Here’s the latest updates I’ve seen regarding the situation in Mariupol:
⚡️ Azov: 'bombs falling every 10 minutes' in Mariupol.
Azov regiment Captain Svyatoslav Palamar told CNN that the besieged port city continues to suffer heavy bombardment.
On March 21, Ukraine rejected the Russian deadline for Mariupol authorities to surrender.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 21, 2022
⚡️Mariupol city council said that two families evacuating by cars from the besieged city were shot at by the Russian forces.
At least two children have been wounded and are in serious condition. Besides the cars, 20 buses with people left the city on March 21.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 21, 2022
I’ve been checking pretty constantly all day and that’s about all that’s being reported.
Earlier today President Zelenskyy did an interview with Suspilne, which is a Ukrainian public broadcaster. Here is a partial English transcript of the interview:
Quote: “I explained to all negotiating groups: when you talk about all these changes – and they could be historic – we will eventually come to a referendum. The people will have to speak and respond to certain formats of compromises.
The shape of these compromises will be determined by our conversation, and the understanding reached between Ukraine and Russia. In any case, I am ready to go wherever the negotiations take me, as long as I am going there with our people”
Details: Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine has not been accepted into NATO “because they are afraid of Russia.”
“And we need to calm down and say – ‘Okay, what about other security guarantees?’ There are NATO countries that wish to be security guarantors, those who, unfortunately, cannot provide us with 100% membership to the Alliance, but are ready to do everything that the Alliance would have to do if we were members of the Alliance. And I think this is a fair compromise,” he added.
According to Zelenskyy, the issue of security guarantees will include constitutional and legislative changes to Ukraine.
Once again, I don’t think this is Zelenskyy dangling an off ramp to Putin to allow him to exit the war and save face. I think this is a reflection of Zelenskyy’s view of NATO and its utility in regard to Ukraine.
German foreign affairs analyst Ulrich Speck explains why Putin’s reinvasion is not about NATO:
- “Realists” still fail to understand that for Putin, this war is not about Nato per se but about the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. A successful democratic Ukraine that is connected with the West is unacceptable for him, he wages this war to force Ukraine into submission
- Putin’s problem with Nato is that Nato membership puts countries he thinks Russia has the right to control out of his reach — not that Nato is threatening Russia. That’s a propaganda narrative which never fails to fall on fertile ground in the West.
- That’s why this war will not end if Ukraine declares neutrality and the West tells Russia that Ukraine won’t enter Nato. That’s not the point of Putin’s war.
- The point is Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.
- Any peace agreement, if it’s there to last, will have to find a way to protect Ukraine against Russia in the future — make Russia respect Ukraine’s borders.
- This can be done either by Ukraine itself or by others, or by a mix of both.
- The problem is that those who could protect Ukraine against Russia don’t want to take the risk to enter into conflict with Russia over Ukraine.
- In the ongoing negotiations, Ukraine calls for security guarantees namely by the permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany and Turkey.
- Given their unwillingness in the past, it seems unlikely that they will agree.
- But maybe there can be a temporary arrangement: a window of opportunity during which the West can help Ukraine to build an effective capability to deter Russia in the future.
Much more after the jump.
There’s been some discussion over whether the reason that Russia is stalled out in central Ukraine and has resorted to stepped up long range bombardment everywhere is because it has culminated this phase of the war. Culmination is a military doctrinal term that describes reaching a point in a war where one can no longer advance. As a result one has to pause operationally to resupply and, if necessary, revise the theater strategy before beginning the next part of the war. I think this is possible, but it presumes that Russia’s campaign plan and theater strategy for the war are the basis for what we’ve observed in Russia’s operations over the past three plus weeks. And here’s where I disagree.
I think it is pretty clear that Russia’s theater strategy and the campaign plan was to make a speed run with specialized forces – spetznatz and the paratroopers – dropped way forward into Ukraine and then moved rapidly over land to Kyiv and other key cities; scarf up the national, regional, and local Ukrainian leaders; replace them with quislings, and have those quislings publicly capitulate to Putin. The units and troops that got bogged down were not intended to seize these Ukrainian officials, decapitate Ukrainian leadership at all levels, and then capitulate to Putin. Rather, they were their to consolidate the aftermath by being an occupation force. All because Putin was convinced that the Ukrainians not only wouldn’t fight, they couldn’t credibly defend themselves.
When the speed runs and attempt to land the specialized forces failed, the follow on elements – the vast majority of the forces that Putin had assembled for the invasion and its aftermath – were sent in to try to accomplish with brute force what could not be accomplished with precision. At that point they got bogged down by the Ukrainian defenses combined with the utter lack of quality of the Russian military and its equipment. If this was really the theater strategy and the broad outlines of the campaign plan, which I think is borne out by everything we’ve seen for the better part of the last month, then the Russian’s actually culminated somewhere between day 2 and 4 of the reinvasion.
Regardless, things are still pretty much continuing as they’ve been going.
The Ukrainian military appears to have gotten their hands on a Russian military staff map that was in a Russian unit’s forward headquarters in southern Ukraine. Here’s the map:
Ukrainian forces have destroyed the headquarters of a Russian army unit operating in the Southern front and allowed the Staff map found on site to be leaked to the global network.
The map found is dated March 10, 2022, meaning the Ukrainian military have already used the operationally relevant data from it and subjected it to some sort of “manipulation” prior to allowing it to be published.
The map gives an insight into what capabilities the enemy had on this front as of mid-March. These capabilities consisted of ten battalion tactical groups (BTGs) formed out of units of the 49th Combined Arms Army and the 7th Air Assault Division of the Russian armed forces.
Simultaneously, units of the 22nd Army Corps of the Russian Army were operating without organized BTGs.
Chornobaivka, an airfield located outside of the city of Kherson, has been used by the enemy to deploy its command posts, airplanes and helicopters. Many of the aircraft have been destroyed by six Ukrainian artillery attacks. Based on the data on the Russian Staff map seized, the explanation of the “phenomenon” of Chornobaivka seems surprisingly simple.
More at the link!
In other Russian operational and information security failures:
Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, says that according to Russian ministry of defense numbers, 9,861 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine and 16,153 were injured. The last official Russian KIA figure, on March 2, was 498. Fascinating that someone posted the leaked number. pic.twitter.com/LHrBWIQ49z
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) March 21, 2022
Spiegel International published a long and interesting interview with Ivan Krastev regarding Putin, Putinism, and Russia.
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Krastev, have you ever been to the Kremlin?
Krastev: No, but I once met Vladimir Putin in Sochi, on the sidelines of a conference shortly after the annexation of Crimea. The president was hosting a dinner. An American colleague of mine was there, but so too was the Austrian chancellor and the foreign ministers of France and Israel. It quickly became clear that Putin felt like he was completely misunderstood. He spoke about Western chauvinism and its hypocrisy. He said people didn’t understand that Crimea is Russian. They are the same arguments we are hearing today, but I wouldn’t say that Putin back then had this messianism.
DER SPIEGEL: Why is it there now?
Krastev: If you’ve been in power for 20 years in an authoritarian state, nobody dares to contradict you anymore. You have established a system, you have become the system yourself, and you can’t imagine that the entire country doesn’t reflect that. You also can’t imagine there being anybody who could be an adequate successor. So, you have to solve all problems yourself for as long as you are alive. For Putin, Russia has long since ceased being a country in the standard sense; it is a kind of historic, 1,000-year-old body.
DER SPIEGEL: What was your impression of Putin?
Krastev: Very intelligent and quick, forthright, confrontative. Sarcastic when speaking with someone from the West. But it is the small things that reveal the most about people. He held forth about the situation in the Donbas like a foreign service agent who knows how many people live in each village and what the situation is like in each of them. He considered the fact that primarily women were responsible for Russia policy in the Obama administration to be an intentional attempt to humiliate him. The hypocrisy of the West has become an obsession of his, and it is reflected in everything the Russian government does. Did you know that in parts of his declaration on the annexation of Crimea, he took passages almost verbatim from the Kosovo declaration of independence, which was supported by the West? Or that the attack on Kyiv began with the destruction of the television tower just as NATO attacked the television tower in Belgrade in 1999?
DER SPIEGEL: Why does he do such things?
Krastev: Because he wants to teach us a lesson. Because he wants to tell us: I have learned from you. Even if that means doing exactly that for which he hates us. On that evening in Sochi, he expressed outrage that the annexation of the Crimea had been compared with Hitler’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. Putin lives in historic analogies and metaphors. Those who are enemies of eternal Russia must be Nazis. And so, he was quick to portray the conflicts in the Donbas as a genocide. Putin’s overstatements became so extreme that they no longer had any connection to reality. He has become hostage to his own rhetoric.
DER SPIEGEL: Is Putin an angry individual?
Krastev: He is constantly speaking of betrayal and deceit. From the West. From individual, former Soviet republics. In 2008, during the war against Georgia, he met with Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, which was one of the last critical media outlets in the country until it was shut down last week. Putin asked if Venediktov knew what he, Putin, had done in his previous job. Mr. President, Venediktov replied, we all know where you come from. Do you know, Putin said, what we did with traitors in my previous job? Yes, we know, said Venediktov. And do you know why I am speaking with you? Because you are an enemy and not a traitor! In Putin’s view, Ukraine committed the greatest crime imaginable: It betrayed Russia.
DER SPIEGEL: Do you believe that the Russian people support the invasion just as they did the annexation of Crimea?
Krastev: There are many Russians who don’t like what is happening and who aren’t necessarily fans of Putin, people who are suffering under corruption and his repression, but who have thus far remained silent because the situation is what it is, and it has always been so. They lived their lives, weren’t interested in politics, and what would be the alternative to Putin anyway? But we should be honest: These Russians also haven’t always been happy with how they have been treated by the West, and they also wouldn’t be happy if Ukraine were to join NATO. Such is Russia. But this isn’t a war of the Russians, this is Putin’s war. All of these apolitical supporters of Putin – who nod along when Putin says that Russia must rise from its knees and be proud – are now, for the first time, asking themselves the most painful question one can ask of an authoritarian leader: Does he know what he is doing? Is he still in his right mind?
DER SPIEGEL: In your research, you have long focused on the relationship between politics and demography. Does that play a role here?
Krastev: Absolutely. Putin has a certain demographic fixation. Since the publication of his essay last summer, he has said on several occasions that had there been no revolution and had the Soviet Union not collapsed, Russia would today have a population of 500 million. He believes that Russia needs the men and women of Ukraine to survive in the new world. On top of that, the pandemic is thought to have caused 1 million deaths in Russia and the country’s birthrate has dropped. Russia is a vast territory that is continuing to depopulate. A large number of labor migrants, most of them from Central Asia, are arriving, to be sure, but the Slavic core of the country is shrinking, which is why Belarus and Ukraine offer the promise of a kind of demographic consolidation. It’s not about the territory of Ukraine, but about the Ukrainian people.
DER SPIEGEL: Putin thinks in ethnic terms?
Krastev: Putin believes that Russia is its own civilization. Putin began his career as a Soviet agent. He wasn’t a nationalist in the classical sense. It is said that he has been strongly influenced by the memoirs of General Anton Denikin, one of the leading officers in the White Army, which was defeated by the Bolsheviks in the civil war of the 1920s. In the speech in which he declared war on Ukraine, Putin also attacked Russia’s Soviet legacy for the first time. Lenin, he says, was the one who created Ukraine. It was the speech of a nationalist, of an anti-Bolshevik.
Much, much, much more at the link!
Dmitry Medvedev seems to have had quite the weekend!
In October, Medvedev published an essay on Ukraine: now one on Poland. If Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine, it is not clear its ambitions will be stopped by the NATO border. #SupportUkraine https://t.co/EVIqeJWJGI
— Benjamin Haddad ?? ?? ?? (@benjaminhaddad) March 21, 2022
The rest of Fras’s translation of the key points copied and pasted from his quote tweeted thread below.
- Morawiecki, Kaczynski and Czech/Slovenian PM trip to Kyiv was ‘like Lenin’s trip in a German-funded armoured train’, promised Zelensky friendship – but ‘lied, of course’
- Poland suffers from ‘long-term, pathological Russophobia’ and does not mind its cost ‘if the shed burnt down, let the house burn down too’
- Poland (and Polish propaganda) – the most vicious, vulgar and shrill critic of Russia – ‘Community of political idiots’.
- Poland forgets Soviet Army liberated it from Nazi occupation – instead, Soviet ‘occupation’ is equated with Nazism – this is a deceitful and disgusting rhetoric
- Yet, there are no anti-Polish sentiments in Russia – quite the opposite, Russians have reacted with ‘an outburst of sympathy and compassion’ to Kaczynski’s plane crash in Smolensk, and Russia declared a day of mourning to honour the victims [LOLZ]
- Later, during my visits to Poland, I [Medvedev] became convinced that Russia and Poland face no obstacles to improving relations (…) However, Poland’s elites, led by Kaczynski (‘no.2’), controlled by the American masters, did everything to block the path to normalisation
- The interests of the citizens of Poland have been sacrificed due to Russophobia of ‘mediocre politicians’ and their ‘puppeteers from across the ocean’ with clear signs of senile insanity (sic!).
- [Poland’s] decision to abandon the purchase of Russian gas, oil and coal and the opposition to Nord Stream 2 have already caused serious damage to the economy of this country. Now it will only get worse.
- But now it is much more important for the vassal Polish elites to swear allegiance to their overlords – USA – than to help their own citizens, so they will constantly fan the fire of hatred for the enemy – Russia
- Economic cooperation with Russia is beneficial for the Poles, human ties are indispensable, and cultural and scientific exchange between the birthplaces of Pushkin and Mickiewicz, Tchaikovsky and Chopin, Lomonosov and Copernicus is vital.
- Medvedev’s grand finale: and most likely, Poles will make the *right* choice to cooperate with Russia – on their own, without prompting and pressure from overseas elites suffering from dementia.
He seems nice!
Apparently, Dmitry Rogozin was exposed to a double dose of whatever Medvedev was exposed to over the weekend:
Long story short: the Russian state is now led by men who embrace conspiracy theories built on comic-book-level pseudoscience. Moscow sought to embolden the nutsos in the West with disinformation but infected itself. And there’s the real “bioweapon.” https://t.co/PXQeNuepwF
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) March 21, 2022
He seems nice too!
Kherson:
You see a video how Russian military kicking a civilian in Kherson. And you understand that even when the law does not work, you still need to look for other ways to protect people who are left alone with the occupiers#RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/P282uXgrxJ
— Oleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina) March 21, 2022
Look how the "second strongest army" shoots peaceful demonstrators in Kherson. And let me remind you that we ask for international presence in the occupied cities. @UN @OSCE @coe where are you? We need you on the ground.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/PftzC5J2F6
— Oleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina) March 21, 2022
Mariupol:
Most civilians still unable to flee Mariupol. Those who own a car can try to use 'a green corridor', but even there civilians are under constant Russian shelling. At 15 Russian checkpoints before they reach Ukraine, people get stripped, deprived of mobile phones, humiliated https://t.co/7ostghhOKm
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) March 21, 2022
Here is Greece’s Consul General to Mariupol describing what is going on there:
ATHENS, March 20 (Reuters) – Greece’s consul general in Mariupol, the last EU diplomat to evacuate the besieged Ukrainian port, said on Sunday the city was joining the ranks of places known for having been destroyed in wars of the past.
Manolis Androulakis has assisted dozens of Greek nationals and ethnic Greeks to evacuate the ruined city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He left Mariupol on Tuesday and after a four-day trip through Ukraine he crossed to Romania through Moldavia, along with 10 other Greek nationals.
“What I saw, I hope no one will ever see,” Androulakis said as he arrived on Sunday at Athens International Airport and was reunited with his family.
“Mariupol will become part of a list of cities that were completely destroyed by war; I don’t need to name them- they are Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny, Leningrad,” Androulakis said.
More at the link including video.
Mariupol today. We publish the full text by Nadia Sukhorukova.
I go outside in between the bombings. I need to walk the dog. She's whining, shivering, and hiding behind my legs. I want to sleep all the time. My yard, surrounded by high-rise buildings, is silent and dead. 1/13
— Hromadske Int. (@Hromadske) March 20, 2022
- I’m not afraid to look around anymore. In front of me, the entrance to building #105 is burning down. The flames already devoured five floors and are slowly chewing the sixth. The fire in the room burns as delicately as in a fireplace. 2/13
- Black charred windows are windowless. Curtains torn by the fire fall out of them like tongues. Calm and doomed I look at it. I am sure I will die soon. It is a matter of a few days. In this city, everyone is constantly waiting for death. I just want it not to be too scary. 3/13
- Three days ago, a friend of my older nephew came to us and told us that there was a direct hit in the fire department. Rescuers died. One woman got her arm, leg, and head torn off. I dream that my body parts will remain in place, even after the aerial bomb explosion. 4/13
- I don’t know why, but I think it’s important.Although, they won’t bury during hostilities. That’s what the police told us when we asked what to do with our friend’s dead grandmother. They advised to put her on the balcony. I wonder how many balconies have dead bodies on them?5/13
- Our home on Mira Avenue is the only one without direct hits. It was hit twice by a shell, in some apartments windows were blown out, but it did not suffer much compared to other homes. The whole yard is covered with layers of ash, glass, plastic, and metal fragments. 6/13
- I try not to look at the iron thing that flew into the playground. I think it’s a rocket, or maybe a land mine. I don’t care, it’s just unpleasant. I see someone’s face in the third-floor window, and I shudder. It turns out that I am afraid of living people. 7/13
- My dog starts howling, and I realize that they’re going to shoot again. I am standing outside in the daytime and a cemetery silence all around me. There are no cars, no voices, no children, no grandmothers on the benches. Even the wind is dead. 8/13
- A few people are here, though. They lie on the side of the house and in the parking lot, covered with their outer clothing. I don’t want to look at them. I’m afraid I’ll see someone I know. 9/13
- All life in my town is smoldering in basements right now. It’s like a candle in our shelter. Putting it out is so easy. Any vibration or breeze and the darkness will fall. I try to cry, but I can not. I feel sorry for myself, my family, my husband, my neighbors, my friends. 10/13
- I go back to the basement and listen to the ugly scraping of iron. It’s been two weeks, and I don’t believe that there was ever another life. 11/13
- There are still people in the basement in Mariupol. It’s getting harder for them to survive by the day. No water, no food, no light, they can’t go outside. The people of Mariupol must live. Help them. Spread the word. Let everyone know that civilians continue to be killed. 12/13
- Original text on Facebook
I do not know if Ms. Sukhorukova is still in Mariupol, if she’s made it out to safety, or if she is even alive. So if one of our Ukrainian or Russian speakers who has access to Facebook and is willing to go poking around please do and let us know in the comments.
Here’s a video appeal by a police officer in Mariupol that was published a few days ago. It has subtitles.
Ukrainian forces have liberated Makariv. Which is good news!
Your daily bayraktar!
This dude's name is Bayraktar ? pic.twitter.com/9tDGBYZvRd
— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 21, 2022
Who’s a good Bayraktar! You are!!!!
That’s enough for tonight.
More tomorrow.
Open thread!
Acts of Kindness: Ukranian Kids Fundraiser
Omnes Omnibus
The Poles probably remember Katyn. Plus all the other shit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So, basically Russia is lead by a pack of Q-anon members.
Any estimate when Putin will do a full Himmler, proclaim himself the second coming of Prince Kyi and start dressing like 9th Century Swede?
Omnes Omnibus
Also, a gate guard wouldn’t brief Michael Tracey on what was happening on a base in Poland.
Fair Economist
Thanks for this resource. Hoping NATO will step up arming Ukraine with heavy weapons, especially air defense. Ukraine may need those soon if Putin resorts to chemical weapons.
Professor Bigfoot
Thank you again, Adam. I feel very much like, thanks to you mostly, I am far more informed than most.
Thank you.
Carlo Graziani
Adam, I don’t know how you can bear to wade into this horrifying mess every day, and bring back a sanitized, coherent distillation for us to make sense of.
Thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Professor Bigfoot: You’re quite welcome.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: One of the key issues is deciding how much is enough each night.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: That boy ain’t right.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I figured you just typed until your fingers went numb.
Medicine Man
So you suppose there is no possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine post war, Adam?
Carlo Graziani
@Medicine Man:
Not being Adam, I cannot, of course channel Adam. On my own behalf, I would say that nothing useful can be said about that possibility until we know the outcome of the war. For all I know, Russia could be in NATO by the time the dust settles.
OK, maybe 1:100,000 odds. But not zero.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: That too.
Sebastian
My chin just dropped to the floor. You outdid yourself, Adam. Thank you!!
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: One branch of my family is of Polish descent. The joke, though not really, that I heard from my grandparents’ generation was “If Poland is invaded by both the Russians and the Germans[*], who do you shoot first?” Answer: “The Germans. Business before pleasure.”
The phrase “no love lost” is about as great an understatement as Emperor Hirohito’s assessment of the Japanese military situation in August of 1945.
[*] Not exactly a hypothetical situation.
Adam L Silverman
@Medicine Man: I think it is possible. I don’t know how probable it is. I think some of Zelenskyy’s remarks are frustration. I think another aspect is shaming NATO in to doing the right thing when the time comes. Zelenskyy is also accurately describing global political reality right now. Putin has nukes. Putin is ambiguous about whether he might use those nukes. And that has resulted in Putin being allowed to do whatever he wants. In Chechnya, in Georgia, in Syria, and in Ukraine.
Calouste
@Omnes Omnibus: And no way Germany is going to put up with Russian troops in Poland 50 miles from Berlin.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: Putin might have been doing whatever he wants, but, at least for the moment, he’s not achieving whatever he wants in Ukraine.
Medicine Man
@Adam L Silverman: I see. Thank you Adam.
I’m sensitive to the risk of letting Putin get too comfortable using this tactic. Continual boundary pushing is how we ended up in WW2 after all.
Martin
Reading that Putin has threatened to cut off relations with the US. U mad, bro?
Estimates that Russia has burned through half of their air launch missiles. Still have a lot of ground launch.
The hypersonic missile that is getting so much press isn’t a big deal. It’s just an Iskander missile modified for air launch. Russia launched a ton of Iskanders, so this is really nothing.
‘Hypersonic’ just means it flies at mach 5 or higher, which the Iskander already does. The US also has hypersonic missiles – every ICBM is. That’s not a big deal. The speed matters in different ways:
Cruise missiles tend to be slow, often subsonic. They trade range and maneuverability for speed. They’re basically unmanned jets that can fly low, follow terrain, etc. They’re easy to shoot down, but are designed to fly around the things that would shoot them down. But one defining characteristic is that they can control their speed – they ‘cruise’. But their path is hard to predict so it’s hard to hit them except by a homing munition.
Ballistic missiles tend to be fast. They trade maneuverability for speed. They can be precision targeted, but once lit, they go. They’re a bottle rocket with some steering ability. This means they’re hard to shoot down from behind because they’re so fast, but an interceptor missile that can predict their flight path can hit them. So long as you are targeting them from the front (which you tend to do), you can hit them with a slower interceptor.
The goal is a hypersonic cruise missile, which nobody has developed. One which is too fast to be shot down from behind or the side, but which is maneuverable enough to be able to avoid being hit by conventional interceptors. China’s claim of a hypersonic missile that leaves the atmosphere and reenters some time later? Yeah, we’ve been making those since the late 50s. Modern ICBMS have maximum altitudes about 3x that of the ISS. We had a small fleet of hypersonic precision missiles that we used to put people into called the Space Shuttle. Don’t get too worked up over the headlines. There’s nothing magic about ‘hypersonic’.
Back in the 60s the US used Nike missiles as ICBM interceptors. If you’re in NYC you can still see some of the locations – Hart island, Gateway NRA, etc. These missiles went from 0 to Mach 10 in 5 seconds and carried a low yield nuclear warhead. They were designed to intercept Soviet ICBMs when they reentered the atmosphere. The warhead allowed it to take out the ICBM without being overly precise. This is not some technology that has escaped the US. Honestly, accelerating a nuke at 100g without damaging or setting it off is pretty damn impressive engineering, and we did it 60 years ago.
Medicine Man
@Carlo Graziani: You make a good point. Given NATO won’t be making these decisions during the conflict, I suppose gnawing over this is premature.
Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: True.
Tom Levenson
@dmsilev: I always heard that in reference to the choice between taking out the conductor or the first chair oboist.
Omnes Omnibus
If true, I can only SoonerGrunt’s words, Good God.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Imagine that. I see Soonergrunt fed him a little of his lunch.
What was it he was being called last week when he was wandering around, peering through fences? Some sort of legendary scary piggy thing, but I can’t remember.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: Butter Goblin.
BeautifulPlumage
Report from Ukraine military that the only Russian tank factory closed due to sanctions?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jon96179496/status/1506015569283149826
Martin
I’ve been filling in some reading around Russian casualty numbers above. The conventional estimate has been 3-4 wounded per KIA, so the leaked number appears off in some way. But war has changed a bit. We’ve gotten better at killing soldiers and not killing solders and also at not almost killing soldiers. Russian armored vehicles are notorious death traps. The US at least makes efforts for the survivability of the crew because the US invests more in the crew than in the tank. Russia not so much, they invest more in the tank than the crew.
So Ukraines focus on hitting armored vehicles with very lethal weapons and worrying less about infantry mean that when they hit a tank, everyone in the tank dies. There are no wounded. Same for an APC (armored personnel carrier). You die or you escape mostly unharmed with not a lot of potential for in-between. And the weapons Ukraine uses (and the west) aren’t like what were used in WWII where you might cripple the tank, knock off a track, etc. and the guys inside could scramble out. No, these are designed to blow down through the top hatch. The way out is the thing that kills you. There’s no possibility of escape from a successful Javelin or NLAW strike. So it’s very binary – you die, or you’re fine. There’s not a lot of in-between possible here.
One thing the US has done a good job of is investing a lot of energy in working out how to get wounded soldiers to care very quickly. Apparently we get soldiers to a medical facility on average within 45 minutes (which is incredibly impressive). That has doubled the survivability of wounded soldiers, along with good trauma training for all soldiers, etc. That means the US is better able to keep a casualty in the wounded column instead of the KIA column.
If you’ve been looking at the footage of attacks on Russian units, there’s no evacuation. There are no medics. The US integrates medical care into the campaign. We know wounded will happen, so we have systems to deal with that. Medics in with troops, vehicles to transport wounded, field hospitals, communication, etc. It’s not an afterthought, and it’s not cobbled together. But it sure looks like it is for Russia. I suspect as a result their wounded numbers are both underreported because its somewhat haphazard, but also a lot of their wounded numbers turned into KIA numbers because of this.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: This is accurate. I’ve seen at least half a dozen news reports from credible reporters and outlets about it. The Ukrainians keep appealing to the ICRC, but the ICRC can’t seem to do anything, not least of which because they’ve pulled almost all their people out of Ukraine.
Sebastian
Commenting as I read. There! Yugoslavia! Kosovo!
Please look at Vukovar. (woo-co!-vaahr).
Vukovar was the First to Fall. After Vukovar came Srebrenica, Sarajevo, Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol.
The name carries epic mythos, the languages in this region being both Hungarian (Mongol/Finnish) and SerboCroatian (Slavic). Vuk is the Wolf, a mythic animal in Eastern Europe, Var means Fortress in Hungarian or Forge in Croatian. So many strong meanings flowing into each other.
Wolf’s Forge or Wolf’s Fortress.
In this War between Light and Dark, the first time after WW2, Vukovar was bombed to rubble the same way Mariupol is today. Vukovar was the first. It was the first time for such horrors to happen in Europe after WW2 and the world was in shock.
When Vukovar fell, it shook Europe to its foundations, so much so that Fridrich Genscher and Alois Mock, Foreign Ministers of Germany and Austria respectively, forged ahead against the fierce resistance of the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, and recognized Croatia (and Slovenia) as independent and free countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vukovar
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: A professional army doesn’t treat its dead like that. But I think we know just how professional the Russian army is.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep.
Sebastian
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you for posting this Omnes. In the replies is this gem of a thread.
Sebastian
@Sebastian:
Friedrich Genscher. I can’t let this man’s name stand uncorrected.
tokyokie
@Adam L Silverman: I saw a clip a few days ago (can’t remember the source) of a Ukrainian soldier showing the remnants of a Russian armored group. When asked about all the Russian bodies lying around, the soldier said (according to the subtitles), “We’ll leave them for the dogs.”
Marc
You’re mixing up your missiles a bit. The Mach 10 missile was called Sprint and first flew in 1965. It was intended to the short range interceptor for what was originally called the Nike X, then Sentinel, and finally Safeguard anti-ballistic missile systems. In the end, none were ever deployed.
The nuclear-tipped missile that actually was deployed around cities was Nike Hercules, an older slower (Mach 3.5 or so) missile that had no missile intercept capability and was intended for use against bombers. Nike Hercules evolved into a long range missile interceptor originally called Nike Zeus, then Spartan, but again, none were ever deployed.
Sebastian
This might be a really stupid question but what are our capabilities to drop supplies precisely from high altitude? Can we drop containers full of food and medical supplies on Mariupol?
Could we load up Cruise Missiles full of food and medical supplies and let them crash land in the city center of Mariupol? Is this possible?
Sebastian
This might be a really stupid question but what are our capabilities to drop supplies precisely from high altitude? Can we drop containers full of food and medical supplies on Mariupol?
Could we load up Cruise Missiles full of food and medical supplies and let them crash land in the city center of Mariupol? Is this possible?
Sebastian
This might be a really stupid question but what are our capabilities to drop supplies precisely from high altitude? Can we drop containers full of food and medical supplies on Mariupol?
Could we load up Cruise Missiles full of food and medical supplies and let them crash land in the city center of Mariupol? Is this possible?
Sebastian
I swear I clicked only once.
JCJ
@Marc: Yup. There is an old Nike missle site about 5 miles from my house in Waukesha. Part of the old radar structure is in what is now Hillcrest Park
Marc
There is a restored site in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, complete with Nike Hercules and Nike Ajax missiles.
Redshift
@Marc: There are Nike sites around DC, too, but they’re just historic markers, not anything you can go see.
Which reminds me, a friend’s late father worked in counter-intelligence, and one of the jobs he had was testing the security at Nike sites by trying to talk his way in!
Redshift
One if the things I like about the latest interview from Zelenskyy is how he emphasizes that anything that’s negotiated will have to be approved by the Ukrainian people. I’m inclined to think that’s partly intended to rub Putin’s nose in the fact that Ukraine is already a democracy, and also to make clear that trying to force Zelenskyy to make huge concessions is useless because the Ukrainian people wouldn’t accept it.
paranoid android
@Sebastian:
Further correction: He was called Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
Sebastian
@paranoid android:
YES. Thank you. Thank you!
Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
Calouste
So considering that that part of the plan failed, what do you think happened to those specialized forces? Did they get deployed and then destroyed by Ukraine, or did Russia never manage to deploy them? Or more like the paratroopers got destroyed trying to capture an airfield which meant the spetznatz had nowhere to go to?
Sebastian
Did you know, Alois Mock was The Man Who Cut Down The Iron Curtain (Literally?)
I was 16 years old and watched it happen right then and there on TV, my backyard. Sopron, where this happened, is 50 miles south of Vienna, where I lived at that time.
That’s where the Iron Curtain fell, cut down by two guys who didn’t give a shit about anything because they were guided by the Hand of God or touched by the Holy Spirit or who knows what, and here we are!
Sebastian
@Calouste:
They deployed them alright but they weren’t so special. They were mostly brutes to shove around weaker units or civilians, lot of hat, little cattle. Kamil Galeev has a thread on that.
The Ukrainians blew the shit out of them in the first week.
Calouste
We know that Ukraine has been intercepting Russian field communications, so they might have a pretty good idea about the situation, probably backed up by American intelligence.
Anyway
@Sebastian:
I’ve enjoyed reading your comments in the overnight threads about the breakup of Yugoslavia — fascinating details. Thank you.
sanjeevs
(1) KyivPost on Twitter: “”#Ukrainian militaries captured a Russian lieutenant colonel in the underwear of the Armed Forces of #Ukraine,” 128 separate mountain assault Transcarpathian brigade reported https://t.co/O1PhaJpvaD” / Twitter
Thats … weird
Sloane Ranger
@sanjeevs: Hadn’t realised that militaries had specially issued underwear. You learn something every day!
He could be part of some special unit preparing for a false flag op.
Or it could be Russian supply issues include clothing as well as food, fuel etc so he liberated some garments from a base they’d overrun.
Or Russian issued underwear is so crap and Ukrainian issue so much better, he made a deliberate choice to wear it once he acquired it somehow. The same thing happened during WWII. Certain items of equipment issued to soldiers in other armies were thought to be superior to those issued by your own and were often taken off POW’s and the dead and wounded.
Geminid
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you for tbese posts.
I’m wondering if, should you think it significant, you would comment in a future post on Turkey’s role in this war. They are a regional power and a somewhat wayward member of NATO. President Erdogan seems to be a man of grudges and now he seems to have one towards Putin. Turkey is trying to play a role in this war as a mediator, although I think they understand that time is not yet ripe for a settlement or even a ceasefire.
Erdogan seems to be patching up relations with several regional neighbors he has alienated this past decade.
debbie
@dmsilev:
I remember that joke. My family includes Lativan, Polish, German, and Crimean heritage. We often battle ourselves more than others.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’d think there would be more of a noise coming from the mothers of Russia.
debbie
Thanks for this, Adam. Having read through all of this, especially about Putin’s behaviors and beliefs, the only answer to this is to delete him.
Baud
@debbie:
We don’t delete people. We cancel them.
debbie
@Baud:
Canceling’s too good for him. Just one big ‘poof’ and he’s deleted.
Chris
@Sebastian:
There’s an entire school of thought that says special forces in general, not just Russia’s, are massively overrated. That they give politicians a false sense of how much you can accomplish with small silver bullet units; that a lot of the resources and attention that are spent on them come at the expense of regular units that are equally important but more easily overlooked; that there’s only so much you can improve a soldier above basic combat grunt level, and when you’re done that soldier still won’t be able to be in two or three places at once and will still be just as susceptible to catching a stray bullet; etc.
TheflipPsyd
Thank you Adam for sharing your knowledge and bringing us the signal without the noise. I don’t know enough about the situation to know what is propaganda, what is slanted and who it is santed towards. So, I really appreciate these posts. I don’t know how you do this every day. I can’t do much, but at the very least, I feel like I have to at least witness what is happening, and your posts are a must for me every morning.
I do have a question about the UN, though. I know that NATO is not going to get involved because of all the complications, but can the UN do something? Can they send in humanitarian aid and peacekeeping forces to help? Or would Russia’s response be as risky as if NATO would get involved? And, is the risk greater for the UN because if Russia committed more war crimes against UN forces, that might invoke an escalation. Seeing what is happening and hearing what Russia forces are doing to the people is — I have no words — but I feel like it is getting to the point where something has to be done. As someone who grew up in the 80s, and with the fear of nuclear war, I have the average understanding of the risks, but on the other hand, I feel like I am watching genocide.
Thanks again.
Kalakal
@Chris: That goes back to at least WW2. Field Marshall Slim, who was very, very good at his job, was not a fan. He felt they diverted resources that would have been better used on improving the general standard of his troops and operational capabilites than on impressive stunts that didn’t really achieve anything. He was specifically referring to Wingate’s Chindit operations in Burma that were boosted by Mountbatten and the politicians in London. As well as taking the best troops from his regular units they limited his manouverability by sucking up a lot of his air transport
Geminid
@Chris: There is a big special forces mystique, and they are often overrated as a combat force by civilians.
I think training formations such as the U.S. Army Special Forces, or “Green Berets,” have good value, though. They can show motivated local forces better ways to fight.
There was a Special Forces unit in Ukraine until just before the war. Ukrainians themselves are effective guerrilla fighters, but the U.S. trainers might have improved their techniques and methods.
That U.S. Special Forces unit is most likely in eastern Poland now, probably stationed with 82nd Airborne units (who they know from being stationed together at Ft. Bragg,* in North Carolina). They may be the ones training Ukrainian forces in the use of the Switchblade drones, perhaps in western Ukraine.
*Soon to be renamed Ft. Ridgway I hope.
Jay
@TheflipPsyd:
the UN Assembly can write and vote to approve a general censure of Russian actions. That’s about all they can do. The UN aid bodies can stage to offer assistance but not inside a war zone.
The UN Security Council is the group in charge of Peacekeeping and Peacemaking, but Russia has a permanent seat on the Council and has a veto.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid: An old family friend was a post-WWII emigre from Ukraine to the US – he left as an infant, with his parents. He went on to join the US Army and became a Green Beret officer. In his spare time, and then pretty much full-time after his retirement, he studied the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He’s too old now and too long separated from the Army to be involved, but I’m sure he’s following events with great interest.
TheflipPsyd
@Jay: Thanks for the info — and no good options.
tokyokie
@sanjeevs: If I recall my Tejas history correctly, after his disastrous defeat at San Jacinto, Mexican President and field commander Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna disguised himself as an enlisted man to try to escape, but his fancy underwear gave him away.
Haroldo
As always, Adam (and other commenters): thank you.
tokyokie
@Geminid:
I’d prefer it be named Fort George Thomas, after the Southerner who wasn’t a traitor and who kicked Braxton Bragg out of Chattanooga.
Uncle Cosmo
@Redshift:
One of my older cousins went into the Army out of HS and landed in a Nike-Hercules unit. I vaguely recall us visiting him ca. 1960 at one of those sites near DC.
(In fact he spent most of his tour playing baseball for an air-defense team. Nice work if you could get it, & as a pretty fair player, he got it. :^D)
Geminid
@tokyokie: There are eight Army forts (I believe) that are up for renaming. Fort Pickett in south central Virginia would be a good choice to be renamed after Union General George Thomas. He was from Virginia.
Matthew Ridgway was one of the premier fighting generals in the Second World War. He parachuted in to Normandy with the 82nd Airborne Division, and finished the war as commander of an army. He went on to salvage MacArthur’s mess in Korea. Since the 82nd Airborne Division is now stationed at Fort Bragg* it would be fitting to rename the the base after their former commander.
*A brigade from the 82nd Airborne is now on watch in eastern Poland.
Ishiyama
@tokyokie:
The Rock of Chickamauga: “Bragg is a good dog, but Holdfast is better.”
Another Scott
(Whoops – wrong thread.)
Cheers,
Scott.