As the first day of the third month of Ukraine’s defense against Putin’s reinvasion begins, I want to clear something up from the comments from last night’s post. Just before 4 AM EDT, commenter bjacques posted the following comment:
I can’t even imagine a nuke being even tactically useful for Russia. Anywhere they dropped one the fallout would blow over Russia, Belarus, or even (if Odesa) into Transnistria, if weather reports are accurate. And what good is a land bridge if even your cannonfodder won’t cross the irradiated chunk of it? And Putin must know that’s a red line even for his most loyal cronies and guards.
Instead of spinning “what-ifs” to worry about Putin (Huylo) using nukes, I might as well spin them for the opposite, especially since I’m no expert and not paid to do either.
This was in response to my noting the reporting that the Russian Foreign Ministry has warned the Canadian government that the US is planning a WMD attack in Ukraine. The tweet that this was reported in listed chemical, biological, and nuclear. Since I’ve not seen the communique, I cannot say whether Russia warned about all three or just chemical and biological or just chemical or biological. I did comment that pretty much everyone responding to that reporting, including myself, interpreted it as Russia is planning a CBRN – chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear – attack in Ukraine. CBRN is a doctrinal term for any attack using one or more types of weapons within these four categories. It is used because WMD – weapons of mass destruction – is imprecise and usually misleading. We have plenty of conventional weaponry that can cause much, much more mass destruction than a lot of chemical and biological agents. Or even just a dirty bomb/radiological weapon.
I want to be really clear: I do not expect that Russia is going to just use a low yield nuclear weapon willy nilly in Ukraine. In fact I’m one of the people who has come to conclude over the years that the purposeful ambiguity in Russia’s military doctrine about the use of nuclear weapons is intended solely to freeze US and NATO decision making, thereby forcing us to take significant offensive options off the table, which allows Putin to then continue to do what he’s been doing since at least 2008. What I do think Russia is likely to do, based on how Putin has waged war in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Libya, and since 2014 in Ukraine, is use chemical and/or biological weapons. The only reason I think Putin would use nuclear weapons in his reinvasion of Ukraine is if, as I’ve stated several times, he reaches the conclusion that he cannot take it, he cannot occupy it, he cannot destroy it using conventional weaponry as part of his “if I can’t have Ukraine, no one can” fixation, then, and only then, would he use nuclear weapons. And that’s based more on the decision to do so fitting with his self-deluding understanding of and relationship to Ukraine than on anything in Russian military doctrine.
I apologize for the confusion! And that it kept bjacques up till 4 AM EDT! Get some rest!!!!
Here’s tonight’s address from President Zelenskyy. The transcript will follow after the jump.
Unbreakable people of the bravest country in the world!
Today the third month of our war for our independence began. Russian-Ukrainian war. The third month!
On February 24, most in the world did not even believe that we would withstand more than a week. Someone said – three days. A month ago, we still had to convince different countries that betting on Ukraine means winning. And now… Now everyone knows it.
Thanks to the courage, wisdom of our defenders, thanks to the courage of all Ukrainian men, all Ukrainian women our state is a real symbol of struggle for freedom. Everyone in the world – and even those who do not openly support us – agree that it is in Ukraine that the fate of Europe, the fate of global security, the fate of the democratic system is being decided. And above all, it is being decided what life in the center and east of our continent will be like and whether there will be life at all.
Bucha, Borodyanka, Hostomel, Okhtyrka, Chernihiv and Sumy, Izyum, Kharkiv, Volnovakha, Zolote, Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, Popasna and Mariupol… Missiles aimed at Odesa and Kramatorsk, Zhytomyr, Lviv, Kremenchuk and Kryvyi Rih… In all Ukraine’s cities and communities, Russia has shown what it really wants and can bring to Europe. What it can bring to Chișinău, Tbilisi, Helsinki, Vilnius, Warsaw, Prague, all the cities and countries that Russian state propagandists have long openly identified as alleged enemies for Moscow.
Russia has launched an offensive against Ukraine in many directions. Missile strikes, air raids, artillery, tanks – everything! Russian troops did not spare anything, any means to kill us, kill Ukrainians and destroy our land.
In two months, they used more than 1100 missiles against us. Countless bombs and artillery. They tortured, robbed, executed. They mined our land. Peaceful cities and villages were turned into hell. Some Ukrainian cities and communities were destroyed to the ground. But they did not achieve anything. And they will not achieve.
Kherson, Kakhovka, Melitopol, Dniprorudne, Enerhodar and our other cities where the Russian occupiers temporarily entered didn’t obey them. People showed with their protest their attitude towards the occupiers, showed that Ukraine will definitely win.
Russia wants to play a sham “referendum” somewhere on our land? Even if they try, it will be as shameful as everything else that was “created” in Moscow for the occupation of Ukraine.
Kharkiv region, Donetsk, Luhansk – the Russian military didn’t see even the slightest support they had hoped for anywhere. But they saw that it is a completely different state. They saw that there are completely different people here. People who are confident. Who believe in their state. Who know how to respect others because they respect themselves. Who do not want to capture someone else’s land, but will not give anything of their own. Who will protect every city, every street, every field.
In two months of hostilities 9 thousand 781 defenders of Ukraine were awarded state awards. The title of Hero of Ukraine was awarded to 142 of our defenders.
Ukrainian men and women have shown a truly massive readiness to defend Ukraine. At any age, any property status, with any education – Ukrainian men and women equally stood up for the state.
This war has truly become a people’s war for Ukraine. And it showed that throughout our territory – from east to west, from north to south – the Ukrainian idea is equally strong, equally national.
As of this time, 931 settlements have already been de-occupied. Many cities and communities are still under the temporary control of the Russian army. But I have no doubt that it is only a matter of time before we liberate our land.
Russia can spend enormous resources to support the war. To oppose even the whole free world. It can take away from its people everything that could develop Russia itself, and direct this potential to destroy the lives of neighbors.
But the lessons of history are well known. If you are going to build a millennial Reich, you lose. If you are going to destroy the neighbors, you lose. If you want to restore the old empire, you lose. And if you go against the Ukrainians, you lose.
A global anti-war coalition was formed in two months. Sanctions have already been imposed on Russia, which have taken away its future. Ukraine receives assistance from dozens of countries. This is support in the form of weapons, finances, necessary goods, political support directly.
We are accelerating our movement to the European Union as much as possible. We have already passed a historic moment, an important stage – with the receipt and answering a special questionnaire, which was provided to each country before they acquired the status of a candidate for EU membership.
Even now, when the war is still going on, we are creating the necessary base for the reconstruction of Ukraine. These are international agreements of various levels, this is the creation of special funds for the reconstruction of our state.
Even now, when Russia is still trying to seize our territory, we are demonstrating that we will give free Ukraine more opportunities for development than Russia can give not only to the occupied part of our territory, but also to its own territory, its own state.
It is obvious that every day – and especially today, when the third month of our resistance has begun – everyone in Ukraine is concerned about peace. About when all this will be over. About when and what can be a victory for Ukraine.
There is and at the same time there is no simple answer to this question. When we gain a victory, everyone will feel it. When peace comes, everyone will see it. But for this to happen – and happen faster – we need to think not about when and what it will be. We must think every day about how to make the stay of the occupiers on our land even more unbearable.
Ukraine is ready for peace. It was ready even when the war was going on in Donbas. It is ready even now, when the Russian invasion has become full-scale.
But for Russia to seek peace, every Ukrainian must still fight. They must defend freedom. Because every day of struggle now adds years of peaceful life after this war. After our victory.
As always, before delivering the address, I signed decrees awarding our heroes. 269 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and 9 servicemen of the Main Intelligence Directorate were awarded state awards.
Eternal glory to all who stood up for the state!
Eternal gratitude to all who help us endure!
Eternal memory to everyone who gave life for Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here’s the daily operational update from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense:
The operational update regarding the russian invasion on 18.00 on April 25, 2022
The sixy-first day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to a russian military invasion continues. A russian federation continues its full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine.
russian enemy continues to carry out offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone in order to defeat the Joint Forces, establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and maintain the land route with the occupied Crimea.
russian troops, including strategic bombers, ships and submarines, are launching missile and bomb strikes on military and civilian infrastructure. They are trying to destroy the ways of supplying military-technical assistance from partner states. To do this, concentrate strikes on railway junctions.
russian enemy continues to increase the long-range air defense system by moving additional anti-aircraft missile systems from the territory of the russian federation, trying to create stocks of ammunition, logistics and special engineering equipment.
The russian command does not stop searching for ways to replenish personnel losses in units directly involved in the war on the territory of Ukraine.
There were no significant changes in the Volyn, Polissya and Siversky directions. No signs of enemy offensive formations were found.
In the Slobozhanshchyna region, Kharkiv is being partially blocked, its infrastructure is being destroyed, and the positions of the defenders of the Kharkiv region are being destroyed with the use of aircraft and artillery.
In the area of the city of Izyum, the enemy tried to improve the tactical situation in the directions Andriyivka – Zavody and Dibrovne – Kurulka. Carries out measures of logistical support of the group of occupiers.
In the Donetsk and Tavriya directions, russian enemy, intensifying shelling with available means of fire destruction, tried to advance deep into the territory of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Koroviy Yar and Rubizhne, to develop an offensive in the direction of Zaporizhzhia. It was unsuccessful and suffered losses.
In Mariupol, including strategic bombers, ships and submarines enemy continues to destroy the city, blocking locals and some of our defenders in the area of the Azovstal plant.
In the South Bug direction, russian enemy is concentrating its main efforts on the Kherson-Mykolayiv and Kherson-Kryvyi Rih directions. Conducts regrouping of troops, consolidates on the ground, strengthens the grouping of barrel and jet artillery, accumulates ammunition and fuel.
In the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, in the urban-type settlement of Velyka Oleksandrivka, the occupiers announced to the local population that it was necessary to leave the settlement by April 28. Forced evacuation will be applied to residents who do not comply with the order.
In the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia oblast, in the city of Enerhodar, employees of the Federal Security Service of the russian federation continue to carry out filtration activities.
In the temporarily occupied territories of Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts, the occupiers are engaged in looting, theft and robbery of the local population. Particular attention is paid to the “removal” of alcoholic beverages and food.
Ukrainian defenders are defending and inflicting losses on enemy troops in areas where active hostilities continue.
We believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Let’s win together! Glory to Ukraine!
Here’s today’s assessment from the British Ministry of Defense:
And here’s their updated map for today:
As you can see the Russians are still pushing on the salient formed by the Ukrainian Joint Force Operation’s lines between Izium and Luhansk. You’ll notice one change from yesterday to today is a strike just south of Kramatorsk. I saw one report by someone using their own name who is doing and posting their own maps of the war that Russia has broken through the Ukrainian lines near Izium and is trying to cut the railway lines to the Donbas. I’ve yet to see this reported elsewhere and while I appreciate that the person who posted it uses his own name, is legit – as in I can validate what he claims about himself working in the nat-sec world – and claims to be working off of updated Google Earth and other open source satellite imagery, until this is verified by even more credible sources, this is something to be concerned about, to keep in mind, but not to freak out about. Yet.
While I wouldn’t expect them to give away too much, this is what the Ukrainian MOD said about the fighting in the Izium area, copied and pasted from today’s operational update:
In the area of the city of Izyum, the enemy tried to improve the tactical situation in the directions Andriyivka – Zavody and Dibrovne – Kurulka. Carries out measures of logistical support of the group of occupiers.
Given that the Russians are trying hard to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure, it would not surprise me at all that they would try to disrupt the rail lines linking Ukraine to the Donbas. They did this today:
Five train stations in Central and Western Ukraine hit by Russian missiles this morning, officials said. Clearly an attempt by Russia to disrupt logistics, make weapons delivery more difficult and intimidate civilians who evacuate by rail
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) April 25, 2022
There was no DOD background briefing today, at least if there was one the transcript hasn’t been posted yet because everyone is traveling back from Ukraine. There was one yesterday, but it largely dealt with the trip and the meetings and what was discussed that could be revealed on background.
Also, I’m not sure most people realize just how big Secretary Austin is!
This is more than partnership of state officials – this is true brotherhood.@SecDef@SecBlinken
????? pic.twitter.com/LDKZBuOIBs— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) April 25, 2022
Mariupol:
— Andrei Kurkov (@AKurkov) April 25, 2022
Ielyzaveta and Sonia. Two little angels, actors of a theater in #Mariupol. They performed in "The Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion,the Witch&the Wardrobe" staged in that theater.
No longer will they perform. #Russian bombs have killed them.
Heartbreaking.
R.I.P.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/dPEYcLeWDb— Emine Dzheppar (@EmineDzheppar) April 25, 2022
Ukrainians displaced from Mariupol:
Just want to share Kyrylo Dolimbayev's pic. Volunteers you guys helped feed Mariupol refugees with some tasty homemade post-roast today. This is the same guy whose PayPal I shared recently: [email protected]. we all helped.him to buy a car to transport aid. pic.twitter.com/qihSgCqPvA
— Nika Melkozerova (@NikaMelkozerova) April 25, 2022
- Just wanted you to be sure that the money you donate to Ukrainian volunteers get to those in need. We are mostly fine and honest people. Thank you all for your help
- Here you can find more pictures of them reporting what was done for Mariupol residents. facebook.com/10000180936247
Kharkiv:
Source: https://t.co/9fzlC5WVeW
— Alexander Khrebet/Олександр Хребет (@AlexKhrebet) April 25, 2022
Today is exactly two months since Russia started its devastating war and invaded Ukraine. February 24 divided the lives of millions of Ukrainians into before and after. This video is from the center of Kharkiv today. Devastated and deserted. pic.twitter.com/sqqbuYLx5b
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 24, 2022
Odesa:
Yesterday he lost his 3 month old daughter, wife and mother in law in a Russian missile strike
We found Yuriy Glodan trying to salvage his memories from the rubble of the building
He wanted the world to hear about his family
Producer: @OLaceEvans https://t.co/xkxTsbWwcf pic.twitter.com/YKa8DyvKi5
— Caroline Davies (@caroline_gm_d) April 24, 2022
From the BBC:
Yuriy Glodan had only left his flat and family to go to the shops when he heard the news of the explosion.
At the entrance to his block of flats he screamed at police to let him inside the burning building. When he reached his flat, he found the bodies of his wife and her mother, killed by a Russian missile that had ripped into the lower floors of the block.
The body of his three-month-old baby Kira was discovered later; he saw it for the first time when he returned to the flat on Sunday.
The deaths – three generations of a single family – have sparked outrage and revulsion in Ukraine, a country already hardened by two months of war.
Commenting on the strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky was visibly upset when speaking about baby Kira’s killing.
“How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is just a new national idea of the Russian Federation,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly address to Ukrainians. He described those who had planned and carried out the attack as “bastards”.
Five others were also killed in the missile strike.
Yuriy was in the wrecked building on Sunday to find what he could salvage from the apartment. Photo albums, his wife’s sugar sachet collection, handwritten notes. He found his baby’s stroller in pieces.
“If I leave things in the flat, it will become garbage and people will throw it away,” he told the BBC. “I want to keep it for my memories.”
He and Valeria had been a couple for nine years.
“She could find joy in everything. Odesa was her favourite city. She worked in PR and she could communicate with a lot of people, understand them. I admired what a good writer she was,” he said.
“She was a great mother, friend, with all the best qualities. It will be impossible for me to find somebody else like Valeria. She was perfect. Such a person could be given to you only once in a life and it’s a gift from God.”
Kira had been born at the end of January, just a month before the start of the war.
A few weeks after that, Valeria had posted on Instagram that she was living with “a new level of happiness” after the birth of her first child. “Our girl is one month old now,” she wrote. “It has been the best 40 weeks.”
Much more at the link including pictures of Yuriy, Valeria, and Kira in much happier times!
Russia’s intelligence services fabricated a plot to assassinate Russian state TV loudmouth Vladimir Solovyov. And then they stopped it!
Obligatory!
Unfortunately for the FSB and fortunately for everyone else’s amusement, they did not do a good job fabricating the plot.
Russian FSB has fabricated a "plot" to kill Russian TV propagandist Solovyov. Allegedly by Ukrainian SBU and Nazis. One of the "evidences" is neonazi inscription on a book. Signed by "Signature unclear". Yes, FSB got an order to sign it with a "signature unclear" – and did so! pic.twitter.com/P1vnDOXOIB
— Sergej Sumlenny (@sumlenny) April 25, 2022
Hyper-literalism is the enemy of all clandestine operations! Also, stupidity!
It is also currently assessed that the Russians did run a false flag attack earlier today in Transnistria, which is the breakaway/separatist region of Moldova that borders Ukraine.
I’m sure we’ll never hear the end of this though. Julia Davis’s twitter feed is likely to be the hardest hit because she’s going to have to document and translate Solovyov milking this on air for weeks to months.
Speaking of Julia Davis, we now know what the Z symbol the Russians are putting on their tanks means, as well as the pro-Putin/pro-war movement that’s grown up around the symbol:
This clip also explains what the "Z" is supposed to symbolize: two number 7s stacked (one of them upside down), representing 77 years since Victory Day. So, to celebrate the ending of WWII Putin decided to start a WWZ. https://t.co/WOvki2nChj
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) April 19, 2022
Here’s something interesting from Mikhail Khordokovsky:
“Your choice is either defeat Putin on the territory of Ukraine, or later… on the territory of one of the Nato countries”
Exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky says President Putin believes “he is already at war with Nato and the US”
https://t.co/zMThAoAT1b pic.twitter.com/LJc6zcUfjM— BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) April 22, 2022
Who could have ever imagined? Eez a puzzlement!
Here’s an interesting thread from the Prime Minister of Estonia:
Born under Soviet occupation, I had never experienced freedom. Now I can stand here and breathe that same air of freedom.
If we do everything to help Ukraine, there will be no 11-year-olds for whom the air of freedom is something they only experience from a distance. 2/8 pic.twitter.com/69gQnNtHkO
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) April 25, 2022
It is made up of excerpts of the speech she gave to the 16th Berlin Speech for Freedom:
Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, 25.04.2022
Dear guests, dear friends
I am honored to be here today. I was in Berlin for the first time in 1988 as an eleven-year old. Perestroika had begun and for me it was a miracle that we could go to East Germany, a foreign country. My father took me along with my brother to as close to the Brandenburg Gate as possible to have a look at the Wall. I vividly recall him saying: “Kids, breathe in deeply – that’s the air of freedom that comes from the other side.”
At the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant. It is said that you only appreciate freedom when it’s taken from you. But as a child born under Soviet occupation, I never had experienced freedom.
Soon enough, a wind of change began to blow, tearing down the Wall in Berlin as well as elsewhere in Europe. And I was able to breathe this air of freedom also at home.
30 years ago when Estonia managed to get out of the totalitarian prison in 1991, I was a teenager. What was a turn, die Wende, for you was a revolution for us.
After regaining independence and freedom Estonia had a difficult task: to build a free and open society, a parliamentary democracy. This was not an easy task – despite relief that people were finally free.
Re-establishing a democratic relationship between the citizen and the state is not something you do overnight and it is nothing you can learn from books.
Our way to freedom was accompanied and supported by many friends from the free world. Here Germany had a special leadership and support. Allow me to make some links in this regard.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union we first had to rapidly establish a new social contract and anchor this agreement in our constitution. While drafting our Constitution in 1992, Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Constitutional Court at that time, was an expert drafting the chapter on fundamental freedoms, rights and duties – in fact, the proportion of this chapter speaks for itself as it amounts to more than quarter of the whole text.
The German legal system formed the foundation while re-establishing central parts of our private, criminal and general administrative law. This also means that a whole generation of Estonian lawyers, myself included, studies German legal practice. Moreover, it is German Rechtstheorie that forms the basis of an introductory class of first-year law students in Estonia.
Another milestone on our road to freedom was monetary reform carried out by my father Siim Kallas. Free Estonia had to have its own money – in 1992 the Estonian kroon was re-introduced. With the blessing of the Bundesbank, we tied the Estonian kroon to the German Mark – the most suitable anchor currency which provided an additional guarantee to our own currency’s stability. This monetary reform is considered by the IMF to be one of the most successful in its history.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Russian aggression against Ukraine has forced us to think about what freedom means for each and every one of us. And how fragile it can be. And what it takes to safeguard it.
At this dark hour in Europe, the importance of keeping our own democratic house in order is more acute than ever. We need to take care of the democratic relationship between the citizen and the state. As much as it is the individual responsibility of every citizen to care for democracy, it is the leaders who are responsible for keeping the rights of individuals and the rule of law at the center of governance. Leaders must also safeguard strong institutions in support of it.
This is often not self-evident. Attacks on democratic institutions are on the rise – from within our own democracies as well as from outside. And a Rechtsstaat with strong institutions is important, however, not sufficient for safeguarding freedom from an outright aggressor.
I speak to you here in Berlin when the regime in the Kremlin is destroying its neighbor Ukraine and tries to conquer the second largest country by area in Europe. It is only 1400 km from here that Russia is shelling a European capital.
When I was breathing in the air of freedom back in 1988, both Estonians and Ukrainians were on the wrong (evil) side of the wall. Today, the Kremlin tries to build another wall to divide Europe and this time Estonia is lucky enough to be at the free side. The same cannot unfortunately be said for Ukraine.
Times like these make us look back to brave decisions in our past. I praise the decision-making courage of our leaders and those of the free world who made it possible for so many Central and Eastern European countries to reintegrate rapidly with Europe.
Speaker of our erstwhile parliament, the Supreme Council of Estonia, Ülo Nugis said already in 1991: “As political and historical experience has shown, neutrality did not guarantee our security. This may not guarantee our security even today, especially in view of the possible processes in the Soviet Union.” He said it in reference to the 1930s when the young Estonian republic tried to balance between two evil empires. This ended with losing our statehood for 50 years. Hence, it was only natural that in the 1990s our foreign and security policy focus was set on joining EU and NATO. We decided that we are never alone again.
The free world, including Germany, played a key role in restoring our country and place on the world map. And it is no secret that to many, the weight and boldness of those decisions at that time have only become apparent now while witnessing Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Current dangerous and tragic times also reveal how democracy matters. And how liberties and freedoms matter. Why is Russia fighting the war in Ukraine? It started when Ukraine chose its democratic path. Russia does not want freedom and democracy to prevail. It is direct threat to dictatorship. Because in democracy 1) governments are held accountable at elections; 2) state should deliver for the people and not for the dictator or its cronies.
When we look at Russia we see darkness – fear is keeping its society together. And we see thousands fleeing the country. We know this fear. Fear of secret police who seize people in the middle of the night or arrest them only for holding up placards in public squares, fear of the constant distrust, fear to express your opinion, fear of the atrocities that might follow. Tens of thousands of Estonians fled this same tyranny after the World War Two.
While Ukrainians are defending the freedom they have built, the Russian killing machine wishes and I cite: “to change the bloody and false consciousness of a part of today’s Ukrainians”. These are the words of Dmitry Medvedev. The Kremlin and Putin have made it clear by their statements that their aim is to wipe Ukraine off the world map.
“Denazification” is the official Russian label of this policy of destruction of the Ukrainian state and its people. The word “Nazi” is used to justify its aggression and genocidal and fascist policies.
How is this possible? I say that history matters. Although the Soviet Union collapsed, its imperialist ideology never did. While our history books were rewritten after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this was not the case in Russia. While the crimes of Nazism have been unequivocally condemned in the whole world, this has not been done with the crimes of Communism. Instead, Putin has built a strong revival of Stalinism and as a result the opinion polls suggest that 70 percent of Russians approve of Stalin and his policies. If people admire dictators, there is no moral obstacle to becoming one or submitting to one.
The warning signs were there: imperial nostalgia, in fact Russia kept the Soviet anthem, the narrative of Russian victimhood combined with heavy anti-Western propaganda while closing down free media. And we witnessed Putin’s wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Donbas and Crimea.
Looking back to the past signs, a return to war and aggression seems inevitable. There is a clear pattern in Russia´s road to totalitarianism. This road to tyranny is symbolically captured by the man who was recently arrested in Moscow for standing on the street holding Tolstoy’s book “War and Peace”.
The past Putin´s wars illustrate why he must not win this one and why Moscow cannot be allowed to pretend that it has gained anything in the process. We have let Putin get away with aggression several times before. We can’t let him get away with it again now. Were that to happen, his appetite would only grow, and more atrocities and more human suffering would follow.
Putin’s strategic aims have not changed. The suffering and devastation in Ukraine is far from over. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal says: If Russia stops fighting, there will be peace. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine.
We have reached the moment where we should have courage to say: Ukraine must win this war. And we must act accordingly. Freedom must be armed better than tyranny.
Dear listeners,
We are in this for the long haul and we need to hardwire these profound changes into a long-term new policy vis-à-vis Russia. I have labelled it as a Policy of Smart Containment.
That means we need to continue support Ukraine’s fight for freedom, while building up pressure against aggressor with further sanctions and political and economic isolation. This also means that we need to make a huge leap forward when it comes to our own defence. NATO´s defence in the Baltic Sea region needs a substantial change. We need significantly more combat-ready troops stationed in the Baltic States, more fighter-jets in our skies and ships in the Baltic Sea.
We also need to have a very clear understanding – Putin and all of those who have committed war crimes have to know that their judgment day will come.
It is clear that after all these atrocities there should be no way back to business as usual with Putin´s Russia. In fact, there should be no business at all. Russia should have no seat at the table of international organisations and bodies that are based on the respect of international law. It’s high time for everyone to use their moral compass. The Kremlin needs to feel it is isolated.
The free world should follow the motto: “When the facts change, I change my mind”. We have seen huge and historic turnarounds. Also here in Germany. However, as long as this aggression is not stopped, we have not done enough.
One of our main areas of focus should be on drying up the Kremlin´s war machine – revenues from hydrocarbons lie at the heart of it. I understand the difficult choices leaders in democracies face today. I understand that rising inflation — in particular a surge in the cost of energy —could mean that economic difficulties at home overshadow the suffering of Ukrainians.
Gas might be expensive, but freedom is priceless. It’s up to every government to decide how much of the burden its people are ready to carry. But it is equally necessary we get the message through to our people – what is our neighbor’s problem today will be our problem tomorrow. We are in danger, when our neighbor’s house is on fire.
Let me conclude with warning words by Russian dissident and chess world champion Garry Kasparov and I quote: “The price of stopping a dictator always goes up with every delay and every hesitation. Meeting evil halfway is still a victory for evil.” End of quote.
Hitting the right balance with policy is understandably one of the biggest challenges for democracies and for our freedom today. However, were this war to be lost, it would be not lost by Ukraine but us.
We know that goodness always triumphs over evil. This is also my life experience. While standing here now and breathing in deeply, that is the same freedom I was breathing in as an 11-year-old. And if we do everything to help Ukraine, there will be no 11-year-olds for whom the air of freedom is something they only experience from a distance.
Thank you!
Your semi-daily Patron:
#Ukrposhta announced the release of a new stamp – it will depict the #Ukrainian dog #Patron, the Jack Russell Terrier bomb-sniffing dog and mascot of the State Emergency Service of #Ukraine who is now helping rescuers clear mines in #Kyiv
This dog us a superstar ?? pic.twitter.com/fd93du2Bjv
— News from Ukraine (@uasupport999) April 24, 2022
And here’s a full image of the stamp:
We’ll finish with your semi daily Chef Jose Andres:
The people of Ukraine keep fighting no matter what! Nothing seems to stop them!….5 railway stations were hit again….where civilians trying to keep moving away from the war…..@WCKitchen #ChefsForUkraine https://t.co/v70ZWcaBvs pic.twitter.com/VvbCpgOYs7
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) April 25, 2022
Open thread!
Ishiyama
“He cannot be both tyrant and counselor. When the plot is ripe it remains no longer secret.”
Adam L Silverman
I’m off to walk the dogs. Back later.
Mike in DC
I think that using biowarfare agents would REALLY, in the post-pandemic era, piss people off around the world and blow back on Russia. I also tend to doubt that Russia could efficiently deploy chem agents en masse against enemy troops in the field, based on their track record so far.
The biggest concern is that the military’s hawks might prevail and get Putin to order a general mobilization, which would make things more difficult for Ukraine and take longer to win. They could also be trying to expand the conflict, though that seems like a murder-suicide level idea.
Martin
@Mike in DC: I doubt it’d be against troops. They use them against civilians. It’s how you avoid urban warfare – just gas the residents.
A nice heavy chemical agent would probably be quite effective in Mariupol if they’re holed up under the steel plant. That’s what the WWI chemical agents were good at – settling in the trenches. If Putin wants the city before May 9, probably the only way to get it at this stage.
Raven
@Martin: What did they use in the theater in Moscow?
Jay
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/beyond-call-dutch-arms-deliveries-to.html?m=1
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So, NBC attack on Zelenskyy’s home town Kryvyi Rih is up next?
Feathers
Ukraine should start putting out higher denomination value stamps intended for overseas collectors. They’d probably do very well.
As always, thanks. Not just for the news, but for the thoughtfulness of the uplifting bits at the end.
Betty
Let’s hope Putin keeps those troops and weapons on parade for a few months.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Generally believed to have been a narcotic like fentanyl or similar. But it was an enclosed space.
Mallard Filmore
Some background information on the preparedness of the Russian navy:
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/B5w3_bbMjq8
title: “Understanding the sinking of the Moskva”
(not about the Moskva, but informal videos of another ship, the corvette Mirage (sp ???) #432 during the Georgia war)
A comment that a viewer posted:
gene108
@Mike in DC:
The chemical weapons are for civilians hiding in basements.
That’s how they were used in Aleppo.
Jay
@Raven:
They were reliant on using the buildings HVAC system.
The steel plant is a massive complex of buildings and structures spanning over 15sq km.
West of the Rockies
@Martin:
I’m reminded of the final scene in the 70’s mini-series Masada… the Roman Legion led by Peter O’toole has caused the 900 Jewish people holed up in the mountaintop fortress to commit suicide rather than be captured and enslaved. A soldier brazenly declares, “To Rome the victory!”
An embittered and heartbroken O’Toole responds (in that magnificent voice), “The victory? We have won a rock in the middle of a wasteland on the shores of a poisoned sea…”
Putin will have won ruined land and worldwide loathing.
bookworm1398
@ Adam. Any thoughts on Austria’s announcement about the EU?
trollhattan
Found a conceptual cross-section of the spaces beneath the Mariupol steel factory. Helped me get a grasp of how the space is laid out and the size. One wonders how much supplies Ukraine laid in before the invasion, and what systems are in place–water, HVAC, electricity, etc.
Having worked in a steel mill I never considered it as a place to hide from baddies. But Antifa sure never found us there.
debbie
Once Putin’s been defeated, I hope the world considers getting rid of all nuclear weapons. Getting rid of many doesn’t seem to have made the world a safer place.
debbie
@bookworm1398:
What is it they announced?
Andrya
@debbie: They announced that Ukraine should not be allowed to join the EU. I cannot understand their thinking- can anyone explain it (the Austrian rationale) to me?
To me, it makes perfect sense sense that the Russian government doesn’t want UK in the EU- to have a neighboring, culturally similar country, where many people have Russian relatives, in the EU, would highlight how badly the Russian government is serving their people. But what is Austria’s problem?
Jay
@debbie:
Austria’s FM at a small EU Conference,
“Schallenberg, a member of the conservative Austrian People’s Party, told a conference a day earlier that the EU should not make Ukraine a candidate member at its June meeting and instead offer Kyiv “another path” forward in its relationship with the 27-member bloc.”
debbie
@Andrya:
There was nothing in a Google search, other than something a week ago about wanting to host war crimes trials. ??♀️
Mike in NC
Lavrov needs to join Putin at The Hague. Stinking fascist butchers.
Carlo Graziani
I honestly don’t understand the scenario that you’re describing here. Perhaps you should state it explicitly. It sounds as if you believe that Kyiv would be targeted with a strategic nuclear weapon, in the event of a Russian defeat in Ukraine.
I don’t believe that scenario.
debbie
@Jay:
That “another path forward” sounds like a very bad idea.
Jay
@Andrya:
it’s the Austrian FM, not Austrian Government policy, and as a “Conservative”, he’s tainted as pro-Russian.
JanieM
@Andrya:
From here.
Not endorsing, just quoting what I found via Google. There’s more in the article, including a statement from Ukraine in response.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
Adam believes that the only way Russia would use nukes is if Ukraine expels Russia and Putin is way more crazy than he appears.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: And everything in the book that miniseries is based on, other than the names of people and places, is complete fiction.
Adam L Silverman
@bookworm1398: Not surprised. I expect the Germans and the Austrians to do everything possible to keep Ukraine out of both the EU and NATO. Because it is interfering in their being able to do business with Russia.
eclare
@Jay: Gotcha, thanks.
Carlo Graziani
@Jay: “Use nukes” is too vague in this context. So far we have been discussing battlefield use of tactical nukes. That is not at all what Adam is talking about. It’s a very different scenario, with a very different-sized weapon, deployed very differently, and with very different global implications. So the distinction is rather important.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Pretty much.
Andrya
@debbie:
I got this with a google search for “Austria Ukraine EU”
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-704936
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: I only wrote about this in two or three posts over the past sixty-one days. In those I explained that my ultimate worry is that Putin comes to the realization that he can’t take Ukraine and because he’s pretty much working off the concept that if he can’t have Ukraine, than no one, including the Ukrainians can have it, then he’ll use lower yield nukes to just flatten whatever is left.
This is a concern. I think the if Putin can’t have Ukraine, no one can is a solid assessment of what is motivating him. What I don’t know and wouldn’t even know how to quantify is what he’ll do when it finally sinks in that he cannot have Ukraine and the Ukrainians aren’t going anywhere.
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, it made for compelling television in 1978. Oh well.
Andrya
@JanieM: My source (Jerusalem Post) described a bit more negative stance- but frankly, ANY negativism towards Ukraine right now strikes me as loathsome. Putler should not be fed a single tiny crumb of encouragement.
YY_Sima Qian
The gangsterism of Russian troops on display is pretty astounding (the LNR/DNR/Chechen cannon fodder presumably even worse?). The examples are far beyond ill-discipline or even policy of calculated cruelty, though surely policy through, at the very least least, continued official acquiescence.
Note, even ill-disciplined forces can still be effective on the whole. The Red Army troops during WW II (particularly 2nd echelons) were infamous for their poor discipline toward civilian populations everywhere they went, still ground the Wehrmacht, Waffen SS & Kwantung Army to dust. The problems of the current Russian Army run both wider & deeper.
RaflW
@JanieM: I am way less than a subject expert (I did visit Serbia in the spring of 2018, along with Hungary and Croatia on an organized tour of local human rights NGOs in each country).
This 2020 US State Dept report on Serbian human rights might, IMO, have something to do with Serbia’s very slow accession to the EU. I’d think there are economic reasons, and who knows what else. Serbia seems like it’s probably still about where UKR was before the election of Zelenskyy? Too much corruption and reliance on state power (?).
I do recall our tour organizers, who were not NGO folks but rather used to organizing ‘partner church’ visits to Unitarian churches in Romania, were deeply relieved when we crossed into Croatia and were done with Serbia. Completely seat of the pants but to many of us Ameros on the trip, Serbia felt the most edgy (though we met many lovely NGO folks there working like the dickens to help recent immigrants of all sorts, and Serbian women who had been victims of domestic violence).
More to the point, IMO: Austria is making excuses, or at least that conservative FM is (hope he doesn’t have the specific power to be a block!).
lashonharangue
@Adam L Silverman:
Given the crackdown on the FSB do you think this could have been a case of passive-aggressive compliance?
debbie
@Andrya:
Thanks. I was less specific.
debbie
@Jay:
And they only meant to “sedate” them, I’m sure. //
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: OK, but at this point in the war, that scenario doesn’t work anymore. To “flatten whatever is left” would require strategic warhead launches at Kyiv and Lviv, and by then maybe Odesa too.
This kind of scenario is totally beyond the line that brings NATO crashing down on them with everything. On all their subs, aircraft, on every asset within reach. It’s a suicide note.
YY_Sima Qian
@lashonharangue: That was my 1st thought when I saw the note, but passive-aggressive non-compliance will surely be punished anyway.
Redshift
This was really good:
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: A low yield tactical nuke set off in the heart of Kyiv would render the city non-viable to serve as the political/economic/cultural center of Ukraine, for quite a while.
Kent
I have a pretty good grasp of what chemical weapons are. I assume we are talking about the use of poison gas of the sort that was used in Syria. And I would expect that the Russians probably have stockpiles of various types of chemical weapons.
But what the fuck are biological weapons? And what sort of intelligence do we have that the Russians have biological weapons? What are these biological weapons and how do they work in a combat setting? What sort of biological weapons would the Russians conceivably use in Ukraine and to what end?
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes, but they would have to deliver it. And by the time the had lost the war, from pretty far away.
Kent
@Carlo Graziani: Is that an obstacle? They seem to have plenty of missiles and bombers capable of reaching Kyiv.
Ruckus ??
@Adam L Silverman:
This is a main concern. OK besides the death and destruction that happens before vova reaches that conclusion.
Given a nuclear standoff is not at all a pretty picture in this world, I wonder what the hell is going to stop vova. He’s already using weapons and tactics that show exactly that it’s his or no one’s.
He’s rather entrenched for an in-house takeover, and his supporting thieves are going to not want to give up their entitled positions any more than he is. It’s the mafia with nukes and an actual military (that seems to be getting it’s ass kicked).
I’m not sure the rest of the world can sit not so idly by and let this happen any longer.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
for the past 20 years, Russia is used to making vague end of the world threats, and getting accommodations as a result.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Cholera, Small pox infected blankets, lobbing animal carcasses into enclosed spaces, infecting drinking water supplies, anthrax, and so on.
piratedan
@Carlo Graziani: if Putin’s health is in decline ( as has been rumoured), and the news continues to suck without giving him even a fig leaf of a victory… He doesn’t strike me as the kind of leader that takes this in stride. I think we can put him in the category of believing his own bullshit and is certainly petty and vindictive enough to not give a shit abut any legacy and more than a fair chance of.. fuck all you guys, who gives a fuck if I kill everything?
The GOP has illustrated that their end game is them being in charge, everyone else does the needful for their entertainment and as long as there are women to make sammiches and bring intoxicants and fornicate with, the rest of the world can pretty much just go straight to hell.
bunch of sociopaths the lot of them
Jay
@Kent:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15646399/
Carlo Graziani
@Kent: These are not mix-and-match components. You can’t throw a tactical nuke out of a bomber window. And in any event, we are discussing the scenario in which the Russians are running away, having had their asses kicked to the point of skeletal damage. Why would you assume they could still blithely run a bomber over Kyiv with impunity?
Ruckus ??
@Carlo Graziani:
The only question I have is – how do you deal with an insane madman with a large military and weapons of mass destruction who has seemingly decided to go for broke?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: Anthrax is the biological weapon of choice, since it’s persistent and doesn’t spread person to person. The Soviets made a lot of anthrax.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
Russia has a full inventory of cruise missiles and short range ballistic missiles that are nuclear capable, able to hit anywhere in Ukraine from Russia or Belarus, or the Black Sea.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Carlo Graziani: Zelenskyy’s home town isn’t that far from the Russian border. Nuking it would be the kind of petty, viscous and pointless cheep shot the Russians are good for.
RaflW
Cheryl Rofer has a new thread up with some thoughts on two Russian history books she’s reading. I think it’s quite good.
Ishiyama
@Carlo Graziani: Where is the dividing line between tactical & strategic nukes? If the smallest tactical nukes are .01 – .02 KT, and Little Boy was around 15 KT, what does that imply for the harm caused? For Putin to devastate Ukrainian cities, he would need large enough bombs.
I’ve been to Hiroshima – it is just fine now.
Gin & Tonic
@YY_Sima Qian: But we’ve had smart people here saying that’s just poor training on the laws of war.
BeautifulPlumage
@Carlo Graziani: interesting which topics trigger you. Very interesting.
BeautifulPlumage
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: touche!
frosty
@Gin & Tonic: Yes we have, but that was some time ago. I think the continuing assault, rape, and looting of civilians by Russian troops is a good indication that it is policy not poor training.
It was a reasonable hypothesis at the time but times change.
BeautifulPlumage
@Carlo Graziani: these comments only make sense if the decision maker is acting rational. Putin seems to have veered into the irrational, basing decisions on flawed information.
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian:
I think it’s all of the above. The troops themselves are acting like animals, and are encouraged to do so by their superiors, there is no discipline, they’re behaving like an army in the 30 years war, looting, pillaging, raping & slaughtering as they go.
Putin’s previous wars have all been excercises in calculated cruelty, invoke terror in your enemies to cause them to submit, channeling Tamerlane, or sticking with the 30 years war – ‘Magdeburg Justice’.
Finally at the top is deliberate genocide, Putins psychotic attitude towards Ukraine, filtered down through mass indoctrination to the boots on the ground and the folks at home that Ukranians are monsters. And it is only right and proper to destroy monsters.
It’s not a war of conquest, it’s a war of extermination.
Kent
Sure, but how is anthrax going to help them take the Donbass, conquer Odessa, or hold a land corridor to Crimea?
I mean they could probably also use napalm to do WW2 firebombing of Ukrainian cities. There are a shitload of ways they can cause mass civilian casualties. They can also roll out Auschwitz style death camps and murder civilians on an industrial scale. But how does any of this help them actually make any strategic gains in Ukraine? All it would accomplish other than lots of dead civilians is permanent isolated pariah state status on the order of North Korea. How does any German government continue to buy gas from a Russia that is waging chemical and biological warfare on Ukrainian civilian populations? How does India even do that?
Carlo Graziani
I’d like to say again, with less heat (sorry guys) what I think is wrong with this discussion.
The Russians are doing very badly in the war. Very badly indeed. If we could hear their private councils, we would all learn vile oaths in Russian, I’m sure.
The Russian army has large stocks of horrifying nerve agents, abundant stocks of battlefield nuclear weapons, and field manuals that teach their officers that these are part of their available toolkit if they get into tactical/operational jams.
Russian military officers have also given abundant proof of being unburdened by moral qualms.
So there’s a puzzle: why haven’t they used their nuclear and chemical weapons already?
In my opinion, when bullies use restraint, it’s because there’s something that they are afraid of. I think I know what it may be.
Recall that in the weeks preceding the war, the Biden administration appeared to have the Russian National Security establishment wired for real-time sound and video, so good was their Intentions intelligence. So they had a lot of time to plan, and make policy for the war that they knew was coming. Under those circumstances, the key question to be asked, and answered, would be “what are the trigger conditions for NATO intervention in the war?”
The answer to that question cannot possibly be “no such conditions are conceivable”. On the other hand, the triggers must be set extremely conservatively, because you don’t want to risk burning down the world for frivolous reasons. Also, you have to set them so that you are very, very sure, when you see them, that it’s “go”, and not “uh, maybe”. You want all this thinking to have been done in advance, and documented, so that when the crisis comes crashing down on you, at least you don’t waste time with panic.
I think that those trigger conditions were most likely decided to be “battlefield use of NBC”. Basically because in that case, the worst has already happened.
The other, really important thing is not to make the”Dr Strangelove” mistake: as the eponymous doctor tells the Soviet Ambassador, “…the whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost IF YOU KEEP IT A SECRET! VY DIDN’T YOU TELL THE VORLD?”. The point of having such triggers, and really believing in them, is that they would have been communicated early and earnestly to the Russian political, military, and intelligence leadership points of contact in a consistent messaging pattern.
And that’s what I really think the Russians are scared of. Because the one thing that could really shut down the “special military operation” on very short notice is the USAF. If an NBC provocation invited NATO to give air support to turn back Russian offensives and support UA counter-offensives, it would probably look, from the perspective of Russian military personnel like a lot of their tanks, APCs, missile launchers, artillery pieces, radar installations, planes, ammo depots, and ammo dumps blowing up simultaneously without warning. They have no military counter to that, and if they invite that change, then the game changes in a way that spots their boxers. So, ambiguity, not so much.
Ishiyama
@Carlo Graziani: So if a well-informed, experienced voice like yours says virtually the same thing that a raw amateur like me was thinking, a lot of other people must think similar thoughts.
BeautifulPlumage
Question for Adam: if a military decides to use some form of CBRN how is that accomplished. I can’t imagine BTGs would carry tactical amounts of dangerous substances. Does this imply trained specialists who can go into a country at a specific target? I think in Syria it was drums of gases dropped in civilian areas, but I’m not sure how these things work.
Major Major Major Major
Oh but you left out my favorite part. They were obviously instructed to include multiple “SIMs” in the scene, i.e. cell phone account chips, but they left… three copies of The Sims!!!
BeautifulPlumage
Another observation about the “Ukrainian nazi” staged plotRussia staged a fake bust of alleged Ukrainian Nazi assassins, and the guy tasked with assembling the paraphernalia for the photo bought three copies of The Sims instead of three SIM cards
Carlo Graziani
@Ishiyama: I hasten to add, all of this is speculation. Of all the damp tea leaves, these seem the most likely ones to me. That’s all.
BeautifulPlumage
@Major Major Major Major: damn you Major4, beat me to it. I’m enjoying the stupidity of it all, though!
Carlo Graziani
@Major Major Major Major: Someone in the FSB is obviously trolling the Kremlin. That’s a masterpiece.
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
Military CBRN are generally specialized bombs, shells or missiles that can be utilized by regular forces.
In Syria, most of the chemical weapons attacks seem to have been improvised chlorine barrel bombs, dropped from helicopters.
They are not difficult to rig.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: That’s been the question for two months now, heck firebombings cities would at lest be an attempt to win the war by the Russians, unlike this stupid blow up orphanages shit they are doing now. No one has an answer beyond Putin seems to have turned Russia into a chamber of horrors.
Major Major Major Major
@Carlo Graziani: malicious compliance!
@BeautifulPlumage: go me hehe
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
President Joe Biden said early on that any use of CBRN weapons would be responded in kind.
BeautifulPlumage
@Jay: but you wouldn’t bomb a water reservoir with cholera, I assume. And Russia doesn’t control the airspace, so helicopters flying barrels seems risky. I genuinely curious about this.
(I’m genuinely….gah)
Ishiyama
@Carlo Graziani: In my experience, speculation often leads to significant insights. What will the other side do if?
Calouste
@Carlo Graziani: Someone here mentioned a book about a Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI who also did this kind of over-literal compliance/sabotage. I can’t remember the name, but I assume it’s currently checked out from the FSB library :)
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
were Russia to use CBRN, it would be an area denial weapon from artillery , as the RUF really doesn’t have the bomber force to deliver much more than singular war crimes.
They really aren’t “tactical” weapons any more, just terror weapons.
Omnes Omnibus
@Calouste: The Good Soldier Švejk
Jay
https://mobile.twitter.com/slaven_vujic
BeautifulPlumage
@Jay: I can see the bomb format for radiation/nuclear, but not chemical/biological. And, although a R/N bomb can be shot/dropped (?) by regular forces, wouldn’t that sort of shell be more carefully transported, etc? The current Russian troops haven’t instilled a lot of confidence by their actions so far.
What I’m getting at is how does the CBRN bombs get from secure (I hope) facilities to the proper launch point in the fog of war (and with Russia’s piss-poor comms)?
ETA and thank you for your reply at 83
grammypat
Don’t know much about Euromaidan Press, but, according to their twitter: “Ukrposhta plans to soon issue a postmark…“ to commemorate the destroyed Antontov-225 Mryia (world’s largest cargo plane and pride of Ukraine). The image was drawn by an 11yo girl, pre-invasion.
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
basically, they look like a regular shell/bomb/missile with colour coding to denote what they contain. They usually contain a small “bursting” charge to spread the contents, various fusing, with out the bursting charge being so hot as to destroy or inactivate the contents.
Omnes Omnibus
@BeautifulPlumage: US Procedure used to be that if a nuke was going to be used, it would be transported to the battery that was going to fire it by the battalion Special Weapons Officer (a senior LT or junior CPT with a stellar record). It would be transported in an inert state under heavy guard. Once at the firing point, the battery special weapons team (a small group of soldiers with stellar records) would arm and fuse the shell. This was/is a complicated procedure that was drilled often and was considered a “glass ball.” Not even the tiniest fuck-up was allowed. The best gun with the best crew in the battery would be picked. The firing data would be gone over multiple times before it was sent to the gun. At multiple steps during the process, two person codes would have to be checked to make sure that it was still moving forward.
I have my doubts about how well drilled the Russian army currently is in these procedures.
BeautifulPlumage
@Jay:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you both! I appreciate the knowledge.
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
they are also usually separately bunkered, with better security.
with chemical weapons, the handlers, usually wear CBRN suits, as many chemical weapons can corrode the shells, leading to leaks, so step 1 of entering a bunker is to “assume” it’s contaminated.
once “loaded out”, they are handled like any other bomb/shell/missile other than nukes.
YY_Sima Qian
@Omnes Omnibus: OT, but The Good Soldier Švejk comics was hugely popular for kids in China back in the 80s. However, it was not obviously from the comics that soldier was a Czech serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during WW I.
Ruckus ??
@Carlo Graziani:
I think you are correct.
However.
A country that acts like Russia is doing in a war that they started, that they seem to be unable to complete in anywhere near the timeframe they thought it would take and at a dramatically higher cost than they conceived, which has a leader who seems to be losing the plot completely and who has only yes men who will never tell him what’s what because they’d like to stay living, and who may be also going through some medical issues that might just occupy a sliver of his attention, is one of the world’s wealthiest men, who likes to have his picture taken bare chested riding a horse, is unlikely to think, do, say, order, believe in anything other than whatever the hell it is that he wants. And he seems to want Ukraine. The whole enchilada. Everything, lock, stock and barrel. He’s used to 100% getting his way, and now he’s not. He’s losing the war, business, any shadow of respect that he may have had is gone. He fucked the pooch, on live TV in front of the entire world and it hasn’t gone well, something he’s remarkably not used to.
My point of all this is that vova is not a rational human and he is getting less rational as the days go by and the losses mount up. You can’t think of him as a rational actor any longer. Because he’s not. What he might or might not do is a wild ass guess. But because he’s playing with millions of lives that he doesn’t give a shit about and because of that low level of rationality that he’s displaying, you can’t count on him being in any way reasonable. He may surprise us and change tomorrow. I’m not holding my breath.
bjacques
I am legend!
Seriously, my comment was mostly aimed at people before and during the re-invasion letting Putin cow them into abandoning Ukraine to his tender mercies. Thanks, and I recognize it’s a real concern that NATO and other allies are taking into account but still helping; Putin’s bayonet probes are finding more steel than mush (Scholz) lately—maybe even in the early days too, logistics being full of challenges even for the good guys.
I live in a foreign-speaking nation, so it’s almost 11 am here.
lowtechcyclist
@Major Major Major Major:
Reading about that, it felt like the writers of this timeline were riffing off of the rack in Monty Python’s “Spanish Inquisition” skit!
lowtechcyclist
Forgive my ignorance, but what’s the ‘R’ in ‘CBRN’ stand for?
ETA a totally facetious comment: the previous day’s thread had the war entering its third month. This thread has Ukraine’s defense entering its third month. Did its defense take yesterday off? Did Ukraine’s offense have the ball? Inquiring minds want to know!
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I think that the “R” stands for radiologic, i.e. “dirty bombs” whereby radioactive materials are spread explosively with a conventional explosive, not a nuclear one.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid: Thanks!
Chief Oshkosh
@Kent:
With Euros? Rupees?
They’ve hardly stopped now, after thousands of deaths, maybe tens of thousands, and rapes and torture.
Chief Oshkosh
@Ruckus ??:
Sounds like Shrub in Iraq…
wetzel
Good morning, everybody. Thank you Adam.
I believe the primary goal for Putin in launching the Ukraine War has been and continues to be reforming the totalitarian apparatus in Russia, but you can see statements in the Western media, ‘Now, Putin will be forced to mobilize!’, as if mass-mobilization is a set back. If the goal was to mobilize in the first place, then Putin’s models must already have accounted for the Ukraine War being a struggle.
Putin is following a recipe to bring Russia back under totalitarianism. I believe the purpose of the war is to shift Russia from an autocratic back to a totalitarian form of government. Genocidal brutality in Ukraine instills terror in Russia. Battlefield set-backs require national mobilization. Attacks within Russia call for investigation to root out ‘the rebels’. So that last step will be a purge. I think this is what is a happening, and successful completion of these steps represents the primary war aim, which is about Russia internally.
I think the second war aim is to try to draw the United States into a permanent fake war. It will be fake because neither side would ever be able to win without annihilating itself. Such a permanent, fake war will ensure the United States will become fascist over time, and it will ensure Putinism will be stable in Russia. If Putin is able to draw us into reciprocal violence, I don’t see how Trumpism won’t eventually win here, one of these elections, whether it is Trump or Desantos, Cotton, Hawley or some other. I believe the GOP and their base has been primed by a decade of influence operations by Russia.
For my part, I think Putin was aiming for a stronger stalemate in Ukraine where he could make the West stand by, helplessly, and witness genocide in Ukraine, to let it happen, or intervene, but Ukrainian valor is pushing the Russians out of Ukraine.
Now Russian propaganda is saying over and over again that Russia and NATO are at war. The claim feels like pleading. This is operational failure on Putin’s part, I think. He has to manufacture the war which would have happened more naturally if not for the Battle of Kyiv. NATO is not at war with Russia.
Could a nuclear detonation somewhere give the impetus Putin needs? We keep looking and failing to find a military rationale. You can’t make a case from Putin’s perspective, a particular destruction that results in a changed picture on the battlefield. That’s the wrong way to look at it. It would be for the spectacle, for all the honest world to feel.
I do not doubt that Russia will use a nuclear weapon soon. Perhaps the Moskva investigation is cooking up, and it will soon show it was an American secret weapon. If that fiction takes hold in Russian propaganda, it could be a tell of Putin preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon to sink an American carrier as retaliation. We would then have a calibrated tit-for-tat, and Putin could achieve his 2nd war aim. It would bring our carrier groups home to port and alter the balance between China and the United States. There is a sense where Russia has no choice but to perform as cat’s paw for China, anyway. What would we do then?
Gin & Tonic
@frosty:
Late in a probably dead thread, but no, it was not a reasonable hypothesis at the time. I have been saying sine the beginning that the Russian media (both mass- and social- ) space has been Radio Rwanda for years. Well-known analysts and commentators have been saying the same thing. The atrocities are *the point* of this war, which is not intended to achieve any recognizable military objective, but rather to eliminate Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a people. Anyone who has missed this is either dangerously naive or willfully ignorant.
See, this is why I’ve largely ceased commenting on this war on this site – people just blithely go on assuming things which are completely contrary to fact, no matter what gets posted by people who actually know and understand what’s going on.
Carlo Graziani
@Ruckus ??: Well, OK, but perhaps you can now see, from the framework that I’m trying to work from, why I might have seemed a little triggered.
I’m trying to use that framework, together with inputs from Adam and ideas from people in this group to get some kind of a handle on the question “how does this end?” When I can’t see how things fit together and I start asking for some clarifications, and precision in scenario specification, so that I can get to what’s not fitting, and no clarity comes back, I’m not very good at hiding frustration.
So here’s what doesn’t really fit: so far, in the context of this framework, the Russians—including Putin—are deterred. Because they have in fact been psychologically intimidated by a realistic threat, effectively communicated, that NATO will smash their combat power in the event that they cross certain very well-defined bright red lines.
Now we need to imagine some kind of Putinesque mini-Samson scenario, where upon the Russian army’s impending defeat and expulsion from Ukraine Putin orders some kind of punitive nuclear—say—strike at Ukraine.
Hence my first set of questions, trying to get at what this scenario might really look like. Nuclear artillery shells fired from the Donbas? City-buster warheads on cruise missiles (which the Ukrainians can shoot down, and are going to get better at defeating) or on ICBMs/SLBMs, lobbed at Kyiv and/or Lviv?
When I wrote “that’s a suicide note”, that’s precisely what I meant. Crossing the red line that has kept them in psychological subjection for the course of the war that far above threshold is asking for massive NATO retaliation, including the disappearing of their subs, flattening of their airfields, potentially even looking at some of the nuclear decapitation scenarios (no shit), because if things are really that far gone there are no second prizes, and yes, there are still people in DOD who are paid to think that way.
There are also people in the Russian armed forces who understand all of this extremely well, and who happen to actually control those nuclear weapons. And who, whatever Putin’s psychological state may be, seem to me unlikely to want to help him write weird Russian-version Gotterdammerung suicide notes.
I was very wrong about the likelihood of war. I hope not to be wrong about this.
wetzel
@Gin & Tonic: See, this is why I’ve largely ceased commenting on this war on this site – people just blithely go on assuming things which are completely contrary to fact, no matter what gets posted by people who actually know and understand what’s going on.
Why don’t you try presenting arguments with evidence? Justify your claims. If ethos and logos are absent, you aren’t persuading anybody.
For my part there are a half dozen different productive ways to analyze the war. There are different analytical traditions that show different truths within the light of different methods. Some may be more true or productive than others. Your ‘story’ of the Ukraine War isn’t all that productive or helpful. It doesn’t illuminate Russian intentions. They are inhuman monsters who want to murder all ‘Ukrainians’. Now you have stopped thinking.
Gin & Tonic
@wetzel: You must be new here.
wetzel
@Gin & Tonic: Dude, I’ve been on Balloon Juice so long I can remember when John Cole used to write about politics. More than twenty years I’ve been hanging around, though I never have commented too much, not really anywhere since the very early days of Kos and an old site Plastic that went away.
It’s been a discipline for me not to comment too much. It’s been that way since the start of the Internet. I’m my own boss, so I’ve got to manage myself a little bit.
Like you, I feel like I have things to say about Ukraine which are getting overlooked. My advice is if you feel that way, just keep saying it. Use evidence. Supply warrants for your evidence. Try starting a post with a counter-argument. Investigate premises in other people’s reasoning if you find they are flawed. You are not persuasive, simply to say ‘this is the truth’. That’s all I’m saying. Put some effort into building an argument if you want to persuade people.
wetzel
@wetzel:
For anonymous commentary to be possible, I think the discussion here at Balloon Juice are very good. I don’t agree with a lot of the analysis which sometimes seems to want to stay within a narrow plane of military analysis. I agree with you the strategic scope is broader than the plausible end-game settlements that are continuously put forward.
I think there is a genocidal impulse against Ukraine or the idea of Ukrainian people that accompanies formation of a consciousness maybe we can think of as Emperor of Inner Asia. For Kublai Khan, Stalin and now Putin, Ukraine is where the emperor feels an appendage rotting, like a gangrene in a leg or arm, because Ukraine is where the neighboring kingdoms are tempting local satrapies, where spies are entering, so purge of the Empire begins in Ukraine.
My belief, in terms of war aims, is that the purpose of genocide in Ukraine is primarily to institute terror in Russia, however. Stalin discovered how to do this and FSB still has the models they used. It is an apparatus for creating docile bodies. In Piaget’s cognitive development, if stimuli fit into your schemas, norms, roles, scripts etc., you can understand it. Just more facts. How do you understand your own army raping children? You cannot accommodate it. A cognitive restructuring occurs that distorts and damages the Russian spirit. This is the terror state. It is a form of government that involves forcing your own people to accommodate to the absence of humanity.
This aspect is what your analysis is missing. Just as revolutionary violence was the eschatological constitution of the Soviet subject, scientific totalitarianism constitutes itself through genocide and purges.
@Gin & Tonic:
RaflW
This overnight discussion got me wondering, is Russia using depleted uranium armor piercing bullets? If so, add another potentially hazardous byproduct/remnant for the Ukrainians to have to deal with after Russia loses.
wetzel
@wetzel: Anyway I am glad you commented. You claim came from a different point of view that’s been missing here. It made me have new ideas, and if anything came productive, it is because you got it started. Carlo is wrong. You are wrong. Adam is wrong. I am wrong. That guy on Twitter is wrong. We are all wrong.
debbie
@wetzel:
You cannot be serious. Step back and consider how callous you are coming across to someone with deep personal ties to Ukraine. Think how you are coming across with all this fucking dispassionate intellectualizing.
If G&T wants to point this out from time to time, shut and take it like a man. All of you.
wetzel
The main idea of this thread has been to envision a scenario in which Putin might use a nuclear weapon.
In a longer post above about Russian war aims, I put forward a scenario. Maybe it is getting lost in the shuffle, but I’m like Mr. T. I scare myself sometimes. I’d like to understand better how a situation like this would play out:
I’m like Mr. T. I quote myself sometimes!!!
wetzel
@debbie: What you say does not attach to me. That is cruel to say. I have devoted my entire life to understanding philosophy and science to be able to be helpful. If my tone is intellectualizing, I cannot help it. I try to write in an accessible way. We are in a spiritual war against scientific totalitarianism. We need a way to accommodate what is happening and gain efficacy over it or it will destroy us spiritually. I see my own family in the abattoir. We are all there. Putin is trying to bring the world under terror. That is the situation. I am attending to it with all of my focus. I am doing my best.
Ken Cox
@Gin & Tonic: “but rather to eliminate Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a people”
Even well before the invasion I thought that to be the case.
debbie
@debbie:
Shut up, not shut, goddammit.
debbie
@wetzel:
What we need to do is not set aside empathy for the more interesting and challenging opportunities for intellectualizing.
wetzel
@debbie: Where did I set aside empathy?
What do you mean intellectualizing?
Please
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@wetzel: It means she’s a doom porner Wetzel.
If you haven’t noticed a significant portion of the posters here just want sensualism.
Anyway, back to what you are saying.
You might be over thinking Putin. Most people adopt philosophy to justify what they did, not as a guide for that they are going to do. Putin really thinks like some gamertard, just drifts along reacting and going for the most awsome choice of the moment. One of the reasons Russia is in a mess it is in because each war he starts creates more problems he tries to hide with another war.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@RaflW: That would be unlikely since they are shooting at critical things like bakeries and babystrollers, which don’t require expensive APDU.
If I recall correctly from my gamer days, Russians preferred anti tank round is HEAT.
Not to mention whole region is a bit radioactive because of Chernobyl.
debbie
@wetzel:
Start with this response of yours:
Maybe my empathy has overwhelmed my brain and made me stupid, but this is like asking a drowning man to enumerate 50 reasons why you should throw him a lifeline.
How can you ask someone actively and currently experiencing the loss of loved ones and the destruction of a loved place to present any kind of evidence? Why can’t you just take his fucking word for it???
I have to go have a cow.
wetzel
@debbie: That is cruel and unfair. The commenter deplatformed the entire forum and spat in our faces. My reply was to invite them to make an actual argument, to justify their claim with reason. I don’t care how you feel about it, honestly. I think you do not understand the emotional pain you inflict when you accuse someone of what you have accused me. I don’t apologize for anything I’ve written, though now I do have a thorn in my side about it. I’m going to go play with my dogs.
Abc123
A number of commenters here don’t seem to know…in a visceral, punch to the gut way…what genocide is. You all are fortunate.
Bill Arnold
@Abc123:
Thank you (for that comment).
Gin & Tonic
@wetzel:
What the fuck are you smoking?
Bill Arnold
There are at least a 1/2 dozen different escalation steps that Russia could take short of action that could trigger a global thermonuclear war. Gah. Even most of those steps would be breathtakingly stupid moves. Also, please do recall that Putin can give orders, but the military controls the weapons, and they have families and other loved ones, and some of them care about Russia rather more than Putin does.
(You have no clue how angry you made me with your blithe speculations about use of thermonuclear weapons. And ask yourself why there has been no thermonuclear war for 60+ years.)
sempronia
@Calouste: Amelia Bedelia?
Abc123
@Bill Arnold: Dead thread but good place to vent without giving any more attention to certain remarks.
What infuriated me was the comment about “ a story you’re telling yourself” (way too close to “alternative facts”) and the unbelievably even more ridiculous remarks about doom porn and sensualism (WTAF???)
If your family has been through the Holocaust, Holodomor, Milosevic, and now, again, Ukraine, these are NOT anything other than devastating facts. Discussions about what, why, how, and what’s next are vital as a way of survival, of hoping to identify where and when the next threat is coming from and how to deal with it, not a mere intellectual exercise done in quiet rooms.