Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Republicans in disarray!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Update 16: The Ukrainians Are Still Holding, the Russians Are Quickly Escalating Their Agitprop and Demands, & Marking Some Beliefs To Market

War for Ukraine Update 16: The Ukrainians Are Still Holding, the Russians Are Quickly Escalating Their Agitprop and Demands, & Marking Some Beliefs To Market

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I’m going to start a bit differently, order wise, tonight. Specifically I’m going to attempt to answer Redshift’s question from late last night/early this morning in the comments. Though this is going to blend into the update proper fairly quickly.

I have people I love in Ukraine (safe so far, thank god) and I would love to have the Western alliance come riding to the rescue and end this war. But I feel like what you’re advocating for in this post is a big shift from many of your previous ones, and I don’t quite grasp the rationale for the shift. I get that the things the Russian army is doing are horrible, but they’re largely things you were predicting, so I’d like to know how the balance of risks has changed.

Not pushing back on him as strongly as possibly only encourages him.

No disagreement, but that doesn’t prove that pushing back on him more strongly will discourage him. And “as strongly as possible” is pretty open-ended. I don’t want Ukraine reduced to rubble, but I don’t want it to get nuked either, and if Putin’s mindset is really “either I get it or no one does,” then what are the chances of that happening if we decide to get more directly involved? (Leaving aside for the moment the question of wider nuclear threats, which tend to be used to end the argument.)

I’m honestly hoping you can convince me. I would be happy to start making calls to my representatives if I feel confident of the odds of it leading to a better outcome.

I think the source of Redshift’s question and many of your comments about what I wrote last night is that I’ve failed to clearly articulate my position. So let me try to do that, which should also mark some beliefs to market. Or make things clear as mud…

Putin has been running this same basic playbook since at least 2008. I would argue he’s actually been running it since 2004 in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan Massacre. The playbook is to either seize on a crisis or threat that originates outside of Russia, but that can be framed as targeting the Russian state, Russian society, and Russians themselves (either Russians in Russia, ethnic Russians, or native non-ethnic Russian speakers in other states), and use it to justify military operations in the name of protecting Russia, Russian culture and society, and Russians or create one to do those things. He’s done it in Chechnya, in eastern Georgia, and in Ukraine. In each of these conflicts the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions they’re rooted in, and any form of professional military ethics went right out the window very quickly in how the Russians prosecuted the war. When Putin has decided to aid a foreign ally like Assad or advance his interests in places like Africa, he sends small compliments of actual in uniform on the books Russian military personnel accompanying much larger amounts of Wagner mercenaries. And in these conflicts too the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions, and any form of professional military ethic are completely ignored. In between these conflicts, or when they are ongoing but not getting a lot of news coverage in the US, Britain, and the EU states, he tries to get the US and the EU to engage with him as if he’s just a normal leader of a normal country, while reminding everyone that Russia is the successor to the Soviet Union and should be treated as such. Very often we do engage. We have tried a variety of diplomatic resets. We’ve decided we can hold our noses when we need something, such as help with reconstituting the JCPOA, which the Russians may have blown up today. We try for detente over and over and over. Each and every time we fail. Each and every time Putin then gets more aggressive. We don’t really push back that hard, when we do we almost never maintain the pushback, and Putin learns that he can continue to do what he’s doing. Or, worse, that he can escalate.

And that’s really what all this worry is about: escalation. The problem is that Putin escalates regardless of what anyone does. As I’ve written about the last two nights, the Russians are promoting agitprop that the US has a military bio-weapons lab in Ukraine and that we ,working with the Ukrainians, have been making biological and chemical weapons there to use against the Russians. This conspiracy theory all started with the same woman, who was first pushing it about a lab in Georgia that would churn out biological and chemical weapons to be used against Russians in occupied east Georgia. That woman’s name is Dilyana Gaytandzhieva. And the conspiracy theory she’s amplifying on behalf of Russia neatly dovetails with the QAnon conspiracy theories about Dr. Fauci funding bio-weapons research, which, of course, they believe is how COVID was created. I’ve been tracking her stuff for a while, so am not surprised she’s popped up here. Here’s a nice long thread by Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Council diving into Gaytanzhieva, so I don’t have to go and pull each and every individual bit of info for you.

What I was waiting to see was whether the Russians would be able to get any big names in the US conservative news media ecosystem to bite on this. It didn’t take long for Tucker Carlson to take the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.

It doesn’t matter that Jennifer Griffin, Fox News’s senior defense correspondent, spent ten minutes debunking all of this live on air immediately after Carlson’s program went off the air (the video in the first tweet), Carlson has far more reach and far more people that believe what he says than what Griffin reports.

The Russians took this insanity even further today. They’ve scheduled, as the current president of the UN Security Council, a Security Council emergency meeting on the US’s bio and chemical weapons development in Ukraine for tomorrow. They’ve also expanded the conspiracy theory to now include that we’ve infected birds as living weapons and those birds are now in Russia. But they’ve also added another layer to things. They’re now warning about the Ukrainains or NATO shooting down a civilian airliner.

As I’ve explained a few times here, Russian military doctrine is to use informational and psychological warfare to fix the context and narrative of a conflict before undertaking an actual operation. These ever more absurd statements about US biological and chemical weapons manufacture in Ukraine for use against Russia or Russians and the warning about threats to civilian aviation are Russian attempts to do just what their doctrine says they will do: fix the informational space as part of setting the theater for actual physical operations. Here’s an entire thread with screengrabs tracking Russian civilian aviation squawking 700/general emergency all day long. All of this is right out of and consistent with Russian military doctrine.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and the fact that the US, the UK, NATO, and even Fox News’ own senior defense correspondent have all debunked the agitprop and misinformation will keep Russia from actually staging a false flag attack and using it to justify whatever the next thing that Putin wants to do to Ukraine or Europe. But I doubt it. And I would really like all of you to be able to tell me I got this one wrong!

When I write that not pushing back on him as strongly as possible only encourages Putin, it is because I’ve been watching this dynamic play out over and over and over again since 2014. Sometimes while on actual civilian mobilization orders as a supervisory senior civil servant assigned to US Army Europe (2014), sometimes as a senior fellow at Special Operations Command’s in house think tank (2015), and sometimes as a consultant and contractor (2016 to the present). That dynamic is the result of Russia’s ambiguous military doctrine in regard to the use of nukes. Basically, we don’t act, we only react and we react in the most minimal ways possible that are still feasible, acceptable, and suitable (the test for policy and strategy), but that might have some effect. This is why I’m one of the people that recognizes that the very strong and broad and deep sanctions and economic measures we’ve leveled on Russia are still unlikely to actually achieve our objectives.

The Western response has been far broader than most experts anticipated, and threatens to throw the Russian economy into chaos. Yet there’s a catch. Absent significant domestic reforms in the West—reforms that should have been enacted long ago—sanctions targeted at the oligarchic and official figures close to Russian President Vladmir Putin risk inflicting little more than a flesh wound on Russia’s imperial kleptocracy.

Rampant financial anonymity in places like the U.S. makes it relatively easy for powerful rich people to evade sanctions. A Russian oligarch may have multimillion-dollar mansions in Washington, D.C.; or multiple steel plants across the Rust Belt; or a controlling stake in a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut; or an entire fleet of private jets in California; or an array of lawyers setting up purchases at art houses around the country. And all of that wealth can be hidden—perfectly legally—behind anonymous shell companies and trusts that are enormously difficult to penetrate.

If Western policy makers hope to hold Putin’s cronies truly accountable, sanctions will have to be paired with pro-transparency reforms that can disassemble this web of secrecy. Western governments should start by ending anonymity in shell companies and trusts; demanding basic anti-money-laundering checks for lawyers, art gallerists, and auction-house managers; and closing loopholes that allow anonymity in the real-estate, private-equity, and hedge-fund industries. That is, if the sanctions are to retain their bite, the entire counter-kleptocracy playbook needs to be implemented—immediately.

Global transparency reform is essential because the people and entities who are bankrolling Moscow’s bloodshed don’t exist in some kind of geopolitical vacuum, limiting their grand larceny to Russia alone. They rely not simply on access to the Kremlin and its largesse, but also on Western financial-secrecy tools to hide and launder their illicit wealth, destabilize markets, and upend Western polities.

Much, much more at the link!

To finish this up and then get to more traditional updates after the jump, we have let Putin dictate our decision making for at least eight years. The result is we have artificially limited our policy and strategy options leaving us with few actual options to choose from. We’ve assembled a toolkit with very few tools. This has, in turn, led Putin to just continue to do what he wants to do because he’s learned, because we’ve taught him that we won’t act to stop him in any meaningful way for fear that he will escalate. He always escalates anyway. He’s used/backed the use by Assad of biological and chemical agents in Syria. The one time he didn’t escalate, interestingly enough, is the one time his forces screwed up and actually engaged with US forces in Syria. In February 2018 Wagner mercenaries made the foolish mistake of shelling US troops in Syria. They did not survive that mistake.

The artillery barrage was so intense that the US commandos dived into foxholes for protection, emerging covered in flying dirt and debris to fire back at a column of tanks advancing under the heavy shelling. It was the opening salvo in a nearly four-hour assault in February by around 500 pro-Syrian government forces – including Russian mercenaries – that threatened to inflame already simmering tensions between Washington and Moscow.

In the end, 200 to 300 of the attacking fighters were killed. The others retreated under merciless air strikes from the US, returning later to retrieve their battlefield dead. None of the Americans at the small outpost in eastern Syria – about 40 by the end of the firefight – were harmed.

The firefight was described by the Pentagon as an act of self-defence against a unit of pro-Syrian government forces. In interviews, US military officials said they had watched – with dread – hundreds of approaching rival troops, vehicles and artillery pieces in the week leading up to the attack.

The prospect of Russian military forces and US troops colliding has long been feared as the Cold War adversaries take opposing sides in Syria’s seven-year civil war.

At worst, officials and experts have said, it could plunge both countries into bloody conflict. And at a minimum, squaring off in crowded battlefields has added to heightened tensions between Russia and the US as they each seek to exert influence in the Middle East.

Commanders of the rival militaries had long steered clear of the other by speaking through often-used deconfliction telephone lines. In the days leading up to the attack, and on opposite sides of the Euphrates River, Russia and the US were backing separate offensives against the Isis in Syria’s oil-rich Deir el-Zour province, which borders Iraq.

US military officials repeatedly warned about the growing mass of troops. But Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river – even though US surveillance equipment monitoring radio transmissions had revealed the ground force was speaking in Russian.

You know what didn’t happen after Putin’s mercenaries got blowed up real good, escalation didn’t happen. The one time we bloodied his nose he did nothing. I think that tells us something important and we need to take appropriate account of it.

I am not suggesting we run willy nilly into doing something that will lead to a nuclear exchange. I am suggesting that we stop letting Putin and his ambiguous military doctrine limit our policy making and strategy development. We need to give ourselves permission to obtain more tools. For instance, we can create a deconfliction line with Russia in regard to Ukraine. We can then tell Putin in no uncertain terms that the Red Cross is going to establish a humanitarian corridor to relive Mariupol and other cities and towns, provide the dates and times, make it clear that an international coalition, which we will assemble, will be providing security via air patrol just on those days and at those times, and use the deconfliction line to keep things from getting out of hand. That would, at least, be a viable plan for relieving the humanitarian crisis that is growing day by day in Mariupol and other cities and towns. It is feasible, acceptable, and suitable. Is it more risky than what we are doing now? Yes it is. Is the risk unacceptable? I do not think so. I think the risk is manageable. Moreover, it puts the onus back on Putin. Does Putin really want to risk targeting air assets from an international coalition providing overwatch to a humanitarian relief effort? Does he really want to try to target a humanitarian relief effort that is being protected?

At the same time we can continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons systems necessary, such as top of the line counter battery radar and the systems necessary to quickly mass artillery fires. We’ve allowed ourselves to be put in a box and we need to find our way out of it. Not to escalate things into a nuclear war, but to come up with creative, more effective strategies to best help the Ukrainians as soon as possible. Otherwise we are going to keep getting more of the same results we’ve been getting for at least eight years

I don’t know if that answered Redshift’s question or clarified anything or if everyone is just more confused, but that’s my answer.

Update stuff after the jump.

This has graphic content, but if you can handle it, you should watch it all:

You all should listen to all of this too, if you can tolerate doing so:

Here’s a thread about what is going on in Mariupol:

The Russians have spent all day adding insult to the injury that this woman has already had to live through!

Why use one of your nukes, when you can just create a radiological disaster using conventional weapons?

These newly proposed humanitarian corridors are not going to end any better than the previous ones:

Here’s a bayrakter doing what bayrakters do!

And here’s some Ukrainian artillery engaging a Russian column:

And here’s a woman doing wonderful work:

This thread reports the Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s remarks after his meeting with Lavrov today went nowhere:

  • Kuleba continued: “Ukraine made Russia’s initial plans fail. We are seeking a diplomatic solution to this war. But we will not surrender.”
  • Kuleba: “Upon my initiative, we dedicated most of the time addressing humanitarian issues on the ground…to bring relief to people who have suffered.” But he says Lavrov did not agree to a humanitarian corridor in Mariupol.
  • Kuleba: I sincerely hope Mr. Lavrov will follow up with his colleagues in the military to help arrange the safe passage of people from the besieged cities, especially Mariupol, and to allow humanitarian aid to reach Mariupol.
  • Kuleba: “It was not easy for me to listen to what [FM Lavrov] was saying. But I appealed to him several times” to address humanitarian issues.

I was absolutely shocked that the Brits actually did this. Thrilled, but shocked!

Here’s the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s (MOD) update on the Russian’s attempts to reach Kyiv:

The Ukrainians are still holding in the bedroom communities, suburbs, and towns north and west of Kyiv. As I’ve written several times: they must hold those positions!

Here’s a couple of clips from LTG (ret) Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of US Army Europe (I worked for the one before him) speaking with Christiane Amanpour about Ukraine:

Finally, here’s a wonderful story from The Guardian about a Ukrainian immigrant in Oregon who has left his family there to go back to Ukraine to get his mother to safety and then stay and fight for Ukraine.

Sergey Korenev was running out of time.

He watched his daughter Anna, 11, practice skateboarding in a park on a rainy Thursday night outside Portland, Oregon. His midnight flight will board in a few hours that will begin a long journey to the war in Ukraine. Sergey still has to pack, but he doesn’t hurry her.

Sergey, 44, has been bringing Anna here to the park for a month and each time she gets better. He watched her roll down a small hill towards him. “Come on, come on, come on …” Sergey said in Russian, smiling at the progress she’s making.

Sergey’s eldest daughter Maria, 17, was standing next to him with her hoodie pulled up. She doesn’t look at her phone, even when Anna walks back up the hill and it turns quiet between her and her father. Sergey’s mother is alone in her home outside Kyiv, hiding from shelling. Sergey wants to go home to rescue her, take her to Poland and then stay and fight.

Since the start of the Russian buildup Sergey has been fixated on news, worried. On the night of the invasion Valentina Korenev, his ex-wife, texted him. He had already made his decision: he was going back to Ukraine.

“I’ve been monitoring the situation since last fall, like everybody,” Sergey said through a translator, his brother Alex Korenev. “But when it became a total invasion, I felt like I needed to do something. I could not watch it from afar.”

Sergey is one of about 66,000 Ukrainians returning home to help fight the Russian invasion following President Volodymyr’s Zelenskiy’s call for Ukrainians abroad return to the homeland to fight the Russians. Korenev, whose family is Jewish, is one Ukrainian in the US answering the call.

Much, much more at the link and well worth your time to read it.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  1. 1.

    Leto

    I’ve been out all day, so not sure if this has been discussed but it’s appropriate for here:

    Accused Russian Agent Gave to One Politician: Tulsi Gabbard

    Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and 2020 presidential dark horse candidate, has long perplexed U.S. officials and observers with her seemingly inexplicable pro-Russian positions. And a new development this week is sure to reinforce the half-jokes that Gabbard is a “Russian asset”; as it turns out, her campaign took money from one.

    That agent—dual Russian-American national Elena Branson, also known as Elena Chernykh—stands accused of illegally pushing pro-Russia policies in the United States for nearly a decade, at the direction of top Kremlin officials, without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to a criminal complaint federal prosecutors filed this week in the Southern District of New York.

    But, in all her time lobbying for Russian goals, she gave money to just one federal candidate: Gabbard.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    That UN meeting tomorrow needs to be turned into a referendum on kicking Russia off the Security Council until that country complies with international norms. Russia gets no vote on this.

  5. 5.

    sdhays

    66,000 people returning to fight. That’s… a lot of new soldiers. Not necessarily trained, but neither are the new Russian “recruits”.

  7. 7.

    Morzer

    @guachi: That’s in no way what Adam said. He’s pointing out correctly that just letting Putin do what he wants without real consequences is a really good way to encourage and enable him.

  8. 8.

    Carlo Graziani

    Again, thanks Adam. I look forward to these evening summaries. The disagreements here come in part from the evolving situation, and the anxiety, and frustration that we all feel.

    I’ve been particularly frustrated by the media discussions of air interdiction in it’s various guises. The discussion of MIGs, air exclusion zones, no-fly etc. is getting more baffling to me every day, with proponents stacking absurdities piled upon non-sequiturs.

    Ukrainian politicians are in desperate dark days, and want help, any help. They would like their “…skies closed”. And they would like the largest hammer in the world — NATO — to come sort out their nemeses. I don’t blame them. I do blame the media folks who should know better than peddle this Giulio Douhet/Billy Mitchell-grade blather about air power transforming the conflict.

    Here’s the central truth that too many people can’t seem to get their heads wrapped around: There is no air war in Ukraine. If there were, the Ukrainian Air Force would supply essentially all the targets and the Russian Army and Air Force essentially all the targeting. If Ukraine gets 28 MIG 29 jets from Poland and attempts to use them offensively, the nearly certain result is that they will have 28 MIG 29 jets shot out of the sky in a week. Russia has plenty of SAMs of its own, and the largest air force in Europe, by a long chalk (go to https://wdmma.org/ranking.php to get an idea of where they stand compared to, for example, France’s Air force — Russia has about 7 times as many attack jets). The air is not like the ground. It’s a theater where none of the Ukrainian advantages over the Russians apply.

    It would take the full force of a NATO air intervention to clear Ukrainian skies of potential Russian air threats. And to do it, they would have to engage targets in the air and on the ground hundreds of miles away, in Belarus and in Russia, and accept NATO losses and downed flyers in Russian POW camps. The other possible horrible consequences have been already discussed here, so let’s not rehash them. One thing to note, however, is that this is a solution in which NATO saves Ukraine, rather than allowing the Ukrainians to save themselves. Hold on to that thought.

    Keep in mind that amidst this furor over jets, the real bombardment of Ukrainian cities isn’t from aircraft at all. It’s almost entirely from artillery rocket strikes. Perhaps the Ukrainians believe that the MIGs might be used for ground attack against the rocket sites, but if so this is delusional. The Russians know how to use anti-aircraft missiles just as effectively as the Ukrainians do. Jets are the wrong tool for the job. They are the wrong tool for all their jobs.

    The right tools for suppressing artillery is more and better artillery. Guess what: NATO has rather a lot of those sorts of toys in its inventory, and they can be trucked over the border, complete with US military advisor/trainers, possibly seconded to CIA and in UKR military uniforms. The weapons can be fired from rear areas, under protection from more UKR forces, with much less risk of conflict expansion, with actual plausible deniability for NATO intervention (denial of the presence of advisors doesn’t have to be credible, it just has to be well below threshold). The US has been sending military advisors into conflicts since the 1960s. This time around, we would finally get to do it in a situation with full, unambiguous societal host support for a change, rather than on a counterinsurgency mission in support of a faction.

    And moreover this would be an option in which the Ukrainians continue to fight and own the war, a fact which is incredibly important to the politics of how the war is currently prosecuted, and is likely to be crucially important to how it ends.

    If we’re looking for a high-impact NATO intervention that has a relatively low risk of burning the World, this one seems to me in every respect a far superior alternative to inviting a large-scale air battle. I wish it were being considered seriously.

  11. 11.

    egorelick

    Thanks for clarifying. Yesterday, I thought you were saying that it was wrong for the DOD to not do whatever it took to hand over planes to Ukraine. You basically seemed to endorse the idea of inviting pilots to come to a US airbase in Germany and fly the planes away and that the difference between that and Poland figuring out a way to do a more direct transfer was mere pencil pushing BS. That seems to me to be a far cry from the tone you took today. Establishing humanitarian relief as a priority and telling Putin that is a priority is good(TM), but pushing for more direct military engagement by the US and/or NATO is bad(TM). Some of the on-the-ground resulting tactics may look similar (although I don’t think so), but the framing is very important, at least to me.​ ETA I’m all for the maximum possible indirect military engagement.

  12. 12.

    Morzer

    @debbie: Well, it certainly didn’t help that he had got away with atrocities for more than a decade. What we have taught Putin is that extreme actions do not have consequences.

  14. 14.

    bbleh

    I like the idea of protected humanitarian corridors under the auspices of a third party.  How about, say, organized by the Red Cross and protected by a “UN Humanitarian Peacekeeping Force” with personnel and equipment from UN member states and with well-communicated rules of engagement that are overtly defensive but include neutralizing any attacker?  I’m sure NATO states would be willing to be part of that, and I can see it not crossing the line into direct NATO-Russian conflict, even if, say, some deliberatively provocative Russian artillery unit gets creamed by aircraft that previously flew a NATO flag.

    But at the end of the day, as important a humanitarian mission as that would be, it’s tinkering at the edges.  Even if something like this worked, I can’t see it extending to, say, protecting the territorial integrity of even a part of Ukraine.  There remains the question of how to halt Putin’s war of conquest.  And so far, everything I’ve read or heard makes me afraid this is going to turn into Soviet Union v Afghanistan 2.0, only this time against a nation of 40 million people that is significantly more economically developed and that has a lot of wealthy, supportive, and very worried neighbors, and hence is going to be far bloodier.

    I’m all for “creative, more effective strategies to best help the Ukrainians as soon as possible.”  But so far I’m hearing a lot of emotional appeals and not very many “feasible, acceptable, and suitable” ways of addressing the central question, notably not ones with acceptable levels of risk

    @Carlo Graziani: this makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you.  And the amount of materiel already flowing to the Ukrainians is frankly kind of mind-boggling.  I seriously wonder at what point some Russian artillery barrage will “accidentally” hit a rail junction just across the Polish border or something.  And of course, the idea that “the Ukrainians continue to fight and own the war” would keep a crucial politico-military line from being crossed.  But this gets back to Afghanistan 2.0, only bloodier.  It is to despair …

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Comrade Bukharin: Do you actually have something to contribute or are you going to just post the same comment every night?

    I’ve read Nichols thread. I read the one he did yesterday and the day before, etc. His professional expertise has led him to one conclusion. Mine has led to another. The difference between the two of us is I’ve actually served on the operational side of the house – at all levels of operation from tactical to operational to strategic – and he hasn’t. This partially explains the difference in opinion. One of us might be right and the other wrong. Or we could both be wrong. But posting the same comment every night is definitely pointless.

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Reposted from below: this seems like a big fuck you to the Kremlin Goblin from what I’m sure he considers a client state

    Bakhti Nishanov @b_nishanov · 2

    Kazakhstan is sending 82 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine. One of the closest Russian allies sending supplies to Ukraine. More than supplies, a very clear signal Kazakhstan is not on board with what Moscow is doing. Big deal and massive thank you.

    Trygve Olson @trygveolson 2m

    This in so many ways is a far bigger deal in dealing with Putin, and undermining what he wants, than Migs. Doesn’t feel as good to us, but enormous in the real battle against his autocracy and in aiding Ukrainians.

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: and I wonder if this isn’t playing a role….

    Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe 2h

    In areas captured in southern Ukraine, the Russian government is already arresting and searching the homes of activists from the Crimean Tatar community. (The Crimean Tatars, who are Muslim, are indigenous to Crimea, where the Kremlin has been persecuting them since 2014.)

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @bbleh: I like the idea of protected humanitarian corridors under the auspices of a third party.

    Protected how and by whom?  Either the Russians assent to something like that or it must be imposed by force.  If imposed by force, that means NATO, and NATO means the US.  Will that help?  At the moment, I suspect that it would not.  Other’s MMV.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @egorelick: The point I didn’t make clearly was it was absolutely stupid for the US and Poland to play hot potato on this. That rather than going “you do it, no you do it, we’ll we don’t think it needs to be done, we’ll then why did you badger us all weekend?” we could actually just figure out how to get it done without making things worse. That was the source of my frustration. If Ukraine says they need the planes and Poland is willing to provide them, stop having a public disagreement and figure out logistics that are doable to get them the planes.

  23. 23.

    Redshift

    Thank you for taking the time to respond at such length, Adam. This does indeed provide a lot more clarity about the things you were proposing last night, and how we can push back harder on Putin without it automatically becoming escalation from our side. I can get behind these ideas, I’ll call Mark Warner’s office tomorrow.

  24. 24.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank you for the link.  I think I agree with Tom.  Note he says

    So when Putin says, for example, “weapons are interference,” I couldn’t care less; he knows that to stop this, he’d have to attack NATO. If he does…again, he knows how that ends. He’s going to yell about assistance to Ukraine. Let him. He created this.
    /6
    — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 11, 2022

    and I can only agree.  But I think this is precisely where our leaders are hesitating.  As Adam says, we should be sending UA enough artillery and enough counterbattery fires, that they can themselves wipe out the Russian artillery.  Fucking wipe them out.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    @bbleh:

    Haven’t you seen how Russia’s using those corridors for target practice? Has Russia honored even one of them?

  26. 26.

    bbleh

    @Omnes Omnibus: Er, I did kind of address the question of enforcement just a bit later in the comment I think …  But yes, Russia would have to agree.  They already HAVE agreed to organization of corridors by the Red Cross, although of course whether they intend to adhere to that is another question, but the idea would be to build on that.  Ultimately, if Russia says “nyet,” then any such idea boils down to direct armed conflict, which I think would sort of obviate the purpose.

  27. 27.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Re: twitter, once I have a link, I can read the thread.  The problem is if I go to Nichols’ feed and start scrolling down, quickly Twitter stops me and demands I login.  But if I have a link to a tweet, I can scroll down, clicking on each tweet in sequence, and hence no problems.

    So: thank you for the link!

  29. 29.

    bbleh

    @debbie: That’s right, and that’s why I think some enforcement measure would have to be built in from the start.  That is, not just a “corridor” but a protected corridor, eg under UN auspices with rules of engagement that allow defensive counterattacks.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    So, a few other things I’ve noticed.

    The Polish MiG plan is off the table but there is a look being given to shifting Soviet/Russian S-300 and similar anti-aircraft systems from possible countries like Finland, Poland, Greece, etc. These are long range, high altitude anti-aircraft system. There’s probably a few dozen of them across NATO and other nations that have been giving arms, and they’d almost certainly be more useful than the MiGs.

    My understanding is that one benefit of having these systems still operating (which Ukraine still has some operating) is that they’re sufficiently good that it forces planes down lower where the systems don’t work well, but into the range of the portable anti-air systems. So for the ground stuff to really do their thing, you need some high altitude/high range stuff to scare them down to where their odds are somewhat better.

    Economically, Russia is doing some pretty desperate stuff. Aeroflot leases most of their planes from western companies, who are now trying to repo them. Putin has told Aeroflot to pay in rubles (regardless of what the contract says). Guessing that Aeroflot won’t be flying anywhere that the repo man can get them (and yes, there are people whose job is to repossess jets from airports in the dead of night). Nationalizing stranded assets in Russia is expected but it irrevocably changes the nature of the Russian economy. Almost all industrial production in the country is going to either get extremely difficult or stop altogether because of their dependence on western equipment, parts, software, etc.

    Russia never really developed a proper national industry because, well, the oligarchs stole everything before one could be developed. And that certainly seems to be a key element in their military challenges – corruption is so bad in Russia that a lot of their military modernization never really happened – it got stolen and sold off. And this also creates a feedback loop of lying internally – everyone becomes a yes-man, and it turns out nobody actually knows what the real capabilities of the military, economy, actually are, because everyone has been lying to everyone the whole time.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Bukharin

    The reason I post the “same” comment every night is that Nichols is a voice well worth hearing. Several commenters seem to agree.

  33. 33.

    Argiope

    @Carlo Graziani: Thank you for this.  I feel like I get new and useful perspective every time you, Adam, or Sebastian post.

    Adam, thanks for keeping this going each night.  I appreciate it.  And I hope you will feel like you can take a break as needed—collating all this stuff can’t be easy to take, even though it’s the business you’re in.

  34. 34.

    Lyrebird

    Thanks for another super informative post Adam!

    I’m trying and failing to find a recent twitter link from Galeev that started with him saying that sanctions are having an effect…

    @bbleh:I’m all for “creative, more effective strategies to best help the Ukrainians as soon as possible.” But so far I’m hearing a lot of emotional appeals and not very many “feasible, acceptable, and suitable” ways of addressing the central question

    ..I couldn’t follow the thread, but he was offering specific advice.

    I don’t have the training or expertise to judge Adam’s proposals against what Tom Nichols or Kos Moulitsas have been saying.

    Hard enough for me to get out of useless if-only territory.

    I pray that P will not use even worse weapons before a resolution comes.

  36. 36.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Comrade Bukharin: But you’re not actually *reading* his tweets, so what’s the use of your posting them?  He says *explicitly* that we need to stop being constrained by his bluster, and that we ought to be giving UA all the equipment they can use, that they ask for.

  38. 38.

    RaflW

    Reading this, I’m struck that in a lot of ways, what the GOP is doing in the US is quite similar.

    We have tried a variety of political resets. We’ve decided we can hold our noses when we need something, such as help with the ‘bipartisan’ infrastructure bill. We try for the squishy middle over and over again. Even if we win the White House, we let the terms of debate be GOP-framed. Each and every time Republicans then get more aggressive. We don’t really push back that hard, when we do we almost never maintain the pushback, and conservatives learn that he can continue to do what they’re doing. Or, worse, that they can escalate. Now Republicans are Russians are promoting agitprop that supporting trans people is ‘grooming kids’, a scurrilous Q accusation. And too many Dems don’t know how to respond, so they talk about a budget bill or a bridge being built

    Oh, and everything said about transparency for oligarchs fits for dark money political groups in the US, and our elections.

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @bbleh: 

    I can’t imagine any kind of protection that would work. Putin’s as likely to bomb UN peacekeepers as he has been bombing escaping Ukrainians.

  40. 40.

    Carlo Graziani

    If Ukraine says they need the planes and Poland is willing to provide them, stop having a public disagreement and figure out logistics that are doable to get them the planes.

    @Adam L Silverman: I would surmise that the Pentagon estimates the expected survival time in combat of those MIG 29s at about a week, and that the fact that the Ukrainian government thinks they want them is not a great reason to let them have them.

    If that’s the reasoning, I have to say that I agree. Those planes won’t benefit the Ukrainian military situation in any measurable way, but their farcical demise, after their inept delivery, would basically constitute a free propaganda gift to Putin. I devoutly hope we’re not that dumb.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s one reason why this site gets funky. Every time Twitter tweaks it’s code, which they’re constantly doing, it changes the way embedded tweets interact with our site’s code.

  42. 42.

    Chetan Murthy

    A historic night at Versailles. After five hours of heated discussions EU leaders said yes to Ukrainian eurointegration. The process started. Now it is up to us and Ukrainians to accomplish it fast. Heroic Ukrainian nation deserves to know that they are welcome in EU.
    — Gitanas Nausėda (@GitanasNauseda) March 11, 2022

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: UN Blue Helmets are put in to keep the peace not make it.   If there is still an active shooting war, no one will send their troops to be peacekeepers.​

  44. 44.

    Comrade Bukharin

    @Chetan Murthy: I totally agree we should be giving Ukraine the arms that they need. I disagree with US/NATO aircraft enforcing a NFZ.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Comrade Bukharin: I agree.  For now.  I reserve the right to change my position as the situation changes.  As the gunnery instructors at Sill say, “time passes, weather changes, shit happens.”

  47. 47.

    Jay

    Exclusive: So many Canadian fighters in Ukraine, they have their own battalion, source says
    The International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine says the 550 would-be fighters from Canada are based in Kyiv

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/nationalpost.com/news/world/exclusive-so-many-canadian-fighters-in-ukraine-they-have-their-own-battalion-source-says/wcm/20489fcc-647a-4874-8112-89a64c4e151e/amp/
    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10596785/amp/Canadian-dad-40-one-worlds-deadliest-snipers-documents-days-Ukraine-volunteer.html

  51. 51.

    HumboldtBlue

    And despite the fact that my old-ass desktop takes 12 minutes to load the page after Adam drops a post, that’s a lot of damn good information and analysis.

  52. 52.

    oldster

    One take-away:

    Russian oligarchs are a problem that was caused by our tolerating the rise of American, British, Swiss, Israeli, German, etc. oligarchs.

    A global class of wealth out of reach of the law — of Murdochs, Thiels, Zuckerbergs, Gates, and a thousand people better at keeping their names out of the paper — was never going to be compatible with democracy and a stable international order. They thrive by subverting democracy and the rule of law. They flourish through corruption.

    So: first we go after the Russian oligarchs. Then we go after the non-Russian oligarchs.

  54. 54.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @debbie:

    Haven’t you seen how Russia’s using those corridors for target practice? Has Russia honored even one of them?

    Which is why Adam’s recommendation calls for coalition aircraft to protect those corridors. Which means being clear we will attack (and destroy) and Russian aircraft/ground forces that try to use the corridor for target practice

    We wouldn’t be trusting the Russians to honor them, we’d be telling them to honor them or else.

  55. 55.

    Anthony

    “Deconfliction via air patrol” ???  That doesn’t make any sense.  Are we going to fly stealth peace planes?!?  Either NATO continues the current, correct course of not directly fighting, or NATO should launch a major counteroffensive.  A counteroffensive would be a terrible idea, but still better than Adam’s ineffective escalations which would have all of the negatives of starting a war, but none of the potential benefits of ending the war by winning it.  These awful ideas would put NATO servicemembers and every European within range of Kaliningrad’s missiles at risk for nothing.

  58. 58.

    mvr

    General comment, not aimed especially at Adam: What I have a really hard time digesting whenever I read anything on the current situation is that people tend to put their views in the starkest of terms – like we know what is going to happen if we do this, that or the other thing.  It seems to me like we have to work our uncertainties into the mix of thinking about how best to respond and also to work in the costs of different ways of being wrong about into that mix. That probably doesn’t make for as convincing an argument for any given response, but absent that kind of argument I remain uncertain since it seems there is so much to be uncertain about.

    I’ll admit to skipping a number of the comments in case one or another of them has made this a dumb thing to say.

  59. 59.

    Kalakal

    @Carlo Graziani: An excellent post, whole heartedly agree vis-a-vis the air power vs extra artillery question.

    something that occurred to me when the Russian advance stalled and they switched to mass artillery bombardments was that all the weaponry we are told about being supplied to the UA is short range, quick training stuff eg NLAWS. I wonder if more quietly they are having their artillery supplemented by either ( or both ) Warsaw Pact artillery from the ex members now in NATO or b) modern NATO equipment

    a)  would be effective immediately as the UA already uses such equipment

    b) would take longer requiring training as it does – also it would be foolish to feed it in piecemeal but rather wait until you have a sufficient quantity to achieve operational surprise

    I didn’t think of using deniable NATO artillerists

    if b) is indeed being used then in a (hopefully) few days a lot of Russian artillery is about to have a once in a lifetime experience

  62. 62.

    bbleh

    @debbie: @Sister Golden Bear:  And there it is.  Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would, and for sure there would be screwups and miscommunications and bad faith and so on, and quite likely some amount of death and destruction, and any arrangement would have to anticipate those and have some way of dealing with them.  But if the whole point of the post is, how do we push back in a way that isn’t inordinately risky, then maybe it’s an idea worth exploring.

    @Omnes Omnibus: yes, it would have to be in the context of an agreed ceasefire with well-understood rules of engagement.  And if there is no agreement, then for sure nobody (else) is gonna go sending troops into Ukraine, no matter what color helmet they’re wearing.

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    @oldster:

    first we go after the Russian oligarchs. Then we go after the non-Russian oligarchs

    I don’t know if it will happen, but I’d say a hearty YES to trying. I’ve been pondering for a number of years now as to how long the average American will tolerate the rolling upwards of most of the income and wealth.

    I admit my history knowledge is thin, but the Gilded Age/Robber Barron period did not last indefinitely. The Great Depression was a hell of a way through and out, though.

    We broke up Standard Oil a long time ago, well before the Crash. Breaking up Amazon, Facemeta , crap like that seems pretty essential now as well.

  65. 65.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Chetan Murthy:  I find that putting Safari into private mode works reasonably well to open up Twitter links (at least at the moment). Sometimes I have to close down a particular tab and open up a new tab (all in private mode)

  66. 66.

    Ksmiami

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve concluded that we need to enable the Ukrainians to hit back- hard. Give them everything we can including anti artillery weapons. It’s pretty obvious that Nichols has never been bullied and as Putin is a bully, a) he  shouldn’t be allowed to set the terms of engagement. Ukraine isn’t his country… b) bullies do not stop if they aren’t pushed back.

  68. 68.

    guachi

    @Chetan Murthy: make it clear that an international coalition, which we will assemble, will be providing security via air patrol just on those days and at those times, and use the deconfliction line to keep things from getting out of hand

    That’s what Adam proposed. How do you expect this to be done if not by actually firing on Russians who violate whatever rules are put in place?

    It’s not a war, but we’ll shoot at you on Tuesday, Friday, and every other Wednesday.

  69. 69.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Kalakal:

    It’s a valuable distinction. As of a few days ago, the only media references that I could locate to artillery supplies going in were Czech mortars. I believe those would likely be Warsaw Pact, but they would also be very light pieces.

    In previous threads, Adam has pointed out — correctly — the difficulty of getting UKR personnel trained up on current heavy long-range NATO systems in time for them to accomplish anything useful. Military advisors would be the work-around. 

    Note that I have no access, and no knowledge that this sort of approach is being considered. It may very well be the case that Washington views even this as too risky. I would disagree. But I would also hate to be the person responsible for making these high-consequence calls.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kalakal: It makes everything kludgey. From what little I understand, twitter’s code wants to run all sorts of scripts whenever a tweet is embedded. And that just does weird things to how sites like ours load and function.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: There is a reason we fought a lot shitty little proxy wars during the Cold War.  It kept us from straight up against the Soviets and vice versa.

  75. 75.

    CaseyL

    I have been wondering why we haven’t already sent anti-artillery artillery, or why someone else hasn’t already done so.  Maybe there is a steep learning curve on how to use those weapons effectively, and without blowing up things you don’t want blown up…?

  76. 76.

    guachi

    @Omnes Omnibus: I guess.

    I think war with Russia is insane. The moment we fire or are fired upon the stock market will crash 10-20%, oil will skyrocket well past $150, inflation will top 10%, and the US and world economies will drop into recession.

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anthony: No, you’ve either misread or misunderstood. We establish a deconfliction process. This usually includes a dedicated set of phone lines, as well as set times for consultation. Before any operation is undertaken it is deconflicted by notifying the other party through the deconfliction process. What I’m suggesting is setting up this process with the Russian military leadership just as we did in Syria. Then use the process to deconflict humanitarian relief efforts. As in we intend to send the following International Red Cross elements to the following locations on the following times for X amount of hours. We expect you to take no actions and we will be actively monitoring. If you agree to these days and times, we’re good. If you agree and then violate the agreement we will respond. That’s how it is done. This is not something the Russians are unfamiliar with.

  79. 79.

    Kalakal

    @Carlo Graziani: Yes the ability to both operate and maintain any equipment supplied is key and I do wish people would stop saying why don’t we give UK  x, y or z? We could give them a 100 F16s or Typhoons or MBTs tomorrow but they’d be useless without NATO personnel which would be WWIII. I have no idea of the length of time a crash conversion course between Warsaw Pact and NATO artillery requires.

    I too would hate to be having to make those high level decisions

  81. 81.

    Jay

    @CaseyL:

    in 2014, 3 anti mortar radar systems from the US were sent to Ukraine. All wound up in Moscow, 2 had never been taken out of the case.

    these were systems that pinpointed the launch point, for 40mm up to 120mm “Nonas”, as soon as they cleared the horizon.

  82. 82.

    Nomdeguerre

    I have seen a growing number of tweets, presumably many Russian, point out the civilian casualties of the Iraq War as an attempt to whatabout the civilian casualties in Ukraine.

    I ask this question with the full conviction that no answer excuses current actions – did the united states deliberately target civilians in the Iraq War?

    I feel sure that this question will be regarded as trolling but it is meant as an honest question and I’m hoping the answer is no.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @CaseyL: Anti-artillery artillery isn’t a special type of weapon.  It is a way of using the artillery you have.  It is called counter battery fire and it requires being able accurately determine where fires came from and put rounds on target before the other guns have moved.  A modern self-propelled howitzer can fire a round within 60 seconds of arriving at a firing point.  It could fire three volleys in 15 seconds and be on the move to a new location within another two.  Realistically, there is no reason for a gun to be someplace for more than five minutes or so when active shooting is going on.  It is very hard to get a radar fix on incoming rounds and then direct counter battery fire onto their source in that time.  You have to be really good at what you do and that takes time.

  84. 84.

    guachi

    The only way I can see setting up humanitarian corridors is if the US and EU have nothing to do with it. But I don’t see India, China, Japan or ME countries sending troops to Ukraine to enforce efforts at humanitarian relief and doing so under UN auspices.

  85. 85.

    Kattails

    Karolina Zebrowska is a young Polish woman, particularly interested in costume and clothing history. She has a very active youtube channel and is normally funny and quirky. A couple of days ago she did a 14 minute post just talking about the effect of the war in Ukraine on Poland.  A very simple, personal view from a 20-something (maybe 30’s? I’m old) living in Krakow, a view we won’t get from any news cast. Worth a look.

  86. 86.

    sanjeevs

    @Adam L Silverman: Is it possible the MiG story is really a misdirection. As Carlo Graziani has pointed out its hard to believe that a handful of end-of-life MiGs is going to make much difference.

    Whilst this is in the headlines there are lots of known aid going in – UK sending half their StarStreaks, foreign fighters (hopefully our version of Little Green Men) etc

    I find it hard to believe this hasnt been gamed out – the coordination on sanctions with Europe, Germany committing to 100bn a year in defence spending – these are huge epochal changes.

    And it seems the aid in intelligence, radar etc of NATO must be massive – how else to explain the Ukranian success in ground to air combat, the 30 helicopters destroyed, the Russian corvette hit with ground launched rockets etc.

  87. 87.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @bbleh: I fully expect there will be blood on both sides, whether through screw-ups and/or intentional attacks by Russia. Although based on what I’ve seen so far, I expect any Russians attacking a humanitarian corridor will fare far, far worst.

    Will it be enough to give Putin pause, or at least make him start thinking about what we might do? Possibly — maybe likely — not. But it’s morally just on its own terms. We’re watching cities being razed with complete disregard for the rules of war and atrocities committed against civilians. At some point, enabling civilians to escape becomes a moral imperative.

  89. 89.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Adam L Silverman:

    As in we intend to send the following International Red Cross elements to the following locations on the following times for X amount of hours. We expect you to take no actions and we will be actively monitoring. If you agree to these days and times, we’re good. If you agree and then violate the agreement we will respond. That’s how it is done. This is not something the Russians are unfamiliar with.

    I’m definitely in favor of what you’re proposing. But what happens if the Russians simply refuse to agree to the dates and times — or any dates, times or locations?

    I’m assuming at some point we’d need to tell them the human corridors will be happening and that they need to stay out of the way.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Nomdeguerre: To the best of my knowledge the answer is no. Does this mean we didn’t screw up and target civilians at times? No it does not. We absolutely did. Same in Afghanistan. Some of the errors were made early on when soldiers at check points put their arms out palms forward to signal Iraqis to stop. Unfortunately that isn’t the Iraqi hand signal for stop, so the Iraqi civilians would keep going. This led to soldiers at checkpoints firing on the Iraqis because the soldiers thought the Iraqis were ignoring the signals and we’re trying to run them down. We had some issues with targeting groups of insurgents in Iraq or Taliban or al Qaeda in Afghanistan meeting in groups, including at night. Unfortunately the targeteers did not seek out the context for the gatherings and, as a result, we targeted some weddings and funerals thinking we were targeting Iraqi insurgents or Taliban or al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Systems were put into place to prevent these mistakes from happening.

    We didn’t always get it right, but the policy was always to target legitimate targets: military, insurgents, Taliban, and/ al Qaeda. And when we screwed up, we did try to pay recompense and adjust the way we operated to reduce the likelihood of future mistakes.

    ETA: In both theaters we had well established rules of engagement that were within the laws of war. When our forces violated, they were held accountable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

  91. 91.

    The Pale Scot

    A list of available Soviet era AA missile systems in possession of friendly countries, the ones with higher reach are in short supply, the article counts launch systems, doesn’t mention ammo supply, which is my concern. Solid rocket propellant has a tendency to crack with age, if these are 30 yr old missiles they should be X-rayed, I’m sure the US could provide the machines and the people, that should be started up now to be onsite if/when a decision is made.

    Why should we assume the RU AF is anymore capable than the army? The pilots I’m sure are confident. But they get half the number of flight time hours that NATO does, they don’t have the sophisticated flight simulators that NATO does. Are the ground crews drinking as much today as the did historically?

    I came across a copy of Victor Belenko’s defecting with a MIG-25 story. Always remembered asking about social problems in the US, was told of drug use and alcoholism. “What does meeting the definition of an alcoholic require” When told he said 75% of the USSR is alcoholic

  92. 92.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: While I completely understand & am sympathetic to your reasoning,  I don’t think the humanitarian corridor enforced by NATO airpower is at all practical. Air patrols can prevent harassment of the corridor via airpower, but is of limited use against harassment via ground fire. What the Russian Army takes pot shots at the relief convoy w/ artillery or guided missiles? Will NATO airpower go after the ground units? & that is if Putin actually does not want to engage w/ NATO assets directly. What if Russian SAMs take a shot at NATO aircraft & shoots one down? What then? Given that both Russians & Ukrainians uses the same anti-air weaponry, what if Russia muddies the water by claiming it was a friendly fire incident from the Ukrainians.

    In yesterday’s post there was discussion that war w/ NATO is a way out for Putin from the trap he has jumped into. Placing flagged & uniformed NATO assets in Ukraine, in close proximity to Russian formations, create the those conditions for him to engineer such an outcome. In inevitable the fog of war it will not be clear who fired 1st & whether it was deliberate.

    I don’t think the Syrian incident is as indicative as you suggest. Putin used Wagner mercenaries to assault the US position precisely because he wanted to preserve the option of deescalation. It would have been a very different story if he had used uniformed VDV troops to assault the US position. There would be no plausible deniability & no “off ramp”. Flying NATO flagged aircraft over Russian SAMs is begging for an incident to happen, & I think we all expect which way things will develop – further escalation.

    It would be more plausible if the humanitarian relieve is coming from the sea to a coastal city, under protection of NATO seapower, but Odessa is not yet under siege. Mariupol is poor situated for such an effort.

  95. 95.

    PJ

    I am just an opinion-haver on the internet, and my opinions are are worth what you paid for them, but:

    the MiG thing sounds like a colossal screw-up on somebody’s part (maybe that EU guy Borrell).  If any kind of transfer to the Ukrainians was going to happen, it should have been worked out between the NATO players before hand (not in the press), and it should have been done without any notice.  MiGs should have quietly disappeared from Poland and quietly shown up in Ukraine, and whatever the US or another party does to replace the Polish planes should not be publicly announced until the war is over.  Not that it sounds like extra MiGs would help Ukraine that much at this point, when most of the damage is being done by artillery.

    Likewise with other lethal aid.  The House just authorized $14 billion in aid to Ukraine.  Assuming it passes the Senate, I don’t know how much of that is in lethal aid, but whatever it is, it should just show up in Ukraine with zero discussion of how it gets there.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sister Golden Bear: I’m not sure we force the issue. I would start with trying to negotiate. If that fails, then a very serious risk assessment needs to be done to determine whether forcing the issue does pass the feasibility, acceptability, suitability test.

  97. 97.

    Brachiator

    This comes after an episode of Tucker where he played statements from Russia and China and claimed he had to because the US government was lying….

    It doesn’t matter that Jennifer Griffin, Fox News’s senior defense correspondent, spent ten minutes debunking all of this live on air immediately after Carlson’s program went off the air (the video in the first tweet), Carlson has far more reach and far more people that believe what he says than what Griffin reports.

    I have seen a clip of Tucker Carlson making hysterical claims and getting schooled by Jennifer Griffin. I have seen a clip of Sean Hannity trying to reinforce this misinformation and also get corrected by Griffin, and I still don’t get it.

    Why would Fox News editors and executives let Carlson and Hannity on the air and imply that the US government was lying about bio labs in Ukraine? Why put out commentary that supports Putin and weakens the US? Even if this nonsense results in a Republican resurgence in America, there is no guarantee that Russia will halt its efforts to reclaim more territory or that Europe or North America will become more secure.

    And what’s in it for Rupert Murdoch? He is worth $21.1 billion. Could he really get more thrills from more money and more power?

    Europe and the US are putting some sanctions on Putin’s oligarchs. I think it might be interesting to shut down Fox News and to arrest every member of Congress with significant ties to Russia, or who made numerous visits to Russia since 2008.

  98. 98.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: I suppose it doesn’t hurt to make the proposal to Putin, but why would he agree to a deconfliction process to enable a humanitarian corridor protected by NATO airpower over the heads of his ground forces? & if he agrees but takes a potshot anyway, but claims honest mistake by nervous/exhausted troops who are “punished”?

  99. 99.

    Fair Economist

    I’m thinking we should stop worrying about Russian “escalation”.

    First, Russian doctrine apparently calls for WMD attacks on civilians if they’re not winning, based both on the nerve gas attacks in Syria and the transparently weak attempts to manufacture an excuse to use them now. How can we not intervene if Putin starts nervegassing Kyiv?

    Second, how is Putin supposed to escalate anyway? Virtually all his ground forces are tied down in Kyiv. His air would get shot to pieces. He’s running short of smart missles. What’s he going to do? WMDs are the only choice, and it looks like he about to start that *anyway*.

    So it’s time to say the Russian Emperor has no clothes and send the Ukrainians pretty much whatever they ask for, certainly including the Migs.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Wow. MSNBC tried to use Barry McCaffrey to push the Engel agenda and it looks the General was not pleased…

    11th Hour @11thHour · 1h
    “What we can do is provide an air force to hammer the Russian ground forces and clear the skies of Russian bombers,” says @mccaffreyr3.

    Barry R McCaffrey @mccaffreyr3
    OUT OF CONTEXT. MILITARILY FEASIBLE. HOWEVER, A POLITICAL DECISION THAT WOULD DRAMATICALLY ESCALATE THE WAR IN UKRAINE.

  101. 101.

    dc

    @Kattails: Thank you for the link. It is interesting hearing a perspective from Poland. It’s hard not to imagine that other eastern European countries know they are next if Russia is not stopped, as well as the kinship they feel for Ukrainians.

  102. 102.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Brachiator: Historically, ol’ Rupe always has some “beards” giving more-or-less straight news (Shep Smith, more recently what-his-name son of the 60 Minutes dude).  These “beards” allow him to claim that Faux Noise is a straight news outfit, all while the talking heads continue to spout rabid propaganda.  This Ms. Griffin sounds like the latest in a long line of beards: eventually she’ll tire of it and either retire to move to some other network.

    She, like Smith and that son-of-60-minutes-guy, doesn’t understand her essential role in the perfidy: she can pretend to herself that she’s *correcting* Cucker/SHannITy when in fact she’s *enabling* them.

  104. 104.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Brachiator: 1) This is what Lachlan, who has more day to day control than his father, and Rupert want. And they want it this way because they don’t want OAN or NewsMax to outflank them on the right. 2) Tucker and Hannity have more influence and power than any producers and most of the executives. And certainly more than any of the reporters.

  105. 105.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Adam L Silverman: Make sense.

    I was asking because they’ve already been refusing to coordinate with humanitarian corridor efforts — albeit to be best of my incomplete knowledge, it’s been by making unreasonable/unacceptable demands (e.g. refugees would have to Russia or Belarus), rather than an outright refusal. So I’m assuming they’d probably do the same here. If nothing else to delay and make negotiations into a time sink.

  113. 113.

    Chetan Murthy

    Cheery thought.

    If you think gas prices are bad, wait until 30% of the world’s wheat production is missing this fall.
    — DeleteTheNats (@DeleteTheNats) March 10, 2022

  114. 114.

    eclare

    Former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was on Colbert tonight.  Toward the end of the interview Colbert noticed her bracelet, which spelled out in beads “Fuck you, Putin.”

    She said she bulk ordered them in 2017 to give out, and she gave that one to Colbert.

  115. 115.

    Calouste

    Concerning arming Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said tonight after the EU meeting that they’re still sending weapons, but not announcing it all because Russia doesn’t need to know.

    So assume that Ukraine gets significantly more weapons than you hear about, and they’ll also get some kinds of weaponry that you don’t hear about.

  118. 118.

    scott (the other one)

    China seems to have little to no interest in stopping any of this, which I don’t quite understand. I mean, I get why they want to study the situation and get a better read on the various countries’ methods and capabilities. But they’re given that they’re neighbors, and that there would seem to be a non-zero chance of this all turning nuclear, you’d think that’s something they’d really, REALLY want to avoid. Do they perhaps know something (many things?) we don’t?

  120. 120.

    Calouste

    @scott (the other one): YY_Sima Qian is our resident China expert, so they can answer your question in detail.

    My understanding is that China got wrong footed, if not by the invasion itself, then by the incompetence of it. Possibly they believed what Putin believed himself, that it would be over in two days and the West would barely react. (And that China could use it as a template for Taiwan.) Oops. That didn’t go that way. And now they’re slowly trying to change direction so it doesn’t look like they were taken for fools.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    @sanjeevs

    Not to mention highly reliant on uninterrupted imports of oil from Russia.

    You don’t bite the hand that lubricates you.

  124. 124.

    ian

    @Brachiator:

     I think it might be interesting to shut down Fox News and to arrest every member of Congress with significant ties to Russia

    I think it would be interesting, too.  Do you have a legal basis or justification for this?

  125. 125.

    Gvg

    Tucker seems to be an actual Russian agent. He really is going too far.

    I am really in favor in removing a lot of financial secrecy permanently. I think it has been corrupting. The problem with changing it is that too many Congressmen are probably corrupted. I don’t think it is just Russian money either.

  126. 126.

    MikefromArlington

    I agree.  We go in loud, like when you hike in bear country, wear bells, talk loud, but bring bear spray just in case you startle a bear.  Don’t run or climb a tree if a bear charges as this will only encourage a bear.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At this point we’re just trying to make the least bad choice.

    In reality isn’t this the case far more often than not?

    People want more than is their’s and do shitty things to try to get them, the other people try/do defend themselves and people die. Seems like it’s been this way for all of history, or at least since more than 5 people lived within a square mile. We don’t think this is normal because we have a country/system that at least has a cover story of equality. Not that we have always done anything to actually attempt to make that real. But the world’s population is getting to/past the point that we can continue to try to live on the backs of others for our aggrandizement. And we didn’t need one greedy, racist, dictator fuck to show us that, we already had a pandemic and a conservative party.

  128. 128.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    The point is to get support from at least some American people for their friends – the ones that are likely paying at least some part of their income, declared or not.

    Think I’m making this up? I am. But. These assholes make way too much money for their bullshit and that has to come from somewhere.  And the shit that is fox is covering their asses because they know no one is going to believe Griffin.

  129. 129.

    Sebastian

    Excellent as always. Thank you, Adam.

    I have some big personal stuff going on but hope to join the pack this weekend.

    Just want to leave this here:

    The BBC piece is excellent. Not sure if the jackals understand the visual significance of those bombed streets so I will try to explain:

    20ish years before WW1 everyone was on coke and real estate speculation absolutely exploded. Eh, sounds familiar?

    It was the so called Founders’ Era (German: Gründerzeit) of cheap loans and everyone was getting in on it. Everywhere beautiful buildings were constructed, from Spain to Russia. All those imposing 5-10 story stone buildings you see everywhere in Europe? They are from that period, especially government buildings.

    Because this happened around the same time, the design language is similar everywhere, and this is where The Look of many European cities comes from.

    This also means that when Europeans see this BBC report, this might as well be their own neighborhood. It looks just the same.

    Do not underestimate how powerful this is.

    It was one thing for Putin to bomb Aleppo but this here is Europe quite literally. By doing so, he has created a shared experience for the Europeans, which will ultimately be his undoing.

     

    Slava Ukraini!

  130. 130.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @scott (the other one): I claimed no expertise on China (other than as someone born here & has been a long term resident here for the past decade+), certainly no credentials of any kind. But to answer your questions:

    1. Putin is not Xi’s puppet, no one is going to impose peace on Putin, except Russians themselves
    2. China needs Russia to remain a partner in long term great power competition w/ the US; unless that logic of great power competition (where everything is seen through the national security & bilateral power balance lens) changes (& I don’t see how it could, given how entrenched that logic is now on both sides), China will not do take any action that causes the Russian position to collapse; if China does impose a settlement on Putin, Putin will likely collapse & China could end up facing a more pro-western replacement that leaves it more isolated
    3. Chinese MO in global crises has been to keep its head down & seek to maximize its interests whoever emerges victorious (root for injuries, as John Cole said elsewhere); that has been made difficult by the overly tight embrace (at least rhetorically) between Putin & Xi in their meeting just before the Winter Olympics, documented in the very long joint statement (seems to have been written largely by the Kremlin, given how rambling it is), but China may think it can continue to muddle through this crisis
    4. Suppose China does the responsible thing & put the screws to Russia, what good will does that buy w/ the US & EU; unless there are some concrete assurances there, I doubt China will take any risks, there is zero strategic trust in either direction
    5. For all the talk of actions that may lead to nuclear armageddon, there is no indications such actions will be taken, & US/NATO has been very careful to avoid any actions that might slightly increase this risk; if that risk becomes real, you might see more activism from China
    6. China is far from alone in trying to straddle, India, Brazil & just about all of the Global South have little vested in the Ukrainian conflict, even those who have condemned Russian aggression in the UN; humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is as distant to them as humanitarian crises in the Global South is to the Global North

    Ryan Hass of the Brookings had a good tweet thread yesterday on a list of things that one can try to prod China to take to create a bit more distance between Beijing & Moscow, apply a bit more pressure on Putin, & provide a bit of relief to Ukraine. I tinkle that is a more realistic take. Having that prodding coming from the US (or UK/AUS/CAN) is likely to be counterproductive. Like I said, zero strategic trust.

  131. 131.

    Mike in DC

    I’m wondering what it would take for Ukraine to mount a real counter-offensive against the invaders.  We’re giving them real time intelligence, so that’s good.  My guess is more artillery, more SAMs from E. European members (compatibility is important, no or little extra training required), and maneuvering to advantageous positions.  They do need to prevent their eastern forces from encirclement, stall the southern offensive and prevent flanking in the North first, but I see the potential to slice those forces into smaller pockets and cut them off from resupply and reinforcement.  If you degrade them sufficiently, all the willpower in the Kremlin won’t matter, because it will be time for the army to cut and run.

  132. 132.

    Sebastian

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Omnes just scooted to the edge of his seat! Artillery!

    You are correct on all points. This is precisely what needs to be done. Ukrainians can drive the trucks, push, pull, lift, and carry stuff. The guy doing the calculations? Eh, he’s American or British or German or any other advisor. Like the drone operator who is his spotter.

    The Russians don’t know what they have woken here. We are witnessing the birth of the European Army, practicing in combat on the Russians. I did not have this on my bingo card.

  133. 133.

    Warblewarble

    Are Tuckers soundbites specifically tailored to be repeated by Russian state media?

  135. 135.

    Robert Sneddon

    @YY_Sima Qian: China sees itself as being threatened militarily by the Western powers. Russia does not have an aircraft carrier battle group steaming up and down just outside China’s (disputed) territorial waters, the West does. Russia has not been sabre-rattling against China, the West has.

    Why the West expects China to align itself against the Russians while at the same time the West is militarily threatening China, Buddha only knows.

  137. 137.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Sebastian: Artillery is a 20th century tool of war, indiscriminate at best and area-of-effect at worst. It’s great if your designated target is a couple of square kilometres of enemy forces out in the countryside, it’s a war crime (if you lose) if your designated target is an urban area with non-military residents mixed in with declared combatants. There’s an old Ubique joke that artillery shells are addressed “To Whom It May Concern”.

    21st century smart weapons are scarily efficient at hitting only what they’re supposed to hit over distances that artillery can never reach. Sometimes the targetting gets done wrong *cough* the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade *cough* but they also need 21st century data fusion and intelligence collection capabilities to select and designate those targets. The Russians aren’t very good at this, the Ukranians even less so with the result that both of them are relying on area-effect weapons to hit the others backfield and the locals take it in the neck as a consequence.

  138. 138.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Robert Sneddon: I think what China finds more threatening is the technology war (trying to strangle Huawei & targeting any Chinese technology company that makes more than cheap consumer electronics, some on frankly specious grounds) & talks of decoupling. I think there is equal concern that the Biden Administration has not managed to diffuse some of the obvious landmines left by the last days of the Trump Administration:

    1. Re-opening the consulates in Houston & Chengdu
    2. Lifting the visa bans on all CCP members & immediate family (probably 200M people, & completely unenforceable)
    3. Reverse the tit-for-tat repulsion of journalists (even if the Chinese journalists essentially for state propaganda)
    4. Lifting the 1 yr. maximum of visa duration for Chinese graduate students in “sensitive” STEM fields that are defined far too broadly
    5. Restoring the Peace Corps & the Fulbright Scholarship programs in China (though the CCP regime may not want to see them restored)

    I am not sure why Biden has not managed to pick these low hanging fruits. Perhaps Republican obstruction of Biden nominees means too many departments are still far too understaffed at the leadership level to meaningfully craft & execute new policy. Perhaps Biden wants to focus on passing his domestic agenda 1st, wants to leverage the apparent bi-partisan consensus against China to smooth their passage (even though you can always count no the reactionaries to leverage foreign tensions to obstruct Dem agenda & promote theirs), & does not want to be smeared as “Soft on China”. As it is, Biden’s “Indo-Pacific” policy remains far too securitized, & lacks any meaningful positive economic/trade agenda.

  139. 139.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    As I read your comment, there was a discussion on NPR about this being a proxy war. I don’t think Putin’s fighting the U.S through Ukraine; this is an actual war of Russian aggression.

  140. 140.

    JR

    @scott (the other one): Russia running down their military and economy reduces the threat they pose to China and its interests, while increasing their dependency on China economically. Just my speculation.

  141. 141.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At this stage of things there are no easy questions and no good answers to be given. At this point we’re just trying to make the least bad choice.

    Truer, wiser words…

  142. 142.

    hrprogressive

    I made a comment on The Twitter that I really feel like Putin has the world by the gonads, because he can simply threaten to nuke anyone and everyone, and because rational folks are worried that Putin is in such a mental state that the idea of him taking down as much of the global populace with him if he doesn’t get his way doesn’t seem far-fetched.

    How do you obtain any sort of victory or non-catastrophe when one man can threaten more or less the entire rest of the world with some of the most destructive weapons man has ever created?

    I truly don’t see how you do it. So, absent some sort of action in Russia by the citizens and/or his inner circle, it seems like he’s just got a blank check to do whatever he wants.

    Tom Nichols, one person who has been regarded as having expertise in the area seems to not worry about this possibility, analyzing that Putin is rational enough to know that if he goes for the Big Red Button, we’re going to take him with us, and he doesn’t want that.

    To the extent such analysis can be “comforting”, I guess that’s good to know.

    But how many people decide they don’t care if they have to perish to show whoever it is that they mean business? It happens. And my concern is that Putin’s going to get to a point where it doesn’t matter what happens to him or anyone else, he’ll take the worst option simply because he can.

    I absolutely want to be wrong, obviously.

  143. 143.

    Soprano2

    @Carlo Graziani: I think people here mostly think about the no-fly zone we established over the Kurdish area of Iraq in the 1990’s. That was done against a hugely inferior force, over a much smaller area. I was thinking about the size of Ukraine this morning, and thinking about how many jets it would take to establish a no-fly zone over it. Seems like it would take hundreds or even thousands of jets flying constantly. People here have an unrealistic idea of what this would do and what it would take. Thanks for the sober analysis of the reality of the situation. What I wish we could do is what Adam suggests, which is protect humanitarian evacuations of civilians.

  144. 144.

    Kalakal

    @YY_Sima Qian: Thank you, that’s a very interesting read. The information on Xi growing up in an atmosphere of admiration for Russia was illuminating

  145. 145.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Kalakal: Xi is fairly typical in terms of Soviet nostalgia of that generation & older, more so because of his background as child of the central leadership. Those half to one generation younger (if they are relative well educated urbanites) are often quite romantic about the West (still). Those younger than them become steadily more skeptical.

  146. 146.

    JimV

    You had me at your previous update. There are no risk-free options. We are not doing enough.

  147. 147.

    bbleh

    @debbie:  Political cover.  Not-NATO, at least in name.  If (when) there is shooting, it’s between Russia and the UN, not Russia and NATO.  It avoids crossing that bright and very important line.

  150. 150.

    charon

    Putin appears to be living in the past, wants to restore the Russian empire. Interesting piece in NYT:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine.html

    I have been talking to high-level businessmen and Kremlin insiders for years. In 2016 I published a book, “All the Kremlin’s Men,” about Mr. Putin’s inner circle. Since then I’ve been gathering reporting for a potential sequel. While the goings on around the president are opaque — Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, has always been secretive and conspiratorial — my sources, who speak to me on condition of anonymity, have regularly been correct. What I have heard about the president’s behavior over the past two years is alarming. His seclusion and inaccessibility, his deep belief that Russian domination over Ukraine must be restored and his decision to surround himself with ideologues and sycophants have all helped to bring Europe to its most dangerous moment since World War II.

    snip

    According to people with knowledge of Mr. Putin’s conversations with his aides over the past two years, the president has completely lost interest in the present: The economy, social issues, the coronavirus pandemic, these all annoy him. Instead, he and Mr. Kovalchuk obsess over the past. A French diplomat told me that President Emmanuel Macron of France was astonished when Mr. Putin gave him a lengthy history lecture during one of their talks last month. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

    In his mind, Mr. Putin finds himself in a unique historical situation in which he can finally recover for the previous years of humiliation. In the 1990s, when Mr. Putin and Mr. Kovalchuk first met, they were both struggling to find their footing after the fall of the Soviet Union, and so was the country. The West, they believe, took advantage of Russia’s weakness to push NATO as close as possible to the country’s borders. In Mr. Putin’s view, the situation today is the opposite: It is the West that’s weak. The only Western leader that Mr. Putin took seriously was Germany’s previous chancellor, Angela Merkel. Now she is gone and it’s time for Russia to avenge the humiliations of the 1990s.

    It seems that there is no one around to tell him otherwise. Mr. Putin no longer meets with his buddies for drinks and barbecues, according to people who know him. In recent years — and especially since the start of the pandemic — he has cut off most contacts with advisers and friends. While he used to look like an emperor who enjoyed playing on the controversies of his subjects, listening to them denounce one another and pitting them against one another, he is now isolated and distant, even from most of his old entourage

    Also, is unbothered by hardship on Russian population, enduring hardship shows off character of Russian system.

  151. 151.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Robert Sneddon: I disagree with your overall assessment of the usefulness of artillery in modern warfare.  It is of marginal utility in MOUT situations, but it is a lot more accurate and precise, in the right hands, hands than you give it credit for.  It is a tool in the toolbox just as precision guided missiles and drones are.  They just do different things.  Artillery is variety of hammers.  Sometimes, a hammer is what you need.

  152. 152.

    Procopius

    @Chetan Murthy: If you click on the “sign up” button, that brings up a window that has the “close” button (the “x” on the upper right corner, usually). Click that and you can continue reading.

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