Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Let me file that under fuck it.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

T R E 4 5 O N

The words do not have to be perfect.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Republicans in disarray!

People are complicated. Love is not.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 371: Bakhmut Holds. For Now…

War for Ukraine Day 371: Bakhmut Holds. For Now…

by | 57 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The situation in Bakhmut is serious. The Ukrainians are putting up a stout effort, but the Russians just keeping pouring bodies in. Right now it’s a race. Can the quality of Ukrainian forces hold and repulse the quantity that Russia is just throwing at them long enough to get sufficient reinforcements in place to not just hold, but to chew up the Russian pocket. We’re going to get to that just as soon as I post President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

This winter was very difficult, but we managed to provide Ukraine with energy and heat – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

1 March 2023 – 21:44

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

Today I held several fundamentally important meetings.

The meeting on the energy sector was attended by everyone who is responsible for the stability of our energy system. It was a long meeting – three hours.

Energy companies: Naftogaz, Energoatom, Ukrenergo, Ukrhydroenergo, and others. The Government. The Office. The head of the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada. Military. Intelligence.

This winter is over. It was very difficult, and every Ukrainian without exaggeration felt this difficulty. But we still managed to provide Ukraine with energy and heat.

Yes, the threat to the energy system remains. But the work for the sake of the energy system is also continued.

At the energy meeting, we have set the current tasks to ensure that this heating season is completed properly. And we have already started preparing for the next season – each of the meeting participants has received their part of the work in this regard. We see risks, we will find a response.

Today, I also held a long, detailed conference call with all those who are in charge of various areas of state defense. The military, the Security Service, the Main Intelligence Directorate, foreign intelligence, the MIA, other government officials, the Office.

We keep each frontline direction under control. Khortytsia, Tavria, Odesa, North – there were reports on the situation over the past day.

In addition to the frontline directions, we are also paying attention to the frontline areas. Those cities and districts that are subjected to Russian shelling every day and night. To a deliberate terror. Nikopol and other communities of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and the region, the frontline part of Donbas, Kharkiv and the region, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

Now, in most of the territory of our country, where we have managed to provide relative security, you may not feel what life is like for those of our people who live in the border areas with Russia, who live in the south of our country. Where there are shelling occasions. Where people are not at the front, but still directly at war. Where Russia is constantly trying to destroy everything that people have. Constantly – and this is no exaggeration.

When we are preparing the actions of our military, all our defense and security forces, we also mean that such actions will gradually return security to those who are now in the frontline zone.

Every movement of our flag forward will mean the safety of our people. In the territories that will be liberated from the occupier. In those territories that will become a deeper rear. And in those border areas where the defeat of the invader will finally bring peace.

I am grateful to everyone who is ready to help our country in further active actions! I thank each and every one of our defense and security forces who is already preparing!

And I thank those who, despite all the threats, despite all the dangers, are doing everything possible to ensure that normal life is maintained in the frontline areas of Ukraine, in cities and communities that are subjected to Russian attacks! These are the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, police forces, our social and administrative services, local authorities, conscientious businesses, and of course, volunteers who help people and the state.

Special thanks to our border guards and all other warriors who are holding back the enemy! And particular gratitude to our warriors who are destroying the occupiers’ firing points, destroying the enemy’s logistics and accurately leading Russia to defeat.

To inevitable defeat.

Glory to all those who are now fighting for Ukraine!

Eternal memory and honor to each and every one who gave their lives for the independence of our country!

Glory to Ukraine!

Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situations in Kreminna and Bakhmut:

From The Kyiv Independent today:

Despite ongoing heavy battles in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, the Ukrainian forces have not made the decision to withdraw from the city, Serhii Cherevaty, spokesman of the Eastern Operational Command, told CNN on March 1.

“If we see that the threat to our personnel and our operational situation is greater than the need to hold the territory, we do it (withdraw troops), but we do it in an organized manner, without panic,” Cherevaty said.

On Feb. 28, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported that additional troops would be sent to Bakhmut.

On Feb. 15, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said that Bakhmut could be surrounded in March or April. Prigozhin added, though, that it is “hard to predict,” and Russia’s success in surrounding the town partially depends on the amount of Western weaponry supplied to Ukraine.

Ukraine continues to hold Bakhmut despite the seven-month-long Russian attempt to capture the city as Moscow tries to increase its grip over the entirety of the eastern Donetsk Oblast, around half of which it currently occupies.

At the same time, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry’s intelligence update published on Feb. 24, Russia has likely changed its approach from seizing extensive territory in Ukraine to exhausting the resources of the Ukrainian military.

And on 28 FEB:

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s Land Forces and Eastern Operational Command, ordered to send more troops to Bakhmut following his trip to the front line on Feb. 25.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported this on Feb. 28 during a TV news marathon.

“Bakhmut has been the epicenter of hostilities for several months now,” Maliar said. “The enemy has concentrated its key efforts there because it aims to reach the borders of Donetsk Oblast.”

During his visit on Feb. 25, Syrskyi evaluated the condition of combat units in the region and heard concerns and appeals presented by their commanders.

Ukraine continues to hold Bakhmut despite the seven-month-long Russian attempt to capture the city. Approximately 380 clashes have been recorded in the area since the beginning of February, General Oleksiy Hromov said on Feb. 23.

According to Hromov, Russia’s objective may be to capture the “critical towns” of Donetsk Oblast soon and take control of the Donbas – a key industrial region consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts – before summer.

The Ukrainian leadership does not appear to be panicking and does appear to have a plan. But the decision may ultimately come down to the question of risk versus reward. Just how much will it cost Ukraine in resources to continue to contest for Bakhmut versus pulling back to a more defensible position.

And from The Washington Post:

KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military might pull troops back from the key stronghold of Bakhmut, an adviser to Ukraine’s president said Wednesday in remarks that suggested Russia could capture the city that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

Kremlin forces have waged a bloody, monthslong offensive to take Bakhmut, a city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine that has become a ghost town.

“Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options. So far, they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back,” Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told CNN. “We’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.”

Analysts say the fall of Bakhmut would be a blow for Ukraine and offer tactical advantages to Russia, but would not prove decisive to the war’s outcome.

Rodnyansky noted that Russia was using the Wagner Group’s best troops to try to encircle the city. The private military company known for brutal tactics is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a rogue millionaire with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin said Wednesday that he had seen no signs of a Ukrainian withdrawal and that Kyiv has, in fact, been reinforcing its positions.

“The Ukrainian army is deploying additional troops and is doing what it can to retain control of the city,” Prigozhin said. “Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are offering fierce resistance, and the fighting is getting increasingly bloody by day.”

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said earlier this week that reinforcements had been dispatched to Bakhmut.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press that the reinforcements may have been sent “to gain time” for strengthening Ukrainian firing lines on a hill in Chasiv Yar, 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) west of Bakhmut.

Zhdanov said the possible withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut “will not affect the course of the war in any way” because of the firing positions in Chasiv Yar.

Bakhmut is now partly encircled, and all roads, including the main supply route, are within range of Russian fire, Zhdanov said. The city lies in ruins and “no longer has strategic or operational significance.”

“In Bakhmut, the Russians lost so many forces — soldiers and equipment — that this city has already fulfilled its function,” Zhdanov said.

Which supports what I’ve been saying about holding until it no longer makes theater strategic sense. This also fits with an update on Bakhmut from some time in January where the Ukrainian officials interviewed had spoken about fall back positions that were being prepared if necessary.

Here’s an English subtitled video update from this morning from the Ukrainian Soldier Kyianian:

And Motolife’s:

Just remember these are hours old by the time I do the updates.

Take the following update for what it’s worth given the source, though WaPo did quote this as well. But given that he’s the guy bankrolling the Russian operations in Bakhmut, he may have some idea what’s going on:

Vuhledar:

From Channel 4 News yesterday:

As Ukraine’s biting winter begins to turn into spring, the war in the east is exacting a heavy toll on both sides.

In Bakhmut, Russian forces appear to have the advantage, having laid waste to the town but as yet failing fully to control it.

While in Vuhledar, a rail and road hub 100 miles to the south, the Ukrainians retain the upper hand for now.

Our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum spent the day with the 68th Brigade on the front lines close to Vuhledar and sent this report.

This 17 FEB report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty gives you some idea of the Russian strategy, tactics – frankly I’m not sure either of those terms really apply – in Vuhledar. Which also seem to be the same ones being used in Bakhmut:

By one account, nearly three dozen Russian tanks and armored vehicles were reduced to smoldering rubble. By another, as many as 500 Russian troops may have been killed. Relatives of soldiers from one unit are frantically trading text messages and social-media posts trying to locate their loved ones.

More than two weeks after a major clash between Russian and Ukrainian forces, details are slowly emerging as to what exactly happened in Vuhledar earlier this month.

According to Ukrainian and Western intelligence officials, Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers, satellite photographs, and other open sources, a collection of Russian marine infantry and other units suffered catastrophic losses in an effort to capture the Donetsk region town — for the second time since November.

“If this is not a war crime, then what is a war crime?” one Russian Telegram channel known for its ties to the Wagner mercenary group said in scathing post that featured aerial photographs of the devastation, apparently captured by Ukraine.

The naval units suffered such major losses that a group of marines released an open letter addressed to the governor of the Primorye region in the Russian Far East, where the unit is based. The letter, published on a well-known Russian military Telegram channel ripped into the commanders, saying 300 soldiers were killed, wounded, or went missing in four days, and half of the brigade’s equipment was destroyed.

Beginning in the last week of January, after weeks of a rumored buildup of Russian forces in the district, Russian units again attacked Vuhledar — units from the 155th brigade as well as the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade, based on the Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka. A unit of mobilized soldiers from the Tatarstan region was also part of the assault.

It didn’t go well.

By the end of the first week of February, the Russian offensive apparently stalled.

According to Rybar, a Telegram channel believed to have close links to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russian commanders then tried a flanking assault from the north, but that failed in the face of fierce Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes from higher ground, and heavily land-mined approaches to the town.

Estimates by Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia lost at least 130 armored vehicles, including 36 tanks, though some observers said those figures were likely exaggerated.

But anecdotal reports circulating on Telegram, plus aerial video and still photos from fields near Vuhledar, showed major losses of equipment for Russian units, estimated at between 20 and 40 tanks and other vehicles.

In an interview with the Russian website 7×7 published on February 13, a man identified as a member of the 3rd Company of the 155th Brigade said that only eight members of the unit survived the assault, and up to 500 soldiers in total may have been killed.

“Those who survived are being called deserters,” the unnamed soldier said. “It would have been better if I had been captured and just never returned. Moods are the worst. They wasted 500 people already, maybe more.”

Further evidence of a potential major loss came on February 8, when а post was published on a VK social-media page titled Alga, which was dedicated to the Tatarstan battalion and means “Forward” in Tatar.

“We express our sincere sympathies to the families of those Alga Battalion members who were killed on February 6, 2023, in the course of battle,” the post said. “Details of casualties are still being clarified.”

“Something bad happened on February 6 at the front with the Tatar battalion Alga,” said Ukrainian blogger Denys Kazanskiy, who highlighted the post on his Telegram channel. “They write that as a result of an unsuccessful attack on Ukrainian positions, several dozen people died at once. The exact number is still not known, since the corpses lie in the fields and cannot be taken away.”

There’s much, much more at the link, but you get the idea.

In case anyone was curious how the different amounts of support for Ukraine compare, the graphic below should provide your answers.

We’re that 5.9% block below the Netherlands, to the right of Slovenia and the UK, above Finland, and to the left of Belgium.

One last item before we finish out, but there’s a reason I indicated that the new Japanese member of the Georgian Legion fighting on behalf of Ukraine was yakuza. Because he is yakuza. Machine translated from Yahoo News Japan:

Looking at the appearance of children and elderly victims… ” Former Yakuza Japanese Yoshito ” speaks 「 Reason to fight in Ukraine

2/26 ( Day ) 9:00

I was watching the press and at first I was only wondering if the war had begun. However, I was moved by the fact that the Russian army was harming civilians. Is it all right to look at the elderly and the victims of children 『 just bystander? 』I feel like…」

I say that, Mr. Haru, who works as a hero in Ukraine, （49, and the pseudonym ）. His life so far is full of turbulence.

「 My father was a gangster captain and was in and out of prison. As a result, I was discriminated against by the surroundings. I was lonely, so I started playing with children of similar treatment and left on the path of the polar road as it flowed 」

Haru went on the same path with the desire to cross his father. But after entering the group, the hard work continued.

「 I put it in a position when I entered a good set, but I was doing something like a captain’s swearing stick if I was unlucky. There were work patterns and life-related events, but nothing more than a battlefield. However, I always had trouble with cancers because I have no cypress 」

Mr. Haru was accused of violent protests with religious groups and related groups, and was imprisoned in a prison in West Japan for 10 years.

After the source, he repented of his way of life and engaged in forestry in Shikoku, but in the second year he was forced to hit and damaged the meniscus of his knees. I was shocked to see news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine while looking for a job. Hearing President Zelensky calling for the righteous to the world, he looked back on his life so far and thought that he would regret it while he died if he saw it and shook it. It was.

「 I thought I would act first rather than regret it, because of the atonement of the sins I have committed so far 」

One of the reasons was that he was a Catholic Christian himself. I got my passport for the first time I was born and left Japan on March 29, last year. I’m surprised that this was the first overseas life.

At the Warsaw Airport in Poland, a transit point, I happened to get acquainted with Americans and British volunteers for the sake of courage. Haru, who decided to work with them, crossed the border on April 1 to reach a recruitment center in Libiu, western Ukraine. Ever from an interviewerIt is said that enlistment cannot be allowed unless there is a military history and no words can be spoken.

「 The British who were with him at that time 『 He has no experience but a heart. Look at his body for proof! 』I took off my clothes and made a gesture, so if I took it off as told, the interviewer would 『 Oh！　Yakuza! 』I was surprised that （ lol ） 」

His passion and tattoo were successful and the British decided to take care of him. First, he went to Keeu, where he had been shooting trained for about a week, and then received full-scale military training at Gitomir, where he went west to about 130 ㎞. Wasn’t it difficult for Haru in his late 40s to train with young people in his 20s and 30s.

Everyone, including me, gets things wrong from time to time, but give me a little credit.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Усіх впізнали?😊 #песпатрон

♬ Popular beatbox by Abdul – Abdul Cisse

The caption machine translates as:

Did you recognize everyone? 😊 #песпатрон

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  2. 2.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic: Machine translation from any of the E. Asian languages to English are all pretty much garbage, just a step up from completely useless.

  3. 3.

    oldster

    Adam — after you mentioned Saotome Sensei last night, I left this comment, out of sheer open-mouthed surprise:

    Saotome Sensei? Mitsugi Saotome?

    Now that’s a name that I have not heard in a long time.

    I trained at his dojo in DC back in 1978 or ’79 or so. I was a mere pup, and Sensei never deigned to speak to me, but he led some classes and his students led others. I certainly remember Patty throwing me all over the mat. Katie Hultgren, Glen Bluestone, they were some of the senior students at the time. Impressive people.

    Life took me on to other things. I had not realized that Sensei was still alive. I am glad his teaching lives on.

    I am still surprised to hear that you have trained with someone that I trained with 45 years ago.

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    Incidentally, the nom de guerre of the guy in the first video is usually written “Kiyanyn.” I think Dmitri may have made a typo. The word means “Kyiv native,” like saying “Chicagoan.”

  5. 5.

    Anoniminous

    Pyrrhic Victory: a victory won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor

    If the Russians take Bakhmut, and I’m not yet convinced they can, it will be a classic example of a Pyrrhic victory.

  6. 6.

    japa21

    I have my doubts how much longer Bakhmut can or should hold.  Vuhledar, OTOH, has both morale boosting and strategic significance.

    Bakhmut reminds me a lot of Mariupol.  You kind of knew what the ending of the story was going to be but held out hope something different could be done.

  7. 7.

    Mallard Filmore

    This might qualify to be humor:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/1/2155687/-Russia-hoping-to-attract-7-million-Conservatives

    https://www.ritmeurasia.org/news–2023-02-24–kto-poedet-v-rossiju-ideologicheskaja-immigracija-64849   (it’s in Russian)

    As a result of the conference held in Moscow on February 14, dedicated to ideological immigration to Russia, it was announced the creation of a Coordinating Headquarters for assistance to immigrants from NATO countries. …

     

    Come emigrate to Sunny Russia, comrade! Daddy Vladdy’s got you covered!

  9. 9.

    kalakal

    @Mallard Filmore: If 7 million MAGAs, Tankies, Fox presenters, GOP politicians and Brexit fans want to emigrate to Russia it would be only proper to give them all possible assistance.

    Perhaps Dark Brandon should say they mustn’t do it as an extra boost

  13. 13.

    Anonymous At Work

    How does Russia keep the Bakhmut conveyor belt running?  Are they being killed so fast that food and shelter and ammo and everything else aren’t needed?

  15. 15.

    Manyakitty

    Also, even though I rarely jump in to say it, thanks for these posts. Facts matter and it’s a relief to know I’ll find them here.

  16. 16.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Mallard Filmore: Yes indeedy. I see some good election videos in this. Seriously, this makes the connection between revanchism at home and abroad easy to see for even the most deluded eff knuckle. I look forward to the follow up from their opposition, at home and abroad.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    NYT has an article that dives into the difficulties that European NATO nations have had sending Leopard 2s to Ukraine. Given how much Putin has denuded almost all of the Russian Federation of defenses, I don’t think any of the NATO nations (including perspective ones in Sweden & Finland) should hesitate in sending their heavy arms to Ukraine. The Arctic brigades that guard the Kola Peninsula has been send to Ukraine, as well. We have seen the specialized equipment designed for arctic terrain on the trains south.

    Emphasis mine.

    Scrounging for Tanks for Ukraine, Europe’s Armies Come Up Short

    The struggle to deliver on promises to provide Leopard 2 tanks for use against Russian forces has exposed just how unprepared European militaries are.

    …

    The struggle to provide Leopard tanks to an embattled Ukraine is just the most glaring manifestation of a reality Europe has long ignored: Believing that large-scale land war was a thing of the past and basking in the thaw of the Cold War, nations chronically underfunded their militaries. When Russia launched the largest land war on the continent since World War II, they were woefully unprepared.

    Hints of the problem have surfaced repeatedly since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, through shortages of weapons and ammunition. But now, as Germany and its allies struggled for weeks to scrape together enough Leopard 2s to fill two battalions of tanks — 62 vehicles in total — the extent of their quandary has become even clearer.

    …

    The Leopards may be free now, but they are scarce on the ground. And some countries that clamored for permission to send them to Ukraine are having difficulties doing so, or second thoughts of their own.

    Despite Europe having an estimated 2,000 Leopard 2 tanks of different models — they are among the most commonly used main battle tanks across the continent — pledges for Ukraine are still short of the hundreds it says it needs.

    Germany has offered 18, and Poland another 14, but the numbers drop from there. And once the currently pledged tanks go into battle and get hit or break down, it is not clear which Leopards — or which country — will replace them.

    “Of course some nations have delivered, or at least announced that they will,” Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said at the Munich Security Conference this month. “But others have not done that.”

    “That is what I’m a bit shocked about,” he added. “Clearly there were some nations — and I will never name names here — but we had some nations that preferred to hide behind Germany. To say: We would love to, if we were allowed. But when we allowed it, they didn’t do anything.”

    Privately, many German and European officials involved in the negotiations over tank deliveries say the situation is more complicated. It is not so much that nations are unwilling to make good on their promises but rather that they have faced a rude awakening as to just how difficult it is.

    …

    Nordic countries such as Sweden, which had long pushed for Leopard deliveries but on Friday offered only “up to” 10, are facing another unexpected problem, several German officials said: While their politicians and members of the public appear keen to offer tanks to Ukraine, their militaries are not.

    For decades, European countries enjoying a post-Cold War “peace dividend” had seen war as almost a thing of the past, regularly cutting military support. Now, the shrunken armies tend to be protective of what they still have. At NATO, European militaries are sometimes called “bonsai armies,” after the miniature trees.

    …

    “The trend across the board in European armies has been cutting, cutting, cutting,”said Christian Mölling, a defense expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “But at the end of the day, many were on the same track as Germany: War is a theoretical thing. So we have theoretical tanks.”

    Spain, which has 108 Leopard 2A4 tanks, early on sought German permission to offer some of its vehicles to Ukraine. Now it has discovered that many of them are in poor condition and need refurbishment that could take weeks or months. On top of that, one of the prime minister’s coalition partners, the leftist Podemos party, is closer to Russia and has been resistant to offering more support for Ukraine.

    Nevertheless, as Germany turned the pressure back on its allies for their shortcomings, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, on Friday improved on his promise to send six Leopards and said Spain would now send 10.

    …

    “Is it just bad luck that Spain has an issue with their Leopard tanks, but everything else works?” she said. “Or do they have the same issues elsewhere?”

    “Does 10 percent of their equipment not work, or is it 50 percent?” Ms. Franke asked. “It would be a good idea for Europeans to look at this more closely.”

    Poland, which has difficult relations with Germany, was foremost in pressing Mr. Scholz and Berlin on the Leopards, and even threatened to send some to Ukraine without the necessary German permission. Like Berlin, Warsaw has some 200 Leopard 2 tanks — but it says it will provide just 14. It sent the first of the tanks to Ukraine on the anniversary of the invasion, Feb. 24, although Poland has yet to finish training Ukrainian soldiers how to use them.

    …

    The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark have launched a joint initiative to refurbish and send 150 Leopard 1 models to Ukraine by the end of the year. But at a training session for Ukrainian soldiers in Germany earlier this week, one general said militaries had been forced to seek out retired Leopard 1 tank drivers to come back and help train Ukrainian forces. The old model is too unfamiliar to current militaries.

    …

    Another option would be for countries to simply buy more Leopards, made by the German companies Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, and send their current models to Ukraine. But European governments and the defense industry are currently in a standoff over production.

    State leaders want industry to move first, while weapons makers want longer-term government orders before they step up production. If more government orders are made, analysts say, the more capacity may increase, thus speeding up production of weapons like tanks.

    At current rates, militaries would face a serious tank shortage for the two to three years it would take the industry to make the new vehicles, security experts say — a long waiting period politicians across Europe are learning their armies are fiercely resistant to accept.

    That is why Mr. Gressel argued the tanks should be sent now anyway.

    “Yes,” he said, “Russia will reconstitute itself as a military threat to NATO after this war. But it will take years for them to come back as a military threat. They have to rebuild an army which is shattered and almost destroyed in Ukraine.”

    It all reminds me of the Adam Tooze Chartbook substack I shared a couple of days ago explaining his read why aid to Ukraine remains inadequate, despite the bountiful pledges from NATO & the EU: hypocrisy, incompetence, & a failure to reckon w/ reality. The European countries have spent too little on national defense since the end of the Cold War (at least not relative to their foreign policy objectives), what was spend was not spend well. In the meantime, the US has spent too much, far too wastefully, & far too much on pointless wars.

  21. 21.

    Alison Rose

    Russia’s success in surrounding the town partially depends on the amount of Western weaponry supplied to Ukraine.

    *clears throat* THEN WE NEED TO GIVE UKRAINE EVERY DAMN WEAPON THEY ASK FOR RIGHT NOW.

    God damn it. This ought to be the easiest fucking test in the world to pass. And yet most countries are barely squeaking by with a D. Give Ukraine the weapons. Whatever they need, give it to them. What the hell is wrong with this world. If we had all stepped up early on and gotten them everything they asked for, shit would likely be a lot different now.

    And I know we’ve discussed that putin dying wouldn’t necessarily change anything, and I also know that I try not to feel this way about even the worst people, but God forgive me, it would be a good day.

    Sigh. Thank you as always, Adam.

  22. 22.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Gin & Tonic: 

    Quickie quiz: which country in Europe has the highest abortion rate per-capita?

    My Scientific Wild Assed Guess (and because YOU are the one asking) is Russia.

    I really don’t see this as an insurmountable problem. Right Wingers are OK with baby snatching, watching women die in failed pregnancies. They can get over abortions.

  25. 25.

    kalakal

    @cain: The Tucker Carlson Assault Brigade sounds good to me,  with the Matt Gaetz and Rand Paul Battalions in close support

  26. 26.

    Ruckus

    @kalakal:

    You can raise their IQ points beyond that of a 1 yr old?

    Of course if you can’t they would still be accepted, it doesn’t take much smarts to stand in front of someone shooting at you if you don’t know any better. And it seems Russia is rapidly running out of it’s citizens who are willing to do that.

  30. 30.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Gin & Tonic: 

    Question 2: which country (in the world) has the highest rate of divorce?

    I’ll do this without cheating. Russia? That has been an invisible and ignorable problem for a long time. Not at all like a right winger having their morals stomped on by having to watch some icky public gay kissing.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    Some military equipment does require a fair bit of training. Electronics I went to school for months for, others in my crew had zero idea how to fix. I didn’t say they couldn’t learn, but not everyone got taught everything, including me, there just isn’t enough time. And that was equipment from 50-60+ yrs ago. They sent me to learn the toughest thing and in 2 yrs I only had to work on one of the two we had, once. Not everyone can work on everything, not everyone can be trained, and training takes time. I spent almost a year at it before being assigned to a ship. At 40 hrs a week. I imagine it is somewhat like that for a lot of the equipment that we think they should absolutely have.

  32. 32.

    NutmegAgain

    Regarding Russia & abortion, it’s been true since Soviet times that abortion was the standard bc method. Moreover, they weren’t (and I’m gonna assume aren’t) the nice easy Western kind with local anaesthesia and all. Oh no– you go in, you lie down and assume the position, etc etc, I don’t even think they were often suction abortions, more like a D&C. Yow! * After all, can you image the Soviet economy, that couldn’t reliably feed people, to provide contraception? I don’t think so.

    *Mostly you guys are guys, so I’m trying to think of a pain-equivalent. Having the inside of some private part scraped over? Or something. Very tender. Very personal.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @NutmegAgain:

    A vasectomy isn’t all that painful but one is getting personal parts cut up. Pretty much anything done to a female (in that area) is going to be done internally in surgery or at least in a surgical manner, access just isn’t as available. And I believe takes longer to heal/recover from. And forms of cancer in male parts are treatable by external beam radiation, I don’t know about cancer in women although in the treatment facility I used women were being treated. It worked for me with few very minimal issues, mostly just part of the process.

  38. 38.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Bill Arnold: A few months ago, there was a tweet thread by a Ukrainian writing about the life their parents lived: the dreary, never-improving life of near-poverty, no hope, etc.  And that young Ukrainians had voted with their bodies during the Orange Revolution, the Euromaidan, and now this war,  for a different way, to be part of Europe, b/c they could see that they could have a better life.  She (I think it was a woman) wrote about how even in recent years Ukrainians were getting better things: nicer lives, better prospects, better jobs, and they weren’t about to give those up just b/c Vova said so.

    I recently saw an article interviewing the director of some Ukrainian institute of demography,  talking about how the birth rate was abysmally low in Ukraine.  That this was a sign of the lack of confidence in the population for the future.  She said that she expected that 90% of the UA external refugees would never return, b/c for them to return, things would have to be better in Ukraine.  Ukraine has a choice: either you become a modern country, or you sink back into being a backwater like so much of Russia: depopulating, heading into poverty.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Just a bit…..

    Have to say, I was never shot at, although I did have to put out a fuel fire, as the first man on hose, holding and operating it. I believe my lungs lost half to a full decade of life. Oh well in for a minute, in for a lifetime. Did have to carry a loaded weapon on in port watch, with orders to shoot to kill if certain conditions were met. They weren’t complicated conditions. Good times. Haven’t been able to forget them, even as other things seem to be able to hide somewhere in this deranged thing called a noggin.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @oldster: He’s still teaching, albeit a scaled back schedule. Patty died five years or so ago. She’d been ill for a while. PeeWee died a few years back too. Kevin Choate died over a decade ago. Wendy Whited passed about two years ago. Paul Kang in 2007. Not too many of the original students left. I’m one of, or was one of, Messores’s.

    I loved training with Patty. And I really miss Wendy. We were buds.

  44. 44.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Slightly OT, from WP:

    ‘Havana syndrome’ not caused by energy weapon or foreign adversary, intelligence review finds
    After a years-long assessment, five U.S. intelligence agencies conclude it is ‘very unlikely’ an enemy wielding a secret weapon was behind the mysterious ailment

    Given the latest incarnation of the “lab leak” brouhaha, I looked for the expressed levels of confidence in these assessments, but was not able to find it in the article.

  45. 45.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    I’m sorry, it’s my nature to be rational.

    If it’s any consolation you are not the first to tell me to stop……shut up……go the hell away….

    Oh and BTW, I rarely do……

  46. 46.

    Chetan Murthy

    @YY_Sima Qian: (at least) two things stand out in these two story arcs:

    1. the media just regurgitates these press releases; there’s no actual analysis like, y’know, “gee, what does this assessment actually mean?  How do they know that it wasn’t a foreign actor?”
    2. we’re basically being told to eat it up like mushrooms: no actual evidence we can use to judge.  Esp. in the case of the lab leak madness, it’s so clear that we’re just being told “trust us”.  Which …. is absolute bullshit.
  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    And the head russian idiot seems to think that winning this war is more important the the lives of a large segment of his population. The russian dead seem to be dropping at a rate of 20-50 to one. Military equipment seems to be becoming scrap metal at an even faster rate. I doubt that is very sustainable. And he’s turned a large segment of the world’s countries against him. All for his fragile ego. That’s a lot of ego for one old underwear stain to carry around.

  48. 48.

    Ruckus

    @Alison Rose:

    I am after all an old fart. Worked 9 years after starting SS. And retired 18 months ago. 60 yrs of paid jobs. Hoping for at least another 25 yrs. Just so I can say I am a really, really, really old fart.

    And thumb my nose at life as I leave it. Always good to have important landmarks to hit.

  49. 49.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus: There’s a recent New Yorker article by Keith Gessen that touches on this; many others have done so also.  Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin aimed to make Russia into a “normal country”: one that gets along with its neighbors, trades, works to improve the lives of its citizens, etc.  A normal country.  Vova …. didn’t do that, and isn’t aiming to do that.  Gessen makes the case that Gorbachev/Yeltsin were the aberration, and that Russia has never been a normal country: that Vova is a return to type, to an oppressive regime that treats its citizens as subjects, to be done with as the elite wish.

    Maybe that worked when people had no other choices, when telecommunications didn’t exist to allow them to see how other people lived.  But today?  It’s just an invitation for the young to flee.  And for sure, not to reproduce.

  50. 50.

    Bill Arnold

    @YY_Sima Qian:
    i suspect insufficient epistemic humility. When the first consensus assessment appeared, I poked a bit one evening at the area. And these are just known ways to influence nerves. There are (surely) ways that are not currently known to science. Some notes:

    Infrared: Infrared neural stimulation at different wavelengths and pulse shapes (December 2020, researchgate link, sorry)
    And check out some of the references; IR penetrates the skull at some wavelengths, and IR stimulation involving the auditory nerves has been proposed(demonstrated?) (though not at range).

    Ultrasound: Ultrasound Neuromodulation: A Review of Results, Mechanisms and Safety (Review, open access, Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology, Volume 45, Issue 7, July 2019)

    Combinations: This rabbithole preprint expands on the existing literature about ultrasonic stimulation of nerves. (Not at range in the paper.) Remote targeted electrical stimulation (BioRxiv, Rahul Cheeniyil, Jan Kubanek, October 09, 2021)

    Here, we show that focal electrostimulation effects can be elicited remotely by combining two noninvasive forms of energies—magnetic and focused ultrasonic fields.

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    Been reading up on the ontological security approach to international relations. Maps well to Russia.
    Wikipedia nutshell
    Commonly cited paper.
    Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma (Jennifer Mitzen, 2006, 1738 citations)

    This article conceptualizes the individual-level need for ontological security, scales it up to states, and applies the ontological security-seeking assumption to the security dilemma. Realists argue that states want to escape security dilemmas but uncertainty prevents them. Ontological security-seeking suggests that states may not want to escape dilemmatic conflict. Because even dangerous routines provide ontological security, rational security-seekers could become attached to conflict. Ontological security-seeking sheds new light on seemingly irrational conflict, and suggests lines of research into the stability of other outcomes in world politics.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    The “woke” young sure seem to be at least attempting to leave, in droves. I saw when this asinine war first started a line 5 miles long of people trying to leave so they wouldn’t have to die in his asinine, tiny dick war.

  53. 53.

    Carlo Graziani

    As I’ve written here for months, my chips are on “Bakhmut is a meatgrinder trap for the Russians, just like Severodonetsk”.

    It’s a guess, the determining input unknown being the rate at which casualties and destroyed equipmenr are being exchanged. Takes such as “The Russians want to exhaust Ukrainian resources” come from people who believe that the exchange rate is unsustainably low for the UA.

    The Ukrainian General Staff’s assessment is unknown, of course, but I believe it may be inferred from the fact that they are fighting rather than withdrawing: they believe the exchange rate works in their favor. The UA has had no problem whatever executing orderly withdrawals from major cities after exacting a calculated price in Russian hamburger in the past, and there is no reason whatever to believe that Bakhmut is special in this regard. Statements to the contrary by senior UA officers are almost certainly intended to mislead the Russians, who think of strategy in those same symbolic terms (unlike the UA).

    So my assessment is the one inferrable from UA behavior: the exchange rate in Bakhmut has consistently favored Ukraine (how could it not? Between the classical advantage of defense, and Russian combined-arms incompetence, it seems inevitable) and the UA is still waiting for the point of diminishing returns to arrive, whereupon it will greenlight a withdrawal to the next orepared defensive line.

  54. 54.

    Ruckus

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Sounds about right.

    Watching this for the past year really does open one’s eyes if one is actually paying enough attention.

    Seeing small squads destroy twice as many Russians and their equipment really does speak loudly. Not being a fan of war takes away some of that loud. But the attackers seem to be running around with their heads in each other’s asses and wondering what’s going on and the Ukraine losses seem to be, all things considered, not bad. Sure more than zero is too high a number but that ship sailed a while ago. It looks like vlad is going to continue till someone stops him (rather unlikely – but maybe?) or he runs out of bodies. Which if he keeps going like he is it might be both at the same time.

  57. 57.

    Bill Arnold

    This was known, but is now a mainstream story, with details and human interest stories and side stories.
    The Satellite Hack Everyone Is Finally Talking About – As Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, a network used throughout Europe—and by the Ukrainian military—faced an unprecedented cyberattack that doubled as an industrywide wake-up call. (Katrina Manson, Illustrations by Jordan Speer, March 1, 2023) (Weakly paywalled. block all scripts except for bloomberg.com )
    Have to add, the illustration animations are really gaudy, though helpful.

    Viasat staffers in the US, where the company is based, were caught by surprise, too. Across Europe and North Africa, tens of thousands of internet connections in at least 13 countries were going dead. Some of the biggest service disruptions affected providers Bigblu Broadband Plc in the UK and NordNet AB in France, as well as utility systems that monitor thousands of wind turbines in Germany. The most critical affected Ukraine: Several thousand satellite systems that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government depended on were all down, making it much tougher for the military and intelligence services to coordinate troop and drone movements in the hours after the invasion.

Comments are closed.