Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Update 33: The Russians Keep Pounding Away, the Ukrainians Keep Fighting

War for Ukraine Update 33: The Russians Keep Pounding Away, the Ukrainians Keep Fighting

by | 97 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

(Sent to me by commenter JCJ courtesy of his daughter who found it here)

Earlier today President Zelenskyy did an interview via video with independent – as in not state owned, backed, and/or approved – Russian journalists from Meduza, Kommersant, Novaya Gazeta, and TvRain in defiance of Russian government orders to not do the interview. I am very grateful, as I’m sure our Russian speaking commenters who have offered to translate stuff for me for the updates are as well, that they included English sub-titles on the ninety-two minute interview!

Here are some English translation excerpts from Natalia Krapiva, whose Twitter feed is where I got the link to the YouTube video from.

  • 2/ Zelensky: “[Russian government’s] refusal to see Ukraine as an independent state is a shared tragedy of Ukrainian & Russian people,” as he sees Russian people (народ) as separate from the Russian government (власть).
  • 3/ Zelensky says that he is “99.9% certain” that Russian leadership was told by pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine that Ukrainian people were awaiting Russian forces with “flowers and smiles” and that Zelensky’s government was widely unpopular.
  • 4/@tikhondzyadko asks Zelensky to clarify the number of dead/POW on the Russian side. Zelensky says Ukraine shares all the lists with the Russian army. Many of the killed Russian soldiers are “children,” born in 2003-2004, & Russian side refuses to acknowledge them/take their bodies.
  • 5/ Zelensky gets very emotional as he is saying that even cats & dogs get better treatment after they die than killed Russian soldiers who Russian government is refusing to acknowledge & instead is offering “trash bags” to Ukraine. “They are not just cattle,” says Zelensky.
  • 6/ Zelensky says Russian gov’s disregard for the lives of its own people is a tragedy that is affecting Ukraine. A lot of Russian soldiers (“children,” he repeats), as Ukrainian intelligence confirms, didn’t understand where they were going. They were sent to be slaughtered in Ukraine
  • 7/ Despite this, Zelensky says he doesn’t know if Ukrainian people will ever be able to forgive & restore their relationship with Russian people. If the war continues, every single Ukrainian will have someone in their family as a victim of Russian aggression.
  • 8/ As to Russian language, Zelensky says he never has any problem speaking Russian if someone is addressing him in Russian. But the biggest harm that was done to the Russian language was done by Putin himself as Russian speaking cities were destroyed by his army.
  • 9/ Paraphrasing Zelensky: The Russian people aren’t somehow our enemy just because they haven’t overthrown #Putin. But each Russian has a responsibility to speak out about the invasion, even if it’s just to 1 other person.
  • 10/ Zelensky confirms several Russian oligarchs, including Abramovich, offered to send money to Ukrainian army, rebuild Ukraine, and move their businesses there. Zelensky says any Russian businessperson who is ready to support Ukrainian army will be offered security & job.
  • 11/ Zelensky says Russian forces should return to pre Feb 24 positions as a compromise & then talks about Donbas should continue. Then he makes an interesting hint: Whomever Ukrainians elect next will be younger & less accommodating. So #Putin shouldn’t slow-walk negotiations.
  • 12/ In the end, Zelensky addresses Russian people & asks them to tell their loved ones & friends the truth about Russian government’s actions in Ukraine. Only then he says there may be hope that Russian and Ukrainian children & grandchildren will live in peace.
  • 13/ Two typos above: (Tweet 1) handle for TV Rain is@tvrain (Tweet 4) journalist who asked about Russian casualties is@zygaro not Dzyadko. Risks of live-ish tweeting!

President Zelenskyy’s remarks were clearly aimed at Russians who might be able to view and listen to the interview.

Much more after the jump.

I’m still not sure the Russians were on the up and up regarding this Phase 2 thing…

Hope, however, springs eternal!

11 hr 11 min ago

French President Emmanuel Macron seemed to warn against labeling Putin on Sunday.

“I wouldn’t use terms like that because I’m still in talks with President Putin,” Macron said during an interview on French Channel France 3.

Macron added: “Our goal is to stop the war Russia launched in Ukraine, while avoiding a war and escalation.”

Bless his heart!

I’ve been quite hard on Israel’s lack of a useful response to Russia’s reinvasion of Ukraine, so they deserve to be recognized for setting up an advanced field hospital in western Ukraine.

This would seem to be ungood!

The Russians (in red on the map) still appear to be trying to encircle the Ukrainian Army in eastern Ukraine, known as the Joint Force Operation (JFO) (in blue), so they can then reduce it. The JFO needs to pull back and reform its lines in a more secure position to prevent being encircled and reduced.

Mariupol:

  • They didn’t manage to drive away before the russians started shooting. But everyone who was in the car is alive: grandmother, grandfather, husband, wife, son (4 years old), daughter (1.5 years old). 2/2
  • And, yes, there’s the word “children” written on the car in russian.
  • For those saying they did this because of a video where ukrainians allegedly shot russians in legs. Yes, they shot the people who came here to kill in the legs, so let’s kill the innocent kids Also, let’s make it a game!! Maybe they manage to escape, maybe they won’t. So fun.
  • I’ll use this opportunity where no one can reply to say this: i sincerely don’t give a fuck what happens to russian soldiers. No one invited them here. No one gave them an order to rape kids, burn animals alive, loot homes, but they do it anyway. Drop dead
  • Those feeling sorry for the poor russian soldiers who can’t refuse obeying orders should read this:
  • And this:

The first this from the second to last tweet above:

  • They came to the headquarters for food kits and disposable tableware. There is emptiness in their eyes; as soon as you offer your help, people cannot hold back the tears. I hugged a woman. She started falling and losing consciousness from fatigue and stress. 2/?
  • We brought her water, she started feeling better, and continued telling her story. She said: “You have a business. You live your life. And before you know it, you are seeing mutilated bodies.” 3/?
  • “We cooked in the yard on the stones. Put a saucepan on them and cooked.” Then, they got shelled. Their shelter was destroyed. Those who could – got out. But only those who could. 4/?
  • They buried people in the yard. Russian dead bodies were left in the streets, and later taken away by animals. 5/?
  • “Every second I prayed for the children to survive. There was no food, no water. We found the basement that we used to hide by accident, when we were running in between the bombings. It was damp there, and you could here the squeaking of rats.” 6/?
  • She told me about how she kept pressing the child to herself and how she did not sleep for a second; sometimes she would pass out from exhaustion. 7/?
  • They were trapped under the ruins, but couldn’t scream for help. Too dangerous. Russian soldiers would have simply come and killed them. They would have killed them for pleasure. They like the feeling of power, they revel in human grief. 8/?
  • “We were so starved, we thought about killing our dog and eating it in order to last a few more days.” She was already ready to do it, as suddenly she heard: “Is there anyone alive under there?” (in Ukrainian). 9/?
  • She thought it was hallucinations, but no, our soldiers dug them out from under the ruins, and helped get out of that hell. 14 people were driving in one car, sitting on top of each other. “Sophia, we all started believing in God.” 10/?
  • They still do not understand that they are already safe. They squeeze bottles of water and cry bitterly all the time. I am writing this now and my hands are shaking. We could not hold back the tears as well. Just kept hugging them, and sobbing. 11/?
  • These are all crippled lives of our people, our Ukrainians. We all fainted in a morgue, during my internship there. And here are small children, who saw hundreds of mutilated corpses and parts of human bodies. How do you live after this? I hate them. (Russians)” 12/12

The second this from that first thread:

  • “There was constant vomiting and dizziness from stress. The problems that occupied my brain before the war, suddenly disappeared. For me, war is a different life. Unbearable smell of urine, feces, vomit, blood and decaying bodies.. 2/?
  • People deal with stress differently. I know some die of pain and grief. Their heart fails and there is no cure. The same is with diabetics and cancer patients. 3/?
  • Everyone is calling it a “humanitarian catastrophe”,but let me explain what it means for women.U are on your period, and u are wearing 1 pad for 5 days. There is no water, napkins, or even toilet paper.The only thing u have is clothes. I think u know where i’m going with this.4/?
  • On the 4th day we ran out of food. On the 7th day, the hallucinations and convulsions from hunger began. We were in the basement, sitting on a rag and no longer crying. We kept thinking about how to get out. 5/?
  • We covered the mouths of children so that the russians would not hear that we were there. Everything we read from the history books about Nazis, we felt many times worse. These monsters came to destroy. Killing a child, or raping a woman brings them PLEASURE. 6/?
  • We have never seen so many corpses in our lives. There was a stench of decomposing bodies in the streets. Just yesterday you had a good, satisfying life, and today you are left with nothing. But we have Faith and God is with us.” 7/?
  • Children lose their parents, they are shot in front of their eyes. How long can this go on for? The survivors of these concentration camps, created by Russian monsters, will remain crippled forever. 8/?
  • And if physical wounds can somehow be cured, although not all of them, the psychological damage that’s been done is irreparable. 9/9

Kharkiv:

 

Yesterday, The New York Times published a long form piece of reporting by Roger Cohen that includes detailed interviews with a number of senior leaders who have met and interacted with Putin over the past twenty plus years.

PARIS — Speaking in what he called “the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant,” picked up during his time as a K.G.B. officer in Dresden, President Vladimir V. Putin addressed the German Parliament on Sept. 25, 2001. “Russia is a friendly European nation,” he declared. “Stable peace on the continent is a paramount goal for our nation.”

The Russian leader, elected the previous year at the age of 47 after a meteoric rise from obscurity, went on to describe “democratic rights and freedoms” as the “key goal of Russia’s domestic policy.” Members of the Bundestag gave a standing ovation, moved by the reconciliation Mr. Putin seemed to embody in a city, Berlin, that long symbolized division between the West and the totalitarian Soviet world.

Norbert Röttgen, a center-right representative who headed the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for several years, was among those who rose to their feet. “Putin captured us,” he said. “The voice was quite soft, in German, a voice that tempts you to believe what is said to you. We had some reason to think there was a viable perspective of togetherness.”

“He hated what happened to Russia, hated the idea the West had to help it,” said Christoph Heusgen, the chief diplomatic adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany between 2005 and 2017. Mr. Putin’s first political manifesto for the 2000 presidential campaign was all about reversing Western efforts to transfer power from the state to the marketplace. “For Russians,” he wrote, “a strong state is not an anomaly to fight against.” Quite the contrary, “it is the source and guarantor of order, the initiator and the main driving force of any change.”

“Putin’s nightmare is not NATO, but democracy,” said Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister who met with Mr. Putin several times. “It’s the color revolutions, thousands of people on the streets of Kyiv. Once he embraced an imperial, military ideology as the foundation of Russia as a world power, he was unable to tolerate this.”

Although Mr. Putin has portrayed a West-leaning Ukraine as a threat to Russian security, it was more immediately a threat to Putin’s authoritarian system itself. Radek Sikorski, the former Polish foreign minister, said: “Putin is of course right that a democratic Ukraine integrated with Europe and successful is a mortal threat to Putinism. That, more than NATO membership, is the issue.”

Much, much, much more at the link. For me, this is one of the key takeaways:

“Power, for the Russians, is arms. It is not the economy,” said Ms. Bermann, the former French ambassador, who closely followed Mr. Putin’s steady militarization of Russian society during her time in Moscow. She was particularly struck by the grandiose video display of advanced nuclear and hypersonic weaponry presided over by the president in a March 2018 address to the nation.

Which is why I do not think the sanctions and economic measures will have their intended effect.

Another reason I think that is until or unless we sanction Russian oil and natural gas, we’re allowing Putin to pull in millions every day to offset the effects of the sanctions and other economic measures. This, as well as the other uneven application of the sanctions and economic measures, is why they are not going to work:

We’ll finish with this:

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

97Comments

  2. 2.

    Miss Bianca

    Yow, finally, I make one of Adam’s Ukraine threads in real time.

    I am so, so glad you are here to guide us through the war news every day, Adam. Thank you.

  3. 3.

    FelonyGovt

    I want to reiterate my thanks for all your work on this, Adam. In addition to taking a lot of your time, it must be heartbreaking reading all this and putting it together.

  5. 5.

    Geoduck

    “No gave them orders to do all these horrible things”.

    Obviously I’m not an eyewitness, but we have to assume they were indeed given orders do to all that…

  8. 8.

    lashonharangue

    Thanks Adam.  I really appreciate your efforts,  but I want to go further than FelonyGovt. If you need to take a break from compiling these sources please do so. This is so really horrible stuff to process every day and I suspect some of the worst of it you are not sharing.

  9. 9.

    TonyG

    @Geoduck: Absolutely.  And most likely they would have been shot if they had disobeyed those orders.  I can’t blame the Ukrainians for hating the ordinary Russian soldiers though.

  10. 10.

    ETtheLibrarian

    I have been listening to a couple of interesting episodes of the podcast The Rest is History and they have done a series on the risen of Putin but also a 2 part History od Oil that is quite instructive right now. Highly recommend.

  11. 11.

    Kelly

    Just hooked a new bottle of Multicat calming pheromones up to our Feliway diffuser. Phoebe and Martin get along better with the pheromones wafting thru the house. One of those billionaires trying to give all their money away, like say MacKenzie Scott, should finance a crash research program for a human analog.

  12. 12.

    Martin

    I don’t disagree that Russia views power as arms over economy. But Russia’s problems aren’t just that they do or don’t lack money, it’s that they lack access. Russia can’t build tanks without western equipment. They can’t build semiconductors and they can’t import them. They’re decades behind on a lot of this stuff.

    Russia seems to think they can be self sufficient on this stuff. I mean, the USSR was, and the USSR was advanced in certain technological areas, but way behind in others. They could make good rockets, but their tractors were shit. And as things have gotten more technologically advanced, it’s gotten increasingly difficult to be self sufficient in this stuff. 20 years ago the US had semiconductor self-sufficiency, but now, we can’t. We can’t stay on top of everything, all the time. We need that trade. We need that exchange of ideas, and talent, and equipment. Russia needs it even more. Vastly more.

  13. 13.

    Ksmiami

    Question for Adam- should the US start arming rebel groups in Central Asia as a way to fracture Russia internally and bleed them from both directions? I don’t see how we can allow Russia to go back to status quo ante after this. Sorry and I totally disagree with Nichols that Biden made a gaffe. There is no future for Russia with Putin or Putinism so they have to decide on which course

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: +1

    My dad had a Soviet pen pal for a while in the early 1970s.  They would exchange gifts on occasion.  One thing that stuck in my mind was that the Soviet guy wanted an old fashioned double-edge safety razor and even sent a detailed perspective drawing of what he hoped to get in the letter.  My dad sent him a Gillette handle and a bunch of new-fangled Trac II refills.

    The Soviets weren’t, and the Russians aren’t our equal when it comes to providing for their people.

    Galeev has a new thread with more details on how sanctions really are working and how they’re breaking the Russian war machine (and economy).

    How sanctions are killing Russia?Russia's falling. Old sanctions of 2014 sabotaged development of new innovative weaponry. New sanctions of 2022 are undermining Russian military efforts, destroying its technological chains and communications lines, thus breaking country apart? pic.twitter.com/vYgVNCv290

    — Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 26, 2022

    Yes, it won’t be quick. But I think he makes a good case it is hurting Putin’s war effort – a lot.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SamIAm: I think the Russian soldiers are perfectly capable of taking the initiative on that front

    ETA: I’m not going to give the soldiers the fig leaf of “orders.” The Russian army is known for brutalizing its conscripts – read about “didovshchyna” – and it creates animals.

  17. 17.

    oldster

    Thanks for these updates, Adam.

    Alternate headline:

    “The Ukrainians keep killing Russian soldiers; the Russians keep killing Ukrainian civilians.”

    Their barbarity must be stopped.

    And I am proud that Biden keeps stating the blunt facts of the case, and I am ashamed that Germany is doing such a poor job, in words and deeds. After a salutary initial response, Germany is back to treating this as a small interruption in its plans for further integration with Russia, instead of as a clear reason for a clean break. They must listen to NATO members in the Baltics and the East, and realize that Putin can be stopped only by defeat.

  18. 18.

    Geoduck

    It’s pretty clear that Russian soldiers have been given orders to blast entire Ukrainian cities to rubble, so I can’t imagine that there’s much of a line that been drawn in terms of behavior. And no, I didn’t say that being explicitly ordered to do horrible things frees them from any moral responsibility.

  20. 20.

    Lyrebird

    Thank you Adam once again!

    ..and

    @Another Scott: …it won’t be quick.

    Thanks for finding that thread again!

    One of the many reasons I am so glad for having Joey O’Biden in the White House is that he does not seem to think we should only do one thing.

    The Ukrainians have offered the whole world an opportunity, at enormous cost to them.  We should be taking all the options to help we can.  If Galeev is right and sanctions are cutting into the RF supply chain, excellent.  Keep sanctioning, and keep sending anti aircraft and goggles and body armer.

    Pres. Zel. keeps reaching out to ordinary Russians.  I think it’s the right thing to do anyhow, but I’m just a random commenter.  If that outreach peels off even a very small percent of support for the war, that helps the UF.

    I still don’t think the war ends until P is deposed somehow.

  22. 22.

    oldster

    Adam, I’m seeing rumors on Ukr twitter that Oksyannikova, the Russian announcer who held up a protest sign on TV, may not have been a legit opposition figure, but more of a complex plant by the FSB. Now she is coming out with pro-regime lines.

    Strikes me as unlikely that it was a preplanned FSB stunt, but what do I know. Any thoughts?

  25. 25.

    Comrade Bukharin

    @Geoduck: There is a precedent. Germany 1945.

    “Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm forward. Kill! You gallant soldiers of the Red army.” Ilya Ehrenburg

  26. 26.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott:

    Yeah. Measuring the effect of sanctions through the direct effect on (projected) GDP is kind of pointlessly linear. You would think, just having lived through the effect of massive supply-chain shocks due to SARS-CoV-2, that we would have a feel for the crazy, non-linear knock-on effects of, say, farm equipment lubricants not showing up during harvest season. Or farm labor not showing up because capital cannot be mobilized. Etc.

    Seriously, forget GDP. There is an economic catastrophe inbound in Russia, due probably in September or October, and there must be analysts in FSB, and in economic and agricultural ministries who understand this and are raising the alarms. Not with Putin, who can’t hear. But with people who can.

  30. 30.

    Carlo Graziani

    On that interview with independent journalists: It’s been striking how incompetent Rusdian censorship of the Internet is. So if it is published in, say, Bulgarian, or Moldovan newspapers — a few of which have Russian-language editions, I believe — do they get censored in time? Do they even get noticed, given that it’s not CNN, or BBC?

  31. 31.

    Betsy

    I .. .. am the very model of a Russian Major General
    My standing in the battlefield is growing quite untenable
    My forces, though equipped and given orders unequivocal
    Did not expect the fight to be remotely this reciprocal

    My .. .. ordnance is the best but only half my missiles make it there
    I would have thought by now that we would be controllers of the air
    But at the rate the snipers work my time here is ephemeral
    I am the very model of a Russian Major General.

    Our .. … training program means to activate our brains reptilian,
    Conceiving ways to make the war more painful to civilians
    From thermobaric rocket shots, to cluster bombs and Novichok,
    And every modern horror that our weaponeers can keep in stock.

    My .. .. leaders fill the broadcast waves with verbiage polemical,
    Preempting accusations that we’re waging warfare chemical,
    But we declare the region’s ours from Kyiv up to the Bosporus –
    If not, we’ll soak th’entire place with gas organophosphorus.

    I .. .. used to have a tank brigade but now I have lost several
    My fresh assaults are faltering with battleplans extemporal
    I can’t recover vehicles but farmers in a tractor can
    It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan

    CHORUS:
    It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan
    It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan
    It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghani-ghanistan

    https://youtu.be/R1dy44jV8EM?t=63

  32. 32.

    oldster

    @Carlo Graziani:

    “There is an economic catastrophe inbound in Russia, due probably in September or October….”

    I hope you are right, and that they will not be rescued by China, Germany, or the Putin-caucus of the GOP, after the US midterms.

    October is a long time to ask Ukraine to hold on. And sanctions have a way of slipping, as cheaters evade them.

    I hope the new UK SAMs will help to clear the skies over Ukraine. And if a few Patriot batteries mysteriously wound up under Ukr control, I would not be sad.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @oldster: She could have been controlled opposition the whole time. She could also have been sat down and told what was going to happen to her children, her husband, her parents, and his parents in excruciating detail. And then informed that after she watched all of those things happen, she would be turned over to the Wagner guys as a party favor if she didn’t do a 180.

  35. 35.

    oldster

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The second looks more plausible to me. I just don’t see what advantage the FSB would have seen in staging that. Especially so early in the course of the war, when they still hoped it would go their way.

  36. 36.

    Cameron

    We’re only a quarter of the way through 2022, and it already looks like it may suck even more than 2021.  I wish for a sudden collapse of the Russian invasion; I doubt if it can happen, but a wish and some sort of humanitarian contribution to Ukraine are about all the powers most of us have as individuals.

  37. 37.

    AndoChronic

    Having 19 yrs in military service, so far, I’m horrified by the conduct of these Russian troops and hate the ‘ole “well, the U.S. does the same sort of thing to others all the time” bullshit. That’s an apples to Applebee’s comparison.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @oldster: Why was the headline on her sign in English? Why has she been happily spreading propaganda for eight years? This smelled like a stunt from beginning to end. Nobody in Ukraine bought it.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    Fresh Galeev thread:

    Some advice to Ukrainians:

    1. Ukrainian hackers post Russian casualty numbers on Russian official websites and social media accounts. That's not bad. A better idea – post instructions for sabotage. For example, if you burn trackside relay cabinets, it will lead to huge delays? pic.twitter.com/kNA43LZvxb

    — Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 28, 2022

    Interesting.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    LivinginExile

    I saw on a twitter thread today that the British were sending an  anti-aircraft system called star streak?  Whatever it was called it looked similar to the javelin, but the head of the weapon had 3 explosive charges. Has anyone else seen anything about it?  It traveled 3 times the speed of sound.

  42. 42.

    Kent

    @oldster:

    Adam, I’m seeing rumors on Ukr twitter that Oksyannikova, the Russian announcer who held up a protest sign on TV, may not have been a legit opposition figure, but more of a complex plant by the FSB. Now she is coming out with pro-regime lines.

    Strikes me as unlikely that it was a preplanned FSB stunt, but what do I know. Any thoughts?

    Seems too bizarre to have been a pre-planned 3-dimensional stunt of some sort.  I expect the more likely and simpler explanation is that they got to her.

  45. 45.

    Kent

    @Martin: The USSR was over 2x larger than the current Russian Federation and they also had the full Warsaw Pact within their economic zone, so East German, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish industry, etc.

    Now the situation has completely flipped.  Russia is 2x smaller and the west is 2x larger and infinitely more advanced.  With a 25% reduction in GDP and bit of population decline, Russia is basically down to the population and economy of Mexico.   Now Mexico isn’t an insignificant country, but it isn’t a global superpower either.

  46. 46.

    Kattails

    I looked at Yana Morozova’s twitter feed. There’s even more. All ghastly.

    I can completely understand the fate Italians visited on Mussolini.

    Cole’s earlier thread about Biden’s approval rating is beyond depressing. He’s done the steadiest, broadest work possible with the GQP being intransigent monsters at every step, with raving lunatics nipping at everything he tries to do to better this country. There are still, STILL Trump flags up in my neighborhood. A reasonably liberal area, but that’s not the damned point. It’s just get the flying fuck over it, he lost both times.

  49. 49.

    Jager

    @Betty:

    My dad was a WWII pilot, shortly after the war ended in April of 45, he was flying food and medicine to the Russian military. Food for the Russian troops who had literally been foraging and for the thousands of German prisoners. He landed his C47, German prisoners were unloading it. My dad and his co-pilot were standing on the tarmac, watching the unloading of the plane, a Russian guard walked up, my dad offered him a Lucky Strike, the Russian took it, my old man lit it for him. The Russian took two or three puffs, dropped it on the ground in front of a German POW, the German reached for the cigarette, the Russian smashed the prisoner’s hand with the butt of his rifle. While the German was rolling on the ground in pain, the Russian grinned and asked my dad for another smoke. Years later my old man said, “I should have kicked the Russian bastard’s ass.”

  51. 51.

    Lyrebird

    @AndoChronic: That’s an apples to Applebee’s comparison.

    I haven’t seen those, so maybe it’s lucky that I can’t access Twitter lately!

    More to your point:  Maybe someone with a strong stomach like our front pager here has done the calculations to say how many My Lais per day or week they RF are committing.

    The scale of the murder of civilians that’s going on in the Russian invasion is awful to contemplate, especially when like @Cameron said:

    a wish and some sort of humanitarian contribution to Ukraine are about all the powers most of us have as individuals.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LivinginExile: Click on the link and then the images.

  53. 53.

    Repatriated

    @Mallard Filmore

    “RUSSIA – COLLAPSE of Russian Economy Has Started. INFLATION RISING, GDP, Exports & Trade CRASHING”

    Nothing that can’t be fixed by cutting taxes on their oligarchs, right?
    /s

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @phdesmond: No idea.  He seemed to just take the prompt and run with it.  But I have no idea.

    (It showed up in a thread here a few days ago –  as one would expect based on the G&S love that Subaru Diane has shared with us.  :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lyrebird: There we’re 347 Vietnamese massacred at My Lai, last I saw the Russians had killed around 2,000 Ukrainian civilians.

  58. 58.

    Martin

    According to Bellingcat the FSB funneled a ton of money (billions) at some political group inside Ukraine to take over after the govt fell and apparently they just wandered off with the money.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: I saw reporting on that back in February. That bribes had been paid, but it looked like the recipients just took the money and did nothing.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    @sdhays: I mean, the FSB still takes their orders from Putin, so you never know. I was certainly told to do dumb shit in my job, and I tried to minimize the damage, but there’s only so much you can do sometimes.

  64. 64.

    J R in WV

    @Martin: ​
     
    So the Ukrainian political crooks weren’t honest with their Russian purchasers, took the money and ran?!?!? Good for them, hope they don’t get caught.

    Let the RU have some of their own medicine, take the money and run. I didn’t see any details of the newest Russian GEneral Staff deaths. Makes sense for a technical UKR force to go for the highest ranking officers, put them down, destroy the integrity of the command force, make troops fight without leadership in total confusion of battle.

  65. 65.

    Betsy

    @phdesmond: That’s right.  It’s all cribbed from Twitter – most of it from that guy, and I added a stanza or two from other wags who replied to the same writing-prompt tweet that he started from.

  68. 68.

    West of the Rockies

    A few days ago there were sort of breathless reports of a big chunk of the Russian army in the north being surrounded and cut off from escape.  I’ve seen no real update on the situation.  Anybody know anything?

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies: It is unclear if the Ukrainians are simply doing what they’ve been doing to them, basically attrititing them a bit at a time, or if they’re actually trying to encircle and reduce them. I addressed this in last night’s update and included a map.

  71. 71.

    phdesmond

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Adam, thanks for your leading this nightly event.  it provides a community setting for ongoing discussion of a matter that troubles us all.

    but you should permit yourself a day off a week!

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    DW.com:

    […]

    A neutral Ukraine — that’s what the Russian government touted as a way to end the current conflict. “This is a variant that is being discussed and could be seen as a certain compromise,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in March during negotiations.

    Ukraine pledged neutrality when it gained independence in 1991, but changed tack after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Ukraine’s parliament voted by a large majority to amend the constitution and made membership in the European Union and in NATO into a state objective.

    But not only Russia wants to prevent this. NATO has consistently refused the application, fearing this would trigger a military confrontation with Russia. And now Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has admitted that the goal of joining NATO is probably unattainable.

    Voluntary vs. imposed neutrality

    Three neutral countries are often cited as possible role models for a neutral Ukraine: Austria, Sweden, and Finland. But they each have a distinctive history.

    Austria, like Germany, was occupied by the four Allied powers at the end of World War II: The US, the Soviet Union, the UK, and France. The Soviet Union agreed to withdraw on the condition that Austria commits itself to “eternal neutrality,” which was then enshrined in the country’s constitution in 1955.

    […]

    Demilitarization not an option

    And the wider point is that if Sweden and Finland do seek to give up their neutrality because of the Russian threat, they cannot serve as models for a neutral Ukraine.

    Leos Müller believes that neutrality would not work for Ukraine anyway: Other states or international organizations, such as the United States, Russia, or NATO, would have to safeguard that neutrality and protect Ukraine in the event of an attack. “That requires functioning international law, functioning agreements and organizations. But now, Russia has broken with all of that.”

    Moreover, Russia is demanding “demilitarization” of Ukraine — “an unthinkable demand for a neutral country,” Müller believes. Like Sweden or Switzerland, even a neutral Ukraine would still need defense capabilities.

    Ukraine has already found out that international guarantees can turn out to be worthless: In 1994 in the Budapest Memorandum, it committed itself to give up the nuclear weapons on its territory after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In return, Russia, the United States, and the UK pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders. Twenty years later, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the two Western powers allowed it to happen.

    […]

    An interesting read.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    Splitting Image

    @Repatriated:

    Nothing that can’t be fixed by cutting taxes on their oligarchs, right?

    Don’t forget deregulation. If military contractors could make more profit within the framework of their core competency, they wouldn’t feel obliged to make up their losses through freelance trade and off-the-books transactions.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: As I keep writing here, the terms Russia keeps proposing, as well as to many think tank denizens, give Putin a victory and just set the conditions for Putin to try again. And not just try again with Ukraine.

  82. 82.

    West of the Rockies

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I appreciate the effort.   Putting together these extensive posts every evening must be wearing.  We all devour them, but you must be tired.  Your devotion is actually kind of stunning.

  83. 83.

    Adam L Silverman

    @West of the Rockies: You’re quite welcome.

    The reality is this is what I’m trained to do combined with what I’m innately good at – living on information overload – so you’re getting a blogified version of what I’d be doing for senior leaders if I was on orders to work on this right now. Which I’m not because if I was I wouldn’t be able to do these posts.

  85. 85.

    artem1s

    I’m thinking Carter was right to boycott the Olympics even though it killed his re-election chances.

    Sixty-five countries that were invited to the 1980 Olympics did not participate for various reasons, including support for the boycott and economic reasons

    The concept of divestment was there, just much harder to make full economic sanctions work as Russia’s economy was less reliant on the West.  It took decades for divestment to end apartheid in South Africa and nukes weren’t a factor there. The pressures to end reliance on fossil fuels is never going to go away. The countries that figure out how to adapt to boycotting Russian oil during this crisis will be better positioned to adapt during the next crisis too, whether they boycott fully or partially. I hope Europe’s leaders can convince their people that the alternative to belt tightening now is to end up doing this all over again when Russia decides to go after Finland or Poland or someone else. Putin’s desperation may be as much about fear of the inevitable as it is playing out some manifest density phantasy. Of course the GOP will pretend having to put on a sweater in the winter is an unbearable hellscape.

  88. 88.

    Geminid

    Yesterday evening Secretary of State Blinken met with the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco and Israel. This “Negev Summit” was hosted by Israeli Foreign Minister Lapid. They had plenty to talk about, but the principal subject was probably mutual coordination on Iran policy after the expected signing in Vienna of a revived JCPOA limiting that country’s nuclear program. Working out a “strategic architecture,” as one optimistic analyst put it.

    Secretary Blinken must also have talked about the Ukraine war. Unlike his country, the other four have pursued a cautious line, declining to provide military assistance to Ukraine or otherwise hazard their their relations with Russia. Blinken’s State Department hasn’t made a big deal of this.

    Blinken may also have discussed his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank earlier on Sunday.

    I think Secretary Blinken is now off to Morocco and Algeria.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: There was an interesting article in Arab News about the “Negev Summit” that emphasized it’s symbolic aspect: this was the first meeting of its kind since Bahrain and Morocco established formal diplomatic relations with Israel for the first time, after 74 years of non-recognition.

    The Arab News article treats the JCPOA question, and also emphasizes another focus of Blinken’s trip: plans for alleviating a grain shortage that could hit North African and other countries hard.

  90. 90.

    Lyrebird

    @AndoChronic: Glad my attempt to agree with you came across that way.

    Even with good intentions, it’s hard to talk about different atrocities in a way that is fair.  And tbh I do not necessarily assume that social media hot takes saying oh our forces do just as bad stuff are made with good intentions.  But probably some are.

    Again, it’s harder but so important to keep perspective, to acknowledge that My Lai was a crime, and that for instance Central Am. forces did commit war crimes with our training and support, and also acknowledge that it’s different to have committed over 5 My Lai’s in one month, and it’s different to have a military that encourages war crimes as standard operating procedure.  Right here is one citizen who is thankful that our military forces in clude you, and have included Omnes and Kos and many other people willing to do what’s harder.

    Thanks to @Adam L Silverman: for the numbers!

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    Dear Adam,

    Wanted to say thank you for your work on this international war crime scandal.

    I must confess, I skip over much of the horror descriptions at this point, it seems to be wall-to-wall horror anywhere the Russians are physically present, no surprise after reading about the torture methods the Red Army uses in welcoming new recruits into its rolls. Bully rules, all so horrible.

    Yet having the reports at hand is far better than not having them, even if I can’t stand to read them as closely as I did in the beginning. “War is hell,” to quote a famous general. Keep up the hard work, please!

  92. 92.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Adam L Silverman: IMO, the correct interpretation of Biden’s “gaffe” was that it was not a gaffe at all.

    US intelligence has very likely concluded that Putin will not accept any deal that returns Russian troops to their January 24 lines. The US and NATO have made the determination that no alternative  is an acceptable outcome of the war. From the West’s perspective, then, the only acceptable outcome (short of courting nuclear conflict, let’s not argue about that one) involve seeing to Putin’s removal.

    So it’s maximum pressure time. Russia is on notice. The sanctions are not coming off. There are no exits with Putin in power. And while I acknowledge your skepticism concerning sanctions, I’m pretty sure that there are many security, military, and economic officials in Russia who see a cataclysm on the horizon, due a few months from now. The incentives are in place, and the clock is ticking.

  93. 93.

    AndoChronic

    @Lyrebird: Thanks for the clarification. While My Lai was a stain on the U.S. and the military, among others, using that 54 year old reference as a standalone example is trite particularly in context to Russian troop behavior in Ukraine imo. That’s the way I read it. Sorry if that was not your intention. It’s becoming obvious that the Russian troops’ disgustingly barbaric behavior in Ukraine is in fact SOP. This by no means would ever fly in the U.S. military, or any other civilized country’s military. This is the point I’m trying to drive home to those who think otherwise. In my experience being on the moderate left and being in the military requires constant vigilance to protect both seemingly opposite sets of values, based on perspective. I wish it wasn’t like that. Perhaps Russia’s Naziesque behaviors in Ukraine helps instill a more grateful opinion of the U.S. military in certain circles and also helps our younger folks in the military understand how atrocities like Russia’s negatively affect people and societies for generations so as not to partake in them. Further, to also help them better understand how those atrocities run contrary to the core values military members seek to uphold. It’s cool, no butthurt on my end Lyrebird.

  94. 94.

    Lyrebird

    @AndoChronic: Hey, thanks for reading my longer reply, esp since my earlier one did indeed come across backwards.  FWIW seems to me a lot of us are stressed AF.

    Totally agree on your judgement of “trite”, but didn’t see for instance Abu Ghraib as a very useful comparison.  At any rate,

    In my experience being on the moderate left and being in the military requires constant vigilance to protect both seemingly opposite sets of values, based on perspective.

    I hope it can provide a laugh that in my experience being a liberal pacifist who also knows a little bit about geopolitical conflicts requires the same vigilance.  Glad for no butthurt.

  96. 96.

    Bill Arnold

    @Carlo Graziani:

    IMO, the correct interpretation of Biden’s “gaffe” was that it was not a gaffe at all.

    A variant on that is the notion that another part of the intent was to firm up Putin’s domestic political support; i.e. a form of political screw tightening saying roughly “We are not amateurs, look how we just, with a few words, made it harder for Russia to not collapse. Do not disrespect us.”
    Doesn’t matter whether it’s really true that people in the Biden administration(or associates) are playing 9D chess – these interpretations will occur to some players in Russia, especially the paranoid ones.

Comments are closed.