So much happening in Ukraine, even since last night.
I don’t want to step on Adam’s toes, so I am not about to put up a Ukraine post with lots of information, but I can give you a place to talk about it.
Have at it.
Also, I just notice an Anne Laurie that was scheduled for about 30 minutes ago, so I’ll put that one up in a couple of minutes, too.
zhena gogolia
🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
just hope the Russians don’t Have anything up their sleeves
MattF
@zhena gogolia: They’d need to stop retreating first.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, something like 1% or maybe 3% of me keeps piping up (in my head) and wondering if the Russians can be this bad or do they possibly have something up their sleeves.
*and by this bad I mean this incompetent. I am already aware of how bad / evil / awful they are.
lowtechcyclist
@MattF:
FTFY, sorta. ;-)
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
I try not to be overly optimistic because I know there is still a long road, and who knows what garbage the russians might pull, but…I’m hoping soon we can update this one to say Ukraine instead of Kyiv.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
From the beginning, I have commented on how bad the Russians seem to be a common soldiering tasks. Maintenance of vehicles, care for weapons, taking care of soldiers, etc. This is where being good at just being soldiers would have especially benefited the Russians. Good soldiers can conduct an orderly withdrawal (even though it is difficult). Bad soldiers break and a withdrawal becomes a retreat and then a rout. Well, there you have it.
HumboldtBlue
Just saw report Uk have entered Donetsk airport. And as Omnes pointed, a trained and competent army can withdraw in an orderly fashion, and the Russians ain’t that.
Never a bad time for an old meme to be adopted to Ukraine.
Frankensteinbeck
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Corruption. Right there. Russia is one of the most corrupt countries on Earth. When something is being skimmed off the top at every single level, by the time you get to the boots on the ground level you paid for a diamond and got a lump of shit. See: The Russian Olympics.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: And I couldn’t be happier!
Betty Cracker
Was just reading an article about this in Reuters — it’s stunning. An excerpt:
Slava Ukraini
@Frankensteinbeck: Excellent point.
MattF
@Omnes Omnibus: This has been true all along. Russian military culture has been dysfunctional up and down the chain of command for a long time. But military assessments of the ‘other guy’ have always focused on capabilities rather than culture and that gives any assessment of the Russians a huge head start. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue:
Everyone there will know exactly who the local collaborators are, and I predict that it is not going to go well for them.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck:
Rotating tag! A two-for-one special!
Ohio Mom
Every night I look at that map Adam posts and up until this week, I joked to myself that it was the same map as the day before. Whatever changes there were in the line marking the territories held by the two armies weren’t easily discernible on my phone screen.
But this week’s maps! Wow!
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
War crimes investigators are right behind the advance. I can’t find it now, but there was a tweet earlier detailing their work.
lowtechcyclist
@HumboldtBlue:
That’s good to know. Those bastards shouldn’t be allowed to get away with anything.
dmsilev
@Ohio Mom: I saw some people describing it as ‘Ukraine liberated in three or four days what Russia took in three or four months’. Which seems basically right; the grinding advance in the Donbas started in April after the initial attacks on Kyiv etc. failed.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: Yeah, I think we need to find a way to do more on that front. I know it takes time, for-fucking-ever it seems, but I do not understand why the administration won’t classify Russia as a terrorist country at this point.
I have to confess that I haven’t taken the time to read up about that, too much going on, so if there’s a good reason for that, I haven’t heard it.
PaulB
This kind of success means that Ukraine is very likely to be able to keep the aid coming from other nations, as it virtually eliminates the skepticism that those countries would just be “throwing their money away, since Russia’s victory is inevitable.”
I can’t even imagine what this is doing to the morale on both sides, both the military morale and the civilian morale. We should have a thread with some of the before and after of the Twitter Russian sycophants.
Update from Mark Sumner at Daily Kos: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/10/2122033/-Ukraine-update-Russia-regroups-out-of-Kharkiv-oblast-as-invasion-tide-rolls-in-reverse
glc
Interesting article on the question of planning vs taking advantage of opportunity. Presumably not the last word on the subject:
Guardian: Kherson was a feint
I know nothing about the art of war myself, but I tend to expect a very long haul. Will be happy to be wrong.
lashonharangue
The southern offensive was a disinformation effort.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/10/ukraines-publicised-southern-offensive-was-disinformation-campaign
Anonymous At Work
Is it confirmed that Ukraine did capture the Lt. General in charge of the Izium sector? Been trying to find a confirmation.
counterfactual
@WaterGirl: As I understand it, if the US designates Russia as a terrorist state under the law, the US is required to sanction a bunch of Indian companies and other companies in friendly countries.
Jinchi
@Betty Cracker: Apparently no one wants to be the last Russian soldier in Ukraine. I’m starting to think that Zelensky’s estimate of victory by the end of the year was conservative.
Jinchi
@Anonymous At Work: I thought I saw confirmation of the general’s capture in the Guardian live update stream
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Please! A little cultural sensitivity here!
It would be borscht.
JoyceH
Twitter is all full of worried fretting that Ukraine is somehow falling into an ingenious Russian trap. Why are so many people convinced that the word that comes after “evil” must be “genius”? There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
HumboldtBlue
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: But borscht is Ukrainian, it says here.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Tolstoy depicted the Russians at the beginning of War and Peace, when they’re in Austria and they have no idea why they’re fighting or who they’re fighting, as kind of clueless and incompetent. Then by the end of the novel when they’re kicking the French out, they’ve become fierce. The Russians now are like the Russians at the beginning of W&P, and the Ukrainians are like the Russians at the end of W&P.
Geminid
@counterfactual: The US just slapped sanctions on several Iranian companies that helped supply military drones to Russia. And reports are that the Russians found the drones’ performance disappointing.
zhena gogolia
@MattF: Yes, it is. But Russians eat a lot of it too.
Baud
Am I right that winter sets in in December and that’s the end of fighting season?
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yep and the Russians have terrible soldiers at the moment. A large part of their army has just fallen apart
There was 1942 WW2 Russian joke about how only great commanders can successfully command a retreat and that meant Stalin must be a genius as in only 6 months the Russian army had retreated a 1500 km.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
VOANews.com (from 9/6):
Diplomacy and foreign relations is complicated.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@JoyceH: Here, facts on the ground are what matters. And the facts on the ground say Russia is retreating as fast as it can, if not faster. Being devious is not, currently, an option.
kalakal
@JoyceH: They’re idiots. This is not a cunning plan by the Russians, it’s a debacle
HumboldtBlue
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not certain even there nuclear weapons are in good shape .. it could just as possible to blow up on launch.
What they should really be concerned is that they are shown to be a paper tiger to their rivals and their allies.
cain
@JoyceH:
See U.S.
Spanky
@Baud:
Well, that’s what the Hessians in Trenton thought.
MattF
@cain: I’ve wondered about that. And then remembered to immediately forget about it. Doomsday theorizing has been tried and it’s a bad thing.
CaseyL
Yup.
Hopefully, including their allies here in the US.
Ken
Why limit it to twitter? The broadcast and print media are full of them too. There’s also a lot of borderline cases — maybe not a Russian sycophant, but sure that Ukraine would be crushed in a
weekmonthquarter.Let me find the thread… Here, from the “Darth Putin” twitter feed, (which was linked in one of the morning posts), a “This isn’t aging well” post, with a bunch of “Nor this” replies.
Many of the referenced posts are from people who are paid for doing military analysis. Maybe they include a “no warranty express or implied for suitability of purpose” disclaimer with their reports.
cain
@CaseyL:
Russians know how to do propaganda and information warfare. They helped steal an election and buy politicians.I’m curious if this not a perfect time to start some shit in Chechen and Belarus
MattF
@Ken: And likely paid to do military analysis that’s favorable to Russia. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
kalakal
It’ll be a gloomy night at the Rand Paul household tonight. I expect the tribble will be flying at half mast
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: No, it would be mayonnaise. They put it on *everything*.
Medicine Man
@glc: This is the best part; Kherson wasn’t a feint. It was one axis of a multi-prong offensive.
Ukr can and is following through on their original plan west of the Dnipro.
JaySinWA
@Ken: We need a truth and reconciliation redemption tour for the military analysts.
Sarcasm aside some after action reporting on the analysts that got it so wrong is in order. There wasn’t enough of that with the Iraq war. This might be easier to pull off since we weren’t the protagonists.
Baud
@Spanky:
Looking forward to Zelensky’s midnight crossing of the Dnipro.
Medicine Man
Feels a bit like Darth Putin is the real twitter feed and Rus MoD is the parody.
Baud
@JaySinWA:
That might lead to holding political analysts accountable. Then where would we be.
Geminid
@Baud: The Ukrainians will probably fight through the winter. Maybe we’ll send them snowmobiles and cross country skis. Finnish troops on skis cut up the Soviets during their Winter War 1939-40. The Finns really pushed the Soviet Army around until Stalin sent in large reinforcements.
HumboldtBlue
@Geminid:
I think Baud was playing off Zhena’s Tolstoy mention. In that era, winter often meant a cessation of combat due to poor road and field conditions.
JaySinWA
@Baud: It would be a slippery slope for sure. Very disruptive. Wir müssen ordnung haben.
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
Agreed. I remember reading last week that Putin was almost directly running the war at this point because he didn’t trust his generals. There’s no real brain trust at work on their side anymore.
Of course, the Russians in general probably feel they don’t need that: that they can win by sheer massed force, even if it’s composed of raw recruits, without having to do any strategy: just throw a shitload of troops at the enemy.
But they don’t have that many troops anymore, especially since they had quite a birth dearth in the 1990s. They’re demographically in decline. So now that they’re losing troops right and left, they’re screwed.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
I can’t see why we can’t say, “We are UNOFFICIALLY designating Russia as a terrorist nation,” with the idea being that that doesn’t legally bind us in any way, but it gets the message across that that’s how we see them.
The Pale Scot
As my Marine father has told me more than once;
“Shock troops don’t take prisoners”
Another Scott
@cain:
Wikipedia tells me that the last US nuclear test was 23 September 1992 (coming up on 30 years ago). The last USSR/russia test was 24 October 1990 (before the USSR imploded). That’s a long, long time ago, especially for nuclear weapons.
SIPRI.org:
It’s my understanding that lots of these materials that make up nuclear weapons can’t simply sit on the shelf or in a missile for years and be expected – with high confidence – to work when the time comes. They need regular, high-quality, maintenance. And that’s a big, big problem in a kleptocracy.
Here’s hoping that we never get to the point where we have to find out whether they work or not…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
@lowtechcyclist: The president can’t “Unofficially” declare anything without undermining his own legitimacy.
And really, what would be the point?
MattF
@lowtechcyclist: It’s not just troops. Their weapons are outclassed, they don’t have fuel, they don’t have transport, their meat-grinder strategy has failed, their war-criming has made them… unpopular… The list goes on.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
@Jinchi:
Biden could tweet it!
kalakal
@Medicine Man: Yep, Kherson was/is not a feint. The Ru forces there are in a pocket with a mile wide river at their backs with terrible supply lines. The Ukranians have been letting their artillery do the talking there and they’re getting hammered flat. They’ve not going anywhere and what little morale they had can’t have been improved by events of the last day or so
Carlo Graziani
@Medicine Man: I believe this is correct. It’s just that the ruse to draw the Russian army into the trap west of the Dnipro and drop the bridges behind them succeeded beyond what the Ukrainian military planners could possibly have hoped in July, when they started dangling the baited hook. The idiots at STAVKA apparently were so confident of the security of their position in the east that they stripped it of infantry and artillery, and shipped as much as they could towards Kherson.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the Ukrainians decided to make a play in the east shortly after August 31. That’s the day of the last Ukrainian MOD Operational Update reported in Adam’s nightly summaries, and in that one there sre still some accounts of Russian infantry and artillery actions in the Kharkhiv-Donetsk areas. After that, no more updates from UKRMOD. I see a tea-leaf shape that says that about then they saw the Russian infantry and artillery assets leave, and another soggy leaf that suggests that the disappearance of those updates was a consequence of their OPSEC, which now required them not to discuss any knowledge of Russian movements or actions that were driving their own plans.
Anonymous At Work
@Spanky: That may be the point. Take the fighting inland, where the winter AND THE MUD are worse, so you can continue in the south near teh coast. The fighting around Kherson is grinding Ukrainian forces hard but grinding Russian forces disproportionately harder.
Their broad-but-slow advance made sense to me even before the news of the deception broke because HIMARS and a narrow front equaled meat grinder on par with Verdun.
The Pale Scot
I’d confidently lay a bet that RU land based nucs have not been maintained. The boomers are a different animal. Electronics have to be replaced periodically due to neutron damage.
RevRick
What’s happening in Ukraine looks just like the fall of France in 1940, when German forces severed the front and got behind the supply lines. One of the hardest maneuvers to pull off is a retreat. You need to establish a rearguard to slow the attacking force and then establish a further defense line to halt it. But Ukraine has cut the Russian supply line and has the huge advantage of night vision equipment, which allows for 24-hour military operations. This has all the signs of a rout. The only thing that will slow Ukraine forces now is diesel fuel, not the shattered Russian army.
The danger for the Russians is if Ukraine is able to seize back the Donbas and cut off all their troops in the South.
All of us would love that.
counterfactual
@Baud: Not quite. In a few weeks, the fall rains start. Rasputitsa, the mud season goes on for weeks. Once winter comes in December and the ground freezes hard enough to support armor, you can have winter operations until spring thaw in March.
That is traditional, but with climate changes the timing. One of Putin’s problems was that spring rasputitsa came weeks early last year
[edit] However, I’m betting the inventive Ukrainians have all sorts of ideas of conducting operations with special forces on ATVs and SUVs converted to technicals while the Russians are stuck in the fall mud.
MattF
OT. Bollard technology advances.
kalakal
@MattF: I like the big spiky thing
HumboldtBlue
Ukrainian soldiers have been writing tributes to the Queen onto shells and rockets before firing them at Russian forces.
glc
@Medicine Man: I’m just trying to capture the tone of the headline, concisely, as the URL is long. It doesn’t capture the substance of the article.
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: One of the excellent aspects of how rapidly the offensive has progressed: The orcs are “advancing in a backward direction” so fast they haven’t had much (if any) chance to lay boobytraps or haul civilians out and execute them a la Bucha. (I’d presume some UA psyops is working along those lines as well, e.g., “Hey, you new guys! Surrender and we’ll treat you decently! Do it NOW before you get caught up in war crimes that’ll put you behind bars for life!”)
lowtechcyclist
Just to make Putin’s day complete…
Carlo Graziani
@counterfactual: Winter temperatures bring vehicle lubricant and diesel starter issues (lots of old-school diesel vehicles) as well as nontrivial heating/shelter logistics, plus bad weather that discourages air cover, all of which don’t play well with rapid offensives. In the ordinary course of events, artillery duels and a few infantry-based static shoving matches would be expected.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: That it is. thank you
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani:
However it began, the Ukrainians recognized an opportunity and are seizing the ever living fuck out of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani: The Ardennes says hi.
Baud
@counterfactual:
I didn’t know there was a fall mud season. I thought it was in the spring as a result of snow melt.
lowtechcyclist
Ooh, gotta love this…
JoyceH
@Another Scott:
I read an article about this and about the tritium a while back. Turns out that tritium is insanely valuable, so that the teams that would be refreshing the tritium in the warheads would be walking about with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gas in a canister about the size of a fire extinguisher. They’re going to pump that into warheads that are just going to sit around, when they could find a market for it and no one would ever know, so long as the warheads aren’t used? (And if the warheads are used, the world is going to be in too much chaos to go after a couple low level grifters.)
So it’s quite possible that few, if any, of the Russian warheads are even usable anymore. I confess I found that thought comforting when Putin was doing some nuke saber rattling. Sort of like the hairpin in the atomic bomb in the dungeon at the Duchy of Grand Fenwick (The Mouse That Roared reference).
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: The Ukranians must have really, really good intelligence. I think they’ve been able to calculate really well how much was needed to pin down Kherson so they could free up forces to play merry hell elsewhere and exactly where that elsewhere should be. I think we now know where those 250 polish T72s went as well as all those troops that have spent the last few months being trained and equipped in the UK. They’re in blitzkreig heaven right now and the Russians are being scattered to the four winds
Uncle Cosmo
More likely shchi. As in, Shchizus cripes, doesn’t anyone in the army know how to fight??
(NB I had a bowl of shchi in a restaurant on the main square in Tallinn about a week before 9-11 and it was pretty tasty – but I have to admit that the solyanka I ate in a Russian restaurant in Riga a few days later was even tastier.)
lowtechcyclist
@counterfactual:
When the fall rains come, the Russian soldiers are going to be wet, cold, miserable, and almost certainly without enough to eat and scarce opportunities to get genuinely warm.
I’m thinking, after a few weeks of that, all the Ukrainians will need to do to get mass desertions is aim loudspeakers at the Russian lines saying, “hey Russkis! Our POW barracks are dry, heated, and you’ll get three squares a day!”
Given the ability of HIMARS to totally fuck up Russian logistics (even compared with its normal level of fuckedupness), the fall and winter are going to be a lot more painful for the Russians than for Ukraine.
Carlo Graziani
@Omnes Omnibus: No possible doubt about that.
I do have some lingering doubts about how it ends, though, in the sense that logistical strain is certain to put an end to their run eventually, and it had better be along some line that makes sense when things settle down. They’re going to have to live with whatever success they gain through the winter, and eventually the Russians are bound to regroup and get back in the fight.
So what is the line? At the moment the progress seems to be in Karkhiv oblast, whereas Donetsk oblast is still nominally Russian-controlled. There’s a Ukrainian salient growing out that is going to be awkward and expensive to hold until next spring, if that’s where the logistical train runs out.
I’m not a doomer, far from it. I think this progress is to swoon over. I just am still unsure of where this thing is going to end up. I don’t think it is going to be “defeat of the Russian army and liberation of the Donbas in 2022”, though.
However, I’ve made my share of wrong predictions, including here.
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
“A better bomb than ever.”
Probably been 40 or 50 years since I read the book, and I still remember the ending.
kalakal
About the only thing that could help the Russians in the next couple of days is their airforce and looking back over the last few months the US and others have been flooding in AA systems.
Uncle Cosmo
@lashonharangue: It may have been a feint, or disinformation, but the UA forces have set themselves up a nice little Kesselschlacht on the lower Dnipro any time they care to switch fronts and bag a few thousand (or tens of thousands) of enemy troops.
Medicine Man
@glc: It’s alright, man. We’re mostly quibbling over nuances than disagreeing on anything big-picture.
dr. luba
@glc: Ukrainian humor:
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani: FWIW any predictions that any war will be over by Christmas are always wrong.
West of the Cascades
@lowtechcyclist: During the winter, the Ukrainians will have to drop leaflets over the Russian lines saying “Surrender now, send us your weapons, and we will send you Chef Andres.”
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: The trick is not to specify which Christmas
dr. luba
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Borshch is Ukrainian. So apropos, I guess……
HumboldtBlue
@lowtechcyclist:
They captured another upgraded T-72 yesterday.
dr. luba
@cain:
I’m sure China is taking notes…..
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: ::nods wisely::
kalakal
@Carlo Graziani: The real Chef’s kiss would be to draw down operations as the Russians flood in reserves and the position stabilizes and then stage an assault in the south of the Donbas bulge and liberate Mariupol. Politically and psychologically it would cripple the RU.
MobiusKlein
@kalakal:
Riffing on the Feint question, you could look at it as a classic chess Fork. Attack two places at once, make the defender choose which to save. Neither attack was a feint, but only one was effective.
If you play it back with a different choice by RU, would the Kharkiv be called a feint?
HumboldtBlue
@MobiusKlein:
This thread has an excellent breakdown of the strategy and tactics involved.
Layer8Problem
@lowtechcyclist:
Putin’s got a Ferris Wheel? I presume so he can go up in it and say things like:
“Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?”
Omnes Omnibus
@MobiusKlein: Actually both were effective.
Medicine Man
@Carlo Graziani: I mostly agree, though I don’t think I’d call the Kherson attack a “ruse” either. It was a dilemma the Rus had to respond to and all the strategic deception was to conceal the stakes of over- or under-correcting.
But we may be saying the same thing. My quibble is I suspect Ukr had multiple ways to inflict a crushing blow, none of which required the Rus to be confused about the nature of the Kherson offensive. Rus strategic blindness was just very, very helpful in this regard, but not a requirement.
kalakal
@MobiusKlein: Yeah the chess fork analogy is a good one. The trick here was to use Kherson in the same way von Falkenhayn intended to use Verdun, a militarily bad place to defend that non the less had to be held by the French for political/ morale reasons. Once their advance stalled the Russians should have pulled back to the east bank but prestige/politics dictated they stay. Because the supply lines are easily interdicted it’s probably the only area where the Ukranians could out muscle the Russians with artillery. By using their artillery to do the heavy lifting they could free up ground troops for elsewhere.
I don’t think they could have set up an area round Kharkhiv where they could set up that level of one sided attrition.
My thought when the Ukrainians first started telegraphing an assault at Kherson (They were being so obvious about, it was weird) was that they were going to wait until the Russians were piling in reinforcements, clagging up the relatively few roads between there and the Donbas for 100s of miles and then let rip with HIMARS , MLRS and any other long range weaponry available. It would be one hell of a target. Then punch south through to Melitopol through the mess.
Medicine Man
@Carlo Graziani: Or to put it another way: My gut-take is the main deception was Russian self-deception. They couldn’t accept Ukraine might have enough men-material to launch a second major attack elsewhere or they’d have to admit they’ve fucked. Can’t have that, so therefore they’ll just base their thinking on their preferred reality.
The purpose of Ukrainian maskirovka was to leave the Russians alone with their own flawed judgment.
Total aside: I think the term “maskirovka” should belong to Ukraine from now on, not Russia.
Jinchi
I noticed the same thing. This is more clearly a rout than the retreat from the Kyiv front. They don’t have time to raze everything to the ground.
Another Scott
Fortune favors those willing to do the work.
I’m recalling something I noticed on August 29:
This apparent rout of VVP’s forces around Kharkiv may have been in the works for almost 2 weeks. I wonder if things are progressing much, much faster elsewhere now than we expect.
Cheers,
Scott.
GibberJack
@WaterGirl: Because a white christian nationalist fashy GOP sees Russia as its natural ally. And because most white people don’t think white people can be terrorists.
Russia has the support of the GOP, especially MAGA, because they perceive Russia as culturally white. And supposedly christian. There are a lot of white people in both parties who are sympathetic to this. Also Putin is authoritarian and they like that too.
It is the same reason why Oath Keepers or Proud Boys or the threepers have not been declared terrorist organizations, even though they are.
Torrey
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is the value to Ukraine of a large number of POWs. The Russians have been setting up plans for a public war crimes tribunal for the remaining captured Mariupol defenders. With a number of prisoners to choose from, Ukraine can offer a substantial exchange, focusing on returning those prisoners who will be most valuable to Ukraine–the ones most likely to undercut Russian morale by complaining about the army failures, talking about how they were well treated by the Ukrainians or about how much better the Ukrainian army treats its people. If Putin refuses to exchange prisoners, there will be some very angry family members of Russian POWs asking why they can’t get their sons/husbands/fathers/brothers back.
Kent
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: caviar probably.
Kent
@Torrey: The Russians have actually been trying to set up puppet courts run by their Donbas Ukrainian “allies” so that it is Ukrainians trying the Mariupol defenders.
Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government should be announcing that any Donbas Ukrainians taking any role in the show trials of the Mariupol defenders (or any other Ukrainian soldiers) will be hunted down, tried for treason and possibly executed. Judges, magistrates, bureaucrats, all of them if they have any role in such a farce. Trial for treason and execution.
Carlo Graziani
It’s kind of an interesting — and dangerous — moment in the war. Until a couple of days ago, Putin was probably utterly convinced that Russia was winning — Europe would freeze this winter, American politics would have another brain cramp, people would get tired and bored of the war, and Russia just had to not give a shit about the human cost — when does it ever? — and stay in it long enough to outlast all opposition, while grinding the Ukrainians slowly down and gradually Russianizing what had been seized by “popular referenda”.
Today that plan is a pile of ashes. Much of the conquest of the past 6 months just vanished in a few days. A large part of the Russian army is in a trap, and it must be dawning on him that even if he needs any part of it back for other purposes, he can’t get it back soon. It may dawn on him soon that that army is never coming back. He may already know.
Now what does he do?
Nuclear/chemical escalation is an option, but probably not a great one. It works better as a threat than as an actual military tactic suited to this sort of predicament, really, particularly because hardly any of the Russian forces in the field have NBC training or protective gear. It would also likely bring NATO charging in, and raise the chances of a suicidal nuclear conflict. The threat itself was more effective in April/May than it would be now, with NATO all but acknowledging Ukraine as a junior partner.
Rescoping war objectives, perhaps? This could have legs. A peace offering including some territorial concessions — Kherson, the Black Sea Coast, part of the Donbas, but not Crimea, Mariupol or the Azov coast, say — would bring the Realpolitikers out of the woodwork, and of course the pacifists at all costs, and the Putinist third columnists.. It would be a real effort to stand up to them. It might be an even bigger effort to keep the coalition united against such a disgraceful solution. But the answer would necessarily continue to be (a) The Ukrainians will set the terms for concluding the war, and we will have no part in imposing any settlement on them; and (b) (at least privately) The enemy is Putinism. We’re going to keep going until we put it in the ground. A settlement that let;s Putin off the hook defeats this important purpose.
What else? He could get too close to a wndow and fall out. A lot of defective windows in Russia these days, I hear. Must be poor building codes…
Kent
@GibberJack:
The real reason why so many MAGA evangelicals support Russia is because the share the same intolerance and hatred for anyone LGBT and non-white.
Russia’s anti-LGBT laws are actually the model for what the GOP is trying to do in states like Texas and Florida. For real.
The resistance to declaring Russia a state supporter of terrorism is a different calculation by Biden. It would force him to sanction countries like India and they don’t want to take that step just yet.
Grey Michael
@kalakal: This! The Kherson offensive is real; it’s just a different battlefield,so how Ukraine approaches it must in turn be different.
Anonymous At Work
The Ukrainian term for Spring (and sometimes Autumn) Mud Season is bezdorizhzhia
The key issue for mud-season is that HIMARs run the risk of getting stuck or slowing down. They have impressive range but the main advantage is mobility to move into range, strike where partisans have identified targets and move out of any counter-artillery range.
The key issue for winter is which side has the better food and survival gear. Ukrainian forces are high morale but most only have basic gear and clothing, if that. Neither side will have a good winter but the difference will be which side uses the time best.
zhena gogolia
@Layer8Problem: Hahahaha good one
Gin & Tonic
@Carlo Graziani: Zelensky’s terms have been clear and consistent all along.
zhena gogolia
@Carlo Graziani:
And what are they going to do about it?
lowtechcyclist
Russian self-propelled howitzers etc. abandoned on the streets of Izyum
Looks like the Russkis are really gone from there. Amazing.
kalakal
@Layer8Problem: Brilliant!
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: I keep having cognitive dissonance because izium means “raisin” in Russian. I guess this is that “raisin d’être” that baud was talking about.
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani:
Why would Ukraine agree to any terms that gave up territory when they are are winning? And why would allies who supported Ukraine at the lowest points of the war pressure them to agree?
MattF
@Carlo Graziani:
But what do you do about Putin’s dishonesty and bad faith? No rational person will believe any offer the Russians make.
Chetan Murthy
Copied from last night’s thread b/c too funny
karensky
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: H threw a container of Viagra at the wall!,
karensky
@Carlo Graziani: Defenestration is sweeping that nation.
lowtechcyclist
@Anonymous At Work:
Two things: first, Ukraine has enough troops that they can rotate them in and out of the front lines. So their troops will get breaks from the rain and cold. The Russians won’t.
Second, I’m sure the U.S. and other allies can supply Ukraine with a metric ton of foul weather gear. Even if Russia could get the same for their troops, most of it would disappear into the Russian griftiverse.
Advantage: Ukraine.
MobiusKlein
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why stop before retaking all territory? Ukraine may be tired of their soldiers dying, and the “breakaway” oblasts may be too Russia infiltrated to govern in the short term. I can foresee reasons Ukraine would accept less that everything. I have a hard time imagining Russia offering anything that Ukraine would agree to, however.
Ken
I kind of have the impression that couldn’t happen without at least the tacit approval of the Chinese government? If so, interesting.
Layer8Problem
@zhena gogolia:
@kalakal:
I am desperate for world events to give me a reason to quote from something upbeat, like from The Code of the Woosters.
GibberJack
@Medicine Man:
Maybe it always did. Since the war began I learned a number of things I’d always thought as Russian was actually invented or made in Ukraine.
kalakal
@Chetan Murthy: Some of those are really funny. I like the Guderian one.
If the PRC are letting this out on the internet Putin is fucked
kalakal
@Layer8Problem: I know what you mean. On the the other hand there’s never a bad time to quote Wodehouse – one of my favourites
“It is never difficult to distinguish between a ray of sunshine and a Scotsman in a bad mood”
One of the Blandings books, can’t remember which
Medicine Man
@Chetan Murthy: Oh, that was good for a laugh. Thank you.
My favourite was how the Ukrainian 93rd went directly from Mechanized to Armoured after thrashing the Russian 4th guard tank division.
Layer8Problem
@kalakal: 😁
Chetan Murthy
@GibberJack:
Yes, this. Some of what I’ve learned:
Ukraine is no slouch when it comes to technology. I look forward to what the country will be like when peace again reigns and they can turn their energies to development.
GibberJack
@Kent:
Yes. Natural allies. Kindred (evil) spirits, as it were.
As to Biden’s calculations regarding declaring Russia a terrorist state, relationships with other nations are why he *shouldn’t*. And I agree with them. But I say the MAGA/white evangelical political support of Russia is why he *couldn’t*.
Why *can’t* this administration declare Russia a terrorist state? Because white evangelicals, MAGA, the GOP et al will lose their shit.
Again, there are no such geopolitical calculations as to why Proud Boys et al are not declared a terrorist org. Only political ones. That is, the exact same reasons.
edit: not every bigot or white evangelical is in the opposition party, and most white people don’t see white people as terrorists.
Frankensteinbeck
@lowtechcyclist:
The walls must be COVERED in ketchup.
If that’s true, it’s going to make things even more strange. He’s not a general, I guarantee he has only a hazy idea of facts on the ground, and we all know he has a Trump-sized ego. Now that he’s the one fucking up? He’ll have conniptions.
@MobiusKlein:
I have gotten the impression that Russia’s brutal misrule of Russia-occupied Ukrainian territory removed whatever local sentiment in their favor existed.
Chetan Murthy
@Frankensteinbeck:
We’ve all read accounts of this from formerly pro-Russian Ukrainians[1] in areas occupied by RU since 24 Feb, but surely it’s different in Donbas, riiiiiight?
[1] I remember one where the guy was clear about his former enthusiasm for RU, and his new-found hatred and wish to do anatomically impossible things to Putin.
Layer8Problem
@Frankensteinbeck: If Putin’s doing his own generalling he should apply immediately to the Ukrainian Meme Forces people as scriptwriter for the inevitable Downfall parody.
Kent
@kalakal: “Zhukov looks at the situation and dies of cringe”. That’s pretty funny!
MattF
Interesting NYT article about pro-war Russian bloggers. They are very unhappy.
Geminid
@GibberJack: This may not simply be a political question. I’m not sure there is any law under which the government can sanction the Proud Boys or Oathkeepers as “terrorist organizations.” They certainly can prosecute members individually for their crimes or their conspiracy to commit crimes. The RICO Act might provide a wider scope for criminal liabilty, though.
Civil lawsuits are a different matter. Plaintiffs injured in the murderous automobile assault on Heather Heyer in Chalottesville won large judgements against leaders and organizations that sponsored the “Unite the Right” match. Some of the organizations closed down. One simply rebranded as the “Patriot Front.”
kalakal
@Chetan Murthy:
I guess we may be finding out soon.
I seem to remember some American fuckwit who had joined up with RU army and was being used by the Russkis for propaganda. He obviously thought of himself as Rambo but looked more like a walrus in a cowboy hat. He must be feeling a bit of a twit if he’s still alive. My sympathy is non-existant
Chetan Murthy
@kalakal:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/10/2121903/-Ukraine-Update-Can-we-get-a-Donbas-uprising-or-surrender?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main
kalakal
@Chetan Murthy: What a hell hole.
The more I learn of him the more I loathe Putin and his cronies & enablers, in RU and elsewhere
West of the Cascades
Ukraine’s friends in Finland, Norway, and Sweden may be able to help with a bit of cold-weather gear.
OB-1
@Layer8Problem: “‘Thought of anything, Jeeves?’
‘Not yet, sir, I regret to say.'”
[Code of the Woosters, chapter 5]
Gin & Tonic
Chetan Murthy
tim snyder in Kyiv
Noskilz
As I understand it, the reason domestic US organizations are not designated terrorist organizations is that it doesn’t really mean anything in a legal sense – there is currently no set series of consequences for being a domestic terrorist organization.
For foreign organizations, there are a set of consequences to being designated a terrorist organization.
Medicine Man
@Gin & Tonic: When was that bollocks article published anyhow?