You all just really like to argue, don’t you?
I’ve been offline almost all day today as well. So this will also largely be just a covering the basics update.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
The first and foremost I want to talk about today is justice. Justice, which, by the way, is one of the foundations of unity.
In a society that feels justice, the unity of people is always stronger.
Today, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dismissed a deputy minister who was exposed by NABU.
Law enforcers have every opportunity to conduct an investigation and bring the case to the court.
And I want this to be our signal to all those whose actions or behavior violate the principle of justice.
Of course, now the main focus is on defense, foreign policy, and war.
But this does not mean that I do not see or hear what is being said in society at different levels, both at the central level and in the regions.
And this week will be a time for appropriate decisions. These decisions have already been prepared. I don’t want to announce them now, but it will all be fair.
I understand what has drawn people’s attention. In each situation, we will analyze everything in detail.
The issues related to energy and procurement. The relations between the central government and the regions. Everything related to procurement for the military. And so on.
Society will receive full information, and the state will take the necessary powerful steps.
In addition, our special services are making progress in their work on people who deserve at least sanctions for their activities against Ukraine, its independence and the Ukrainian people. We will take appropriate steps as well.
And this is not something temporary, this is a real response. These are concrete actions. This is what we all expect from our institutions. From the state.
I want this to be clear: there will be no return to what used to be in the past, to the way various people close to state institutions or those who spent their entire lives chasing a chair used to live.
I thank law enforcement officers who protect the law, the interests of the state, and ensure justice!
I am grateful to the journalists who are looking into all the facts and establishing the full picture!
We all have to do our part for our unity. It is by justice that the strength of society and the strength of the state are united.
And one more thing. Today, our friend Boris Johnson visited Ukraine – Kyiv, Bucha, Borodyanka. A man who does not need any special introduction.
Together with him, we talked to students of Shevchenko University.
This is also quite symbolic – exactly on our day, the Day of Unity. Symbolic because the struggle for freedom unites different people, different nations.
And we have really brought our Ukrainian unity, our historical unification, which we achieved in the first hours of February 24, to international relations over the past year.
The free world has united as it has not been united for a long time.
It is very important to maintain unity. We need to do everything we can to keep people who value freedom united and effective.
We are interested in Boris and our other people like him working on issues of supporting Ukraine in the world, on issues of defending freedom.
This is worth remembering for all Ukrainians: the British contribution to our defense is extremely significant.
I thank all British people, absolutely all our friends in Britain, the entire society for it.
I thank Mr. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for his powerful decisions, for his policies that make the free world stronger.
This is what we all should make this year. A year of justice for Ukraine. A year of unity of all of us for the sake of freedom and victory. A year of strength of Ukraine and all those who value freedom.
I am grateful to each of our warriors: all those who are at the front, all those who help, all those who save!
I thank our partners for their vital support!
I am grateful to everyone who understands that we can only go this way together and only by helping each other. Only honestly and fairly.
Glory to Ukraine!
Here’s former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Kremenna and Bakhmut:
KREMINNA AXIS /1500 UTC 22 JAN/ Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) task elements attached to UKR recon teams continue render-safe operations in the the heavily mined areas surrounding Kreminna. UKR units enter W Kreminna urban area. pic.twitter.com/3tCHK6JapR
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 22, 2023
BAKHMUT /1300 UTC 22 JAN/ In the E. industrial districts, fighting continues along Patrice Lumumba Blvd / H-32 HWY. RU forces have achieved a lodgment in the Bakhmutskty Building / ceramics factory complex & maintain positions in the furniture factory on the N side of the HWY. pic.twitter.com/3nT9GiR9mh
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 22, 2023
Reuters has details on Russia’s targeting process:
LVIV, Ukraine, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Russia increased shelling of Ukraine’s eastern regions outside the main front line in the Donbas industrial area, officials from the Zaporizhzhia and Sumy regions said on Saturday.
Russia’s defence ministry said a recent offensive had put its army’s units in more advantageous positions along the Zaporizhzhia front line, a claim Ukrainian military officials called an exaggeration.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Russian’s attacks seek to overload Ukraine’s defences and deter Kyiv from retaking territory, officials and analysts say.
“Attempting to study our defence, the enemy has activated artillery fire,” Oleksandr Starukh, governor of the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia fired on the region 166 times through the day, he said, with 113 attacks aimed at populated areas, killing one civilian. Russia says it does not target civilians.
Countering Moscow’s claim of recent advances, Yevhen Yerin, a military spokesperson in Zaporizhzhia, told the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, “At the moment, they have not captured anything. All their attempts have been repulsed and the enemy has suffered losses.”
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said Russia continues its offensive in Zaporizhzhia, increasingly using aviation. It said 25 settlements in the region were affected by Russian artillery fire on Saturday.
Russian forces launched 115 strikes in the Sumy region that borders Russia in Ukraine’s northeast, regional Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said on Telegram.
More at the link!
The Kyiv Independent‘s Illia Ponomarenko reports on the loss of Soledar:
The dramatic fight for Soledar, part of the Battle of Bakhmut, is over — although Ukraine’s leadership is still reluctant to acknowledge the loss.
As a result of a localized offensive operation in January, Russian forces managed to gnaw through Ukrainian defenses and, after fierce urban fighting, seize what’s left of the industrial town of 10,000.
Although fighting in the area continues, The Kyiv Independent sources, as well as international monitors, all fully agree Ukraine doesn’t control the town.
It’s the first noticeable Russian success since their forces captured Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk after fierce fighting in June and July.
It is also a massive vanity project for Yevgeniy Prigozhyn, the Kremlin insider in charge of the notorious Wagner Group. And it’s a long-desired present for Russian war propaganda, which had been craving for at least some progress to show.
The loss of Soledar is largely the result of relentless human wave attacks exhausting Ukrainian defenses, as well as of crushing knockout blows by regular forces. The setback also indicates long-lasting Ukrainian issues with chaotic command and control and also the lack of centralized approach and coordination in the area.
The lack of artillery and munitions to cope with endless and massive Russian frontal assaults has also played its role – it’s given Russian forces a window of opportunity for a resolute strike.
But despite the Russian propaganda presenting the capture of Soledar as a major victory, it’s only of tactical significance so far. Russia continues with its attempts to build on the progress and sever the ground lines communications (GLOCs), thanks to which Bakhmut keeps holding on.
The situation in Bakhmut, which became known as the Ukrainian fortress city, has become even more complicated — but it is still not critical.
The Wagner mercenary army has been trying to break through Ukrainian defenses at Bakhmut since at least August.
Even the Wagner, with its no-matter-the-cost storm tactics, has found it hard to reach substantial success in frontal assaults against heavily fortified Ukrainian positions in east Bakhmut.
Russian attempts to perform a pincer movement on the city from the north and the south have been way too long and painful, too. Over the last three months of 2022, the Wagner forces managed to make certain gains south of Bakhmut, particularly in the town of Kurdiumivka, which was seized as late as December.
Cutting Bakhmut’s ground lines of communications (GLOCs) is a far more realistic way for Russians to succeed. To achieve it, Russians need to take control of three highways: the E40 (M03) Sloviansk-Bakhmut highway northwest of the city, the T0513 highway Bakhmut-Siversk north of the city, and the T0504 highway running west to Kostiantynivka.
For much of the battle, Russian advances in the area succeeded by just a few dozen or a few hundred meters a day. It took Russia nearly three months to advance by some 4 kilometers and seize Kurdiumivka, a village south of Bakhmut, some 12 kilometers from the T0504 highway.
The situation changed by the beginning of 2023, when regular forces, particularly Russia’s elite VDV airborne units, were redeployed to the area. Russian forces detected weak spots in Ukrainian defenses in Soledar — and pounced at them in full swing.
As early as Jan. 5, Russians approached the town from two strike axes, from the north and from the south, forcing Ukrainian forces into a hard-fought retreat to avoid encirclement. Over the next few days, formations with Ukraine’s 46th Airborne Brigade, supplemented with artillery and additional armor, managed to somewhat stabilize the situation, but not for long.
After short and fierce resistance in the town’s western outskirts, Ukrainian formations withdrew from the last pockets of Soledar around Jan. 12.
Russians continued with their attempts to amplify its success and advance farther northwest and west towards Blahodatne, Krasna Hora, and Pidhorodne, where it did not have any immediate progress. And Ukrainian forces took up a new position on dominant heights west of Soledar along the T5013 road.
As a result, as of Jan. 20, Russian forces established fire control over two out of three supply lines with Bakhmut, namely the road to Siversk and also the junction leading to the Slovyansk highway. Thus the use of these ground lines of communication is either impossible or impeded now.
Much more at the link!
And here’s a request from the author of the article above:
Dudes and gals,
if you like what @KyivIndependent does (and I know you do!) please subscribe as our Patreon. Our media outlet exists thanks to popular support from our readers from across the world.
Make sure to support wartime Ukrainian journalism here: https://t.co/ddIRInL2r4— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 22, 2023
The Daily Best has reporting on a Russian campaign plan for the winter/spring offensive:
KYIV—Ukraine is braced for a major new offensive that could begin within weeks. One of President Zelensky’s key insiders told The Daily Beast that they expect a looming Russian move to encircle the country with a simultaneous attack on three fronts.
Rustem Umerov, a member of the team negotiating with Russia, said the Kremlin might be preparing for a fresh advance. He said that Ukraine was threatened from many directions but did not specify where the attacks could come from.
“Russians are encircling us from 240 degrees, attacking from the Black Sea, from Belarus and the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” Umerov said.
Russia declared its first victory in the war for months this week, claiming they had taken the salt-mining town of Soledar in Donetsk. There is still some dispute as to whether fighting continues for control of the town but the Russians have clearly made territorial gains—at a huge cost.
Mercenary fighters working for Wagner, Putin’s private army, have led the charge on Soledar and the nearby city of Bakhmut. Fighters recruited from Russian prisons were key to the onslaught; The Daily Beast reported that their fearless advances towards near-certain death helped the Russians identify pockets of Ukrainian resistance.
“They are coming from all directions, with three lines of fighting: criminals, private contractors, and regular forces. Their goals are to get rid of their criminals, to test and train their contractors,” Umerov said.
Ukrainian intelligence and defense experts believe that it is all preparation for a large-scale ground offensive, bolstered by more recruits to the regular army.
Colonel Oleh Zhdanov, a former staffer in the operational directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told The Daily Beast that Ukraine’s military and intelligence units are tracking the movement of Russian troops in real time.
“We are watching Russia build lots of forces in the Zaporizhzhia region. It looks like they are planning a pincer attack from Kharkiv [in the east] and Zaporizhzhia [in the south] directions, they will attempt to capture all of Ukraine’s major defense forces,” Zhdanov told The Daily Beast. “We are also watching Russian military constantly moving 10-12,000 men in Belarus [to the north]. They are also reinforcing in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.”
Colonel Zhdanov says there is only one man in the world who knows when the war in Ukraine will end: President Joe Biden. He believes that the war will go on until the White House signs off on all of the additional military firepower Ukraine is requesting.
“President Biden has a detailed scenario of this war in the White House. The sooner we get weapons the sooner we finish the war, but it looks like the U.S. wants Russia to exhaust itself with all of its war efforts,” Zhdanov told The Daily Beast. “In Russia they now have a cult of death: on all levels, from propagandists to the Orthodox Patriarch, Russians are called to go and die in this war, as their grandfathers died in previous wars.”
According to the most recent polls by the Levada center, the number of Russians who believe the country “should definitely continue military actions in Ukraine” has dropped to 23 percent. And so, Putin is updating his rhetoric. He no longer talks about the “unity” of Ukrainian and Russian peoples. The Kremlin has given up on calling for Russians to die for the ancient Kievan Rus heritage. Instead, they are casting this war as a mighty battle against NATO.On Saturday, his top adviser Nikolai Patrushev said: “The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv; this is a military confrontation between NATO, and above all the United States and England, with Russia.”
Much more at the link!
Here’s an excerpt – using machine translation – from an interesting article about the German military industrial base and why it is complicating the decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine:
Germany’s Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius was surrounded by journalists, microphones stretched out towards him. He was to repeat what he had said shortly before in the conference room of the Ukraine support group at the US air force base Ramstein. According to the Social Democrat to his counterparts from more than fifty countries, the government in Berlin has not yet decided whether to approve the delivery of Leopard 2 by other states.
Ukraine needs main battle tanks in order to be able to continue defend itself against the Russian attack. But Chancellor Olaf Scholz hesitates and is therefore under massive pressure from many allies. Pistorius answered the question of why Germany is still not moving with two sentences: There are good reasons for the delivery and good reasons against it. And: All arguments would have to be carefully weighed up.
That sounded evasive, and the criticism was not long in coming. The delivery is urgently needed “in order to stop Russian aggression, help Ukraine and quickly restore peace in Europe,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics on Saturday. As a European leader, Germany has a special responsibility in this regard. The CDU foreign politician Roderich Kiesewetter stated that he now sees Germany isolated by the hesitant attitude of the federal government.
USA wants to offer its own tanks
When the American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appeared before the press in Ramstein shortly after Pistorius, he was asked whether Germany was sufficiently involved as a leading power in Europe. Austin could not resist a smile, but then replied that Germany was doing enough and was a “reliable ally.” He should know exactly why Pistorius spoke of good reasons for and good reasons against tank deliveries. The reasons for this are military in nature: Without tanks, Ukraine cannot successfully defend itself.
The reasons for this have so far been rather evasively named by the German government. However, there is concern from the German defense industry that the Americans were just waiting to offer Europeans replacements with their own tanks for their leopard delivery. The Ukraine war offers the USA the opportunity, after helicopters, fighter jets and missiles, to gain a foothold in the European arms market with armored vehicles and to displace German competition.
This is supported by the fact that the Americans have not made a secret of their armaments policy interests for decades. In the 1960s, they founded the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, an agency under the US Department of Defense. Their task is to convince states to buy American weapons. The aim is to sustainably bind them to the USA in this way. For the Americans, this has several advantages.
Partners with the same weapons are easier to integrate into US-led military coalitions. By purchasing weapons, they also ensure that the quantities increase and thus costs are reduced. This benefits the Pentagon, which has to pay less for its weapons. Finally, the American defense industry can invest the additional revenue in the improvement and development of new weapons. This not only strengthens their capacities, it also increases “our ability to remain the deadliest military in the world.” At least that’s what it says on the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
If Lloyd Austin urges the German government to grant permission to deliver Leopard 2 to Ukraine, then he must also keep an eye on American interests. For the Germans, this is a dilemma. If Scholz gives in, he harms German interests. If he remains hard, he risks losing other areas and thus also harms German interests. How this intricate situation could have happened has to do with German security policy over the past thirty years.
German industry cannot replace Ukraine leopard
Governments all colors cut the budget for the German Bundeswehr. There was hardly any money left for new weapons. The defense companies no longer received orders and had to reduce capacities. Tanks such as the Leopard 2 were no longer manufactured industrially, but in manufactory work. This takes longer and is more expensive. It sometimes took two years from the production of the armored steel to the handover of the vehicle to the customer. But the customers were in no hurry, there was peace. And tanks seemed to be a military discontinued model anyway. Everyone spoke of cyber and drone warfare.
Then came the Russian attack on Ukraine, and suddenly not only the German Bundeswehr, but also other Western forces realized that they had reduced their capacities too much. If they are now to hand over their already too few main battle tanks to Ukraine, they need replacements. Not at some point until the German tank industry can deliver, but immediately. Nobody wants to look bare, as the German army inspector did at the outbreak of war on the 24th. February 2022 for the Bundeswehr.
The German tank industry has an excellent reputation abroad. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall have built the best tank in the world with the Leopard 2, but also one of the most expensive (7 to 8 million euros in version 2A7). In NATO and the EU alone, there are sixteen countries that bought the Leopard 2. Some own several hundred pieces, such as Turkey, Greece, Spain, Poland and Finland. Others have only fifty or less, for example Norway, Denmark and Canada.
Arms deliveries as an instrument of security policy
Choosing a tank model is a long-term bond. The training and training of soldiers, the infrastructure for maintenance and repair, the supply of spare parts – all this cannot be changed overnight from one type of tank to another. Once you are in business, you will stay for decades. Conversely, once you get out of business, you stay outside for a long time.
This is not only an economic loss. The sale of weapons secures taxes and jobs for the state and the companies their returns. Above all, arms exports are part of foreign and security policy. Anyone who provides another state with what he equips his own armed forces ensures trust and at the same time economic dependence – and thus gains influence.
For example, a submarine with a damaged propeller can only be returned to use if the manufacturer delivers a new propeller. This allows the country of manufacturer to directly influence the ability to fight the customer state. In Germany, however, arms exports were not considered from this point of view for decades, but from an economic point of view, but above all from an ethical point of view. Politicians from the left-wing spectrum in particular wanted weapons to be exported abroad from Germany at all. They were convinced that this would make the world more peaceful.
The Americans are pursuing a different policy. France felt this two years ago when Australia quickly terminated a contract for the construction of submarines worth 56 billion euros in order to buy American boats. Previously, the US government had concluded a security alliance with the Australian government and Great Britain, which assured the Australians of the assistance of the United States. In return, Australians should buy their weapons in the USA.
Americans play the trust card
From circles of the German defense industry, it is said that the US government has been trying for years to intensify its arms sales in Europe. The business seems to be good for both sides, American weapons are also among the best in the world. But trade also has its price. In January 2022, the Americans agreed with Croatia to deliver 89 used Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, including 22 as spare parts dispensers. The selling price was 130 million euros minus 46 million euros, which was taken over by the US Department of Defense. But what initially sounded like a bargain turned out to be an expensive undertaking. The Bradley are more than thirty years old. Croatia had to buy a complete package including spare parts, maintenance and servicing. Total volume: 630 million euros.
The development in Poland is particularly painful for the German tank industry. Over the past twenty years, the country has bought more than 200 Leopard 2 in Germany. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, the German-Polish relationship deteriorated. The government in Warsaw accused Berlin of a far too uncritical policy towards Moscow. Germany was considered an increasingly uncertain cantonist for Poland, even when buying weapons. In July 2021, Defense Minister Mariusz Blazczak announced that it would buy 250 new and 116 used M1 Abrams main battle tanks in the USA for a total price of 8.85 billion euros. In the summer of last year, Poland also agreed to buy 1000 K-2 main battle tanks in South Korea. The manufacturer will set up a plant in Poland for this purpose. German industry had also applied for the order, but went empty-handed.
Poland is now buying tanks from the USA and South Korea. For Germany, this is also politically painful, because one thing has become clear with the Polish decisions: Germany, the neighbor, is no longer a strategic, no longer a trustworthy partner. These are now the distant USA and the even further distant South Korea.
Representatives of defense companies that want to remain anonymous report that the Americans offer countries that could supply Leopard 2 to Ukraine used tanks as a replacement from their own stock and a long-term industrial partnership. Any country that responds to the American offer can hardly be recovered for the German tank industry. In addition, Berlin’s arms policy influence is also decreasing.
Much more at the link! Also, you’ll notice that machine translation doesn’t seem to fully get German grammar.
Moscow:
Russian state TV discussed the best strategies to be used against the U.S., which included their idea for killing scores of Americans. They named only one American they did not want to kill: Tucker Carlson. Watch:
More in my latest article (linked below). pic.twitter.com/VDngGhmDTz
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) January 22, 2023
Putin’s Henchmen Threaten ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Dead U.S. Troops
Some of Putin’s top propaganda merchants realize nuclear threats are starting to ring hollow so they recommend slaughtering American servicemen in vast numbers instead.https://t.co/axvYklHWqu
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) January 21, 2023
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, delivered a sermon marking Orthodox Epiphany in Moscow this week. He spoke to those who wish “to defeat Russia,” using the occasion to deliver a threat to the West: “We pray that the Lord admonish those madmen and help them to understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world.”
Russia’s top propagandists, from former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev to state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, have been spreading the same not-so subtle nuclear threat far and wide—and yet, Putin’s mouthpieces are now worried that the “boy who cried wolf” routine is no longer being taken seriously by their target audience in the West. The dilemma manifested during a live broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov. After the lineup of talking heads took turns reiterating that Russia’s defeat would mean the end of the world, their agitprop was suddenly deflated by Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of the Middle East.
“First of all, our main enemy is certainly the United States. What does the U.S. react to? They react to two things: the threat of physical annihilation and the liquidation of a certain number of military personnel. What we know based on wars in Vietnam and Korea is that several tens of thousands of annihilated American servicemen will cause the public opinion in the U.S. to be severely strained. I will repeat: not several thousand, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, but a certain number of tens of thousands. Who will liquidate them, where they will be liquidated and in what way is completely irrelevant, but this is one of the objectives if we want to influence the American leadership. We have absolutely nothing to lose.”
Head of RT Margarita Simonyan described the mood in the country: “In every home, in every kitchen and living room, in every courtyard all conversations are only about what will happen next, how it will all end… I don’t see any possible course of events except for the following: first of all, they will not stop. I’m not talking about Ukraine or Zelensky [She is talking about the West]… They will keep raising the stakes to the point that it will cause us pain. Safety of the territory of the Russian Federation will be at issue, not just the newly added territories. I don’t doubt that they will do all that they can so that we have to be concerned about the safety of Moscow, or at least seriously thinking about it… This will certainly happen!”
Simonyan concluded: “This can only end with an immediate threat that is voiced and presented, a threat of a nuclear confrontation.” She argued that the failure of the West to acquiesce to the list of demands presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December of 2021 led to the invasion of Ukraine. Simonyan said that after Putin’s ultimatum was made public, she told her friends: “Guys, there will be a big war, for sure. By the end of winter, something very big will happen!”
She claimed that this time, the refusal of the West to back out of its support of Ukraine would lead to even bigger consequences: “It’s true that no one will win in a nuclear war, but who needs the world if Russia isn’t in it? It was voiced out loud, it was said by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!” The head of RT concluded: “I don’t see any other outcome… It will be a wrecking ball! It will be all-in! It will be like two planes, flying head-on into one another. Someone will have to back down and something tells me that it won’t be us.”
Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, followed up Simonyan’s diatribe by boasting of the Motherland’s nuclear might and absurdly claiming that Russia defeated the West in World War II, causing NATO to be “afraid of WWIII.” Resorting to grotesque threats, Kartapolov addressed the West with a line from an old Soviet movie: “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt when we cut your throat. We’ll slice just once and you’re in heaven… Our victory will take place wherever the Russian soldier will stop—and wherever he stops, from there he will never leave.”
More at the link!
You’ll notice their remarks about Russia using nuclear weapons? As I’ve been saying, it was always an influence operation as part of setting the informational portions of the theater of operations.
Britain:
🚁 The UK has provided Ukraine with Sea King helicopters as part of its continued support. The helicopters are now in use and being flown by the Ukrainian Navy.
🎬 Watch past footage of the Sea King in action.
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦pic.twitter.com/eC5p2kwh60
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 22, 2023
Tally Ho:
A good day for MiG-29 flying pic.twitter.com/3lN2AoBWK8
— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) January 22, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
We have new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns
The caption is pretty self explanatory.
Open thread!
Jerzy Russian
Tanks for the update—it is appreciated.
Another Scott
Hey!!
Cheers,
Scott.
PaulB
Too fond of arguing, alas. In another thread, some people reported that they no longer care to read these threads because the discussion was toxic.
Edited to add two things: 1) Thank you, Adam, as always, both for the content and for trying to rein in the worst of the arguments. And 2) I still read Adam’s posts but I don’t spent too much time reading the comments. Not good for my mental health.
Jerzy Russian
Jesus Hussein Christ. That whole blockquote is totally bonkers. I am reminded of the later parts of Downfall, where most of the characters were willing to die if they could not have National Socialism. I think in the end many of them got their second choice.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulB: I’d say about 85-90% of the time, the comments are okay. Every so often we have one of those nights. And when we do, it’s a doozy!
Redshift
They start out with worry about them being nuclear armed giving them some leverage. They they completely mistake how much leverage:
RU: The only thing we’ll accept is if you let us have everything we want, or we might use nukes.
NATO: No.
RU: (doesn’t use nukes.)
And repeat. Gee, how could they possibly have ended up in a “boy who cried wolf” situation? I am guessing these guys are not deep thinkers…
Kent
The Ukrainians are not stupid. The Ukrainian Army has more experience fighting Russians on the plains of Europe than any other Army in the past 70 years.
Why not ask THEM what kind of tanks they want and then send them.
Sheesh. A lot of this commentary is acting like they are toddlers.
Another Scott
Thanks for the pointer to the NZZ.ch article. This related article seems pretty good, also too:
There are many ways out of the current log-jam. Given the coming change of season, and the expected/rumored russian offensive, I assume that agreements will be made and the weapons Ukraine needs (maybe or maybe not Leopard 2s, maybe something else) will be on their way in coming weeks.
Thanks Adam.
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
Lots and lots of freedom rolling through Poland on it’s way to Ukraine.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: They want tanks. Tanks that they can use soon. I don’t think they give much of a fuck beyond that. The rest is inside-NATO and, even more, inside Germany stuff. And since Germany remains its own independent country, we need to be aware of its interests, needs, and proclivities whether we want to or not.
Another Scott
We may have to worry about tanks and supply chains, but we probably don’t have to worry about sentient AI for a while yet.
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Leto: That’s a lot of heavy metal.
Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
lashonharangue
Thanks Adam. It would not surprise me, assuming Ukraine prevails, that they and Poland join forces in the future to manufacture/upgrade K-2s and ultimately replace the Leopard as the tank used throughout Europe.
Chetan Murthy
@lashonharangue: Before 2014 Ukraine exported plenty of arms to Russia: they had a robust arms industry. I’m sure they have a ton of experienced engineers and designers.
Urza
@Chetan Murthy: Have you seen the Russian arms being used? Not sure thats a good advertisement for expertise in the field. Unless the Ukrainians were good at selling junk to the kleptos, which is possible.
lashonharangue
@Chetan Murthy: Yes I was aware of that. My point was if South Korea helps them get up and running, they and Poland would be capable of producing and modifying them to suit their needs. Probably not completely dependent on South Korea for upgrades and with a production volume that would keep the cost reasonable.
Chetan Murthy
@Urza: They made guns, tanks, ships, rockets, all sorts of stuff.
Chetan Murthy
@lashonharangue: 100% agree: my comment was just chiming in agreement.
Bill Arnold
Does anyone know the date on that long video clip that Julia Davis translated?
I might get a point for mentioning games of chicken with airplanes Jan 17. [1]
In the video, 4:06 “It will be like two planes flying head-on into one another”
(If any of those propaganda clowns or their staffs are reading, IMO the world would be a much better place if most (not all) of them were field-expedient pithed. Quite serious.)
[1] Another context, but “Games of Chicken, with airplanes full of passengers headed towards each other at a relative 1000 mph!”
pat
Thank you, Adam, for these nightly reports. I haven’t commented but I have read most of the comments. Some are better than others….
I watched the video (subtitles, natch) and it seems these people are living in another universe, where the US and NATO and the west are attacking russia…. ?? It seems that this is just propaganda or else they have been watching russian news and bought into the lies.
Carlo Graziani
@Another Scott: Here’s ChatGPT, provoked about it’s own design principles:
Which, I thought, was not bad invective for an amateur, and an “AI”.
patrick II
@Adam L Silverman:
The Russian commentariat seemed to be having even a worse night tonight.
patrick II
@Kent:
agreed.
catfishncod
@pat: I think it’s very similar to how many American patriarchal white males are convinced of a grand conspiracy of wokeness designed specifically and personally to ruin them. If “normality” to you means privilege, then equity can’t help but be an “attack” on you.
Russia is not just an empire, but an empire that spent a long time with no regional rivals. “Normality” means manipulating, dominating, or genociding neighbors at will, on the bizarre premise that unending expansionism will improve security. The frontier must advance to protect Moscow. Conversely, any pushback on unbridled imperialism must therefore be an “attack”. And any threat to anywhere on the world’s longest frontier must be in order to threaten Moscow.
China also had a long isolation and a mindset that couldn’t process a lack of domination, and it took a long century-plus of humiliation to force a reassessment. But China didn’t have the strategic insatiability that has long stood at the center of Russian identity and grand strategy. Will that mean it takes Russia less or more time to realize their dysfunction? I really don’t know.
[Before you get too smug, another power with no regional rivals and a history of smug manipulations of neighbors is the United States. We seem to be able to learn to some degree, but will we fare better in the long run,m? The Great Experiment continues.]
Amir Khalid
I find the German indecision on letting Leopard 2 tanks go to Ukraine quite worrying. Would Olaf Scholz rather risk Ukraine being defeated than lose out to America in the European tank market? Because that sounds pretty shortsighted.
Carlo Graziani
@pat: I think Adam has (and has had) it exactly right. Russians believe in information warfare, and nuclear use threats are part of the toolkit.
But at the same time there is a calculation that those who can order nuclear weapons use must make, which has not changed since the Cold War: a credible threat of nuclear weapons use against a nuclear-armed adversary is tantamount to an elaborate national suicide note. It follows, now as it did then, that such a credible threat can only be made by a nation that itself faces an existential threat. That logic is what kept the world reasonably far (except for the close-call near-accidents) from burning to a cinder, 1948-1991.
The Russians can pretend that a hostile Ukraine constitutes an existential threat as much as they like. From the point of view of nuclear posture, it’s just so much exhaled CO2. The idea that they would accept the annihilation of all their cities and national infrastructure as an acceptable price in exchange for spite-nuking any NATO ally (let alone the US) doesn’t pass the smell test.
The odd thing is, the Soviet Union had senior officials who understood the limitations of nuclear brinkmanship: Stalin and Molotov refused to allow themselves to be intimidated by Truman and Byrnes’ implied nuclear threats after Hiroshima, for example, and for all the proxy shoving matches that occurred during the Cold War, the Soviets “used” their nuclear arsenal responsibly and intelligently, protecting their empire while avoiding pointless bluster. It’s Amateur Night at the Kremlin now, by comparison.
Yutsano
So…
We’re just gonna skip the Eugenics Wars and jump right into World War III then? Cool. As long as JPL can finish up that warp drive thing not long after.
glc
Try Mr. Barnard, room 12.
Carlo Graziani
@glc: At least there are no “Getting Hit on the Head” lessons on BJ…
Andrya
@pat: All these people saw russian TV almost a year ago, when the official line was that russia initiated the “special operation” and that Ukraine would welcome russian troops with flowers. Now, almost a year later, many russians believe that NATO or the US started the war- despite having heard the opposite on official russian TV.
How is this possible? Almost a century ago, Upton Sinclair said “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Let’s just add the following: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his life expectancy/ability to stay our of prison, depends on his not understanding it.
Mallard Filmore
This may have been brought up already …
Reuters reports that Germany’s foreign minister said that Germany will not stand in the way of Poland sending its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-does-not-rule-out-sending-leclerc-tanks-ukraine-macron-2023-01-22/
—> … Asked what would happen if Poland went ahead and sent its Leopard 2 tanks without German approval, Annalena Baerbock said on France’s LCI TV: “For the moment the question has not been asked, but if we were asked we would not stand in the way.” … <—
Carlo Graziani
@Andrya: And yet.
It is useful to remember that the majority of US citizens supported the US “police action” in Vietnam, by large margins. Until about 1967, when most concluded that the war had been a mistake, and support for the war went underwater. Part of the reason was the progressive discrediting of the increasingly absurd claims that the US Government had been making about the war since the Kennedy administration
Putin has spent the past two decades constructing a kind of domestic normalcy, which he clearly regarded as a condition for enabling his power to implement a muscular imperialist foreign policy. The public narcotization brought on by that normalcy goes some way to explaining Russian public support for the war.
But this year, that normalcy got shredded very abruptly, and suddenly anxiety, rather than normalcy, is the public zeitgeist. A lot more people are very likely now paying attention to the Man Behind The Curtain, and wondering about what they were sold. Much like Americans in 1967, when the scales dropped from their eyes.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Carlo Graziani: I consider America to be a “recovering imperialist” like a long term alcoholic being on the wagon. Mainly based on which party has the executive.
HarlequinGnoll
@Amir Khalid:
@Amir Khalid: as I understand it Germany’s production barely can handle the upgrades for their current leopards,
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: We have protected and rebuilt Germany for over 50 years. They need to be a good ally and help Ukraine. Period.
lowtechcyclist
No we don’t.
Feathers
It is pretty clear to me that Poland isn’t going to officially ask to transfer the Leopards until they are certain the answer will be yes. Silence will become a yes far more readily than a No will.
Just Marpling it out.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: The US did as much or more for South Korea, and yet they will not supply any weapons at all to Ukraine. Even a shipment of 155mm artillery shells by way of the US won’t be acknowledged by them.
Like it or not, NATO is a voluntary alliance and not a coercive one. That has its drawbacks for sure, but no nation’s population will support membership if it means subordinating their government’s independence to the will of other members. In this case I think it’s up to the German people to pressure their leadership if they think it should go beyond what it is already supplying to Ukraine.
I’m not saying you are wrong to express your view. . But it would be counterproductive for Defense Secretary Austin or another US official to hector the German government in these terms.
We are going to take what we can get from Germany in this war effort, just like we take what we get from Turkiye. That country has done even less than Germany as far as arms supply goes. They evidently are resupplying Bayraktar drones, and fulfilling contracts for warships. But Turkiye has the second largest army in NATO, equipped to NATO standards, and they haven’t shipped so much as a mortar to Ukraine even though this war is right next door.
And not only has Turkiye not joined the sanctions regime against Russia, a sudden rise in Turkiye’s exports last year indicates that they probably are enabling a certain amount sanctions evasion. But as long as Turkiye does not allow shipment of critical materials like electronic components to Russia, US pressure on Turkiye will remain behind the scenes and not public.
President Zelenskyy takes a similarly pragmatic approach. When he recounts conversations with the Turkish president, Zelenskyy accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative, although I expect he speaks frankly to Erdogan about the latter. This approach is justified by the help Turkiye does give Ukraine, which in the case of the Black Sea grain shipments is a lot.
Hangö Kex
Haven’t seen this mentioned, so … Der Spiegel claims to have obtained a secret inventory document from which, among other things, the conclusion is that there are just 19 Leopard 2 tanks in working order that Germany itself could spare. Unfortunately the Spiegel article seems to be behind a paywall, here is a Finnish one referring it though: https://www.hs.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000009343029.html (deepl.com/translate seems to a decent job)
Thanks to Adam, as always. :)
Geminid
@Hangö Kex: I guess at this point the key question is whether Germany will support other countries shipments of Leopards to Ukraine. A formal approval of export is not enough by itself; those tanks will need replacement parts from Germany unless it allows fabrication of parts by other countries. Perhaps the older model Leopard can be shipped and three quarters of them used to equip armored brigades and one quarter held back for replacing parts or whole tanks.
Hopefully the German Foreign Minister is correctly describing her government’s policy, and it will allow and support Leopard shipments. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Hangö Kex
The NZZ piece in the OP supports the suspicion that the German producers of Leopard 2 do not have an immediate capacity to support a large number of Leopard 2s operating in war conditions (spare and maintenance parts, at least); it would take considerable time to spin that up. The German government knows this full well and this is probably a part of the reason they have been reluctant with the Leopards; drawing attention to the problem by admitting it is not only embarrassing, but this is something Russia really doesn’t need to know.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I’m willing to cut South Korea a lot of slack because they are on the front line, after all.
Germany isn’t, and doesn’t have to worry about being so unless Russia defeats Ukraine.
Geminid
@Hangö Kex: Germany seems ambivalent about being in the arms business in a way the U.S. is not. I guess this comes from the strain of pacifism they understandably developed after the Second World War. One of the articles cited in the post above describes German reservations about fueling the global arms race.
In any event, the Germans have pretty much put themselves out of the tank export business now, and less conflicted countries like the U.S. and South Korea will pick up their slack.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I was not speaking to the moral judgements people make about these different countries, just to the more practical question of how and how much the U.S. should pressure them.
bookworm1398
All this is making me wonder, if Germany had had a choice, hadn’t been occupied by US, would they have joined NATO or stayed neutral? They didn’t leave in the nineties – unanswerable questions
Geminid
@Geminid:
@lowtechcyclist: As far as Germany’s self interests go, if a majority of Germans see them as clearly as you and the way you do, they’ll pressire their government to do more for Ukraine than they are doing now. But it will be up to them.
Hangö Kex
@Geminid: I’m sure there is sincere pacifism in Germany: in addition to the WWII experience and the resulting “never again” conclusion there is (at least) the cold war situation where West Germany would have been the battlefield with obviously devastating results.
On a more general note, the West urgently needs bring its economic and industrial capacity to fully bear; while there are some signs of progress this really needs to be brought to war footing: there is a war, after all.
Geminid
@bookworm1398: Not only did Germany not leave NATO in the 1990s, they assented to the alliance’s inclusion of the former Eastern Bloc countries. But Germany’s support of Ukraine is not a matter of treaty obligations and is instead voluntary.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Germany has no compunction making bank from the arms race in the Asia Pacific by selling corvettes, frigates & diesel-electric submarines. While I understand every explanation you have given, & I am not completely unsympathetic, but I find its current prevarication WRT to the war in Ukraine.
When the war ends, & especially if Putin is replaced, Germany (& other EU countries that choose to do so) can work on reestablishing some kind of modus vivendi w/ the new powers that be in Moscow.
Gin & Tonic
@bookworm1398: There is no such thing as “neutral” in the face of genocide.
Andrya
@Carlo Graziani: I wasn’t suggesting that Americans weren’t susceptible to the kind of motivated reasoning and motivated selection of facts that Upton Sinclair described. Human beings did not evolve to pursue absolute truth, but to maintain status and alliances- and therefore reproductive opportunities- under prehistoric conditions. A goal that often requires manipulating and distorting the facts.
I think it might be worse in russia because of 1) a long cultural tradition of absolute monarchy and dictatorships and 2) the stakes being higher because the risk is not just loss of status and allies, but imprisonment or death. The russian gov’t just charged a 19 year old woman with “terrorism” for posting criticism of the war on Instagram. (link) What is even more disturbing is that her classmates turned her in.
NutmegAgain
@Hangö Kex: strange about the paywall at Der Spiegel. It looks like they are trying it out. I went over to the English version, and this article about the state of the German army just went up. One of the authors also wrote the 19 Leopards piece. Link-article on German Army in English
NutmegAgain
@Geminid: From my extremely (!) limited convenience sample, I do think a general resistance to any kind of military participation is a very real thing in the German polity. Whether those kinds of people are supporters of the Social Democrats… no idea. But it’s a coalition government. And I think there is a specific resistance to seeing German military equipment deployed in Ukraine, due to the WWII history. All of which does not help if indeed there is more of a scarcity of (working) Leopard tanks than they are letting on.
Hangö Kex
@NutmegAgain: Thanks. :) Didn’t occur to me to check the English version.
Hangö Kex
@NutmegAgain: From a recent poll (percent for/against): all (46:43), CDU (66:29), Grünen (61:21), SPD (49:40), FDP (48:48), AfD (?:84) (https://www.rnd.de/politik/leopard-panzer-fuer-die-ukraine-lieferung-von-kampfpanzern-in-deutscher-bevoelkerung-umstritten-KH5KXSAVPGVNVZNPA3PE7EPHMY.html)
NutmegAgain
@Hangö Kex: I guess the numbers for die Linke/PDS are too small to bother with. But all in all it looks like a pretty narrow margin. Honestly I only know very broad strokes about the demographic breakdown of each party, and I’m sure there are correlations along geographic and education lines, together with party. At the moment, it sucks, but overall–how do I feel about a Germany that strongly resists militarization? Given the resurgence of the nationalists and the hard right … I dunno … best solution might be if other countries provided tanks asap.
NutmegAgain
@Hangö Kex: Hah hah. PS, the article was published before Baerbock stepped down, so why did it tell me it just went up on their website? Who the hell knows.