Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

In after Baud. Damn.

In my day, never was longer.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Republicans don’t trust women.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Let there be snark.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 500: The Azovstal Commanders Come Home!

War for Ukraine Day 500: The Azovstal Commanders Come Home!

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

The Azovstal defenders who had been paroled to Turkiye have been brought home!

Here’s the announcement of who was repatriated:

According to the negotiations with the Turkish side, Ukraine returned to their homeland the military – defenders of Azovstal: Commander of the Azov special operations unit of the National Guard, Hero of Ukraine Denys Prokopenko, his deputy Svyatoslav Palamar, acting Commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade Serhiy Volynsky, Senior Officer of the Azov unit Oleh Khomenko and Commander of the 12th Brigade of the National Guard Denys Shleha.

The soldiers were in Türkiye after being released from Russian captivity.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met the defenders at the Istanbul airport and congratulated them on their return.

“I congratulate you! You are our heroes. I am very glad of your return to your homeland. Glory to Ukraine!” the Head of State said.

On the plane, Zelenskyy talked with the defenders of Azovstal and thanked them for their courage and resilience.

Unfortunately over 700 of their Soldiers, Marines, Territorial Guardsmen, and police officers are still in Russian captivity:

Erdogan’s releasing these gentlemen is further evidence of the ongoing damage that continues to ripple outward from Prigozhin’s revolt. While I’m sure the negotiations to accomplish this return have been ongoing and underway for a while, Putin’s loss of face as a result of the events of 23 to 25 June most likely contributed to finalizing the deal.

President Zelenskyy went to Snake Island this morning where he paid respects to those who defended it and to those gave their last full measure there. His address today was made from there. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

Snake Island. The free island of free Ukraine – address of President on the morning of the 500th day of the war

8 July 2023 – 09:34

Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!

Today, we are on Snake Island – on our Snake Island, which will never be conquered by the occupier, like the whole of Ukraine because we are a country of the brave.

Today, we honored here our Ukrainian heroes – all the soldiers who fought for this island, who liberated it. And although this is a small piece of land in the middle of our Black Sea, it is a great proof that Ukraine will regain every bit of its territory.

I want to thank – from here, from this place of victory – each of our soldiers for these 500 days.

Our Armed Forces, our intelligence, the National Guard, our border guards, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police, our liaison officers, our people… I thank you! Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine!

And let the freedom that all our heroes of different times wanted for Ukraine and that must be won right now be a tribute to all those who gave their lives for Ukraine. We will definitely win! For sure!

Glory to Ukraine!

We are moving forward. Thank you to every one!

If anyone was looking for an indicator that the Russians do not have control of this part of the Black Sea, this trip to Snake Island was it.

Minister of Defense Reznikov’s statement really sums it up:

This is reality that the leaders of the NATO member states need to get their heads around. Right now Ukraine is the only thing standing between Russia’s military perching on the border of NATO members Romania, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, as well as Moldova rather than just threatening it with Transnistria. European and trans-Atlantic foreign, defense, security, and economic policy looks much different without Ukraine’s staunch defense against Russia’s genocidal re-invasion. The leaders of NATO member states need come to terms with this and decide if they’re going to recognize and formalize this reality or they’re going to diminish the alliance and demoralize not only the Ukrainians, but NATO’s eastern European members.

Kherson City:

KHERSON CITY/ 2100 UTC 8 JUL/ A UKR bridgehead has been expanded east to the rail trestle and south to the limits of Oleshky. UKR forces destroyed a Russian main battle tank during contact on 8 JUL. UKR artillery is targeting RU troops, armor and logistics as they approach Kherson. Contact continues along the M-14 HWY axis.

Bakhmut:

Here’s a machine translation of the summary from below the video:

Artillerymen of the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade named after Cossack Ataman Kostya Gordienko are firing daily to accelerate the infantry offensive towards Bakhmut with Ukrainian 155mm NATO-standard 2C22 Bogdan artillery.

According to the howitzer commander, Dmitry, the radius of the howitzer is 43 kilometers.

However, the more shells from Western partners, the better the counteroffensive will be accelerated, and the cluster munitions promised by the United States will help his soldiers achieve their goals faster.

This video is published solely for documentary purposes to convey the truth about the war in Ukraine.

Video: AP

Lviv:

Lyman, Dontesk Oblast:

Here’s a thread from former US Navy Explosive Ordnance Device (EOD) specialist and current NY Times reporter regarding the cluster munitions the US is sending to Ukraine:

 

Last night in comments Anonymous at Work asked:

Adam,

Thanks for the update and information on the cluster munitions.  Given how insanely banned they are internationally, and the anti-Biden sentiment among Republicans, any chance the US will sign on after RU is driven from Ukraine?  Or will the “Biden did a thing, we will now oppose it” caucus in the US Senate go away?

I presume, as with the Convention on Land Mines, the US wants a carve out for South Korea as its primary objection (another non-signatory).

The domestic politics in the US will remain the domestic politics in the US. The most recent polling/political surveying I’ve seen indicated we’re back to an overall solid majority of Americans supporting the Ukrainians and this includes the numbers among the GOP moving back up in the support Ukraine direction. But the usual suspects on both sides will use this as a way to try to attack Biden from both the right and the left.

As to carves out on the international agreements regarding the use of cluster munitions to be similar to those the US seeks on the Convention on Land Mines, my take here is that it doesn’t matter. None of these treaties will ever pass the Senate again. The Law of the Sea Treaty, which was almost completely negotiated under the Bush 41 administration and then finished by the Clinton administration, has been DOA in the Senate because it was the Clinton administration – a Democratic administration – that sent it to the Senate for ratification. All you need to know about how this stuff has worked since the 1990s is the ongoing attack on US national security by Senator Tuberville who is holding up all the senior uniformed and civilian nominations for the Services and DOD because Secretary Austin issued guidance after the Dobbs decision that the military would cover the costs to transport uniformed personnel in need of female reproductive health care to a state where it was legal if it could not be performed on the base medical facility. Frankly, I doubt that a treaty negotiated by a Republican president and sent to the Senate could actually clear the 2/3rds vote threshold with the current, let alone a potential future, GOP Senate caucus.

That’s enough for today.

Your daily Patron!

I am going to be very honest here, I live in dread of the day when I get to this section and I have to include something like this:

Fortunately, the little guy is okay, but honestly I dread the day when I might have to include something different in this portion of the update.

A new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

🥸

♬ original sound – Joshua Allen

 

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  1. 1.

    Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom

    I just want to rush in with a big thank you Adam, before the comments start because they keep getting longer all the time.😌 So thank you, Adam, and Happy Belated 4th of July!

    For the rest, I am just so, so angry over what Ukraine has had to endure for 500 fucking days! Like you keep reminding us, what happened to “Never Again” ? War alone is bad enough, but there’s been torture, rape, war crimes, and the mass kidnapping of children. At least the Jackals and World Central Kitchen give me hope the world is not completely oblivious.

    Slava Ukraine!

  3. 3.

    japa21

    Once again, thank you for your total commitment to tbhis.  And TBH, I have also lived in dread of when you may have to report what you really don’t want to report.

    I am hoping the new munition package can have expedited delivery.  The cluster munitions will really make a difference as Ukraine gets closer the the stronger defensive lines Russia has set up.

    What I really don’t understand is why Russia is still continuing to strike civilian areas.  I realize at first it was meant to demoralize, but to any kind of objective observer and rational mind, it is obvious it isn’t working.

    Wait a minute.  I think I see my problem.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose

    The greetings and hugs between Zelenskyy and the Azovstal defenders are so heartwarming to see. Like cousins who haven’t seen each other in years. Here’s hoping every last Ukrainian in captivity will be brought home soon.

    I saw earlier that the Dutch PM Rutte has resigned over…well, some immigration stuff but I don’t fully understand how politics in any European country works. It sounds like for now he will stay on as a “caretaker” until an election in November. Rutte has been a big advocate for Ukraine, and I hope whoever comes next will continue that.

    I too am very scared of the possibility of a sad Patron post. I only hope it happens years after Ukraine’s victory, when he is old and retired and has lived the longest life a pup could hope for.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  8. 8.

    dmsilev

    @japa21:

    What I really don’t understand is why Russia is still continuing to strike civilian areas.  I realize at first it was meant to demoralize, but to any kind of objective observer and rational mind, it is obvious it isn’t working.

    Has it ever worked? Airpower advocates have been claiming ‘break their will to fight’ for various values of ‘they’ since roughly WWI, and sooner or later you’d think it’d lose credibility.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @japa21:

    What I really don’t understand is why Russia is still continuing to strike civilian areas.  I realize at first it was meant to demoralize, but to any kind of objective observer and rational mind, it is obvious it isn’t working.

    The re-invasion, the Special Military Operation as it is officially called in Russia, is genocidal. As I wrote almost 500 days ago, if Putin has to just repopulate the space that is Ukraine with Russians from various parts of Russia, he’s happy to do so. For Putin, if he cannot have Ukraine, then no one, including the Ukrainians themselves, can have Ukraine. When you keep this in mind the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure makes perfect, if exceedingly perverse, sense.

  10. 10.

    Anonymous At Work

    Adam,

    Thanks for answering that question from last night.  I’m flipping back and forth on their use here.  They don’t seem like good artie to use clearing ground you want to claim, 2% or 14% dud-rate, because they create their own version of a minefield full of duds.  Breaking up troop concentrations before they can attack, hitting staging areas like in Kherson Cat’s video, etc.  but what would UA, with their hopes of reclaiming territory use them for?

  11. 11.

    Anonymous At Work

    Adam,

    Before Vilnius, any idea of which countries other than Turkey and Hungary will oppose a UA membership request?  Hungary for the obvious, Turkey because they are all-but-demanding that Sweden jail/extradite/execute anyone there that was ever supportive of the Kurds.

  12. 12.

    Inventor

    I had a terse conversation with a Republican colleague this week. He was asking why “he” should pay for Ukraine’s defense. I explained it was because of the lesson of WWII. He condescendingly informed me that the U.S. fought with Russia in WWII. “That’s not the lesson”, I said. “Then what?”, he said. Now my voice got a little louder and I said “The lesson is that you can’t let the motherfucker get away with it!”

    End of conversation.

  13. 13.

    The Moar You Know

    How about that Sunak?   Paid tool of the Russian government, or bought and paid?   I report, you decide.   Seriously, fuck that guy.

  14. 14.

    NutmegAgain

    I’m joining the queue–thank you Adam!

    Wow those Azovstal guys look so much healthier than the prisoners who were kept (and pretty obviously abused–underfed at the least–by the Russians).

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anonymous At Work: My understanding is they want the cluster bombs themselves, known as bomblets, so they can rig them onto small attack drones. I’m sure they’ll use some of them in their more traditional role, but from what I read they want to deploy them from the drones they’ve been rigging to drop grenades.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anonymous At Work: I wouldn’t expect Türkiye to be a real issue here. Orban, however, is a problem. The question will be what both the Western European NATO members do and what the US does.

  21. 21.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    if you look at a cluster weapon’s detonation vs a 155mm HE shell, they cover a broad area.

    So while a single 155 HR round will take out a bunker or maybe almost a dozen yards of trench line,

    a similar cluster munition, will take out about 100 yards of the trench lines, bunkers, the second trench line and ammo bunkers, in a circle based on the center point of impact.

    They are an area weapon.

  22. 22.

    Anonymous At Work

    @The Moar You Know: Sunak is 9-figures or more, as is his wife separately.  The *TORIES* are generally in Putin’s pocket and have put some of Putin’s cronies into the House of Lords, but Sunak’s bailing the Titanic by trying to placate all parts of the party while also dealing with the crap Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Liz Truss, Suella Braverman, et alia have created.  Sunak’s like a smarter but not-braver version of Kevin McCarthy.

  23. 23.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He opposes the shipment of cluster weapons to Ukraine and say’s that the UK will not participate.

    Given the Brit’s development of the use of cluster weapons to rip up airfields,……. well.

  24. 24.

    Andrya

    @Anonymous At Work:   If I have to choose between living subjected to russian soldiers/siloviki reporting to putin, or living with the ongoing risk of being killed by dud cluster bomblets, I would choose the latter.

    The Ukrainians have committed to keeping records of where they use cluster artillery, to assist in cleanup after the war.  The russians are dumping cluster artillery by the ton into Ukraine, and no one thinks they will do anything about cleanup.

    If the choice is between giving Ukraine cluster bombs, and giving Ukraine equally effective safer stuff, the right choice is obvious.  But if the US is running low on better stuff, and the Ukrainians need more stuff that will be effective, I say give them whatever they need.

  25. 25.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Adam L Silverman: Orban got backed off Norway and Sweden by the EU, since Hungary depends on the EU and payments from EU more than most.  I expect the EU to tell Orban to look up and see what happened to Nicolae Ceaușescu (if not in so many words).

  26. 26.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Andrya: I think Adam’s got the right of it: cheap, easy, light drone grenades.  And that would help the records.  Launching a 72 cluster warhead and “counting” the individual explosions wouldn’t work but 72 separate drone drops is doable.  And UA drone operators are the new Night Witches for mobiks.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Ok, now I’m tracking. I’m not sure it really makes a difference if the UK helps with this or sits this specific type of ordnance out.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jay: The UK has signed onto the Convention banning cluster munitions.  That might be a factor in their unwillingness to supply them.  FWIW I think they should be banned.  It’s only the likelihood that the bomblets will be repurposed that keeps me from being opposed to providing them to Ukraine.

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @Anonymous At Work: I don’t think Secretary General Stoltenberg would have said that he thought Sweden’s accession was “within reach” if Turkiye’s demands are as you suggest. Turkiye and Stoltenberg both know that what you describe will not happen.

    Turkiye probably is interested more in people like the man convicted in a Stockholm court last week on extortion and gun crime charges. The indictment said he threatened a Kurdish restaurant owner for non-payment of his “tax” to the PKK, and fired a warning shot with his handgun to intimidate the Kurdish businessman.

  32. 32.

    Wombat Probability Cloud

    Thanks for your dedication, Adam. I wonder if the UKR extension eastwards to the rail trestle may lead to reactivation of that line. From what I can tell, it was taken out a year ago by HIMARS just south of the river, but even if repaired there’s a broad floodplain to cross and it’s a hell of a target.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Wombat Probability Cloud: You’re most welcome.

    As for the rail trestle, I’m not sure if repairing it and then having to defend it is worth the resources. But I’m not looking at what the Ukrainians themselves are looking at in terms of their understanding of the battle space. So they may, and I expect they do, have a very different understanding of how to proceed.

  34. 34.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I wouldn’t expect Türkiye to be a real issue here.

    Seems like it: https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-turkey-recep-tayyip-erdogan/

    After more than two hours of talks at the Vahdettin mansion in Istanbul, Erdoğan also backed Kyiv’s membership of NATO and offered a robust defense of Ukraine’s independence, declaring Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory to have contravened international law.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @Chetan Murthy: I think Erdogan meant it when he said there is “no doubt” that Ukraine deserves to be in NATO. A look at a map shows that Ukraine and Turkiye are natural economic partners and strategic allies. Their relations over the last 10 years evidence this.

    But I bet Erdogan was also glad for an opportunity to thumb Sweden in the eye.

    This coming Monday, Secretary General Stoltenberg will make one last try at bringing Erdogan around on this question before the NATO Summit, when he’ll referee a meeting in Vilnius between Erdogan and Swedish PM Kristersson.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @zhena gogolia: Something I did or said a while back pissed him off and he won’t comment in my threads. I’m pretty sure I apologized for it, but I don’t think that resolved it. So if you’re wondering why he skips these updates in terms of posting comments, I think that’s why. For my part I’ve got no issues with him.

  41. 41.

    lashonharangue

    Thanks Adam.  I think European leaders are coming around to Ukraine in NATO and the new security situation.  Don’t know if you saw this discussion between Timothy Snyder and Ivan Krastev. I found it helpful in understanding how much is changing.  I particularly recommend Krastev starting at about 1:12.30. He says even Kissinger has changed his mind and now favors Ukraine membership in NATO.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @zhena gogolia: I hope that’s all it is. But I distinctly remember writing something in a post or comment and he very clearly stating in a comment that he wasn’t going to comment in my posts ever again. I apologized or tried to and told him he was welcome, but whatever damage I had done was done.

    He’s welcome to comment as much or little as he likes in my posts. There’s no issues on my side of things.

  43. 43.

    oldster

    There’s an old tradition when working with animals: use more than one.

    46 different pigs were used in the filming of “Babe”.

    Five dolphins were used to play the role of Flipper.

    Six different dogs played Lassie in the TV series.

    So, I think you need to conceive of Patron as not one dog, but one idea of a dog, represented by who knows how many JRTs.

    The Persian army had a troop called, “The Immortals,” because any member who fell in battle was immediately replaced. In this sense, Patron will be immortal.

  44. 44.

    Chetan Murthy

    This post by Bret Devereaux about the coalition the US has assembled in recent decades is interesting: https://acoup.blog/2023/07/07/collections-the-status-quo-coalition/

    His argument is basically that the US has convinced a number of rich and free [sure, relatively so] countries to join together, and basically in support not of some particular ideology, but in favor of the status quo: the current set of rules that run the world.  Really interesting.

  45. 45.

    Andrya

    @Chetan Murthy:  I second  the recommendation- Bret Devereaux is really good.  I confess I started reading him for his commentary on “Lord of the Rings”- his thesis is that Tolkien knew a lot about ancient and medieval warfare, and incorporated that into LOTR, but that Peter Jackson didn’t get that or incorporate it into the movies.

  46. 46.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Andrya: His series “The Fremen Mirage” is well-worth the price of admission.  As is “This.  Isnt. Sparta.”  *grin

  47. 47.

    Anoniminous

    @dmsilev: ​
     
    Not really. For example, the US dropped 7.5 (or so) million tons – compared to ~2.2 million tons in all of WW 2 – of bombs during our Great Southeast Asian Adventure Tour to such stunning success Saigon is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.

  48. 48.

    Anoniminous

    @Anonymous At Work: ​
     
    They are wonderful for counter-battery fire. With any luck you can get the tube, the prime mover, some ammo, and the cannon cockers or some combination of the previous.

  49. 49.

    Torrey

    @oldster: ​
     
    As Zelenskyy pointed out early on in the invasion, this isn’t a movie.
    Many irreplaceable people and animals have died.

    What I think you’re saying is perhaps that Patron represents all the bomb-sniffing dogs of the Ukrainian forces, and indeed he does. Or perhaps the point was that he will live on in spirit, and indeed I expect that, long after he has passed away (peacefully, full of years, at home with his toys–please, God?), he will be the mascot of Ukraine’s sappers. But he’s a real live dog, not just a role. There’s no understudy waiting in the wings.

    And the fact that Patron is a real live dog and that, like pretty much everyone else in Ukraine, he is potentially in danger, is a good reminder for those of us who are watching from our places of safety.

    Just my 2 cents.

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Torrey:

    Just my 2 cents.

    I’ve never owned a pet (never felt sufficiently adult to do the job).  But I’ve watched all of you with your pets.  And I know that if, God forbid, Patron is hurt, or worse, his human will be devastated.  Devastated.

  52. 52.

    dirge

    @Chetan Murthy:  …Bret Devereaux…

    I’d recommend in the strongest terms that everyone read everything he’s written.  Entertaining, and littered with striking insights.

    His thesis that the US is leading a historically novel sort of coalition is interesting and compelling, but what I found most striking was what was left out.  What the hell is going on with the opposition balancing against this Coalition of the Status Quo?

    Logically, we expect the opposition to be composed of entities that cannot function in the free, wealthy, industrialized status quo.  What we find is Russia and the transnational right:  these are governing structures designed by and for extractive economies, which are now fighting for survival in the new world order.  Essentially, they’re protection rackets masquerading as States or corporations, which can manage agricultural or mining concerns, if inefficiently, but inevitably fail at more sophisticated endeavors.

    For that sort of entity, war still makes sense, if it can be kept to the low intensity sort.  New capital investment isn’t an option, because it creates independent power centers, but seizing existing capital in order to strip value from it makes perfect sense.  So repression at home to funnel revenues to the oligarchy, a coup in Africa or Southeast Asia to control resources, or influence operations in more sophisticated polities designed to turn corporations or whole economic sectors into targets for extraction.

    Kinda blows my mind that Bret got through that whole thing without bringing up Brexit once.

    The truth is that Putin’s campaign of corruption and subversion was working, at least for growth of his “state,” and for the occasional opportunistic mafia style bust out of other states.  It just couldn’t work for outright conquest.  Going loud was a huge mistake.

  54. 54.

    Chetan Murthy

    @dirge: I don’t like it, but even still …. Devereaux explained to me why we tolerate Erdogan’s antics.  And today we saw part of the result: he repatriated the Azovstal leaders, and said “Ukraine needs to be in NATO”.  I wish Erdogan would be better, but the US’ grand strategy is working, that I gotta admit.

  55. 55.

    dirge

    @Chetan Murthy: Devereaux explained to me why we tolerate Erdogan’s antics.

    Indeed.  And I think explained the limits of our tolerance.  So long as Erdogan’s incipient authoritarianism doesn’t tip over into predatory extraction, he’s still more or less on side. That’s presuming we define sides extremely broadly, to include everyone thinking in terms of the rational interests of their polity, and therefore the international order of which it is part, however misguided they may be, as opposed to those intent on totalitarian control, irrespective of cost.

    That all makes sense.  There’s a bright line between style, structure, and purpose of governing institutions.  One side can flourish in a world of rules, the other must subvert all rules, always and as a matter of principle, in order to survive.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @dirge: The recent Turkish elections were “free” and transparent as far as the actual voting went, and had 87% participation. The elections were not “fair” in that Erdogan’s allies control large swaths of Turkish media, and some opposition politicians are imprisoned. That includes the head of the pro-Kurdish CHP, who along with others has been in prison for years. This year the CHP had to run its candidates on the “Green Left Party” ballot line because of a pending court case that sought to ban it. CHP candidates won 60 National Assembly seats out of 600.

    Not to excuse Erdogan’s authoritarianism but rather to give it context, I note that the ruling party of Poland, a “good” NATO ally, has taken similar if not worse measures against its opposition,

    One feature of recent Turkish politics is the strength of nationalist and ultra-nationalist parties. Since 2015, when Erdogan’s AKP lost its Assembly majority. he has ruled in coalition with a nationalist party. One of opposition candidate Kilicdaroglu “Table of Six” coalition partners was a nationalist party. They strongly opposed an alliance with the CHP, which endorsed Kilicdoraglu despite this exclusion.

    While the Turkish Republic has been a democracy since its founding 100 years ago, it was a partial democracy in that there were 4 military coups since the Second World War. One resulted in the execution of the civilian government’s leaders. I think the current government may lead the longest period of civilian rule since 1950.

    Turkish law has long allowed infringement of civil rights we take for granted. At the end of his term as Istanbul mayor in 1998,. Erdogan himself recieved a 2 year prison sentence plus a ban from politics for reading a poem. Prosecutors said it was anti-miitary and pro-Islamist, and the judges agreed (Erdogan ended up serving several months, and the ban was later revoked).

    Turkish law has also long allowedd judicial interference in political policy. For instance, in  2011 when Erdogan started exploring a peace settlement with the insurgent PKK, prosecutors opened an investigation of his emissary, Hakan Fidan, for illegal contact with terrorists. Authorities ended the investigation, and negotiations held promise amidst a ceasefire until 2015, when Turkiye intervened in northwest Syria against the PKK-affiliated YHP.

    Fidan went on to head Turkeye’s Intelligence agency, and since June has been served as Foreign Minister. Fidan is one of Erdogan’s most trusted associates and is considered a potential successor. Interestingly, his father is a Kurd.

    For all of Turkiye’s economic problems, Erdogan still won reelection because a majority of Turks are confident in his leadership. While his autocratic tendencies may be troubling with respect to Turkey’s domestic politics, I have been learning about Erdogan in the context of this war, and tend to judge him within that framework. So I think it’s a good thing that it’s Erdogan and not Kilicdaroglu who is negotiating with Ukraine and Russia now.

    And I tend to judge Turkiye as a nation within that framework. They and Ukraine are natural economic partners and strategic allies. Turkiye has 85 million people, and fields NATO’s second largest Army, 3rd largest Air Force, and a Navy trained and equipped to NATO standards. If and when Ukraine joins NATO, they will have a strong and friendly NATO ally right across the Black Sea from them, and Turkiye will have effectively contained Russia, historically their greatest nemisis.

  58. 58.

    oldster

    @Torrey:

    I agree with everything you say, starting with the awful fact that the war in Ukraine is not a movie.

    But Patron is part of a large and successful ongoing campaign for PR and morale. Whether he is still a single dog or already several dogs, his image contributes to Ukraine’s victory and the expulsion of the invaders. 

    A PR campaign like this is vital to a brutal war, but also shares some features with a movie. One of those features is that there may be some slippage between image and reality.

    Should Patron die in the line of duty — dog forbid — his handlers and the managers of this campaign will need to decide what will make a better contribution to the war effort: acknowledging the death of one dog, to make him a martyr, or recruiting a new dog to play the same role and carry on the campaign. The humans who know that dog will of course be devastated. But they will get up the next day and fight the war as well as they can, just like the Ukrainians devastated by the loss of human loved ones.

    You do know that “Patron” means a bullet-round, right? The whole cartridge or the lead slug that is fired by the gun — that’s a patron. It’s as though they named him Short Round. There are many rounds in a magazine, and many rounds are expended in a war.

    I’m not treating the war like a movie, I’m just saying that war-time propaganda borrows many of the same techniques. Consider this piece of propaganda, from an equally brutal war:

    “Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

    And alas, the same goes for little doggies in war-time.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    @AndoChronic: I’m not Adam, but it’s old, tired bullshit. I stopped reading after this: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime, although one that was provoked by NATO expansion and by U.S. backing of the 2014 “Maidan” coup, which ousted democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.”

  63. 63.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @dirge:

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m sorry, but Devereaux’s looong note is pretty divorced from reality, devoid of actual data or analyses of actual actions & policy statements from a broad range of nations in the world. A few key points:

    The “status quo” that the supposed coalition is defending is not defined, which is an exceedingly common analytical blind spot among USians when it comes to asserting that the US is a “status quo power” defending a “liberal rules based international order”: what is the status quo, what order, whose rules, what is the enforcement mechanism & is it broadly & consistently applied in any meaningful way, which countries buy in & which countries do not, etc.

    The “status quo” that the US is defending is multi-faceted, & different actors in the US focus on different aspects: for some it is US primacy, for others it is set of rules & norms that structurally favor the West/Global North; depending on the definition of “status quo” the size of the coalition that the US can muster varies greatly as well

    He ignores the ways in which the US itself has become revisionist in the past 2 decades (& indeed always has been a revisionist power since its founding): trying to “redesign” the Middle East w/ the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, unilateral withdrawal from international treaties (ABM, JCPOA & Paris Accord), weaponizing global dependencies on the US (dependencies that the US once touted as global “public goods”) against geopolitical rivals (such as the sanctions on Iran after Trump left the JCPOA, & sanctions aimed at hobbling Chinese telecom giant Huawei), rendering the WTO completely dysfunctional (started under Trump but continued under Biden, much to the ire of all of the US’ trade partners), embracing the kind of industrial policy & government intervention in cross-border flow of goods & capitals that it had spent decades decrying (in this way becoming evermore like China, & not even China has tried to tell companies that if you want to take advantage of our tax credits & subsidies you cannot invest in our geopolitical rivals, as the US has done w/ the CHIPS Act)

    If the US truly behaved like a status quo power, seeking to lead a balancing coalition to insure against the downside risk of aggressive behavior from a rising China, while working to diversity supply chains to reduce the dependencies on China (in some areas almost total dependency right now), then there would be many willing takers; indeed exactly such a balancing coalition for exactly such a purpose has formed in parts of the Indo-Pacific & is expanding to Europe; however, despite the recent assertions by the Biden Administration, in the assessment of many seasoned Western China analysts (too many generalists & non-China SMEs are getting in on the grift now) & feared by many allied/partner capitals, the US in facts wants to contain China & constrain its technological/economic development so that it can never supplant the US; parts of the national security state in the US certainly wants full on decoupling & containment (notwithstanding what Blinken & Yellen have recently said in Beijing), large parts of Congress (Rs & Ds) would like to get on w/ the Cold War 2.0, & most of the GOP seem to expect & welcome a hot war; de-coupling/containment/cold war/hot war to defend/regain primacy is where the US will lose almost all of its allies & partners, they are not that invested in US primacy

    The dynamic of “status quo coalition” + “non-aligned movement” isolating revisionist powers is really only operative wrt Russia as of this moment, defending the sanctity of national borders & national sovereignty w/in Europe, where even the countries that abstain or vote “No” in UNGA motions censuring Russia are not acting to support the latter, except indirectly & only exactly as far as they secure material benefits (such as China & India); for the dynamic to work against China the latter has be much more aggressive, though at times China certainly seem to work at that

    The “non aligned” camp have no interest in a Sino-US or Russo-US Cold War, & do not intend to choose sides even if such Cold War arrives; however, that does not mean they are agnostic to the “status quo”; in fact, almost all of the Global South are deeply dissatisfied w/ the current state of affairs that structurally advantages the Global North, where their agencies are rarely recognized let alone respected; many in the developing world also harbor varying degrees of skepticism toward the kind of changes to the international order that China might bring, they do welcome reforms to the existing order to shift away from the West, & the kind of reform principles advocated by China (even if cynically offered) find ready audience in the Global South; although India has been pushed into éntente w/ the US to meeting rising Chinese power & influence in South Asia, it is also a power dissatisfied w/ the status quo & would like to see reforms that bring greater advantages to itself at the expense of the West

     

    He cites that the number of Chinese allies have not increased despite prodigious increase in Chinese power over the past decades, but ignores that Chinese foreign policy eschews alliance entanglements & commitments; he also ignores that almost all of Africa has become a reliable bloc supporting Chinese views/proposals in the UN & other international organizations, as well as in international discourse in general, same for at least some in SE Asia, S. Asia, & Lat. America

    The single Pew poll he cites is heavily weighed to Global North countries that have been part of the formal US alliance/partnership structure since the 1st Cold War, Global South is severely under represented despite making up vast majority of the world’s nation-states & population; furthermore, regional polls conducted by regional organizations (especially in Africa) have shown much greater skepticism of the US; I suspect the Kenyan & Nigerian favorability numbers from the Pew poll reflects the continued US strength in soft power, whether cultural/economic/educational, but it you polled Kenyans/Nigerians on their opinions of the actions of the USG & US corporations & their impact in Kenya/Nigeria, the numbers are likely to be starkly different

    The dynamic, even if it is exactly as he describes, pretty much evaporates as soon as the current GOP wins the White House

  64. 64.

    Andrya

    @Chetan Murthy: I thought Devereaux’s article was insightful, and largely true, but I think it underestimated one factor:  World War I was the first war where three things were all present:

    1. The carnage was overwhelming and unbelievable, both in absolute numbers and as a percent of the population.  (My grandfather lost all 3 of his brothers in WW1.  JRR Tolkien said after the war “by 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead”.)

    2.  It involved democracies, and in those democracies the war involved the entire military age male population.  There was no escaping it.  (I remember how the university I attended exploded in 1971 when the student deferment was abolished- my peers could live with the Vietnam war when it only involved working class young men, but not when it was coming for THEM.)

    3.  WW1 was a war of choice, started by elites who thought the war would give them territorial gains.  (Emperor Franz Josef and Tsar Nicholas II both wanted to dominate the Balkans; Kaiser Wilhelm thought he could scarf up some colonies.)

    As a child my first exposure to these issues was hearing the WW1 reminiscences of my grandfather, who served in the British army, and the grocer around the corner, who had served in the Tsarist army.  Both had the same sense of overwhelming waste and betrayal- such unbelievable destruction for no reason.

    I think it was due to this experience that people in democracies started demanding a rule “no wars for territorial gain”, and this resulted in the current rules based order.  Of course, it was implemented with a good deal of hypocrisy and immorality (“a war of choice isn’t so bad if it only kills brown people”).  It’s worth noting that at the Versailles Conference in 1919, Ho Chi Minh (a Paris restaurant worker at the time) petitioned the conference for self-determination for Vietnam, only to be told (essentially) “no, no, that’s just for white people”.

    putin wants to take the world back to the time when starting WW1 for gain is a viable option.

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    @Chetan Murthy: The characterization of Erdogan’s decisions regarding this war is typical of Westerners, but I think unjustified. Turks and others including myself would describe them as shrewd assertions of Turkish national interests. Erdogan surged munitions to Ukraine in the weeks and days leading up to Russia’s invasion. These were not publicized, but a stranded Turkish cargo jet was a visible result. The Russians could have destroyed it, but they would not let it fly out for five months, a minor example of Erdogan’s transactional, “frenemy” relationship with Putin.

    Erdogan pushed through the Black Sea Grain Deal and when the Russians tried to suspend it last October after a sea-drone attack on Sevastopol, Erdogan backed them down. Turkiye announced that a convoy would sail, and Erdogan told reporters that the grain deal involved Turkiye’s “vital national interests”- diplomatic-speak for, We’ll fight over this if we have to. Then his Defense Minister repeated the warning. The fleet sailed to Istanbul, and the Russians just grumbled.

    Turkiye has not imposed the economic sanctions on Russia that other NATO countries have, but they are not obliged to under their treaty obligations. And other NATO countries have bought plenty of Russian natural gas, oil and coal since the war began. Turkiye helps Ukraine on its own terms, because they have different interests than their NATO allies.

    Ukraine understands that Turkiye is “dancing at both weddings,” as one Ukrainian official put it. They know the whole story, though, and that the balance is in their favor.

  66. 66.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Geminid: Yes, plenty of European nations have bought Russian gas 2nd hand via China (w/ a big mark up) & Russian oil 2nd hand via India (w/ a big mark up). The greatest beneficiaries from these transactions have been China & India.

    Why not U.S. LNG? Too expensive.

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