Let’s take a moment before we start and focus a bit on what’s going on with Iran before we get into the update on Ukraine’s defense. First: A couple of days ago Iranian athlete Elnaz Rakabi, who was competing at an international competition in Seoul, did so without wearing a hijab. Earlier today it was reported that she’d disappeared, which led to speculation that two possible things happened. The first was that she was defecting/seeking asylum and had made her way to the safety of whichever state she was asking to take her in. The second was that the Iranians had scarfed her up. Unfortunately for Rakabi, who is incredibly brave as she had to know the likely outcome of her protest action, it was the latter.
BBC Persian also cites sources saying Rakabi's cellphone and passport were taken. In addition, the team's departure from S Korea was apparently moved up, from the scheduled Wednesday travel to Monday, just after her competed without the hijab mandated by the Iranian regime. https://t.co/Cg9ygEvJDl pic.twitter.com/YE0fM9w3DF
— Frida Ghitis (@FridaGhitis) October 18, 2022
According to CNN’s Frida Ghitis, citing Iran Wire English, Rakabi has been taken to Evin Prison. Defiant courage in the face of tyranny deserves better even if the reality is that it never receives better.
Second, this interesting thread by an Iranian graduate student who is now, again, outside Iran provides us with an insider’s view of what is going on in Iran:
I'm finally out of Iran and feel safe enough to talk about the situation publicly with an account bearing my name.
The crackdown in Iran is way worse than you think, even if you've been following the news.
Institutions like Amnesty International and news outlets try to stick/— Moeen Nehzati (@MNehzati) October 17, 2022
where the crackdown is not at its worst and people have the means of speaking up.
— Moeen Nehzati (@MNehzati) October 17, 2022
I’m going to put both the video and English transcript of President Zelenskyy’s speech after the jump:
Ukrainians!
Today, the battle for a normal life for our people continued.
There were new Russian attacks against our energy system. Some of the drones and missiles were shot down. Thanks again for this to our anti-aircraft fighters, our Air Forces. In particular, the 138th Dnipro anti-aircraft missile brigade for shooting down four “Kalibrs”. Our other defenders of the sky also have good results. Today, I will also celebrate the Kherson anti-aircraft missile brigade for shooting down a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft.
Thanks also to our partners – everyone who helps us with anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense. For example, the German “IRIS-T” has shown itself very well – it is a really effective system.
We are working with partners to provide even more protection to the Ukrainian sky.
Over the past day, more than 10 Ukrainian regions suffered terrorist attacks. Zhytomyr region and Kyiv region, Sumy region, Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv region and Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and other cities of the south of Ukraine, Donbas. Wherever possible, we are trying to speed up restoration work.
But now, just like in the previous days, the overall situation still requires a very conscious consumption of electricity and limiting the use of energy-consuming appliances during peak hours.
The more conscious our household consumption of electricity is from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., the more stable our energy system will be. Everyone who follows this simple rule for peak hours helps the entire country.
Please explain this to your relatives, friends and neighbors to guide our national unity towards a common and much needed result.
Today I had a lot of meetings and communication regarding infrastructure restoration. Another general meeting on the energy situation is scheduled for tomorrow. We are working out all possible scenarios. And, of course, all this is combined with our measures to strengthen defense against drones.
We should remember that the very fact of Russia’s appeal to Iran for such assistance is the Kremlin’s recognition of its military and political bankruptcy.
For decades, they’ve been spending billions of dollars on their military-industrial complex, and in the end they went to bow to Tehran to get rather simple drones and missiles.
It won’t help them strategically anyway. It only further proves to the world that Russia is on the trajectory of its defeat and is trying to draw someone else into its accomplices in terror.
We will definitely ensure an appropriate international reaction to this.
But now, at the tactical level, the terrorists may still have certain hopes, calculations, new illusions due to Iranian drones. All this will fall apart, just as their previous calculations.
237 days of this war prove that we are able to find an answer to any threats. If we act together – all Ukrainians and nations of the free world.
Today we have an important decision from Estonia – its parliament designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. And this is another European step to ensure that the actual reality of Russian terror and the European official attitude towards Russia completely coincide. Terror must receive all types of response – on the battlefield, with sanctions and legally. I am grateful to our Estonian friends for this!
We will continue our work at all levels so that other countries adopt similar decisions.
I held a meeting on working out in UN structures our draft resolution on the creation of a compensation mechanism that would provide compensation at the expense of Russian assets for all the damage caused by this war. We are gradually moving in this direction as well. The terrorist state will inevitably pay for everything it has done.
Another expansion of our United24 platform took place today. This public fundraising platform has already raised more than $200 million from people in dozens of countries.
Oleksandr Usyk became the new ambassador of United24. I just spoke with him and thanked him for his willingness to work for Ukraine.
Oleksandr will focus on projects devoted to the reconstruction of our country, in particular in the Kyiv region.
Let me just remind you that Andriy Shevchenko, Elina Svitolina, Imagine Dragons, creative director of Balenciaga Demna, Liev Schreiber, Barbra Streisand and Mark Hamill are already ambassadors along with Usyk.
Today, 2 billion euros of macro-financial aid from the European Union were allocated to Ukraine’s accounts. This is important for us – for the social support of our people. We are very grateful. We expect other tranches under this package with a total volume of 9 billion euros.
I am grateful to all friends of Ukraine!
I am grateful to everyone who fights and works for our victory!
No matter what the enemy plans and does, our perspective is clear: Ukraine will defend itself.
Glory to Ukraine!
Not to downplay the damage done by the Russian missiles, rockets, and drones that get through, but this is a very impressive kill rate by Ukraine’s air defense:
Ukraine’s Air Force says it downs nearly 86% of Russian-used strike drones
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 18, 2022
Here’s former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Kherson:
KHERSON/1250 UTC 18 OCT/ UKR launched 22 aviation strikes targeting 18 Russsian troop & logistical concentrations and 3 RU air defense complexes across all axes of contact. UKR air defense interdicted 38 of 43 Iranian-made Shahed-136 suicide drones, an interception rate of 88%. pic.twitter.com/zQcVcxKqbn
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 18, 2022
And here is his assessment of the recently released video of the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines:
SOURCE: I'd like to take this opportunity to credit the video to Swedish media, and @ErikWiman, who was one of the journalists breaking this story.
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 18, 2022
Before anyone decides to start kvetching in the comments, I will politely remind you all that a SEAL’s career begins at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Better known as BUD/S. SEAL’s are underwater demolition experts. Does this mean Pfarrer can’t be wrong? No. Does it mean that just about anyone in our comments knows more about this than him? Also no.
This is interesting. What we don’t know is if this is just the Russian citizens that have moved into Kherson or whether this is an excuse to undertake a population transfer of Kherson’s Ukrainian citizenry by forcefully relocating them somewhere in Russia.
#BREAKING Russian army preparing to evacuate Kherson's population, commander says pic.twitter.com/kZAfMkQB0k
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 18, 2022
Tadeusz Giczan, a Belarusian journalist and PhD researcher at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, has an excellent analysis of what is really going on with the Belarusian military:
Let me try to explain what's wrong with the new wave of deployment of Russian troops in Belarus and why the threat of a new attack on Kyiv from the north is a bluff.
A🧵 1/ pic.twitter.com/X3RW6vuYaU
— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) October 17, 2022
We go to the Thread Reader app for the rest:
Last week Lukashenko announced the deployment of a joint Belarusian-Russian regional grouping of troops composed of Belarusian ground forces and several thousand Russian troops (Belarusian MoD later specified there would be 9,000 of them). 2/The first trains with Russian troops have already started arriving in Belarus, and three important points should be made here. 1) Judging by the photographs, it is not regular Russian army units that arrive in Belarus, but freshly mobilised Russian reservists. 3/2) Russian military trains don’t carry any heavy equipment – only trucks, petrol tankers and passenger cars with soldiers. 3) Russians are not being brought to the border with Ukraine like in January, but to training bases in northern Belarus. 4/In other words, at this stage, we are almost certainly talking about the training of Russian reservists in Belarus, as all Russian ranges are overloaded. The Ukrainian military intelligence announced this back in late September (they estimated the nr of reservists to be 20k). 5/According to the AFU joint forces command, as of early October, there were up to 1,000 Russian troops, 6 aircraft, 4 Iskanders and 12 S-400s in Belarus. In theory, the mobilised troops could reinforce this grouping after training, but there are several “buts”. 6/First, the Russians, as I noted earlier, arrive without heavy equipment. The videos that have been circulating on Twitter in recent days, allegedly showing Russian tanks, APCs, and howitzers with ‘menacing new tactical markings’ arriving in Belarus aren’t real. 7/Or rather, the videos are real, but they show trains of the Belarusian army. This can be easily determined by the blue passenger cars (Russia’s are grey) and the triangle-shaped tactical markings adopted by the Belarusian army in late Summer. 8/Also, these Belarusian troops aren’t being deployed on the border with Ukraine, it’s just a rotation. Those brigades that have been reinforcing the border in recent months are returning to their bases, being replaced by fresh ones. The total number of troops remains the same. 9/The Belarusian MoD said today that Russia plans to transfer 170 tanks to Belarus, but so far we see the opposite process. Without any statement last week alone, Belarus handed over at least 92 T-72A tanks and dozens of trucks to Russia. 10/So if anything the Belarusian flank is being weakened rather than strengthened, and all Belarus can do is put on a good face and loudly announce that Ukraine should be scared. In recent days Lukashenko and his minions made a whole bunch of loud statements: 11/About the deployment of a regional grouping of troops, pre-emptive strikes, partial mobilisation, issuing of weapons to firefighters, etc. Some of these statements aren’t even new, they were just repeated this week for greater effect. 12/The main target audience of these statements is the West. For the first time in living memory, the Belarusian MoD has decided to communicate its actions also in English and Spanish. A stark contrast to February, when the attack was real and the Belarusian MoD was silent. 13/The only real things we have so far are the arrival of Russian mobiks, the handover of >100 tanks and trucks to Russia and isolated “mobilisation readiness exercises” in some areas of Belarus, which look as pathetic as in Russia. Everything else is just hawkish rhetoric. 14/
Speaking of Belarus: Ooopsie!
A captain of the elite Alpha unit of the Belarusian KGB has illegally crossed the border and fled the country. He is now being checked by the counter-intelligence services of an unspecified neighbouring country, @nashaniva reports. pic.twitter.com/0Kb24FrguR
— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) October 18, 2022
What are some of the leading elected Republicans’ thinking on US support to Ukraine or matters pertaining to Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s re-invasion? Pretty much exactly what you’d expect:
GOP leader Kevin McCarthy tells Punchbowl that new Ukraine aid will have a more difficult road in a Republican House.
“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/sProsbI6WA
— Connor O'Brien (@connorobrienNH) October 18, 2022
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) admonishes Ukrainian officials for vocally rejecting Elon Musk — who's been funding satellites to help Ukraine's military — for proposing that Ukraine make significant territorial concessions to Russia:
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Good lord!" pic.twitter.com/w9PiMfESYS
— The Recount (@therecount) October 17, 2022
This image is for both the Starlink Snowflake and DeStupid!
As I’ve stated repeatedly, if the GOP takes one chamber of Congress, let alone both, Ukraine’s support from the US will dry up completely by the end of January 2023!
Politico did a very long interview with Fiona Hill. It is well worth the time to read the whole thing. But I want to excerpt a few really important parts. I think these two responses from Hill, from the second half of the interview, are actually the most important:
Part of the problem is that conceptually, people have a hard time with the idea of a world war. It brings all kinds of horrors to mind — the Holocaust and the detonation of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the dawning of the nuclear age. But if you think about it, a world war is a great power conflict over territory which overturns the existing international order and where other states find themselves on different sides of the conflict. It involves economic warfare, information warfare, as well as kinetic war.
We’re in the same situation. Again, Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, exactly 100 years after Germany invaded Belgium and France — and just in the same way that Hitler seized the Sudetenland, annexed Austria and invaded Poland. We’re having a hard time coming to terms with what we’re dealing with here. This is a great power conflict, the third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century. It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.
People worry about this being dangerous hyperbole. But we have to really accept what the situation is to be able to respond appropriately. Each war has been fought differently. Modern wars involve information space and cyberspace, and we’ve seen all of these at play here. And, in the 21st century, these are economic and financial wars. We’re all-in on the financial and economic side of things.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turned global energy and food security on its head because of the way Russia is leveraging gas and oil and the blockade Putin has imposed in the Black Sea against Ukrainian grain exports. Russia has not just targeted Ukrainian agricultural production, as well as port facilities for exporting grain, but caused a global food crisis. These are global effects of what is very clearly not just a regional war.
Keep in mind that Putin himself has used the language of both world wars. He’s talked about the fact that Ukraine did not exist as a state until after World War I, after the dissolution of the Russian Empire and the creation of the Soviet Union. He has blamed the early Soviets for the formation of what he calls an artificial state. Right from the very beginning, Putin himself has said that he is refighting World War II. So, the hyperbole has come from Vladimir Putin, who has said that he’s reversing all of the outcomes territorially from World War I and also, in effect, World War II and the Cold War. He’s not accepting the territorial configuration of Europe as it currently is.
Reynolds: What do you think is the right response from the West if Putin does detonate some sort of nuclear weapon, either as a demonstration or something else?
Hill: What Putin is trying to do is to get us to talk about the threat of nuclear war instead of what he is doing in Ukraine. He wants the U.S. and Europe to contemplate, as he says, the risks that we faced during the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Euromissile crisis. He wants us to face the prospect of a great superpower war. His solution is to have secret diplomacy, as we did during Cuban Missile Crisis, and have a direct compromise between the United States and Russia.
But there’s no strategic standoff here. This is pure nuclear blackmail. There can’t be a compromise based on him not setting off a nuclear weapon if we hand over Ukraine. Putin is behaving like a rogue state because, well, he is a rogue state at this point. And he’s being explicit about what he wants. We have to pull all the diplomatic stops out. We have to ensure that he’s not going to have the effect that he wants with this nuclear brinkmanship.
Putin is also making it very clear that to get what you want in the world, you have to have a nuclear weapon and to protect yourself, you also have to have a nuclear weapon. So this is an absolute mess. Global nuclear stability is on a knife edge.
But again, this is not about strategic issues. This is not an issue of strategic stability. This is Vladimir Putin pissed off because he hasn’t got what he wanted in a war that he started. It’s another attempt to adapt to the battlefield.
Here are the other parts that I think are really important too:
Reynolds: The war clearly hasn’t gone as Putin originally intended. How has Putin reacted to his setbacks and how do you think his mindset is evolving?
Hill: Whenever he has a setback, Putin figures he can get out of it, that he can turn things around. That’s partly because of his training as a KGB operative. In the past, when asked about the success of operations, he’s pooh-poohed the idea that operations always go as planned, that everything is always perfect. He says there are always problems in an operation, there are always setbacks. Sometimes they’re absolute disasters. The key is adaptation.
Another hallmark of Putin is that he doubles down. He always takes the more extreme step in his range of options, the one that actually cuts off other alternatives. Putin has often related an experience he had as a kid, when he trapped a rat in a corner in the apartment building he lived in, in Leningrad, and the rat shocked him by jumping out and fighting back. He tells this story as if it’s a story about himself, that if he’s ever cornered, he will always fight back.
But he’s also the person who puts himself in the corner. We know that the Russians have had very high casualties and that they’ve been running out of manpower and equipment in Ukraine. The casualty rate on the Russian side keeps mounting. A few months ago, estimates were 50,000. Now the suggestions are 90,000 killed or severely injured. This is a real blow given the 170,000 Russia troops deployed to the Ukrainian border when the invasion began.
So, what does Putin do? He sends even more troops in by launching a full-on mobilization. He still hasn’t said this is a war. It remains a “special military operation,” but he calls up 300,000 people. Then, he goes several steps further and announces the annexation of the territories that Russia has been fighting over for the last several months, not just Donetsk and Luhansk, but also the territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Putin gives himself no way out except to pursue the original goals he had when he went in, which is the dismemberment of Ukraine and Russia annexing its territory. And he’s still trying to adapt his responses to setbacks on the battlefield.
Reynolds: If Putin wants Ukrainian territory so badly, why is he raining down such destruction on civilian areas and committing so many human rights abuses in occupied areas?
Hill: This is punishment, but also perverse redevelopment. You cow people into submission, destroy what they had and all their links to their past and their old lives, and then make them into something new and, thus, yours. Destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. Build New Russia and create Russians. Its brutal but also a hallmark of imperial conquest.
Reynolds: We’ve recently had Elon Musk step into this conflict trying to promote discussion of peace settlements. What do you make of the role that he’s playing?
Hill: It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin. There was a conference in Aspen in late September when Musk offered a version of what was in his tweet — including the recognition of Crimea as Russian because it’s been mostly Russian since the 1780s — and the suggestion that the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia should be up for negotiation, because there should be guaranteed water supplies to Crimea. He made this suggestion before Putin’s annexation of those two territories on September 30. It was a very specific reference. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia essentially control all the water supplies to Crimea. Crimea is a dry peninsula. It has aquifers, but it doesn’t have rivers. It’s dependent on water from the Dnipro River that flows through a canal from Kherson. It’s unlikely Elon Musk knows about this himself. The reference to water is so specific that this clearly is a message from Putin.
Now, there are several reasons why Musk’s intervention is interesting and significant. First of all, Putin does this frequently. He uses prominent people as intermediaries to feel out the general political environment, to basically test how people are going to react to ideas. Henry Kissinger, for example, has had interactions with Putin directly and relayed messages. Putin often uses various trusted intermediaries including all kinds of businesspeople. I had intermediaries sent to discuss things with me while I was in government.
This is a classic Putin play. It’s just fascinating, of course, that it’s Elon Musk in this instance, because obviously Elon Musk has a huge Twitter following. He’s got a longstanding reputation in Russia through Tesla, the SpaceX space programs and also through Starlink. He’s one of the most popular men in opinion polls in Russia. At the same time, he’s played a very important part in supporting Ukraine by providing Starlink internet systems to Ukraine, and kept telecommunications going in Ukraine, paid for in part by the U.S. government. Elon Musk has enormous leverage as well as incredible prominence. Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin.
Reynolds: Putin is very comfortable dealing with billionaires and oligarchs. That’s a world that he knows well. But by using Musk this way, he goes right over the heads of [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government.
Hill: He is basically short-circuiting the diplomatic process. He wants to lay out his terms and see how many people are going to pick them up. All of this is an effort to get Americans to take themselves out of the war and hand over Ukraine and Ukrainian territory to Russia.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
A new video from Patron’s official TikTok!
@patron__dsns
The caption is pretty self explanatory. And I feel Patron’s snoozles! I got sucked into three different meetings today I almost tapped out during the second one despite them being Zoom because I telework!
Open thread!
Hkedi
Remember when “Politics stopped at the water’s edge”?
Yeah, me neither.
dmsilev
@Hkedi: That was always an empty slogan.
I have to say, I’m getting quite a bit of schadenfreude watching Musk squirm around trying to undo the reputational damage that he’s done to himself. Also, kudos to whoever at the Pentagon got pissed off enough at Musk’s public statements that they leaked his attempted extortion of DoD to CNN.
YY_Sima Qian
You can count on the GOP to act in the most cynical, irresponsible, destabilizing, destructive & treasonous manner, in every situation.
Alison Rose
But what else are the comments for? I kid.
I can’t say it loudly enough: Fuck McCarthy and DeSantis and the rest of their morally bankrupt party. The idea that a recession is more important than a fucking genocidal war is so………….Republican. They really are soulless monsters, and unfortunately a large portion of the population is like YEAH SOULLESS MONSTERS WE LOVE YOU! Makes one shudder to think how these guys would’ve responded to Hitler. Everyone loves to say they would’ve fought the Nazis. We know that’s not true.
BTW if anyone else here is a member of the Kyiv Independent’s Patreon or thinking about joining, this Thursday they’re hosting a conversation between Illia Ponomarenko and Rob Lee (from their email, he is “a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program, as well as a Ph.D. student at the War Studies Department at King’s College London, researching Russian defense policy”) on the topic of the potentiality of russia using nukes in Ukraine. You have to join the Patreon to “attend” but it starts at only $5 a month.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Subsole
Thanks again for the knowledge, Adam.
Also I have a silly civilian question: why use rockets instead of tube artillery? The Russians seem to use a LOT of the former. Is there any particular reason? Cost? Volume of fire? Or does Putin’s nephew just own the company that makes the boosters?
Subsole
@YY_Sima Qian: They wouldn’t be much of a
filthfifth column if they didn’t…sab
I think it is very interesting that the first TFG impeachment made normal people in the boondocks aware of Fionna Hill. I know she was well regarded in the circles she worked in, but was anyone outside of those foreign policy circles even aware of her?
YY_Sima Qian
Giczan’s Twitter thread makes a lot of sense. Russian strength is so degraded (& Belorussians so weak to begin with) that they are resorting to puffer fish tactics.
Still much blood letting in the East & South of Ukraine in the months ahead, unfortunately.
dmsilev
@Subsole: Range, probably. Without fancy high-tech shells (that the Russians don’t really have), you can send a rocket a whole heck of a lot farther from the launcher. Certainly for things like terror-bombing Kyiv, it’s either rockets or reinstate the kamikaze pilot corps…
Spanky
Kissinger! I
hopedthought he was dead.Carlo Graziani
I like Fiona Hill, and I agree that the West cannot allow itself to be blackmailed by Putin’s nuclear threats. But I’m starting to become dissatisfied with the “Putin the cornered rat always escalates” framing. It looks like another self-made intellectual trap to me, in that logically it implies a spiral of escalation in which either Putin wins or the world burns.
That’s not the right frame, in my opinion. The way to understand Putin is through the psychology of the bully. The reason that he has always escalated in the past is that he has always operated from a position of strength. But that also means that he understands threats, and power, and fear. And if confronted with a real threat of his own by a stronger party that he cannot intimidate — like NATO — I don’t think that he would escalate. That isn’t how bullies react.
zhena gogolia
At dinner my husband was all depressed. I couldn’t figure out why, because he doesn’t pay attention to politics much. But he brings in my New York Times every morning and reads the headlines. I said, “What are you dreading?” And he said, “The election. They’re going to abandon Ukraine.”
Alison Rose
@Spanky: So say we all. One day…one day.
sab
@Carlo Graziani: I don’t think that is what she is saying. I think she is saying we need to call him on it because we were already involved in this contfrontation long before the current (2021) invasion. We just didn’t recognize the full implications of the 2014 invasion.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: I wish Biden could just be like 500 BILLION FOR UKRAINE now.
lashonharangue
@sab:
I think Adam might take issue with “we.” But he is too much of a mench to say I told you so.
sab
@lashonharangue: I thought he had said as much months and months ago, but I might be wrong.
Adam L Silverman
@sab: I did. Also multiple times a year since 2015 when I started writing here full time.
Adam L Silverman
@lashonharangue: I sort of just did. Try not to think less of me.
lashonharangue
Here is a link to a long interview with Kamil Galeev.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinatalk-kamil-nukes-and-civil-war-russia
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
I would normally agree with you fully.
But.
This game is being played at the highest levels of every country. And some of those countries, such as Russia, are run by people that get to a certain age and status, such as vlad, that their doubling down is very, very dangerous to large numbers of actual humans. (I know you know this…) And they often put themselves into a massively bad spot because they feel one of two ways, rather safe or extremely unsafe. vlad’s rhetoric is of the second type because this is a world stage and I’m not sure he understands his limits on that stage doing what he is doing at this time. Which means he’s unstable and an unstable man getting told no is a dangerous thing. He’s become less predictable and his age and possible health rumors could make him even less stable, especially if he thinks he’s running out of time. A man with desires he can’t have, if he’s seeing the clock running out of time, he’s likely to do things that make zero sense.
Geminid
I wonder how the Ukrainian military is responding to the intelligence underlying this report in the Kiev Post:
One of the news platforms cited is UNIAN.
Reports are that some of the Iranian “instructors” work at the Kirov Air Base near the Tarkenkut Peninsula, Crimea, and pver 20 are operating in the Kherson area. The latter group is in the line of fire, and I expect Ukrainian forces are already eager to hit the drone launchers Iranians are teaching Russians to use.
lashonharangue
@Adam L Silverman:
I think you have been raising the alarm for a long time. Given that, I think you could have said I told you so a lot more than I remember you doing at BJ. What you have said to your professional acquaintances I have no visibility of.
Subsole
@dmsilev: Interesting. Thanks.
The tradeoff, I imagine, is that tube artillery is much harder to intercept than a rocket.
Subsole
@zhena gogolia: Bingo.
This is why Putin escalates. He’s blowing hot air.
His ONLY winning card is to hold on until his lickspittles in the Party of Aryan Billionaire Open Carry Jesus save his bacon.
lee
Glad this is up a bit earlier than normal and I’m not in bed yet.
I’ve got a question that I’ve been pondering for a bit:
My understanding is that prior to 2014 Ukraine was almost as corrupt as Russia when it came to their military (siphoning off funds and equipment for personal benefit, etc).
Did it end in 2014?
Was there a concerted effort to clean up the corruption or did the Ukrainians figure out it was vital for them to stop being corrupt? Was the US involved cleaning up the corruption?
Thanks!
Subsole
@lee: I believe so, both regarding the corruption and the clean-up. I recall reading a few articles to that effect.
Essentially, Ukraine did a deep audit of their military, and, wonder of wonders, listened to the recommendations. They moved over to an American model. The results have been…well. <points at smoldering hulk of a T-72>
trnc
She testified about a conversation she had with Sondland in which she called him an errand boy for DT. It sounds like she’s making the same connection of Musk to Putin.
Cameron
@Geminid: Iran hasn’t done much to clarify what’s going on. It has officials claiming it isn’t selling weapons to the Russians and other officials claiming that it is.
Gin & Tonic
Due respect to Mr Nehzati, but anyone who expects “[i]nstitutions like Amnesty International” to have any positive effect on Iran or Russia probably also believes in the Tooth Fairy. If there is one thing that international institutions have amply demonstrated in Russia’s war or in Iran’s crackdown is that they are worth less than a bucket of spit (I initially wrote “shit,” but shit can at least be used as fertilizer.) Amnesty International famously both-sides’d Russia’s artillery attacks on Ukrainian civilian populations; the International Committee of the Red Cross yuks it up with Segey Lavrov while Russia starves and tortures POW’s, then says precisely nothing; the UN’s WFP watches as Russian ships steal Ukrainian grain and Russian artillery attacks sunflower-oil storage facilities. For fuck’s sake, a *permanent member* of the UNSC publicly announces that it will be carrying out war crimes, then does so in one of the capital cities of a European country, and the UN goes “ho hum.” (For those who are dim, targeting civilian energy facilities as winter approaches, with the intent of freezing the populace is a 100% prima facie war crime.)
The only “international institution” that seems to be worth the value of the paper its charter is printed on is NATO. All the rest are just for the rubes to send money to so their leaders can maintain their tony flats in Geneva.
Subsole
@trnc: it’s kind of horrifying how easy it is to lead these marshals of destiny and lords of the boardroom around by the nostrils.
Omnes Omnibus
@Subsole: Range. Guns are more accurate and can fire more rapidly than rockets and missiles. As a result, they are better for direct support of maneuver forces. Here is a little cheat sheet on the (dis)advantages of each with a little less bias than I might bring to the table.
Gin & Tonic
@lee: The “Revolution of Dignity” in 2013-14 (what you may know as “Maidan”) changed a great deal in Ukraine. The seeds were there, but those events provided the water, fertilizer and sunlight.
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: Cosign all of this.
Hope you’re doing okay, G&T <3
planetjanet
@Gin & Tonic: Great to see you here!
lowtechcyclist
I’m not an expert on either the Federal budget or the specific Congressional allocations for Ukraine, but:
a) AFAICT, the Administration hasn’t spent nearly all of the big $42B Ukraine bill from early this year, and
b) there’s also the $12B for Ukraine that was included in the stopgap bill to keep the government open through early December. (I am remembering correctly that it did make the final cut, right?)
Those don’t go away on January 3rd. Maybe they go away on September 30, IOW the end of the next fiscal year. But not before, as far as I can see.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Not me! I know it’s the faintest of hopes, but I still want him to live long enough to be brought to trial for war crimes.
Speaking of which, one of my favorite Doonesbury strips from back in the day.
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: Was The Revolution of Dignity the one where the student organizers reached out to the farmers who then were key support for the revolution?
persistentillusion
@Alison Rose: Alison, I support the KI financially, but will not be able to join the feed. Would you think about posting a summary after the fact for those of us who couldn’t participate IRT?
Adam L Silverman
@lashonharangue: I was referring to my remarks here.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: The Congress has the “power of the purse”. It can cancel contracts, take back unspent funding, and all the rest, via recission. It would be hugely disruptive, of course, but they can do it.
We have to vote sensible people into positions of authority. That’s the protection for Ukraine, Democracy, and all the rest.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Dan B: That was part of it.
CaseyL
@Another Scott:
Fuck. I didn’t know Congress could do that. If the GOP takes the House, they’ll do it to every bill Biden got passed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: A recission bill requires the cooperation of the President which will not be forthcoming.
Tony G
@lowtechcyclist: At this point I’m convinced the Kissinger and Cheney will never die. They will still walk among us a thousand years from now.
glc
@Spanky:
The authority:
@DidKissingerD1e
Alison Rose
@persistentillusion: Yeah, I’ll try to take some notes! I’m most interested to see if they discuss what they think the world response could or should be if the fucker actually does it.
Fake Irishman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Correct. President still has the power to veto a revision bill. In the 2018 case the link was talking about it was about how rescission might be able to overcome a democratic filibuster in the Senate to get a bill to Trump.
Fake Irishman
@CaseyL: they can’t without the signature of the president.
NutmegAgain
@sab: No idea, but I was really, really surprised to see some comments on another lefty politics blog. Despite her long career in diplomacy/policy and abundant qualifications, it seems that she committed a big fat sin (according to these other folks) by working for Bolton, and hence for Trump. I see this opinion as the left eating its own children! We need all the smart, outspoken, east-European literate thinkers we can find.
Bupalos
I don’t know what you’re trying to say. Are you suggesting there is any actual lack of clarity here? Because that would be… incorrect.
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: I felt that getting people from the countryside involved so it wouldn’t be just “radical” students was very wise.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: @Fake Irishman: Yes, there would have to be agreements among the various parties, as always.
But the process exists. And it’s good that that process exists in normal times when people of good-will are in office.
Trying to front-load funding for Ukraine in case the GQPers take over isn’t really going to work. There is no One Weird Trick that will save us from the monsters. And no present Congress can prevent a future Congress from changing the rules.
Policy always, eventually, comes down to the people in office…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
I just don’t understand how Republicans thinking giving Ukraine to Russia is a popular option. It just goes against every Republican grain since Kruschev.
Gin & Tonic
@Dan B: The degree of civic engagement and self-organization during the months of mass demonstrations was remarkable. Supplying and preparing food, policing behavior (there was no alcohol!), it was all organic and broad-based.
sab
@NutmegAgain: If she were an obvoius lefty she would be unable to have a career in foreign policy. I wish our left would realize that to work in the field you need to get along with the people already there. There are security clearances and all sorts of other barriers she needs to be able to negotiate just to fumction.
Chetan Murthy
@kindness: I don’t think they actually believe it’s the popular option. I believe they think it’s what Putin wants, and Putin supports them, and … *Will to Power*.
“If you want power, you gotta be willing to make the hard choice, man. Our backers want UA to go down, and if we don’t make that happen, they’re not gonna back us. So what else can we do?”
Wholly, entirely, treasonably, cravenly nihilistically power-hungry. With no other goal other than to gather in the power and use it to lord it over everyone else.
They have not a thought for actual Americans, not to speak of actual Ukrainians fighting and dying as we sit here discussing. Not a thought.
Carlo Graziani
@sab: @Ruckus: What I’m trying to say is that there is a lot of analysis lately that conforms to the pattern of predicting what Putin will do based on a model in which he is a rational — certainly not mad — actor, whose strategy is one-dimensional: escalation. Hill is a sophisticated and knowledgeable analyst, but she comes close to saying essentially this in the interview.
And that’s the model that I think isn’t right, and can lead to bad decisions. Putin isn’t a “rational escalator”, if that’s even a thing. A better model is “Mob Boss”. His authority and credibility have been established by constant displays of dominance over weaker opponents, whether in domestic politics or in international relations. Lawlessness, violence, and subterfuge are his tools, and the loyalties that he has earned derive only from the successes that those methods have gained for him. And if success should fail him, so would the loyalties of his underbosses.
In other words, he’s a classic bully, who has built up power through a culture of intimidation, like many emperors of shitpot nations, as well as actual Mafia (and other organized crime) bosses, egomaniac CEOs, wifebeater paterfamilias, and schoolyard terrors.
The basic truth about such people is that they are moral cowards, whose principal concern is their own survival. Putin may see himself as the second coming of Peter the Great, but he is no more likely to give his life up for an ideal of the Great Rus and the Third Rome than John Gotti would have sacrificed himself to protect anyone in his family or organization.
The point is not to be insanely confrontational or belligerent. But it is to recognize that with people like Putin threats work, because threats are what they understand. So, for example, “A demonstration nuclear explosion will result in the destruction by NATO air forces of Russian forces around Bakhmut; A battlefield nuclear explosion in the field will result in the destruction of all Russian forces in Southern Ukraine; A nuclear strike on any Ukrainian city will result in the complete annihilation of all Russian forces in Ukraine, including Crimea.”
These are very realistic threats. There is nothing the Russians could do to stop them. Escalation would be suicidal. And I don’t believe for a second that Putin would escalate. He’s a coward, and only escalates to intimidate weaker adversaries. He’d find a way to back off.
And, I’d bet dollars to donuts that the Biden administration has communicated some version of such a threat.
Alison Rose
@Chetan Murthy: Cleek’s Law also comes into play.
NutmegAgain
@sab: Yes, agreed. I listened to the first half of her book, and knowing where and when she grew up helped me to color outside the lines a bit.
Fake Irishman
@Another Scott:
I don’t think either of us are arguing that the US can front load Ukraine aid forever in the lame duck, but rather that there is considerable residual authority that’s not going anywhere for a year.
@Another Scott:
sab
@Carlo Graziani: I guess I think of bullies and mob bosses as being somewhat different. Mob bosses are bullies who outgrew just bullying, and really learned to assert power. Sort of what TFG never managed. Psychologically similar but much more complex. Bullies back down when challenged. Mob bosses don’t, but because of their predatory behavior they have to challenged at some point.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: Of course it would work. Biden isn’t going anywhere for at least another two years, anything passed now would need a veto proof majority to undo.
Congress can’t straitjacket the next congress, but things can still be vetoed, so the President can.
Peale
@kindness: If Ukraine falls, they can just blame Biden for not doing more to one audience (weak Jimmy Carter II), and praise themselves for supporting a true manly gender defender to another.
sab
@sab:
@Carlo Graziani:
I think you and I do basically agree, and I’ve just confused the issue by misunderstanding your terminology. My point is I think Fionna Hill agrees with us to a large extent in regards to what makes Putin tick.
Andrya
@kindness: I’ve given a lot of thought to this question. The early Republican architects of the cold war (Eisenhower and even, G-d help us, Nixon) understood that defeating Soviet communism would require collective sacrifice, including high taxes and high military spending. Much though I detested Ronald Reagan, I thought he was sincere when he said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”. However, Reagan also said “no collective sacrifice! taxes as low as possible! no safety net!”. Neither Reagan nor the Republicans that followed him understood that these two principles (defending freedom and maximal individual selfishness) were in existential conflict.
Now these chickens have (unfortunately) come home to roost. The russian government has been providing $$ to prominent conservatives and conservative institutions: they (American Republicans) are no longer asking “should we defend freedom” rather “who provides- directly or indirectly- $$”.
Carlo Graziani
@sab: The connection is actually rather close. When mob bosses begin to fail — when other bosses begin to outmuscle them, or when law enforcement begins to undermine their trust in their organization — the bully’s cowardice comes to the fore, making a lie of the romantic cinematic tropes of family loyalty.
Mob bosses never “outgrow” bullying. They just turn it into a way of life. It’s a life of cowardice, masked by power. Which, I would assert, would make a perfect epitaph for Putin.
Andrya
@Andrya: I should make it clear I am not defending everything the Nixon administration did to pursue the cold war, in particular not their support for the murderous regime in Chile.
sab
@Carlo Graziani: Agreed. I think we got our terminology in line here.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: I’m, personally, expecting bipartisan support for Ukraine to continue no matter who controls which chamber, but McCarthy and others would certainly demand things in exchange for their support. Like, oh, I dunno, slashing Amtrak and public transit and climate change funding. They never found a Democratic hostage that wasn’t worth threatening.
They’re laying down markers now because they know we care about it. And because it lets them use language about “blank checks” and so forth (on bills they voted for) to try to reinforce to the normies the old saw that Democrats are “tax and spend” while they are the responsible ones.
I hope we don’t get in the situation to see them try again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
But it’s not going to use it for this. We’ve been through this with both Boehner and Ryan and during Trump’s presidency, for that matter. If Democrats control the presidency or even one house of congress, Republicans are not going to get their way. They’ll water down budgets, stop us from making improvements, but the solid fact is that they’re absolute dog shit negotiators, they believe they can’t actually not pass a budget, and they can’t control their caucus to do anything but say ‘no’. The House can’t even reliably do that. I don’t see Ukrainian aid being canceled. I see McCarthy trying and failing. I see McConnell going “Eh.”
@Carlo Graziani:
All of this. I have found Putin not hard to predict. He’s an arrogant asshole surrounded by yes-men. You’ve described it in a lot more detail, and I agree, but it’s the same dynamic. He is not going to use nukes, because his own life is on the line. If he thought we were coming for him, yes, he would use them because he has nothing to lose.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Agree. The GOP has become quite practiced & adept at holding the country hostage, to extract concessions from the Dems. This dynamic hasn’t been broken yet, because they have yet to be punished at the ballot box for it.
Subsole
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you!
This really is a full-service blog!
way2blue
@Another Scott: Ugh. Can’t such efforts to claw back allocated funds be veto’d by Biden?
In any case, my worry is that a Republican-led House would demand roll-back of already implemented legislation (such as infrastructure support) as the price for continuing to fund Ukraine.
way2blue
@NutmegAgain: Discouraging that such lefties are so prissy. Hill didn’t ‘work’ for Bolton. She worked for the federal government under Bolton. Political appointees come & go. Those under them try to keep the lights on…
Chetan Murthy
@NutmegAgain: @way2blue: I’m curious what the other lefty politics blog was. There are a lotta “lefties” who aren’t any such thing — just tankies of various kinds. The kind of people who believe that symbolism is more important than results. But maybe these particular ones are more ….. credible. Idunno.
Chetan Murthy
@lashonharangue: Thank you for this. It was very interesting (albeit *long*). The part about civil war in Russia, and how various parties are raising volunteer battalions that they are then *not* sending to Ukraine, but keeping local (under the guise of training) was …. interesting. That he was unwilling to state which oblasts are doing it was …. also interesting.
Carlo Graziani
@way2blue:
I’m getting a somewhat frantic sense of impending doom here. Can I make a modest suggestion?
I find that the one thing worth procratinating is panic. Especially panic motivated by electoral politics.
The thing is that what we’re likely to be panicking about next January very likely bears little or no relation to current panic-predictions, just because the world turns. And attempting now to scry what the panic of that world will feel like 7 or 8 billiard-ball bounces farther along, through a nearly unprecedented, unpredictable election…well, why not simply wait until the right panic is good and ripe, and have that one then?
Worry is good for everyday stuff. Panic is for special occasions. The world could surprise us — one should make room in one’s life for hope, while scheduling time for panic.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@kindness: I think one aspect of it is that the GOP know they’re toast without the Trumpists, they can’t get the Trumpists without TFG, and Putin owns TFG (plus it’s now an open secret that Putin bankrolled the NRA and a lot of other GOP financial supporters). So to a degree, they’re like people who borrowed from a loan shark who’s calling in his debts with interest.
Barney
On Rekabi: she was able to speak to the media and a crowd when she arrived at Tehran Airport.
“Outside, she apparently entered a van and was driven through the gathered crowd, who cheered her. It was unclear where she went after that.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/elnaz-rekabi-iranian-climber-who-competed-without-a-hijab-met-by-jubilant-crowds-in-tehran-iran
I hope that means the prison is not the inevitable destination, but that they might settle for “I would never intentionally disrespect our wonderful traditions blah blah” statement that let’s the regime say it’s still in charge.
Starfish
@Barney: I think they will take her to Evin.
The crowds gathering to support her were crowds gathering to oppose the regime. If they let the opposition have recognizable leaders, then the potential for the whole thing to topple gets stronger.
I am not sure that Elnaz wants to be a movement leader, but what she did was brave.
Barney
@Starfish: The van was a yellow airport taxi, which seems a good sign:
https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1582533820032593922
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Carlo Graziani: and to echo what he is saying the last time the GOP controlled the House the only thing the GOP could agree upon among themselves was voting for tax cuts and Ryan had to go to Pelosi and the Democrats to get the boring adult stuff done.
Also, I am such a cynic I think the only reason DeSantis is supporting Musk is suck Musk’s unmentionables in the hopes of getting a campaign donation (that’s right DeStantis, work those mom pants of yours)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Frankensteinbeck: Not to mention that Putin might realize most of Russia’s nuclear arsenal is junk. I have heard claims that nuclear warheads are only good for fifteen years because of the half life of it’s fissionable material. The the Russian has been going on about their brand new super bomb that will drown the British Isles.
Torrey
@Andrya:
The Republican leaders of that period had lived through the Great Depression and at least one world war. They had been raised on the idea that collective sacrifice was a normal part of life. Not so the current crop.
@Carlo Graziani:
Thank you for this call to emotional recalibration. I needed that. In particular, the last paragraph: I’d like to get it done in calligraphy and taped above my desk.
Geminid
Media outlet “Ukraine Frontlines” (@EuromaidanPR) reported 4 missiles, 8 Shahed drones shot down today by Ukrainian defenders, as of 15:00pm local time. They say that 223 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones have been downed since September 10.
Ukraine Frontlines also warns of a possible mass drone attack in coming days, as preparations similar to those before the October 10 attacks have been detected.
Marcus
@Carlo Graziani: Love your insights they always hit the mark. You would make a great war time consigliere. The democrats win or lose would need one going forward
Here is my 2 cents…Putin’s strategy right now is to kill Zelenskyy by any means necessary and to buy time. Republicans (mainly their benefactors) or Putin operate as a hand. The Democrats /NATO are fingers that can form a hand from time to time but its not their natural state. How long they can maintain this is key going forward.
Bill Arnold
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Anyone making such claims is suspect (ignorant, or a nuclear warmonger talking up thermonuclear war for Reasons (Evil Reasons)). I’m not sure of the current state but a couple of years ago Russia had (at least) two reactors producing Tritium and a project to replace those reactors. Also they have a large stockpile of tritium, and half-life means 1/2 is left after the half life. Nothing else used in weapons has a short radioactive half-life on human scales. Very old weapons might have age-related problems with other components, but these can (in principle) be identified and resolved (might have to pull elderly scientists/engineers out of retirement, or resurrect them :-). Russia also occasionally tests their strategic weapon-carrying rockets, reportedly successfully.
Strategic nuclear forces, including Russia’s, are well funded, with top talent, and the crown jewels for a country, because nuclear deterrence does not work unless opponents are convinced that the weapons will work reliably enough to destroy an attacker even after counterforce first strike. (ETA the reliability of tactical nuclear weapons is another question, probably even for the Russians; a couple of duds would be very embarrassing for the Russians, which is part of their calculation.)
Mo MacArbie
Nominated.
Bill Arnold
Interesting move:
Putin declares martial law in annexed regions of Ukraine (2022/10/19)
Thoughts?
My intuition is shouting that this is primarily about civilian (and SOF) spotters in occupied Ukrainian territories providing targeting information for precision strikes over encrypted (internet) communications channels, and secondarily about warming up the general Russian civilian population (not in Ukraine) for similar but weaker measures.
(ETA also to constrain movement by UKR SOF teams.)
sab
@Torrey: I was thinking, along the same line, an embroidery sampler.
charon
Many decades ago I worked for a design/construction contractor on a project to expand the plutonium reprocessing facility at Rocky Flats, CO. Part of the process included reprocessing plutonium from old warheads to remove the impurities (radioactive decay products).
Plutonium decays into Americium which is highly radioactve (i.e., short half life). Because Americium decay produces very penetrating high energy gamma radiation, the warheads become problematical as Amercium gradually contaminates them. Us folks at the contractor did not know how often warheads needed reprocessing because classified info.
Bill Arnold
@charon:
Thanks! Not spotting much public information on how many USA and Russian devices use enriched Uranium – at one point (like 2 decades ago) more than 1/2 of the Uranium used by US nuclear power plants was Russian weapons grade highly enriched Uranium diluted down to reactor grade, no longer needed by the Russians in part (ostensibly) due to nuclear arms control treaties, but also (it is guessed) due to changes in weapons design over the decades.
Geminid
I think that plutonium is the standard material for nuclear weapons now (plus some high density material that creates the fusion).
Enriched urainium has its place as a more easily produced material, especially now with improved centrifuge technology. Uranium bombs are also easier to construct. That’s why Iranians are running uranium through centrifuges for its nuclear weapons program that they insist is not a nuclear weapons program.
charon
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-track-disappoint-multiple-competing-factions-russia
Etc., etc.
charon
@charon:
The relevant tweet to the above:
https://twitter.com/nataliabugayova/status/1582688632657149954
The report can be downloaded as a .pdf, it’s much longer than my excerpt above.
Bill Arnold
@charon:
Thanks for that link. Worth a read. (Only needs a few minutes.)
Is “crystallizing” a common term in this sort of analysis? (I’d use “poly-crystalline”; given the complexities that’d be a closer metaphor.)
(There are other wedge-able fault lines that the article does not address.)
Geminid
@charon: I am interested in the effect Russia’s decline in global influence will have on its allies Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Venezuela and the US are already making tentative steps towards normalization of relations. I don’t see Cuba or Nicaragua’s governments doing this, but they may be feeling lonely.