Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

This really is a full service blog.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

This fight is for everything.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 399: The Strategic Strike Beaver! Wait, What?

War for Ukraine Day 399: The Strategic Strike Beaver! Wait, What?

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

Greater unity is needed to defeat tyranny; the democratic world is capable of achieving it – Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address

29 March 2023 – 22:22

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report of the day.

I took part in the global Summit for Democracy at the invitation of President Biden, this is one of the most representative platforms for the protection of our system – the system of free peoples.

This is the second such Summit. In general, we do not have so many representative opportunities in the world to talk specifically about democracy, about the protection of freedom in all its aspects. And it is good that now we have such an opportunity to join forces in order to find more energy, more prospects for democracy.

The position of Ukraine, as always, is very specific, as practical as possible. And in almost all the leaders’ speeches at the Summit, there were apt words of support for our country and our people. I am thankful for this to every leader, every nation who feels as we do that the values of freedom deserve the strongest protection.

Now, thanks to Ukrainian courage, thanks to the leadership of the United States, President Biden, thanks to the Congress of the United States and everyone who works for the consolidation of the world, we have the greatest unity of democratic countries in a long time. And this unity, as we can see, is enough to fight for freedom.

But to win against tyranny, greater unity is needed. I am sure that the democratic world is capable of achieving it. It is capable of winning.

Democracy needs victory! As soon as possible. And all of us together: Ukrainians, all Europeans, our American allies, our friends on all continents – in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in Australia – will do everything to bring victory closer. The victory of Ukraine. The victory of freedom. The victory of the rules-based international order.

I spoke today with Giorgia Meloni, head of the Italian government. I thanked her for her principles, for her determination, for the real European strength that is felt in her words and actions in defense of freedom.

We discussed both bilateral relations and the general situation in our defense against Russian aggression. I informed her about the situation on the battlefield, about our needs. Already in the coming months, we can be more active on the frontline. And we will do everything to ensure that the support of our steps by the world is as effective as possible.

Bakhmut. Today, we have something to thank our warriors for, warriors who are fighting in the Bakhmut direction. Fighting firmly and efficiently.

I thank each and every one who is doing everything to increase the losses of the enemy there! And special thanks to the warriors of our Kost Hordiienko 57th separate motorized infantry brigade, 77th separate airmobile brigade and the glorious Kholodny Yar 93rd separate mechanized brigade. Well done, guys!

We are already preparing for the events planned for the second half of this week. I held relevant meetings today. Ukraine has not wasted a single week during the full-scale war – we are constantly strengthening our state, our Defense and Security Forces, our confidence in advancing towards victory.

Today, a step has also been taken to strengthen the spiritual independence of our state, to protect our society from the old and cynical Moscow manipulation of religion.

Ukraine is the territory of the greatest religious freedom in our part of Europe. It has been so since 1991. It will always be so.

I thank everyone who cares about Ukraine and our citizens!

Thank you to everyone who supports the Ukrainian struggle for independence!

Glory to our warriors!

Glory to Ukraine!

And here is President Zelenskyy’s address to the Global Democracy Summit convened and hosted by the US Department of State and chaired by President Biden. English language video below with Ukrainian subtitles followed by the English transcript:

Democracy needs victory already now – speech by the President of Ukraine at the plenary session of the second Summit for Democracy chaired by the U.S. President

29 March 2023 – 21:44

Thank you very much! Mr. President Biden, thank you for this summit – for another step in consolidating the world in defense of freedom. 

Dear colleagues!

Now is a decisive time, and it is our joint responsibility – what exactly will determine this time. Will we pass on to our children and grandchildren the values of freedom that we have ourselves, or – will they have to fight for democracy from scratch?

Modern generations of many democratic countries do not know from their life experience that freedom cannot be taken for granted. Most people can only learn about this from history textbooks – from the stories of wars of independence that took place generations ago and battles of freedom won by others.

But the experience of the enemies of freedom is always fresh. They don’t refer to textbooks. They know how to break democracy and destroy life. It is enough for them to have the slightest feeling that they can go unpunished, and then evil acts.

This is where the threat to our values comes from, this is why democracy is in danger.

Ukraine knows what it is to fight for democracy right now. And let our experience of preserving freedom during total war help protect the free world: each of your peoples!

When you see Ukrainian cities burned by Russian aggression and when you see brave Ukrainian soldiers that stop the movement of the aggression through our land, notice – what you are actually seeing.

This is deciding the fate of not only Ukraine, this is deciding the fate of everyone who is used to living freely.

Russian propagandists and accomplices lie that, allegedly, the West is fighting against Russia on the territory of Ukraine. It’s worth understanding – what is really going on.

It is Ukraine that tyrannical Russia is able to reach with its bloody hands – with missiles and artillery, bombs and tanks. But the Kremlin’s ambitions do not end just where its hands reach.

Russia has been at war with all of you for a long time – with the democracies of the world.

It fights via disinformation, election interference, espionage, corruption exporting, cybercrime, by trying to trigger an energy crisis and price explosions in markets that will hit your people with insane electricity or gas bills. Look – the Kremlin is trying to turn even food provision into a weapon – blocks the sea to create a shortage in the global food market.

Why is this happening? This is war, ladies and gentlemen. This is war precisely against freedom and democracy.

Every foe of freedom acts in the same way. I emphasize: they act.

The enemies of freedom have not lost a single year in recent decades! They channeled all their time and unlimited money, which they gained in trade with the free world, – to weaken and to corrupt and to undermine democracy.

But have all the efforts of the free world been aimed at limiting the aggressive potential of tyrants and autocrats and at bringing them to legal responsibility for their crimes? Unfortunately – no.

We have to fix it.

Democracy must be able to act – and act in advance. Democracy must learn to be uncompromising in the face of evil. The spirit of democracy is to find a compromise, but this only works for internal freedom in a given country. We should get rid of the illusion that compromising with evil can give something to freedom. The enemies of democracy must lose, and only this can be the basis of true security for democracy.

Embrace this Ukrainian determination!

Ukrainian democracy maintains absolute internal unity even in the face of a total war against our people. To win – is our national goal. What does it mean to win? Our answer is clear: to preserve freedom, to preserve dignity, to preserve our land.

But what is the strategy of the free world in relation to totalitarian Russia, which is looking for how to create more totalitarian allies in the world? Is there such a clear strategy? I will tell you what it should be. Clear answer: evil must lose the war. If it loses now, it will know that it will always lose everywhere.

First. We should not think how to save Putin’s face in order to allegedly reduce the cost of fighting him. We should think how to preserve respect for democracy in those countries where freedom has yet to win.

Second. When a fire breaks out, firefighters cannot wait months for fire trucks to be provided, or accept that fire hydrants should be mandatory only for short distances. It works the same way in war. The more restrictions on the defenders, the more casualties and destruction, because the flames of aggression know no bounds. That is why the defense of democracy must have all the weapons that will reliably guarantee the defeat of the aggressor.

Third. Russians must contribute to protecting the world from the Kremlin, whose impunity they have tolerated. It is necessary to look for, freeze and direct for recovery not only individual assets of the aggressor state and individual related parties, but all assets of Russia and Russian wealthy who have traded silence for increasing their wealth. They must have a motive to act in defense of freedom, and to bring an end to this aggression and the Kremlin’s terrorist rule.

Dear colleagues!

War makes things crystal clear. These days I visited our regions near the frontline. There you can see what aspects of leadership are needed now.

When our fighters repel the assaults near Bakhmut, they cannot wait for weeks before firing an artillery shot in response to the enemy’s actions. The fire must be immediate and neutralize the threat. All our decisions should be just as quick.

But for some reason, sanctions against Russia are much slower than Russia’s aggression. Global pressure on the Russian elite is weaker than its motive to accept the Kremlin. Support for Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches is less far-reaching than the weapons of the terrorists acting against us. And your own willingness to defend your democracies is less resolute than the intentions of those who want a world war against democracy.

Democracy needs a victory. Now! This year! Not some other time. Not over time. Now!

And we are able to ensure this. Ukraine and everyone who helps. And I am sure we will!

But act, act please, colleagues!

Thank you very much for your attention! 

Thank you for your support, Mr. President! And to all colleagues! 

Glory to all who fight for freedom!

Слава Україні!

Here is an update from Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Anna Malyar. The machine translation is from the Ukrainian MOD’s Telegram channel:

Ministry of Defence Ukraine✔
Forwarded from Anna Painter
The enemy continues to concentrate its greatest offensive capabilities in the Bakhmut direction.

In parallel, they accumulate all their media efforts around the topic of battles for Bakhmut.
Actually, this is what the informational and psychological reinforcement of military actions looks like.

Currently, the enemy is working on three media tasks:

✔️to undermine the trust of our society and the military in the decisions of the Bakhmut command
✔️to demotivate and psychologically weaken our army
✔️to provoke our military leadership to take wrong actions.

To do this, they try to shift the emphasis on the topic of Bakhmut and neutralize what is our advantage – intelligent and competent planning of operations.

The shifted emphasis is to consider Bakhmut as an apocalyptic event and to divide reality into “before” and “after” from these battles.
This psychological trick is used to suggest the desired ideas and narratives of the enemy.

When society perceives the battles in Bakhmut as a factor that will ultimately affect the course of the war, it gives the enemy the opportunity to promote scenarios of our actions that are beneficial to them in the information field.

Overwhelmed by the approach of the “end”, the frightened society must begin to put pressure on the military-political leadership to stop defensive operations.

This is Ipso in its purest form with the aim of influencing military decision-making.

☝️What messages is the enemy using now:
– it is alleged that the decision to keep Bakhmut is political
– it is alleged that there is no point in keeping almost everything in Bakhmut there
– it is alleged that the heroism of Ukrainian fighters is inflated by Ukrainian propaganda

☝️which two surnames are endlessly exploited in the Russian Ipso on the subject of Bakhmut?
– The President of Ukraine
– Commander Syrsky

With the aim of undermining trust in them and introducing conflict into the military leadership of the state. After all, it is not written in the Russian manuals that military decisions are not taken alone. There is a military command headed by the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief of the General Staff. In addition, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander constantly meets – where operational decisions are also made with the participation of all warring power structures.

So what is actually happening and how should information about the battles in Bakhmut be perceived?

This is the active phase of the war. It is just as active as in other directions in the East, where a full-scale enemy offensive has been ongoing since January 2023.

We defend Bakhmut as loyally as any other settlement. The use of our forces and means is determined not by political expediency, but by what resources are needed to repulse the enemy and perform combat tasks in this direction.

The defense of Bakhmut is currently determined by operational and tactical expediency, and the decisions are taken competently, balanced and aimed at the implementation of actual defense tasks.

What can be the defense tasks?
– maintaining the occupied lines and positions
– preventing the enemy from advancing deep into the territory
– inflicting significant losses on the enemy
– creating conditions for the transition to a counterattack

We will defend Bakhmut as long as it is necessary for us from the point of view of fulfilling military defense tasks.
And it is our military command, not the Russian Ipso, that will determine how long the defense of Bakhmut will be carried out.

And the most unpleasant information for the enemy. Battles for Bakhmut are not apocalypse. This is another heroic page of the powerful Ukrainian army in the war against the Russian Federation.

t.me/ministry_of_defense_ua/7246

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

Bakhmut:

Here’s the entirety of Dmitri’s translation from the tweet above:

Update from Bakhmut from Ukrainian “Bakhmut Demon” on the morning of 29 March: “Reporting. Serious battles continue for Ivanivske and on the outskirts of Bakhmut. Firefights and artillery shelling. While I’d love to tell you something that would blow you away, the battle for Bakhmut is now a positional meat grinder. Medics are our heroes. Assault actions of the Russians have no success. The tactical and strategic situation has not changed at all, only more destruction. No one will leave Bakhmut.” Follow him for regular updates on TG: t.me/bahshid2023

Kharkiv:

Toretsk:

 

Belarus:

And here’s all of Dmitri’s tweet above:

The Russian military are trying to stage provocations on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. This is evidenced by a new SBU interception. A soldier of the Russian Federation, who is “touring” along the Ukrainian border in Belarus, tells about this to his acquaintance in the Donetsk region.

The latter is waiting for his comrade’s unit to be transferred closer to help.

Such actions show that the Russian Federation does not stop trying to involve Belarus directly in the war against Ukraine and is doing it by any means.

 

Pelym, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia appears to have had an unfortunate smoking accident.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which is sort of Britain’s version of the Institute for Defense Analysis, has released a new report on preliminary lessons learned from Russian unconventional operations in Ukraine over the past year.

Here’s the link to the full pdf.

This part on p. 34 is very important: (emphasis mine!)

However, there are also clearly considerable deficiencies in Russia’s approach to unconventional warfare. At a fundamental level the Russian special services lack self-awareness, or at least the honesty to report accurately about their own efforts. In the case of Ukraine, a plan was attempted that was critically dependent on unconventional methods when the preconditions for success had not yet been achieved. This reveals wider cultural problems in the Russian services. That they are directed to bring about an outcome without independently assessing the viability of the plan creates a reporting culture where officers are encouraged to have a significant optimism bias. Furthermore, there appears to be a systemic problem of over reporting one’s successes and concealing weaknesses to superiors. This is evidenced by the overly optimistic assessment of the proportion of Russia’s agent network that would be proactive in supporting Russia in the context of a full-scale invasion. The fact that this lack of self-awareness in the Russian services contributes to blunders can certainly be exploited by counterespionage officers, but is far from comforting as it leads to a situation in which the Russians are difficult to deter because they have an unrealistic estimation of the likelihood of their success.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or vids tonight, so here’s some adjacent material from Ukrainian Army Cats and Dogs:

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

67Comments

  1. 1.

    SpaceUnit

     

    But the beaver came back the very next day,

    The beaver came back, we thought he was a goner,

    But the beaver came back, it just couldn’t stay away,

    Away away away away,

  4. 4.

    Spanky

    it leads to a situation in which the Russians are difficult to deter because they have an unrealistic estimation of the likelihood of their success.

    “How is our foolproof plan unfolding, Comrade?”

    “Ummmmmmmm……..”

    Repeat ad infinitum.

  5. 5.

    Chetan Murthy

    That RUSi report is pretty chilling reading.  Two things jumped out:

    1. the Russian Way Of War clearly includes torture, murder, and general erasure of the population as anything other than a mass of bodies.  This comes out really, really clearly as a *pattern*.  As the report put it, the similarities in the design of the torture centers over and over across so many locations in the occupied territories point to *design*, not to chance.
    2. A big part of why Ukraine was able to resist, was that they had been planning for it, and all levels of society were filled with people who would not give up.  If the Ukrainian people had not taken up arms, if their Army had not responded even when communications were snafued (which they were), the Russians might have succeeded.
  7. 7.

    TheOtherHank

    So there are people who think that Ukraine should give in to the Russians and accept the new status quo. I believe (having read a certain amount about the American Civil War) that we should call them Copperheads.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    I’m just so, so sad that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and Tucker Carlson’s favorite hero (OTHER than the Mango Menace) is having such difficulty in Ukraine.  (sob)

    also, the Ukrainian army has a bright future as perhaps the most versatile fighting force in the world…mortars from Russia?  tanks from Poland?  HIMARS from the US?  We’ll take them all and figure out how to use them to lay waste to our Russian invaders!

    Their 2025 Biden inaugural airshows are going to be LIT!  You name it, they’ll just put 4 of them in a diamond formation and fly over D.C. , trailing blue and yellow flares all the while.  =)

  12. 12.

    Alison Rose

    an unrealistic estimation of the likelihood of their success.

    LOL yeah I’ll say. That’s basically the russian motto, it seems.They’re like underpants gnomes with lethal weapons and different accents.

    Curious if anyone knows what this is referencing? I didn’t see a separate post about it on Zelenskyy’s FB.

    Today, a step has also been taken to strengthen the spiritual independence of our state, to protect our society from the old and cynical Moscow manipulation of religion.

    I know they’d taken previous actions against the russian orthodox church so I assume this is something connected to that?

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  14. 14.

    Mallard Filmore

    ABC network news is reporting that RUS has stopped sharing ALL information trading, a treaty requirement, of nuclear warhead activities.

    NBC news:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-nuclear-information-us-new-start-treaty-war-ukraine-putin-rcna77150
    “Russia stops sharing information on nuclear forces with the U.S.”

    politico says it goes the other way:
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/28/u-s-suspends-sharing-nuke-information-with-russia-00089188

  17. 17.

    cain

    @Alison Rose: one thing that I worry about is all those russians leaving the country and then going into other countries and then doing what they are doing in Israel agitating for more authoritarian type of government. They just don’t know how to be in a democracy.

  19. 19.

    Jay

    @Alison Rose:

    Another Orthodox Church is being kicked to the curb for supporting Ruzzia. This one is supposedly “Ukrainian” Orthodox, but has been accused of working for Ruzzia.

    The State owns the property.

  20. 20.

    japa21

    @Alison Rose: eclare doesn’t realize the mechanics of this place or that, as functioning adults, we can follow and participate in two different conversations at one time.

  21. 21.

    Alison Rose

    @eclare: Well, Adam can speak for himself, but bigfooting happens on this blog all the time, and I assume Adam spends quite a lot of time putting these posts together and isn’t going to realize if someone has just posted when he’s done. The Ukraine updates are just as important as Ginni Thomas being the duplicitous sack of shit we always knew she was.

  23. 23.

    Jay

    @Urza:

    and people diss the Canadian Armed Forces, but we have won the Man vs. Beaver War, had a period of detante and are now encouraging re-colonization by the beavers, but this time, they are on our side, or we are on their side, I forget which,……

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @Alison Rose: I’m pretty sure it’s related to this – VOANews.com:

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a struggle for control of a religious complex called the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

    The Lavra is commonly called the Monastery of the Caves. It contains religious centers, museums, and places for clergy to study and live. The oldest parts date back to the beginning of Christianity 1,000 years ago.

    The complex has been called the “pearl of Ukraine” and the “Vatican” of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. In 1990, the complex was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

    This week, the government of Ukraine says it is removing the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, or UOC, from Lavra.

    The dispute

    The dispute is part of a wider religious conflict playing out at the same time as the war.

    The government of Ukraine has been cracking down on the UOC over its long, historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church leader, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in the invasion of Ukraine.

    The UOC has maintained that it is loyal to Ukraine. The church has denounced the Russian invasion from the start and has even declared its independence from the Russian church.

    But the government has said the Lavra which houses UOC school and offices, is a center of Russian propaganda. And the Ukrainian parliament is also considering a “law on making it impossible to operate in Ukraine religious organizations affiliated with … the Russian Federation.”

    […]

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    Jay

    "Russian Volunteer Corps" published a video of the beginning of their entrance to the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation on 2 March. As it appears from the video, they introduced themselves to locals as members of the FSB. pic.twitter.com/QxlNj5nJCp— Dmitri (@wartranslated) March 29, 2023

    Russian Volenteer Forces are a pro-Ukraine Volenteer Group who did not take up Ukrainian Army Contracts, and are engaging in actions inside Moskovia.

  29. 29.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    On a landmark day for the fight against Russian agents in cassocks, namely the eviction of the Moscow clergy from the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, experts of the Center for Countering Disinfo prepared material on the support of the UOC-MP for the enemy during the war pic.twitter.com/VBEg0AJGOI— Enriched Ukranium 🇺🇦 rusni pЇzda | Slava UkraЇni (@Heroiam_Slava) March 29, 2023

  30. 30.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: “UOC-MP” means “Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate”, right?  Which means that they still view themselves as subordinate to the ROC ?

    I remember reading some months ago about a bunch of subversion the UOC in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra had been caught doing.  But I don’t remember the details.

  31. 31.

    japa21

    @Jay: ​
      Another loud and imbecilic rant about how Ukraine under Zelenskyy (he’s a Jew, BTW) is persecuting Christians will be flowing from Fucker Carlson again.

  32. 32.

    Mike in NC

    Saw a clip of actor Jeremy Renner interviewed after his mishap. The guy was born to play Zelenskyy in the movie of his life.

  33. 33.

    Jay

    @Chetan Murthy:

    some do, some don’t. There is a shichsm inside the UOC-MP, since 2018. Some are pro-Ukrainian, some are hotbeds of Ruzzian activities and spying. Some of the UOC-MP priests, at the outbreak of war, looted church icons and valuables, and fled to Ruzzian controlled areas and Ruzzia itself, where they sold them, melted down the precious metals and pried out the precious stones.

  36. 36.

    trollhattan

    @Jay: ​Tankie tears aren’t delicious but they are copious. Betting on Vlad or Trump seems equally misguided.

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Another Scott:

    That’s close to being correct. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra has been under the control of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate. The predominant denomination now is the Kyiv Patriarchate, correctly known as the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The UOC-MP has been known by everyone to be a russian intelligence asset. There was at one time a Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate, loyal to Ukraine, but that has been absorbed into the OCU.

    I recognize this is a complicated topic, and I don’t have time right now to do it justice. But this particular move with respect to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra has been a long time coming.

  39. 39.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Jay: Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.  The schism will resolve, hopefully, once the “pro-Russian” clergy separates into “useful idiots” versus “active agents” and the useful idiots learn self-awareness.

    Far too many of both around the world.  What will happen to them when Putin kicks the bucket?  How much of Russia’s support network is tied to the FSB/KGB that could lose a lot of power when their old boss is no longer in charge?

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @eclare: I do one of these a night. I don’t get paid. I don’t ask for anyone’s thanks. I spend several hours a day immersed in this insanity so that you all get a nightly war update. If you don’t like the timing of it, that’s too bad.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: There’s a whole section in the RUSI report about how Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church clergy as agents and spies.

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    This is a direct quote from the RUSI report noted by Adam:

    “the Russian Orthodox Church…Beyond its efforts to support Russian information operations, its priests were widely recruited and run by the Russian special services and their monasteries and churches used as safe houses for equipment and personnel.

    ETA: GMTA

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: The RUSI report has an entire section on the Moscow Patriarchate clerics and how they’re used as special assets, agents, operatives, and spies.

  54. 54.

    Andrya

    @Gin & Tonic: I’ve posted this before, but I think it’s relevant here;  in 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the closest that Eastern Orthodoxy has to a pope, granted the Ukrainian Orthodox “autocephaly”- meaning self government, independence from Moscow (which, in my opinion, shows what Patriarch Bartholomew thinks of putin).  link The current disputes are basically the efforts of the Moscow Patriarchate (a wholly owned subsidiary of putin) to resist/overturn Patriarch Bartholomew’s decision

    ETA:  Sorry, G&T, you beat me to it.

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    Ever since 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church has managed to suck up to the powers that be.

  56. 56.

    Betty

    @Adam L Silverman: I can’t say enough how much I appreciate your posts. We are so well informed here thanks to your efforts. I look forward to them despite not having the expertise to offer useful comments.

  57. 57.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Gin & Tonic: The RUSI report discusses the Russian Orthodox church as one of the Russian assets in Ukraine — p 11-12

    ETA: I see that you got there already.

  58. 58.

    Andrya

    @Mike in NC:   I cannot agree.  I grew up in San Francisco in the late 1950s/1960s, and the Russian/Russian Orthodox presence was huge (going back to the 19th century fur trade).  My first lessons, as a preteen, in resisting tyranny were from a Russian Orthodox grocer who had fought both the czar and the communists.  My parents’ home when I was a teenager was close to a Russian Orthodox Cathedral that contains the burial of “St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco” (I am not making this up) who arranged an escape route for Russians escaping the communist regime.

    putin has definitely succeeded in corrupting the Russian Orthodox Church in russia, but that does not mean there is not hope for the Russian Orthodox Church to reform.

  60. 60.

    Carlo Graziani

    I’ve read the report now. In my view, it’s strength is that it brings together in a comprehensive way the nature and purpose of Russian Intelligence subversion and information ops, and their role in war planning. I haven’t seen this level of detail on Russian networks and on Ukrainian counterintelligence before.

    The main weakness of the report is in its attention-catching claim that “…the Russian invasion plan does not make sense without understanding Moscow’s intended defeat mechanism of the Ukrainian state.” This is overreach, and not really supported by the evidence presented. It seems to me to be the common area specialist claim that One Big Factor Not Noted By Other Analysts provides the interpretive key to understand the event under debate.

    An example of this analytic overreach is found on p. 12:

    “…despite senior Russian intelligence officials recommending the invasion be delayed until the summer of 2022 because the necessary conditions were not met, Moscow proceeded with its invasion. Russia’s belief that it understood Ukrainian politics may have been bolstered by the number of senior former Ukrainian officials resident in Moscow who had a clear motive in telling the Kremlin to proceed.”

    In light of the belief that Moscow’s subversion operations to sap Ukrainian will to resist would lead to a 3-day war, this is a non-sequitur. It points to the larger complex of incompetencies that afflict not only subversion, but also military intelligence use, as well as Russian military planning, training in large-scale operations, logistics, air operations, inter-service coordination, and so on. The evidence of the report cannot support the view that the failure of the subversion plan alone explains the military catastrophes that befell the Russian army in February-March 2022.

    That said, it’s a good read.

  61. 61.

    Andrya

    @Jay:  In any situation of tyranny, some people are going to collaborate and some people are going to resist. I’m objecting to focusing on SOME people in a religious community (or a community of atheists, for that matter) who collaborated, ignoring the ones who did not collaborate, and saying “everyone in this community is bad!”

    In the Nazi occupation of France, atheist Simone de Beauvoir worked for a Vichy-operated radio station, and atheist Jean-Paul Sartre did nothing to oppose the Germans.  Another atheist, Albert Camus, put his life on the line as a member of the French resistance.  Would it be fair for me (a Christian) to point to de Beauvoir and Sartre and say that French atheists accepted or collaborated with the Nazis?  Ignoring Camus?

  62. 62.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Andrya: There’s a relevant difference between atheists, and … organized religions: the former don’t have hierarchies, so an atheist who collaborates doesn’t pervert the work of an atheist who does not.  But in organized religions, the bad actors can and do pervert entire hierarchies, so that the good people in those organizations inadvertently help further the evil.

    Shorter: the Catholic Church as an *institution* is at fault for the rapes of children, and must be punished as an *institution*.  It’s not enough to simply punish individual priests, nor even the bishops who helped them evade detection and punishment, b/c the entire hierarchy enabled those crimes.

    I don’t know whether this is the case with the UOC-MP; but it certainly is the contention of the Ukrainian government, and it seems reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

  63. 63.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Chetan Murthy: The distinction that @Andrya: is pointing to is not between atheists and established Church, but rather between Church Establishment and believers.

    Please, let’s not let this discussion push over the cliff where believers are held responsible for the hierarchy’s choices. That discussion leads to a Bad Thread.

  64. 64.

    Andrya

    @Chetan Murthy:  I would agree that hierarchy leads to acceptance, and often participation, in crimes- but I disagree that this only affects religious communities.

    When atheists organize a hierarchy terrible things also happen.  (Examples:  USSR.  China today.)  Also, hierarchies having nothing to do with religion pro or con (the Nestle company pushing formula that resulted in Third World infant deaths- mining companies that resisted acknowledgment of black lung)-  also browbeat their people into accepting awful things.  (The Boy Scouts of America also had a sex abuse scandal.)

    The real problem seems to be that to get anything done, hierarchies are more efficient than an unstructured group,  but once you have a hierarchy the leaders can push horrible things.  The only solution, as far as I can see is to police one’s leaders relentlessly- and people are very unwilling to do that.

  65. 65.

    Chetan Murthy

    interesting: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime/the-same-russian-agents-who-meddled-in-us-politics-set-the-stage-for-ukraine-invasion/sharetoken/W5peQkI7ANuC

    The Same Russian Agents Who Meddled In US Politics Set The Stage For Ukraine Invasion

    Take a look at a new report released by RUSI, a British government-affiliated think tank which has done great work over the past year analyzing various aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war.

    This report is devoted to “unconventional operations” — that is, the role of Russian spies in Ukraine. Thanks to the events of the past eight years, it’s a topic which has intersected with U.S. politics quite a bit. It also features new details regarding some Ukrainians who have cozied up to American political figures, and who have become TPM characters in the process.

  66. 66.

    Jay

    @Chetan Murthy:

    actually, the Ukrainian Government position is basically that churches who support Ukraine are fine, churches who can be proven to subvert Ukraine by collaboration with the Moskovites, are not. And in their process so far, it’s not “what this one priest did”, it’s what the leadership of the Church did, and not across faith, but Church by Church, because when 2019 hit, there was a schism in the Church. Some converted to Ukrainian Orthodox, some retained ties to the Moskovite Patriarchy for tradition, but embraced Ukraine, some went full Orc.

  67. 67.

    Lyrebird

    @Andrya: ​
      I have no idea about big solutions, but your Existentialist examples are right on. Also in WWII, there were Christian clergy members who helped genocide, and there were ones like the man who became Pope John Paul who saved lives.

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