We’ve had some robust discussions in the comments the last couple of nights about what the Ukrainian Armed Forces is going to do now that they’ve liberated Kherson. I found a very interesting bit of analysis by a senior visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies at Kings College London which we’ll get to after President Zelenskyy’s address.
But before we get to that, just a quick update on the ongoing revolution of the women in Iran. The Guardian has the grim details: (emphasis mine)
Iran has issued a first death sentence over protests that have mounted a fierce challenge to four decades of hardline clerical rule, as rights groups warn that a wave of executions may follow as leaders try to end nearly two months of sustained nationwide dissent.
The execution was ordered for an unidentified person for allegedly setting fire to a government building. It followed 272 of Iran’s 290 lawmakers voting earlier this month to implement the death penalty for serious crimes against the state, and repeated demands by some officials to take a harder line against unrest that shows little sign of abating.
Currently Iran has arrested around 15,000 protestors:
In the last 8 weeks Iran’s regime has killed over 300 protestors, imprisoned nearly 15,000, and threatened to execute hundreds more, yet Iran’s women persist. Today female university students removed their forced hejab and chant, “I am a free woman.” pic.twitter.com/OjQZ6zHfG5
— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) November 8, 2022
So if they carry through on what they’ve voted to do, this could get very ugly very fast!
On to President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. You all know the drill: video below, English transcript after the jump:
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
Today was a very productive and symbolic day – a day in the Kherson region, in the Mykolaiv region.
First of all, I had the honor of personally presenting our warriors with state awards. In Kherson, I presented 36 orders of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and “For Courage”, and handed over three more orders to wounded warriors.
In particular, Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi of the 1st degree. In September, he became the commander of the Kherson operational-strategic group of troops, and we can see the result.
The title of Hero of Ukraine was awarded to intelligence officer, sergeant Andriy Orlov. Back in September, he showed extraordinary bravery and effectiveness in battles in the Kherson region. He was wounded and recovered. Returned to the frontline. And already on November 10, as part of a reconnaissance unit, he took part in the liberation of Snihurivka. It was he who raised the Ukrainian flag over the district administration building.
Of course, there will be more awards, there will be more gratitude. All our warriors who restore freedom to Ukrainians and the Ukrainian land deserve the utmost gratitude. It is so. It will be so.
I held several meetings today – both in the Kherson region and in the Mykolaiv region. We will do everything to restore normal living conditions for our people.
It is obvious to everyone what Ukraine is, what the presence of our flag is. When there is a Ukrainian flag, there is civilization, there is freedom. There is social security. There is infrastructure. There is security. There is someone to take care of people. There are all the things that disappear and that are destroyed when the occupier comes.
This is what the Russian flag means – complete desolation. There is no electricity, no communication, no Internet, no television. The occupiers destroyed everything themselves – on purpose. This is their special operation. On the eve of winter, the Russian occupiers destroyed absolutely all critical infrastructure for the people. Absolutely all important objects in the city and region are mined.
It is happiness for everyone when Russia is driven out. Happiness, which will also be in those cities and communities of ours, which are deprived of a normal life by Russia both after February 24 and in 2014. We will return everything. We will return normal life. And we know that peace for Ukraine is getting closer. For our entire country.
In a few hours, I will talk about this in my address to the participants of the… G19 summit in Indonesia. This is an association of very influential states. And today, on the eve of the summit, influential statements have already been made.
In particular, it is important that the United States and China jointly noted the inadmissibility of any threats to use nuclear weapons. Everyone understands whom these words are addressed to.
Today, we also have decisions from our partners that strengthen Ukraine’s position. I am grateful to Canada for the new package of defense support for our country in the amount of half a billion dollars. And also for new sanctions against Russian accomplices of tyranny – against the cogs of this system.
I am grateful to the United States for the new sanctions. Today, sanctions have been introduced against more than 40 legal entities and individuals who help Russia wage a war. Absolutely everyone who in one way or another works for the Russian army, the defense sector, must receive complete personal isolation from the rest of the world. And then there will be punishment for complicity in terror.
Within the UN, our diplomats worked for a long time with partners to agree on and adopt two very important resolutions. The first of them is supported today – regarding the creation of an international compensation mechanism that will make it possible to compensate all the losses caused by the Russian war, moreover at the expense of Russian assets. The reparations that Russia will have to pay for what it has committed are now part of the international legal reality.
We are still agreeing with our partners on the second resolution – to create a special tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine. We will do everything to make them both work.
Today, a meeting of the Coordination Council of Ukraine for Child Protection and Safety co-chaired by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Head of the Office Andriy Yermak was held. I thank Mr. Guterres for that.
They discussed how to stop the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and return home all those who were forcibly deported. At least these are almost 11 thousand children – we know them by name. But these are only the ones we know about. And in fact, there are more deported.
The meeting was also attended by the ambassadors of the leading states, whom we call on to help with the implementation of this task. We will really need the power of the whole world to bring back all the deportees.
I believe that we can ensure it!
I am grateful to everyone who helps Ukraine!
I am grateful to everyone who fights and works for our country!
Eternal memory to all those who gave their lives for Ukraine and our people.
Glory to Ukraine!
President Zelenskyy also made a visit to Kherson today.
We will further rule and prosper in our promised land.
We will lay our soul and body for the cherished freedom.#FreedomIsOurReligion pic.twitter.com/FdCNFgCgfS— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 14, 2022
🇺🇦 President @ZelenskyyUa in Kherson
(English subtitles) pic.twitter.com/ELKdqVhjSx— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) November 14, 2022
Oh Canada!
Thank you @JustinTrudeau & 🇨🇦 people for CAD500 million in defense aid to 🇺🇦. This again proves that 🇺🇦 & 🇨🇦 are true allies who share common values & have the same goals. We’ll always remember the help provided by the fraternal 🇨🇦 in the most difficult times. Together we’ll win!
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 14, 2022
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Kherson and Bakhmut:
KHERSON CITY/14 NOV/ On 12-13 NOV, 4 explosions in the city were attributed to RU mines & long-fused explosives. In separate incidents, two anti-vehicle mines wounded 6 rail workers, & an automobile struck a RU road mine injured six family members. RU sorties UAVs over area. pic.twitter.com/Xx0VydObg0
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) November 14, 2022
BAKHMUT/1810 UTC 14 NOV/ RU sources report that its recon UAVs were able to locate & direct effective fire on a trio of UKR M113 armored personnel carriers. This action, believed to have taken place on 13 NOV, has had no immediate effect on the lines of contact. UKR lines firm. pic.twitter.com/gaZpNsT0FS
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) November 14, 2022
After it was reported that GEN Milley had made statements that during he expects there to be a winter pause or slowdown, which would create an opening for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, the Biden administration began scrambling to put out self inflicted informational fires. Today GEN Milley had a telephone call with his Ukrainian counterpart GEN Zaluzhnyi. Here is GEN Zaluzhnyi’s readout of that call:
Have informed my 🇺🇸counterpart on the operational picture & urgent needs of #AFU.
Situation on the frontline is stable & controlled. We are tracking attentively the enemy’s activities on the border with belarus & building a reliable shield for the protection of 🇺🇦 in the North.— Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@CinC_AFU) November 14, 2022
🇺🇦 #GenStaff continues to concentrate efforts on gaining the strategic objective regarding situation stabilization in designated operational zones, follow-on offensive operations conduct in order to deoccupy the entire country & prevent the enemy’s breach in likely attack areas.
— Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@CinC_AFU) November 14, 2022
So what’s up next for Ukraine’s campaign to clear the Russian re-invaders from all occupied Ukrainian territory? I came across this interesting analysis by Mike Martin who is a senior visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies at Kings College London: First tweet followed by screengrabs. A whole lot of screengrabs!
The Ukrainians have taken Kherson.
What now?
A map-based explainer.
— Mike Martin 🔶 (@ThreshedThought) November 13, 2022
Well ain’t that a shame…
The fire is at the Podolsky Electromechanical Plant, which manufactures components for Russian missiles, all the way from 9K35 Strela-10 at the low end, to S-400s and Topol-M ICBMs! This could end any remaining production capacity.
55°25'34.50"N 37°33'18.31"E@GeoConfirmed pic.twitter.com/N8Zg8KosPh
— Colby Badhwar 🇨🇦🇬🇧 (@ColbyBadhwar) November 14, 2022
Not really!
15 seconds of beauty to make your day! pic.twitter.com/q8WxrIoHNN
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 14, 2022
Tallyho!
When at the check-point not only the commander is waiting for you, but also the dog.#Ukraine️ #Ukraina #RussiaisATerroistState #RussiaUkraineWar #CatsOfTwitter #CatsOnTwitter #Bakhmut #Kharkiv
#NewYork #Zaporizhzia #Kyiv #ukrainecounteroffensive#KhersonisUkraine pic.twitter.com/8yPfJxH6Pp— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) November 14, 2022
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! pic.twitter.com/hnC8bVHIFg
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 14, 2022
In Kherson Oblast we are delivering as every town gets liberated non stop! Also in Luhansk, Donetsk,Kharkiv,Mikolai regions,as cities are liberated! But look at the video! The joy+happiness! Kherson! Im so proud that thanks to your support @WCKitchen has reached so many people! pic.twitter.com/9r1cUIstQY
— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) November 14, 2022
And that’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
No new tweets, but a new video from his official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Безсоння? Ні, не чув😁 #песпатрон #патрондснс
The caption machine translates as:
Insomnia? No, I haven’t heard 😁 #PatrontheDog #PatronDSNS
Open thread!
Ishiyama
Yah, turn their left flank where they didn’t think they needed to protect it.
Spanky
So many tweets! What are we going to do when Musk puts the final torpedo in Twitter?
oldster
I’ll repost this from the tail end of last night’s dead thread, since it chimes with Mike Martins assessment:
[replying to Carlo Graziani]:
The best reason to think that the landing on Kinburn Spit and the advance on Heroiske is a feint…
is that we know about them.
Ukrainian op-sec has been very good, and they don’t release videos of things they don’t want known by the enemy.
So, it may be a feint to cover an eastern campaign, as you suggest.
It may also be an attempt to draw out an enemy warship or two from Sebastopol, and bring it within range of shore batteries.
And if the enemy don’t send warships and don’t respond to the landing, well, then a good general can always consider how to exploit an opening.
coin operated
I follow Dr Martin on (what’s left of) Twitter. His updates are always worth it.
PaulB
Adam, something I’ve been curious about is that it seems (to this total non-expert) that there’s been something of an inflection point when it comes to the use of drones. I’m wondering how you see drone usage and tactics changing in the future. And, in particular, do you see kamikaze drones being added to terrorist organization arsenals and something that either we or European nations now have to worry about?
As always, thank you for the time and knowledge you’ve shared with us.
Ishiyama
@oldster: If Ukrainian artillery commands the ground, massing RU troops to oppose a landing becomes problematic.
zhena gogolia
To start Tolstoy class today, I played the video of the flag-raising in Kherson. The students applauded. Felt good.
Citizen Alan
Has any person in our lifetime risen to the occasion the way Zelensky has? It’s like Larry the Cable Guy became President through some absurd sequence of events and then went on to guide the nation through its greatest national crisis in living memory.
Steeplejack
@Citizen Alan:
Zelenskyy.
oldster
@Ishiyama:
Yes, I like that scenario, but I suspect that both sides can bring artillery to bear on the Heroiske area and peninsula. If the russians can move their artillery back west towards the mouth of the Dnipro, they can make a Ukrainian landing very hard.
Maybe they cannot get their arty over there? I’ll be happy to hear so.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: I agree with your sentiment, but he wasn’t exactly Larry the Cable Guy. He was a subtle comic actor and has a law degree.
Redshift
Alternate picture to go with the post title:
Alison Rose
“Losing it now could mean the end of him.”
Man, from his lips to God’s ears.
It was so lovely to see Zelenskyy in Kherson–just another example of what a man of the people he truly is, and you can see how much it means to him to be there and to the soldiers and others that he came. There are a few other videos on his FB and other Ukrainian pages, and I especially enjoyed this one where he handed out the state awards in person.
General Zaluzhnyi has repeatedly shown that he is an incredibly formidable man. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on the other side of any fight he’s a part of.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulB: I’ll answer this tomorrow night. I’m getting ready to rack out.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, it’s amusing to me when he has kind of brushed off his Jewishness. I know growing up in the Soviet Union, his family was not observant because, well, you kinda couldn’t be. But I’m like, my dude…you got a law degree, you became a comedian and actor, and now you’re a politician. The only way you could be more Jewish is if you go to med school after you leave politics.
I told my mom, I don’t care how little he identifies with the religion, I claim him as ours because it’s nice to kvell over a Jew who has become a hero in the eyes of the whole world. (Well…nearly the whole world. But the rest of it doesn’t matter.)
Gin & Tonic
@Citizen Alan: I’m sorry, but “absurd sequence of events”?? Volodymyr Zelensky ran for President in the normal manner, gaining just over 30% of the vote in the first round in a field of ~33-34 candidates, then 73% of the vote in the runoff, roundly defeating the incumbent President. Please explain what is absurd or comical about that. Yes, he had been a TV personality before that, but he also has a law degree, so he’s not “just” a comic.
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: Yeah.
Gin & Tonic
@oldster: That area is tough for heavy equipment. It’s basically a barrier beach and a bunch of salt marshes. Think about rolling artillery out to Kitty Hawk or Fire Island.
dr. luba
General Milley is truly Trumps general–totally fucking useless, and wrong about pretty much everything.
trollhattan
@Alison Rose: He makes so few missteps and in an environment where any misstep can be tragic, it’s a wonder to behold. Am now objectively pro comedian as leader.
Kherson has been occupied for so very long, I’m thrilled for the remaining residents to have experienced liberation.
Kelly
The UN General assembly voted in favor of Russian reparations to Ukraine. Anyone know if this is of any value to advance the cause of giving impounded overseas Russian funds to Ukraine? Seems I’ve read $300 billion is in impounded accounts.
Burnspbesq
One assumes the Russians left a non-trivial number of little surprises behind on their way out of Kherson. Job 1 is finding and safely disposing of them.
oldster
@Gin & Tonic:
Those same considerations also make it a tough place for the start of a flanking maneuver, right?
Like, if it’s hard to get rashist heavy weapons up close to the beaches, then it would also be hard to get UKR armor off the beaches and swinging eastward.
I don’t know what Zalushnyi is up to, I just know it’s cunning and brilliant. In his own way, he is as impressive as Zelenskyi. And neither could succeed without the other.
NutmegAgain
Watching the Ukrainian soldiers with animals all through this war has been amazing. (Yes, I do realize that much of the video we see is selective.) But still–it’s so very true that the way to judge people is by how they treat animals or other helpless beings. I remember seeing horrible images right at the beginning of an animal shelter, mainly dogs, where the Russians had gone in and just shot all the dogs. And there are so many stories of purposeful animal cruelty, on top of the war trauma that so many pets and former pets are living through.
I think for the most part, individuals have to have been raised, and live in a society where they are treated as worthless junk, and believe it about themselves, to torture and kill animals on a wide scale. Am I a softy? you bet.
Bill Arnold
Fundraiser!
Ukraine’s Shadowy Kamikaze Drone Boats Officially Break Cover – Ukraine hopes to raise enough money to build 100 of these unmanned surface vessels to counter Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. (HOWARD ALTMAN, NOV 11, 2022)
Some more specs here (gov.ua web site). Low visual profile uncrewed vessel ($250K); reasonably, nothing public about the radar profile. (/etc)
A FUNDRAISER THAT WILL BECOME A GAME-CHANGER – JOIN THE FORMATION OF THE WORLD’S FIRST NAVAL FLEET OF DRONES – DONATE TO THE FLEET
Gin & Tonic
@oldster: I don’t know what they’re up to either, and won’t speculate.
Adam L Silverman
@Kelly: Unless the Security Council passes it, it’s basically an aspirational statement.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Gin & Tonic:Zelenskyy would pass never central casting to play a heroic national hero in an ’80s action movie, but then again no real life hero ever has. I am bit surprised we haven’t heard most pearl clutching from our MSM betters at the NYT over Zelenskyy’s beard, t-shirts and lack of square jaw line. lol
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman: thanks
Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
OTOH, he’s plenty jacked: you can tell by his “guns” and the drape of his shirts. Definitely jacked.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
You teach Russian lit? I loved that class at University. Never had a longer reading list in one semester. A partial list is as follows: War and Peace, Bros K., Quiet Flows the Don, Eugene Onegin, A Day in the Life of Denisovich… The instructor implored us over and over to some day read them in the original Russian…
oldster
@Gin & Tonic:
I try to fit in around here; I never let my total ignorance get in the way of my rampant speculation.
gwangung
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I dunno…there were some memes out there that had Jeremy Renner playing him…..
West of the Rockies
OT… anyone see Dana Carvey do his Biden impression? It’s pretty good! I’m not joking here…
CaseyL
“What are the Ukrainians going to do next?”
I do love this observation that Ukraine has the strong hand, and is the one driving events – and the war – rather than Russia.
zhena gogolia
@West of the Rockies: Yes. But it’s not as much fun as it used to be . . . .
evodevo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: If I remember correctly, some pundit was complaining at the beginning of the invasion that Zelenskyy wasn’t wearing a suit in his TV/Twitter addresses to the nation….so, yes there was some asshole complaining…after looking it up, it was Peter Schiff…not at all surprised…
Grumpy Old Railroader
Am I the only one to notice that in Zelenskyy’s daily address he renames the 2022 G20 Summit as:
Just another zinger aimed at Russia
Carlo Graziani
Martin’s thought is interesting although it isn’t very easy to follow from that tweet thread.
So far as I can see, in the end he’s asserting that the descent on the Spit is in fact a ruse/diversion. Which is really the only possibility, since the UA doesn’t have the riverine lift to move a mini-Overlord across the Dnipro to sustain a true offensive through the beachhead, so that until some real bridges can be emplaced across the river in the teeth of Russian artillery attacks, any UA force on the east bank needs to stay within range of its artilery cover on the west bank. Which in the end makes it more of a nuisance to the Russians than a real threat. From there to saying that “Crimea is the objective” however takes quite a bit of enthusiasm, in my opinion.
He’s a little vague on logistics degradation, which is a bit of an obsession for me now. He also doesn’t say much about the timescales on which he expects various actions to play out.
His final squiggle suggests that he thinks that the UA is going to plunge down at Melitopol from Zaporizhzhia. That, at least, is very specific, and puts him in a lot of company. Plenty of people think that grouping is the UA’s next target. It is certainly possible. It seems to me, however, that so far in this war, the UA has succeeded by applying its own strengths to Russian weak points, not against Russian strongholds.
I guess my only other comment is that at the moment, there are three widely-separated stalemated moderate-scale battles in progress: Donetsk, Bakhmut, and Svatove-Kreminna. I can’t really see the UA picking a fourth such fight until at least one of those is wound up.
Alison Rose
@evodevo: Yeah, and then he got a deluge of shit thrown his way with everyone telling him to STFU, rightly so.
Grumpy Old Railroader
@zhena gogolia:
Does the U.S.A. academia have ANY classes regarding Ukraine? Seems kind of an important topic.
Alison Rose
@Grumpy Old Railroader: I loved it. He’s so good at those quiet shivs.
Chetan Murthy
Does anybody here have any pointers to articles about Yevgeny Nuzhin (the prisoner-turned-mobik-turned-surrendered-to-UA-exchanged-back-to-RU-executed-with-sledgehammer) and *why* UA exchanged him back? I thought UA had made public promises that nobody would be exchanged against their will? Did Nuzhin want to be exchanged ? [it’s all horrible]
Anonymous At Work
Adam,
Thank you for the analysis on what’s next. I can’t read a map tactically to save a life and the mouth of the Dnieper looked like it could be swampy or rocky, RU shot up a lot of civilian boats (whether to prevent desertion or to impair UA use, unclear), and the general perilous nature of a river crossing made me think that the thrust from Zaporizhzhia was the most likely avenue for advance.
BUT! but if UA can clear a beachhead, their ordinance can keep the RU Black Sea bottled up while allowing UA to use theirs, and move on Crimea’s supply lines, especially water. The RU pillboxes are a distraction unless UA decides to forgo mobilized infantry and tanks and just charge blindly; that’s the RU tactic. A break-through south of Kherson would force RU infantry to chose between another disorganized retreat, this time in the snow, or mass surrender.
Side question: ATACMS…are they any good against ships?
Kent
No, it’s more like say Steve Martin became president. But yes, Zelenskyy has risen to be the most astonishing wartime leader in at least a half century. Bar none.
PJ
@Citizen Alan: Vaclav Havel was a playwright who decided to stand up when musicians were put on trial for not conforming to socialist norms. Lech Walesa was an electrician who founded a trade union. I’m sure others can chime in with similar non-standard paths to political power.
Cameron
@Chetan Murthy: His own statement makes it sound like he was kidnapped. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/europe/russia-yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-group-mercenary-intl/index.html
Kent
Of course it does. For example, here here is the course offering here in the Pacific Northwest at the UW:
https://slavic.washington.edu/fields/ukrainian
Chetan Murthy
@Cameron: thank you. that makes more sense.
PJ
@trollhattan: To be successful, a good comedian or clown has to listen to, respond to, and move the audience.
Tony G
@Gin & Tonic: Donald Trump winning the electoral college (but not the popular vote) in 2016. Now THAT was an absurd sequence of events.
janesays
Unfortunately, it looks like the fat lady is about to sing… NY Times just updated their called races tracker to 217R-204D, which means the Democrats have to win all 14 remaining races to keep the majority. We’re trailing in 4 of them. CA-27 is now a 9 point lead for Garcia (R), CA-03 is a 6 point lead for Garcia (R), and CA-22 is a 5 point lead for Valadao (R). The only extremely close race remaining with a Republican leading is CO-03, Boebert’s district. She’s holding onto a 0.35% lead right now. We might flip hers, but I’m not terribly optimistic about the others, especially Garcia’s district.
So, end results are probably gonna be somewhere right around 220R-215D, give or take a seat or two.
Alison Rose
@Kent: The thing is, if you watch some of his old performances, not just on Servant of the People but also with Kvartal 95, it’s very clear that not only is he incredibly intelligent and clever, but he had this beautiful proud patriotism for Ukraine. Even when the troop did most (or maybe all?) of their shows in russian, so much of it was still about Слава Україні and fuck you, putin. They did some songs about Ukraine that would absolutely make you cry, and a lot of the jokes too were funny and slapstick while also patriotic.
Yes, it’s a little wild that someone would go from comedic actor to president, but he was never just that, and his comedy was very often focused on love of country and defense of its sovereignty. Honestly, looking back at some of the performances from years before he announced his campaign, with hindsight you can kind of see how obvious a path it ended up being for him.
PJ
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Right now, Timothy Snyder is teaching one at Yale, and you, too, can watch it right on the internets: https://youtu.be/bJczLlwp-d8 (BTW, it’s excellent.)
PJ
@PJ: Serhii Plokhii is also teaching a class on Ukrainian history at Harvard: https://huri.harvard.edu/news/ukraine-related-courses-harvard-2022-2023
Anonymous At Work
@Carlo Graziani: I was thinking about the lift as far as riverine landing craft go, too. It’s a strong argument against, but it’s the best way to keep momentum on UA’s side. The other route is a build-up outside of Zaporizhzhia, to take advantage of Putin’s fixation on Bakhmut and interior lines. I think we’ll “see” both options kept in play until UA picks one.
Personally, we’re more likely to see the mini-Overlord. A threat to Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut ties down more men and materiel but doesn’t need to be real. A river crossing to secure the south bank does need to be real to work.
Grumpy Old Railroader
excellent. thank you so much
Feathers
On Zelenskyy. I remember Barney Frank talking about Sonny Bono and what a good Congressional colleague he was. Frank said a showbiz background was very good preparation for politics, especially if someone had a producer background, putting projects together and seeing them through. It gives someone experience in thinking on their feet and having to produce in the moment. Also having to work with absolutely terrible people without losing your cool.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anonymous At Work:
@Carlo Graziani:
Your re right to focus on the riverine logistics. The Dnipro in that area is quite wide, so likely no bridging operation will be possible. I have read that the landscape in the Spit is very marsh w/ poor road infrastructure (probably why the Russians left it undefended in the 1st place). I don’t think the area is conducive to any kind of large offensive operation that could turn the Russian flank.
However, by landing some contingents of light infantry via small boat, the UAF does force the Russians to reorient some units in that direction. Furthermore, the area could become a staging ground/secure transit route for small UAF units to infiltrate behind the Russian defenses, link up w/ the SFs & the partisans, & cause more havoc. That is probably the biggest threat to the Russians from the Ukrainian operation. The same geography would make it tough for the Russians to root out the Ukrainian units that have already landed. Worst comes to worst, the Ukrainians disembarked from small boats, they can withdraw via the same.
I would think an offensive toward Svatove-Kremninna or Melitopol will have far greater impact in defeating the Russian invasion. These should be obvious to the Russians, too, but they may not have the forces available to build strong defenses in all of these directions & defend in Kherson, too. The usefulness of the newly mobilized troops are highly questionable, even in defense. Crimea should be the last objective for Ukraine. Assaulting across the geographically constraining Isthmus of Perekop connective Crimea to the mainland means marching into kill zones. That is why some of the bloodiest battles of WW II were fought there. Much better to cut off the peninsula from power, electricity & water to starve it out. Very tricky politically, though, as it would mean punishing the civilian population there, too.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anonymous At Work: ATAMCS are not useful against ships, but the PShMs are supposed to have the kind of terminal guidance that would enable them to target moving vessels.
Anoniminous
Official notice Kinburn has been liberated and reports Ukrainians have taken Oleshky, the town just across the river from Kherson. If so the whole Russian defense on the east side of the Dnipro has been flanked and is worthless.
Anoniminous
Oleshky is on the E97 highway that crosses the Antonovskiy Bridge. Rebuilding the bridge for heavy traffic is probably a non-starter, possibly they could cobble a way for troops to march across and … light vehicles? Maybe? We know the Ukrainians are innovative. Building a barge bridge for heavy traffic is very possible, even likely if the engineers don’t have to worry about getting shot while they build it.
Carlo Graziani
@Anonymous At Work: As I’ve written before, I like contrarian, minority bets. In this particular case, it’s Svatove-Kreminna, and really soon, not December or later, but before the end of November. Basically another race with the Russians, forcing them to go all the way around the periphery, while the UA avails themselves of their interior lines. They’ve used this tactic at least twice already in this war.
And there’s a huge, achievable strategic prize waiting for them on the other end, if they can overwhelm the Russian forces at Svatove: the railyard at Starobilsk, the final link that keeps the Belgorod supply depot connected to the Donbas — to Ukraine in toto. Cut that line, and Prigozhin is going to have to personally bus artillery shells to Bakhmut himself if he wants that offensive to continue.
The other thing that I like about that bet is that the timing is specific and short-term, so in about two weeks we’ll know whether or not it’s right.
Anoniminous
“Ukrainian deputy of #Kherson Regional Council Sergey Khlan says UA Army liberated Oleshky, Nova Kakhovka, Kakhovka on the left bank of Dnipro river.”
No confirmation from any official military source or visual evidence. So … much salt is needed.
Carlo Graziani
@Anoniminous: Well, it is a salt marsh…
(cue rimshot…)
The Pale Scot
Don Rickles for president!!!
“Trump? what a hockey puck”
Jinchi
I hope the Iranians aren’t evil enough to carry out their execution threat.
You have to wonder at the minds that would even consider killing thousands of people for protesting against their excesses. These are some of the same men who rose up against the Shah. They must know what the reaction to such an atrocity would be.
The Pale Scot
@NutmegAgain:
Russian society is built of a foundation of purposeful cruelty, demeaning and domination
PJ
@Jinchi: One of the appealing factors of revolution for people who want to make themselves feel bigger by threatening or hurting others is that it gives their delight in cruelty a patina of revolutionary zeal and virtue. Executing thousands of Iranians who want to live a little more freely is another opportunity to indulge in that pleasure.
Amir Khalid
@Jinchi:
You have that backwards. The ayatollahs don’t see themselves as evil — quite the opposite. In their minds, their harsh oppressive rule is righteous, and executing protestors is well justified.
Carlo Graziani
@Amir Khalid: The logic of Marxist-Leninist repression throughout the history of the Soviet Union and similarly-inspired “revolutionary” regimes followed exactly the same psychological pattern. Violent domination of the (class) enemies was considered to be an important source of political power.
way2blue
@Grumpy Old Railroader:
Timothy Snyder at Yale is offering an online course open to everyone (free) entitled ‘The Making of Modern Ukraine’. I haven’t started watching it yet. But soon…
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid:
@Carlo Graziani:
How many regimes in history, whatever the stripe, have ever saw themselves as evil? The human capacity to self-deceive, justify & obfuscate is boundless.
way2blue
@Feathers:
We’re forgetting Al Franken…
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: There is no possible doubt that this is true. However, there is a certain type of regime, built upon a certain type of politics, that simply cannot exist without an enemy to despise, and derives political energy from loathing. It’s an important distinction.
Mallard Filmore
@The Pale Scot: Pat Paulsen for President!
“I’ve upped my standards, so up yours.”
PJ
@Carlo Graziani: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Republican Party . . .
Spc
@Gin & Tonic: He’s a smart guy but the actor to president path naturally makes one think of our own negative contribution to that career arc. He was also struggling before the war in dealing with all the various UKR power factions and also with a belligerent US administration at the time. He has absolutely risen to the occasion but if UKR hopefully emerges from this war intact it remains to be seen if he is the right guy for the rebuild. If not, he would be truly Churchillian, brilliant in crisis but not so great in times of peace.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Be careful there. Plenty of people around the world believe the US can only forge common purpose if there is an external enemy to focus on. Hell, more than a few policy advisors and members of Congress on the D side believe sharp geopolitical competition w/ China presents the opportunity to forge domestic consensus (across the political spectrum) to build toward domestic renewal, dangerously naive & misguided as such thinking may be.
I am not at all suggesting equivalence between the US (at least when Biden is president & Ds control Congress) & Putin’s Russia, but countries generally differ only by degrees. The differences in degrees are real and important, but they are still only differences in degrees.
lowtechcyclist
@Alison Rose:
I still wish the Israelis would wake up and say to themselves, “This man’s side is OUR side, DUH, how in G-d’s name did we not see this from the beginning?”
And then maybe provide Ukraine with this Barak system that they even shared with the freakin’ Emirates to protect their oil fields from Iranian drones.
Tony G
@PaulB: Unfortunately, the use of kamikaze drones by terrorist groups is probably inevitable. New types of weapons proliferate; that has always been the case. The exception (so far) has been the absence of universal proliferation of nuclear weapons. That probably has more to with the expense and difficulty (so far) of producing nuclear weapons than it has to do with non-proliferation treaties. Something new to lose sleep over.
Torrey
@evodevo:
There’s also this talking hairdo (link below), whose name I don’t know, who at the start of the invasion commented on Zelenskyy’s moving address to the UN about the bombing of Kharkhiv. Hairdo immediately commented about the bearded Ukrainian leader wearing a t-shirt(!) and wondered whether the UN would be able to do enough to protect “that bearded man.” Amanpour had to point out to him that the “t-shirt” was part of the military uniform of Ukraine and maybe, just maybe, not shaving is what you do when you’re dealing with your country having been invaded and under bombardment. The silliness begins at 2:27 in this video. The first 2-1/2 minutes are a portion of Zelenskyy’s address to the UN. I would dearly love to know the name of M’Lord Hairdo.
zhena gogolia
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Yes. More and more now, though.
Realistically, small colleges can’t offer Ukrainian language, but many of the large Slavic departments do. But what do you do about Czech, Polish, Bulgarian, etc., etc.? How many colleges and universities have the resources to cover all of them? Russian is dominant in U.S. academia largely because of Sputnik and the Cold War. So the prominence of Ukrainian now is also driven by geopolitics, not by any kind of academic consideration.
Torrey
@zhena gogolia:
It strikes me that this is the kind of situation that remote teaching and course transfer agreements could help with. It would require some rejiggering of academic requirements about taking courses
dr. luba
@zhena gogolia: I think GOR was asking about classes about Ukraine, not necessarily language classes. History, geography, literature, etc. can be taught in English (as are russian history, etc.).
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: This may simply be a foundational difference due to how you and I conceive politics, and possibly not reconcilable by argument. Where you see a difference of degrees, I see a discrete, qualitative, categorical distinction.
However this is a lengthy discussion best had over the rims of beer mugs. I sincerely hope we can do that someday.
evodevo
@Torrey: Matthew Chance? Not sure… I noticed that Amanpour slaps back about the t shirt a little later on…
Anonymous At Work
@Carlo Graziani: I get the bet and the objective but it’s obvious. UA’s success has come from utilizing interior lines to shift troops from one front to another, but then strike at a third front. RU lacks imagination, so it’s easy to outthink them but you have to outthink them by a little, not overthink yourself into a corner.
Whomever
@Alison Rose: One thing that strikes me about Zaluzhnyi is that he’s staying in the background, concentrating on winning the war and not engaging with self-aggrandizement. The contrast with, eg, a lot of US generals is pretty striking. OTOH, while the Russians may be incompetent, it still takes significant skill to fully take advantage of that, and the entire Ukrainian general staff are showing that in spades.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Me too! Perhaps next year!
Torrey
@evodevo:
It looks somewhat like Matthew Chance, but I don’t think it’s him. Chance’s eyebrows are more defined, among other things. The fact that we can’t quite tell which of the many guys-who-look-sorta-like-that speaks volumes about the way the media largely casts to type. (Amanpour herself is an exception, IMO.)
Tokyokie
@Mallard Filmore: And, of course, “We cannot stand Pat.”
zhena gogolia
@Torrey: You have to have the student demand as well. I’m not seeing it yet, at least undergrad.
zhena gogolia
@dr. luba: I know. My first sentence was about that. My second paragraph was about language, which has to be the foundation of a major.
ETA: The way universities are set up, you can’t get faculty with expertise unless you have student demand and a major. For undergraduate programs, this goes double. Even Russian is marginal these days as far as supporting an undergraduate major.
daveNYC
Ukraine has the momentum, but Russia does have a large river that serves to buy them time. Their plan isn’t exactly subtle either. Hunker down behind defensive lines and hit Ukrainian infrastructure in an attempt to freeze and/or starve the population.
Ukraine can, hopefully, get across the river and continue to push the Russians out of Ukraine. Not sure what they can do about the missile attacks (100 or so just today) though.
Carlo Graziani
@Anonymous At Work: The thread is dying, dying, but I still want a word…
“Obviousness” and “overthinking” are critiques from a wrong framework in my view, one which presumes that the requirements for success necessarily include strategic surprise. I don’t believe that is necessarily the case here. I believe that what the UA is leveraging is the scleroticism and politicization of Russian military decision-making.
The Russians have two big, stupid commitments, made for no other reason than for petty politics, and incoherent, incompatible, mutually warring politics at that. One is at Donetsk, where a burgeoning regular-army effort is ploddingly attempting to make good on the political promise to complete the securing of Donetsk oblast, which would justify the withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson and compensate for the loss of the city. The other the Prigozhin’s Wagner-led and utterly Quixotic drive on Bakhmut, which is consuming vast amounts of military resources for zero operational (to say nothing of tactical) gain. These efforts compete with each other for badly-needed personnel and materiel, and of course are of no possible use or assistance to each other. Nor could either easily detach forces for action in another theatre, without risking loss of months of territorial gains.
The result is that the Russians have necessarily stripped the Svatove-Kreminna area of the forces they need to defend it from a big, fast strike. Again. They can’t help themselves. Even if some Russian officers realize that this is a terrible, stupid risk to take, it’s an even stupider risk to say so in the presence of the generals and politicians whose perverse incentives continue to corrupt the Russian direction of the war. They are going to keep pushing their big stolid, stupid, pointless offensives for marginal gains, until the UA suddenly pants them again.