(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Two housekeeping notes. First, I’m going to get to the subject of the title below the jump as it is exceedingly disturbing. While it is all narrative text, I will put trigger warnings above it and an all-clear below it. Second, I will be traveling home tomorrow late afternoon to evening. So do not expect the update until around 11 PM EDT, but do expect it to be short.
South African President Ramaphosa’s visit to Moscow went well:
A reminder that in the last few months South Africa has: held joint military exercises with Russia, sent its army chief to Russia, and (in December) most likely sent arms to Russia. Yet Putin seems comfortable with shooting down even their proposals. https://t.co/5JL6qxHEyT pic.twitter.com/2nmJcCEd6P
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) June 17, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
I would like to thank all partners who this week took new steps in supporting our state and people – address of President of Ukraine
17 June 2023 – 21:58
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
I want to thank today. To thank all our partners who really help and who this week took new steps in supporting our state and our people.
The United States – I want to thank for another substantial security aid package. Anti-aircraft defense, artillery, and rounds for HIMARS, anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles, other tools for the defense of freedom. Thank you!
The Netherlands – thanks for the new defense package that will strengthen our air shield.
The joint work of the Netherlands, the United States, Denmark, and the United Kingdom to buy anti-aircraft missiles. This is what will save thousands of our people.
Germany – thank you for the equipment delivered this week, for the unchanged strength in protecting life from Russian missile terror. Thank you for your willingness to provide us with missiles for the Patriot systems!
Italy – thank you for implementing our defense agreements!
Thank you, Denmark, for your willingness to work quickly so that our coalition of modern fighters can really bring the end of this war closer to our victory. Joint victory! Thank you again!
Denmark and Norway – I want to thank you separately for your joint work to strengthen our artillery. Russia has brought such a war to Europe when it depends on the artillery whether freedom moves forward. Thank you for the rounds for our soldiers!
Sweden – the twelfth defense aid package and a real readiness to start training our pilots on modern fighters. Thank you!
The United Kingdom – thank you for your continued leadership in expanding our defense capabilities and for every long-range missile we have been given – all of which are 100 percent operational. This week a decision on additional support. Thank you again!
Canada – thank you for your continued help and for the new steps we have worked out, now being implemented. Artillery, air defense…
Thanks to all Ramstein participating countries – another meeting was held this week. Thanks for the unwavering constructiveness!
I would like to personally thank each country, each leader, all cities and communities in partner countries, all international organizations that help us overcome the consequences of the Russian terrorist attack on the Kakhovka HPP. We will once again prove the invincibility of our collective power when we restore normal life to all people and communities affected by this Russian evil of ecocide.
Poland – thank you for the resolution adopted by the Seimas in support of Ukraine’s membership in NATO. The right signals at the right time – when we are preparing meaningful content for the summit in Vilnius.
Luxembourg – I want to thank you for the parliament’s decision, recognizing the historical truth, the truth about the Holodomor – the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Luxembourg became the 26th country to officially recognize the Holodomor as genocide. And we continue our work – for the global recognition of the truth.
And, of course, many thanks to all those who train our soldiers… who share their experience with our heroes, and who themselves learn from Ukrainians. Learn Ukrainian resilience, courage, and an unbreakable desire to fight for the life for own country and Ukrainian children. It will definitely be – we will fight for this! We will prevail.
Tavria operational-strategic group – by the way, I want to thank you for moving forward, soldiers! Well done! All our warriors in the East, strong warriors – I thank you for your resilience and accuracy!
Glory to Ukraine!
This report focuses on the recently liberated village of Blahodatne in Donetsk region. Listen to what our soldiers have to say about fighting the occupiers (or more accurately, a gang of convicts).
🎥 YouTube @UkrainianWitness pic.twitter.com/XlvYZCNQcW
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 17, 2023
Here’s the full video from the Ukraine Witness YouTube channel:
The New York Times‘ visual investigations reporters have done a deep dive into the evidence regarding the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and determined that Russia is, indeed, responsible for blowing it up.
Moments after a major dam in a Ukrainian war zone gave way, wild torrents cascaded over the jagged remains of the top. But the real problem most likely lay elsewhere, cloaked deep beneath the surface of the raging waters.
Deep inside the dam was an Achilles’ heel. And because the dam was built during Soviet times, Moscow had every page of the engineering drawings and knew where it was.
The dam was built with an enormous concrete block at its base. A small passageway runs through it, reachable from the dam’s machine room. It was in this passageway, the evidence suggests, that an explosive charge detonated and destroyed the dam.
At 2:35 a.m and 2:54 a.m. on June 6, seismic sensors in Ukraine and Romania detected the telltale signs of large explosions. Witnesses in the area heard large blasts between roughly 2:15 a.m. and 3 a.m. And just before the dam gave way, American intelligence satellites captured infrared heat signals that also indicated an explosion.
After the first section of the dam was breached, videos suggest that the power of the rushing water tore a larger and larger gash into the dam.
As the water levels further dropped this week, they fell below the top of the concrete foundation. The section that collapsed was not visible above the water line — strong evidence that the foundation had suffered structural damage, engineers said.
In the chaotic aftermath, with each side blaming the other for the collapse, multiple explanations are theoretically possible. But the evidence clearly suggests the dam was crippled by an explosion set off by the side that controls it: Russia.
But multiple lines of evidence reviewed by The New York Times, from original engineering plans to interviews with engineers who study dam failures, support a different explanation: that the collapse of the dam was no accident. The catastrophic failure of its underlying concrete foundation was very unlikely to occur on its own.
Given the satellite and seismic detections of explosions in the area, by far the most likely cause of the collapse was an explosive charge placed in the maintenance passageway, or gallery, that runs through the concrete heart of the structure, according to two American engineers, an expert in explosives and a Ukrainian engineer with extensive experience with the dam’s operations.
“If your objective is to destroy the dam itself, a large explosion would be required,” said Michael W. West, a geotechnical engineer and expert in dam safety and failure analysis, who is a retired principal at the engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner. “The gallery is an ideal place to put that explosive charge.”
Engineers cautioned that only a full examination of the dam after the water drains from the reservoir can determine the precise sequence of events leading to the destruction. Erosion from water cascading through the gates could have led to a failure if the dam were poorly designed, or the concrete was substandard, but engineers called that unlikely.
Ihor Strelets, an engineer who served as the deputy head of water resources for the Dnipro River from 2005 until 2018, said that as a Cold War construction project, the dam’s foundation was designed to withstand almost any kind of external attack. Mr. Strelets said he, too, had concluded that an explosion within the gallery destroyed part of the concrete structure, and that other sections then were torn away by the force of the water.
“I do not want my theory to be correct,” Mr. Strelets said. A large explosion in the gallery might mean the total loss of the dam. “But that is the only explanation,” he said.
Much, much more at the link including numerous visualizations.
RAND’s Dara Massicot has another long strategic assessment of the condition of the Russian military on her Twitter feed. First tweet from the thread below followed by the rest from the Thread Reader App:
I write often on Russian military personnel problems because I think it's a central issue. I will be the first to tell you that their military morale is poor in Ukraine. I still would not recommend any plan that rests on 'bad Russian morale will trigger a collapse in the front'/1
— Dara Massicot (@MassDara) June 16, 2023
I hope that’s not a critical assumption at play. I don’t think it is, but, I’ve seen a few statements from some quarters that give me pause, like this one below. /2Zelensky’s office: Ukraine’s counteroffensive has not yet begun — MeduzaMykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the president of Ukraine, has said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive has not yet begun and that Ukrainian troops’ offensive operations are currently aimed at identifying we…https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/06/15/zelensky-s-office-ukraine-s-counteroffensive-has-not-yet-begunIn my view the Russian troops that are the most exhausted and maltreated are the ones in Luhansk and Donetsk, who fought a failed offensive since January, were subordinated (legally) to Luhansk/Donetsk proxies, or allegedly to mercenary groups, according to some families. /3The VDV’s morale is stable. VDV took hard hits from the early part of the war, reducing their overall combat capabilities. They remain devoted to their commander, Col-General Teplinsky, who visits them and inspects positions. They also seem to understand their missions. /4The units in the south (Kherson, Zaporizhzhia) are mixed. Some of these units took hits early on, but some of these units did not. While no units are healthy, I would say some of these are in ok shape. /5I observe a focus in Russian units in the last week in the south, IVO Zaporizhzhia (at least on social media), that I have not seen in a while. Their positions are prepared. I see nerves, but not panic. Probably because the UAF have not closed on them so it may be temporary. /6I’m not saying this is a reformed Russian army or a confident one; it’s not. But they are adapting. I’m also not saying that Russian morale won’t crack when tested in close quarters on the Zap front; it has cracked elsewhere after contact. /7Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of UkraineRussian tactics are changing as lessons are learned from military failures in the war in Ukraine.https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraineBut as for now, as Russian forces try to target and slow UAF advances with mines and artillery, there is a sense of focus. Reassessment will be needed of course, when the main UAF effort collides with Russian positions /8Ukrainian Armed Forces have not yet breached major Russian strongholds and defensive positions. Russian forces will rely on their prepared defenses, artillery, and airborne assets to try to fix them where they are, and prevent a breach./9All this is to say, as someone who believes Russian morale is moderate at best, to outright bad as a direct result of the way their commanders have mistreated them, I would not recommend anyone bank on that as a critical planning factor /10This counteroffensive’s fighting is fierce and it will get harder as the UAF approaches the Russian lines. Once they do, the dynamics are unpredictable for both. /11Better UAF tactics, better ISR, better local commanders will be to UAF’s advantage when they close on Russian positions. Ukrainian commanders remain focused on their operational tasks and I haven’t seen many making assumptions about Russian forces cracking on contact. /end
I expect we’ll be seeing Senators Cruz, Hawley, and Vance, as well as their colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus retweeting this video as part of their campaign against the woke US military:
Meanwhile at the St Petersburg economic forum (via @FontankaNews) pic.twitter.com/9rRImqMy98
— max seddon (@maxseddon) June 16, 2023
Meduza is reporting that Putin has ordered an investigation into the social behavior of LGBTQ Russians. This will not end well.
Vladimir Putin has instructed Russia’s Health Ministry to create an institute to study the “social behavior” of LGBT people within the state-run Serbsky Psychiatric Center, the independent outlet iStories reported on Thursday, citing a response given by Health Minister Mikhail Murashko during the first reading of the State Duma’s bill to ban legal gender changes and gender-affirming healthcare.
Murashko’s statement came after lawmaker Anatoly Wasserman asked him whether the Health Ministry is conducting any research into “psychiatric methods of bringing these notions [about gender roles and sexuality] in line with reality.”
The LGBTQ+ health website Parni Plus (“Guys Plus”) called Murashko’s words confirmation that the Russian authorities could begin conducting “conversion therapy,” which refers to a range of pseudo-scientific practices intended to change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, and which the UN has said can amount to torture.
According to the LGBTQ+ crisis group SK SOS, the number of institutions practicing conversion therapy is on the rise. People who have undergone “treatment” at these centers have described being beaten, starved, and hung by handcuffed wrists.
Novaya Gazeta has reported that conversion therapy centers are currently operating in the North Caucasus as well as in Russia’s largest cities, including Moscow.
I’m a social behaviorist, what is being done here is not social behavioral research. It is working backwards from a conclusion, in this case Putin’s long-held belief that people who are LGBTQ are not only deviants, but deviants that learn their behavior from other people who are also deviants, in order to justify mandating further crackdown on LGBTQ Russians including an expansion of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy DOES NOT work. And, as far as I can tell from what I’ve read of the professional literature on homosexuality and being LGBTQ, it is not a learned and therefore not a social behavior. Rather it is an innate or inherent preference. I’ve only read a little of the professional literature as this is way outside of my subject matter expertise and I just don’t have the time to read it for non-professional reasons.
WARNING!! WARNING!! THE REPORTING BELOW IS DISTURBING!! WARNING!! WARNING!!
The Times (of London) has done yeoman’s work in reporting on a much more widespread genocidal war crime the Russians appear to be systemically committing against Ukrainian POWs. Because The Times article is paywalled, I’m copying and pasting it from the Internet Archive. (emphasis mine)
For a month the two men could not tell their psychologist what had happened to them, only that it was horrible beyond words. “If there’s hell somewhere, it’s worse than that,” said one.
The Ukrainian soldiers, aged 25 and 28, had been in Russian captivity — one for one month, the other for three.
After their return in a prisoner swap they had been referred to Anzhelika Yatsenko, 41, a psychologist in Poltava who deals with troubled young men. They were suicidal. The younger one had tried to kill himself. “I knew from previous cases they had probably been tortured,” she said. “As someone who gets referred the hardest cases, mostly men under 35, it’s very hard to surprise me.”
When they finally told her, it was, she said, “the first time I behaved not like a professional psychologist”.
“I’d never heard anything so horrible. I told them I needed the bathroom and went and cried and cried. I didn’t want them to see as they might think there’s no hope.”
The two men had been savagely beaten. Then the drunken Russians castrated them with a knife.
“One of them told me, ‘I don’t know how I am still alive, there was so much blood, I thought I’d die of blood poisoning’,” she said.
“And of course it’s not just the physical damage. Imagine, they are young men just starting their sexual life and then in one second it’s all over. They still feel something, all these hormones, but they can’t do anything. They can never be sexually active. For a young man it’s the worst thing to happen.
“Their dignity has been damaged so badly and it’s impossible to forget. The Russians told them, ‘We are doing this so you can’t have kids.’ To me this is genocide.”
Astonishingly, among those fighting is the older of the two castrated men whom Yatsenko has been counselling. “He insisted on rejoining,” she said shaking her head. “He says he’s needed and it’s easier being in a place where there are no women. I guess, given what happened, he wants to kill Russians.”
She has another fear, however. “He may feel his life is worth nothing and just wants to die.”
Yatsenko believes her patients are not the only ones to have been castrated. “They told me the Russians performed the castration procedure very skilfully, as if they knew how to do it. And I’ve heard about a lot of cases from colleagues treating others.”
Whether or not the perpetrators are tracked down, their victims’ lives have been irrevocably changed.
While there has been widespread international outrage and help for women and girls raped by Russians in occupied territories, there has been far less attention to sexual violence against men and boys, whether under occupation or in captivity.
Yatsenko said the men were hard to treat. “They take a lot of antidepressants, that’s all. And we try to find some distractions for them. They can’t talk to their families or friends.“The younger one who tried to commit suicide had a girlfriend who told him she accepted him as he was but it was too hard for him to stay with her so they are now apart.”
Last week she said he had stopped speaking.
“The other one had a girl he liked and planned to ask out but now cannot tell her. It’s all just so sad,” she said, “I will never forget.
“On one hand I feel rage, on the other it’s pain. When I watch videos of our Ukrainian soldiers I’m so proud of them, but then I hear these stories.”
Like many Ukrainians, Yatsenko has close links with Russia. Her father is Russian and she lived there, in Rostov, until she was 18, when she moved to Ukraine to study and never went back. They are no longer in touch.
“This thirst for violence is in Russians’ blood,” she said. “I saw it growing up. They always hated us Ukrainians, abused our women as prostitutes. When I said I was going to study in Poltava, they laughed at me.
“They can’t beat us on the battlefield, the whole world is helping us, so they do this — to demoralise us, to spread fear, to have this small revenge. It’s like blowing up the [Kakhovka] dam [on June 6], they can’t have Kherson so they destroy it.”
Doctors at the maternity hospital in Poltava said they had been consulted about women from occupied areas who had been raped by Russians then had their vaginas injected with window sealant so they can never have children.
Yatsenko shook her head. “I have a client from Georgia and she was tortured by Russians during the war there [in 2008] and fled to Ukraine. When war started here, she immediately took her kids and left, telling me, ‘I know what they are doing with young girls.’ I didn’t understand then, but now I do.”
There is much more at the link if you can stomach it.
ALL CLEAR!! ALL CLEAR!! ALL CLEAR!!
That’s more than enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets or videos today, so here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Army Cats & Dogs Twitter feed:
Just a reminder about their fundraiser:
Hello friends.
The first part of food for animals went south to the #Kherson area. thank you for your donations. in a few days I will send another batch of fodder.https://t.co/zVitdvVelp pic.twitter.com/jMRg2NapMX
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) June 9, 2023
This is a cat named Simba.
And his mother. he remained alive after Russian rockets bombarded Kryvyi Rih.
Russians shell Ukrainian cities almost every day…
Photo: @YurchenkoSt pic.twitter.com/MUaAVIe6Ur
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) June 13, 2023
Ukrainian soldiers rescued a fox they saw near the positions. pic.twitter.com/FK3Jy8Jc53
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) June 15, 2023
Obligatory!
Also, maybe actually plug your instruments in. Make an effort!
Open thread!
YY_Sima Qian
That article from the Times was very hard to read…
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes it was. But it needed to be included here.
dmsilev
@YY_Sima Qian: Truth. I read it earlier today (saw a link to it somewhere), and it was just… painful. Really puts into perspective all those ‘oh, Ukraine should just negotiate for peace’ idiocies. What is there to negotiate with with someone who will do such things?
ColoradoGuy
The perpetrators will need to be tracked down, one by one, no matter how long it takes. If it takes twenty years, fine, never stop looking.
Andrya
@dmsilev: Anders Puck Nielsen has a really good video on YouTube on why peace negotiations are futile (link). For those unfamiliar he is a serving Danish navy officer, and a professor at the Danish equivalent of West Point or Annapolis.
For the rest, I’m so glad that, as a Catholic, I believe in Hell. Not for ordinary sinners, and certainly not for LGBTQ+ folk, but for stuff like this. Spit-roast them over a shit-fueled fire!
This also highlights the horrific cowardice and incompetence (or worse) of the International Red Cross. They should have been raising holy hell over the fact that they cannot guarantee the safety of Ukrainian POWs.
NutmegAgain
The contrast between Putin accusing LGBT+ individuals of perversion and criminality, contrasted with the putative “normality” of [hideous] troop behavior with Ukrainian POWs just says so much about the warped and twisted nature of things currently in Russia. (Of course they’re not alone in some of this; look at Uganda.) I mean, how much do you have to dehumanize your adversaries to engage in such tortures? It’s really beyond sick; it’s depraved.
On a less grim note, thank you Adam! for catapulting me back to the ’70s with that Sweet video. I saw them live ::cough:: . Well, it was the ’70s. Unaccountable things happened. Those Chinn-Chapman songs are earworms.
StringOnAStick
The West has got to do more NOW to make sure Ukraine wins this war!!!
Gin & Tonic
Worth investigating the role of South African arms dealer Ivor Ichikowitz(sp?) in that comical “peace mission.” Wonder what, exactly, was in those 13 crates that the Poles wouldn’t let the South Africans unload in Warsaw.
Note also, for more comic relief (because we need it) that the journalists accompanying Ramaphosa and his security detail, who cooled their heels at Chopin Airport for several days, said they couldn’t fly on to St. Petersburg because Hungary wouldn’t give the flight clearance. I know they were stuck at the airport, but I’ve also been stuck at Warsaw airport, and I know they could buy a map of Europe there.
Jay
Gin & Tonic
Here’s more on Ichikowitz. I cannot speak to the reliability of that publication, as it’s outside my scope.
Gin & Tonic
@ColoradoGuy: I’ve heard plenty of talk of a Ukrainian Mossad.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Here’s their about page:
Maxim
@ColoradoGuy: Exactly.
Chetan Murthy
I read various reports of Russian units learning on the battlefield, bypassing their command hierarchies to call in arty strikes directly, generally adapting to the challenge of Ukrainian attacks. And I worry that all we’re doing is training a better Russian military. It’s like treating TB with on-and-off antibiotics: all it does is create drug-resistant TB; if you want to squash the infection, you need to ensure the patient gets and takes the antibiotics on schedule, the full course, no stopping, no gaps.
Ugh. We need to stop measuring out our aid in doses, give it in full, before Russia learns enough to turn this into a true stalemate.
YY_Sima Qian
The open contempt that Putin shows every other world leader (except Xi or his emissary, or possibly Modi & his emissary) is really something. Even leaders who are friendly or neutral, at a time when Russia has few real friends. & who knows what Putin is really thinking while kowtowing to Xi or Modi.
Cyril Ramaphosa came in as a reformer, after a string of incompetent & incredibly corrupt rulers (Thabo Mbeki & Jacob Zuma), but has not been able to make much headway against entrenched corruption & continuing decay of public goods. Even among Global South leaders, Ramaphosa has been remarkable for his sycophancy toward Putin. Not sure why,. Perhaps former African National liberation movement such as the ANC were consistently supported in their struggles against European colonial powers by dueling efforts from the USSR & China, whereas the U.S. in particular tended to view these insurgencies through the lens of the threat of global Communism. It is hard for these old sentiments to die.
Chetan Murthy
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” I was reminded of this, when reading today that the ECB is warning EU officials to not confiscate the accrued interest on frozen Russian assets (to transfer to Ukraine). The reasoning of the ECB is that if the EU confiscates, then foreign owners of capital will not choose to deposit their assets in EU banks, hence in euros, hence this will cause the Euro and the Eurozone to weaken.
And it seems to me that this is completely bass-ackwards. The EU should not *want* assets from terrorist states, states whose national purpose is the destruction of the EU. And the EU should work with other Western economies to present a united front on this: the US, UK, Japan, other Western democracies. How can this be a hard call? If anything it should be the other way around: the EU, US, etc should be making it *harder* for terrorist states to deposit their ill-gotten gains in their/our banks. Hell, we all know that the *reason* Putler and his cronies deposit their loot in Western banks, is that’s the only place it’s safe from being stolen *from them too*.
This shouldn’t be a hard call.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: [Surely,] Follow the money.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: The ANC has a stranglehold on South African politics, & I have not seen suggestions that Putin has been funding one faction or another. SA is more stable (for the time being) compared to many other conflict ridden states on the continent, so Russian PMCs aren’t a player there. Russia is not building infrastructure, establishing manufacturing, purchasing commodities or selling finished goods, so there is no economic leverage.
I really think it is historical inertia, & possibly a degree of naïveté about Russo-Ukrainian history.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian:
I meant lining the pockets of individual leaders.
sdhays
@Chetan Murthy: I seem to recall reading recently that coordination is precisely what the Sec. Yellen is pursuing with regard to sending frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. The US doesn’t have a lot of Russian assets and they want to do it all together (if they do it at all).
I agree with you – it shouldn’t be a hard call. But I suspect that EU banks are awash in Russian assets to an extent we don’t fully appreciate and pulling the plug on that would be much bigger for them than anyone else.
Chetan Murthy
@sdhays:
Only if what they’re thinking about is “forward-looking”. That is to say, if they expropriate those RU assets *today*, they might not get RU (CN? other countries’) assets in the future. And the answer to that should be: “good, if these war-makers are going to worry about their assets getting expropriated, they can keep ’em elsewhere”. Any assets already in EU banks — why should they be concerned? If they transfer them to Ukraine, Ukraine will spend them, undoubtedly over a long time, to purchase EU and US goods and services (and weapons!) to rebuild. What’s wrong with that?
I do agree with you, that these venal lily-livered cowards will grasp at any excuse to gobble up Putin’s fossilized excreta.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: The fear is that if Russian sovereign reserves are seized, it will not just be Russia that is alarmed. All of the rival & non-aligned countries (China, India, the Gulf States & the Global South) will fear that their reserves in Dollars & Euros are not as safe as they had thought, & will have greater urgency to diversify.
The reason the USD has remained the global reserve currency & safe harbor during crisis is not because global confidence in U.S. institutions has remained high. It is because there are no better alternatives. Dollar dominance is one of the keystones behind US power & influence, although it has also created great imbalances in the domestic economy (suppression of labor, elevation of financial capital, over financialization, etc.).
The decision is not to be taken lightly. It is very difficult for alternatives to emerge, but the US/EU should be very careful in setting off dynamics that encourage countries to more energetically seek alternatives. & the alternative that emerged may not be a single currency.
To seize Russian reserves, or even just the accrued interests, the US in particular has to be able to reassure everyone else that this is an extraordinary action in response to a singular event, & not a slippery slope toward wielding the Dollar as a club as freely as economic sanctions. A difficult feat given how the US has already weaponized the Dollar against Iran.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Given the domestic corruption in SA, ANC leaders can & have accrued a lot more wealth leeching off the domestic economy than what Putin can provide.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian:
I do take your point, but it would seem that ending what will otherwise become the Third World War, would be sufficient grounds. Esp. since it is one of the few ways we have of really hurting Putler. [not just seizing RU central bank assets, but all RU assets we can find, all assets of Putler, his oligarchs, their families, and their nominees]
ETA: but OTOH, I can see the ECB’s point: after all, if the shit hits the fan, the US will come running to save their unworthy asses, just like we always do.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: The best way to hit Putin, w/o risking a wider blowback, is to deal him a decisive defeat on the battlefield. That is why, as you say, the West needs to move beyond the approach of providing aid to Ukraine in doses.
Frozen Russian assets can also serve as leverage over whoever replaces Putin, after the war ends, to help ensure good behavior. Seizing these assets will help ensure that Putin’s successors will remain revanchist & disruptive for a long time to come. These risks have to weighed against the benefits.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: We disagree about this. The only way to end Putin’s reign is to make life intolerable for all the oligarchs who surround him. The way to do that is to strip them of all their Western assets. Furthermore, given that so many countries contrinue to trade with RU (e.g. the recent news that China will do *nothing* to stop Chinese companies trading with Russia), and the fact that so many dual-use goods are still traded to Russia, given that so many Western companies are fucking traitors, the only real leverage that *governments* have is the financial system.
We can’t stop China sending MRAPs to Russia; we can’t stop Western companies wink-wink-nudge-nudge sending machine tools to Kazakhstan; but we can sure as hell make life intolerable for every one of Putin’s oligarchs, their entire families, and we can sure as hell make this war as *costly* as possible.
Yes, we give up leverage for after the war. But what use is that, when *people are dying now* ? The way to end this war is to strike Putin and his inner circle, to make them *hurt*. To punish them. And besides, we *have* leverage for after the war: We simply refuse to trade with Russia, blockade them from our financial system, and enforce a rigid trade embargo. Until they fall apart.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: There’s another thing, too: any postwar settlement that doesn’t include complete reparations for Ukraine, is an unjust settlement. Transferring those assets *today* to Ukraine, is a way of pre-committing to Russia that any settlement will include those reparations. So Russia can’t somehow negotiate those away.
It matters: a postwar settlement that leaves Ukraine impoverished, while allowing Russia to reconnect with world, earn export earnings, and re-arm, is not a path to *peace*. If we want *peace* in Europe, Ukraine will need to remain an *armed camp* for the next few decades, possibly forever.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: There are so many ways in which these assets could be used to condition RU behaviour: for instance, for each missile launched at a Ukrainian city, the ECB could transfer $1B to Ukraine. Then when those monies run out, expropriate an oligarch each time. Then when that runs out, round up an oligarch’s family and put them on a plane back to Russia. Etc.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy
Right now, there are a lot of Russians (possibly including some among the oligarchs & siloviki) who are regretting the way the Russian imperial misadventure in Ukraine is turning out. Who are apathetic or even hostile to the invasion effort. Seize all of Russia’s assets & none of them have anything to lose from continuing to be antagonistic to the West seek to be a disruptive influence around the world, even if they overthrow Putin. They would feel besieged & feel compelled to circle the wagons. The neutral & non-aligned parties would be even less inclined to help the West isolate Russia.
Isolation from the West will not cause Russia to collapse, see NK, Iran & Cuba, especially when Russia has a lot of commodities that the world need.
Acting strategically means working to create conditions that will deal Putin a decisive defeat on the battlefield, resulting in a negotiated peace that is both just for Ukraine & in Russia’s interest to uphold (through enticement and compellance), increase the likelihood of Putin being overthrown by domestic forces, & incentivize his replacements to be a less disruptive force in the world (does not require them to be liberal or democratic).
As for Chinese “MRAPs”, I assume you mean videos of the 8 Chinese “Warrior” armored jeeps that Kadyrov was seen parading around in. It is designed for riot police & rear area duty, & thus has limited mine resistance & armor protection. Most likely Kadyrov acquired them 2nd hand from another country China has sold them to.
YY_Sima Qian
I absolutely agree that Russian should pay enormous reparations to Ukraine as part of any negotiated peace, but Russia has to have liquid assets to pay reparations.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian:
I’m sorry, but this is completely wrong. There’s a *reason* these oligarchs park their money in the West, why they put their families, their mistresses, their children, in the West. And it ain’t b/c it’s good for business or some such. It’s because they know that the West is the only safe place for their stuff, and it’s a better life than in Russia.
Take that away, take it all away. Send their wives and mistresses back to Russia, send their children back to Russia, let them deal with them back at home.
This idea that somehow we have to APPEASE these TERRORISTS is wrong, completely wrong
ETA: They like, they want, they *NEED* their Mercedes-Benzes, and if they’re forced to subsist on Ladas, they’ll be pretty damn unhappy about it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Take it all away is a righteous act of punishment, but will not incentivize them toward better behavior. It makes Putin even more secure from many potential challenge.
I would suggest keeping all of these assets frozen, take a portion of it as reparation to Ukraine, as part of the negotiated settlement, & condition releasing the rest, on a schedule, on Russian good behavior (w/ China, India & Brazil providing guarantees for the Russian side, incentivized to restrain Russian aggressive behavior).
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: We have differing ideas on human behaviour. What do Russians understand? What do we see, every day, of Russian behaviour? “The beatings will continue until morale improves!” So beat them! Beat them! And I will note, I’m not talking about beating ordinary Russians, and especially not about the poor. I’m talking about beating the rich. The wolves and hyenas who have feasted off the poor Russian people.
And I disagree that we have to make nicey-nicey with them to cause them to change. Impoverish the rich, make their lives worse, and especially, take away everything the care about (which is ALL in the West), send back their children to live in that hellhole, and yeah, they’re all gonna be wanting a change.
Sebastian
Russian ammo goes boom.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: it’s relevant that NONE of these oligarchs, nor the people around Putin, are normal people. They’ve never lived in places with the rule of law: they’re mobsters and thieves, and that’s all they know. The idea that somehow if we make nice with them, they’ll behave better, is absolute malarkey. Many, many analysts have pointed this out about Putin, too: his instant reaction to any softness, any attempted outreach, is to up the stakes, to escalate. The only thing that causes him to retreat is hardness and brutality.
These oligarchs are all mobsters: treat them like that. Show them that all they can expect from the West (their fondest desire) is pain, and they’ll be forced to end this war.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: My summary of our difference of opinion is thus:
You believe that if we’re nice to RU, they’ll behave better. I believe that if we’re nice to RU, they’ll take that as a sign of weakness, and behave *worse*. And it is my contention that the last 20+ years demonstrate pretty conclusively that the latter interpretation is correct.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: The Russian behavior has been destructive & self-destructive, & utterly self-defeating, not sure it is a good idea to emulate in any way, shape or form.
Long term, the most effective way to reduce the power of Russia (& other resource rich authoritarian regimes such as the Gulf States) is to accelerate the energy transition away from hydrocarbons, across the world, ASAP. However, that would require working w/ China, who currently dominates the entire value chains for wind, solar, hydro, batteries, EVs, efficient power transmissions, & is by far the most active in nuclear. That would mean welcoming inbound investment by Chinese firms to help establish the supply chains in North America & the EU, while only putting up moderate trade barriers to slow the onslaught of cheap Chinese imports & incentivize inbound greenfield investment, bolstered by rules forcing technology transfer. In essence, Chinese style industrial policy, which is already increasingly in vogue in the West.
Unfortunately, under the current Sinophobic environment fueled by Great Power Competition, such Chinese investment are fearmongered by politicians, especially the GOP in the U.S.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: If you want to give the oligarchs pain so that they push to end the war, you have to pair that w/ promise of relief of pain if they do end the war. Freeze their assets provide such a set of incentives, seizing them outright & give all of the to Ukraine, what relief from pain would could they expect if they overthrow Putin & end the war.
Freezing Russian assets is not a “nice” act.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: The incentive they get, is that they can begin again after the war. Whereas with the war, they lose all the loot they piled-up in the West. In that context, yes, freezing Russian assets is a nice act, b/c it holds out the hope that they can win the war *and* get their assets back.
Softness is what got us to this pass.
Dirk Reinecke
@Gin & Tonic: It is likely that these Journalists are the tamest of the pro-ANC media houses.
My country’s government is shameful and it adds to the shame. The ANC has deep connections to putin, and there are likely corruption flows.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-12-19-how-south-africans-thwarted-secret-putin-zuma-nuclear-deal/
Traveller
@Chetan Murthy: I needed to agree with Mr Murthy earlier this evening, but I let it go. Later, I stumbled across the 10 minute video of Russian Lancet’s wrecking absolute hell on Ukrainian forces and equipment, I post the link no so much so people can watch it…I suggest you don’t….but rather for completeness.
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1669254848183775232
At first I thought President Biden needed to call into force a Manhattan type project because…those Lancet’s are absolute son’s of a bitches. They must be, need be, defeated as much as possible.
whatever intellectual and industrial power is required…do it. War Powers Act if necessary.
But then I looked around a little…hey, good stuff already seemingly exists…why isn’t it in the field? Are the electronics to valuable to risk capture? To hell with that!!!!!!!!!!! Every unit Platoon sized or larger, though squad size would be my preference and all larger weapons system should have something like this….
https://www.ixiew.com/products/dronekiller-2/
If the elctronics are not strong enough to get inside Lancets…then get on it, research it…fix this!
Now, not tomorrow or next week…it should already be widely deployed. (here is where Mr Murthy was earlier correct) Best Wishes, Traveller
YY_Sima Qian
@Traveller: The US Army has already developed a system that can deal w/ swarms of drones, let alone individual ones, & integrated it on a Stryker platform. It is being inducted now. The still low availability & fear of being captured by the Russians (& shared w/ China/Iran) has probably prevented the Biden Administration from providing Ukraine w/ any. Nevertheless, a few units would really be useful in Ukrainian hands. Perhaps the U.S. can quickly develop a simplified versions for Ukraine & integrate it on HUMVEEs.
Since the start of the re-invasion, Russians have been developing larger, longer ranged versions of Lancet drones (which are not all that sophisticated compared to what are in U.S., Chinese & Israeli arsenals), w/ larger warheads.
bjacques
@YY_Sima Qian: I’m inclined to side with you on freezing vs seizing. Penalties to influence behavior have to be reversible. And, in the short term, freezing is bad enough, as anyone who tried and failed to outsmart the IRS or family court could tell you. There goes the charge account with Fortnum & Mason or Galleries Lafayette. The Eden Roc hotel bill goes unpaid. The Champs-Elysées or Belgravia flat bought outright with stolen wealth has maintenance fees. Private school and uni fees. The lawyers the oligarchs will need to plead for relief (or continue suing fellow oligarchs) don’t work pro bono. In short, the European high life grinds to a halt for lack of cash flow.
The money is still there, but will they get it back? Well, whether and how much depends on their behavior.
Always leave them with something to lose. Leverage is better than vengeance, and has the same immediate effect for now.
lowtechcyclist
@Chetan Murthy:
Hell yeah.
We all remember GWB after 9/11 saying over and over again, “either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.” How is that not even more the case here? Russia is a terrorist nation, and it’s a far more dangerous and deadly terrorist organization than al-Qaeda could have dreamed of.
Russia needs to be a pariah state, with no more commerce with Russia by the US and EU than the Allies had with Nazi Germany during WWII. And there should be trade and other repercussions with nations that cozy up to Russia. (I’m thinking that Hungary needs to be kicked out of NATO, for one.)
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
This framing makes no sense at all. The reason that there are no alternatives to the dollar (and to some extent the Euro) as a global reserve currency is precisely because of confidence in the rectitude of financial institutions and in the deep legal protections of the respective systems of contract law that exist in the home polities of those currencies. These are conditions that are simply not reproducible in China, Brazil, India, South Africa, etc., to say nothing of Russia.
Changing a reserve currency is not a policy option that is available to a government, as much as governments unhappy with Western exploitation of the advantages conferred by the singular status of their currencies may wish it were. It is rather the choice of thousands of global firms and millions of individual economic actors, who must select between different levels of risk in their investment, trade, and store-of-value decisions.
This is why it makes no sense to worry about a backlash to confiscation of Russian sovereign assets. That herd not only has no alternative, but will continue to have no good alternative at least in our lifetimes. The last attempt to create such an alternative was the cryptocurrency stupidity, and we all know how that turned out.
Moreover, the herd has a relatively short memory, witness the willingness to return trade and investment to nations that declare sovereign default (Southeast Asia, Russia, Argentina, etc.). Unhappiness with the exemplar risk demonstrated by a seizure of those funds will certainly be downplayed, rationalized, dismissed, or simply forgotten by actors who need to make 6-month horizon decisions for their firms and banks, writing contracts, negotiating court settlements, and so on.
The ripples will expand, dissipate, and the pond will be tranquil again. There is no financial doom down this path.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
I wish for this outcome as devoutly as anyone here. But realistically, we need to accept the very real possibility that the war will end in mutual exhaustion before all Ukrainian objectives are attained, devolving into lower-intensity conflict across some kind of line of control. There are too many historical examples of such outcomes to dismiss the chances that this might be the equilibrium at the war’s “end”.
And as a urine-wine pairing to that shit sandwich, the West’s ability to influence political outcomes in Russia is nil, but so long as Putinism is ascendant, Russia needs to stay in a box. It does us no good to allow him to go back to his info-sapper role undermining Western politics and rebuilding the Russian military for the next iteration of his imperial delusionary dream, without putting serious stress on Russian power. Preferably the kind of stress capable of potentially triggering an internal political crisis.
Note that the fact that those sovereign assets are currently frozen, rather than seized means that they are still on the RCB balance sheets, as highly-illiquid but nonetheless real Russian wealth. Forcing the RCB to wipe $300bn off its balance sheet would be a real, valid step towards forcing the required crisis—perhaps not decisive, but a net plus.
Meanwhile, the requirements for Ukrainian reconstruction, already dauntingly greater than likely to be funded by Western aid alone, just became Vast (doubled, at least) in consequence of the NK Dam destruction. It may be futile legal moralizing to point out that Russia is criminally liable for that damage, but on the other hand forking the RCBs assets over to Ukraine for war reparations would help alleviate the burden of aid on the West, while dealing a real blow directly to the Russian homeland.
Your cost-benefit may vary. Mine says the benefits of seizure far outweigh the costs.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani:
And even if you refrain from seizing central bank assets, you should go after the oligarchs. All of them are behold to Putin, all are merely nominees for Putin. SEND THEIR GODDAMN FAMILIES BACK TO RUSSIA. Start with Lavrov’s fucking spawn in America! Jesus, what are we waiting for? That they start committing [the incredibly abhorrent war crimes described in this OP] ? What? What are we waiting for?
Make them pay, over and over. Start impounding any ship that docks in a RU port. Use our satellite surveillance to detect ships that do so and then turn off their transponders. Find the ships, take them, sell them. Jesus, it’s not so goddamn hard.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani:
This is damn well right. We all should remember that Putin’s Russia is our mortal enemy, committed to destroying our democracies, and came pretty damn close to doing so in 2016 & 2020. He’ll try again. He’ll try until we destroy his ability to do so. And that means destroying his state. Russia needs to fall apart, for our safety. Kamil Galeev said it well: Russia has never had a democratic government, b/c they’ve never had a peaceful transition of power to a popularly-elected government. What they’ve had is *installation of new government* by acclaim of power-elites. That’s it. It’s the Russian elite that is our enemy, and they don’t go down until we take apart the country.
And to Carlo’s other point, yes, the NK dam disaster just raised the cost of reconstruction by a shit-ton. Who’s gonna pay for that? RUSSIA, that’s who!
Yes, Ukraine will need to remain an armed camp. But that’ll be true until Russia is a toothless old tiger. Which is the rest of our foreseeable lifetimes. So get used to it, and get on with it.
greenergood
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you for including the NYT article – it is horrendous – but it shows how warring factions choose particularly brutal and sex-focused acts. The male castration and the injection of harmful substances into women’s vaginas to prevent ever being fertile again – it’s so visceral, so basic, so genocidal. When I was a child, so, around mid-1960s, I was in bed with chicken-pox, and thus was left alone to watch on PBS (?) a depiction of the Nuremberg Trials, or something like, during Mengele’s experiments, when women were quoted either themselves or someone they knew being injected with concrete into their uterus, or pilots being dropped into tanks of anti-freeze to find out their ‘resistance’ – I have never forgotten this television programme, I have never forgetten how I found out that there is a certain class of people who are tolerant, even happy, to be so cruel to their fellow human beings, because they don’t regard them as human, and they just don’t count. And that is what I’m seeing today in Ukraine, in Sudan, and yes, in the USA. Thank you, Adam, for all your work.
Manyakitty
@Chetan Murthy: not sure if you’ll see this, but yes!!! Start deporting the families back home to mother Russia. That will get their attention.