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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 718: President Zelenskyy Continues To Reshape His Senior Military Staff

War for Ukraine Day 718: President Zelenskyy Continues To Reshape His Senior Military Staff

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The crest of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. A wine colored cross on a silver shield with the gold Uktainian Tryzub in the center on a circular blue medallion. A pair of silver maces and an upright sword are between the blue medallion and the wine colored cross.

As I write this, the US Senate – the world’s greatest deliberative country club and geriatric center – is reliving the 17 seconds in the video below over and over and over and over and over again.

Because, you know, it’s NOT LIKE THERE’S A WAR GOING ON OR ANYTHING!!!!!!

A global war with the collective West? Would that be a world war? Eez a puzzlement!

President Clinton is absolutely correct in his assessment:

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

We are working to increase the effectiveness of our mobile firing groups and to provide even more regions of Ukraine with electronic warfare systems – address by the President

11 February 2024 – 20:10

Dear Ukrainians!

A few important things about this day. I started this day with more appointments. Then there were reports on the situation at the front from our military. As well as reports from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Emergency Service, and regional authorities on the work of our air defense – countering Russian strikes, eliminating the consequences, and bolstering our capabilities. And now, first of all, I want to thank all our defenders of the sky who repel Russian drone and missile attacks every day and night. To the extent that the capabilities of our air defense system allow at the moment. From last night to this morning alone, forty “Shahed” drones have been destroyed – the majority of what Russia has used. This result was achieved mainly by our mobile firing groups. In various regions – Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy regions, our Dnipropetrovsk region… I thank every warrior who is on combat duty, saving our infrastructure and our people on a daily basis. Since the beginning of the year and up to now, 359 “Shahed” drones have been shot down. The accuracy of our sky defenders, the work of the electronic warfare systems, and the support from each of our partners in terms of the sky shield literally save lives. We are working to increase the effectiveness of our mobile firing groups and to provide even more regions of Ukraine with electronic warfare systems. This is one of the key priorities of the year.

And today I would like to especially commend the staff of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine – everyone who works at the sites of the hits, extinguishes fires, and clears debris. Kharkiv and the region, Zaporizhzhia and the region, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Chernihiv regions. There is always help in each of our communities, there are always those who rescue after Russian shelling. And this is also the functionality of our state, it is also the heroism of our people, all those people who are just doing their job and helping the whole of Ukraine to withstand. Our rescuers, I thank you! Today I would like to recognize the employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kharkiv region – Chief Master Sergeants Dmytro Pavinskyi, Denys Shapovalov, Oleksiy Nazarenko, Captain Artem Yehorov and Lieutenant Colonel Serhiy Azartsov. Thank you, guys! I would also like to recognize the rescuers of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Mykolaiv region – Sergeants Dmytro Pikh and Vasyl Levkov, Master Sergeant Ihor Ponomarenko, Chief Master Sergeants Mykola Bashlyk and Serhiy Kurichenko, and Major Oleksandr Dovhopol. Thank you for your selflessness! I would also like to commend the staff of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kyiv, who always promptly eliminate the consequences of shelling and help Kyiv residents whenever they need it. Sergeants of the Civil Protection Service Taras Romantsov, Orest Havryliuk, Serhiy Bezpalyi, Master Sergeant Ivan Kaharlytskyi and Chief Master Sergeant Oleksandr Shostka. Thank you!

I thank everyone who has been fighting and working to strengthen Ukraine since February 24! I thank everyone who is in Ukraine and with Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!

Here are the changes to the General staff:

3. And today, several more key commanders have been replaced.

– First Deputy Minister of Defense Oleksandr Pavliuk became the head of the Ground Forces (previously led by Syrsky).

– The commander of the Joint Forces, Serhyi Naiev, was dismissed. Former Marine Corps commander Yuri Sodol was appointed in his place.

 

Recently appointed head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, Andrii Kovalenko, warns about russian disinfo campaign to paint C-i-C Syrskiy as a “russian man” to undermine trust in the Defence Forces.

He implies commentators should be vigilant so as not to play into the russian hands.

https://t.me/akovalenko1989/6732

The Baltics:

NATO:

Poland:

Hungary:

Ukrainska Pravda has the details:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that Ukraine should be left as a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West, which would provide certain security guarantees but not admit Ukraine as a member of the EU or NATO.

Source: Orbán in a conversation with former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel as part of the European Voices media project; an excerpt from the conversation published by Die Presse has attracted considerable attention in the Hungarian media, European Pravda writes

Quote: “Whether you like it or not, whether Ukrainians like it or not, Ukraine is where it is on the map. The best prospect is for it to be a buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees, of course. If that doesn’t work, Ukraine will continue losing territory.

Russia will destroy Ukraine again and again and again. Russia will never accept having an EU and NATO member like Ukraine on its borders, never.”

Details: At the same time, the Hungarian prime minister believes that Ukraine and Georgia could have joined the EU and NATO in 2008, but that opportunity was missed, and with it went “Ukraine’s prospects for future membership of the EU and NATO”.

In response to Schüssel’s remark that a ceasefire now would mean defeat for Ukraine, Orbán said that the assessment may depend on “how we look at the future”, as Ukraine could lose even more territory while the hot phase of the war continues.

The Hungarian prime minister also disagreed with arguments that Ukraine’s membership would protect Europe, as almost all EU members are already members of NATO, and the alliance is stronger than Russia.

“There is no danger of Russia attacking a NATO member state,” Orbán said.

He also expressed the opinion that Russia will never take Ukraine seriously as a partner in negotiations – “only the US and maybe the EU”.

Schüssel noted that there is no certainty that agreements with Russia can be trusted. Orbán replied that in his opinion, “it is not a question of trust, but of strength”.

“We Europeans are not strong enough for the Russians to take us seriously. This is a power play. This is a war. We must demonstrate strength and clearly convey to the Russians: we have our own interests, they have theirs, and on this basis, we can negotiate something,” Orbán said.

He said he does not believe the Russian-Ukrainian war will end in 2024, and that it is necessary to “at least ensure a ceasefire and bring about a situation in which negotiations can be conducted”.

In addition, Orbán believes that Europe is unable to support Ukraine with enough weapons because the societies of European countries “already think the aid is too much”.

“We cannot afford to help Ukraine until it wins militarily,” the Hungarian prime minister added.

Background:

  • Hungary’s foreign minister complained that the Hungarian authorities were being labelled “Putin’s friends” when in fact they were simply raising “strategic issues”.
  • Meanwhile, the Swedish far-right announced that they would leave their group in the European Parliament if Orbán’s party was admitted.

Moldova:

Here’s more on the Starlink Snowflake and his Starlinks.

Avdiivka:

 

Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:

Deepstate publishes satellite images of the Russian 30 km train-barrier in the Donetsk region

“The Russians in Donetsk have assembled a 30-km-long “tsar-train” consisting of more than two thousand cars

🚋 The continuous structure of goods wagons stretches along a branch from the railway station in Olenivka to Volnovakha and has about 2100 wagons of various types. The construction of this “railwagon centipede” began in July 2023. For construction, apparently, railwagons were stolen from temporarily occupied territories.

🤔 This is a very specific engineering structure, the effectiveness of which is difficult to assess. The idea is clear – an obstacle to the advancement of the Defense Forces. It can be considered as a separate line of defense, because it is extremely difficult to damage, move or blow up a 30-kilometer-long mass of metal, and the movement of equipment through such an obstacle without breaking through the corridor is impossible.

🛰 The given radar images are publicly available, to understand the scale of this formation. The construction of the “train” has been visually verified by our team on pictures from different periods of time.”

https://t.me/DeepStateUA/18821

For you Maxim machine gun enthusiasts, which, really, is everyone.

An assessment of Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson by the director of the Polish Institute for International Affairs.

What we have learnt about Putin? My comment.
👇

Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson has reverberated worldwide and has already been analyzed in great detail by social and traditional media. Since being hired as a Russian foreign policy analyst at @PISM_Poland in 2000, I have researched dozens of Putin’s speeches and interviews professionally. I have written countless articles and non-public notes on this subject. I have also had the opportunity to comment on Putin’s speeches in interviews and even live on commercial television. And to me, Putin became quite dull.

Did I learn anything new about Putin?

Both yes and no.

Putin has always been obsessed with his myth of the Russian past. The myth of eternal Russian power is partly responsible for his trauma over the collapse of the Soviet Union, which, as we recall, he regards as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
Nor is there any news that Putin is obsessed with Ukraine. He agrees with Zbig Brzezinski that Russia, deprived of Ukraine, will never be an empire.

(Brzezinski, incidentally, borrowed this observation from Marshal Pilsudski of Poland, who formulated this view as early as 1920).

For Putin, on the other hand, Russia and the empire are a victim. Without an empire, Russia does not exist. Either it is a superpower, or it is doomed to non-existence.
Therefore, for Putin, the war with Ukraine is existential for Russia. There is no room for compromise here. Thus, Ukraine has no choice but to defeat Putin if it wants to exist—nothing new to see here again.

Nevertheless, I found something interesting in this interview – well, Putin’s obsession with Russian history has already turned into Putin’s obsession with his place in Russian history.
Putin is keen to talk about a thousand years of Russia because he is about to join the pantheon of rulers who ruled Russia the longest.
Ivan the Terrible – led for 37 years; Peter I – 39; Catherine the Great – 34; Alexander I – 24; Nicholas I – 30; Stalin – 38; Brezhnev – 28. And Putin has already ruled for 24.

Each of these great predecessors expanded the territory of the Russian empire. Putin wants to go down in Russian history as the tsar who stopped the disintegration of Russia and, reversed the trend, began to expand Russia anew. Ukraine is central to this project. He will not succeed in going down in Russian history as the founding father of its reborn power without subjugating Ukraine.

And the fact that he has failed to conquer it is mainly to the credit of…. Poland, which has been the quickest to support Ukraine in 2022 militarily, financially and by welcoming Ukrainian war refugees, it has managed to mobilise other allies, including the U.S., to enable it.
Poland has mobilised the West. Thus, it stood in Putin’s way. He is aware that if he wants to subjugate the Baltic states, it will mean a confrontation with Poland. Putin is burning with a lust for revenge. He will, therefore, seek to isolate Poland, deprive it of its allies, and attack it under favourable international circumstances.

But by attacking Poland, Putin will attack the global position of the U.S. and the whole West. Ultimately, what he wants is to kick Americans out of Europe and help the others to kick them out of the Pacific.

Here’s a bonus: one of my previous comments regarding Putin’s historical manipulations:

https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/01/09/putins-stalinist-history/

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos tonight, so here’s some adjacent material.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    How about we make Orban’s face the buffer zone. Putz.

    That video clip is…unsettlingly accurate to how things keep going in Congress. Makes me wanna tear my hair out, but I don’t have much to spare.

    The upper cat in that photo looks ready to kill orcs out of glee, while the lower cat looks ready to kill them out of rage.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  2. 2.

    glc

    the Swedish far-right announced that they would leave their group [ECR] in the European Parliament if Orbán’s party was admitted.

    Interesting. European far-right not thrilled about the prospect of being conquered (or, at least, attacked) by Russia apparently.

  3. 3.

    karen marie

    Kittehs!

    My heart breaks anew every day when I read these reports.  I like to think, if I weren’t old and fat, I could be of more practical help.

  5. 5.

    Geminid

    @glc: I don’t know Swedish politics so well, but it looked like the Swedish groups who opposed joining Nato were on the Left and the Right. The Center-Left and Center-Right parties voted for accession when the Swedish Parliament approved it.

    This was a big step. Sweden declared neutrality in 1815 and maintained that status for over 200 years.

  6. 6.

    bjacques

    Thanks as always, Adam. Goddamn but the EU needs to go slap Orbán hard enough to also wipe the smirk off Peter Szijjártó’s face. The Treaty Of Maastricht isn’t a suicide pact.

    In better news, in the Netherlands it’s now looking very much like Human Troll Doll Geert Wilders won’t be able to form a government by the Tuesday deadline, so, at the risk of jinxing it, the F-16s should make it to Ukraine. I don’t know whether a Wilders government could have stopped or slow-walked it, but I don’t want to find out.

  10. 10.

    Literata

    When one lives in a trench, then a friend who kills rodents is much beloved!
    I wonder whether there were trench cats in World War I; I can easily believe they were not much talked about.

    Thanks for the analysis of Putin’s interview. Rat choice my…..well….purrer.

  16. 16.

    Carlo Graziani

    @glc: The Left-Right political spectrum has been obsolete at least since the 1990s. It is a Marxist construct that categorizes all political conflict in terms of socio-political classes. The concept made a good deal of sense in 1848 Europe, but its usefulness in understanding global conflict has been in decline ever since, however much it was propped up by Soviet lip service to Proletariats during the Cold War.

    Human conflict has always been tribal in nature. Tribes were prevalently social classes in Marx’s time, but that fact appears to have been a special circumstance of that time. Nowadays political tribal lines tend more urban vs. rural, as well as rapid-change-driven old vs. young. Conflating all of this into a Left-Right narrative is an unhelpfully lazy media habit, that I devoutly wish wecould move on from.

    All of which is to say, the Swedish “Right” has nothing at all in common with the Hungarian “Right”.

  17. 17.

    Subsole

    @glc:

    ‘Various Ethno-Nationalist Racial Supremacists Join Each Other in Very Well Thought-Out Alliance’

    “What could possibly go wrong?”

Comments are closed.