Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Let me file that under fuck it.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

The words do not have to be perfect.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

T R E 4 5 O N

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

How stupid are these people?

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 363: The Heavenly Hundred (a Day Late)

War for Ukraine Day 363: The Heavenly Hundred (a Day Late)

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(Revolution of Dignity Marker – Photo courtesy of commenter Nelle)

My plan for yesterday’s post, which went out the window once President Biden showed up in Kyiv, was to focus last night’s post on the Revolution of Dignity (EuroMaidan) and, specifically, on the anniversary of the massacre of the heavenly hundred. So I’m going to cover President Zelenskyy’s address very quickly and then, as soon as we get past the transcript go right into the Heavenly Hundred.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

I started this day with an extended and detailed meeting of the Staff. Including reports from the frontline from our commanders in the hottest directions.

Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny reported on the overall frontline situation and enemy missile attacks on our positions.

Of course, the reports on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions evoke particular emotions. We are doing our best to deter enemy attacks there – constant intense assaults, which Russia does not stop, even though it suffers huge losses there.

General Syrskyi reported on the Bakhmut and Lyman directions. Fierce battles are taking place. Principled battles. We are doing everything to support our guys. General Tarnavskyi reported on the fighting in the Avdiivka and other directions. The invaders are using the entire range of weapons against our guys there, including CS gas grenades.

But very importantly, despite all the pressure on our forces, the frontline has not changed. I am grateful for this to all our warriors, all soldiers and sergeants, officers and generals who are defending the respective frontline areas.

Other commanders of our Defense and Security Forces also reported to the Staff. Nayev, North, and Odesa operational and strategic group of troops, Moskalyov – I heard their reports, the situation has not changed significantly.

Intelligence – Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate Budanov – on the real essence of Russia’s trifle with rhetoric about strategic weapons. Foreign intelligence. The Security Service of Ukraine. Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard, the Border Guard Service. The Minister of Defense. Other representatives of the government.

We pay full attention to every detail of our Defense Plan and the enemy’s ambitions.

There was also a report by Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal on the situation in the energy sector and the process of restoring our energy system after the Russian strikes. I would like to note that we have good news, good results, and this is the achievement of all our power engineers, repairmen, central and local authorities who have been performing the relevant tasks. We meet the energy needs of people and businesses in most of Ukraine.

We continue our diplomatic marathon to strengthen Ukrainian warriors and our entire country. Today I met with the Italian delegation headed by Prime Minister Mrs. Giorgia Meloni.

Italy has been supporting us in our struggle for independence in a principled and powerful way. There is a new package of defense support, including air defense. Italy is ready to work with us to implement the Peace Formula. And this includes such an important point as justice. This means a tribunal for the aggressor and a compensation mechanism for Ukraine. Today we also discussed new sanctions against Russia.

I am grateful to all Italians for their historic support of Ukraine on its way to the European Union. When we were applying for the candidacy, Italy’s position gave a very important impetus to the position of the entire European Union. This year, I believe we will be able to make even more progress and do everything we can to start negotiations on Ukraine’s membership.

Today I also met with a delegation of the U.S. Congress. This is a very important signal for our country, the entire region and the world. Yesterday, President Biden was in Kyiv. Today – representatives of the Congress, namely members of the Republican Party.

Our cooperation with America does not stop for a single day or a single minute. Together we are effectively strengthening global security. And, by the way, the bewildered complaints coming from Moscow are just another proof of our effectiveness – of Ukraine, the United States, and the entire free world.

One more thing.

The Russian army has once again brutally shelled Kherson today. There are wounded and dead. My condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones…

This Russian shelling did not and could not have any military purpose. As well as thousands of similar Russian attacks, which are a real message from Russia to the world. The terrorist state is trying to tell the world by firing missiles at city streets, at residential buildings, at schools, at pharmacies and hospitals, at churches, at bus stops, at markets, at power plants that terror is allegedly something to be reckoned with…

I am confident that we will put the terrorist state in its place. All together: Ukrainians and the world.

Our army, our intelligence, our Security Service and other Ukrainian forces will find and destroy those who are carrying out these brutal attacks on Kherson, on our other cities and regions. And more broadly, we will prove that only humanity, only the UN Charter, and only the right of every nation to live freely and securely from terror and insane aggressions like Russia’s are to be reckoned with.

I thank everyone who defends our country! I thank everyone who is fighting for Ukraine on the frontline right now, who protects our borders, who protects our skies and our sea, who produces and supplies equipment and ammunition for our soldiers, and who provides us with high-quality intelligence information!

Glory to our warriors! 

Eternal memory to all those whose lives were taken by Russia and this war!

Glory to Ukraine!

Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Bakhmut, Kherson, and Kreminna, with a SWAG on Mariupol:

Back to the Heavenly Hundred:

From The Kyiv Independent:

One of the reasons now that we’ve gotten the basic stuff we cover every night out of the way that I want to focus solely tonight on the Heavenly Hundred is because of their bravery and the bravery of those protesting with them and who kept protesting despite it being made very clear that protesting could get you killed. But there is also another reason. Specifically, that at the time that the Revolution of Dignity was taking place almost all the news coverage, including and especially by the mainstream American and European print, TV, and cable news, was dominated by Russia’s framing. Russia’s ability to set the information environment, to have its frames of influence adopted without question, is still a major problem today. Nine years after these brave men and women risked and sacrificed their lives for their own and Ukraine’s freedom to chart their own future.

The framing issue was so pervasive that I actually self tasked myself with doing an assessment of what was going on in Ukraine, as well as what Putin’s intentions regarding Ukraine, for the commanding general, command group, and senior staff at US Army Europe. At that time I was temporarily assigned as the Cultural Advisor/Senior Civilian Advisor to the US Army Europe commander and it had become very clear to me that we were discussing what was going on at the Maidan and throughout Ukraine within Russia’s framing. So I set to work because I wanted to make sure that the Old Man and the senior staff had timely, accurate information to work from as we moved forward in our discussion.

Here is an excerpt of that unclassified assessment from the section on the EuroMaidan movement:

The Maidan Movement and the Interim Ukrainian Government

Russia has done a good job leveraging both its formal state based an informal informational power.9 It has also done a good job exploiting an all too credulous American news media, to assert that the popular uprising in Ukraine is almost exclusively the work of Ukrainian neo-fascists and neo-NAZIs. Russia has also asserted that the protests were fomented by the United States and intended to destabilize Russia in its own near abroad. The actual human geography of the Maidan movement is, however, much more diverse. The Maidan movement actually begins with an unlikely protagonist – an ethnic Afghan reporter named Mustafa Nayem.10 Nayem took to social media asking for support after he was racially profiled for his reporting by the Yanukovych government. Ukrainians of all ages responded by coming to the Maidan, the central square in Kyiv, and beginning to protest.11 These Ukrainians protestors were diverse – there were young Ukrainians from a variety of backgrounds, as well as the Ukrainian Afghans – the Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Union’s Afghan war and occupation. Many of the protestors at the Maidan were from the left of the political spectrum, some from the rightist party of Svoboda – though it is very important that the political frames of left and right mean different things in different places than in the US, so that they are relative to the state, society, group, and time period12. There were also Jewish Ukrainians, both Orthodox Christian and Catholic Ukrainians, ethnically Russian and Russian speaking Ukrainians, and Crimean Tatars who had not relocated back to Crimea after Ukrainian independence involved in the Maidan protests. There were even homosexual Ukrainians involved. This provided the truth to Russia’s strategic communication lie that the Maidan protests were being driven by a gay cabal and were really directed at Russia, which has cracked down on homosexuals and homosexuality since Putin’s return to the Russian presidency. The diversity of the Maidan protest movement is also represented in the over 100 casualties of the government crack down.

The diversity of the Maidan protest movement is far too politically, ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and ideologically broad to be encapsulated within Russia’s description of neo-fascist and neo-NAZI. The broad inclusivity of the Maidan protest movement is reflected, though imperfectly, within the Ukrainian interim government established in mid February after Ukrainian President Yanukovych fled Kyiv and ultimately Ukraine for safety in Russia.13 The interim Ukrainian government is a cross section of the political parties and different socio-cultural movements that made up the Maidan protest movement. The new Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and several others are members of Yulia Tymeshenko’s Fatherland Party. The new First Deputy Prime Minister, Vitaly Yarema, was the Kyiv Police Chief who was highly critical of the Interior Ministry’s violent and heavy-handed response to the Maidan protests. The interim government also includes several senior diplomats, as well as members from the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party. It also includes members of Vitaly Klitschko’s UDAR Party, several ethnic Russians, a naturalized Ukrainian citizen born in Baku, Azerbaijan, several investigative reporters, and an ethnically Russian, Jewish Ukrainian oligarch.14

The actual diversity of both the Maidan protest movement and the interim government it helped to create belie Russia’s claims of an American instigated, neo-fascist/neo-NAZI, homosexual takeover of Ukraine. That is not to say that there has not been American involvement. USAID has worked with a variety of Ukrainian opposition and civil society groups since the mid 2000s in regards to political and economic development. Additionally, Pierre Omidyar, the recent founder of the new media startup First Look Media and the Internet publication The Intercept, has been providing private funding and support for the Ukrainian opposition.15 It is both this diversity and the trail of the funding that shows the connection both to the earlier and failed Orange Revolution. This has allowed Russia to sow confusion via propaganda and take advantage of the almost uniformly execrable American news media coverage to negatively frame who is actually who in the Maidan protest movement zoo. Whether left or right of Ukraine’s political center, the protestors and the members of the interim government are all, almost, uniformly neo-liberal in their economic outlook.16 It is this neo-liberal economic approach, especially among the members of the interim government and the Ukrainian elites that demonstrates exactly where the divisions and dispute between Ukraine and Russia lie.

9 This includes the almost completely captured Russian media. The revelations by former RT (Russia Today) reporters, including an on air denunciation of RT’s news practices, coverage, and control by the Russian government momentarily broke the illusion. However, the Putin government has been able to maintain ruthless message control.
10 Timothy Snyder, “Ukraine: The Haze of Propoganda”, The New York Review of Books, 1 MAR 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/.
11 Timothy Snyder, “Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine”, The New York Review of Books, 20 MAR 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/.

15 This is especially important as the terms have basically become conjuring words in American politics and our own American frame of reference often prohibits us from understanding this important contextual caveat. Few of the left of center movements and actors in Ukraine are hard left as a result of a socio-political reaction to the Communism of the formerly Soviet Ukraine. The right of center groups do run the gamut of center right all the way to the reactionary descendants of the Ukrainian fascists and pro-NAZIs of World War II.
13 Daisy Sindelar, “Who’s Who in Ukraine’s Kamikaze Cabinet”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 18 MAR 2014, http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-whos-who-cabinet/25279592.html.
14 Mark Hirschberg, “Ukrainian Jewish Billionaire Appointed as District Governor”, JP Updates, 3 MAR 2014, http://jpupdates.com/2014/03/03/ukrainian-jewish-billionaire-appointed-district- governor/.

15 Mark Ames, “Pierre Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolution Groups with US Government, Documents Show”, Pando Daily, 28 FEB 2014, http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar- co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/.
16 Mark Ames, “Everything You Know About Ukraine is Wrong”, Pando Daily, 24 FEB 2014, http://pando.com/2014/02/24/everything-you-know-about-ukraine-is-wrong/.

I think that holds up pretty well.

You’ll also notice some persistent themes from the Russians. Themes that we heard once again today emanating from Moscow.

Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the Heavenly Hundred. I apologize that other news interfered with giving them their due. So take a moment and think about what they did and what they’ve inspired nine years plus one day on.

Oh and some dudes gave speeches in Warsaw and Moscow today.

That’s enough for tonight.

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Open thread!

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  3. 3.

    Anoniminous

    Word in the milblog-o-sphere is Wagner has shot its bolt. They’ve slaughtered their reinforcements and aren’t getting anymore. Dimitr at WarTranslated has an intercept of a Wagner command ordering a subunit commander to shoot another subunit commander and put someone in charge of that unit and assault forward. They have effectively run out of artillery shells and the Russian Army isn’t supplying them any more. They have run out of armor. So what they’ve got left is unsupported light infantry with little more than personal weapons charging into a NATO capable defense. Which, as the Chieftan would say, is a cause of significant emotional events.

    People are starting to think what we’re seeing IS the Great Russian Winter Offensive, which I think is accurate. There’s about two weeks until it would be the Great Russian Wading in Mud Up to Your Knees Offensive and even the stupid fucking Russians aren’t that stupid.

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    This Masha Gessen interview https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/masha-gessen/ talks about protests, and how much Putin hates them, is afraid of them, will do anything to defang / disempower them.  Really interesting: it was almost a thru-line of Putin’s entire life-story, the way he consistently works to destroy the ability of people to protest.

    They talked about how in the protests in 2012, something like 30 people were arrested and sent to prison for 3-4yr.  That’s it.  But it was enough to shut down protests after that.

  5. 5.

    Hkedi

    @Anoniminous: From your lips to god’s ear.  I’ve been worried about Bakhmut. Not because of it’s strategic value (low), but having a chunk of the Ukrainian army cut off of a route of retreat.

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    Good ol’ Igor Girkin/Strelkov is pretty unhappy with Vova: https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-2-21-23/h_fa986908eaf58877d3b7196251f8d296

    Pro-Russian military blogger slams Putin’s speech
    From CNN’s Vasco Cotovio & Olga Voitovych

    Former Russian military officer and prominent military blogger Igor Girkin criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech for failing to address some of the failings of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
    “Ok, it’s clear: the special military operation will continue in its current mode of obscurity. War or even counter-terrorist operation has not been declared, and won’t be,” Girkin wrote in a Telegram post.
    “Everything is fine in the army, and it is being done even better. Not a word about failures and defeats,” he added.

    Blah, blah, blah, there is no point in listening any further,” he concluded, halfway through the speech.

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    That assessment you wrote *does* hold up well.

    Looking at your footnotes I’m tempted to write an article entitled “Everything Mark Ames Knows About Ukraine is Wrong.”

  9. 9.

    The Moar You Know

     

    Blah, blah, blah, there is no point in listening any further,” he concluded, halfway through the speech.

    @Chetan Murthy: Pretty mutinous. Dude must not live near any windows.

  10. 10.

    Chetan Murthy

    @The Moar You Know: From what I understand,  there’s a sizable contingent of RU elites (and Girkin is one of them) who are quite a bit to the right of Putin.  As in: *significantly more rabid* than Putin.  So Girkin has some protection, b/c he’s part  of Putin’s insurance policy against  liberal unrest.

    Masha Gessen talked about how Putin has ginned-up homegrown militias of young people (men probably) as an inoculation against protests: these guys are rabidly Putinist, and so if any liberal protests break out, he just sics ’em on the protestors and boom, done and dusted.  Busting heads.  Freikorps but without guns.  Of course, now all the oligarchs are setting up PMCs, so they’ll have real Freikorps.

  11. 11.

    Tony G

    The killing of those hundred Ukrainian demonstrators is referred to by some American “leftists” as the “Maidan Coup”. Apparently the demonstrators held a coup by hitting valuable bullets with their bodies.

  13. 13.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Anoniminous: I think we are only hearing about lack of artillery shells from Wagner units. Either Wagner is by far the most vocal in protesting, or the Russian Army units are better supplied & the Russian military is working to cut Prigorzhin down to size. Both only see the Wagner convicts as meat, fodder to be leveraged & expended.

  15. 15.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Tony G: I have heard it called  ” the U.S backed overthrow of a democratically elected government.”

    This on my local progressive radio morning drive show. (WCPT Chicago) I no longer listen to that show, and I wrote the station to tell them why. Thankfully, none of the other show hosts on that station have that view.

  16. 16.

    Chetan Murthy

    @YY_Sima Qian: If this trend toward creation of PMCs continues, I’d agree with you.  Let’s see ….. I mean, boy howdy that’d be pretty stupid of Vova to let that happen.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    I cannot resist speculating that his unrestrained criticism of Russian commanders will land Mr. Girken in a pickle.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Sam Greene at CEPA has a good Twitter thread assessing Putin’s recent speech:

    The TLDR on Putin’s speech today: He could have laid out an agenda for a wartime economy and social solidarity, but he didn’t. He could have clarified his war aims, but he didn’t. He could have made explicit escalatory threats, but he didn’t.  /1

    …

  22. 22.

    Anoniminous

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​
     
    The consensus is the Russians are running low on artillery munitions. The amount of fire has decreased in all combat areas, even in areas where they are attacking. And it’s not just the Russians. The US is hard pressed to supply Ukraine with 150mm and 155mm howitzer munitions.

    Actually, it’s standard for a “shell shortage” to emerge after a year. Same thing happened in both World War 1 and World War 2.

  24. 24.

    Tony G

    @MagdaInBlack: Yeah, a similar situation with the local “Pacifica Network” station in New York City (WBAI).  I’ve been listening to them on and off since I was a teenager in the early seventies.  They had some interesting stuff a half century ago but it’s been a downward spiral for decades — which is a shame because NPR and is so bland and commercial radio is filled with fascists.  Since the beginning of the pandemic three years ago they’ve really gone off the rails, with anti-vaxxers and covid-conspiracy theorists — and now Putin fan-boys.  I still occasionally tune in to see whether things have gotten better.  They haven’t.

  26. 26.

    Tony G

    @Chetan Murthy: Putin knows what happened to Ceaușescu in Romania in 1989, and he wants to try to nip any opposition in the bud.  Of course, if Ceaușescu had been a little more reasonable, he might have avoided getting shot.  But that’s a subtlety that eludes someone like Putin.

  27. 27.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Anoniminous:

    Same thing happened in both World War 1 and World War 2.

    It was fascinating reading and then watching an Army University Press doc on the struggles to supply Allied armies post-D-Day and without the benefit of Cherbourg. The Red Ball Express was an extraordinary effort, and the planning and the actual operation are a very interesting topic.

  28. 28.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: As a kid, I devoured WWII books.  Just *devoured* ’em.  And yet I never learned just how important logistics was.  It was all about great feats of derring-do and all.  And today …. well, now I see that the real feat that Patton’s Third Army pulled off (in succoring Bastogne) was logistical.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: I wasn’t using Ames as the primary source. Though interestingly at the time he was better in describing the Maidan movement than mainstream reporters. Which was surprising then and now.

    And why do you have does in astericks?

  33. 33.

    frosty

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
     Once the US Army was across the Rhine the Red Ball Express couldn’t keep up. The Army repurposed Troop Carrier Command’s C-47s as the Flying Pipeline: filled them with 5 gallon jerrycans and made one or two flights a day. It took 3 gallons of gas to deliver 1, but it kept the tanks and other vehicles moving.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    The sustained rate of fire for an M109 howitzer is one round every three minutes.  For an M198 towed howitzer, one every 30 seconds.  No one actually sits still and just keeps firing except in the direst of circs, but can you imagine how quickly a single battery of six guns can blow through ammo?

  40. 40.

    Jay

    Nothing says I'm terrified Russians will assassinate me, like Putin having his massed sycophant audience positioned half a mile away from him – and his bodyguards lurking behind the large screen ready to jump out & save him. Contrast this to Biden & Zelensky in Kyiv yesterday. pic.twitter.com/ZWlvolGpmo— Glasnost Gone (@GlasnostGone) February 21, 2023

  48. 48.

    Jay

    The Russian MoD Telegram channel said that the LDNR's 1st and 2nd Army Corps are officially part of the Russian Armed Forces since January 1, 2023, and they are denying claims from Russian war correspondents that LDNR officers will be pushed out.https://t.co/Gi6BgGM0gA pic.twitter.com/Ih2Tqn1mJs— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 21, 2023

    self inflicted wounds,……

    That channel also says LDNR officers who have been fighting since 2014 will be treated as if they just joined the military and those previously wounded won’t be treated as wounded veterans. This will also affect pensions. 4/https://t.co/bNa6sGkS8v— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 21, 2023

  49. 49.

    Anoniminous

    @HumboldtBlue: ​
     
    If the fucking Brits hadn’t done their usual stop for tea the port of Antwerp would have been usable by the end of September. They got to Antwerp Sept. 4 and then sat on their asses instead of crossing the river and clearing the Scheldt. The result was the port wasn’t opened until November. Things in the fall of ’44 would have gone much, much, different if Antwerp was in operation.

  52. 52.

    Jay

    @Anoniminous:

    The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations led by the First Canadian Army, with Polish and British units attached, to open up the shipping route to Antwerp so that its port could be used to supply the Allies in north-west Europe. Under acting command of the First Canadian’s Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, the battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands from 2 October to 8 November 1944.[1]

    The Canadians had been delayed, and pressure on the Scheldt left wanting, by Allied decisions to focus on Arnhem (Operation Market Garden), Boulogne (Operation Wellhit), Calais (Operation Undergo) and Dunkirk. By the time the Canadians were sent into the Battle of the Scheldt, the Wehrmacht defenders had been reinforced. The Germans staged an effective delaying action, during which they flooded land areas in the Scheldt estuary, slowing the Allied advance. After five weeks of difficult fighting, the Canadian First Army, at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties (half of them Canadian), was successful in clearing the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, obstacle crossings, and costly assaults over open ground.

  53. 53.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Seeing the European Union really come to fruition (I know, it’s nowhere near really come to fruition) is a lovely thing.  I remember reading that once upon a time, Poland and Ukraine didn’t exactly have the friendliest relations.  And today …..

  54. 54.

    eclare

    @Jay:   Friend saw the comment that apparently everyone at the speech had been ordered to keep hands in laps (scroll in).  Keep em where I can see em.

  55. 55.

    YY_Sima Qian

    WSJ article on Xi’s upcoming visit to Russia later in the Spring, & a potential Chinese proposal for a negotiated end to the war. On the one hand, the US & some Eastern European countries (I assume Ukraine, too?) are not likely to trust China as an honest broker due to its rhetorically pro-Russian straddling (which has included echoing Russian propaganda). OTOH, If China does condemn the Russian invasion, Russia will not see it as an honest broker, either. Perhaps better candidates are other straddling powers such as India, since the US is apparently willing to give it a pass for taking the same actions as China wrt Russia (or domestic human rights abuses, for that matter), because the US is not currently in a great power competition w/ India.

    Here is an earlier, very thinly sourced WSJ article that discussed how the suspected Chinese consideration of sending lethal aid to Russia might fit into a Chinese initiative to reach a negotiated settlement. Still does not compute to me, & there has not yet been any evidence provided to support Blinken’s assertions. Sometimes I wonder poor translation and/or poor cultural awareness might be leading to intelligence failures. One commonly receives 考虑考虑 (will take it under consideration) or 研究研究 (will study in due course) when making asks of Chinese individuals, private firms, state owned companies, or the bureaucracy. It mean “No”, but the counterpart did not want to say so to your face.

    Anyway, the topic remains moot because no one is going to be able to drag Putin to the table, & Ukraine can’t trust any deal it strikes w/ Putin even if he is dragged to the table.

  56. 56.

    Jay

    @Chetan Murthy:

    WWI didn’t end in 1918. A ton of conflicts continued. In WWII a bunch of “players” tried to “resolve” old grievances.

    I would suggest that the destruction of WWII, and the “forced” borders of the Cold War, caused a bunch of “players” to accept the status quo.

    Russia however, under Putin, has tried to enflame the old grudges and the “trapped” minorities.

  58. 58.

    Anoniminous

    @Jay: ​
     

    The Allies’ Biggest Blunder?

    “In the early afternoon of September 4, after a sprint of 100 miles, elements of the 11th British Armoured Division’s 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (3 R Tanks) reached the outskirts of Antwerp. It found the way into the city blocked at its main bridge by mines and machine-gun positions.

    Reacting swiftly under the cover of a smoke screen, the tankers circumvented the obstacle and an armored battalion, and along with a company of the Rifle Brigade infantry, sped into Antwerp with one of its tank squadrons reaching the port’s vast harbor. There the British found that the entire dock area was in an undamaged condition and quickly took possession of it.

    But the 11th Armoured Division stopped in place in Antwerp and rested after its arduous advance. In its great leap forward, the division did not try either that day or the next to seize the bridges over the Albert Canal, which were key to any further advance.

    On September 6, the 4th Battalion, King’s Shropshire Light Infantry (4 KSLI), crossed the canal, but by then the Germans had blown the bridges. An enemy counterattack by infantry and five tanks isolated the 4 KSLI in a factory complex, and the British infantry, incapable of ferrying some antitank guns across the canal, was forced to withdraw; a temporary stalemate ensued.”

    The division could have gone or at a bare minimum capture the bridges and establish a strong presence. But they didn’t have the drive. They failed to capture Caen on D-Day. They failed to close the Falaise Gap. After failing at Antwerp they go on to fail in Market-Garden.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chetan Murthy: Looping back to the part of Adam’s post about the Heavenly Hundred, it is worth noting that during the 2013-2014 demonstrations in Ukraine, people in that country were quite literally putting their lives on the line for the prospect of EU membership. Two years later the fucking morons in England decided “EU, meh, fuck it.” I thought then, and may have written to that effect, that Ukraine should have been given Britain’s place.

  60. 60.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah, liberally using S-300 SAMs as barely effective surface to surface missiles is a tell tale sign. That’s depleting SAM inventory now, when in the future the Ukrainian Air Force may be flying F-16s & exploiting the HARM missiles to the fullest.

  61. 61.

    Gin & Tonic

    And a linguistic note before I rack out – in Ukrainian the people who were killed on those days are called “Nebesna Sotnia” (Небесна Сотня.) The second word is rooted in “hundred” but is not just a word for the number – it is equivalent to the Latin century, source of centurion. In other words it is used in a military context, for a company-sized group of soldiers.

  62. 62.

    Jay

    @Anoniminous:

    The division could have gone or at a bare minimum capture the bridges and establish a strong presence. But they didn’t have the drive. They failed to capture Caen on D-Day. They failed to close the Falaise Gap. After failing at Antwerp they go on to fail in Market-Garden.

    The Allies decided to “clear” the Fortress Cities of the Atlantic Wall, then try Market Garden, rather than leaving the German garrisons bottled up, (until the attempts were too costly and they had to go for sieges and containment).

    It wasn’t just Monty, the Brits, it was the Allies, the Joint Command.

    The “clearing” of the Channel Ports was a slog. Most units were overdue for rotation and were under strength by the time they hit the Scheldt.

  63. 63.

    Anonymous At Work

    I see rumblings towards Moldova, a key link between Ukraine and the West.  Are we about to witness a few Russian companies or a brigade disappear and the Transnitrean militia suddenly grow in number and armaments?  Or is Poland’s guarantee of backing Moldovan independence sufficient to make it all noise?

  65. 65.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Russia is pretty much stuck with what they have in Transnistria. They pretty much have to over fly Ukraine to add forces, and Orxy has run a bunch of articles on the cobbled together nature of Transnistria forces. With some external support, Moldova would do okay, it’s Russia’s 5th Column that’s an issue.

  67. 67.

    Chetan Murthy

    http://www.military-today.com/missiles/rs28_sarmat.htm

    The RS-28 Sarmat is a new Russian silo-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). It was designed as a successor to the Soviet R-36M (Western reporting name SS-18 or Satan). Development of the RS-28 commenced in 2009. Russians were developing an improved version of the R-36M. Interestingly the R-36M (Satan) was originally developed and produced in Ukraine. Ukrainians supplied parts and assisted in servicing of these missiles. After the 2014 anexion of Crimea and military action in Ukraine, this became a problem. Ukrainians were no longer servicing these missiles, while Russian design bureaus were not familiar with the R-36M. So it was increasingly important for Russians to develop a replacement for this Soviet-era missile, that was approaching the end of its service life.

    The RS-28 Sarmat is an evolution of the R-36M, rather than a completely new design. It has many design features of the R-36M, but uses more advanced materials and technologies in its construction. The new missile uses upgraded electronics, guidance systems, countermeasures, and reportedly has more warhead options. Though it uses the same engines as the R-36M. It is believed that many elements of this missile were recreated from to the R-36M blueprints. Also some of the Ukrainian specialists who worked on the R-36M transferred to Russian enterprises and their expertise was considered developing the new missile.

    Every time I turn around, I learn that UA has more and more history with high tech and literal rocket science.

  68. 68.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Chetan Murthy: Ukraine SSR also shouldered the brunt of the construction of major surface combatants for the Soviet Navy, and contained the bulk of the associated expertise, including maritime engines. That is a major reason Russia has had a very tough time building any surface warship larger than a mid-sized frigate since 2014, & even maintaining/upgrading Cold War era left overs have been extremely challenging. (Aside from general corruption & lack of funding, that is).

  70. 70.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jay:

    WWI didn’t end in 1918.

    Just think of the impacts that war left on the west, the changes it swept in, we’re still dealing with some of those today. W1 saw the rise of the Soviet Union, the diminution of nearly every royal house in Europe, the first tentative steps to universal suffrage and yet another re-shuffle of borders among nations. The rapid industrialization of economies and the rise of modern capitalism

    The changes in military technology and logistics — we saw the dawn of the airplane as a decisive arm leading to the rise of the carrier — the heavy use of rail and motor transport, advances in communications technology, all lead directly to modern ideas and systems.

    Also this:

    Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav Kačer told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to “Go f@ck yourself.” And in Russian. Rastislav Kacher argues that military aid to Ukraine is morally correct since the Russians have invaded the country and are killing Ukrainians.  Donbas Operational

  71. 71.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: nice!  https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/news/2023/02/21/7156626/

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, Rastislav Kačer, cursed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for his policy, which plays into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    This is reported by “European Truth”.

    In his extensive post on Facebook, the head of the Slovak department, among other things, claims that military aid to Ukraine is morally right because the Russians invaded the country and are killing Ukrainians. 

    He emphasized that the European Union is united in helping Kyiv – only Hungary stays away. 

    Kacher noted that the position of the Prime Minister of Hungary that “this is not our war” is morally unacceptable.

    “Over the weekend, their Carpathian prophet talked about the fact that this is not our war. It is “just a military conflict between two Slavic states”. They should have been left alone, isolated. That is, let the Russians quickly kill the Ukrainians. Let them they don’t care. How disgusting. How pitiful. How un-Christian. Saint Martin of Tursky (born in present-day Hungary) would have died of shame for such Christians,” wrote the head of the Slovak Foreign Ministry.

    Kacher noted that he agrees with “these Carpathian collaborators of the Russian aggressors” in one respect.

    “The supply of weapons to Ukraine prolongs the conflict and postpones peace. The largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine is Russia. At first, it also supplied them with “little green men”. They were not Russians, and if they were, they were only on vacation in Ukraine. They openly attack and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine for a year. As soon as the Russians stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, pack up and go home, at the same moment others will stop supporting Kyiv militarily and peace will come. Everything is very simple,” Kacher emphasized.

    That’s gonna leave a mark.

  73. 73.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Jay:

    The Allies decided to “clear” the Fortress Cities of the Atlantic Wall, then try Market Garden, rather than leaving the German garrisons bottled up, (until the attempts were too costly and they had to go for sieges and containment).

    It wasn’t just Monty, the Brits, it was the Allies, the Joint Command.

    The “clearing” of the Channel Ports was a slog. Most units were overdue for rotation and were under strength by the time they hit the Scheldt.

    Re-disputing the historiography of SHAEF decision-making is not my idea of a good time in this thread. But this take strikes me as simply blinkered. Throughout the period from the May conferences to the halt at the Siegfried line, there was no such thing as “The Allies” as a unified political-military entity issuing joint consensus allied decisions. There was instead a series of bureaucratic-diplomatic multi-sided knife fights between Montgomery/Brooke, Churchill, and Marshall/Bradley, with Eisenhower trying everything he could to keep the alliance from falling apart, and much of the SHAEF staff, including Eisenhower’s British deputy, Tedder, utterly incensed at Montgomery’s high-handed presumption of independence from higher command, and his total unwillingness to accept diplomatic hints concerning the direction of 21 Army Group operations.

    The Antwerp fiasco was absolutely Montgomery’s failure, insofar as he resolutely ignored every SHAEF entreaty to secure logistical support for operations to the East, being instead fixated on securing command over a Northern thrust through the Low Countries into Germany to end the war at a stroke. This obsession was the origin of MARKET-GARDEN, and was also a symptom of total resistance on Montgomery’s part to Eisenhower’s (and SHAEF’s) resolution to proceed with a “broad front” strategy, linking up with Dever’s forces entering France from the Mediterranean coast.

    There was total strategic dissension between Montgomery and SHAEF, which brought substantial strategic costs to the allies in the summer and fall of 1944. Monty was very nearly fired (which would have produced a diplomatic crisis that Eisenhower was desperate to avoid). As late as May 1945, his self-obsessive mentality and refusal to accept direction nearly resulted in the entry of Soviet troops into Denmark, in consequence of his very belated effort to seal off the peninsula despite SHAEF shrieking at him about the danger for weeks. This was simply a reprise of the same psychodramatic strategic blindness that led to the Antwerp disaster.

    Useful sources: Russell Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants; Carlo D’Este, Decision in Normandy; David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War, 1943-1945.

  74. 74.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Anoniminous:

    Word in the milblog-o-sphere is Wagner has shot its bolt. They’ve slaughtered their reinforcements and aren’t getting anymore.

    I have a suspicion (without the sources to confirm it) that Wagner is not being starved out just out of MOD orneriness, but because of logistical culmination. The Russians have initiated new offensive operations on an absurdly broad front, from Vuhledar, to Donetsk, to Bakhmut, to Kreminna. And I simply cannot see how they can possibly sustain all those efforts given the very serious logistical constraints under which they must operate.

    In Russian general staff planning processes, logistical planning is a second-class consideration, essentially a matter of requisition orders after operations planning is complete. Which is madness, and explains much about the failure of the initial onslaught a year ago, and is also the opposite of Western military staff planning practice. I have a feeling that the same pathology has played out once again, with Russian logistical services scrambling inneffectually to keep up with plans made by councils at which they were not considered fully-vested stakeholders.

    Which would explain why Wagner isn’t getting many shells, tanks, or anything else these days. It’s not MOD spite (or at least, not primarily spite): rather there simply isn’t enough to go around for all these offensive operations, and Wagner simply gets lower priority supply with respect to MOD-controlled forces.

  75. 75.

    Chetan Murthy

    Even as Navalny tries to update his positions with the times (recently he called for returning Crimea to Ukraine and paying reparations), he fails.  He’s a great example of how even *some of* the best Russian liberals are hopelessly infected with imperialism.

    I read Navalny’s thread and my blood is boiling. To equal Belarusians and russians in order to whitewash your own imperialism while russia colonized Belarus for centuries, wiped out Belarusian culture, language, identity and independence – it’s just so russian and so imperialist. pic.twitter.com/YNGMh07A0t
    — Darya Zorka (@daryazorka) February 20, 2023

  79. 79.

    charon

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/desantis-wades-into-foreign-policy-ukraine/ar-AA17NhnL?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=e4be47e646a84ba789f2ded34375fa1a

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is wading deeper into foreign policy as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential run, signaling an effort to broaden his leadership chops beyond the culture war issues that he built a national reputation on.

    During an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Monday, the Florida governor and prospective White House contender blasted the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine as a “blank-check policy” and played down the threat that Moscow poses to NATO member countries in Europe.

    “They have effectively a blank-check policy with no clear strategic objective identified,” DeSantis said. “These things can escalate. And I don’t think it’s in our interest to be getting into a proxy war with China getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.”

    Snip

    DeSantis has at least some experience in the foreign policy sphere. During his three terms in Congress, he served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

    And his work as governor has occasionally crossed over into the international realm. Last fall, for instance, he called for state lawmakers to ban the governments of several “countries of concern,” including China, Russia and Iran, from purchasing agricultural land and land near military bases in Florida.

    One Republican donor who has given money to DeSantis in the past said that the Florida governor needs to start more aggressively pitching his foreign affairs credentials to a larger audience.

    “In what world can you call Ron DeSantis a globalist? I mean, look at his record on China. Look what he just said about Russia and Ukraine,” the donor said.

    “The other part of this, though, is that he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to talk about these big foreign policy issues, because he’s busy being governor,” the person continued. “And I think what you’re seeing now is kind of an introduction — ‘Hey, I’m going to put America first.’ ”

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