are the classic cases for sanctions relief, there's really no country that Russia in its present form could benefit ahead of, not even North Korea.

[Pannonian]

Excellent piece consolidating flaws in economic sanctions strategy, which has always been "under-theorized."
https://scholars-stage.org/of-sanctions-and-strategic-bombers/

Sanctions are like strategic bombing, in that they often seem to be conceived and applied as a way to pressure "the masses" to turn on their elites and thus bring change to governmental policy undesirable to the sanctioning agent.




But regardless of how thoroughly or fatuously our governmental actors theorize it, sanctions aren't merely a tool against Russia's invasion - they must comprehensively degrade Russia's state capacity, which 'surgical' sanctions against the military-security complex can not accomplish even if they could be invented. We should hesitate to dismantle the adversarial sanctions regime before the Russian state renounces imperialism. And that's just not a promise a Putinist government could deliver credibly even if brought to those terms. If Cuba and Iran are the classic cases for sanctions relief, there's really no country that Russia in its present form could benefit ahead of, not even North Korea.

We should aim to take things back to the Cold War, diplomatically and economically. It'll hurt us, but it'll hurt Russia a hell of a lot more. Make it the new norm until Russia can persuade us otherwise.

[rory_20_uk]

Compared to the Cold War, the importance of Russia has radically shrunk - only their nukes matter. They've lost Eastern Europe, Central Asia and are a shadow of what they were. China used to be the junior partner now is an order of magnitude bigger in their economy and view Russia as a somewhat useful proxy for deflection to Europe and cut price resources.

Cut them off. With any luck Belarus and the other colonies will break away, diminishing them further.

It will hurt since Europe's "leaders" has pinned most of their fuel to a single autocrat as opposed to a range of autocrats.

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

I was disappointed by the Switchblade 300 - dedicated 40mm grenade suicide drone - when I checked the spec sheet, but this article (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/politics/ukraine-war-pivotal-moment-intelligence-officials-loses-in-the-east-russia/index.html) includes a comment that some Ukrainians even prefer relying on the tactical drones and quadcopters with jury-rigged underslung grenades that we've seen from both sides so far.

Ouch!

I actually can't figure out if Ukraine's defense industry has not had native 152mm production for many years (other than a few Kvitnyk guided rounds), or if there's actually been production in the thousands yearly by Ukroboronprom, the primary national defense-industrial concern. This month the same also announced (https://www.facebook.com/ukroboronprom/posts/329051439398323) "contracts for the purchase of tens of thousands of ammunition for ground artillery," which may refer to imports. But if so, imports from where? There may also be Czech or Slovak companies producing low quantities for their domestic Dana system, but I haven't heard of any other ongoing production or capacity in Europe.

[Crandar]

On the drones (https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/21/ukraine-us-drones-pushback/). Too vulnerable for their cost.

[rory_20_uk]

Drones should ideally be cheaper than the missiles used to destroy them. So the high tech ones from the USA probably rarely make sense - perhaps as a slightly cheaper stand off launch platform for missiles to help get a bit more range.

Otherwise more simpler ones would make sense if they could erode the enemy's air defences since they do have a finite number of missiles to use.

Is there a place for having decoy drones to release chaff / flares to muddy the waters?

~:smoking:

[Crandar]

It's a matter of tradition/philosophy as well. American military equipment is supposed to be of extreme quality, but also costly and time-consuming to fix. Russian/Soviet, on the other hand, is inferior, but also less costly and much easier to fix. I understand why the US, an affluent nation with an unsurpassed logistical organisation prefers the first approach, but, in my uneducated opinion, the Soviet perspective is much more efficient for the vast majority of countries. Maintenance of American equipment has led to some rather tragicomic situations in the less professional armies of the NATO members. Comical because of all these harmless malfunctions under peaceful conditions, but also tragic, considering all that tax money wasted.

[spmetla]

US stuff is definitely way too expensive to maintain for most countries, same actually for most NATO/Western produced equipment in general. Usually you'd need maintenance contracts, contracted technicians etc... This is why for Afghanistan the US was buying the ANA Mi-17 Helos instead of Blackhawks and Chinooks until Congress had a hissy fit.

US drone tech is also from 20 years of uncontested airspace, think the US Navy probably has the most advanced drones for contested environments but not cheap throw away ones for ground-based controllers near the front line.

We do have some cheaper small ones like the Raven hand launched UAS but the gap between that and the next level up Shadow UAS is where the Ukrainians need something cheaper but more capable than the small cheaper stuff we have.

Drones with strike capability are good but the US ones also are able to operate within the whole network of US aircraft so there'd be EA-18 Growlers or something else jamming radars and other supporting things that the Ukraine can't replicate and are far too sensitive for the US to lend-lease.

Russian/Soviet stuff I wouldn't necessary always put as inferior, for present day yes, but that's mostly because there was a 20 year gap of investment in the Russian arms industry. Before the fall of the USSR they produced good stuff, the major difference though is that they always kept reserves of all the previous generation equipment available for use too. The lack of reserve equipment and ammo throughout NATO (apart from the US) is what's hindering support to the Ukraine right now. The Germans can't even provide Leopard 2s to the countries that want them in exchange for giving Ukraine T-72s. The major NATO countries used to have 1000s of tanks in service and in reserve, not low hundreds in service with maybe dozens of reserves.

Looks like the MiG-29 gifting drama may come up again but now that heavy weapons have been going to the Ukraine for months without any real Russia blowback or escalation this is now just something to be expected.
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/31385-slovakia-mig-29s-to-reach-ukraine-ing-neighbors-help-report
Slovakia offers Poland, Czechia a scheme to provide MiG-29s to Ukraine: report

Slovakia will transfer its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine in exchange for temporary airspace protection from Poland and Czechia, reports suggest.

Talks to implement the scheme have been happening in the context of a similar exchange which could see Slovakia receive German-made Leopard 2 tanks in exchange for delivering Soviet-era T-72s to Ukraine, according to a report by Business Insider.

Slovakia has been named as one of the likely candidates for providing Ukraine with new fighter jets since March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia?s full-scale invasion of the country.

Numerous weapons systems have been transferred from Slovakia to Ukraine, including S-300 air defense systems.



NATO will certainly be working with a much more common inventory of items following the emptying of soviet era stocks as donations.

[Pannonian]

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, Ukraine has been granted EU candidate status. AFAIK it means there are no arguments against their accession in principle, and it's a matter of them reaching the required levels.

[Pannonian]

Russian SAM. (https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1540195160310665217)

[Furunculus]

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, Ukraine has been granted EU candidate status. AFAIK it means there are no arguments against their accession in principle, and it's a matter of them reaching the required levels.

Great news. I hope they get in.

I also hope they aren't strung along, as the disillusionment that causes actually reduces the coherence/happiness of the candidate and the external security of the EU.

Turkey being a great example here.

[rory_20_uk]

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, Ukraine has been granted EU candidate status. AFAIK it means there are no arguments against their accession in principle, and it's a matter of them reaching the required levels.

So... Ukraine wants loads of weapons and ammo, including tanks and heavy artillery and rockets to fight an invader right now. Ideally a couple of months ago.

The EU gives them a to-do list of things that once they've finished they will be considered for entry. Assuming the vote passes. Unanimously. Is the EU going to send the tens of billions to rebuild everything? Time will tell.

Turkey should never have been promised that they might enter since their currency is not stable (hopefully lessons were learned from Italy and Greece) and less democracy than Hungary.

~:smoking:

[Furunculus]

Turkey should never have been promised that they might enter since their currency is not stable and less democracy than Hungary.

~:smoking:
Perhaps, perhaps not. But they were and are being 'promised' membership.
They did deserve a lot more than a customs union for defending europes southern flank for twenty plus years in the cold war.
Perhaps full membership should never have been offered, and that something akin to Ukraine's DCFTA would have been more appropriate.

But no, they have and continue to be strung along and it has had the following consequences:
1. It has created public disillusionment in Turkey with the EU that has been exploted by populists.
2. The EU has turned what is a strategic nexus from a strong bastion in a dangerous part of the world into a weakness being exploited as that same nexus acts as a balancing power (including balancing against the EU).

In short, the EU pushed Turkey outside the tent, turned them around, and invited them to take a piss into their tent. Stupid.

[rory_20_uk]

Yes, the EU screwed up again. They seem to enjoy allowing political flights of fancy rather than anything approaching a strategic approach as to what they want to do. Adding increasingly powerless countries which have equal voting rights as Germany and France is madness.

Turkey is a strong addition to NATO, but not so much the EU.

Ukraine needs the support of ongoing sanctions of Russia, reduction in purchases of Russia's exports, and weaponry now. Once the Eastern border has been sorted, reconstruction has been at least started at this point it would be worth considering starting to talk about accession to the EU.

~:smoking: