As I begin writing this post, Ukraine is being heavily shelled. Kyiv is receiving significant incoming fires. Mariupol is encircled, besieged, and cut off from support. Its defenders are putting up a hell of a fight, but because the defenders are the Azov Regiment, Putin wants them wiped out. He also wants that land bridge to Crimea. Konotop has been issued a “no quarter” ultimatum by the Russian commander attacking it; its mayor told them he’s for fighting.
Rousing speech on the public square by Konotop Mayor Artem Semenikhin, who says Russian forces surrounded the city and delivered an ultimatum: surrender and leave or be destroyed. “I’m for fighting them!” he shouts to a roar of applause and raised fists. pic.twitter.com/fI5KLKwd8z
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 2, 2022
There is some good news. Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, the Holodnyi Yar, have advanced through Luhansk to the Russian border. The citizenry of Energodar turned out en masse to prevent Russian ground forces from advancing through their town to the largest nuclear energy plant in Europe. The Russians, of course, opened fire on the unarmed people of Energodar.
This is how armless civilians are defending the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe. NATO do you feel safe? #closethesky #ArmUkraine https://t.co/pSvQ1SugJs
— Olena Tregub (@OTregub) March 2, 2022
And in amazing show of empathy, charity, and literal grace under fire, Ukrainians brought tea and food to a captured Russian Soldier and then made a video call to his mother back in Russia so he could tell her he was now safe.
Remarkable video circulating on Telegram. Ukrainians gave a captured Russian soldier food and tea and called his mother to tell her he’s ok. He breaks down in tears. Compare the compassion shown here to Putin’s brutality. pic.twitter.com/KtbHad8XLm
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 2, 2022
Unfortunately, as we’ve seen now for over 48 hours, for all that Russia has stalled out in most places in terms of the assault by their land forces, they have significantly increased their operational tempo in terms of using artillery and air strikes to target Ukraine. And they’re being fairly indiscriminate about it. Some of that, as I mentioned last night, is because their artillerists have poor targeting skills. Some of that is because the war seems to have moved into a new phase: pound Ukraine mercilessly to terrorize and traumatize the Ukrainians to give in. My professional estimation is that it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin has decided that if he can’t have Ukraine, then no one can and he’ll just raze it to the ground. This would, of course, also serve his purposes by creating a humanitarian and refugee crisis unseen in Europe since the end of World War II.
More on how long Ukraine may withstand Russian assault
A U.S. official tells CBS News that a tactical seizure of Ukraine is possible within the next 4-6 weeks, based on the assessments of what is currently taking place on the ground with the Russian military.As David Martin has reported, it is expected to take one week before Kyiv is surrounded, and another 30 days could elapse before Ukraine’s capital is seized. This U.S. official says it is not clear whether Russia would gradually strangle the city or engage in street-to-street fighting. These scenarios were laid out for members of Congress Monday as the initial battle to destroy the Ukrainian military and government. It is also not clear whether Russia would then decide to go west toward Lviv or as far west as the Polish border.
The situation is dynamic, so this remains an estimate on what is militarily possible. This U.S. official also could not say when the sanctions that have been rolled out so far will have a practical impact on the Russian military. The low morale and shortages of food and fuel are not a result of the sanctions now in place. At some point, however, the Russian military will be impacted by the sanctions.
Given the durability of the Ukrainian resistance and its long history of pushing Russia back, the U.S. and Western powers do not believe that this will be a short war. The U.K. foreign secretary estimated it would be a 10-year war. Lawmakers at the Capitol were told Monday it is likely to last 10, 15 or 20 years — and that ultimately, Russia will lose.
BY MARGARET BRENNAN
While this shows just how badly the US Intelligence Community thinks the Russians are performing, it also provides significantly disturbing news. This war, a war that began in the Spring of 2014 with Putin seizing Crimea, is now predicted to go on for at least a decade more. And possibly two decades. A potential second thirty years war!
Ukrainian officials are calling for the International Committee of the Red Cross to establish humanitarian corridors to relieve some of the most heavily hit cities. To evacuate the non-combatants, to remove the sick, the injured, the wounded, and the dead, to bring in needed food and medication. And while there seems to be enough food to go around for the time being, at least in Kyiv, as the war continues, it is going to be necessary to send Ukraine not just weapons and ammunition and military supplies, but humanitarian supplies as well: food, potable water, medicine, toiletries, fuel, etc. A 21st century Berlin airlift is going to be necessary.
This, however, raises a significant strategic dilemma. Right now Ukraine does not control its airspace. Fortunately, the Russians do not control it either. Regardless of the whys and wherefores, the skies over Ukraine are contested by its defenders and its invaders. That reality makes it somewhere between very difficult and almost impossible for the International Committee of the Red Cross to establish humanitarian corridors to relive some of the most heavily hit areas in Ukraine, as well as for the US and our NATO, EU, and non-EU allies to undertake a series of humanitarian airlifts to keep the Ukrainians going. The reality of the changing conditions in Ukraine – from Russia’s planned, but failed attempt to take Ukraine in just 15 days to Russia’s escalation to simply pound as much as possible with air strikes and artillery without a care for who or what is being targeted – are going to create significant pressure on the US and our NATO, EU, and non-EU allies. As I write this the Russians are hammering kindergartens, children’s cancer hospitals, hospitals, apartment blocks, residential areas. There are Ukrainian Holocaust survivors huddling in bomb shelters.
The pressure that is going to build on the leadership in the US and on that of our NATO, EU, and non-EU allies is how long will what is going on be allowed to go on before more than economic actions and military and humanitarian aide and resupply is provided? An even better question is how long the Biden administration can maintain the economic blockade that has almost completely cut off and crashed Russia’s economy? Think about the estimate that CBS reported. Is it going to be possible to maintain a united front to keep those economic weapons in place for five, ten, fifteen, or twenty more years? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.
The Russians have staged a significant number of armored police transport vehicles to remove Ukrainians back to Russia or Russian controlled Ukraine for detention. This is just one such fleet of them.
Russians have brought to Ukraine police trucks for mass transport of detained persons. Russia prepared terror and genocide in Ukraine, clearly killings of activists, politicians, artists, priests, but probably also deportations of broader population. No wonder Ukrainians resist. https://t.co/fs4SJdz7hT
— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) March 2, 2022
We have seen this type of thing before. It did not end well.
Yesterday Daria Keleniuk, the Director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, confronted Prime Minister Johnson. To his credit he stood their and took it:
Incredibly powerful moment at Boris Johnson’s press conference in Poland pic.twitter.com/QHgWfjjrHv
— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) March 1, 2022
The strategic dilemma that is fast building is the US’s and NATO’s stated policy that we will not engage the Russians militarily in Ukraine. That we will not do so, whether through imposing a no fly zone or by putting ground forces in to aide the Ukrainian military or through a combination of efforts because it risks starting World War III. And because Putin has made ambiguous threats that wink, wink ,nudge, nudge he might use nuclear weapons if we do, the risk is too high. One of the key questions for the strategist, the policy maker, and the decision maker is always how much risk am I willing to assume if I choose a policy and a strategy to achieve that policy. Right now the stated response of the US and our NATO allies is we will not assume risk by taking actions in response to Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine that could escalate into a world war between NATO and Russia. The problem is that World War III has already begun.
I’ve only been saying it here for years that we are at war with Russia and that Putin believes we’re the aggressor whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov just reiterated this preposterous talking point this morning (translated from the French, which was translated from the Russian):
Lavrov: “I don’t exclude the possibility that someone wanted Russia to get bogged down in Ukraine by an artificial conflict created by the West.” Source: RIA
And if you don’t want to take my word for it, or Lavrov’s, then take Fiona Hill’s (emphasis mine):
Reynolds: The more we talk, the more we’re using World War II analogies. There are people who are saying we’re on the brink of a World War III.
Hill: We’re already in it. We have been for some time. We keep thinking of World War I, World War II as these huge great big set pieces, but World War II was a consequence of World War I. And we had an interwar period between them. And in a way, we had that again after the Cold War. Many of the things that we’re talking about here have their roots in the carving up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire at the end of World War I. At the end of World War II, we had another reconfiguration and some of the issues that we have been dealing with recently go back to that immediate post-war period. We’ve had war in Syria, which is in part the consequence of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, same with Iraq and Kuwait.
All of the conflicts that we’re seeing have roots in those earlier conflicts. We are already in a hot war over Ukraine, which started in 2014. People shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking that we’re just on the brink of something. We’ve been well and truly in it for quite a long period of time.
But this is also a full-spectrum information war, and what happens in a Russian “all-of-society” war, you soften up the enemy. You get the Tucker Carlsons and Donald Trumps doing your job for you. The fact that Putin managed to persuade Trump that Ukraine belongs to Russia, and that Trump would be willing to give up Ukraine without any kind of fight, that’s a major success for Putin’s information war. I mean he has got swathes of the Republican Party — and not just them, some on the left, as well as on the right — masses of the U.S. public saying, “Good on you, Vladimir Putin,” or blaming NATO, or blaming the U.S. for this outcome. This is exactly what a Russian information war and psychological operation is geared towards. He’s been carefully seeding this terrain as well. We’ve been at war, for a very long time. I’ve been saying this for years.
As for whether he’ll use nuclear weapons, here too Hill is spot on:
Reynolds: Do you really think he’ll use a nuclear weapon?
Hill: The thing about Putin is, if he has an instrument, he wants to use it. Why have it if you can’t? He’s already used a nuclear weapon in some respects. Russian operatives poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium and turned him into a human dirty bomb and polonium was spread all around London at every spot that poor man visited. He died a horrible death as a result.
The Russians have already used a weapons-grade nerve agent, Novichok. They’ve used it possibly several times, but for certain twice. Once in Salisbury, England, where it was rubbed all over the doorknob of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who actually didn’t die; but the nerve agent contaminated the city of Salisbury, and anybody else who came into contact with it got sickened. Novichok killed a British citizen, Dawn Sturgess, because the assassins stored it in a perfume bottle which was discarded into a charity donation box where it was found by Sturgess and her partner. There was enough nerve agent in that bottle to kill several thousand people. The second time was in Alexander Navalny’s underpants.
So if anybody thinks that Putin wouldn’t use something that he’s got that is unusual and cruel, think again. Every time you think, “No, he wouldn’t, would he?” Well, yes, he would. And he wants us to know that, of course.
It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared. That’s exactly what he wants us to be. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.
The war is not just already upon us, it has been upon us for a long time. You can date it to 2014 when Putin first invaded Crimea, you can date it to 2011 when he decided the US State Department and Secretary Clinton interfered in his reelection, or you can date it to 2007 when Putin gave his speech at the Munich Security Conference that put the world on notice that Russia was not going to take it any more. Regardless of which date you choose, the reality is it is here. And the reality is that Putin is quickly escalating up the ladder of force to indiscriminate attacks on non-military targets using cluster munitions, thermobaric munitions, and vacuum bombs. His commanders are issuing threats that they will raze cities and destroy anything and everything in them, effectively signalling no quarter, which is a violation of the laws of armed conflict. He has unleashed the feral Chechens in Ukraine, who don’t recognize any rules of engagement or laws of armed conflict anyway. This isn’t going to be like World War II where the majority of people could legitimately claim they had no idea what the NAZIs were doing beyond invading their neighbors or how bad it was because the only ones who saw the imagery and the intel and the info were the intel bubbas and the senior leaders and their aides. This time it is going to be on Tik-Tok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube for the world to see. We have to ask ourselves are we willing to watch it while we put Ukrainian flags on our social media avatars or are we actually going to do something to stop it before it gets worse.
This parody is only funny because it is true:
At least you now know the answer to "how did they let the atrocities of WW2 happen?"
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) March 2, 2022
This is no longer some academic or philosophical exercise between realists and idealists, reality has overtaken the debate over whether we risk starting World War III if we do more to aid the Ukrainians in their fight. I’m not a big fan of Kissinger, but he once made the ultimate realist argument in regard to what the US should do regarding Soviet Jews in a discussion with Nixon:
“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
“I know,” Nixon responded. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.”
This discussion about whether further US and NATO intervention could start World War III, could cause Putin to use nuclear weapons is akin to this discussion between Kissinger and Nixon. I’ve been watching various smart people, including many I respect professionally both in and out of national security make this realist argument over the past several days. And they do so with the best of intentions and they’re serious, sober minded people. They want everyone arguing for a more interventionist response to understand that a no fly zone means declaring war because Ukraine’s air space is contested. Which means that to establish a no fly zone, the US and NATO would have to run the Russian Air Force out of Ukraine’s air space and target the ground based Russian anti-aircraft installations set up to target the Ukrainian Air Force. Trust me, I’m aware. I know what a no fly zone is and what it means to establish one. But what these smart, sober minded thinkers are missing is that over the past ten days, in ever more shrill and inflammatory terms, Putin has declared war not just on Ukraine, but on NATO and the US and the entire international order.
We are approaching a crisis point for the strategists, the policy makers, and the decision makers. And that crisis point is how effective are the economic measures actually being in effecting Putin’s behavior and how long can the united front of allies imposing them be maintained. The Financial Times has reported that the economic measures, no matter how devastating to Russia in general or the oligarchs and siloviki in specific, will not be enough to change Putin’s behavior because despite their wealth, the oligarchs and siloviki have no real power.
The 500 Russians with a net worth of more than $100mn control 40 per cent of the country’s household wealth, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group last year. That means Russia’s super-rich are three times wealthier than their average counterparts globally.
But those vast riches do not bring political power.
And even if Russia’s oligarchs were to demand changes from Putin, they would still be unable to change his mind, one of the people briefed on the meeting said.
“Imagine they go to complain to Putin,” said a diplomat from a European country where several Russian oligarchs own large assets. “They say, ‘Can you please revise your policy? I lost $4bn of my $5bn’. Putin says, ‘Do you want to keep the $1bn?’”
Ukrainian intelligence is reporting Putin is considering declaring martial law in Russia by the end of the week. We are no longer dealing with a rational actor, even one with bounded rationality that only makes sense within his context. I’m honestly not sure as someone who has served as a strategic advisor to senior leaders that there is really anyway to manage or mitigate risk if this is the case because it seems there is no longer any way to know what may or may not set Putin off at any given moment.
None of this changes the fact that the Ukrainians are going to need humanitarian relief that can only be provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by the US and our NATO, EU, and non-EU allies. However, it will be somewhere between exceedingly difficult to impossible to deliver that assistance because it will require uncontested air space to get the International Red Cross and/or repeated humanitarian airlifts into Ukraine. The reality on the ground is going to run right into the realists’ hard nosed, serious, sober arguments about the risks of intervention. When that happens, something is going to have to give. Either our realism or Ukrainian lives. We can adhere to one and convince ourselves we’ve mitigated the risk or we can assume a greater amount of risk and try to save the other. We can’t have both.
Open thread.
Leto
Apparently two SU 24-bomber planes and two SU 27–fighter jets violated Sweden’s airspace today close to the Swedish island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. Apparently a “short lived” incursion, but it’s definitely a provocative action in the current climate.
Reuters: Swedish defence minister calls Russian violation of airspace ‘unacceptable’
Ksmiami
Seriously Adam; should we think of a Berlin type division in Kyiv? With round the clock air support etc? Not a military response but a global humanitarian one? Do we go to Xi and try to build him up to be the peacemaker? It gives China clout but could save millions.. trying to think creatively here.
raven
So a preemptive strike?
Kent
@Ksmiami: More likely an East and West Ukraine on the lines of East and West Germany with the Dnieper River being the logical boundary which splits the country in half north to south and passes through Kiev. With the Russians claiming the entire eastern half.
I don’t see the US doing a Berlin Airlift. West Berlin was actually an American Zone under American occupation. Quite a bit different situation from Kiev. And the Soviets weren’t engaged in any actual conflict at that time, they just put up a wall.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: They’ve been pulling those stunts for months now.
Alison Rose
Thank you, Adam. I don’t know what else to say right now.
japa21
What is the line which, once crossed, means the risk is worth taking? I don’t know, but we better figure it out quickly.
SpaceUnit
Thanks as always, Adam.
Are you convinced that sanctions will not be effective? You don’t sound optimistic.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: No we should not. Because Putin isn’t interested in one. If that’s what he wanted he could’ve accomplished that right after recognizing the breakaway oblasts. He chose full scale invasion instead.
Comrade Bukharin
Nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Russkies…..
Ksmiami
@Kent: but at this point why would Ukrainians ever agree to be part of loser ass Russia? It would be guerilla war forever and Russia doesn’t have any current ability to maintain a nation… esp one hostile to it now
Adam L Silverman
@raven: No, not a preemptive strike. Putin has already begun the war. The question is at what point do we decide to end it.
Adam L Silverman
@japa21: That is the right question to ask.
Ksmiami
@Kent: I’m not saying a US airlift but a UN based one…
hrprogressive
This felt like a very long “we’re all boned” post.
Either we let Putin do what he wants
Or we let him push the big red button.
Show me in this thread where there’s the potential for a positive long-term outcome, because I didn’t see it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Pretty hard to argue against this one. It’s not like the shit goblin can expect to occupy Ukraine with the half ass army he has along a few thousands gangsters in uniform. Maybe the Russians will just simply run out of ammo and it will peter out because of that.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: So would you say that guys like Tom Nichols are being too risk averse?
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit: They might be, but I’m not counting on it. And for them to be effective they’ll have to be maintained for a very long time. And I don’t think that’s sustainable. There is too much money to be made. And, finally, there are follow on effects from imposing them. Russia as a completely failed, completely closed off state still run by Putin from his bunker with nukes. I’m honestly not sure anything we might or might not do is going to have any effect on Putin’s calculus for using nuclear weapons. I think that decision is going to be solely Putin regardless of what actually might be going on.
oldgold
I know next to nothing about military tactics. That expressed, the Russian convoy stalled/slowed north of Kiev intrigues me. Isn’t it a 30 foot front with an exposed 40 mile flank? Seems to be much less than optimal positioning to me. Can it be exploited?
Martin
Luhansk to the border? That’s pretty far behind where Russian troops have advanced. Why would be there doing that?
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: I think they’re having the wrong argument. Nichols is a very smart person. And he’s forgotten more about Russia than I’ll ever know, but he has no operational experience. And so he’s arguing from theory. I’m arguing from practice.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: I have no idea. Something in that reporting might have gotten lost in translation.
bbleh
Okay, so arguendo we are “already in WWIII,” where WWIII is defined as a conflict between global powers that spans many, many decades and has “hot” and “cold” phases, and such that there is no clear dividing line between “world wars” because one grows out of another in significant part. But we are NOT (yet) in a “hot” war between NATO forces and Russian forces, which I don’t think anybody contests would (1) cross a bright line, (2) be a qualitatively substantial escalation, and (3) risk further escalation up to and including mutual annihilation. Moreover, if that line is crossed, there are very few further such lines; to appeal to a tired metaphor, the slope becomes considerably slipperier. And if it is argued that the use of nuclear weapons is such a line, let’s recall that it’s Russian doctrine to use tactical nukes as a battlefield weapon if and when they’re useful, and explicitly not as a last resort, which makes the nuclear line much easier to cross.
And if we DO contest Ukraine directly, it’s not like peace is going to suddenly break out and no more Ukrainians will perish. On the contrary: a head-to-head war between NATO and Russian forces in (or over) Ukraine might well result in a similar level of death and destruction to Ukrainians as a doctrinaire Russian conquest.
“Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.” I for one am very happy every NATO leader who has spoken about it has said we have no intention of engaging with Russia directly.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to walk the dogs. Back in an hour or so.
Another Scott
The way out is always diplomacy. The question is always how many people will die and how much destruction will happen before then.
I don’t have any answers, either, but I think we have to remember that the world has been in situations similar to this in the past. Maybe Korea is an analogue – two nuclear powers were directly fighting, without blowing up the world. I dunno.
Maybe Russia has pissed off enough countries to somehow risk its status at the UN. Maybe Putin will make the EU and NATO’s reaction easier by further invading Moldova (even further violating her neutrality) as they’ve apparently threatened to do.
Maybe cranking up the cyber is a way forward for the US and NATO.
Dunno… :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@hrprogressive: I don’t have any good answers right now, just hard and unpleasant questions.
dmsilev
Sigh. Looks like we’re on a near-inevitable spiral downwards, doesn’t it?
Sure would be nice if Putin ‘accidentally’ fell out of high window or something.
TM
@hrprogressive: I have to agree with you. With all respect to Adam, he fudges “WW3” with “Nuclear war.” If there’s no point in trying to avoid world war because Putin already started it, there are still all the reasons in the world to avoid nuclear war. And an open shooting match between the US and Russian militaries is still the shortest path to nuclear war. I don’t have any idea what to do, but I know what I don’t want to do.
Mallard Filmore
Earlier today Suzanne posted a comment here:
https://balloon-juice.com/2022/03/02/wednesday-evening-foreign-affairs-open-thread-slava-ukraini/#comment-8445909
For some insight, the YouTube channel guy
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl7mAGnY4jh4Ps8rhhh8XZg
posted a video about China’s public actions in the recent past. He and a colleague lived in China for about 10 years.
“China Wants this War More than Russia! Celebrates the Invasion Online!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxprOQuVamE
1) china did not warn any of its citizens to leave Ukraine
2) when the invasion starts, China gave instructions to those in Ukraine on how to create a China flag, then put it up in a window.
3) social media in China has postings from men spouting off that they would buy Ukraine women for a wife
4) China told everyone to take their flags down (due to #3).
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: You can’t negotiate with someone who is not amenable to a negotiated settlement.
David Anderson
Adam… Thank you for sharing your expertise.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: I mean I think it’s obvious that our air forces alone could obliterate the Russians in Ukraine ; and maybe if we went full psycho Putin as a bully might back off – but maybe we should just give a ton of military equipment and even planes to Ukraine so they can bleed out the Russians over time
Omnes Omnibus
@bbleh: This is about where I am today. Events could change that calculus, but they haven’t yet.
Laura Too
Thank you Adam.
Sebastian
@Leto:
The next ones need to be shot down. Basic prison bullying. The only proper strategy is to not let a gray area exist at no times ever.
Calouste
Just two months ago, there were massive riots in Kazakhstan because the government doubled the price of LPG overnight. They had to call in Russian troops to quell the unrest. I don’t think it’s impossible that something similar is going to happen in Russia as well, once the effects of the various sanctions are going to be felt. Probably not across the whole country at once, but Russia is a large country. Even unrest and instability in any of the neighboring former Soviet republics could be problematic for them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
How do we do that? (edited) and who is we?
Kent
I’m not sure they would necessarily agree to it. I’m thinking something more like North and South Korea which to this day are more or less divided along the armistice line where they were when the cease fire or truce was negotiated in 1953. There was no negotiated settlement to end the war. Just a truce that eventually became a permanent boundary. At some point Russia could basically do the same thing and declare a truce at whatever geographic point they decided to consolidate their lines and there would be little that Ukraine could do about it.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I believe that this is a scenario that has been feared for a long time in your line of work. An insane man has the keys to the nuclear weapons. An insane man with a massive superiority complex has the keys the nuclear weapons. How do you stop him from making the decision that if he can’t have something (like the world) then no one else can either.
And in this case that man seems to have gone more than just around the bend, more like around the moon, in his own mind. I only see one way to fix this and I’m not writing it down, but I’d bet you know what it is.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: There will be negotiations, eventually. We just don’t know when or how. (E.g. Putin really didn’t like the 2014 sanctions, he certainly doesn’t like the 2022 sanctions. Those aren’t coming off without negotiations.)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@oldgold: the rumor is it’s stalled because of lot of the soldiers in deserted. Notice that for the most part the last day Russians have stood back and just been shelling.
Comrade Bukharin
The online liberal hawkishness this week has been off the charts. Thank god for cooler heads like Tom Nichols.
Gin & Tonic
Haven’t got through the whole post because I got stuck on this “This war, a war that began on 22 February 2014 with Putin seizing Ukraine.” Wut?
On 22 February 2014, Yanukovych fled and his government collapsed. The annexation of Crimea was weeks later, and the “DNR” and “LNR” separatists were later than that. Maybe you were writing a different sentence in your head than with your fingers?
Ignignockt
Why haven’t we been supplying Ukraine with anything more than man-portable stuff? Why not give them ground equipment that requires minimal training (HUMVEEs, SLAMRAAMs,, etc.),or that can support their logistics? Is that viewed as too escalatory?
debbie
I have a very bad feeling about those police trucks. I think I’d slit my wrists rather than get in one of them.
Sebastian
Wait, what? That won’t affect Mariupol’s Eastern front, will it? That push is coming from Rostov, no?
Also, has anyone commented on Lukashenko’s map in earnest?
BruceFromOhio
Once a man has started firing the gun, it is a hard thing to assess whether the man with the gun is willing to put it down, use it on himself, or try to take as many with him as he can before he is destroyed.
Origuy
A Russian-American friend of mine has been actively posting on Facebook and has some interesting things to say.
Kashin is a nationalist who supported the takeover of Crimea, but he’s no friend of Putin, who allegedly tried to have him killed.
Aziz, light!
As I said downstairs, American enthusiasm for defending Ukraine will evaporate soon after gas jumps to $5 or $6 a gallon.
And when it does, Biden will be blamed.
I also noted that this will end after Putin fails at regime change but succeeds at annexing the whole southern margin of Ukraine (and its oil and gas reserves), which the world will let him keep.
Sebastian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I have that outcome at 25%.
Captain C
Is it possible that Russia is not using the bulk of it’s supposedly available Air Force because a) their maintenance regime over the last decade has been similar to that of the ground forces, and they’re just in shit shape, and b) in light of this, they’re not keen to waste more than they have to since they’ll need the rest to attack Finland, Sweden, the Baltics, Poland, and Moldova next and there’s a decent chance they’ll suffer big losses if they do too many ground support missions?
trollhattan
As always, thank you Adam.
“Dear Boris, et al, we invented Velcro™ half a century ago for just this very moment. Our trap, you haz it. So long, sucker!”
Bill Arnold
Adam. I would kill 500 million humans to stop a global thermonuclear war. That is roughly 50 holocausts. (A global thermonuclear war would kill a few billion humans, mostly through starvation and the spotty/regional collapse/partial collapse of civilization. Typical estimates are ludicrously low.)
Would you? (I am quite serious.)
This morning my work (outlook) calendar showed only entries for this week; the rest of the month of March was blank. A refresh and all the entries re-appeared. Whew!
Gin & Tonic
@Origuy: I call bullshit.
Suzanne
@Origuy: I cannot imagine that Putin doesn’t have a lot of people around him who want him dead, even people who like him and just want to get some of his power after he’s gone.
But I don’t have a good read on how likely that is. As I said downstairs…. I can’t always distinguish what I think is likely from what it is that I want.
Kalakal
@Calouste: I’ve been thinking on the same lines regarding the ex Soviet Republics. The Russians have committed a very large proportion of their armed forces to this murderous invasion, the more manpower and equipment it absorbs with time, the more it weakens their ability to support their puppets to the point that some may collapse. The point may come where they can’t bloodily grind on in Ukraine and maintain their hold on their other client regimes to the South.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@trollhattan: Yes, indeed, congratulations Lavorov, your’ boss stuck his dick in the obvious trap everyone told him not to stick his dick into. This nonsense has be the result of living one’s life being above the rules in one little fish pound.
Aziz, light!
@Ksmiami: We could give fighter planes to Ukraine (upping the ante vs. Putin) but not pilots, and their pilots don’t know how to fly them, as their air force is all Russian tech. How would we train them without entering the war?
marcopolo
Hey, just to make the situation more complex, I just read Georgia *the country* has now joined Ukraine in applying for expedited admission to the EU. Sure to make Putin even happier.
Appreciate Adam’s posts, appreciate everyone’s thoughtful comments. As I told a friend earlier today, I am not creative, smart, or optimistic enough to be able to think a way out of the situation as it currently exists (that would satisfy more than one side). The only thing I know for sure is a lot more folks: Ukrainian civilians & soldiers & Russian soldiers are going to perish because of an irrational actor in Moscow.
Hope everyone is finding things in their lives to head off to to decompress every so often. There was a hell of a lot of truth about the emotional impact of all of this on everyone in Cole’s thread below and it sounds like a lot of us are having difficulties finding the balance staying abreast of developments in this war with staying mentally healthy. I am with y’all.
Bill Arnold
@oldgold:
Maybe the road is filled with fresh pothole repairs. 20 percent with an anti-tank mine, the rest with a bit of scrap metal.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Aziz, light!: They are trying transfer Mig-29s from ex-Warsaw Pact Countries to the Ukraine.
Lyrebird
Thanks for this explanation. I’ve learned so much from Adam’s posts over the years and from the comments like yours and our different area experts.
Seems like what we can do as the USA is also limited by not making the butcher into a hero. Not adding to the propaganda story of “The West” as bad guy.
There must be some constraints on the tyrant’s power, given that Navalny is thus far still alive.
This and Ukrainians’ incredble bravery are some of what keeps me from giving in to despair about the situation.
Gin & Tonic
Does anyone remember a brouhaha in the world of soccer back last summer, I think, when the Ukrainian national team had a slogan on its jerseys (inside the collar area!) that FIFA didn’t like? That slogan was “Воля або Смерть!” Liberty or Death!
It’s a very popular slogan, has been for a very long time, and a lot of people really believe in it. More so with each passing day, as innocents are slaughtered. If Russia does prevail militarily, and imposes a martial government, you have a nation of over 40 million who remember 800 years of subjugation and see they have nothing to lose. There is no way that is sustainable, and at least someone around Putin has to know this. But I’m afraid that the only path forward – for him – is to destroy the nation. There’s a word for that, and I thought the world said “never again.”
Aziz, light!
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Poland took back their offer, and the Ukrainian pilots went home on the train.
eversor
I feel we are at the point where either Putin gets the tsar Nicholas treatment or it’s ww3 and this ends in nukes.
Gin & Tonic
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Fuck yourself, you flaming asshole.
Ohio Mom
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that this could last ten or more years. At the rate things are heating up?
If it goes on 30 years, I’ll probably be dead before it’s over.
Sebastian
The mayor spoke after the Russians walked through the crowd with hand grenades, pins pulled.
different-church-lady
@Comrade Bukharin: I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed…
marcopolo
@Aziz, light!: Supposedly it isn’t quite as simple as that–piece I read said they are still trying to find a less overt way to do the transfer. Also in that piece was a statement from a guy who provides jet fighters for training exercises who said he’d send his 4 MiGs to Ukraine if someone would help him figure out how to do it. Will see if I can find where I read this.
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic:
I guess there was an asterisk on it in invisible ink.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Is this the case? Bold mine:
A small briefcase, known as the Cheget, is kept close to the president at all times, linking him to the command and control network of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. The Cheget does not contain a nuclear launch button but rather transmits launch orders to the central military command – the General Staff.
The source document url (.ru url) in that reuters piece isn’t responding. It’s my recollection, though, and this appears to agree; the military is in the chain.
https://nuke.fas.org/guide/russia/c3i/
Anyone here know more?
Alison Rose
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Please don’t call it “the Ukraine”
CaseyL
I had a comment, then it occurred to me other people might be thinking along the same lines, so I decided to erase it. Never mind
Raoul Paste
When the stock market went up today, I really hoped that it was because elite insiders had encouraging news then I didn’t have.
I’ve probably stared at this computer screen for 10 minutes, but everything I think of saying is trite compare to the plight of the Ukrainians
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, I think the math here is pretty simple. Russia is going to take Ukraine, and these here nukes will make sure of that.
There’s an assumption that Putin will use nukes if NATO engage in this situation directly, but I’m not sure that it’s a given that Putin won’t use nukes if NATO give Ukraine weapons and Ukraine manages to hold off Russia.
Every one of Putin’s justifications to invade are made up. There’s literally nothing that Ukraine or the west could have done to prevent this. As such, I think you have to assume that Putin will use nukes when Putin decides to use nukes, not based necessarily on any action taken by NATO or anyone else.
So the problem here is how do you end this scenario? If Putin could destroy Berlin at any point, for any reason, do you sit back and hope that doesn’t happen while letting Putin do whatever he wants, or do you remove Putin from the board?
Why do we think Putin will use nukes if we establish a no-fly zone, but won’t use nukes if we take all of his money? I mean, yeah, it’s probably safe to assume that most people would at the very least be less likely to use nukes if they lost money than if their family was attacked, but what we’re learning in this moment about Putin is that despite all of the obvious reasons why an invasion of Ukraine is a terrible idea and would be bad for Russia and himself, he went ahead with it anyway.
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold:
Dude, lay off the legalized pot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
CaseyL
Trying to look on a very bleak bright side: Based on how well the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is doing, with wildlife repopulating it, I wonder if the world (not humans, necessarily, but the rest of the world) would recover quicker from a nuclear holocaust than from global climate change.
Adam L Silverman
@SpaceUnit:
I want to expand on this a bit. Given the assessment that the Biden administration folks provided to Congress on Monday, that’s the CBS reporting I quoted, it’s pretty clear that they don’t think the economic measures are going to make much difference either. If they did, they wouldn’t be estimating that the Russian war against Ukraine is going to last for at least ten more years and maybe twenty more years. If they thought they would make much difference, then the assessment wouldn’t be for at least ten more years of war.
different-church-lady
@Raoul Paste:
No, it’s because they got sick of losing money. Same in every crisis.
Sebastian
@Gin & Tonic:
He does not have the numbers.
He will let Ukraine go the moment he fears for his own ass, which might be sooner than we think. I believe this is the strategy here.
hrprogressive
@Gin & Tonic:
@Alison Rose:
“Never Again” was a great slogan for conventional warfare.
Massive asterisks when we’re talking about the potential for Mutually Assured Destruction.
Another Scott
I’m no expert, but this has the ring of truth to my ears.
(via VladDavidzon)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sebastian
@Adam L Silverman:
I dunno man, that assessment is so far off it makes no sense. There has to be a reason why it is being downplayed so much. This is on purpose unless I am missing something.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus [heh] can Bibi become more wrong than infinity wrong? Experts disagree. Scum.
Ksmiami
@Martin: that’s my question … like maybe we should start acting like an unstable psycho too- I mean our nukes can destroy Russia as well. Giving into Putin just isn’t going to stop him
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Alison Rose: eh, I think I will just call it “that place” from here on out since with dyslexia I tend to make mistakes time to time, even though I do try. But, we can’t have mistakes after all, can we? And if that’s not good enough from me, I suppose there is pie and banning.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@trollhattan: America’s best friend according to Mitt “I was right!” Romney. I wonder if they’re still pals
Lyrebird
@debbie: Hi, not sure if you will see this, but good wishes to you either way.
One of your earlier comments got me thinking about the Heifer Project, they did some work in either Rwanda or a similarly torn-up country about helping people rebuild. To become neighbors again. No I am not saying the situation is just like this one, Ukraine’s not in a civil war. Just wondering if you had seen that.
different-church-lady
@Ksmiami:
Look, we just got rid of Trump…
Adam L Silverman
@TM: I don’t think I do. We’re in, and have been in, World War III. Which has, with Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine, gotten much more kinetic over the past week. While I agree with everyone that establishing policy and developing strategies that minimize a nuclear exchange or nuclear war is a very good thing, I’m not sure that anything we actually do or don’t do will effect Putin’s calculus. And we’re eventually going to get to a point, and I think it’ll be sooner rather than later, where we’re going to either choose to watch Putin wage a genocide in Ukraine on Ukrainians or assume more risk than we’re willing to right now.
There’s one additional point here, which is that other autocrats are watching and learning from Putin. We already knew that MBS is nuclear weapon curious. What he’s learning right now is that if he can build or buy some nuclear weapons then he can hold the world hostage for whatever it is he wants. I’m not sure that’s the lesson that we want the MBSes of the world to learn.
different-church-lady
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Like TBogg said, the worst crime a liberal can commit is “using words wrong”.
Gin & Tonic
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Bullshit. I have specifically told you on at least a half-dozen occasions that that construction is offensive. If you keep typing it that either means you intend to be offensive or you don’t give a shit if you are.
Adam L Silverman
@David Anderson:
More like my nightmares. But you’re welcome.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ksmiami: Return of Nixon’s Mad Man strategy.
Oh, good Lord, so, Putin didn’t do this during Trump because he was convinced Trump would be dumb enough to push the button at random?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not saying there’s a right answer. I’m certainly not saying I have it. But there are some serious questions that need thinking about.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Seriously, diplomacy? Even if it was tried and all of Putin’s demands were met, what kind of world would we have?
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I was, thanks for catching that, I’ll go back up and correct it. Started writing that sentence one way, went to look something up, came back and instead of writing the sentence I then wanted to write, I just mangled what was there. It is now fixed.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: but why does Putin have a “right” to destroy Ukraine and we can’t respond with massive humanitarian aid? like there has to be a rethinking and I’m not sure just being afraid of Putin nuking the world is necessarily the only equation. We fought many proxy wars against the USSR
Gin & Tonic
Deleted.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
mainmati
1. The war will not last 10, 20 years or more. This is not the 17th century with roaming small armies carrying swords and primitive muskets. The hot war will last 1 year or less because Russia will run out of the resources to wage war (unless it ratchets down the action quite drastically).
2. Putin is isolated. Yes, the siloviki and other oligarchs have no real power and there is no other independent alternative to Putin and his various goons. Except the military. And the military (the real professionals not his immediate lackeys) undoubtedly see this adventure as unwinnable in any realistic sense (see logistics point above). So at some point they will need to come together and squeeze Putin into retirement (like Krushchev before him) or just off him.
3. I agree Putin is probably so isolated and demented at this point that reaching out through talks probably won’t work with him. I’m not convinced that there is no talking possible – perhaps even now – with the Russian military but that seems to be the most immediate alternative that has any real chance (in the name of Russian patriotism if nothing else). My point is that this discussion seems to regard the Russian military and intelligence complex as passive automatons who will destroy their country to please a single madman. Doesn’t make sense to me.
Ksmiami
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I didn’t mean it like that- I meant that we can also saber rattle and then use it as a way to allow Putin to climb down too.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fucking shameful.
Adam L Silverman
@Ignignockt: I do not know. I know some of our NATO allies have provided vehicles and other items.
Chetan Murthy
@different-church-lady: with respect, the problem here is using words the way the Russians use them. Ukrainians have words for these things, names for these things, and we should be using those words and names, not the Russian ones.
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Reuters:
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Sebastian: I’m just noting it was reported.
I plan to try to address Lukashenko’s map and the insane national security meeting he held tomorrow.
sanjeevs
@Adam L Silverman: Why haven’t the West taken the opportunity to attack Putin’s disinformation network. They should be putting pressure on FB and Google (easy) and investigating flows of cash from Russia to various outlets and individuals (harder).
Also does America/Europe have no cyber capabilities they can use against Russia?
Chetan Murthy
Well, this can’t end well ….
The Pale Scot
@Gin & Tonic:
¿Por que no los dos?
debbie
@Lyrebird:
Yes, I remember watching a documentary about it. The Hutus and Tutsis gathered together, but they never let their guard down or took their eyes off each other.
different-church-lady
@Chetan Murthy: Well, I assumed it was just a mistake, but G&T claims this is a repeat offense, so I’ll just shut my trap.
Ksmiami
@Captain C: I read that due to the fact that the kleptocracy rules, basic equipment maintenance etc is woefully poor in Russia
Lyrebird
Am hoping that they reach the necessary critical mass of domestic unrest asap. Unhappy oligarchs plus ordinary people against the war plus military leaders mad about looking like failures.
It’s pretty clear just from the clip with that mayor that there will be no end to Ukrainian resistance.
Let there be an end to the need for such heroism soon…
bbleh
@Ksmiami: What could possibly go wrong?
Chetan Murthy
@different-church-lady: I’m assuming it’s a mistake, which is why I provided the explanation. But just as with other slurs, when we are told that it’s a slur, and we should stop, then we stop. And we don’t become defensive, b/c we recognize that we need to change, even if it’s uncomfortable.
I also mis-spelled “Kyiv” a couple of times early-on. It’s not a sin. What’s a sin, is getting defensive about being corrected, instead of, y’know, working harder to correct it.
Sebastian
@Kalakal:
Yeah, man. I am getting really upset about this doom porn everywhere. Every argument is based on the assumption that Putin has access to Stalinesque mobilization numbers.
He does not.
He does not have enough people behind him to subjugate everyone.
Like Trump with his failed businesses, Putin has played whack-a-mole for the past few months. He had to intervene in Belarus because his idiot Lukashenko couldn’t hold down the peeps himself. Are the Belarussians are living in Gulags since then? Or are they watching and wondering if their chances aren’t a lot better with Putin bogged down in Ukraine and Lukashenko’s goons blown to pieces around Kyiv?
What about Kazakhstan? They wanted to burn everything down only weeks ago and had to be pacified by Russian airborne units. Do we really think they are not watching and wondering if they should adopt some of the Ukrainian tactics?
Are we to believe there is no money and other help flowing to the oppo in Belarus and Kazakhstan? Hidden weapon caches? Intelligence? Yeah, right.
I keep coming back to Putin’s boots. How many does he have today, how many can he muster, how many can he count on? Will he unleash Russofascism to get the numbers? Can he?
The assessments predicting the glorious victory of the Red Army are all bullshit and groupthink.
Their. soldiers. do. not. have. food.
Mart
@Ksmiami: “like maybe we should start acting like an unstable psycho too”
Come on man.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I believe that idea has been put on hold. NATO may have decided it was too risky.
My sense here is that NATO is the veto body, including for the US on anything military. Any wider conflict will happen over Europe and NATO gets the final say, and Biden is on board with that. And EU is the veto body for the economic stuff, so whether or not to sanction Russian energy isn’t ultimately our call (I’m sure Biden is pushing, though) – we’re just the vehicle through which it’s implemented.
prostratedragon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shut up, Bibi.
I assume he’s trying to work his way back inside.
Adam L Silverman
@Sebastian: I can only go by what is being reported.
Sebastian
@different-church-lady:
Been going on for a while.
Gin & Tonic
@Lyrebird: There will be no critical mass of domestic unrest in Russia.
different-church-lady
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, the proper response the first time is, “Whoops, sorry.” No defense for repeat “mistakes.”
I knew the definite article had been dropped, but I didn’t know why it was considered offensive until now. Something for my “learned something new today” notebook.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: The issue is that based on Putin’s rather erratic statements, demands, and threats, it is unclear what he will and will not consider both a provocation and actual US and NATO involvement in the war.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Another Scott: So this is what triggered the Martial Law thing?
Another Scott
@debbie: I don’t know how to get there, or how long it will take, but that’s the way to end this.
I think I read (corrections welcome) that Zelenskyy’s team proposed (at the meeting at the Belarus border) that Ukraine would not attempt to join NATO for 10 years. There are always ways to come to an agreement when both sides are interested in doing so.
Putin has a weak hand. Blowing up Ukraine isn’t going to get him what he wants. Burning out Russia’s military isn’t going to make him stronger at resisting uprisings at home or in border states.
The fighting is often most severe before serious negotiations start. Each side wants to have the strongest position possible before sitting down. So, it’s very dangerous in Ukraine and will continue to be so. But it’s dangerous for Putin as well – he knows he has a lot to lose…
I hope I’m not coming across as being insensitive to VVP’s monstrous, exceedingly dangerous actions. That’s not my feeling at all. I just want us to be clear-eyed and understand that there is a path forward and not feel that the world is doomed.
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” – VVP does not control the future…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
AJ
@Adam L Silverman: Point well made.
Thanks again for your analyses here.
Adam L Silverman
@sanjeevs: We do have significant cyber capabilities. My understanding from the reporting at the end of last week is that CyberCommand briefed the President on a range of options for using cyber tools and weapons against Russia.
As to why we are or are not doing any specific thing, I don’t know.
Sebastian
@Adam L Silverman:
I know, wasn’t meant as a dig at you. Your work here is insane, but you know that.
I will admit I was caught in that myth too. It was the Twitter thread about Russian prison culture and Tzarist Russia you shared yesterday, which opened my eyes to this matter.
At some point, we need to break through this collective hypnosis and ask: How many men does Putin really have?
I have not seen a single healthily skeptical and evidence-based calculation. Perhaps because every time a subject matter expert starts, the numbers look so off, they stop in their tracks because they believe they surely must be wrong?
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No idea.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: I’m not advocating direct engagement; but it isn’t Putin’s country to take/destroy and ceding that argument is folly. Send in Red Cross units and UN humanitarian aid and dare him to try anything.
Heidi Mom
Adam, you say that we and our NATO allies will not intervene in Ukraine (not a NATO member) militarily because to do so would risk a nuclear response from Russia. So this is something I’ve been wondering about and have seen hinted at (e.g., where to draw the line and say “no more”) but not addressed explicitly (and please forgive me if it has been so addressed and I’ve missed it; I’m trying hard to keep up): What does this mean for the U.S. and other NATO members’ response if Russia attacks a NATO member? Won’t the considerations that govern our response in the former case be just as applicable to the latter case as well?
Ksmiami
@Heidi Mom: Adam knows what the response s/b but an attack on a NATO country is an immediate declaration of war.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Putin may have a weak hand, but he has an insane brain. ANY sort of compromise will only serve as a placeholder for him to come back and do to some other country what he’s doing to Ukraine. THERE WILL BE NO COMPROMISING WITH VOVA. There never will be. Forget negotiation and start plotting assassination
(You’re not being insensitive; you’re being unreasonably optimistic and sunshiny.)
Adam L Silverman
@Sebastian: I didn’t take it as a dig.
Nettoyeur
If the Russia military continues to fail, I suspect Putin will eventually try to drop a tactical nuke on a city in UKR. The military will then stop him and retire him, or go ahead and drop it, effectively forcing NATO to respond. An ice breaker moment. Our Intel—-which is doing well now–may see this coming.
Adam L Silverman
@Heidi Mom: If Russia attacks a NATO member, and technically they’ve already attacked two commercial vessels belonging to/flagged in NATO member states in the Black Sea have been targeted by the Russian Navy, then the Atlantic Treaty’s Article V/Mutual Defense will be invoked.
bbleh
@Another Scott: Clausewitz would, I think, agree.
I can’t really imagine that NATO membership is a red line for Ukraine, and from other discussions it seems like there are enough ways to slice and dice internal governance structures without Ukraine formally surrendering territory that some formula can be found under which everyone would agree to stop killing each other for a while.
What I don’t have any clue about is Putin’s domestic political calculations. I’ve seen everything from “the oligarchs / the siloviki will defenestrate him if / unless X, Y, Z” to “he is the sole source of power and nobody can influence him” to “he is an utterly irrational madman” (which I don’t buy). I certainly hope NATO policymakers have a better read on it …
Adam L Silverman
@Nettoyeur: This is my worry. That his most deadly course of action is that if he can’t have Ukraine, and he can’t take it through conventional means, nor raze it to the ground through conventional means, that he’ll tactically nuke it and make it unlivable.
Ksmiami
@debbie: thank you. We cannot allow the world to be held up by nuclear terrorists. And Russia needs to pay for this aggression ; either they get rid of him, or we continue cutting them off from everything.
sdhays
I’ve read that there are tens of thousands of Europeans or Ukrainians living elsewhere going back to fight in Ukraine. Do we have any idea what the actual number is and how well trained these people are? Is it possible that Ukraine will have doubled the size of its army in a week? I see different numbers bandied about and I don’t really understand how to process them.
Also, isn’t the wild card how unpopular this war is with the Russian military, which must seep back into the broader society? There seem to be credible reports of soldiers drilling holes in their fuel tanks to avoid advancing. Martial law may cut down on protests, but it will also make it very clear things aren’t going well. Isn’t there a possibility that the pressure breaks back towards Putin? Or is that possibility still insignificant? Or simply unestimable?
Sebastian
@Calouste:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Russian_protests
He is sitting on a tinderbox.
The FSB is his, the army is not. He probably has thugs as do his siloviki (sic!). He has the police and, bizarrely enough, also prisoners he could release as thugs.
Versus the Russian people.
I don’t dare make a prediction here.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think he’s afraid to reopen markets without having the public locked down. I would be.
Kent
Nonsense. Wars are getting LONGER in the 21st Century, not shorter. The US was at war in Afghanistan for 20 years, from 2001 to 2021 and at war in Iraq for at least 10 years and arguably much longer if you count the war against ISIS as a continuation of that war. The war in Yemen and Syria have both been raging for at least a decade.
The conventional set piece war won’t likely last that long. But nothing short about modern war.
Another Scott
It looks like Homer41 is keeping an eye on Moldova and SW Ukraine at the moment.
Wikipedia – Boeing RC-135:
There are Twitter rumblings that VVP plans an invasion of Odessa by sea soon. Presumably (but this is just a guess) anything useful that Homer41 sees is quickly relayed to Ukraine.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to rack out. I may or may not be back later.
Miss Bianca
@Calouste: I’m wondering, “Impose martial law? With what army? How many troops will it take to impose martial law? Just in Moscow, or over the whole country?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin: A civil war over the Stock Market. just wow
Alison Rose
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You’re overreacting a bit. All I said was please don’t call it what Putin wants people to call it. I don’t see how dyslexia plays a role in simply being sure not to put a ‘the’ in front of the country name.
m0nty
I have two questions.
Sebastian
@sdhays:
Two days ago 80,000 Ukrainians, many with basic training, some with combat experience. Per MoD UA.
Obviously highly motivated, not sure how many came since then.
Foreign volunteers: In the low thousand as of yesterday. Countries like Hungary and Croatia, share a blood bond of mutual assistance in the recent past, karmic bills have come due. So there is some movement happening. It’s been more than 25 years so sadly the cohort who fought together has aged out or it would be a lot more. Poland and the Baltics know it’s better to fight the Russians now in Ukraine. Also, a lot of unsettled scores. But all in all, baring some crazy developments, that number won’t be big, maybe 5k at some point. 10k is really difficult to imagine.
Foreign “volunteers”: We can assume there is a shortage of balaclavas in Ukraine as NATO SpecOps are bumping into each other. My guess is that they are all there, embedded in UA Special Forces.
piratedan
well…. I suspect that multiple prongs of options are being pursued…
Our intel community has shown VP that we know what is going on, when and how decisions get made and implemented and that his own moves are known to us and that we have chosen to not meet them as such… so that would likely let him know that if we choose to take up his challenge, we can make significant impact on his ability to control the theatre of battle on land, sea and sky…
I also suspect that if we have his circle penetrated, that we’re working on superceding his ability to launch, either by co-opting people in the chain of command or by means like a seal team/special forces operation…. nor does this preclude white hat operations from preventing his means of doing so.
I would assume all of this is already in motion and I suspect that with this administration and the people in charge that we will not hear anything about it. Granted, this is just an assumption following the fact that we’ve discovered that the US has provided a secure means of communication ahead of the fact that we knew that an invasion was imminent. I suspect that we’re seeing at least some competency from those who operate in this area and no plans are being floated, much less speculated upon in the media (although absence of a thing, does not mean it isn’t being done, but I do not give our media much of the benefit of the doubt when it comes to thinking outside of convention)
Kent
The existing police will do fine. Martial law doesn’t necessarily mean troops on the street corner. It means suspension of civilian laws that might protect civilians from arrest, detention without charge, etc. It means the military can order things be done and there is no recourse to the courts. Like shutting down radio and TV stations, ordering corporations around, etc. etc.
Sebastian
@Another Scott:
We could save a lot of fuel if we just hacked Lukashenko’s webcam.
Lyrebird
@Sebastian: This DKos thread does not have a troop count estimate, and you have probably already seen it, but it might be helpful for more of the folks like me without similar expertise. Talks about how many vehicles and troops are needed for one artillery unit and such.
That part is by Kos himself, based on his serving in one.
For things people Stateside can do – there’s another piece from Mark Sumner saying the USA should help take in some refugees. I know MoveOn is sending out calls to support World Central Kitchen.
Redshift
Is there any conservative politician in the world who didn’t have Russian help to get where they are?
Also, anyone heard how his indictment is going?
debbie
If you can stay up another hour, Fiona Hill will be on Colbert (CBS).
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@Kent: im going to agree with Mainmati here: it’s not the 17th century anymore in Ukraine. (it is, in contrast, still pre-modern in Syria, Yemen & Afghanistan, especially Afghanistan, where war is a way of life; the average person doesn’t have a car or go to work in an office.)
I can’t think of a full-scale, all-out war in a modern, westernized country, with skyscrapers and an educated population, since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. We can’t know what’s going to happen, but this situation has already failed to resemble Afghanistan.
Sebastian
@Lyrebird:
Thank you! I had not seen that before
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@Mallard Filmore: yeah, but Xi might have believed Putin when he said the war would be over in two weeks and would resemble the annexation of the Crimea.
A horrific years-long meat-grinder that rewrites the rules of international banking, causes laundered assets to be seized around the globe, and turns Russia into an international outcast run under martial law is not what they were expecting.
Aziz, light!
Hoo boy, just imagine if Trump were still president. Thank Bog for Biden.
Hoodie
Is this WWWIII or a just a second Cold War? Seems like this is somewhat like postwar Europe when the Soviets took over the eastern bloc, except Putin is much weaker than Stalin and Western Europe is not the basket case it was in 1945. The Kissinger view seems pretty compelling when you see how inept the Russians are and thus likely to end up in complete failure. It sucks for Ukraine, and there is the possibility of a destabilized Russia when this fantasy of Putin’s disintegrates, which is never good when nukes are lying around.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
We, the world, will need to learn how to directly remove such leaders when they pose too great a threat to the world, perhaps with some sort of mandatory international consensus mechanism.
I hope they (SAU) don’t go down that path. And if Iran does, SAU does too (and vv), and then it’s three nuclear powers (2.5 theocracies) with missile delivery times in minutes. Suspect that Iran is going for rapid breakout capability/ambiguity about whether they have a hidden bomb to avoid such an arms race.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Sheesh. I wrote exactly those words here (in English) Feb 16, and elsewhere Feb 18. Is it part of his political rhetoric?
(“If Putin significantly damages Russia over Ukraine, The Bear will bite his head like a grape. (It might not be immediate or obvious.) V. Putin is not Russia, much as he tries to style himself that way.”)
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Its not blame. Its an appeal. These are your sons, who you brought into this world. Do not let them go out as murderers. Appeal to them and to Putin to stop this.
It’s more an acknowledgement that they may be able to affect the course of things here in a way that nobody else can.
Ha Nguyen
@m0nty:
Do NOT use “THE” in front of Ukraine. Only Russian trolls and Putin-lovers use the Russian phrase.
Chetan Murthy
@Ha Nguyen: @m0nty:
This doesn’t seem to be problematic: “Ukraine” is an adjective here, on “conflict” and “the” is an article, again on “conflict”.
Sebastian
@Lyrebird:
I am actually looking for a correct assessment of Russian troop sizes. That was very interesting though, could it be that the Russians are running out of ammo everywhere but north of Kirkhov?
What I am really looking for is how many soldiers does Russia have in the theater? There was talk about 150k, then 190k. Then suddenly only about half of that actually moved out. There were speculations about COVID, troop strengths only on paper, etc.
Then the events took over and nobody remembered anymore.
Then he had to ask Kadyrov who sent his general who got smoked by artillery, Bayraktars, and Saint Javelin. Kadyrov immediately backpedaled is not sending anyone. Then he asked Kazakhstan who told him to fuck off, they had just smacked down their own revolution. Belarus is sending their Keystone Cops army whenever they fix their hacked Windows XP PCs who shut down all trains.
Let’s pull the numbers together, just as a little crowdsource exercise:
How long do you sustain such losses? If we are generous and allow for 100,000 deployed and only 15,000 lost to death, injury, sickness, desertion, and capture … that means Russia’s Army has lost 15% in one week.
I believe this is the exact point where everyone throws up their hands and exclaims “but surely Mighty Russia can pull another 100,000 bodies out of a hat!” Deus Ex Machina!
Let’s take a hard look and ask: Well, can it? If it can, why hasn’t it?
For a moment, let us all set aside the excuses and mastermind 13-dimensional chess plans. Occams Razor and healthy skepticism, only.
How many soldiers do you really have, Vova?
dr. luba
deleted. repetetive
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
FWIW, the USSR supplied much of the military equipment used by North Vietnam, and Russia inherited the USSR’s security council seat.
Sebastian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
PsyOps. This is no longer a coincidence.
The mothers have been targeted from Day One.
Calling home, video calls, telling mothers to pick up their POW kids, now religious leaders. This is Biden’s hand.
The Russian Mothers will tear Putin to pieces with their bare hands and there are not enough siloviki or mobsters in the world to protect him from that fate.
Calouste
Russia’s Central Bank has imposed a 30% commission on foreign currency purchases. With the doubling of the interest rate earlier this week and the stock market being closed this week it’s starting to sound a bit desperate. I can’t imagine Russia’s middle class will be too happy when their investments and retirement funds have gone up in smoke come Monday (or whenever Putin and has buddies have finished the final looting and reopen the stock market). People who have lost their life savings in the blink of an eye are bound to do desperate things.
Sebastian
@Chacal Charles Caltrop:
Yeah, sounds about right. Two assholes high on their own supply: Vova and Winnie.
Martin
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: @Hoodie:
I’m not sure any given conflict like this can necessarily have a historical parallel.
I wouldn’t be so sure that if Putin does eek out a leadership change here that the Ukraine doesn’t turn into a very protracted insurgency. If he does take it, he’ll barely have the military to occupy it. Ukraine is not small in terms of population. The public could really make it hard to hold onto.
The Cold War was really an era defined by two near-peers and the alliances they built around them. In many ways we now have four near-peers – the US, the EU/NATO, China, and Russia, with Russia by far being the weakest of the group.
Two peers is stable, but more than 2 is not. The EU/US are strongly allied on some thing (NATO) and less so on other things (economics). Russia and China are allied on a few things, but where Russia used to be the dominant player, in a lot of ways China now is (if Russia has any hope of working around these sanctions, it’s going to be through China). The Cold War dynamic really can’t exist in the current environment.
Sebastian
@Aziz, light!:
Isuse Bože!
We would be looking at a Grozny 300 miles from Vienna.
Scott P.
Hungary 1956. We let the Soviets send tanks into Budapest because there really wasn’t anything we could do, militarily, short of starting WWIII.
That didn’t lead to Russia taking over Europe, though.
gwangung
@Sebastian: What you’re saying is that Putin HAD some mighty weapons and enough arms to have taken over Ukraine…but it’s rapidly turning to ashes because of morale, sickness and poor training.
It’s still a wounded bear…but those wounds are bleeding a whole lot more than we thought they would.
Russia COULD theoretically engage in a decades long war…but can it hold an army together that long….
Sebastian
@Another Scott:
Thanks for bringing this up. As I was surfing I came across some news in Odessa. I’ll try to find it.
So they were being shelled from the sea, being softened up for an attack, and then the attack didn’t come. Allegedly because the Crimean Marines refused to attack Odesa.
This absolutely checks with the sentiment of anyone in that area. Why? Check out this:
https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=odessa
Odesa is the Cancun/Miami of the entire region. The Pearl of the Black Sea. Every guy in uniform spent two weeks of seaside vacation in or around Odesa since they can remember. The first kiss, the first time sleeping with a girl, fun, laughter, the place holds magic.
It holds a myth.
I can totally see 20-year-olds Russians say “fuck no I am not storming Odesa”. To do that they would have to kill a part of themselves first and Putin hasn’t laid the propaganda groundwork for that to be possible.
joel hanes
The world goes round in circles
I’m reading warblogs again, just as I was on the day I stumbled across Balloon Juice, back before John invented naked mopping.
Sebastian
@Martin:
Let’s put this in some perspective, please.
Ukraine has half the population of Germany. 44m vs 83m.
Have you seen these people? They organize backyard parties where they churn out hundreds of Molotov cocktails per hour? (v2.0 btw, grated styrofoam FTW)
How big does this army have to be to take on 44 million Honey Badgers?
Sebastian
@joel hanes:
Share some links, bud?
Mallard Filmore
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: Obviously the CCP was not aware of the surveillance capabilities of the USA.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Consider this bit of madness, if you will; Putin thinks like a gangster, there are bosses and minions. Putin hears the talk of American generals saying Trump is nutters, do we obey Trump if he orders a launch. Well in Putin’s mind those generals are minions and minions do as they are told because minions don’t have opinions. That means those talks were a message from Trump to Putin! Yes, it’s possible that Trump was such a bumbling dumbass that it frightened Putin.
So here comes Biden. Putin thinks; Biden is an affable dude, must be weak, not a tough guy like Putin. And guys who act tough are strong in Putin’s mind. Putin’s dimwitted brain can’t understand that Biden got to the top in one of the most competitive political systems in the world and in the face of Trump who tried cheating every way Trump could to stay in office. The possibility a life time in American politics just might have taught Biden the fine art of being tough, but gentle and likable at the same is unpossible in Putin’s mind. Only the swaggering slap dicks and posers survive in Putin’s crapsack world!
So, here we are with Putin mind reeling that Biden seemed to magic NATO and then some back together in a few phones calls, must be cheating!
Carlo Graziani
I half agree with Adam’s assessment, but I believe that he underestimates the political dimension of the conflict, and the importance of the “battlefield” in Russia, as opposed to the one in Ukraine.
To the extent that I agree, I think that in the end NATO will be forced to conclude that the strategic threat from Putinist Russia outweighs the immediate risks of conflict, and some kind of NATO-guaranteed don’t-fuck-with-us zone will be created in Western Ukraine, to cover resupply, government-in-exile, refugees, harassment of the Russian “thirty-year war” forces etc.
It won’t be a thirty-year war though. The presumption that Putin is secure in his position is ridiculous. He’s in breach of contract with the crime cartel that supported him out of pecuniary self-interest, rather than out of a shared ideological vision of restored Russian greatness. Nearly a trillion dollars of Russian wealth is frozen, and is likely to be seized for war reparations, and the personal wealth of very powerful people, with wires into Putin’s personal circle, is being actively hunted down in banks around the world. Putin’s problem is not unpopularity or demonstrations: it’s worrying about novichok in his underwear drawer, or about the back of his skull unexpectedly traveling through his front teeth at the speed of sound.
Have you wondered how the Biden administration was so spot-on with intelligence on Russian intentions in the month preceding the war? Intentions are a hard intelligence target — much harder than technical intelligence. I was very skeptical about their claims, and I was forced to think about them very carefully when they turned out to be 100% correct. They must have multiple high-level sources in the FSB and/or the Russian MOD, and probably elsewhere in government and in Putin’s network. Which makes complete sense: the Russian government is corrupt from top to bottom, with many exemplary senior cases of officials “succeeding” by monetizing their offices. There is no ideological motivation for loyalty comparable to communism — Russian nationalism is a joke by comparison. Why should any Russian securocrat not betray his country for money? On the other hand, pecuniary corruption is a time-honored tradition in intelligence tradecraft, and among the assets that Western intelligence agencies have in abundance are untraceable cash and discrete bank accounts, as well as other, less-fungible bribe-bait.
That digression is by way of saying that Putin’s fortress appears to be leaking like a pasta colander. Putin is not the master of his situation. That is a surface appearance. Think “Gorbachev, June 1991”. The appearance is “impregnable”. The reality is something else. The curtain is preventing us from seeing the reality, in my opinion. I think there are plenty of disloyal people in the palace, and it only takes one to pull a trigger, or to pull on vinyl gloves and paint some underware with liquid from a bottle.
At bottom, we are in a slugging match, a battle of wills. Putin will try to wear down the will of the Ukrainians, and of the West. The Ukrainians will resist. NATO will somehow evolve some response. The West will take down Russia’s GDP by a minimum of 50%, perhaps more, and turn every one of Putin’s former happy customers into his enraged enemies. This show will play out for weeks or months, with harrowing twists and turns, but in the end, it either ends with Putin dead, or with the West finding an accomodation with Putinist Russia. The consequences in Ukraine are a destructive human catastrophe either way. I hope that the pugnacious mood of Western democracies is sustainable. I even believe it, because that mood finally channels the lost belief in the values of the Enlightenment that nobody until Zelensky had been able to articulate in the face of the crypto-fascist ethnic nationalist movements exploiting massive pervasive global economic anxiety to gain power, of which Putin is the leading exemplar.
In a slugging match, the main thing is to stay in it until your opponent falls down. We need to stay this course. The main price will be paid by the Ukrainian people, and the main debt for saving the world from illiberalism will be owed to them. But make no mistake, this is it. As Adam said, the war is here. This is the Big One.
Mallard Filmore
@Ha Nguyen: “the Ukraine conflict’ sounds awkward to me without the “the”. The “the” refers to the conflict, not the country.
patroclus
@Martin: I see historical parallels all over the place. The closest, I think is early 1941, when the U.S, enacted Lend-Lease and was in an “all aid short of war” mode with the U.K., who was still resisting Germany but had no real hope of prevailing militarily absent massive intervention from the New World. Our adversary had a tentative alliance with a Far East ally (Japan then; China now) who had different concerns and objectives. We didn’t “want” to go to war but we didn’t want to engage in appeasement either. We kind of expected to be drawn into it but didn’t know precisely how or when it would occur. Germany had a leader who had long since behaved irrationally, lied repeatedly and could not be trusted on anything and diplomacy seemed pointless and even collaborative. Things looked bleak then as they do now. But nuclear weapons make it more so.
Martin
@gwangung: I think it’s more that Russia committed a certain force that he thought would be adequate, and it’s proving not to be. The question becomes how does Putin try and correct that.
The US considers a minimum ratio of soldiers to population of 1:50 for an occupation. For a country of 41 million people, that’s 800,000 soldiers. Clearly Putin hasn’t committed that many, and I think he’d have to commit 100% of his military to hit that number. Either Putin was expecting a compliant population (buying into his own soviet restoration myth) or he’s planning on toppling the government but only occupying the two oblast to the east. This seems like a dumb plan, but they’re all dumb plans.
He can try and do it with fewer, but the US went into Iraq with a 1:160 ratio and we can see how that turned out. Taking the country wasn’t hard, but turning it into what we wanted wasn’t possible. Similar to Afghanistan.
So, if we’re presuming a proper defeat and occupation of Ukraine, it seems like either Putin needs to throw his full force at it (dangerous, considering the presumed state of the Russian economy ATM), or he needs to massively reduce the population or bring it into compliance in some other way.
I don’t speak for Adam here, but in my areas of expertise, if you see a plan that doesn’t make sense according to existing doctrine, you have to explore outside of that space until you can make the plan work. If the plan is to take and hold Ukraine, it seems like the only way to do that is either a LOT more troops, or adding a new variable like nukes. It doesn’t matter necessarily if it’s sensible to us, just that it’s sensible to the person making the plan. I suspect a lot of folks where this is their area of expertise see an equation that doesn’t balance, but if you make the coefficient of nuke to be non-zero, it could balance. It may not make sense to experts like Adam why you would go about doing it this way, but because it balances the equation it needs to be considered a possibility.
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Major Major Major Major
Aren’t they the ones who are in fact nazis?
Gian
If I was in charge (and it’s good I’m not) I’d send some high level officials out to the media to talk about how poor the maintenance of Russian equipment is followed by speculation on how out of repair the nuclear forces are.
Sebastian
Are we operating under the mental image of map equals population and might?
The USSR had a population of 289 million in 1991. This is where our heads are.
But Russia’s population is only 144 million. It’s a big ass country that needs to be held together.
Belarus 9 million.
Chechnya 1.4 million.
Ukraine’s population is 44 million and much denser.
For comparison:
Poland 38 million.
Germany 83 million
We should be asking questions like:
How is Putin going to feed his soldiers?
wetzel
Kissinger and Nixon had been working for thirty years where the 100% paramount national security priority was that Americans and Russians never actually fight each other. Think of the tortured dance of atrocity across the world from Southeast Asia to Central America while the United States and Russia were at war the whole time even worse than now! Maybe there is no moral stomach in the United States anymore for the sadistic game to bleed countries between us in our inhuman, barbaric World War III which apparently has never ended in Russia.
I think the United States national security establishment will be jealous for Ukrainian glory and not have been trained to accommodate a world where the spiral is towards total destruction of the world. Dogma is that the state will only use nuclear weapons when existentially threatened. There was a bureaucratic process at least with Brezhnev. How is that logic supposed to work in a personlized autocracy where the leader is the fascistic embodiment of the state.
Ukraine will win this war. It’s a big country. Their leadership is splendid. They are receiving the cosmic intelligence. An enormous arsenal is flooding in. The Russian Army is stuck in the mud for 4-6 weeks and it is a tragedy for everyone. Putin needs an off-ramp. A medal and a tropical island retirement. When it comes to the United States and Russia, the choice has to always be de-escalation. It’s existential in our deepest being towards death, the death of everything.
Sebastian
@Carlo Graziani:
Bravo! Bravissimo!
Yes, a million times yes!
This is precisely what is going on. What a great write-up!
My only disagreement is the timeline. The defeat of the Russian military or whatever you want to call this is imminent. It might be days or weeks, but it won’t be for long.
This is like Napoleon’s Army: lost in winter without supplies.
The soldiers are already hungry and cold. Give it a few more days.
joel hanes
@Sebastian:
this one
Adam r00lz as a warblogger, though I miss Cole reminiscing about the guys in his tank crew.
Martin
@Sebastian: No, exactly. The US assessment is for 44 million people, you need 880,000 troops. Putin has put forward, what, ¼ that number?
Morale among the enlisted troops really goes to shit once you start regularly setting them on fire.
Martin
@wetzel: I’m not sure Ukraine is going to win, but if Russia wins I think it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory. Taking Ukraine and keeping Ukraine are two very different things. And even if Russia does take Ukraine, I think the damage to the Russian economy may be so bad that Putin is deposed anyway.
joel hanes
@Sebastian:
Maybe like this
https://twitter.com/bazaarofwar/status/1498695094328827912
which is the one that felt just like 2002 all over again
dr. luba
Shit just got real:
The International Feline Federation (FIFe) suspended cats from Russia from international cat shows.
From March 1, no cat exported from Russia can be imported and registered in any International Feline Federation pedigree book outside of Russia, regardless of which organization its pedigree has been issued.
Also, no cat owned by Russian residents can be shown at any FIFe shows outside of Russia, regardless of which organization these exhibitors are members of.
The FIFe Council has also decided to allocate part of its budget to support breeders and cat lovers in Ukraine who suffer due to the current situation.
Sebastian
@Martin:
I’ve been trying for days to nail the number down because it’s probably not even half that.
They set out with 100k and everyone was wondering why. I bet COVID was raging and they never had the numbers in the first place, only on paper.
It was all a show. Omnes kept repeating those tanks look fresh out of storage, none of it can be used yet.
There were no supplies, the tanks had extra fuel tanks, not for long-range but that was all the fuel they had. The plan was to roll into Kyiv unopposed and with no backup plan.
They didn’t plan for food, fuel, ammo.
This has all the stink of Trump putting marble bathrooms into Trump Air jets and then wanting to get rid of the co-pilot because the plane got too heavy.
Sebastian
@joel hanes:
Much appreciated!
Sebastian
@joel hanes:
Dooooood! Thank you! Struck gold! Check this out:
Russian Aviation is done.
Calouste
@Martin: For comparison, when the Nazis attacked France in 1940, which had then roughly the population Ukraine has today, they had more than 3 million soldiers. And then later, half the work of occupying the country was done by Petain.
Sebastian
@Calouste:
At the peril of sounding like a broken record, but
How many soldiers do you really have, Vova?
Calouste
@Sebastian: Those 15,000 Russian tourists that are stuck in the Dominican Republic are going to be stuck there for a while.
YY_Sima Qian
@Mallard Filmore: Serpenza & Laowhy46 worked in China for 10 years, as English teachers. I followed their YT channels for a while in the early 2010s, when the content was mostly just about expat observations of life in China. It was fairly neutral at the time, but with Serpenza especially there would be hints of chauvinism & bigotry toward non-whites. Neither seemed to treat their Chinese wives with particularly respect. Then in 2017 or so both were suddenly expelled from China, apparently they have the reputation in Shenzhen’s expat community of being the prototypical “sexpats”, & were not above gloating about their “exploits” in less conspicuous forums. Then their content turned political, vehemently anti-CCP, anti-China, w/ loads of anti-Chinese dogwhistle. They are no more credible than the drivel from Falunggong or Miles Guo.
I believe these guys are charlatans chasing money. They were based in the US for a while, now in Taiwan. There are certainly largely audiences in either place for what they have to spew.
If you want expert assessment of the kind of predicament that Beijing finds itself in (or rather has placed itself in), & how the CCP regime is trying to navigate the dilemma (not that successfully to date), search for tweets & articles by Evan Feigenbaum & Tong Zhao.
Then there is this analysis on whether China knew if Putin’s plans before hand.
https://www.stimson.org/2022/ukraine-did-china-have-a-clue/
Calouste
@Sebastian: Wikipedia says that Russia has 280,000 ground troops on active duty. So if they have 190,000 in and around Ukraine, that’s close to all they have practically. They need a bunch of folks for HQ, manning bases and all that kind of stuff.
The Dangerman
@Gin & Tonic: That never again thing keeps coming back to me; there is at least one country that is, one, likely kinda pissed off the Russia is shelling Holocaust Museums (or whatever) and, two, is really damn good at the one and likely only thing that stops this madness.
The other thought that comes to mind is the number of refugees going to Poland. They might not be happy either; based solely on them getting deluged with humans, could they invoke Article 5?
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for the input. I had been wondering about China in all of this.
Sebastian
@Calouste:
Shit’s getting real huh? How are all those Russians getting home or paying for anything? Not just in the DR but everywhere in the world?
Speaking of Russians, next up, Florida! GOP’s Sleaze-swamp Skunkworks Kleptoincubator
Bart
“he stood their”
deep sigh
Dear native English speakers, please do better.
JaySinWa
@The Dangerman: The problem is that that one country has a complex relationship with Russia. It isn’t clear what the cost benefit analysis is. They have the means and may have the opportunity, but the motive isn’t clear.
Sebastian
@Calouste:
Where did you get that number? I am trying to chew through the wiki page and found
CIA Factbook sez
Are we experiencing a total failure of the Russian Military to conduct a campaign in a neighboring country due to complete mismanagement?
If so, I say let’s finish them off!
m0nty
@Ha Nguyen: As others have identified, I was not intending to use that epithet to describe Ukraine, I know why Putin does it and I did not intend to echo him. It was a compound noun.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Ukraine is not on people’s minds. It is as distant to Chinese consciousness as Yemen is to Americans’.
Yes, in the social media discourse the pro-Russia contingent has the upper hand, but comments questioning the Russian military’s proficiency and/or Putin’s strategic sense are pretty common, too. The vast majority of it is idle internet BS, no one is particularly invested in either side. To the extent that the majority of people online support Russia, it is because they recognize the sharpening great power competition with the US, are angered by actions & rhetorics from the Trump & Biden administrations, & see Russia as a reliable ally in this confrontation, & expects that if China helps to rein in Russia in collaboration w/ the US & the EU, the US & the EU will then turn around & focus on containing China. There is clearly a directive censoring speech that are overtly critical of Russia, particularly from a moral perspective. However, posts & analysis delving in to the Russian military’s failings, as well as strength of Ukrainian resistance, are not censored. There are always comments in any comment section of any article covering the Ukraine crisis that full-throatedly condemn Russia & support Ukraine, so the content censors do not appear to be overly exercised by them.
Online Chinese nationalists sentiments toward Russia are dominated by Putin-fanboys (because Putin is perceived to take no sh*t from no one, dares to poke the US/NATO’s eyes, & take the aggressive actions that Beijing has the good sense not to take) & Russophobes (left over Cold War animosity against fUSSR, as well as resentment toward the Tsarist Empire carving huge chunks of Outer Manchuria & Outer Mongolia out of the Qing Empire). However, neither sentiments are representative of the Chinese population as a whole. There are few Russophiles because for over a century Chinese of all stripes have looked to the US, Europe & Japan for inspiration in modernization, safe for < a decade in the 50s when the CCP regime looked to the fUSSR (then Mao went w/ his own utopian vision).
Mind you, I have been following coverage of the Ukraine crisis on Chinese news aggregator platform (Jinri Toutiao), & the coverage is mainly in the military section (over-represented by hawks & hardline nationalists). I have not watched state media coverage, but I expect it to be as bland as the official pronouncements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Captain C
@Chetan Murthy: “Dear Vova, Thank you for your concern. We feel that NATO membership will guarantee our security. Sincerely, two countries who don’t want to be invaded.”
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: As you might or might not know, my sister has been teaching Chinese Art History at Ohio State Universirty since about 1980. She is fluent in Mandarin. She deeply loves Cinese culture. Her husband is Chinese. Her children all speak Mandarin and other dialects.
I am just an American with other interests, but I care deeply about my sister and her international ties and family.
Captain C
@Calouste: Given how it is in Russia right now, that may be better for them.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Yeah, you mentioned it a few times. Very tough time to be a Chinese-American trying to maintain hyphenated identity in the time of Sino-US great power competition. One has to be to be very circumspect in China, especially on social media, lest you attract the attention of nationalists trolls & their cyber bullying & doxxing. In the US, I get the sense that one is squeezed too, w/ soaring anti-East Asian xenophobia, the unstated suspicion that one is not ever fully American. I keep reading stories of US government agencies holding anyone w/ family connection in China under suspicion, & are barred from high level security clearances & sensitive posts, how analysts & reporters of Chinese descent have to be extra-critical of the CCP regime & China in general to demonstrate their loyalty to the US, & how they are quickly branded CCP-apologists if they ever acknowledge the real accomplishments of the CCP regime. (While their non-Asian colleagues are not held to these standards.) After FBI’s quasi-McCarthyist “China Initiative” from the Trump era (finally ended by the Biden Administration last week), many academics of Chinese descent are now basically deterred from any collaboration w/ their counterparts in any Chinese institutions, even on non-sensitive fields w/ truly broad benefits, others now refuse to work on projects that require USG grants, still others have gone back to China or moved to other countries w/ less anti-Chinese xenophobia. I keep reading social media posts of female reporters of East Asian descent afraid of venturing outside for fear of harassment, since Trump talked up “China Virus” on 2020.
The Chinese language media landscape in the US & much of the world is pretty atrocious, too. They are either bought by monied interests tied to the CCP regime, or established by the Falun Gong, or w/ Hong Kong/Taiwanese backgrounds that tend to borrow material from the Falun Gong outlets in their coverage of Mainland China. It is a truly sorry state of affairs.
In China Chinese Americans can try to physically blend in, even if speech & behavior will quickly give one away. At least in my circle of family, friends, & colleagues, people are often genuinely interested in the different perspective that I bring on domestic & international issues, especially since I try to be dispassionate & objective about the country’s varied facets, & the CCP regime’s achievements & failures, rather than “it’s all the CCP’s fault” all the time. In the US, our physical appearance immediately mark us as targets in the eyes of the xenophobes & racists (not all of whom are white). Of course, the Chinese American community has its share of xenophobes & racists, & there is much stereotyping between Mainlanders, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, & Diaspora from SE Asia, even among Mainlanders from different provinces.
VOR
Russia is a petrostate. So is Saudi Arabia. Long term, the way to defund those guys is to stop using oil. Renewable energy has come a long way over the last couple decades and keeps improving by leaps and bounds. The US has a political party which is adamantly opposed to renewable energy. The climate change argument doesn’t work with them. But I wonder if a national security argument would?
I think it would not in the US. The response seems to be a revival of the idiotic “drill baby drill” message. But maybe other countries have enough sane people. Germany, France, other EU countries? They are already pursuing renewable energy but maybe efforts could be shifted into a higher gear using this conflict as a wake-up call.
Morzer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/03/ukraine-news-russia-war-vladimir-putin-biden-latest-live-updates-kherson-kyiv-kharkiv-refugees-russian-invasion
This sounds to me like an offer of negotiations that can’t admit that it’s an offer of negotiations.
Barney
Wouldn’t humanitarian aid be delivered better, for most of Ukraine, by land at this stage? The Russians don’t control all of the roads yet (and some trains are still running), the borders to the west are all under Ukrainian/the other countries’ control, and there are a lot more truck drivers than pilots, and trucks than planes, available. Even if the Russians attack aid trucks, that’s still a more survivable scenario than a plane getting shot down.
An airlift like Berlin needs functioning runways, and they’ll go long before the Russians control all the roads. Parachuting supplies in can work in some situations, but what is applicable here – a siege of Kyiv and dropping them into open spaces like city parks?
evodevo
@Mallard Filmore: I think that Putin assumed Trumpy had cut the intelligence services off at the knees after embedding his quislings in the bureaucracy and they were now compromised and weakened. AND of course, since our right wingers keep insisting Biden is senile and incompetent, that there was no way he could reconstitute the services in a year…
Gvg
@m0nty: I am no expert, but I want to point out that cumulative actions tend to convince more people. The fact of what Russia has already done makes what he is doing in Ukraine more alarming. Each single action if he had only done that and not the rest would leave it possible for some of the world to remain unconvinced and hopeful they wouldn’t have to do anything serious. Since Ukraine has come AFTER the other events, it benefits in responses.
There is also the fact that having a lot of powerful counties in agreement is necessary for any effective action. If almost everyone wasn’t willing to do the same sanctions, it wouldn’t even be worth doing any because Russia could evade them so easily and it would end up making us look weak, and leave sanctuary discredited for when in the future they might work.
And last, I think it is probably significant that we and everyone else got out of Iraq and Afghanistan recently. A possible 3rd war at the same time would be too much and many people would not be willing. I would have been seriously alarmed if that had been the case. Which is in my view, a significant reason we needed to get out.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian:
In my previous job we frequently had occasion to drive down to corporate headquarters in exurban New Jersey. I recall that on one of those trips, a Chinese-American coworker (a New Yorker most of his life, I think he may have been born in the US) had his tires slashed. And that was several years ago, early Trump era I think.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Morzer:
I’m trying to figure out what Putin’s moron circle sees at the end of this – an infrastructure-crippled, economically shattered Ukraine with massive suffering and human needs being ruled as a puppet state while a Russia with no access to foreign reserves tries to lash it all together? What aid does Russia have to deliver to 40M when the ruble is worth a penny and the West gives a giant middle finger? After all, you broke it, you bought it.
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Putin wants to destroy Ukraine as a nation. He has said so (and written so) explicitly.
Lyrebird
sounds that way to me too fwiw
and yes:
I don’t know how that would work with people who voted for a puppet tyrant. a tyrant’s puppet. but I am frustrated that I didn’t get an EV already, thinking about trying to do that sooner…
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
And their troublesome people.
Gin & Tonic
I’m seeing fairly reliable reports that a Russian Major-General has been killed in Ukraine. Odd, I think, for someone that high-ranking to be close to the action.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: It’s only going to get worse.
We are seeing signs of Russophobia, too. I can understand cancelling performances by the Bolshoi Ballet (I assume it still has Russian state backing). I can understand La Scala firing its Russian director because he is apparently a friend of Putin & refused to denounce the invasion of Ukraine. Harrodgate cancelling performance by the Russian State Opera, even though it is a UK based company, seems a bid much. (Unless there is a pro-Putin Russian Oligarch connection I am not aware of.)
A university in Milan cancelling a course on Dostoyevsky is utterly stupid, though the university quickly backtracked after being told how stupid it was. Mayor of Milan asked to remove a statue of Dostoyevsky. Polish National Opera cancelling a production of Boris Godunov. Anna Netrebko withdrawing from performances in Europe. Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra removing Tchaikovsky from their program in Manila. Journal of Molecular Structure rejecting manuscripts from submitted from Russian Institutions. (D) Rep. Eric Swalwell advocating expelling all Russian students in the US.
These are still sporadic idiocies by people who should know better, & they are getting push back. Let’s hope it does not escalate.
Kay
@Morzer:
It offers nothing. The “infrastructure” Ukraine can’t keep isn’t defined and even that is contradicted in the next paragraph with the even broader Russian demand of “it could not let anyone undermine its interests”, interests that could include literally anything. They’re offering nothing.
Geminid
At least one good thing may be happening despite Russia’s war on Ukraine. Now that Iran’s chief negatiator has returned from consultations in Tehran, negotiations to revive the JCPOA limiting Iran’s nuclear program have resumed in Vienna. The new agreement could be finalized by the weekend.
While on a visit to Israel, German Defense Minister Scholz had this to say:
Israeli Prime Minister Bennet was standing next to Scholz at yesterday’s news conference. Bennet wasn’t saying “yes,” but his “no” was qualified. Israel opposed, Bennet said, any agreement that would allow Iran to install large numbers of new centrifuges in just a few years.
Mr. Grassi, head of the IAEA which will enforce the new agreement, is scheduled to visit Iran in a few days. IAEA monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities has continued through these negotiations, but on a curtailed basis.
From France 24
raven
@Gin & Tonic: It depends on what got him.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: The signing ceremony might be awkward. Or there may not be one.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
True, but that leaves him with 40 million literate people who look like Russians, can speak the language and are from a culture disposed to millennium-long grudges right on his border and who have multiple connections inside his. Having stripped them of a comfortable lifestyle with no hope of restoring it, raw aggression won’t be enough to put down the rage there or inside Russia proper.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Yeah, there’s speculation on Twitter that maybe he wasn’t enthusiastic enough about carrying out Putin’s orders and this was a message to the other brass.
Gin & Tonic
@YY_Sima Qian: Anna Netrebko has been, for years, a vocal Putin supporter. Fuck her.
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: One would think he’d be aware of that.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I think there will be a public signing ceremony. The U.S. representatives will probably be there, although up to now they have met only with the European, Chinese and Russian negotiators (the Iranians have refused to sit at the same table with U.S.negotiators). Reports are that the Chinese are very keen to see these negotiation succeed, and all the parties seem determined not to let them be derailed by the Russian war in Ukraine.
Chief Oshkosh
@different-church-lady: It can be both a mistake and repeated. I have no idea what the cognitive states are of the two jackals involved, but age certainly can exacerbate the effects of many conditions.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gin & Tonic: Huh, didn’t know that. Something to keep in mind.
zhena gogolia
@YY_Sima Qian: Those Red Square concerts don’t get themselves booked.
Gin & Tonic
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: The late major general might have been under pressure to press an attack and exposed himself in a place he might not have ventured otherwise. Alternatively, he may have been killed in a “rear area.” The Ukrainian Army seems determined not to allow the Russians any rear areas.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Yeah, having instability in the Middle East, especially military conflict between Iran & Israel or the Gulf States, will wreak havoc on China’s Maritime Silk Road initiative.
Russia & Belarus getting sanctioned could already lead to major disruptions for the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. There are now delays in the Eurasian Rail transport routes (through Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, & Poland) that China & Germany have painstakingly developed over the past decade.
Whatever bromance there may have been between Xi & Putin, it surely has been undermined by Xi having been played by Putin. The Belt & Road Initiative is the centerpiece of China’s, & Xi’s, foreign policy, I imagine it ranks higher than relations w/ Putin. The strategic imperative for China to align w/ Russia in great power competition w/ the US, is w/ Russia the state, not necessarily Putin the person. (Meaning if there is a strong enough alignment of interest groups in Russia that can send Putin into retirement, I highly doubt China will spend any resources to keep Putin in power. Historically, China has favored working w/ whomever is in power in any given country, & has been willing to provide what the powers-that-be requested to stay in power, such as prestige projects, investments, loans, internet censor tools. However, if that power-that-be is deposed or defeated in election, China will move on to work w/ whoever comes next.)
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: That’s very informative commentary. Thank you.
Jinchi
I’m sure it includes the 15 nuclear reactors that supply half the country’s power.
Miss Bianca
@Carlo Graziani: Wow. I like your take on this, I must say.
zhena gogolia
@Carlo Graziani: Wow. Could we get you onto CNN/networks stat?
ETA: Or at least front page of BJ.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Thirded, though our intelligence shouldn’t be impugned. No one’s always right.
But on this:
Has this been said out loud, loudly enough for the Russians to hear? It might be helpful.
Nettoyeur
@Carlo Graziani: Agree. In one of the many feeds I follow, I noticed that UKR Intel was warned in detail by an FSB mole about the Chechen hit squad coming for Zelenskyy, and apparently annihilated them, incl a general who was one of Kadyrov’s main thugs.
J R in WV
@different-church-lady:
Enhanced… does this THE UKRAINE every day, and G&T goes off on him, and rightly so. Enhanced… now talks about dyslexia, which involves seeing words wrong on the page — I have problems with b and d, and p and q myself.
That doesn’t mean I add offensive words like ni**r when writing about civil rights, nor misgendering people when writing about Trans issues. It means when I write with a pen or pencil, the first time I write the letter “b” I sometimes put the loop on the wring side, resulting in a “d” rather than a “b’ …
No one can be sure what is going on in Enhanced…’s head — I’m pretty sure they are a troll, though. Too consistent and repeated forever now it feels like. Pieing them appears to be the only solution for anyone who cares. What a piece of work….
Chris Johnson
@Chetan Murthy: I suspect some folks are intentionally constructing sentences where ‘the’ is grammatical in order to normalize that being heard. I’m very suspicious of it. (but then I’m the guy who thinks Russia is up to no good, and who sees trolls all over the place)
lee
A few items I’ve picked up this morning.
Russian General killed in the fighting
Approximately 16,000 foreign volunteers have already arrived in Ukraine.
Russia’s 1st Tank Army has been defeated in Kharkiv (which is a bit poetic).
The Mayor that surrendered his city to the Russian forces found shot in the head this morning.
dnfree
@YY_Sima Qian: thank you again for the in-depth analysis of China’s thinking.
Barney
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t have much sympathy with a private company that has been passing itself off as “Russian State Opera”, when it had no connection with that state (which, in artistic terms, is still prestigious). This has forced them to drop the misleading brand identity: https://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/19967023.amande-concerts-drops-russian-state-opera-brand-backlash
On the subject of humanitarian aid, there is now some agreement on ‘corridors’, though I haven’t found details yet: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ukraine-says-talks-with-russia-agreed-on-humanitarian-corridors/ar-AAUzoKN
The Pale Scot
@YY_Sima Qian:
Thank you for the overview, Sima Qian
YY_Sima Qian
Just to be clear, what I post are my own personal speculation, so take it for whatever it is worth. I have no special insight into the opaque decision making process of the CCP regime. Then again, neither do a lot of the journalists or “analysts” pontificating on the subject.
YY_Sima Qian
@Barney: Good point on “Russian State Ballet & Opera House”, but the reason the performances are cancelled now is surely Russophobia, & not protest against its cynical misrepresentation.