I hope everyone had a nice New Year’s Eve. I’ve got the first workout of the year – chest, back, legs, and core functional strength training and 40 minutes on the ArcTrainer at level 10 – in the books. It is all down hill from here! I also had a lovely nap this afternoon! And now, on to the update!
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
I wish you health, dear Ukrainians!
New year, new day, new summaries. 45 “Shaheds” were shot down on the first night of the year.
I thank our Air Forces – pilots, anti-aircraft warriors. 33 “Shaheds” are on their account. Gratitude to the air defense of our Ground Forces for another 12 downed Iranian drones. Well done, guys!
Russian terrorists were pathetic, and they entered this year staying the same. Our defenders were awesome, and on January 1 they showed themselves very well.
You know, these days it was clearly seen how far we have moved away, mentally, humanly from what Russia is “boiling” in. Our sense of unity, authenticity, life itself – all this contrasts dramatically with the fear that prevails in Russia.
They are afraid. You can feel it. And they are right to be afraid. Because they are losing. Drones, missiles, anything else will not help them. Because we are together. And they are together only with fear.
And they will not take away a single year from Ukraine, they will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything.
I thank everyone who is fighting the enemy at the frontline every day and every night! We respond to every Russian strike at Kherson, Nikopol, Kharkiv region, all our cities and communities. It is very tangible for them.
I am grateful to all our energy workers, utility workers for stable energy supply and a minimum of outages – taking into account all the existing circumstances. Wherever transmission lines and other energy facilities are damaged by shelling, the restoration continues around the clock. Today as well.
And it is very important how all Ukrainians recharged their inner energy this New Year’s Eve.
And how we thanked our warriors. How we thanked our loved ones. How millions of times all over Ukraine, all over the free world, our wish – the wish of victory – has sounded and still sounds.
We will do everything to make it so!
Glory to all our warriors!
Glory to each and everyone who works for the victory of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Instead of New Year's fireworks. russia launched 45 Iranian-made kamikaze drones at Ukraine throughout New Year's Eve.
All 45 of them were shot down.
The kremlin terrorist cannot waver the determination of Ukrainians.
2023 is the year of new victories.— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 1, 2023
Here’s former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Bakhmut and Izium:
BAKHMUT /1620 UTC 1 JAN/ RU has temporarily throttled back operations near Bakhmut. UKR forces drove away RU attacks at Bakhmutse, Podhorodne and east of the O-0507 cut-off in the industrial area. Early reports suggest Kurdiumivka has been liberated. pic.twitter.com/IUYuWrcj69
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 1, 2023
IZIUM AXIS/ 0145 UTC 01 JAN/ RU has apparently discontinued an unsuccessful series attacks across the H-26 HWY north of Svatove. UKR forces repelled a RU assault at Ploshchanka. UKR reports that Russia suffered 760 troops Killed in Action (KIA) during the period 31 DEC- 1 JAN. pic.twitter.com/Pl5JaNZYAY
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 2, 2023
Speaking of Bakhmut:
7-year-old Stas from #Bakhmut to 🇺🇦defenders:"All these days I was praying&waiting for evacuation".
His family is now safe in Western #Ukraine. It's hard to imagine what this boy has gone through. His town has become a real hell.
🇺🇦heroes bravely fight against #russian terrorists pic.twitter.com/1jlmtZtB5n— Emine Dzheppar (@EmineDzheppar) December 30, 2022
Here’s an in depth interview of First Lady Zelenska:
The description machine translates as:
The First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska talked about the directions of her activities in 2022 in the conditions of Russian aggression against Ukraine. In an interview with Vadym Karpiak on the telethon “Edyni Novyni”, the wife of the President emphasized that the duties of the first ladies, especially during the war, are not regulated, so she had to decide for herself what is a priority for the country and where she will be able to bring the greatest benefit. Therefore, her work was concentrated in several directions.
It’s HIMARS O’Clock!
Surprise! pic.twitter.com/R0gSLvm2LN
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 1, 2023
Also, obligatory:
For you weather afficionados:
Having +12 degrees Celsius in Bucha on New Year’s Day is a bit weird
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 1, 2023
You know who you are… And so do the rest of us because right now this is you:
Carlo Graziano passed this op-ed by Nigel Gould-Davis, Phd; Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies published in The New York Times. Here’s some excerpts:
“What are Putin’s red lines?”
This question, asked with growing urgency as Russia loses its war in Ukraine but does not relent in its aggressions, is intended to offer analytical clarity and to guide policy. In reality, it is the wrong question, because “red line” is a bad metaphor. Red lines are red herrings. There are better ways to think about strategy.
“Red lines” implies there are defined limits to the actions that a state — in this case, Russia — is prepared to accept from others. If the West transgresses these limits, Russia will respond in new and more dangerous ways. A red line is a tripwire for escalation. Western diplomacy must seek to understand and “respect” Russia’s red lines by avoiding actions that would cross them. Russia’s red lines thus impose limits on Western actions.
There are three flaws to this reasoning. First, it assumes that red lines are fixed features of a state’s foreign policy. This is almost never the case. What states say, and even believe, that they would not accept can change radically and quickly.
In truth, red lines are nearly always soft, variable and contingent — not etched in geopolitical stone. While national interests, as Henry Temple, Viscount Palmerston, said, may be eternal, the way they manifest themselves as specific commitments will reflect temporary, shifting circumstances — among them, relative power, perceptions of threat, domestic calculations and wider global trends.
The second flaw of “red line” orthodoxy is that, in fixating on a state’s escalatory response, it considers only the risks and dilemmas this would impose on an adversary, and not those that the escalating state itself faces. For escalation means acting in ways that are more dangerous for everyone, and that had previously been judged too risky to contemplate. Such a decision must take into account the likely costs as well as benefits. Escalation is a choice, not a tripwire — one an adversary can deter by credibly conveying the costs this would incur.
The third flaw is that preoccupation with red lines invites deception. A state will seek to manipulate an adversary’s desire to restrain itself by enlarging the range of interests it claims are “fundamental” and actions it considers “unacceptable.” Fear of escalation thus encourages an escalation of bluff.
Exposing these flaws can help craft better policy. Concerns about Russia’s “red lines” are driven above all by the fear that Russia might resort to nuclear escalation. The West should avert this by deterring Russia rather than by restraining itself — or pressuring Ukraine to do so — for fear of “provoking” Russia. It can do so by communicating the certainty of severe consequences should Russia use nuclear weapons. Russia has tried and failed to impose red lines with nuclear threats several times since the war began — most recently in November, when Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson just six weeks after Vladimir Putin had declared it part of Russia. Ukraine and the West rightly rejected these bluffs, and should continue to do so.
But to apply the special case of negotiation — with few parameters and a narrow range of outcomes — to a complex, fluid and much wider geopolitical rivalry is a category error. While the danger of Russian nuclear escalation may rise and should be studied carefully, there is no special, separate category of actions that the West or Ukraine might take that would automatically trigger it. Russia has no red lines: It only has, at each moment, a range of options and perceptions of their relative risks and benefits. The West should continually aim, through its diplomacy, to shape these perceptions so that Russia chooses the options that the West prefers.
America should focus on three things. First, it should no longer declare that there are measures it will refrain from taking, and weapons systems it will not provide, to support Ukraine. To signal unilateral restraint is to make an unforced concession. Worse, it emboldens Russia to probe for, and try to impose, further limits on U.S. action — making the war more, not less, risky.
Second, America, with its partners, must make clear that time is working against Russia — not in its favor, as Mr. Putin still believes. The West should demonstrate readiness to mobilize, and quickly, its huge economic superiority to enable Ukraine to defeat Russia and to impose further severe sanctions. The military and economic costs to Russia will drain its far more limited resources and place greater strains on the regime.
Third, the West should make clear to a wide range of Russian audiences that it is safe to end the war by leaving Ukraine. An orderly withdrawal is unlikely to lead to regime change, let alone the breakup of Russia. Neither outcome is an official goal of Western policy, and talk of them is unhelpful and even counterproductive. Some in the West will resist the idea of any such reassurance. But if Russia’s elites conclude that it is as dangerous for Russia to leave Ukraine as to stay, they have no incentive to press for an end to the war. Reassurance does not mean compromise.
Much, much more at the link. I want to compare Dr. Gould-Davis’s analysis with this reporting from The New York Times that we covered in the update on 17 DEC 2022:
People who know Mr. Putin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes, and in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Americans last month the Russians wanted to deliver a stark message to President Biden: No matter how many Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the battlefield, Russia will not give up.
Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, blames the West, and the weapons it has given Ukraine, for Russia’s unexpected difficulties in the war.
“This is a big burden for us,” Mr. Peskov said, depicting Russia as taking on all of NATO’s military might in Ukraine. “It was just very hard to believe in such cynicism and in such bloodthirstiness on the part of the collective West.”
To Mr. Putin, Ukraine is an artificial nation, used by the West to weaken Russia. He describes it as a cradle of Russian culture, a centerpiece of Russian identity that must be wrested back from the West and returned to Russia’s orbit.
In his eyes, that is the biggest unfinished mission of his 22 years in power, people who know him say.
There’s nothing to negotiate here and no one to really negotiate with. As long as Putin remains in control of Russia he will spend an unlimited amount of money and lives to achieve his goal: taking Ukraine. It is important to remember the flip side of this, which I’ve been stating repeatedly since the re-invasion began: if Putin cannot have Ukraine than no one else gets to have it either. And that includes the Ukrainians. The strategic reality is that Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do regardless of what we do, what our EU and NATO allies do, regardless of what our non-EU and non-NATO allies do, and regardless of what the Ukrainians do. Right now what we’re willing to do is the result of our constraining ourselves due to an exceedingly limited appetite for assuming risk. Our self imposed limitations and the fear we’ve created for ourselves is a gift to Putin that prolongs the war and actually increases his chances of achieving his objectives.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new tweets or videos from Patron, so I’m reposting last nights:
Happy New Year! Happy Victory Year. Glory to Ukraine! Thank you, all Ukrainian friends ❤️🎊 pic.twitter.com/s6O15dH0MK
— Patron (@PatronDsns) December 31, 2022
@patron__dsns Усім новорічний лизь, мої любі!🎄✨
The caption (still) machine translates as:
Happy New Year to everyone, my dears!🎄✨
Open thread!
Alison Rose
“All 45 of them were shot down.”
To quote the philosopher Darth putin, he remains a master strategist.
I read that NYT op-ed earlier and while I know nothing of these matters in any professional context, I definitely agreed with the idea of not announcing publicly what we’re not willing to give Ukraine, what we’re not willing to do. Obviously, sure, communicate that to Ukraine, but I don’t fully understand the reasoning for broadcasting it to the world. If it’s just to give us the deniability if russia accuses us of doing something we haven’t, well…russia is going to lie no matter what because it’s what they do. I’m surprised russian telegram channels aren’t claiming that Zelenskyy is actually three large badgers in a trench coat covered with an AI face and clothing.
This is an absolutely adorable video of a Ukrainian soldier playing guitar and singing to his baby son…who is sleeping away soundly while laying on the guitar. Too cute for words.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Another Scott
You used this construction a few days ago (and maybe earlier). It seems contradictory to me, which I find confusing.
Putin’s actions are obviously (at least obvious to me) affected by outside events (Xi telling him not to invade until after the Olympics; the grain shipment agreement via Turkey; doing a mobilization after swearing up and down that he wasn’t going to; etc.). His actions are obviously affected by outside events. And you have argued that a stronger US/NATO response has been needed for years. So, saying “Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do” seems like a fatalistic phrasing that goes against your thesis.
What am I missing?
My understanding of your general argument is that we who oppose VVP should be doing (and should have done) much more to counter him, and thereby change his behavior.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose: The belief is that if you don’t publicly, clearly articulate your positions then confusion will occur and, as a result, miscalculations, bad decision making, and you’ll get the bad outcomes you were trying to avoid. Of course we impose this logic, for lack of a better term, on ourselves while our adversaries and peer competitors are free to communicate clearly, unclearly, not at all, or some combination of all three. Additionally, this assumes that everyone communicates like we do. We’re, as well as almost all of our western (in the geographic sense) allies are high context communicators. Not all of our adversaries and peer competitors are. And that, in and of itself, is a major complication to this type of strategy.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: What I’m saying is that whatever actually influences Putin, we’re not likely to identify it and leverage it except by accident. So we should do what we need to do and not worry about what he might do. Because at the end of the day only he knows what he will do.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman: Even the position that we must publicly announce our positions and not change then, is straightforward: we use our own and our allies’ bullhorns to educate the world about just how much “support” the USSR gave North Korea and North Vietnam, all the kinds of support, and announce our intention to provide just as much support to Ukraine, if Putin doesn’t GTFO.
Do it in the United Nations, do it on all the TV networks.
Carlo Graziani
I do think that Gould-Davis’ analysis brings a great deal of clarity to the table, with respect to how one should think of deterrence, escalation, negotiation, and exit from the war. Here is the gift link to his opinion piece for those of you who don’t have access to the NYT. I strongly recommend reading the entire thing.
I would say that an important takeaway is that whatever Putin and his gang may say about their “red lines”, and what is acceptable or unacceptable as an outcome, the West has the power and the agency to shape the outcome of the war by shaping the incentive structure that they perceive. Which, for Putin and the siloviki, includes the regime’s survival, whatever they may say now about the irrevocable place of Ukraine as a part of Russia.
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: Seems like it’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing then.
Mallard Filmore
From the Izium Axis tweet:
Does this include the losses described on this DailyKos page?
Carlo Graziani
The conclusion to Gould-Davis’ piece really lays out with admirable clarity what’s been all wrong about the “realist” analyses calling for excessive deference to Russian sensitivities:
I want to buy this guy a beer.
Adam L Silverman
@Mallard Filmore: I don’t know.
Winston
Rumor going round Putin has planted suitcase nukes in NATO Countries. We shoulda killed this guy already.
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: Let’s not feed the troll. It worked well last night.
Another Scott
@Winston: Somebody’s been watching a 1997 60 Minutes episode again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Winston
@Another Scott: You probably never heard of a Davy Crockett.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
Isn’t dealing with someone who has a lot of power in a situation, who also has limited himself from making better long run strategic decisions based upon reality because he thinks he can get away with a lot, or anything, even at a very high cost to himself and his side of the equation basically always a crap shoot because he may not even know how far is too far so isn’t it always going to be difficult to know when to go all in or all out or how much is enough or too much?
My point is that vlad is making decisions based not on any reality, he is/has to rain down destruction because he’s got nothing else left. He’s losing men on a very bad ratio, he’s not making any friends, his own country may turn on him at any point it they possibly could because he’s killing his citizens and gaining nothing/loosing a lot for it. He’s got no good points left, right now it’s just his pride and insane need to be something he’s obviously not. That has never gone over well for any despot after a certain point of losing. Almost always someone high up wises up and takes out the despot because he’s also making their lives far worse.
Another Scott
@Winston: Read the link. Learn something.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: C’mon, there’s no point in interacting with a troll. We’ve been here before, both of us.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy:
V xabj ur’f gebyyvat. V’z qbar.
Cheers,
Scott.
Winston
@Another Scott: You think 1970 tech applies to today?
the pale scot @ gmail
HEY! I wuz gonna post that
Bill Arnold
It’s a bit pleasantly startling to see this sort of language/analysis in a major-newspaper op-ed. In the US, we’ll be needing to work to shape Republican (and Putin-supporting anti-American US Left) narratives re Russia this year.
Alison Rose
@Ruckus:
I do often wonder if there isn’t one single person in that country who is willing to (likely) sacrifice their own life to take his out and thus save millions of others. I know putin stays behind his palace walls most of the time, but occasionally he does poke his head out like a rabid asshole groundhog.
Alison Rose
@Another Scott: wut
Gin & Tonic
@Alison Rose: ROT-13
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks. Never heard of it. I thought it was Klingon or some Tolkien shit or something.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
My thought is that no one on his side is willing to do themselves in taking him out. All of his “buddies” are rather wealthy because of the way Russia is being run and I doubt that any of them might be willing to risk it, because vlad seems to control how they make that money and how close anyone can get to him. Being an ex KGB dude it’s likely that vlad has the experience in this field of endeavor so he likely knows how to protect himself. It’s always a cost/risk analysis and as long as that number is not good enough on the side of those wanting change, it likely won’t happen
Also one might look at the history of Russia, in all of it’s governmental concepts over the last couple hundred years and notice that it really hasn’t changed all that much.
Carlo Graziani
@Gin & Tonic: That’s wild. I hadn’t seen ROT-13 since the days of USENET. Hadn’t realized it had modern uses.
StringOnAStick
I am hoping that all the funding for Ukraine that was in the recently passed budget is going to be used faster and for more effective and longer range weapons. And if not from there, then from the highly secret Black Budget and to do exactly the same.
The Ukrainians shot down every missile and drone attack today; what better army to give bigger and better weapons to, and given who they are using them against, give them more. Putin needs to pay for all his attacks on Ukraine, in the political sphere of the west, and for meddling in our elections. Make it hurt, now!
Alison Rose
@Ruckus: I kinda meant more just some rando, not one of his inner circle. Like one of the exceedingly rare times putin deigns to mix with the riffraff, someone could just, you know…take care of the situation. And yes, immediately be iced themselves, but again, they would be saving so many people. It is a far far better thing that I do, and all that jazz.
But that would require someone in russia to have empathy, which seems rather thin on the ground there.
Windpond
@Adam L Silverman: Whenever I get extremely frustrated with the US response, I’m reminded of Biden’s reply to the reporters ‘long story/short’ comment during the joint press conference. He said the US is not alone in making the decision on what or what not to provide for Ukraine and that he must constantly be in contact with our allies and partners rather than act ‘unilaterally’ as other US Presidents (Bush) have stated which can be perceived as arrogant. I can’t say I like it, but his explanation made sense. It is an incredibly difficult balancing act.
Winston
@StringOnAStick: The Ukrainians shot down every missile and drone attack today; what better army to give bigger and better weapons to, and given who they are using them against, give them more. Putin needs to pay for all his attacks on Ukraine, in the political sphere of the west, and for meddling in our elections. Make it hurt, now!
You are going to hurt the feelings of the many appeasers here.
Adam L Silverman
@Winston: Ease up.
Ken
So what happened? New fiscal quarter started so there was more funding for trolls?
Another Scott
@Alison Rose: My impression is that VVP never lets anyone outside his circle get close to him. His meet-the-people photo ops are all staged with a handful of actors.
IIRC, Galeev argued a few months ago in one of his gigantic threads that he thought any challenge to his rule would come from the police, not the Duma, not the army or the FSB or …
We’ll see!
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Alison Rose
@Another Scott: Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll slip in the shower.
Winston
@Adam L Silverman: Don’t you want to see nuclear war in you lifetime?
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s a strong statement; Analytical elements in the Biden administration (military, Intelligence, diplomatic) are (surely) maintaining and updating predictive models (need not be formal or even written down) of Putin and other (less) powerful people in Russia. Accuracy and estimates of accuracy should be low (maybe moderate); if that’s what you’re saying, agreed.
Carlo Graziani
@Ruckus:
This sounds perilously close to certitude that we understand Putin. That is the stuff that makes for policy error.
Putin is certainly totally amoral, and places no value whatever on the lives of the soldiers that he is causing to be cast into the cauldron. He has also written, and spoken, with passion, of a certain atavistic historical vision of Russia, and of certain deeply-felt resentments and grievances towards the West, and has been working assiduously for many years to undermine Western democratic institutions and international arrangements.
He’s also shown himself to be conspiracy-minded, in the finest Russian tradition, and deeply interested in personal wealth and in the exercise of personal power. He’s run the country the way a Mafia Don oversees a large territory, and has take a keen interest in ensuring that every revenue stream from every government contract has a slice with his name on it. This is a rather different aspect of his personality, one which tells a different story from the “willingness to sacrifice everything and everyone for Russia” madness narrative. This guy wants to be rich, in a country in which he can buy things that rich guys can buy, and until last February he could dream that dream. The dream is getting smaller every day, and its shrinking even faster for all the smaller Dons around him who signed on with him when he was obviously a winner. He certainly understands this, and understands the risk that it creates.
Which means that there is more than one Putin, and we’ve been largely focused on “Putin the bombastic pseudo-historian wannabe-second-coming-of-Peter-The-Great”, and have largely ignored “Putin the high-living oligarch who likes nice things and sitting in dachas among friends who lick his boots”. I don’t think it particularly makes sense to imagine that the former is prior to the latter.
Yes, certainly the other smaller Mafia Dons could off him. But it’s not reasonable to assume that Putin and the Siloviki might not simply collectively choose “regime preservation” and accept terms for terminating the war that they absolutely declare to be unacceptable today, if the West resolutely turns the screws. This is what Gould-Davis is pointing out. The West, in virtue of it’s highly asymmetric power, really has the initiative, and can completely shape the environment that these guys experience, until it becomes their idea to leave Ukraine, because all the alternatives are worse.
Adam L Silverman
@Winston: I have it pencilled in for between St. Patrick’s Day and Purim.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: Putin is working within the mythologized history and alternate reality about Russia’s place in the world and how everyone else responds to it that he first contributed too for propaganda purposes and now seems to have adopted. Within it he is acting rationally, but trying to forecast his behavior and his decision making is difficult because everyone doing it is well outside this made up reality.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Maybe, but for a sniper a kilometer is close enough. It is said that Mr. Putin wears ballistic plates under his suit when he’s in the open.
Winston
@Adam L Silverman: We should do a Tampa Bay shindig before then.
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: Aw shit, can’t it come after Purim so I can get some hamentashen for my final meal?
Kent
If the country collapses economically then the Russians will probably do it for us. Unfortunately that doesn’t necessarily mean an improvement. Anyone powerful enough to move against Putin is not going to be the kind of person we would want. Could be someone even worse.
Amir Khalid
Here’s the thing about overthrowing Putin. I don’t see anyone with the motive or the means to do it who is going to be a nicer guy than Putin, a properly liberal democratic leader more interested in Russia’s prosperity and happiness than in appropriating its wealth for himself. So I’m not optimistic that that would turn out well for Russia or anyone else.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
:-)
Redshift
@Carlo Graziani: There were so many times in the first six months or so that VVP or other top Russian officials declared that some action by Western countries would be considered an “act of war,” and then… nothing. I would have thought that would have weakened fear of crossing “red lines” a lot more than it has.
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid: I agree about Russia. For everyone else? In the path to a leader establishing themself, they’d have to fight it out with other pretenders, and maybe with leaders of republics that want to breakaway, witih faction, liberation movements, etc. After all, for things to get so bad that somebody moves against Vova, the nation would have to be in a parlous state (much moreso than today) — so lots of people on-the-ground might decide to make a break for it.
What I’m saying is, maybe the internecine warfare would be good for the rest of us. Uh, I mean, as long as they don’t break out or lose track of the nukes.
patrick II
@Another Scott:
I would say there is a difference between the outside influences you site and the ones that would hinder his goal of returning Ukraine to the Russian fold. He appeased the Chinese both because he thought the war would be easier and quicker than it has been and because he hoped to gain the support of China in support of his war. In the short run he thought it might slow him down but not stop him from his ultimate goal.
As for the grain shipments, Turkey has the black sea bottled up and if there was no Ukrainian grain passing through there might not have been stolen gran from Eastern Ukraine either. I am not privy to what exactly the leverage was, but I know he tested the limits of the deal within days and was somehow dissuaded.
I think those deals were strategic, but I don’t think he would consider any deal that took away all chance of his goal of total Ukrainian submission.
Omnes Omnibus
Would you want to bet on the first part being true and not the second?
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: luckily for all of us, we can only speculate: we have no ability to influence any of it. It’s all just idle speculation.
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose: I’ll have to check with the scheduler.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: Patrushev. And he would definitely be worse.
patrick II
@Ruckus:
I think it is more than pride. Putin’s personal history has always been to raise the stakes and he went all-in on this war and it is either win or bust out.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: Again, this is certitude about Putin’s motives, and in my opinion you should be more cautious. Putin has presented to the world a justification based on the mythologized history that you describe. We don’t necessarily need to take him completely at his word, or at least we don’t need to believe that this mythology is the only world that he inhabits.
There is a nearly exact analog to Slobodan Milosevic’s motives in the conflict over Kosovo. Milosevic blew very similar Slavophilic/Orthodox grievance-filled nationalist rhetoric at maximum volume for years, and used it consistently to justify the successive Serbian rampages across the former Yugoslavia, to the point that many doubted that the NATO bombing of Serbia would have any benefit for the Kosovars: if the Serbians were so inflamed, why would bombing them change their policy views any more effectively than, say, current Russian missile attacks on Ukraine can soften Ukrainian resolve?
As it turns out, Milosevic was blowing smoke. He was interviewed in captivity after the war, and as the linked RAND report describes, his rhetoric was completely decoupled from his very rational policy decision-making process: he held out during the bombing during an initial phase when concessions would have cost him politically, but later calculated that the concessions that he would obtain would only get worse, and settled the war.
There are very different circumstances in Russia in 2023 from Serbia in 1999. I think the analogy is very instructive in one important respect: we should not pretend to know what Putin really thinks, or what world he really inhabits. That kind of easy psychologizing would have (and, for some, did) lead to bad conclusions concerning Milosevic’s “world”. The episode should teach us caution, and modesty about these types of assumptions, which can be consequential for policy.
Another Scott
@patrick II: Your comment reminded me… I got curious to see how things were going in Georgia, since we know that VVP invaded there in 2008…
VOANews.com (from November 5):
There have been lots of surprises in this stupid, horrible war in Ukraine. There are probably more coming in 2023. VVP has less control, and less idea of how things are going to turn out, than he thinks. And people outside need to adjust their assumptions and models as reality reveals herself…
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: I have to wonder WTH is going on in Georgia. They imprisoned Saakashvili, and then proceeded to poison him ? He’s dying and they aren’t getting him proper medical care ? It’s a little nuts. I read in a few places that they’re basically back in bed with Putin.
RaflW
I like pie. Very sparingly, but man when I need it, it’s good to have around.
That said, one maybe very neophyte question: When 45 explosives-laden drones are shot down, is it typical that the warhead is expended in air, or, put another way, how common is it that the ordinance is blown off target but explodes on the ground short of the intended place.
It all sounds awful. Just trying to grasp what level of terrible.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: Ack. Ok. I haven’t kept up with it or Saakashvili. It sounds like another complex situation without an easy and clear future path.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
patrick II
@Another Scott:
If Georgia is making “chips” ( I assume not tortilla), then I can guess who is buying them. There may be a fair amount of items, since I assume Georgia pays no attention to sanctions, where they now have plenty of labor for production and a desperate customer.
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
I am not missing the vlad money monger and I fully understand that is not an unimportant side of him.
However I think that given his history he has a side that relishes power over others as much he does money and in some ways sees that power as helping him on the money side. I believe that given his history and the history of Russia he likely sees himself as someone who has earned his power and is very likely unwilling to let any of it go. And his power is that he is willing to go to almost any length to remain in power. If his ability had been in growing a country with aspirations other than him staying alive and rich above all else he might be able to cut his losses and move on, but he isn’t that person and he can’t. I think for him the money is a reward for what he’s done with the country he thinks he (and actually does) own.
I don’t think I actually disagree with you, I think we are on the same page, we just come at this from different angles.
Ruckus
@patrick II:
Oh I think there is more to it in many ways and humans can be a lot different from each other but power often creates a vaulted view of one’s self to the person the has worked their way to the top in less than stelar fashion. Pride plays a very important part of that as much as it does for much of what humans do. Yes he’s not a stupid man, but he does things to prove his power, his word, his place in history, and winning. And in the vast record of humanity there are two basic things that seem to most often be there in humans in the group that vlad falls into, pride and arrogance. His main emotions may or may not be pride or arrogance but he has both of them as at least a good part of the base of what powers him. We are all human, some of us are better than others for one reason or another, some of us are worse. But all of those reasons have our base emotions working there, even if we think we are hiding them. For all of his faults, and he has them, he is still a human and he still operates under the bits and pieces that we all have and operate under, our emotions. Our brains may work better or worse depending on a number of things and we may hide bits and pieces but we all have emotions that drive, empower, and control us.
daveNYC
I’m not holding out hope that Putin will change course or suddenly have a nasty accident. For all that the Russian economy is getting hit by the war, it’s not crashing nearly hard enough to put pressure on Putin or on any of the other powerful Russians who have the resources and access to even consider trying for a Klingon promotion. Sure they’re losing their mega-yachts and some foreign property, but these people don’t have 90% of their money in the form of a mega-yacht, they’re not yacht-poor. They’re insanely rich, the sort of rich that’s not going to suffer outside of a Great Depression or maybe Russia going full Hermit Kingdom. That means that until things go absolutely pear shaped, they’ll still be doing nicely and the possible downsides of killing Putin (never mind trying and failing to do so) will outweigh the upsides.
lowtechcyclist
@Amir Khalid:
I agree with you, so far as you’ve gone. But one difference is that a Putin successor, no matter how horrible across the board, wouldn’t be nearly as invested in fighting a losing war in Ukraine as Putin is.
For Putin, it’s all or nothing at this point. He can’t really give up without in effect admitting that he fucked up, big time, that he threw the full might of Russia’s military at Ukraine, sacrificed a hundred thousand Russian soldiers, and got nothing for Russia in return. Not to mention demonstrated the hollowness of Russia’s military strength. It’s hard to see his reign surviving such an inherent admission.
His successor will have room to at least act on the basis that Putin fucked up. No telling exactly what that would mean in practice, but a successor would be free of the need to sacrifice tens of thousands more Russians to hold onto every inch of Ukraine that Russia currently occupies, let alone to try to conquer another few square km of land.
daveNYC
@lowtechcyclist: While a nuPutin would be free to blame everything on Putin and then do some sort of policy change in regards to Ukraine, there’s still the issue that Ukraine is coming for Crimea, and they have the equipment to (effectively) make it worthless to Russia well before Ukrainian forces even step foot there.
So any replacement for Putin would be forced to decide whether to keep the war going in order to hold something like the 2014 gains, or if they’re able (as in survive the political fallout) to give up everything they’ve gained since 2014. It’s not just returning to the status quo 2021, it’s the status quo 2013. Tough sell that.
patrick II
@lowtechcyclist:
Truth.
Traveller
Let me give a quick thank you to Carlo Graziani for his free link to the NYT piece, it was an important read. Also, as everyone keeps saying, and deeply meaning it, Thanks to Mr. Silverman…for his compilation effort certainly, but more so for his thoughts and analysis.
Lastly, since I had to read through all these comments to be able offer some praise to Carlo and Adam…I must add that this is one of the finest commentariat in existence across the wide internet…which surely is good for Adam and Carlo also…
So thanks to everyone for the great thinking…(I like to think that I know a lot, but very obviously not nearly as much as I think I do…sigh…lol)
Miss Bianca
@Mallard Filmore: Maybe it’s just me, but that just seems like an insane number of losses for a 24 hour period.
Ryan
760 KIA seems like a lot.