Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

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

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This fight is for everything.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 372: Ukraine Counters in Bakhmut

War for Ukraine Day 372: Ukraine Counters in Bakhmut

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

I’ve been offline most of the day, so just the basics tonight.

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

The Cabinet of Ministers in March will prepare the decisions our communities need for budget sustainability – address of the President of Ukraine

4 March 2023 – 17:29

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!

The meeting of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Ukraine has just ended in Lviv. It was a very representative gathering today. There were heads of central and local authorities, representatives of government authorities and local communities. From all over our country – all regions, all parts.

The main issues are security, energy, social protection, financial issues. Anti-corruption. All that is needed for greater strength of our institutions and for greater security of our people – in every sense of the word “security.”

It was agreed today that already in March the Cabinet of Ministers will prepare the decisions our communities need for budget sustainability. Relevant changes to the law on the state budget of Ukraine will be proposed to the Verkhovna Rada.

Today, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the State Anti-Corruption Program at its meeting, which was actually combined with the Congress meeting. These are systemic steps that will give the state more transparency, and society – more opportunities to interact with the state.

The United for Justice conference, which started yesterday, continues here in Lviv. Several panel discussions took place today, including the investigation, punishment of the occupiers for abuse of people, rape, and other violent crimes committed in the occupied territory. The world is already helping us with these investigations. But, of course, much, much more needs to be done. Not only to identify all criminals, not only to punish them but also to help people who have been abused to overcome this blow and return to a normal life.

The First Lady of Ukraine, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, the First Lady of Latvia, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General, and our government officials took part in the relevant part of the conference. A very meaningful discussion.
Together with Ms. Metsola, today we met with Ukrainian students from six Lviv universities.

I also held talks with the President of the European Parliament. It is obvious that this year our cooperation with European institutions will be even more meaningful than last year. The task is to actively prepare everything for our country’s EU membership, increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and strengthen sanctions against Russia. And I thank Mrs. Roberta Metsola, and all our friends in Europe, who help Ukraine on the integration path.

Thank you to everyone who helps enhance the security of Ukraine and strengthen our soldiers! Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine, who defends our border and who establishes justice for Ukraine with their accuracy on the battlefield, who responds to the occupier’s terror with active fire.

Today morning, I was in touch with the commanders: the front is the first priority.

I will especially note the fighters who defend Bakhmut. In particular, soldiers of the 56th separate motorized infantry brigade, the 67th and 93rd separate mechanized brigades, and the 77th separate airborne brigade. Thank you, guys! Glory to all Ukrainian heroes!

Thank you to Lviv for this fruitful time in the city. Thanks to the Lviv Polytechnic, where we are now and where we held our Congress.

Thanks to Franko University, where a meeting with the students took place. I am grateful to everyone.

Glory to Ukraine!

And here are First Lady Zelenska’s remarks at the United for Justice Conference. Video followed by English write up:

Olena Zelenska at United for Justice conference: The victim is never responsible for the crime, only the offender is responsible

4 March 2023 – 23:31

First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska spoke at the United for Justice conference held in Lviv.

Such an event is being held in Ukraine for the first time. The conference was attended by leading lawyers from around the world, experts in the field of international law, attorneys general, representatives of the legislative and executive authorities, and diplomats. The event is expected to become a legal “Ramstein” that will help unite efforts to bring all those guilty of international crimes in Ukraine to justice.

The President’s wife took part in the panel “Combating Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War.” First Lady of Latvia Andra Levite, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten also spoke during the panel.

Zelenska cited examples of violent crimes committed by the Russian military against Ukrainians.

“In Kherson region, a Russian soldier repeatedly raped a 62-year-old woman by threatening to use weapons. Psychologists are working with her now. In Kyiv region, the invaders raped a girl and her mother, beat the father and forced him to watch. They are now also provided with psychological support. Another family in Kyiv region – mother, daughter and granddaughter – suffered violence from the occupiers for two weeks. Now, they are constantly provided with psychological support. These are just some of the cases of sexual violence committed by the Russian invaders that are being investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office. And in total, the PGO has currently recorded 171 such facts. Not only women behind this figure. Among the victims are 39 men and 13 minors, including a boy,” the First Lady said.

The President’s wife said that the victim is never responsible for the crime – only the offender is responsible.

“Here’s what victims should know. They should know that the state is always on their side. And the entire international law, the entire free world is on their side. We must guarantee support and psychological assistance to everyone. But the main thing is that we all have to guarantee them the most important thing – justice, punishment for their offenders,” the First Lady said, calling on the world to punish Russian war criminals.

Zelenska held a separate meeting with Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten. The President’s wife thanked her for her active position.

“She actively testifies to the use of sexual violence as a weapon by the Russian army in Ukraine. Because of this, Ms. Patten is being pressured by Russia and its accomplices, who are sending threats to her email address. I thanked Pramila Patten for her courage and principles,” the First Lady said.

Zelenska said that cooperation with the UN continues: on March 7, the “Experience of Ukraine and the UN in prevention and response to conflict-related sexual violence and the role of women’s civil society organization” event will be held at the headquarters of the United Nations within the framework of the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The “Sexual crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine” video project, based on real stories and testimonies of those who suffered from sexual violence committed by the Russian military, and eyewitnesses of these crimes, will also be presented.

“On a human level, we must bring this knowledge and information about violent crimes to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, there are still people in the world who have not decided who is the aggressor and who is defending,” the President’s wife said.

“I highly appreciate the work of the First Lady. Your leadership in this topic and the fact that you pay a lot of attention to it, talk about it on various international platforms, are very important. We talk a lot about justice and know how important it is for victims, their families, and society. But there will be no justice if the cases of violence are not known if these cases are not referred for further investigation,” Patten said.

In Lviv, Zelenska also visited the Medical and Psychological Assistance center, which works at the railway station to meet and coordinate forced migrants arriving in the city. Within the scope of the project, around-the-clock support is provided by doctors, psychologists, and volunteers, including Lviv residents and internally displaced persons. The oldest volunteer is 73 years old.

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

Bakhmut:

Well this is an interesting data point:

And I agree with Dmitri, why suddenly bring up retreating if, as was the case yesterday, you were just bragging about having taken Bakhmut.

Vuhledar:

Krasnodar:

The New York Times has reporting on Ukraine’s rotary wing fighters:

On a snowbound field, three Soviet-era helicopters were being readied for battle. Pilots and crew checked the flight plan for their next target, while technicians loaded slim gray rockets into launcher pods and stacked flares into racks behind the exhaust.

One year into the war, against all the odds, Ukraine’s helicopter brigades are still operational. Every day of the week, multiple times a day, they go into battle against enemy forces, launching rocket attacks along the front lines in support of ground troops and occasionally slipping under Russian air defenses to fly covert missions into enemy territory.

Far from being knocked out in the first days of the invasion, Ukraine’s helicopters and jets have kept flying, remaining an inspiring and useful element of the war effort.

In a rare opportunity, the 18th Sikorsky Brigade, the foremost of Ukraine’s four helicopter brigades, gave reporters access to a combat unit for two days recently. Officers and pilots described how the Ukrainian brigades moved their aircraft at the onset of the war to evade Russian strikes, and how they adapted their tactics to fighting a much more powerful and better equipped adversary.

“We go where we should not go,” said Oleksiy, 38, a colonel and deputy commander of the brigade. He gave only his first name in keeping with military protocol. “The main task is to destroy the enemy by fire.”

Compared with the well-documented ground war in Ukraine, where destroyed tanks and armor have been so visible, much less is known about the aerial war, partly because there is less photographic and video evidence. But Russian jets attacked targets intensively in the first weeks of the war, and Ukrainian and Russian jets battled each other numerous times in the skies above.

Both sides also used helicopters for critical tasks because of their mobility. Russia landed troops in the first days in at least two locations, and Ukraine flew rescue missions into the besieged Azovstal plant in Mariupol. Yet helicopters have also proved vulnerable as the fighting primarily turned into an artillery war on the open plains of eastern Ukraine, and tasks were limited to firing rockets from Ukrainian lines.

The Ukrainians fly aging Russian-made helicopters — mainly the Mi-8 and the Mi-24, both used as attack helicopters — that were designed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

“These are helicopters from the last century,” said Oleksiy, who has eight years of combat experience, five of those spent on peacekeeping missions in Africa, holding off guerrilla groups. Their weapons, unguided, Soviet-era rockets, “are very outdated and don’t meet the requirements of modern combat.”

One consolation for the Ukrainians is that their Russian adversaries are flying similar machines whose design has not advanced much in recent decades, but Russia has a big advantage in the volume of helicopters and ammunition. “Most of their weapons are also from Soviet times,” Oleksiy said, “but you can’t underestimate the fact they have a lot of this Soviet metal.”

Russia’s overwhelming firepower has forced the Ukrainians to find other ways to fight.

“We are smaller, so we should use a smart approach,” said Roman, 34, one of the most experienced pilots from the 16th brigade, who has been seconded to the 18th, in an interview between combat flights. “We do the best we can.”

That has entailed retraining, constantly adapting to conditions and also some daring in their operations. The brigade keeps its helicopters in plain sight, on the wide, snow-swept steppe of eastern Ukraine, using temporary airfields, moving frequently for security.

They have developed a method of attack flying below the tree line, less than 30 feet from the ground, hugging the contours of the land at up to 150 miles per hour. The low altitude is treacherous, but avoids radar detection.

Then right at the front line they make a sudden ascent to fire a burst of 30 to 40 rockets before veering away, back the way they came.

They attack in pairs, sometimes in a pack of four. They can fire on Russian positions without flying too close to them, but it tests pilots and machines to their limits, and for dangerous seconds on the ascent exposes them to Russian anti-air defense systems.

Approaching enemy lines, Ukrainian jets and helicopters run the gamut of Russian attacks, from radio-electronic interference to antiaircraft missiles fired from jets and from the ground.

“Every operation, every sortie is a heroic flight,” Oleksiy said. “Many of the militaries of other countries would not undertake these flights in the face of such countermeasures.”

A pilot from the 18th Brigade, Ivan, 31, was hit by Russian air defense just as he unleashed his payload of rockets in June last year. He recalls everything turning black, but managed to turn the helicopter.

“You have thoughts, but you feel nothing and see nothing,” he said as he recounted his ordeal in an interview. “You understand that something is happening. I realized that, most likely, I was hit.”

He crashed in a forest that was pockmarked with craters and smoking from shell fire. His co-pilot was killed, but Ivan and the engineer were thrown through the front of the cockpit as the machine burst into flames, he said.

Badly concussed, with his head sliced open, a fractured spine and a broken leg, he managed to crawl to check on his engineer, who complained of broken collarbones. Swimming in and out of consciousness, he sent their coordinates to his brigade. Under shellfire just yards from Russian positions, they lay motionless when a reconnaissance drone passed overhead, unsure whose it was, until Ukrainian medics rescued them.

The Ukrainian helicopter brigades have all lost men and machines, although how many remains a military secret. But their survival and continued operations a year into the war is a major success, military analysts said.

When the invasion came, the aviation brigades were prepared. They had heeded Western warnings of the pending Russian invasion and were ready to evacuate their main bases and disperse their helicopters and engineering crews for safety, the deputy commander Oleksiy said.

“We had a defined plan of action in case of a missile strike, a ground offensive, where to go, which sites, where our logistics units would meet us,” he said. “There was no panic. Everything was rehearsed.”

Nevertheless, pilots recalled the first days of the war as chaotic and dangerous, plagued by cases of friendly fire. Civilians were calling in sightings of Russian troops, and helicopters were sent to attack multiple locations. One of the biggest battles was for the Hostomel airport, just north of Kyiv, the capital, where Ukrainian forces aided by attack helicopters repulsed a Russian attempt to seize the airfield.

Critically for Ukrainian aviation, the Russians never secured air superiority over Ukraine thanks to its effective air-defense systems. Both sides have continued to fly jets and helicopters, although they have come to avoid venturing deep into each other’s territory for fear of being shot down.

One of the striking exceptions was a run of daring flights that Ukrainian helicopters made into the Azovstal steel plant, a last holdout of Ukrainian troops in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“It’s impossible,” Oleksiy said, recalling his first reaction to the Azovstal plan. But pilots volunteered, and they succeeded in flying undetected across 70 miles of Russian-held territory into the steel plant, ferrying in ammunition and evacuating the wounded.

More at the link!

That’s enough for a Saturday night.

Your daily Patron!

And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Час іде, а звички залишаються😁 #песпатрон

♬ original sound – honeydewthedachshund

The caption machine translates as:

Time passes, but habits remain 😁 #песпатрон

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

27Comments

  1. 1.

    Anoniminous

    Interesting back story on the highly advertised and vaunted T-14 Amata . tl;dr -> it’s a POS

    General Ryan of the Aussie Army gives his take on the Bakhmut situation. Basically: yeah it’d be a bitch to lose but in the final analysis …. So What?

  2. 2.

    Carlo Graziani

    And I agree with Dmitri, why suddenly bring up retreating if, as was the case yesterday, you were just bragging about having taken Bakhmut.

    A guess: Prigozhin is issuing an oblique threat that Wagner will cease offensive operations if the MOD supply service does not increase the priority of Wagner supply, currently second to that of supplying MOD-contriolled units.

    It’s would be a totally idiotic threat, but on a par with his other public maneuverings insofar as fatuosness is concerned. Putin would have no trouble replacing him as head of Wagner, if it came to that, or simply absorbing Wagner into the rest of the army.

  3. 3.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    @Anoniminous: The company in Děčín, Czech Republic, should produce some inflatable versions of the T-14 Armata as a consolation prize for Russia.

  6. 6.

    Anoniminous

    Since we’re talking about a World War One style battle here’s an actual World War One soldier’s song. The phrase “Wir sind verloren” is almost impossible to translate. “Verloren” does mean “forsaken” but also ‘lost’ as in not won. ‘lost’ as in wasted; not used properly; done for; ruined; defeated; about to be killed; doomed. From this I deduce it was written by an actual WW 1 infantryman serving at the Front.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose

    retreating from Bakhmut will lead to the collapse of the whole russian front.

    I don’t drink at all, but I’ll be tempted to pop bottles when that happens.

    If anyone happens to have any assholes in their online feeds screeching about “why won’t Ukraine negoooooootiate”, this quick video from United24 might help. I mean…if they’re dumb enough to ask that question, maybe nothing will get through to them, but it’s worth a try.

    The Ukrainian Etsy shop with the adorable crocheted Patron (which I have!) has a putin voodoo doll and I am…….tempted.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    @Anoniminous: Thanks for the T-14 link and Ryan’s thread.  Interesting reading.

    The T-14 article supports Galeev’s comments that russia only wins major wars with support from the West.  Without access to western machine tools and semiconductors, they have no hope in succeeding against a NATO- and EU-supported country.

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @Alison Rose: “The Ukrainian Etsy shop with the adorable crocheted Patron (which I have!) has a putin voodoo doll and I am…….tempted.”

    Do they have an ice-ax to use on the putin voodoo doll? It’s traditional!

  12. 12.

    Carlo Graziani

    Mud season is probably back. The 10-day forecasts for Kupyansk and Vuhledar feature temps in the low 50F’s and lots of rain. Everything seems likely to slow down, and if the Russian whip hand keeps demanding offensive effort, well, stupidity will be rewarded with greater casualties, as advances will be slow and constricted.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    @Chetan Murthy: Heh.  Yes, the future is not a repeat of the past.

    Here’s one of the threads I was thinking of:

    Nothing would hamper the Russian war efforts more than the disconnection of German machines and software on the military plants. Is it possible? It's difficult to prove. What is easy to prove is that Russian industrialists feared such a backstabbing. Fortunately, they were wrong

    — Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) June 28, 2022

    China is great at mass production of lots of things. But the west still has the lead in many, many technological choke points.

    To be clear: I do not think that lead is as secure as it used to be, and Galeev undoubtedly presents receipts that bolster his narrative (and ignores ones that don’t). But I think back on how a/the world leader in 5G wireless – Huawei – was shut out of many western markets and there wasn’t much that China could do about it.

    Fortunately, US and western sanctions are having an impact on VVP’s war machine. We cannot count on that always being the case.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Another Scott: I obviously hope for the cratering of the Russian economy and military industrai base.  But …. we’re sending last-generation tech to UA, and RU is using mostly last-gen stuff too.  Arty shell production isn’t going to be susceptible to Western embargo, I’d guess.  And China probably makes enough low-tech microcontrollers already to supply Russia.  I guess what I’m saying is, the fate of 5G isn’t as relevant as that of rice cookers.

    None of this would matter, if we’d get UA the weapons they need to finish this.  Ugh.

  17. 17.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: On the subject of China’s ability to compete on technological innovation, there’s a very informative article at WOtR that makes key points concerning the serious limitations affecting Chinese tech investment. The principal one being a systemic unwillingness to invest in basic science research (materials science, chemistry, laser physics, etc.) that underlie the high-stakes technologies. Given the Chinese top-down approach to research direction, this is a blind spot that condemns Chinese tech development to imitative approaches, and to reliance on imported gear. Moreover, the funding calls attract parasitic responses from companies that jump in irrespective of their actual tech capabilities, and which drain effort without contributing progress.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    @Chetan Murthy: I’m mainly thinking more in terms of machine tools and the like.  Obviously one doesn’t need dozens of CNC machines to make tank and artillery barrels, but there’s a reason why russia chose to buy that stuff from Europe rather than rebuilding its own industrial base.

    Intellinews.com (from June 2021):

    The West has been struggling to change the Kremlin’s behaviour and hold it to account for the annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and a host of other misdemeanours with a sanctions regime that has proved to be almost entirely ineffective. Oligarchs have been targeted; visa bans and asset freezes doled out; Russia’s debt made out of bounds for international investors. Yet thanks to President Vladimir Putin’s fiscal fortress, all these measures have slid off the Kremlin’s back like water off a duck’s back.

    However, there is one place that Russia is truly vulnerable. It imports almost all of its precision machine tools and the majority of them come from Western Europe and the US, as its own once legendary machine tool sector was destroyed in 1991 and never rebuilt.

    Machinery and tools remains by far Russia’s largest import category, but precision tools are more important than just the money they cost. High-quality machine tools lie at the heart of Russia’s efforts to modernise itself. It can’t build an autonomous competitive economy without precise machine tools and they are also the wellspring of innovation. Without access to quality machine tools Russia would still earn money from oil, gas and metal exports, but all the Kremlin’s ambitions to develop a modern highly competitive economy would be badly hobbled and nigh on impossible.

    […]

    For its part Russia has already been trying to actively break its dependence on EU and US machine tools. Now it now imports from over 70 countries, but all that has happened is Russia increasingly buys the low tech tools from developing markets while the share of the most sophisticated and most expensive tools from countries like Germany, Italy, Japan and the US has actually increased.

    “From the late 2000s, Russia has diversified its imports of machine tools, either voluntarily or as a necessity, due to its deteriorating relationships with the [liberal Western countries],” says Malmlöf. “Yet in 2017, this group still provided 57% of Russian machine tool imports in the sample based on import value… The quantity of Russian import from potentially unfriendly countries has diminished significantly during the ten years in the sample, at the same time as friendly countries have increased their market share… Russia has substituted a noticeable share of its import of high-end machine tools from the most advanced machine tool-producing countries for less expensive Chinese, Turkish and Belarusian machine tools.”

    [ insert picture of failed Belorussian knockoff of Chinese knockoff of Michelin military tire ]

    Interesting times ahead.

    Thanks.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Carlo Graziani: Chinese basic research is a cautionary tale for the USA, IMHO.  They are publishing a LOT in lots of journals now.  A lot of it is poorly done and derivative, but a lot of it is quite good.  There are indeed structural impediments to free-ranging invention and innovation there, but they are quickly building what could be a very strong foundation if/when they figure out that they need to be willing to loosen the from-the-top directions on research and development.

    Rising prices and costs in China means that their investments aren’t going as far as many outsiders previously feared.

    Yet more interesting times ahead.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Another Scott: The key distinction here is basic science versus technology. As it happens, I’m in touch with a fair amount of fundamental material science and separation chemistry research, which is use-motivated, but which is not directly associated with device development, let alone manufacture. Fundamental research is painstaking, and can’t really be driven by tech development schedules. In the US, this is no impediment to large investment in such fundamental science—both DOE and NSF fund large portfolia of such research efforts. Apparently, the incentives are very different in China, where making the case for large R&D programs directed at foundational science is, for political reasons, a much heavier lift.

    This is a blind spot, because the US/Western qualitative advantage in tech derives precisely from this thick support for fundamental research, as opposed to strictly technological research.

  22. 22.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Another Scott: Not that I think it has any impact on the war, but …. by analogy, I remember when we Americans used to say that Japan could only copy our tech.  The same was said of South Korea and Taiwan, but esp. of Japan.  I remember reading The Japan That Can Say No: by that time, it was clear that Japan was able to do a lot more than just copy.

  23. 23.

    Yutsano

    I did hear back from my friend the A-10 mechanic about whether releasing the Warthog in Ukraine would be a good idea or not. He said it would work great…if the US pilots were flying them. Apparently between the logistical and pilot training bringing in the Thunderbolt would be slow so as of now wouldn’t be effective. But if the US was involved there would already be BRRRRT*!!! in the skies over Ukraine 🇺🇦

    *the sound the 30mm Gatling gun makes when fired. Per US grunts all over the world, a most beautiful sound.

  24. 24.

    gwangung

    @Another Scott: Basic research is a kinda hard slog in the US, too. Budget hawks are always chopping at basic research (Republican twits in particular).

    Business always ponies up for the applied research; their funding models are heavily biased towards the work that’s closest to marketable products.

    But basic research means politics, and not just dollars; you have to support the scientists and attract the brains, and the xenophobic Republicans have been strangling both the dollar and the talent pipeline.

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Another Scott: Whether countries choose to use Huawei or ZTE in their 5G networks is a matter of national policy, China can no more arm twist the US into accepting Huawei than the U.S. can arm twist China into accepting Cisco.

    Some countries eschewed Huawei/ZTE due to suspicion of Chinese fear (Japan, Taiwan, Australia), some did so to protect their own nascent 5G suppliers (South Korea), some to gain favor w/ the Trump administration (Romania & Czechia), some imposed unannounced de facto phase outs of Huawei/ZTE gear over time but allow their telecoms to continue to use Huawei/ZTE in other markets including EU markets (France & the UK) to maintain competitiveness. The U.S. did manage to coerce other Western countries into eschewing Huawei gear by threatening intelligence cooperation (New Zealand, the Netherlands). It took quite a bit of arm twisting. I followed the developments pretty closely in 2019 – 2020, it was clear from the reporting at the time that few European governments were convinced by the very thin intelligence shared by the Trump administration on the threat allegedly posed by Huawei. After all, Huawei operated labs in Germany, the UK & Canada that allowed the respective governments & spy agencies to examine the hardware & source codes of gear sold to these countries, an arrangement that Nokia, Ericsson & Samsung are not subject to (despite the fact that a lot of their gear are too made in China).

    The US tech sanctions one Huawei & their extraterritorial application (it’s important to note that no other government has placed its own sanctions on Huawei) has pretty much killed Huawei’s mobile phone business. Huawei was on the way to displacing Samsung as the largest mobile phone brand, it represented a third of the company’s revenue stream, but had low profit margins (like every brand not named Apple). Since then, Huawei has pivoted to cloud services & servers. The coming US move to halt all export licenses to Huawei may well kill its burgeoning cloud & server businesses, too.

    W/o the US tech sanctions on Huawei, the company might well have taken a commanding market share in the world’s 5G roll out, given its tech lead over its competitors & price competitiveness, putting Ericsson’s & Nokia’s viability into question (& ZTE’s but the Chinese government probably would have sent enough orders its way to ensure its survival). That developing trend was probably what prompted the U.S. attempt to humble the company to begin w/.

    Nevertheless, Huawei’s 5G infrastructure business is still thriving, remaining the largest equipment provider in the world. It is still active in some western markets (Germany, Spain, Portugal come to mind). The 5G coverage at the Munich Security Conference was provided via Huawei gear. It is still dominating market share in the Global South. It has also pivoted to solar power (power inverters) & automated solutions for mining, construction & port operations. The common denominator among them is that they all only require mature mode semiconductors (28 nm or higher) that China is either self-sufficient in or no one outside of the US is interested in restricting.

    To date, there are 2 orders of magnitude more private 5G networks installed in China to support smart manufacturing/mining/logistics than the rest of the world combined. The surge is set to continue, since automation is the solution to China’s manufacturing competitiveness in face of demographic decline (as in Japan & South Korea).

  26. 26.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: “Tech leadership” & “innovation prowess” are extremely broad terms that have many different facets. Basic research is an important part, but so is applied research, & commercialization/industrialization (manufacture & deployment at scale). Advanced in basic science is worthless until they are turned to applications that are deployed at scale, which I turn drive additional innovations in engineering & production processes & product design. It is in the scaling where new industries are born, masses (relatively speaking) are employed, vast values created & vast fortunes made. The West used to have commanding lead in technology & innovation because the West had commanding leads in all of these stages. That is no longer the case.

    It is absolutely true that research funding in China is strongly biased toward applied research that could have short to medium term pay off. Perverse incentives abound in Chinese academia, leading to perverse outcomes. Nonetheless, by virtue of the its massive scale, both in terms of the number of people & companies engaged in STEM & in terms of funding, there are a lot of advancements being made in spite of the perverse incentives, including some fields of basic research.

    It is in the commercialization & manufacturing/deployment scale up that China has the advantage, & where the U.S. & the UK especially have let things atrophy. That is why solar panels & battery chemistries are invented in the US, but Chinese companies now dominate the entire value chain of solar panels & batteries. While such developments are detrimental to industrial capacities of other countries, China ability to quickly ramp up, drive price down, make incremental improvements, & deploy at scale, have been instrumental in the world’s energy transition.

    Dan Wang has a good article in Foreign Affairs discussing this specific point.

    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-hidden-tech-revolution-how-beijing-threatens-us-dominance-dan-wang

    Today, the output of basic research is open source, its fruits available for all to share.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    KyivIndependent news feed this morning:

    Russia has “wasted huge amounts of human resources, armaments, and materials” during the war in Ukraine, and it will likely run out of offensive potential by late spring, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in an interview with USA Today published on March 5.

    Budanov predicted that neither the economy nor domestic military industrial complex will be able to help Russia, and it will lack resources to wage war against Ukraine if it “fails in its aims this spring.”

    The intelligence chief did not elaborate further on Moscow’s specific war airms in the coming weeks.

    Budanov said “a decisive battle” is set to take place this spring, and predicted that “this battle will be the final one before this war ends,” USA Today reported.

    Russia intensified its offensive operations in late January, when it began to launch large scale attacks against Ukrainian lines in Donbas, focusing on the sectors near Vuhledar in the south of Donetsk Oblast and Lyman in the north.

    Only around Bakhmut have Russian forces made meaningful advances since the new year, those being carried out mostly by the Wagner paramilitary organization’s troops, and with very high reported casualties.

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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