Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

Shut up, hissy kitty!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

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

We won’t go back.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

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

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

I was promised a recession.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 542: CHERNIHIV!!!!!

War for Ukraine Day 542: CHERNIHIV!!!!!

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(Image, entitled Chernihiv, by NEIVANMADE)

Today is the Eastern Orthodox Day of Transfiguration, which is celebrated in Ukraine as the Apple Feast of the Savior. It is also the day that Russia opened up on civilians and civilian targets in Chernihiv.

Chernihiv. The historical heart of the old city. A beautiful summer Saturday. They targeted a theatre, just as in Mariupol. This time, it wasn’t a bomb, but a russian missile. Civilians, including children, have been injured and killed. Another “important military target” was destroyed. And this will be repeated again and again. Not only in Ukraine, but elsewhere, until we stop this evil, until all war criminals are punished.

This is what it means to live next to a terrorist state. This is what we are uniting the entire world against.

Today, a Russian missile hit the heart of Chernihiv. A square, a university, and a theater. Russia turned an ordinary Saturday into a day of pain and loss. There are casualties. My condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one. All services are working on the site. Rescuers, police, doctors.

I urge the world to stand up to Russian terror. Provide Ukraine with additional tools to safeguard life. For life to win, Russia must lose this war.

 

As of now, seven people are reported dead and 117 injured as a result of a russian ballistic missile attack on the Chernihiv Theater. Among the dead is a 6-year-old girl. Doctors are fighting for her mother’s life. Most of the victims were outside the theater at the time of the attack; they had just gathered in the city center on a day off. Hundreds of Chernihiv residents lined up at the city’s blood transfusion center. The next three days have been declared days of mourning in Chernihiv.
📷 @sesu

A machine translation of the last posted update from Ukrainian Interior Minister Klymenko’s Telegram channel:

War for Ukraine Day 542: CHERNIHIV!!!!!

The Kyiv Independent has more details:

Russian forces targeted the city center of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine on the morning of Aug. 19, killing at least seven people, including a six-year-old child.

Twenty-five people were hospitalized, Klymenko wrote earlier.

“A 12-year-old girl is urgently taken to Kyiv by ambulance. The child is in serious condition,” Klymenko wrote on Telegram.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the missile strike impacted Chernihiv’s central square, polytechnic institute, and theater.

“Here’s what it means to be neighbors with a terrorist state, here’s what we are uniting the entire world against,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

“A regular Saturday turned into a day of pain and loss caused by Russia.”

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brinks expressed solidarity with the victims, saying she was  “horrified by news of today’s daytime attack on the historic center of Chernihiv.”

“Innocent men, women, and children enjoying a beautiful Saturday – a holiday in Ukraine – should never end up killed or wounded,” Brinks wrote on Twitter.

“Russia’s missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s cities, ports, and people reflect the depths to which Russia has sunk and must stop.”

According to Chernihiv Oblast Governor Viacheslav Chaus, Russian troops likely used a ballistic missile to attack the city.

Following the attack, there have been unconfirmed reports in Ukrainian media that the missile targeted the site where Ukrainian drone producers were holding an exhibition.

The Kyiv Independent confirmed that an exhibition of drone producers was planned for Aug. 19 in Chernihiv, but the location was kept secret. The registered visitors were going to receive the address hours before the event.

Russian government-controlled RIA Novosti news site reported, citing unnamed sources, that the attack on Chernihiv “hit the gathering place of Ukraine’s Armed Forces military specialists on combat drones, which was disguised as a drone festival.”

The media posted what it claims was an invitation to the event that asked visitors not to bring weapons and wear civilian clothes “to avoid identifying the event as being related to the military sphere.”

Klymenko earlier said most of the attack’s victims were people in cars, those crossing the road nearby, and people returning from church service.

One of the photos from the scene shows a body with a traditional church basket next to it.

Klymenko said that “everyone who was in the drama theater went down to the shelter in time,” as police officers “tried to take everyone to the shelter” after the air raid alert went off.

“There is also a large park behind the drama theater. Mothers were walking there with their children since morning,” he said.

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

Step by step, we are getting closer to Swedish Gripen aircraft appearing in our skies – address of President of Ukraine

20 August 2023 – 01:08

Dear Ukrainians!

Today, we are working all day in Sweden, now we are finishing the day in Stockholm. Weapons for our warriors are the main thing. There are results, and they are much needed results.

Armored vehicles – СV90, cool vehicles. Just what is needed at the front. Not only supply from partners – although we are accelerating it – but also production in Ukraine. Our production. New production. There is an agreement with Sweden on the production of СV90 in our country. Everything powerful that serves us now, we must localize and produce. We will do so.

The second is Archer systems for our gunners. Our boys are already studying in Sweden. The powerful system, the necessary system. We are working to have more of them in Ukraine.

The third is modern aviation. We are trying very, very hard to increase the capabilities of military aviation. This is one of the hardest tasks, but I am sure: we will accomplish it. Now, we have a breakthrough result regarding Gripen fighters – cool, modern Swedish combat aircraft. Our soldiers are already starting to test them. And we are step by step, negotiation by negotiation, we are getting closer to the fact that Gripen fighters will appear in our sky. Today, in particular, I talked about this with the Prime Minister of Sweden, with representatives of the Swedish parliamentary parties. Thank you for understanding our needs! We are working on the beginning of the stage with the training of our boys on Gripen fighters. We will discuss the details.

Today, there was a good and meaningful audience with King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia – I visited them together with Olena. Grateful for the support of Ukraine and our people, grateful for the understanding of what Ukrainians have to go through now.

Today, various leaders, representatives of states, and international organizations condemned yet another extremely vile Russian attack on Ukraine, on our Chernihiv. I am grateful to everyone in the world who today expressed condolences to Ukraine, our people.

Unfortunately, seven people died in Chernihiv from a Russian missile, among them is a girl, her name was Sofia, she was six years old… My condolences to the relatives! There are 144 wounded and injured, including 15 children. The missile just hit the center of the city. And this is on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, an Orthodox holiday.

A total of 140 people performed the rescue operation. Doctors, emergency services, military, local authorities – everyone helped. Thank you to everyone who saved the lives of children, adults – everyone.

And I would especially like to mention the emergency paramedics Liudmyla Kopysh and Viacheslav Prokhorenko, the employees of the State Emergency Service Serhiy Kostenko, Vladyslav Sokolenko, Yuriy Ovrutsky, Valeriy Morhatsky, Oleksiy Marchenko and Viktor Dovzhenko, and policemen Andriy Vovk and Andriy Zeliak. Thanks to all of you!

I am sure: our soldiers will respond to Russia for this terrorist attack. Respond tangibly.

Glory to all who protect our state and our people!

Glory to Ukraine!

From Mykhailo Podolyak, the senior advisor to President Zelenskyi:

Another demonstrative Russian bloody terrorist attack with dozens of victims in the center of Chernihiv on a day off, when families are walking in the city with children, once again poses the question for the supporters of realpolitik: can the war end without punishing war criminals? The answer is obvious: any recognition of terrorists will only contribute to the legalization of terrorist methods, and without official restoration of justice, it would be replaced by “unofficial” methods. Every criminal who has blood in their hands must and will be held accountable.

Let’s repeat for people from a parallel reality… It was Russia that attacked a sovereign state. It is Russia that is waging war using terrorist and genocidal practices. Does Russia want peace talks? First, it is necessary to withdraw the troops from the territory of Ukraine. Otherwise, the adequacy of Russian representatives (including Lavrov), who declare they do not want to talk about peace with them, raises doubts. After all, peace is not war and murders of citizens of another country.

The Russians were not content with executing a war crime and crime against humanity today. Overnight they pummeled Khmelnytskyi Oblast.

Russia attacked Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi Oblast with drones overnight on Aug. 19, damaging nearly 400 buildings, Serhii Tiurin, first deputy head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Military Administration, told Suspilne media outlet.

The attack damaged administrative buildings, schools, communal facilities, and hundreds of residential houses in Medzhybizh and Derazhnia communities, Tiurin said, as reported by the media.

Tiurin reported explosions in Khmelnytskyi Oblast at around 3:40 a.m. Later in the morning, he confirmed that Russian drones attacked the oblast, saying that two women were injured.

However, later in the day, he told Suspilne there were no casualties.

The Air Force Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported that Russia had launched 17 Iranian-made Shahed 136/131 drones from its western Kursk region, adding that air defense was at work in Ukraine’s northern and western oblasts.

Ukraine downed 15 of the 17 drones, according to the report.

The Air Force Command, however, did not specify where the two drones that were not shot down hit.

You’ll notice there’s not a single military target on the list in the quote box above.

Russian strikes in Haliaipole also killed a Ukrainian.

Russian forces shelled the town of Huliaipole in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on Aug. 19, the Interior Ministry reported.

The attack killed an elderly woman and injured an elderly man, who was hospitalized, the ministry said.

According to the ministry, one residential house was damaged, and another building caught fire due to the attack.

From the Ministry of International Affairs Telegram channel (machine translated).

Soltsy, Russia:

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

Open thread…

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    I just don’t even know what to fucking say. And I don’t understand how so many people in this world are seemingly content with allowing all of this to continue. It’s not their theaters and churches and schools and medical facilities and playgrounds being bombed. It’s not their children and parents and spouses and siblings and friends being murdered. It’s not their nation being decimated. So they don’t really care. And that complete lack of empathy is almost as frightening to me as the russians’ maniacal thirst for death.

    If you need something to remind you that not everyone sucks, this short subtitled video from the visit to Sweden by Zelenskyy and his wife is very nice. The matching flags are notable, and I liked the small touch of them putting a vase of sunflowers on the table.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  4. 4.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ivan X: In the beginning, I was counting on the incompetence of the Russians to make short work of the war but it turns out they are very good at being beyond awful.

  7. 7.

    wjca

    @Alison Rose:

    I don’t understand how so many people in this world are seemingly content with allowing all of this to continue. It’s not their theaters and churches and schools and medical facilities and playgrounds being bombed. It’s not their children and parents and spouses and siblings and friends being murdered. It’s not their nation being decimated. So they don’t really care.

    Consider how many Russia (or at least Putin) supporters here are also just fine with repeated mass school shootings right here.  Suddenly their relaxed attitude towards children being killed in Ukraine becomes much less surprising.

  8. 8.

    japa21

    I may just be engaging in wishful thinking (not uncommon with me), but there is an increased air of desperation in what Russia is doing. They cannot destroy Ukraine unless they use nukes, which they won’t do. Ukraine’s counteroffensive is picking up speed. This is to provide some “good news” to the home audience. But as attacks hit all the way into Moscow, that is harder to do.

  9. 9.

    oldster

    @japa21:

    I’m right with you in thinking wishfully.

    What I hear is that Ukraine is winning the artillery war, and increasingly winning the counter-battery war. They are destroying ruzzian artillery while keeping their own in action. And that in turn allows them to make good use of the flood of cluster munitions that the US and other NATO nations are turning over to them. Which in turn allows them to clear trenches.

    The progress is painfully slow, and comes at a horrible cost in lives. But as they keep pushing south, they are getting closer to putting the coastal road under artillery control. And once they cut the coastal road, and cut the Kerch Bridge, it will be much easier to blockade Crimea.

    I wish that all of Ukraine’s allies would speed up the process. Ukraine is losing its best and brightest every day. But I still believe that the progress is happening and gaining momentum.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ivan X: All wars end. So it will, eventually, stop. But it isn’t going to stop soon unless the US our NATO and non-NATO allies provide more of what Ukraine needs right now. Or they decide that enough is enough and intervene on Ukraine’s behalf. I don’t expect the latter to happen. As for the former, it might, but I haven’t seen anything to indicate that anyone in the Biden administration is operating in line with John Wesley’s aphorism: “I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.”

    The Ukrainians have made it clear they will not give up. Their societal resilience has been amazing. Unfortunately, while Russia has demonstrated that they can’t win, what they have demonstrated is that it will be difficult to make them lose. And, of course, one of the major ways of Putin’s strategy is time. The longer the war goes on, the better Putin thinks things will get for him. He thinks the food crisis he’s created and now enlarged will create pressure on the US, the EU, NATO, and especially Ukraine to give in. He thinks the refugee crisis that the food crisis will create will also lead to similar pressure, but also play into the hands of the proxy extremist parties and movements he supports in Europe and the US. And he is playing for time in the hope that Trump will be elected in 2024 and that at least one chamber of Congress will be in Republican hands.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betsy: Hope is, unfortunately, not a strategy. The Ukrainians will strike back, but they are all too likely to see more days like today.

  12. 12.

    NutmegAgain

    Altogether horrifying. And, it seems to me that the attacks on Ukrainian cities have been ramping up lately. In common with many people who have abusive partners, it’s easy to go around and around to try and figure out why? why why? How can they be so monstrous?. But really, we just need to rally and put pressure on our governments to provide more arms to Ukraine, lots more and now/soon. Who cares why the Russians are so breathtakingly, indescribably awful. They are. Lets deal with them.

  13. 13.

    Will

    I really hope these talks about the Gripen are true. It’s way superior than the F-16 for the needs of Ukraine. Yes, F-16s will be good, but the front line nature of Ukraine even after they win the war will be under constant threat like Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Baltic nations would be better served by Gripens that can easily be disbursed to even dirt roads as their mainstay strike fighter. The sooner they receive these the better, obviously.

  14. 14.

    Chetan Murthy

    Paul Poast (IR scholar) asks an intriguing question: maybe Russia is the lynchpin state in international conflict, and always has been.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1204745930144174080.html

    In short, the major wars that influence our thinking about international security involved Russia.

    So are IR scholars studying why states fight war, or are we simply explaining Russia’s foreign policy & reactions to Russia’s foreign policy? 

  15. 15.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Adam, what do you think motivated the recent spate of leaks by anonymous U.S. officials to American press that snipe at the way Ukraine is conducting the offensive (especially chickensh*t comments about Ukraine being “casualty averse”) & even claiming that “Milley was right” to call for early negotiations, or alternatively, the framing adopted by the relevant press in these articles, or both?

    Is it the Biden Administration doing a poor job of trying to manage public expectations, individual officials irresponsibly showing off their access & “perspicacity” to their media contacts, or GOP friendly elements burrowed into the natsec state promoting Putin friendly narratives?

    Your post yesterday seem to suggest that this is poor/undisciplined communication from the Administration. I wonder if something more sinister is at work. I am generally not one for CTs, but a lot of GOP friendly reactionaries where burrowed into the government bureaucracy (not just political appointees) during the GWB years, & the GOP tried to do/did the same during the Trump years. The U.S. is gearing up for the 2024 elections. The more recent leaks & media frame seem to go beyond just pessimistic assessments, but promoting a narrative that benefits Putin. Among all of the variations of foreign policy proposals from the GOP sphere (politicians, ex-political appointees, think tankers) & all of their varied justifications, the common feature/downstream effect appears to be taking the pressure off Putin.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chetan Murthy: International Relations focuses on states and their relations within the global system. As such the only wars they care about are interstate wars. Two or more nation-state combatants, using primarily regular forces fighting under their states’ flags in uniforms, with a minimum of 1,000 battlefield deaths. But most wars are small wars or low intensity wars. And many of those don’t just involve regular forces. So this revelation only works within that context.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if it is just lax and sloppy strategic communications or if it is an attempt by the administration to signal to the Ukrainians that time is running out for the US to be able to keep supporting them the way we have been. Or if it is something else.

  18. 18.

    Anoniminous

    This convinces me the Russian military are as dumb as a sack of hammers. This kind of random murder does not advance them one iota towards military victory.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anoniminous: My guess is they decide the drone expo was close enough to a legitimate target that they could do this and then claim they weren’t targeting civilians. I had a troll at Bluesky suggest that in my timeline there. I have blocked him.

  20. 20.

    Anoniminous

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At a time when Ukrainians are reportedly on the cusp of a significant tactical victory on the Tokmak axis pissing away a military asset like drones to attack civilians is just stupid.  They are fighting a war not spinning the media in a political campaign.

    And, yes, I familiar with Clausewitz’s observation “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”  Carl can bite me.  :-)

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: If the Administration wants to plant a seed in Ukrainian minds to consider negotiations, it 1st needs to do its utmost to help Ukraine achieve major victories on the battlefield (such as taking Melitopol), so that Ukraine sits at the negotiation table w/ a strong hand.

    You have mentioned before that elements of the US natsec state think Ukraine is an unwelcome distraction to the Great Power Competition w/ China, & elements among the GOP aligned “intelligentsia” just wants to get the “inevitable” hot war w/ China over w/. I sense that vibe is getting stronger as the 2024 campaign starts to intensify.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anoniminous: I’m not saying it was a good idea.

    Also, it is “war is politics with other means.” “By other means” is an inaccurate translation.

  23. 23.

    Anoniminous

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​
     
    The US is not going to fight a war with China.
    China is not going to invade Taiwan.
    Neither country comes anywhere close to having the necessary sea power capability in the face of modern anti-ship missiles.

  24. 24.

    Gin & Tonic

    Was at the beach today, my current escapist read is Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. It’s a travelogue of a train journey he took through most of Asia, retracing a train journey he took in the early 1970’s. The timeframe is a little vague, but say roughly 2006. The end of the chapter on Cambodia is:

    As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma and elsewhere — the truer shout is not “Never again” but “Again and again.”

    Can’t say he’s wrong.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: I think it goes beyond that. I think too many of the senior nat-sec appointees in the administration are far too risk averse. That when it comes to national security issues they are very small “c” conservative. And that they’ve completely bought into the tactical use of nuclear weapons stuff that is in Russian military doctrine and in Putin and other Russian officials and propagandists rhetoric. And, as a result, Putin and Russia have a major voice in the Biden administration’s strategic calculus and decision making. And it works. All the Russians have to do is suggest they might consider using a nuke tactically and the Biden administration gets another case of the vapors.

    Here’s the tale of the tape:

  29. 29.

    Chetan Murthy

    Ukraine: You know, your trade with Russia (and with countries that are cutouts for Russia) is giving them the money and dual-use goods (chips, precision equipment, software) to fuel their war machine; it’s killing us.

    The West: Yeah, we can’t do anything about that: we’re a coalition of free countries, and each country gets to decide their trade rules

    Ukraine: Uh, OK.  In that case, could you give us enough weapons so that we can just *end* this thing?  B/c it’s dragging on and on, and your trade isn’t helping to stifle Russia’s war machine, yanno?

    The West: Yeah, we can’t do that: we need those weapons to protect ourselves from Russia.

     

    We’re such unutterably feckless bastards.

  30. 30.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Not necessarily mutually exclusive. The foreign policy conservatism (at least wrt risks they can identify) among Biden Administrations senior political appointees could make them more susceptible to arguments/recommendations from the bureaucracy that skew to a certain direction, & I am not seeing the Administration trying to instill greater message discipline. I am generally sympathetic to certain types of realism that advocate for foreign policy restraint (not the vulgar realists who are naked primacists in disguise), & I do think everyone should tread very carefully when there is the prospect of nuclear escalation (there is no do-overs after a nuclear exchange), but the way the US has dribbled out military aid to Ukraine throughout the war is hard to justify, whether from a moralist, liberal internationalist, or realist perspective. There is no longer any excuse, here in late Summer 2023. The US/NATO had ended up crossing multiple so called “red lines” drawn by Moscow, anyway, w/o consequence, since those lines were obviously preposterous.

    OTOH, I think the burrowed reactionaries in the natsec apparatus is an underappreciated threat. We have seen this play out during the Obama Administration, facing sabotage from parts of the bureaucracy when trying to execute policy (mostly on the domestic side, then). We have seen how susceptible at least some among the USAF’s officer corps are to Christian fundamentalism, & how susceptible elements of the FBI are to reactionary ideas. The DHS is home to some of the worst Fascist-adjacent types in government. We have certainly seen the damage they can do in the judicial branch. Many in the “Blob” are unapologetically US primacists, w/o the veneer of liberal internationalism.

  31. 31.

    Anoniminous

    @Chetan Murthy:

    We’re such unutterably feckless bastards.

    After 20 years of Little Georgie’s Great Mesopotamian Project for a New American Century Adventure Tour you are just figuring that out?

  32. 32.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Anoniminous: It’s not just the US.  It’s the entire West.  Indeed, I’m more pissed-off at Europe than I am at the US: If they allow Russia to win, or Ukraine to emerge a wrecked husk, unable to be built back into a heavily armed fortress on the Eastern marches of Europe, they’re in for a shitty, shitty time.  And they’re fucking waltzing into this, the fools.

  33. 33.

    Prescott Cactus

    @Anoniminous:

    My concern is that China may initiate greater difficulties with Taiwan.  Their leaders / government may want a moral victory of sorts to divert attention from their deepening economic crisis.

    The economy is deteriorating due to the real estate crash. Major developers are beginning to go bankrupt. Housing prices are falling. Non state banks that sold real estate backed bonds are defaulting. It’s going to get much worse over there.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Russia’s doctrine on this is straight up psychological operations. Their actual doctrine on psychological operations and information warfare says this explicitly. I’m not being cavalier, I’m actually reading what they publish and listening to what they’re saying.

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:

    good at being beyond awful.

    Sorry, I have to go there. They are the lowest of the low of actual humanity. They are human waste. The last time I saw any figures the average wage of a russian citizen was about 20k/year. All of the people at the top of the pile are billionaires. They rape their own country and screw over their own citizens, what they do to Ukraine is far worse. vlad doesn’t care in the least that thousands of his own citizens will die along with thousands of citizens of Ukraine, all for his pride and greed. vlad is wrong and if anyone in his country had the balls, they would find a way…….

  36. 36.

    Lyrebird

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​
     

    I think you might be understating the right wing lean of the FBI there! But if so, that supports your point further. I have about .01% of Adam’s knowledge of the nat sec world, but I will run my yap anyhow.

    I have more recent points of contact with the State Dept, and I can not even imagine what a mess they must still be in, after those years under Trump. Of course this does not make all Dem choices good! But I would say that floating the idea of a mob hit on one’s own ambassador makes Watergate pale in comparison. In the first impeachment trial, the vibe I got from all of those diplomats was extreme discomfort and shock. And Trump was not removed, Vindman was.

    If I understood from Adam’s posts a couple years ago, the Biden administration was able to remove the blatantly obvious hacks and mobsters from the Pentagon. Wasn’t Kash Patel one of them? But might there be quite a few quieter MAGA loons still in there?

    Anyhow, I hope people also read the piece from Kos Moulitsas about that rotten WaPo article. He does not always see things the same way Adam does, but I always learn from reading both places.

    So how can the story paint this as a “grim assessment”?

    Maybe the reporters and editors who worked on the article don’t know enough about the war and geography and artillery to know that “reaching Melitopol” isn’t the goal. The goal is to cut off the land bridge. And to do that, all Ukraine has to do is get within 20 kilometers of Melitopol’s supply roads.

    The second option is that the report has gone through a game of telephone, and repeated tellings have mangled what it actually states. Heck, maybe it was leaked and selectively quoted by a MAGA Republican trying to build opposition to any further Ukraine aid. And, back to the point above, the people working on the story don’t understand what they’re writing and fell for bad spin.

    Because, to be very clear, if U.S. intelligence truly says that Ukraine will get close to Melitopol, the headline should be very different.

  37. 37.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Lyrebird: This is right.  There is no  way Ukraine is going to try to *enter* Melitopol.  They’ll go around it and continue to the coast, at the most.  Why would they need or want to take the city?  It’s great to do eventually, but short-term, the imperative is to cut it off from resupply.

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: I have no doubt that you are doing that.  I, however, do not believe that others are not reading and listening as well.  They seem to weigh the risk or downside of getting the calculation wrong differently.  Getting it wrong would have pretty serious consequences.

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:

    Дерьмо для мозгов is their version of dump. That first letter might need to be a t rather than a d.

    A pompous, arrogant, whatever who thinks the world revolves around the stick he rammed up his butt decades ago. His entire personality revolves around that ego stick he rammed somewhere decades ago. He and SFB should be shoulder to shoulder on a worlds most wanted poster.

  40. 40.

    Anoniminous

    @Prescott Cactus:

    Spare me.  While Capitalist Economics have constantly been predicting Doom-n-Gloom the Chinese economy has grown from 163.43 billion (US) and a GDP per capita of 179 in 1975 to 17,992.70 billion (US) in 2022 with per capita of 12,741.

    Three days ago Morgan Stanley projected the Chinese economy would grow by 4.7%.  They’ll be fine

  41. 41.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Prescott Cactus: Study of the history PRC foreign actions actually indicates an aversion to external risk at times of heightened domestic difficulties, aiming for a more stable external environment so that the focus can be on solving the domestic issues. & the CCP regime is probably the most risk averse in the world to begin w/. The Sino-Indian War of 1962 happened after the Great Leap Forward ended in 1961, the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 occurred after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

    The calculus of the CCP regime might change if the domestic challenges are deemed so severe as to be unsolvable & will threaten the regime’s hold on power, but that is not where we are. The economic slow down is probably on par w/ that of 2015 (which official Chinese statistics smoothed out), less challenging than the post-Global Financial Crisis or the post-Asian Financial Crisis periods. China has to definancialize the property sector w/o it completely seizing up, restructure the trillions of Local Government Financing Vehicle debt, shifting economic gears away from a high degree of dependence on real estate to other sources of growth (green energy transition, Industry 4.0, increased non-real estate consumption, etc.). The attempt at economic transition could fail, deleveraging/restructuring is always painful, & shifting gears is never not messy, but the current challenges are not necessarily worse than the collapse of exports following the GFC (making 20 – 40M assembly line workers unemployed), SOE reforms of the late 90s that took away the “iron rice bowl” from 80M workers & threw them to the wind, or the transition from completely planned economy in the 80s that led to hyperinflation (& precipitated social unrest that culminated in Tiananmen Square in ‘89). Almost all of the symptoms of the Chinese economic slow down can be traced to the deflation of the real estate bubble, which the Chinese government precipitated in 2020 as a policy choice (& directionally correct one, execution not so much).

    Of course, the Chinese government can no longer kick the can down the road w/ another massive stimulus. It can afford one, but that will merely exacerbate the economic distortions that the deflation of the real estate sector was intended to solve, & lead to worse outcomes later. The external environment is also less benign – global trade has been falling sharply this year everywhere, even as China has maintained increasingly massive trade surpluses, gained share in global manufacturing through the pandemic & continued to gain share in the global manufacturing value added (already as large as the US & the EU combined). Then there is the still ongoing trade war & still escalating tech war w/ the US. However, there is no evidence that Xi or the CCP regime has deemed the situation hopeless.

    In the words of Evan Feigenbaum at the Carnegie Endowment, for Xi “Taiwan is a crisis to be avoided, & not an opportunity to be seized”.

  42. 42.

    Lyrebird

    @Chetan Murthy: ​
      Why would they need or want to take the city?

    Great question!

    I also was amazed at the restraint of Tatarigami’s response to the same article. That may be the most polite rephrase of “how the #@! do you know?” I have ever seen.

  43. 43.

    Prescott Cactus

    @Anoniminous:

    You are spared.

    Don’t follow Capitalist Economics or others. I do my own thing. Not sure what relevancy a 1975 to 2022 factoid is when their real estate crisis is a 2023 thing.   Peace out.

    Thanks for all you do for us Adam.

  45. 45.

    wjca

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    elements of the US natsec state think Ukraine is an unwelcome distraction to the Great Power Competition w/ China,

    Apparently it doesn’t occur to them that helping Ukraine win sooner would be a way to speed the day when they get what they want.

  47. 47.

    Chetan Murthy

    @YY_Sima Qian: Perhaps, just *perhaps* it could have something to do with the incessant incursions into TW’s air and water by PRC military units.  Just maybe.  Just maybe.

  48. 48.

    wjca

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    somehow convinced themselves that the PRC will attack TW any day now.

    Notwithstanding the lack of intelligence (which they really ought to have access to) indicating a build-up of the men and equipment such an attack would require. (Air overflights don’t cut it.)  Yes, the PRC is industriously building up their navy.  But from a low base.  At the moment, they simply don’t have the wherewithal to launch a successful invasion.  And Xi isn’t about to trash his position by launching an unsuccessful one.

  49. 49.

    Chetan Murthy

    @wjca: It has been pointed-out that unlike the US and most Western nations, the PRC’s merchant marine fleet is at the disposal of the PLA for invasion duty.  And the PRC is the #1 commercial shipbuilder.

  50. 50.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Prescott Cactus: No mistake, Xi has clearly directed the PLA to attain the capability to invade TW if so directed, possibly by 2027 which is the centennial of the founding of the PLA. That has been one of the key goals of the PLA modernization effort going back decades, recovering TW being a key CCP regime objective since the PRC’s founding, & the primary focus of Chinese nationalism going back to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The intensifying intrusions by the PLAAF into TW’s ADIZ since Pelosi’s visit in Aug. 2022 are clearly training to attack USN CVBGs & SSNs that might come to TW’s aid, & amphibious assault exercises have increased from combined battalion scale to combined brigade scale.

    However, the PLA still has a ways to go. There have not been amphibious assault exercises at the group army scale in nearly 3 decades, & the PLA needs to practices that if they are to invade TW. While the military balance across the TW Strait now heavily favors the PRC, it is not so lopsided that the PRC can be confident of success in face of US/Japanese intervention. As Ukraine as shown, SAMs, AShMs & UAVs/UASs may prove more dangerous than expected & more difficult to suppress/intercept, TW has built up a huge inventory of at least SAMs & AShMs.

    Finally, however a war over TW ends, TW will be in ruins & the world economy will be in depression. TW has a stranglehold over the manufacture of the most advanced semiconductors that are critical to mobile consumer electronics & AI, & is the largest player in the trailing edge semiconductors that are critical to everything else (green energy transition, Industry 4.0, etc.), all of which will be offline. China is the largest trading nation in the world, the largest trade partner for most nations in the world, the ports along China’s coasts are the busiest in the world, that trade will be severely disrupted by a war over TW. Just not something Xi will YOLO on, even if he calculates that the PLA has a reasonable chance to conquer the island.

  52. 52.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Chetan Murthy: The flights are into TW’s ADIZ (which are unilaterally drawn & has no standing in international law) & maritime continuous zones, thus are still international airspace & international waters. US/Japanese/Korean aircrafts regularly “intrude” into China’s self-declared ADIZ in the East China Sea, & Chinese protests do not mean a thing.

    These flights clearly aim to intimidate, tire out the ROCAF & air defenses, as well as practice for the real thing. However, the scale needed to prosecute an invasion of TW, or even just an aerial strike campaign, is far more than a few dozen planes in a 24 hr period (which is what the PLAAF has been doing), but dozens of planes in the air at the same time. As Mike Black has repeatedly pointed out, the USAF generates much higher sustained sorties rates during its Red Flag exercises than the PLAAF is currently doing w/ the regular flights into TW’s ADIZ, or even during announced exercises in the vicinity of the TW Strait. Higher intensity exercises are probably being held inland, though.

  53. 53.

    Chetan Murthy

    @YY_Sima Qian: Your line of argumentation does not lead to any belief in the PRC’s peaceful intentions — quite the opposite.

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/03/asia/taiwan-china-airspace-pelosi-trip-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html

    The exercise areas announced by Beijing extend well into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone – a buffer of airspace commonly referred to as an ADIZ – and in some cases come within 12 nautical miles (22.2 kilometers) of its shores. Twelve nautical miles is the distance that international law defines as constituting a country’s territorial airspace.

  54. 54.

    Ksmiami

    @Chetan Murthy: the Biden administration needs to deliver everything to Ukraine Rt now, stop worrying about Putin- he’s a fucking monster who needs to be destroyed along with the current Russian government. Fuck them. Stop being afraid of hobgoblins

  55. 55.

    wjca

    @Chetan Murthy:

    unlike the US and most Western nations, the PRC’s merchant marine fleet is at the disposal of the PLA for invasion duty.

    But for invading Taiwan, what you need are amphibious landing craft.  To which merchant craft aren’t particularly adaptable.

  56. 56.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Chetan Murthy: & no Chinese aircraft, ships or missiles came close to the 12 nautical miles limit during any of the exercises, & there has been dispute whether any skirted the edge of the contiguous zone (& TW has drawn its contiguous zone quite liberally around its offshore islands). As far as exercise zones are drawn, those from the 3rd TW Strait Crisis of 1996 were much more aggressive, ballistic missiles were aimed at just outside of the 12 nautical mile limits from the mouths of Kaohsiung & Keelung harbors, & clearly intended to disrupt shipping for the duration of the exercises.

    PRC actions are non-peaceful in the sense that they are intimidating & coercive, not in the sense that war is imminent. There is a wide gap between the 2. People & government in TW do not appreciate all of the imminent invasion talk out of DC, as it depresses business confidence & could cause panic. They do not believe war is imminent.

    Should TW & the US take the threat of invasion (or blockade, or seizure of offshore islands, or aerial/missile bombardment, or grey zone tactics) seriously & prepare/act accordingly (through both military deterrence & diplomatic reassurance to minimize the chance of war)? Absolutely! Should they act as if war is inevitable & imminent? No.

  57. 57.

    Will

    @wjca: You should take a look at how China builds their most recent commercial ferry designs. They are built strictly for being used by the military, not commercial. Check out the Zhong Hua Fu Xing. RoRo ferries.

  58. 58.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian:  In my opinion, you dignify US NATSEC leaks with a great deal more significance than they deserve by any realistic accounting of the quality of the leakers, and of their stenographers.

    Speaking out-of-turn to a journalist buying drinks for the sake of ego-gratification by mid-level officials who think that their opinions are under-appreciated is a long-standing and honorable tradition in DC. It is a generally unpunished practice, because there is no surveillance apparatus to catch it, and because occasionally an unofficial leak really does represent a deliberate Administration communication ploy, such as a trial balloon or an effort to influence debate. Most of the time, however, it’s just greenhouse gas emission that benefits journalists with copy and officials with free drinks and a respectful ear denied them at the office. And the reporters themselves are often not conspicuous for the strategic, military, or diplomatic acumen that they deploy in framing such scoops.

    I can understand wanting to compare such communications to the more controlled efforts enforced by CPC discipline. But such comparisons are extremely misleading, in my opinion.

  59. 59.

    Prescott Cactus

    Chetan Murthy & YY_Sima Qian

    China has been wandering into what Taiwan considers it’s airspace for a long time. A few years ago it was a couple of times a week. It has been a daily occurrence for some time now (say, a bit over a year?) and the incursions are with multiple types of aircraft and in larger numbers. Saber rattling in my mind. Visits by high level US politicians seem to increased this traffic.

    CYN has lost almost 7% to USD since the end of last year and almost 12% over the last 24 months.

    I check in with Taiwan News most days. I did a couple shorts stints at Lungman NPS and have an affection for the country and its people. There upcoming elections may also effect this situation.

  62. 62.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Adam: I would be very much interested in reading anything you should turn up on UA force employment, including estimates of reserves not yet employed, rotation of troop formations from contact to reserves, and new force generation. Comparison to Russian practice would be gravy.

  63. 63.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: You may very well be right, it is just a vibe I am picking up more recently that I did not feel before.

    However, former mid-high level political appointees in the Trump administration (Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense, is the poster-child) & current think tankers (Alex Velez-Green, currently at Heritage & former natsec advisor for Hawley, is representative) have been banging the drum top pivot away from Ukraine & toward TW for the past year.

    The CCP regime does not control the narrative via leaks, it has a high degree of control over what Chinese domestic mass media say, total control on any subject deemed sensitive. However, the Chinese government does seem to be learning the art of selective leaking to Western MSM.

  64. 64.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Will: The RO-RO ferries are designed to be dual use. The ramps are designed to be able disgorge amphibious vehicles directly into the water, away from shore, & are likely constructed to naval standards in terms of damage control. Most of the time they ply fixed ferry routes, mostly between cities on the Shandong Peninsula & the Liaodong Peninsula. However, they also regularly participate in amphibious exercises w/ the PLA & the PLAMC in Fujian & Guangdong Provinces. Such ships are dual hatted under ferry companies & maritime militia flotillas, & they absolutely should be counted among the PLAN’s amphibious assets. Tom Shugart (retired USN SSN captain) has probably tracked them the closest among the analysts out there.

    Even including these assets though, the PLAN does not have nearly enough amphibious ships to mount a serious invasion. Chinese state owned shipping companies & fishing fleets (many also organized into maritime militia units) have huge sea lift capacity, but all of those vessels require the PLA capturing a major harbor. It is relatively easy for TW to sabotage the harbors before their capture, & continuing to harass/disrupt operations via long range artillery fire.

    Landing a sizable force on TW in face of fires from the anti-ship missiles batteries, UAVs/UASs & artillery will be extremely challenging, but sustaining the sizable force after landing is perhaps even more challenging, & generally how amphibious operations fail. It is not enough to wipe out the ROCAF & the ROCN, the PLA would have to suppress most of the shore based fires on TW. The PLA can destroy the shore based radars that provide long range targeting for AShMs, but the Strait will be filled w/ Chinese shipping that TW can just launch the missiles blind in a westerly direction & let them find their own targets. The unknown is if the Taiwanese lose hope & sue for terms as soon as a sizable PLA force lands on the island.

  65. 65.

    wjca

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    It is relatively easy for TW to sabotage the harbors before their capture, & continuing to harass/disrupt operations via long range artillery fire.

    Also, Taiwan has (no surprise) spent decades erecting defenses against an amphibious assault of any kind.  Those defenses can be shelled (or hit with missles) from offshore.  Or even bombed.  But destroying enough to make a landing feasible would probably be a non-trivial** exercise.

    ** That’s “non-trivial” in the mathematical sense.  “There are two kinds of problems in mathematics: trivial and unsolvable.”

  66. 66.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Prescott Cactus: The PLA Eastern War Zone Command just announced exercises in response to the visit to the US by TWese Vice President, also Presidential candidate for the 2024 elections. Officially “layovers” to & from Paraguay. Not sure about the duration, but the scale is likely to be far short of the exercises post-Pelosi visit.

    It is customary for TWese presidential candidates to visit the US for “job interviews” (as TWese press semi-facetiously have termed it for decades) before the election, so far from unprecedented. OTOH, Lai is a much more vocal supporter of TWese independence than Tsai, & this more despised by Beijing.

    The coming election will be interesting. The DPP’s position is precarious due to its lackluster domestic governance over the past  7.5 years. Tsai won reelection in 2020 on a historic landslide, on the back of widespread revulsion at Beijing’s response to the HK protests in 2019. Now though, domestic dissatisfaction is coming to the fore again. Lai is comfortably in the lead for now, only because the opposition is split between the KMT & the TPP. The youth used to be a reliable base of support for the DPP, but now the majority seems to have defected to the TPP (even as they continue to despise the KMT). As is the case elsewhere (including China & the US), the youth have born the brunt of economic disruption through the pandemic. People in TW hate being pressured by Beijing & have zero appetite of being “reunified” under CCP rule, but they also want  less hostile & more stable cross-Strait ties, & do not want to be pawns in the Sino-US Great Power Competition.

    If the election is dominated by domestic issues, & the opposition parties somehow reach an accommodation, then the DPP will likely lose. If the election is dominated by cross-Strait relations, & the opposition parties remain divided, the DPP will probably cruise to victory w/ a plurality of the vote.

  67. 67.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Prescott Cactus: BTW, the Yuan depreciation is part of the global depreciation trend against the dollar (the  Japanese yen has fallen quite a bit, too). Current Yuan weakness follows a period of Yuan strength against the dollar in ’20 – ’21, a steady climb that the Chinese government had to intervene to arrest. Now the Chinese government is starting to intervene to slow further slide of the Yuan, & the Chinese government (via the PBOC & the state owned commercial banks) has plenty of ammunition to wage a strong defense if they choose. Brad Setser is the expert to understand the intricacies of Chinese balance of payments & currency movements.

    The only major currency that has not weakened against the dollar recently is the Euro, but the Euro already weakened substantially against the dollar through the pandemic. Dollar strength can help w/ inflation, but hurts US manufacturing competitiveness at a time US industrial policy is incentivizing domestic manufacturing via CHIPS & IRA.

  68. 68.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The Russian Luna-25 lander just crashed into the moon because of a failed deceleration maneuver. Pretty embarrassing.

    Russia is China’s main partner in the planned International Lunar Research Station. This will not inspire confidence in Beijing. Just as w/ the wide body long haul civilian airliner project, China will probably have to go it alone.

  69. 69.

    Bill Arnold

    @YY_Sima Qian:
    For completeness, a link (Reuters):
    Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon in failure (Guy Faulconbridge, August 20, 2023)
    The failed mission was a nationalistic exercise:

    Russian officials had hoped that the Luna-25 mission would show Russia can compete with the superpowers in space despite its post-Soviet decline and the vast cost of the Ukraine war.

    Bespoke Russian engineering can be fragile (/vulnerable to glitches :-).

    “The flight control system was a vulnerable area, which had to go through many fixes,” said Anatoly Zak, the creator and publisher of http://www.RussianSpaceWeb.com which tracks Russian space programmes.

    I’m wondering if N. Modi will be in the control room for Chandrayaan-3’s landing on (current schedule) Aug. 23.

    ETA didn’t notice the link: here’s the RussianSpaceWeb link for the crash: https://www.russianspaceweb.com/luna-glob-flight.html

  70. 70.

    Carlo Graziani

    Good reporting (gift link) in the NYT on UA mid-level command perspective on the progress of the counteroffensive.

    Among the takeaways is that Ukrainian morale is high, while Russian morale is in the toilet. Also, the newly-supplied cluster munitions have effected a qualitative shift in the effectiveness of UA fires.

    Also, possibly most importantly, the UA has adapted to a schedule of regular rotation and rebuilding of brigade-level combat units, taking them off the front line in time to preserve unit coherence and combat experience while refurbishing materiel and taking in new trainees in rear areas. This seems like a really good development to me, since developing orderly force generation and sustainment reinforces a Ukrainian strength that corresponds to a glaring Russian weakness. Of such organizational details, more than from any individual weapon, can meaningful victories be hoped for, in my view.

    One thing to keep in mind is that while such struggles are always desperate fights to the last by both sides that can seem like stalemates, a common pattern when one side exhausts its tether is an unforseen rout. The grind seems to go on forever, until suddenly the dam breaks. The key is relentless, remorseless pressure until the other side gives. This appears to be yet another thing that the UA has learned to do very well, in contrast to Russian offensive mediocrity on display throughout the war (and still visible in the Kupyansk theatre).

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