Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Cole is on a roll !

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

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

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

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Let there be snark.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 548: I’ve Seen this Movie and Read the Story, This Isn’t Going To End Well

War for Ukraine Day 548: I’ve Seen this Movie and Read the Story, This Isn’t Going To End Well

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Apparently someone has decided to do some urban renewal at the Wagner cemetery:

We’ve all seen this movie, we’ve all read the book. we all know that whatever they build on top of those graves isn’t going to be anyplace anyone wants to spend any time in. Maybe they don’t have Stephen King novels in Russia?

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

The task is to speed up the moment when F-16s will help us keep Russian terrorists away – address by the President of Ukraine

25 August 2023 – 20:38

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report on this day.

All the agreements we brought home from our partners are being implemented already. First of all, F-16 jets. The tasks are obvious. For the international team, it is to maximize the expansion of training missions. For the military, it is to accelerate the preparation of the infrastructure as much as possible, to send pilots and engineers to ensure Ukraine’s full readiness. And all together, it is about bringing closer the moment when F-16s will help us keep Russian terrorists away.

Today I held a meeting on the results of the visits. It was a long meeting. The issue of coordination was specifically about the jets. Preparation of new defense packages – with exactly the content that our warriors need and that they told me about when I visited the front.

We are also preparing our new international events for the autumn, new steps in relations with partners that should strengthen Ukraine. The autumn will be eventful in terms of our diplomacy.

By the way, late yesterday evening I had a conversation with U.S. President Biden. It was a good conversation. I thanked him for his Independence Day greetings. We discussed how to further strengthen freedom. And we have a new important agreement: America will join the training of F-16 pilots and engineers. There will be more news in this and other areas. Thank you!

Today I met with the Turkish Foreign Minister in Kyiv. It was an important meeting. We discussed the security component, our joint diplomatic work, and the fundamental humanitarian things we are doing together. In particular, this is the release of our people from Russian captivity. We talked about the Peace Formula and the preparation of the Global Peace Summit. We also talked about the situation that has arisen due to Russia’s dastardly attacks on grain exports in the Black Sea region. Obviously, these are attacks on global security. They are calculated. They are aimed at provoking crises in different regions of the world. And together with Türkiye, we can restore security step by step, as we have repeatedly proved. I believe we will do even more together.

We are already preparing for next week. There will be some special internal political meetings. They are already scheduled. Regarding legislative decisions… Something that will definitely protect our state from all those who are trying to weaken it, who, unfortunately, do not think about Ukraine, even though they hold positions in the state system. The strength of Ukraine has no alternatives.

And, of course, our warriors.

The paratroopers of the “Eightieth”, who are fighting hard in the Bakhmut sector. The 68th separate hunting brigade, which is destroying the occupiers in the Lyman sector. The 12th operational brigade of the National Guard, which is delivering the results Ukraine needs in the Kreminna sector – thank you! The 46th separate airmobile brigade of the Air Assault Forces – thank you for your strength in the Orikhiv sector. The 59th separate motorized infantry brigade in the Donetsk sector – they are very, very effective. Thank you! And our rocket crewmen: the 27th Otaman Kalnyshevsky rocket artillery brigade and the 107th Kremenchuk rocket artillery brigade – thank you, warriors, for your exceptional accuracy in the Zaporizhzhia sector!

Glory to all who are fighting and working for Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

For the second August in a row, a large parade of russian armored vehicles is taking place on the Khreshchatyk, the main street of the Ukrainian capital.

Putin still dreams of somehow reviewing it, as the disappearance of independent Ukraine from the world map would have marked the revival of empire for him.

However, these scorched and rusty remnants of once-mighty combat machines demonstrate the opposite. The war is ongoing, but the era of russian/soviet/putin empires has definitively passed.

📷 Heidi Levine

 

Tokmak-Robotyne:

The Wall Street Journal has published a deep dive into Ukrainian senior military leaders’ disagreements with their American counterparts over how to conduct the current offensive/counter-offensive. Since it is paywalled, here are excerpts from the Internet Archive:

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been engaged in an intense behind-the-scenes debate for weeks over the strategy and tactics for reviving Kyiv’s slow-moving counteroffensive.

American military officials have been urging the Ukrainians to return to the combined arms training they received at allied bases in Europe by concentrating their forces to try to bust through Russia defenses and push to the Sea of Azov.

Kyiv has made some adjustments in recent weeks, but the two sides are still at odds about how to turn the tables on the Russians in the limited time they have before winter sets in.

“You don’t understand the nature of this conflict,” Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian commander, responded in one interaction with the Americans, a U.S. official recounted. “This is not counterinsurgency. This is Kursk,” the commander added, referring to the major World War II battle between Germany and the Soviet Union.

A spokesman for the Ukrainian commander didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The American advice is based on the calculation that the surge of equipment the U.S. has funneled to Ukraine—more than $43 billion in weaponry has been committed over the years—is enough for this offensive and is unlikely to be repeated at anywhere near the same level in 2024.

“We built up this mountain of steel for the counteroffensive. We can’t do that again,” one former U.S. official said. “It doesn’t exist.”

It isn’t too late for Ukraine to make gains, according to U.S. officials.

Ukrainian commanders also say that time hasn’t yet run out on their counteroffensive, and Zaluzhny has told U.S. officials his forces are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Yet deep divisions over the strategy linger. The U.S. for the past several weeks has urged the Ukrainians to mass their forces and concentrate in an area north of Tokmak in the south to push through the first line of Russian defenses, generally acknowledged as the toughest line to break.

While there are differing views within the U.S. government, one official said that Washington has conveyed “serious frustration” with Ukraine’s strategy, particularly President Volodymyr Zelensky’s focus on Bakhmut, which some Ukrainian officers see as useful to build morale and create a buffer zone in the east.

After U.S. officials cautioned against dissipating their efforts, the Ukrainians adjusted their strategy and went on the defensive in the eastern part of Zaporizhzhia. That change has enabled the Ukrainians to conserve their forces for the main attack elsewhere and limit their expenditure of artillery.

But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians are still spread too thin for a concentrated push south with numerous brigades deployed in the east and are still not combining the use of artillery, mechanized units and mine-clearing efforts.

Holding casualties to a minimum is needed to preserve their longer-term fighting potential, the Ukrainians say. But U.S. officials say the Ukrainians’ small-unit attacks on narrow fronts slow the offensive and give the Russians more opportunity to respond, including with mines that are dispensed through artillery strikes and units armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

The current state of play has sparked worries that Ukraine’s fight against Russia might be entering a stalemate, a contention President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has denied.

“No, we do not assess that the conflict is a stalemate,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. The battlefield, he said, is changing every day.

At the heart of the debate between Washington and Kyiv is the U.S.-provided combined arms training the Ukrainians have received in recent months that was intended to prepare them for their offensive in the south.

The U.S. and its partners have trained more than 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers at more than 40 training areas. But the crux of the U.S. combined arms training in Germany was on 14 motorized-infantry, mechanized and national-guard battalions—some 8,000 troops—who were to push through Russia’s lines or secure terrain.

The 12-week training program for those battalions included instruction on using their artillery, mechanized units and infantry together. It culminated in a weeklong battalion-level exercise with Ukrainian forces squared off against a mock adversary played by U.S. forces.

The training is intended to enable Ukrainian forces to break through their foe’s defenses and maneuver in the Russians’ rear area, but without the advantages the U.S. military has long enjoyed, especially air power.

Ukraine has only a small air force, and the delivery of American-made F-16s isn’t expected until mid to late 2024. While U.S. officials say that simulations indicated that the Ukrainians could succeed anyway, some in the Pentagon acknowledge the challenge.

Christine Wormuth, the U.S. Army secretary, said recently that the U.S. military would find this sort of fighting challenging, particularly if they didn’t have air superiority and the adversary had time to prepare its defenses. “Our soldiers have years to practice this, and the Ukrainians had several weeks to work on this,” she said.

Some former officials say that the Pentagon’s frustration with the pace of the Ukrainian attack is misplaced.

“When America fights with combined arms, it fights with battlefield air superiority,” said Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. Air Force general who served as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top military commander from 2013 to 2016.

“Ukraine doesn’t have that. Nor have we given Ukraine long-range precise artillery,” he added. “So when there is all this talk that they are failing with combined arms, we need to look in the mirror.”

More at the link.

I think Gen (ret) Breedlove’s assessment quoted in the article is correct. As is LTG (ret) Hodges below:

That’s enough for tonight.

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63Comments

  2. 2.

    Jay

    Logo
    (((Tendar)))
    @Tendar
    7h
    Prigozhin’s death has transformed Wagner centers across Russia into memorial places and the first reaction many share is disgust which is all too human. PMC Wagner is a terrorist organization which had little regard for his victims and members alike. But there is something far more important when seeing this and it bodes a grim and inescapable reality for Putin.

    Putin made his move and it was none which required a prophet. His relentless and seething need for taking revenge can be tracked through his entire life, especially when it comes to betrayal. Litvinenko is but one of the prominent names which instantly comes up.

    Murdering Prigozhin, however, is strategically seen and especially at this very moment an absolute blunder. While the murder of Litvinenko was in the twisted logic of Putin’s Kremlin a rather safe affair, Prigozhin’s murder is an outright mad gamble, or better described: blind hate and recklessness. The timing cannot be worse. Russian troops are getting hammered along the entire frontline, Russian cities are getting strafed by Ukrainian drones, blunting Russia’s already untenable lie of an “special operation” and the midst of this developing catastrophe the leader of Russia sidelines the most popular fighting unit and assassinates their commanders.

    You do not have to be an expert to understand what this means in terms of troops’ morale. There are many both, inside and outside Russia who are absolutely confused what “logic” can possibly lead to such a mad step, even when considering that Putin’s vengefulness has been well-known, and the answer is easy: vanity, money and a complete detachment of reality. Combined with his narcissistic ego, it was no surprise that he would take out his most dangerous opponent in Russia.

    I can imagine that having all 3 main Wagner leaders (Prigozhin, Utkin and Chekalov) in one controlled place, was for Putin too good to be to allowed to simply to go to waste. And so he probably gave the order to decapitate Wagner.

    Every supporter of Wagner knows that it was Putin who murdered Prigozhin and there is no story which Putin or anyone else around the Kremlin can cook up in order to make them think, differently. There is nothing what Putin can do in order to quell this. There will be an answer, sooner rather than later. The first test will be when the attempt will be started to assign Wagners to the Russian military or even other PMCs. That moment will determine whether they can mount resistance in an organized fashion.

    Some might argue, “well, they are mercenaries and it does not make a difference who is going to pay them” and they have point because there are many working for Wagner who see it that way. But that thinking alone would be too short-sighted, especially when reflecting what popularity Wagner has garnered over the past 18 months, ironically even thanks to the help of Putin’s media. But the ghost is out of the bottle. They being pressed into Shoigu’s PMC Patriot or Gerasimov’s Russian (fail) army will be a notable downgrade, and I’m talking of both, money and status.

    No matter where this is going, it will further weaken the Russian war effort, which already many Pro-Russian channels warned will happen. Putin’s grinning face on the very same day when Prigozhin was blown out of the skies over Tver was the very best depiction of an self-own one can possibly give. It was another episode showing how far detached Putin has become from reality. His self-defeating vengefulness has reached a point where his self-centering interests will put Russia’s wider interests into backseat and his above all, even and especially above people who once were part of his inner circle. This and exterior catastrophes are usually the sufficient propellants to make dictatorships implode.

    So, we can sit back and see how this will play out. I for one will prepare for another supply of popcorn.

    #Ukraine #Russia #PMCWagner

    https://nitter.net/Tendar/status/1695079140926603597#m

    Is it wrong that I want to give Patron all the scooches?

  3. 3.

    Jay

    @pluky:

    Wagner Forces fulfilled their use, now, that they are no longer useful, a warehouse is being erected in their memory, which is much more useful.

  4. 4.

    Alison Rose

    “All targets have been destroyed by Ukrainian air defense” — I wish this sentence didn’t have to be written, but I still love to read it.

    The post title and that video gave me flashbacks to watching this at my slumber parties in middle school. And I hope it happens to the orcs! And so…is prigozhin’s death generally accepted as a real thing now? Seems to be.

    A good doggo always gets their weight training done!

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  5. 5.

    trollhattan

    All dogs love poking their heads out of moving cars. I imagine that little dog brain is saying, “Look how fast I am!”
    Good Friday all, out for a hot bike ride.

  7. 7.

    bjacques

    Peskov should add Pringles and Co. to the Hillary death list. Because, you know, the Internet Research Agency and hacked emails that could have put her in jail.

    If you’re gonna bullshit, don’t do it by half measures.

  8. 8.

    Ishiyama

    Well, we knew Putin was a dumbshit when he launched the invasion; he never thinks strategically – just relies on his bloody-handed tactics to answer every challenge. To the man with the hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

  10. 10.

    japa21

    @Alison Rose:  That movie scare the s–t out of me.  Wasn’t recognized all that much when it came out because Spielberg had another film out pretty much at the same time, some innocuous thing called, IIRC, E.T.  Not as good as this one, but it seemed to make a lot of money for Reese’s Pieces.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    @pluky:

    Do they really have any other choice?

    Sure it’s a bigger country. But. The entire place seems to be a criminal conspiracy rather than an actual country. There’s a few multi billionaires on top and yet the annual salary seems to be around $20K. Even if that is doubled the level of difference from the bottom to the top, with the top demanding that the bottom die for their benefit, is not at all good, and actually worse than us as many of those billionaires are part of the leaders. Most of our billionaires are not directly involved with government, except for their expectations.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ruckus: ​
     Stalin was at least smart enough to make a pitch to the entire country. Putin can’t manage that.

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I believe vlad could have stashed him somewhere and used him in some way but that isn’t the way he grew to his current level of human nor likely in what he considers to be his best interest. He is a selfish multi billionaire in a rather most citizens poor country. Russia is currently his country. And the only thing that will change that is him no longer being in charge. Which means likely him no longer breathing. And the list of members of any group that might think and try that is slim and about as powerful as a box of crackerjacks, I see him there till his natural demise. Which all things given might still not change a lot.

  14. 14.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: Aric Toler seems to believe it’s not what it appears to be: https://nitter.net/AricToler/status/1695189476681863291#m

    Remember that viral video this morning of Wagner graves being destroyed? See this thread — it didn’t really happen as it was reported.

    He links to a thread that argues that they were cleaning off the wooden crosses and such to allow them to install permanent granite gravestones, as is the case in other Wagner cemeteries.  I have no idea if this is legit, but at least Toler seems like a legit source.

  15. 15.

    Ruckus

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    At the time Stalin had to do that. vlad is in a different position today than Stalin was. A completely different position. That may not hold a lot of water in his country but the fact that he is in control of it all and there is now a fair bit of money floating around makes him a different target than Stalin was.

  16. 16.

    twbrandt

    It’s extremely depressing to see people making a martyr out of a murderous thug like Prigozhin. But I guess it’s not surprising and I see Adam’s point that his assassination was a strategic blunder by that other murderous thug.

  17. 17.

    karen marie

    Some might argue, “well, they are mercenaries and it does not make a difference who is going to pay them” and they have point because there are many working for Wagner who see it that way.

    Who paid you ceases to matter when the people on whose behalf you’re fighting pave over your grave.

    Murdering Prigozhin is one thing but desecrating the graves of people who sacrificed their lives for you is “yikes!”

    I don’t know from Aric Toler, but I’m willing to believe this is a case of a showboater showboating for his own reasons.

  19. 19.

    Anonymous At Work

    The US-UA debate about the counter-offensive has me wondering about US military training and war-gaming.  Does the US regularly conduct war-games where the US commanders in charge of the US forces either lack air superiority or face an opponent with air superiority?  Or are commanders only faced with such a prospect when they are the “opposing force”?

  21. 21.

    Jay

    @Chetan Murthy:

    previous vids of the graveyard had mounds designating every grave, ( so somewhat shallow) along with crosses and wreaths.

    When you dig a hole, put in a coffin and then put the loose soil back on top, you get a mound for a couple of decades until the coffin collapses and the soil compacts.

    Unless they mapped the graves with geopositioning, exactly, they have no idea who is where.

    Given Ruzzian burial practices in Occupied Ukraine, where the graves were just numbered, or lettered and there was no central registry,

    I’m going with the Wagner guy.

    Ukraine is actually having to exhume the graves and use other forensic techniques to figure out who is buried in the many graves the Ruzzian’s made in formerly Occupied Ukraine.

  22. 22.

    karen marie

    @Chetan Murthy:   It just occurred to me – given they took all the markers down, how will they be able to match up these alleged “permanent granite gravestones” with the person in the grave?

    Sounds like someone’s feeding Aric Toler some bullshit

    @Jay: I’m with you.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Anonymous At Work: No. There is not a single senior leader in any of the US military services who has ever fought in this type of war. And we do not conduct our experiential learning with this type of scenario in mind.

    I’ll deal with this in more depth tomorrow.

  24. 24.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks.  Massing troops is easy when you have air superiority/supremacy, but stupidly dangerous otherwise.  Wes Clark and Kosovar guerillas taught that lesson way back when but I guess the lesson went unlearned.

  26. 26.

    Anoniminous

    @Jay: ​
     

    “Strategy is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty.”

    Killing Prigozhin achieved the goal of keeping Putin in power by eliminating a rival. It also opened the door for Putin to carve-up and spread the wealth Wagner controlled, e.g., African diamond mines, to his BFF. Sends the messages:

    (a) Don’t Fuck With Me
    (b) Those who stick with me get paid
    (c) I’m still the meanest mo-fo in the country

  27. 27.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Jay: If UA could liberate ZNPP, I’d say it was a total success.  Orcs are dying and artillery pieces exploding rapidly all over, UA has good tactical advantages in Bakhmut, Wagner is in disarray and the RU Black Sea Fleet is a fleet-in-being.

    And yes, the US generals’ comments struck me as deaf to both the UA’s lack of air superiority AND the US’s role in acquiescing to Putin’s demands not to help UA achieve air superiority.

  28. 28.

    Jay

    @Anoniminous:

    Putin gave his word that Pig was “safe”, illustrating that once again, a deal with Pootie Poot is worthless.

    Carving up Pig’s empire in Africa isn’t going to be “easy” as pissed off Wagner’s are on the ground, need to be coopted, (why would they trust Putin, Shoigu, the MOD?) and most of the “customers” trust Pig, not Russia.

    In Syria, Ruzzia had to basically arrest and confine to barrack’s Wagnerites, and in less than a week, the Ruzzian Army/Syrian Army have started losing again.

  29. 29.

    Calouste

    @karen marie: Mercenaries might not care who pays them, but they certainly care that they actually do get paid, and get paid well. And Putin’s army doesn’t have a great reputation in that regard.

  30. 30.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    as of late, Ukraine has penetrated the first line of the Ruzzian defenses on an axis north east of Mariupol and is half way to the Black Sea. If they are successful on that front, they cut Ruzzian Occupied Ukraine in half, severing many supply routes.

    While at the same time repeatedly gutting Ruzzian attempts at an offense in the north.

    They are raiding into Crimea and destroying Ruzzian outposts on the Dinpr Islands and east shore.

  31. 31.

    Anoniminous

    @Jay:

    Mercenaries by definition can be bought.  They got a sweet gig going in Africa and with the right line of BS and $$$$ inducements enough of them can and will be convinced to back another employer.

  33. 33.

    NutmegAgain

    @trollhattan: I’m such a worrier, I’m in the, “no don’t do that!! you’ll get road grit in your eyes!!”. So doggos only get the window open enough for a small snoof. Are all my car windows covered with dog slorp? Of course!

    On a more serious and topical question–so many things I have read say, in essence, *Now* the Russians are going to be so very demoralized that they won’t fight, or won’t fight well, or similar. And yet not much changes–or does it? I/we are so far outside the reality of the experiences the Ukrainian soldiers have, and really I feel like we are mainly getting carefully presented info in Ukrainian Twitter feeds and the like. Anyway–I do hope the Russian soldiers on the ground are feeling demoralized and it has an effect.

  34. 34.

    wombat probability cloud

    Thoughts on Tatarigami’s cryptic point (b), “they have resource which they are extremely likely to deploy, turning the situation”?

  35. 35.

    Anoniminous

    @Jay: ​
     
    Russian offensives in the north is a good thing as it wastes troops that could otherwise be deployed to the Tokmak front.

    Many reports the Ukrainians have either taken or are fighting in Novoprokopivka. It would be huge if they have taken it. That means they are a short hop away from breaching the Solodka Balka line, capturing the high ground in front of Tokmak.

  37. 37.

    Jay

    @Anoniminous:

    less than 20% of Wagner have taken other contracts so far.

    3/4’s of the Ukraine contingent has gone home.

    We will see what happens, but so far, the Ruzzian MOD has been “unsucessful” at recruiting Wagner fighters, disposessing Wagner from their lucrative ventures or severing their Customer Base from Wagner.

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: Not sure why killing Prigozhin is a strategic blunder. I think letting him live & continue to prosper, after leading an insurrection, would be worse for Putin’s medium to long term prospects. Putin didn’t just kill Prigozhin, he killed most of Wagner’s senior leadership, who might be able to organize another insurrection in the short term. If the situation appears to be still precarious, it is the nature of the regime Putin has constructed, greatly stressed by the disastrous invasion he launched.

  39. 39.

    Jay

    @NutmegAgain:

    Digger saw a deer. We have no Idea how he got that huge body out such of a small window gap, (6 inches, and he was a Belgian).

    Doing about 15kmh and he was gone, through the barbed wire fence, into the meadow.

    The meadow grass was taller than he was, so he would rabbit hop and meercat to try to see where the deer was.

    The deer calmly walked to the fence, cleared it cleanly, then turned on the road and I swear, stuck it’s tongue out at Digger, then trotted off, upslope.

    When we finally got Digger back, 8 stitches and a tetanus shot at the vet, from the barbed wire fence.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Putin gave an amnesty, then killed Pig.

    That pissed off many in the Russian Armed Forces and most of Wagner, who’s loyalty was/is not to Putin, Ruzzia, the MOD, but instead Pig.

    So doing a deal with Pootie Poot is worthless. Doesn’t matter what the deal is, and at the same time, Pootie Poot is trying to strip several Ogliarche’s of their assets to pay for his war.

  43. 43.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: Isn’t going back on a deal standard practice for Putin?

    Yes, doing a deal w/ Putin is worthless, but crossing or embarrassing him is suicidal. At the current juncture, I think Putin takes that trade off. It reinforces the brittleness of his regime, but that ship sailed when the expected cakewalk turned into a bloody meat grinder. I think Putin is concentrated on what keeps him alive & in power next week, next month & next year. He does not have a strategy beyond that, & I don’t think there is a viable strategy beyond that at this point.

    He can stop the invasion & stanch the hemorrhaging, but at the cost of any legitimacy/credibility/fear he might have built. As Adam has said, Putin’s strategy is to play for time, hoping the GOP wins the White House & the Senate, & keeps the House, in 2024. However, he needs to stay alive & in power until then to take advantage.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    Journalist Gulsom Khalilova tweeted a picture from Turkish FM Fidan’s Kyiv visit, showing Fidan greeting an elderly man with a warm handshake. The caption was, “During his Ukraine visit, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hakan Fidan, met with Kirim (Crimea) Tatar Turks’ national leader, Mustapha Abdulcemil Kimizoglu.”

    Ms. Khalilova also showed her question about the future of Crimean Tatars at President Zelenskyy’s news conference. He replied that Russian-held political prisoners would be released and the Tatars would return to Crimea.

    Khalilova is based in Ukraine but writes in Turkish, and mainly reports about the war. She had a story a few days ago about the arrest of 6 Crimean Tatars by Russian security forces.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Ms. Khalilova also showed video of Zelenskyy and Fidan shaking hands. They greeted each other in English: “Nice to see you!” and “Good to see you!” It made me wonder if they spoke in English during the discussions that followed. During his Army career as a noncom, Fidan earned a degree from the University of Maryland “World Campus” while he was posted in Europe with the NATO Rapid Reaction Force.

    Reports are that Fidan will visit Moscow next. There is also a report that Turkish President Erdogan will meet with Putin in Sochi on September 4.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    DSRG “Rusich” has gone on “strike”. It has come out that a month ago, one of their fighter’s/leaders was arrested in Finland a month ago on “vacation”.

    Ruzzia did nothing. Didn’t inform anybody.

    And now, Yan Petrovsky  is being extradited to Ukraine for war crimes,

    and Ruzzia is doing nothing.

  47. 47.

    Joe Falco

    Ukraine can pile together the bodies of Wagner mercs and make a monument: Tomb of the Unknown Orc

  48. 48.

    Ishiyama

    The esprit de corps of a mercenary company centers on mutual loyalty and devotion to a charismatic leader. Wagner was not a collection of independent soldiers of fortune, and their loyalty to anyone whom they regard as responsible for the murder of their leader is not a thing on which I would want to rely.

  49. 49.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian:  I think the point is that Putin could have waited for a more opportune time to get revenge. The Wagner leadership did not really constitute any serious challenge to his power, and it is clear now that Prigozhin’s “rebellion” was in fact nothing of the sort, being rather an effort to force Putin to side with him in his struggle against Shoigu and Gerasimov. The effort had neither the resources, the ruthlessness, or the planning required of a serious-minded putsch. And now, as Tendar points out, despite the nonexistent immediate threat, Putin has inflamed the views of multitudes who admired Prigozhin and Wagner, and hence divided pro-war Russians by cleaving off a faction that certainly regards him as a threat to the war effort. That faction certainly includes uniformed members of the Russian military.

    So the interesting question is, what do we learn about Putin’s state of mind from the fact that he is so incapable of carrying out a political cost-benefit analysis that he voluntarily increased the political danger to his position in order to hurry his retribution?

    Off-hand, I’d say that he probably still thinks that the war is going swimmingly for Russia, that there is no military crisis or even exigency. He does not believe that his position is in any danger, and still believes that he can shape Russian reality through his iron control of media, legislation, and law enforcement.

    Which overall would seem to say that he’s even more isolated and misinformed than ever, surrounded by people he’s chosen for their talent for telling him what he wants to hear.

    Meanwhile, the Russian national talent for breeding conspiracies has now just been fed an infusion of rage-fuel. I’ll take some of that popcorn, if there’s any left…

  51. 51.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Anonymous At Work: 

    The US-UA debate about the counter-offensive has me wondering about US military training and war-gaming. Does the US regularly conduct war-games where the US commanders in charge of the US forces either lack air superiority or face an opponent with air superiority? Or are commanders only faced with such a prospect when they are the “opposing force”?

    I think that what Kofman has been saying lately on the subject is correct: it never made sense to expect UA officers and enlisted men to be able to carry out brigade-scale combined-arms ops on the basis of a few months of training. That kind of thing takes much longer to bake in to an army’s muscle memory, and trying it out of the box with inexperienced officers and men is just courting disaster. Any US wargames would not take inadequate training into account, and so would be leading to invalid conclusions about choice-balancing.

    Kofman thinks that US DOD has insufficient on-the-ground contact with UA, giving them an inadequate understanding of the realities of the fight. He also thinks that the UA reverting to the style of fighting in which they are now experienced makes sense, because the alternative “Western” style cannot be inculcated in the middle of a shooting war. I find this argument very persuasive.

  53. 53.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Carlo Graziani: I find this argument very persuasive.  I think US commanders underestimate just how well off they have things and don’t realize that UA is just not capable of pulling of US tactical miracles given the state of their training, and the lack of air superiority.

  55. 55.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: Be that as it may, Prigozhin’s insurrection immensely embarrassed Putin, & that is extremely damaging to any autocrat, regardless of Prigozhin’s actual intentions at the time.

  56. 56.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Villago Delenda Est: I think the US Army is institutionally incapable of conceiving battles of of attrition, but instinctively inclined to think in terms of maneuver, concentration of force & firepower, & maximizing force of violence, & yes taking air & space dominance for granted. When was the last time the US Army has had to engage in meat grinders? The Korean War? (The UN forces enjoyed dominance in the air & on the seas until the end, but no longer had artillery dominance over the CPVA by the 3rd year.)

    Even in the Cold War, the NATO conceived the battle at the Fulda Gap as a defensive one, bleeding the Warsaw Pact juggernaut from the fortifications, while slowly trading space for time, until the Soviet offensive runs out of steam & become vulnerable to counterattacks. That, or relying upon tactical nukes. Even then, NATO expected to have an advantage in the air while on the initial defensive.

  57. 57.

    Carlo Graziani

    @YY_Sima Qian:  By the ’80s, the NATO operational concept had evolved to the AirLand battle, which called for deep interdiction of follow-on Soviet echelons, so as to deprive the Soviet frontal assault of momentum following the initial phase of the war. Which, of course, speaks further to the point of the presumption of air superiority.

  58. 58.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Somewhat OT, but in the recently concluded BRICS Summit in South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia & Argentina officially joined the grouping. There are at least another two dozen countries who have expressed serious interests in joining, & likely will in due course. The BRICS grouping has always lacked the necessary coherence (recently exacerbated by the intensifying Sino-Indian rivalry) to attempt to seriously affect global agenda. Adding 6 more members will only make it worse. However, the strong interests across the Global South in this grouping, even though it includes Russia, Iran & China (thus viewed w/ increasing suspicion in DC), points to persistent strong dissatisfaction toward the current international order (such as it is) that strongly advantages the West, & lack of stake in said order. Many of these countries are also interested in joining the Shanghai Security Organziation (SCO). Both the BRICS & the SCO are vessels for Global South countries to air grievances against the West led international order, & may even enable some collaboration, especially in economics & technological realms. The high concentration of Middle Eastern countries, especially major energy producers, among the new members, is also note worthy. As is Saudi Arabia & the UAE joining an organization w/ Iran.

    As late as a few days ago, the most prevalent reporting was that India was against expansion, not wanting to dilute its influence in the group. The BRICS grouping makes decision by consensus. Acquiescing to the expansion, even as India is part of the QUAD whose raison d’être is to counterbalance China, points to continued hedging by India, & independence remaining the core principle of Indian foreign policy. Xi & Modi also met on the sidelines towards the end of the Summit, when 2 days ago it seemed they would not meet (which is what happened during the SCO Summit in Uzbekistan). Both agreed to rapidly deescalate the tensions along disputed borders. India has repeatedly made it clear (& quite vocally in so doing) that stabilization along the LAC is the prerequisite to renormalization of Sino-Indian relations. Both sides had been making positive noises out of the long running series of Corps level commanders meetings along the LAC, perhaps setting the stage for the leadership confab. The purpose of the Corps commander meetings is to prevent any tensions from turning into violent conflicts, & execute deescalation/deconfliction at the tactical level along the disputed LAC (if both sides deem it in their respective interests at that moment). Read outs since Apr. 2020 had been quite frosty.

    Such deescalation is surely long overdue. The two sides have been fighting for hill tops, ridge lines & “fingers” into mountain lakes, using Stone & Iron Age weapons (because of a decades old agreement not to use firearms w/in 5 kms of the disputed LAC, to ensure the regular scuffles do not accidentally turn into shooting wars), features that might confer marginal tactical advantage in the posture of one side or the other along the LAC, but which are meaningless at the strategic or geopolitical level. The terrain they have been jostling over for decades are utterly inhospitable. Even if one side can breach the Himalayas in a surprise attack & seize some territory from the other, they will lose those gains come winter when the mountain passes are snowed over, & whatever military force stuck on the other side of the Himalayas will starve or be forced to surrender. This is why the PLA unilaterally withdrew from Arunachal Pradesh (or South Tibet in Chinese parlance), which the PRC claims, at the end of the ’62 Sino-Indian War. The PLA achieved surprise & won a series of stunning tactical victories in summer, but it had no ability to hold on to any gains south of the Himalayas through winter, & still does not.

    Next year’s BRICS Summit will be held in Russia. It is Russia’s turn in the scheduled rotation, but the expanded grouping could have decided on a temporary diversion to Brazil, India, or one of the new members.

    Putin attended the Summit via video link, to avoid the ICC arrest warrant. He sent Lavrov, instead. Modi must have had some fun at Lavrov’s expense, given the Chandrayaan-3’s success & Luna-25’s failure.

  59. 59.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: Quite right. The US Army still expected to be fighting from strong defensive positions at the outset, & maneuver in counterattacks against exhausted & disorganized opposition later on. At the 38th Parallel, the US Army also expected to fight from strong defensive positions, taking a beating from NK artillery, but under the cover of air & naval superiority (if not dominance).

    Assaulting strongly held prepared defenses? The 2nd & 3rd years of the Korean War, & before that Pacific Islands, Hürtgen Forest & Normandy, in each case w/ clear air/naval superiority (& thus clear advantage in fire power).

    I suppose the Coalition Forces did expect the Iraqi defensive lines to be formidable during the 1st Gulf War, but a month of relentless pummeling from the air completely demoralized the opposition, which was already exhausted from 8 years of Iran-Iraq War.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    re the reported success in starting to break through lines in and near Robotyne – DeepStateMap shows a nice blue (recently recaptured) area (might need to zoom in).

    Slava Ukraini!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    @YY_Sima Qian: The consequences of Prigozhin’s death are hard to predict. The Middle East Eye has been covering Wagner operations in Africa and has at least one new article about them since Prigozhin’s death that I have yet to read.

    I can only speculate as to the impact of Prigozhin within Russia now that he and other Wagner leaders are dead. If and when Russia loses this war Prigozhin might become a “Lost Cause” martyr.

    This wouldn’t neccesarily have much practical impact, but one or more of the surviving Wagner leaders might have the elements to be an effective populist politician in a few years. That is, if they are not “neutralized” in a further purge of Wagnerites.

    Wagner veterans could also have an impact in Russia’s organized crime world, and and probably are already.

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @YY_Sima Qian: My GDP (General Defense Plan) as part of a mech infantry battalion was in the Fulda Gap, and you’re right.  The entire idea was to blunt the blow then counterattack.

  63. 63.

    NutmegAgain

    @Jay: Glad he was OK–so glad you weren’t going faster. I don’t doubt that the deer said, “nyah nyah!”. I remember one year that all the family visiting for Thanksgiving fanned out to get a certain Jack Russell terriorist (not mine!) who thought chasing a deer would be fun. It was Vermont, and there was a good 24″ of snow on the ground with a good crust. Man, running through that is ouchy. But the little bastid was popping up and down, he had a blast.

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