We know what the fuck they doing ova der. Early this morning the Senate passed the $95 billion supplemental to provide foreign aid to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine. It was bipartisan, with significant support from the Republican minority caucus in the Senate. Speaker Johnson immediately pronounced it dead before arrival in the House.

🚨🚨🚨NEWS — just caught up with @SpeakerJohnson

I asked if he thought he’d put the senate aid bill on the floor. No. He won’t.

“I certainly don’t right now. We're dealing with the appropriations process. We have immediate deadlines upon us and that's where the attention f…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 13, 2024

Minority Leader Jeffries struck a defiant note in response.

House Minority Leader Jeffries says Dems will use “every available legislative tool” to force a vote on $95B foreign aid bill amid Speaker Johnson's opposition:

“There are more than 300 bipartisan votes in the House of Representatives to pass the national security bill today.” pic.twitter.com/nozt99blX6

— The Recount (@therecount) February 13, 2024

We’ll see if he can force a discharge petition. Because that is the only way this bill is getting to the floor of the House for a vote.

Victoria Spartz was born and raised in the Chernihiv region, which suffered and continues to suffer from the Russian army. However, as a U.S. Representative, she spoke against the Ukrainian aid bill, admitting that she hadn't even read it

Once a traitor, always a traitor🤡 pic.twitter.com/admGNewYOJ

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) February 14, 2024

I will remind everyone that almost all of this aid is going to be spent in the US to make munitions, weapons systems, and other military material that will then be sent to Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine or used to backfill our own stocks that we’ve sent to each and all of these states.

President Zelenskyy spent part of his address this evening trying to do a little public diplomacy directed at the House GOP majority:

I am grateful to every US Senator who made a morally strong choice today. Such a choice matters right now, not just for Ukraine but for every nation whose independence is a target for Russian strikes, current and planned, including those planned for the coming years.

Putin's… pic.twitter.com/gqzqt3vBkl

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 13, 2024

 

I am grateful to every US Senator who made a morally strong choice today. Such a choice matters right now, not just for Ukraine but for every nation whose independence is a target for Russian strikes, current and planned, including those planned for the coming years.

Putin’s ambitions have never been limited to Ukraine. His goals are far broader. This means that our defense solidarity must be even broader.

The next step is a vote in the US House of Representatives. We anticipate an equally strong moral choice and a decision that will work for the benefit of our shared security.

President Zelenskyy isn’t stupid. He understands just how difficult it is going to be to get this legislation through the House, but he’s doing what he can with the limited tools he has to positively influence the outcome.

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

We are creating for Ukraine a fundamentally new system of security relations with the world’s major powers – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

13 February 2024 – 19:31

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief report for this day.

First of all, the frontline, and in particular Avdiivka, Kupyansk, and Lyman. Maximum attention, maximum support.

Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi and Defense Minister Umerov are currently on the ground, at the front, all day long. Today they visited all the hot spots of the frontline and reported on the situation. The existing problems are being resolved: manning the units, reinforcement, command and control. There will be reinforcement with drones and means of electronic warfare. Command positions will also be reinforced. A detailed report will follow later.

Secondly, a strategically important vote took place today in the United States. The Senate voted in favor of a package of further support for our country, our warriors, our efforts and democracy in general. I am grateful to every senator for making a morally strong choice. This choice is important not just for Ukraine, but for all nations whose independence is a target for Russian attacks – either now or in the future. Attacks planned for the coming years. Putin has never intended to limit himself to Ukraine alone – his goals are far broader. Hence, solidarity in defense must be even broader. The next step is a vote in the House of Representatives. This is extremely important. We anticipate an equally strong moral choice and a decision that will enter into effect, contributing to our common security.

Thirdly, the reboot of our state’s institutions continues. In particular, the Defense Forces. And today, the diplomatic forces as well. Lieutenant General Yevhen Moysiuk has been appointed a special envoy and will be responsible for the implementation of international security commitments for Ukraine and the development of the Defense Forces. We are creating for Ukraine a fundamentally new system of security relations with the world’s major powers, and every element of such relations must be fully implemented, so that there are no mere declarations. The security agreement with the UK is already in place, and we are preparing new agreements – ambitious agreements. And not only with European powers. Every agreement with partners must be implemented as soon as possible.

And one more thing.

We continue preparations for the Global Peace Summit. On the key security aspects broken by the Russian war. Peace has no alternative and must always be just. It must be exactly what our people and any people of the world deserve. The aggressor must never win. And I am grateful to everyone who helps Ukraine, our warriors, and our entire nation.

Glory to everyone who fights for Ukraine, who works to preserve our independence. And thank you to everyone who helps.

Glory to Ukraine!

The reason:

Long-awaited meeting with father, who has just returned from the frontlines.

📹: @DPSU_ua pic.twitter.com/4ZLcBtdw7O

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) February 13, 2024

This is how people in the villages meet Ukrainian soldiers who have returned from Russian captivity. In the dark, with children,flashlights and Ukrainian flags. To show them that they are welcome in Ukraine. (Our with @stefsiohan report https://t.co/QWrEK2tmoJ) #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/Li2d7AsUxT

— Kristina Berdynskykh (@berdynskykh_k) February 13, 2024

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has published a new assessment of Russian military objectives and capabilities through 2024. Here are some excerpts.

Russian forces are likely to peak in late 2024, with increasing material challenges over the course of 2025.

Defeating Russia’s attempt to subjugate Ukraine must be based upon an understanding of what Russia is trying to achieve, how it is intending to achieve its objectives, and its capacity to implement this plan. The Russian theory of victory has been through various iterations over the course of the war, but Moscow now has a clear plan for how it intends to proceed. This article seeks to outline Russia’s intent in order to provide a basis for planning how its plan can be disrupted. Outlining Russian intent and capacity does not represent an assessment as to the likelihood of it succeeding.

Russian Strategic Objectives
Russia still maintains the strategic objective of bringing about the subjugation of Ukraine. It now believes that it is winning. Surrender terms currently being proposed by Russian intermediaries include Ukraine ceding the territory already under Russian control along with Kharkiv, and in some versions Odessa; agreeing not to join NATO; and maintaining a head of state approved by Russia. The only significant concession Russia proposes is that what is left of Ukraine can join the EU.

The process by which Russia aims to bring about this outcome is in three stages. The first requires the continuation of pressure along the length of the Ukrainian front to drain the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) munitions and reserves of personnel. Parallel to this effort, the Russian Special Services are tasked with breaking the resolve of Ukraine’s international partners to continue to provide military aid. Once military aid has been significantly limited such that Ukrainian munition stocks become depleted, Russia intends to initiate further offensive operations to make significant – if slow – gains on the battlefield. These gains are then intended to be used as leverage against Kyiv to force capitulation on Russian terms. The planning horizon for the implementation of these objectives, which is providing the baseline for Russian force generation and industrial outputs, is that victory should be achieved by 2026.

It is vital to appreciate that Russian goals may expand with success, and given that the Kremlin has violated almost all significant agreements both with Ukraine and NATO, there is no assurance that even if Russia got what it wanted out of negotiations it would not subsequently endeavour to physically occupy the rest of Ukraine or be emboldened to use force elsewhere.

Russian Military Capacity
The Russian military began 2023 with a highly disorganised force in Ukraine comprising approximately 360,000 troops. By the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive in June 2023, this had risen to 410,000 troops and was becoming more organised. Over the summer of 2023, Russia established training regiments along the border and in the occupied territories and, following the mutiny of Wagner forces, endeavoured to standardise its units, breaking down the previous trend towards private armies. By the beginning of 2024, the Russian Operational Group of Forces in the occupied territories comprised 470,000 troops.

Russian forces have reverted above battalion level to the traditional Soviet order of battle of regiments, divisions and combined arms armies, but have been significantly altered below the level of the regiment. Battalions are organised as line and storm battalions, and tend to operate in company groups which fight in small, dispersed detachments. This reflects not only adaptation to battlefield conditions, but also the shortage of trained officers able to coordinate larger formations, with a significant proportion of Russian junior officers currently being promoted from the ranks and receiving condensed officer training, sometimes as short as two months long.

The Russian Group of Forces continues to take significant casualties, but is nevertheless growing in size. Operating at greater scale allows the Russian military to take measures that guarantee the integrity of the front line. Units can generally be rotated out of the line once they have taken up to 30% casualties – the point at which they are judged to be ineffective – and are then regenerated. While no large-scale offensive is currently taking place, Russian units are tasked with conducting smaller tactical attacks that at minimum inflict steady losses on Ukraine and allow Russian forces to seize and hold positions. In this way, the Russians are maintaining a consistent pressure on a number of points. Although the Russian military’s aspiration to increase in size to 1.5 million personnel has not been realised, recruiters are currently achieving almost 85% of their assigned targets for contracting troops to fight in Ukraine. The Kremlin therefore believes that it can sustain the current rate of attrition through 2025.

In terms of combat equipment, the Russian Group of Forces holds approximately 4,780 barrel artillery pieces, of which 20% are self-propelled; 1,130 MLRS; 2,060 tanks; and 7,080 other armoured fighting vehicles, primarily consisting of MT-LBs, BMPs and BTRs. These continue to be supported by 290 helicopters, of which 110 are attack helicopters, and 310 fast jets. These equipment sets are limited in how they can be employed by ammunition shortages, especially for key natures like 220 mm multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and fluctuating availability of 152mm ammunition. Some sets, like fast air, are constrained by the availability of pilots with sufficient experience to carry out key missions. Russian air crew losses – including operators in the Il-20 Coot and A-50U Mainstay, shot down – amount to 159 personnel, which given the unevenness of flight hours in Russian squadrons amounts to a serious loss of capability. Nevertheless, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) can continue to mount a significant sortie rate and deliver stand-off munitions. The overall assessment is that while Russian force quality is unlikely to increase so long as the AFU can maintain a significant level of attrition across the force, the Russians will be able to maintain a steady tempo of attacks throughout 2024.

Russian Industrial Capacity
In terms of Russian industry’s capacity to support ongoing operations, Russia has significantly mobilised its defence industry, increasing shifts and expanding production lines at existing facilities as well as bringing previously mothballed plants back online. This has led to significant increases in production output. For example, Russia is delivering approximately 1,500 tanks to its forces per year along with approximately 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles of various types. Russian missile production has similarly increased. At the beginning of 2023, for instance, Russian production of Iskandr 9M723 ballistic missiles was six per month, with available missile stocks of 50 munitions. By the beginning of 2024, not only had Russia used a significant number of these missiles each month since the summer of 2023, but it had increased its stockpile to nearly 200 Iskandr 9M723 ballistic and 9M727 cruise missiles. A similar picture can be observed across other core missile types like the Kh-101.

Despite these achievements, Russia faces significant limitations in the longevity and reliability of its industrial output. Of the tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, for example, approximately 80% are not new production but are instead refurbished and modernised from Russian war stocks. The number of systems held in storage means that while Russia can maintain a consistent output through 2024, it will begin to find that vehicles require deeper refurbishment through 2025, and by 2026 it will have exhausted most of the available stocks. As the number of refurbished vehicles goes down, industrial capacity can go into making new platforms, but this will necessarily mean a significant decrease in vehicles delivered to the military.

Conclusions
The Russian theory of victory is plausible if Ukraine’s international partners fail to properly resource the AFU. However, if Ukraine’s partners continue to provide sufficient ammunition and training support to the AFU to enable the blunting of Russian attacks in 2024, then Russia is unlikely to achieve significant gains in 2025. If Russia lacks the prospect of gains in 2025, given its inability to improve force quality for offensive operations, then it follows that it will struggle to force Kyiv to capitulate by 2026. Beyond 2026, attrition of systems will begin to materially degrade Russian combat power, while Russian industry could be disrupted sufficiently by that point, making Russia’s prospects decline over time. The latter would require Ukraine’s partners to demonstrate a semblance of competence in their measures aimed at countering Russian defence mobilisation, which remains eminently possible in spite of their performance to date.

Adopting an approach that aims to ensure Ukraine’s resistance through 2025 not only undermines the Kremlin’s theory of victory but also provides sufficient time to establish a rational mobilisation and training process for the AFU such that it can begin to qualitatively outmatch Russian forces, even if the latter continue to increase in overall size. This is critical to building opportunities to continue to threaten Russia’s position and thereby force Russia not just to seek negotiations, but to actually negotiate an end to the war on terms favourable to Ukraine. Now is not the time to comply with the Kremlin’s understanding of the war’s trajectory.

There is more at the link!

The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service has released its 2024 strategic assessment. Here’s the link to the pdf. Here’s the executive summary:

1. Russia’s biggest lesson in the war in Ukraine in 2023 was force generation. While Russia
was able to recruit a large mass of people, it failed to achieve military success due to
inadequate training. Russia is likely to persist with its attrition-based warfare against
Ukraine in 2024. Read more in Chapter 1.1

2. The objectives of Russia’s military reform reflect the leadership’s vision of the resources
required for the conflict with Ukraine and a confrontation with the West. The Kremlin is
probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade. For Estonia,
Russia’s military reform entails a significant increase in Russian forces near the Estonian
border in the coming years. Read more in Chapter 1.2

3. The Russian military industry has significantly increased its production in response to
the prolonged war against Ukraine and can supply the armed forces with the necessary
artillery ammunition and armoured vehicles to continue its aggression. Russia’s advantage
over Ukraine in terms of available artillery ammunition will likely continue to grow in
2024 unless Western countries can quickly step up the production and delivery of artillery
ammunition to Ukraine. Read more in Chapter 1.3

4. Lukashenka intervened in Prigozhin’s uprising in the summer of 2023 primarily to stabilise Putin’s regime, which is directly linked to his own hold on power. The deployment
of Prigozhin’s most loyal fighters to Belarus allowed Putin to rid himself of a contingent
that was disloyal to him, shifting the responsibility for them onto Lukashenka’s shoulders.
Wagner’s presence likely does not pose a threat to internal stability in Belarus or to
neighbouring countries. Read more in Chapter 1.4

5. The militarisation of Russian society is ongoing at all levels, and the regime is progressively adopting a totalitarian character. The protracted war of attrition in Ukraine is the
key driver of Russia’s internal political dynamics. This conflict, enduring in intensity,
increasingly aggravates domestic political and societal strains, adding to the burden on
Putin’s regime. Read more in Chapter 2.1

6. Russia’s economy shows a heavy reliance on “war-dependence”. The economic growth
seen in 2023 was largely fuelled by significant state budget allocations to the military
industry. The more entrenched the Russian economy becomes in military orders, the
more challenging the eventual transition away from it will be. Read more in Chapter 2.2

7. Putin aims to secure victory in Ukraine to demonstrate geopolitical superiority over the
West and reshape the European security landscape. While Putin may believe that time is
on his side, counting on Western and Ukrainian fatigue, the West should not overestimate
Russia’s strategic planning. As an intermediate goal, Russia would likely prefer to freeze
the conflict on its own terms. To achieve this, Russia employs nuclear intimidation and
covert communication. Read more in Chapter 3.1

8. Russia has largely managed to maintain its position in most former Soviet territories
outside the European Union despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. Moldova, however,
stands out as it continues to pursue a pro-Western course at the national level. Russia
is attempting to tilt Moldova back into its orbit by influencing the country’s electoral
process in 2024-2025. Read more in Chapter 3.2

9. As a result of international isolation and loss of influence in the West, Russia seeks allies
in the global South and the Arab world. However, these efforts have not met with the
desired level of success due to hesitations on the part of potential partners and diverging
interests. Read more in Chapter 3

10.Due to the sanctions on Russian media outlets as the Kremlin’s main levers of influence,
Russia desperately seeks ways to continue spreading its narratives in the Western information space. Western journalists have been targeted for press tours to occupied Ukrainian
territories to influence their reporting in favour of the Kremlin’s version of the war. Read
more in Chapter 4

11.Russian special services closely monitor Western diplomatic personnel in Russia and their
contacts with the Russian expert community, aiming to recruit individuals for cooperation.
Information about Western diplomatic personnel’s interactions with Russian academics
and think tank experts is likely to reach the FSB. Read more in Chapter 5

12.Russia and China both share opposition to the United States and its allies, but unlike
Russia, who is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, China focuses more broadly on
realising its global ambitions, seeing and cultivating its partnership with Russia within a
larger framework, seeking to establish a global network that operates on China’s terms.
Chinese and Russian media and ideological cooperation are likely to align the foreign
policies of both countries further. Read more in Chapter 6.1

13.China’s increasingly ideologised foreign policy may cloud its perception of the global
landscape. Over the past year, China has notably escalated its influence activities towards
Europe. The Belt and Road Initiative continues to hold a central place in China’s global
strategy. Read more in Chapter 6.2

14.China is building an integrated political and technological ecosystem based on its own
standards and an amalgamation of solutions from various Chinese technology companies.
The spread of Chinese technology into critical infrastructure poses a threat to Estonia’s
security. Read more in Chapter 6.3

15.The threat of terrorism in Europe remains high in the near future. The Koran-burning
demonstrations in Europe in 2023 set the stage for retaliatory attacks. Read more in
Chapter 7

Much more at the link!

Professor Snyder has a new essay on Putin and his genocidal mythology. Here’s an excerpt.

In a talk with Tucker Carlson, Putin uttered sentences about the past.  I will explain how Putin is wrong about everything, but first I have to make a point about why he is wrong about everything.  By how I mean his errors about past events.  By why I mean the horror inherent in the kind of story he is telling.  It brings war, genocide, and fascism.

Putin has read about various realms in the past. By calling them “Russia,” he claims their territories for the Russian Federation he rules today.

Such nonsense brings war. On Putin’s logic, leaders anywhere can make endless claims to territory based on various interpretations of the past.  That undoes the entire international order, based as it is upon legal borders between sovereign states.

In his conversation with Carlson, Putin focused on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.  Moscow did not exist then.  So even if we could perform the wishful time travel that Putin wants, and turn the clock back to 988, it could not lead us to a country with a capital in Moscow.  Most of Russia’s present territory is in Siberia.  Europeans did not control those Asian territories back then.  On Putin’s logic, Russia has no claim today to the territories from which it extracts its natural gas and oil.  Other countries would, and Russia’s national minorities would.

Putin provides various dates to make various claims. Anyone can do that about any territory. So the first implication of Putin’s view is that no borders are legitimate, including the borders of your own country.  Everything is up for grabs, since everyone can have a story.  Carlson asked Putin why he must invade Ukraine, and the myth of eternal Russia was the answer.

The second problem, after war, is genocide.  After you decide a a country in the deep past is also somehow your country now, you then insist that the only true history is whatever seems to prove you right.  The experiences of people who actually lived in the past and live in the present are “artificial” (to use one of Putin’s favorite words).

In the interview, and in other speeches during the war, Putin depends on a false distinction between natural nations and artificial nations.  Natural nations have a right to exist, artificial ones do not.

But there are no natural nations.  All nations are made.  The Russia of tomorrow is made by the actions of Russians today.  If Russians fight a lawless war of destruction in Ukraine, that makes them a different people than they might have been.  This is more important than anything that happened centuries ago.  When a nation is called “artificial,” this is justification for genocide.  Genocidal language does not refer to the past; it changes the future.

Everyone who does not fit Putin’s neat story (Russia is eternal, so Russians can do whatever they want) has to be removed, first from the narrative of the past, and then from those counted as human in present.  On Putin’s logic, it does not matter what people believe or how people understand their own past.  It is he who decides which souls are bound to which other souls.  Other views have no place in nature, because they arose from events which (in his story) should never have happened.  His view must govern the past, which requires violence in the present: genocide.

If there are people who say that Ukraine is real, they must be destroyed.  That has been the logic of Russia’s mass murder from the start.  Putin expected Ukraine to fall in a few days because he thought he needed to eliminate a few Ukrainians in an artificial elite.  The more Ukrainians there turned out to be, the more people had to be killed. The same holds for physical expressions of Ukrainian culture.  Russia has destroyed thousands of Ukrainian schools.  Everywhere Russian troops reach, they burn Ukrainian books.

The third problem is a fascism expressed as victimhood.  Putin is the dictator of the largest country in the world and personally controls tens and more likely hundreds of billions of dollars.  And yet in his story he is a longwinded victim, because not everyone agrees with him.  Russia is a victim because Russians can tell a story about how they need to fight a genocidal war, and not everyone agrees.  Ukrainians are the aggressors, because they do not agree that they and their country do not exist.

Indeed, says Putin, Ukrainians are “Nazis,” a word that in his mouth just means “people who refuse to accept that Russians are pure no matter what we do.”  This is a victim claim: if the Ukrainians are “Nazis,” then Russians — even though they started the war and have killed tens of thousands of people and kidnapped tens of thousands of children and carry out war crimes every single day — must be the righteous sufferers.

This is how myth matters. If all the wrong in the past was done by others, as Putin says, then all the wrong in the present must be done by others.  Putin’s story divides good and evil perfectly.  Russia is always right, others are always wrong. Russians can behave like Nazis while calling others “Nazis” and all is well.  Russia is a people with a special purpose, resisted by conspiracies.  Putin’s war has been fought with fascist slogans and by fascist means, with mass propaganda and mass mobilization.

Just as there are three why problems (war, genocide, fascism) there are three how problems.  Putin leaves things out before his narrative begins, gets things wrong during his narrative, and leaves things out as his narrative ends.

I’d almost rather leave it at the why.  As soon as I get into the how, and start correcting the factual errors, it’s as though I am endorsing the overall logic.  So just to make this clear: even were Putin a decent historian, that would not mean that he could (legally, morally) claim territory on the basis of correct things he said about the past.  Real historians, as you might have noticed, do not actually have that power.  Most of what Putin says about the past is ludicrous; but even had he said some true things, that would not justify destroying the international order, invading neighbors, and committing genocide.

Aside from being dangerous and erroneous, what Putin says about the Ukrainian past is boring. He leaves out important things about the history of the lands that are now Ukraine.  Thousands of years before Putin begins to get everything wrong, world-historical trends emerge from lands that are now Ukraine.  Deep in the Bronze Age, about six thousand years ago, there were large settlements (“mega-cities”) in what is now Ukraine.  About five thousand years ago, the people who built those cities were displaced by pastoralists who had domesticated the horse.  Those people brought from the steppe with the beginnings of languages now spoken by about half the people of the world.  About two thousand five hundred years ago, Scythians from what is now southern Ukraine encountered Greeks, supplying them with some of their best stories (including those of Amazons, female Scythian warriors).  Scythia, or the southern coast of what is now Ukraine, fed Athens during the time of its greatest flowering, and Greeks lived in cities on what is now the southern Ukrainian coast.

One could go on from there to the Sarmatians, the Goths, and the Khazars.  The lands of what is now Ukraine may very well have been the first European territories inhabited by humans; however that may be, they have been inhabited, often by hugely influential peoples, for about thirty-seven thousand years.  If it were truly the case that one could claim territory today on the basis of who was there first, Russia would have a weak claim.

All of Putin’s utterances about the period finds interesting, beginning in the ninth century AD, are wrong.  He starts up Tucker Carlson with a pleasant tale about how people in Novgorod “invited” a “Varangian prince” to rule them.  History is a rougher business than that.  This was the Viking age.  A Viking slaving company known as “Rus” was finding its way down the Dnipro river to exchange its slavic slaves for silver.  Eventually those Vikings made of Kyiv, at the time a Khazar fort, their main trading post and port and later their capital.

In the interview, Putin invites Carlson to believe that this was a “centralized state” with “one and the same language.”  This is just ignorance.  It was a medieval kingdom, not a state in our sense. It was certainly not centralized.  That is a fantasy.  Nor did it have a single language.  The Viking and post-Viking rulers had three names: their Scandinavian ones, with time their local (slavic) ones, and after conversion their baptismal ones.  There was a slavic language at the time and place, spoken by much of the population and eventually by the rulers, but it was not modern Russian or Russian of any description.  Some of the language of politics was from the Khazars.  There were Jews in ancient Kyiv who knew Hebrew and slavic. There were plenty of other language spoken as well, from several different linguistic families.

Were Putin serious that the past determines the present, he should say that the territories of that medieval Viking state, Kyivan Rus — much of Ukraine, all of Belarus, some of northeastern Russia by today’s boundaries — should belong to Sweden, or Denmark, or Norway, or perhaps Finland.  The creation of Kyivan Rus was one of several spectacular examples of Viking statebuilding around the year 1000.  This broad history includes Sicily, Normandy (and so indirectly England) as well as the Scandinavian kingdoms.  Sometimes Viking ambition includes several of these states at once, as when Harald Hardrada, who had served the army of Kyivan Rus, took up the kingship in Norway and invaded England.  Putin speaks of Yaroslav the Wise; in an Icelandic source that fascinating ruler figures as Jarisleif the Lame.  He was widely known in the Europe of the day (but not in Moscow, which did not exist).

Then the Mongols arrive in Kyiv, in 1240.  This is an awkward moment for Putin, since it reveals the problem with his reasoning.  If the Mongols destroyed Kyivan Rus in about 1240, why not pick then as the date that is forever valid?  Why is that any worse than the earlier and later dates Putin chooses?  Why does Mongolia not have a claim on Kyiv, and for that matter on Russia?  On Putin’s logic, it must.  Putin skips hastily over this awkwardness to the (false) claim that “northern cities preserved some of their sovereignty.”  He means that Moscow preserved the sovereignty of Kyivan Rus under Mongol rule.  But Moscow did not exist.  By the time the Mongols invaded, there was a settlement on the site, but the Mongols burned it down.  When Moscow was rebuilt, it was as a site of tribute collection for the Mongol overlords.  That is the founding moment of the state centered in Moscow.  Why then does today’s Moscow not now belong to Mongolia?

In the English transcript of the interview provided by the office of the president of the Russian Federation, which I am using, Putin keeps saying “Russian.”  This is not the kind of thing one can expect Carlson to notice, but it is an error every time Putin does it, at least for most of the centuries he is talking about.  Kyivan Rus was in no way “Russia.”  It was named after Vikings who became rulers.  That name “Rus” came to be associated with the land and its people and with Christianity.  But “Russia” as Putin is using it, when it refers to anything specific, is an empire founded in St. Petersburg (a city that did not exist at the time of Kyivan Rus) in 1721.  That Russian Empire was named “Russian” precisely as a claim to lands and to history.  But just because Peter the Great made a clever public relations decision half a millennium after the Mongols took Kyiv does not mean that there was a Russia when the Mongols arrived.  There was not.

The Russian Empire that arose from Moscow was a very important state. But even the Russian Empire (1721-1917) was not a Russia in the way Putin wants.  Most of its territory was in Asia. There was no Russian national consciousness among its peoples on most of its territories for most of its existence.  Most of its population did not speak Russian.  Its ruling class was largely German, Polish, and Swedish.  Catherine the Great, the empress Putin venerates, was a German princess who came to power after the murder of her husband, who was a German prince.  (Much the same can be said, incidentally, for the Soviet elite.  It is only with Boris Yeltsin and his chosen successor Putin that we have before us unambiguous Russians durably ruling in a country called Russia.  It is perhaps this very novelty and uncertainty that stands behind a view of the past that is at once naive and cynical.  Russia’s nationhood is postmodern, and it shows.)

Much, much more at the link.

LTG (ret) Kellogg has lost his damn mind! Reuters has the details.

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – A leading national security adviser to Donald Trump told Reuters on Tuesday that he would push for changes to NATO if the former president returns to power that could result in some member nations losing protection against an outside attack.

Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and onetime chief of staff of the former president’s National Security Council, said in an interview that if a member of the 31-country alliance failed to spend at least 2% of its gross domestic product, opens new tab on defense, as agreed, he would support removing that nation’s Article 5 protections under the North Atlantic Treaty.

Article 5 states that an attack against one member of the Europe-based alliance will be considered an attack against all, and members of the alliance must respond appropriately. Without those protections, a member country would not be guaranteed other NATO members would come to its aid.

“Where I come from, alliances matter,” said Kellogg, who also served as former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser. “But if you’re going to be part of an alliance, contribute to the alliance, be part of the alliance.”

Trump drew swift rebukes from Democratic President Joe Biden and top Western officials when he suggested at a weekend rally that he would not defend NATO allies who failed to spend enough on defense and would even encourage Russia to attack them.

Kellogg declined to say if he had discussed his proposal with Trump, though he said they have frequently discussed the future of NATO. Trump is close to securing the Republican Party’s presidential nomination for the Nov. 5 general election.

Kellogg said if Trump wins, he would likely suggest a NATO meeting in June 2025 to discuss the future of the alliance. He said NATO could subsequently become a “tiered alliance,” in which some members enjoy greater protections based on their compliance with NATO’s founding articles.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but it has previously identified Kellogg as a policy adviser who could take a role in his administration.

Trump and his allies have increasingly signaled that they intend to rethink America’s decades-long commitment to NATO, and they have long complained that European members of the alliance are not paying their fair share.

In addition to losing Article 5 protections, Kellogg said, other less severe sanctions were possible, such as losing access to training or shared equipment resources. Member countries, he added, should feel free to withdraw from NATO.

“If President Trump is re-elected, once the election is done, I would give everyone what we call a warning order. I would probably say this is where we are going to go to allow them preparations so we can discuss it in June,” Kellogg said.

“I think it’s a very adult conversation to have, and it’s one of the many conversations in national security that need to be had.”Kellogg said that if Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty was not respected, the protections afforded by Article 5 should not be taken as automatic.

Article 3 states that NATO member countries must make appropriate efforts to develop their individual defense capabilities. While Article 3 does not say countries must spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense, member nations pledged at a 2014 summit in Wales to move toward that figure within a decade.

More insanity at the link.

The Daily Beast has reported that the House GOP’s star anti-Hunter Biden witness appears to be all Bratvaed up!

Tony Bobulinski, the high-flying investor who is the House GOP’s star witness in the Oversight Committee’s ever-expanding probe into Hunter Biden, has become the one Biden business associate that Republicans would like voters to believe.

“Of all of the guys that were involved in the Hunter Biden orbit, Tony Bobulinski appears to me to be the one solid guy that tried to do the right thing and was honest,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) told Lou Dobbs earlier this month.

But as Republicans examine Hunter Biden’s questionable business ties, it turns out Bobulinski is connected to one particular character perhaps more unsavory than any other figure in the inquiry’s constellation: Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

Vekselberg is a Ukrainian-born energy magnate who’s been a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s for decades. And in 2017, Vekselberg reportedly funneled $500,000 to an LLC run by Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, supposedly with the intention of influencing the new administration to let Russia illegally occupy parts of Eastern Ukraine.

U.S. law enforcement has placed sanctions on Vekselberg multiple times, citing Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election, Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, and the oligarch’s ties to Putin. (Vekselberg tried to evade those sanctions with the help of an American attorney.)

But Republicans are trying to look past Bobulinski’s ties to Vekselberg, as they paint Hunter Biden—dishonestly and without actual evidence—as a corrupt figure facilitating payments to his father. And they want voters to take Bobulinski’s word about Biden’s shady business dealings.

Given Bobulinski’s personal history and connections to people like Vekselberg, however, Democrats think that would be outright foolish. In fact, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said on Monday that Bobulinski’s biography raises “giant red flags.” Other impeachment witnesses have also directly disputed Bobulinski’s unproven claims about the Bidens, including a former business partner who characterized Bobulinski’s allegations to FBI agents as “wishful thinking” and “unicorns and rainbows.”

“Fuck Tony for, for trying to—I mean for taking little pieces of emails or, you know, and not showing the structure of an LLC or taking pieces of conversation that he recorded,” this witness told FBI agents. “I don’t know what’s in it for Tony but, but that email looks bad.”

All the same, Bobulinski will appear Tuesday for a private interview before the House panels exploring potential impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden. And during that interview, Bobulinski is expected to reiterate claims that he believes some of the cash from an ill-fated Chinese energy venture with the president’s son made its way to the current Oval Office occupant’s bank accounts back in 2017. (No parties have produced evidence confirming any pay-to-play relationship involving Joe Biden, and reporting has thrown cold water on the notion.)

What Bobulinski seems less inclined to discuss—given his failure to respond to repeated inquiries for this story—are his past connections to Vekselberg, a prominent Russian oligarch who sought repeatedly to influence Trump’s administration, including with payments to promote a proposal that would allow the Kremlin to retain control of the illegally occupied Crimean peninsula.

Much more at the link.

Expect to see selectively edited leaks to overly credulous reporters over the next few days.

Russia’s political warfare campaign has ramped way up. A few days ago it was Spiegel reporting regarding influencing German politics. Today it is The Economist reporting on similar targeting in France, Germany, and Poland.

Ahead of European elections, France has uncovered a vast Russian disinformation campaign, targeting mainly 🇫🇷🇩🇪and 🇵🇱, based on a network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat” ⬇️

In ⁦@TheEconomist⁩https://t.co/zW6Eo4sXUt

— Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) February 12, 2024

On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries, tied in part to the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the elections to the European Parliament in June.

Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”. Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. Over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022. Current traffic to these sites, which exist in various languages including French, German, Polish and English, is low. But French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.

Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.

It was no coincidence that the French made the announcement on the day that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hosted Donald Tusk, the new Polish prime minister, in Paris. The pair met ahead of a get-together later that day of the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, a grouping nicknamed the “Weimar triangle”. These are also the main countries that the Russian campaign is designed to target. “We are in a moment of vulnerability” ahead of the European elections, said Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister.

For France, the detection of this latest Russian destabilisation effort comes after a series of campaigns that it has attributed to Moscow. Last November the French foreign ministry denounced a “Russian digital interference operation” that spread photos of Stars of David stencilled on walls in a neighbourhood of Paris, in order to stir intercommunal tension in France shortly after the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Viginum then detected a network of 1,095 bots on x (formerly Twitter), which published 2,589 posts. It linked this to a Russian internet complex called Recent Reliable News, known for cloning the websites of Western media outlets in order to spread fake news; the eu has dubbed that complex “Doppelgänger”.

France held the same network responsible in June 2023 for the cloning of various French media websites, as well as that of the French foreign ministry. On the cloned ministry website, hackers posted a statement suggesting, falsely, that France was to introduce a 1.5% “security tax” to finance military aid to Ukraine.

As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in the Washington Post in December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarised politics.

More at the link.

Avdiivka:

Thank you everyone!
I see the jar is being replenished with every minute.
I've also sent $80 on PP!

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) February 13, 2024

Avdiivka.

Russian units have severed the Industrial Avenue, a key ground line of communications between the coke coal plant and the rest of (what used to be) the city.

It’s not the last one, yet Russian advances have gravely undermined Ukrainian logistics.

The situation is critical due to the chronic and acute lack of everything, from munitions to equipment.

Russians blanket Ukrainian units with scores of guided air bombs 24/7, and Ukraine has nothing left to counter that.

The impediment of critical defense aid to Ukraine is taking its toll.

We know that Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized has been withdrawn to the rear following extremely costly battles that have continued since October 10.

We know that Ukraine’s elite 3rd Assault has entered the fight as reinforcements.

The Zenith, the key strongpoint close to 9 years of war is mapped as almost completely surrounded now.

We do not know as of now if the long-awaited decision to withdraw from Avdiivka has been made.

We do not know if the command has decided to try and save the situation by introducing an elite ‘firefighting team.’

Avdiivka is now one of the worst hellscapes on planet Earth.

But we can immediately help the garrison with FPV drones that at least partially mitigate the critical lack of artillery power.

@jana_skhidna is right now raising funds to buy FPV drones for the Avdiivka garrison – you can donate from anywhere in the world.

The goal is to raise UAH 12.3 million and buy 650 drones. As I write this now, some 1.2 million have been collected. This is very, very urgent.

That’s for Ukraine’s armed forces Special Operations units, the 47th Mechanized, the 110th Mechanized drone company, the 23rd Mechanized, and the 1st Special Operations Group Omega of the National Guard.

Here’s how you can help Ukraine.

Monobanka: https://send.monobank.ua/jar/m84kQYHuB
PayPal: [email protected]

As always, I’m donating, too, with you.

By the Monobanka link (it should work in most cases around the world), you can monitor the fundraising campaign 24/7.

Love & respect from Ukraine that has been repelling the biggest European war of aggression since WWII for 2 years.

Russian occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast:

How many comments under his final post?! pic.twitter.com/8qQNKW9dOM

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) February 13, 2024

The use of Ukrainian FPV Drones with warheads of two grenades for RPG-7.
By the 59th Brigade, Avdiivka front. https://t.co/71NeuvHdT0 pic.twitter.com/Xh3VNKcUtw

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) February 13, 2024

Group of 11 (5 on the video) russian servicemen of the 71st rifle regiment surrendered to the fighters of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade in Zaporizhzhia direction.

Russian assault was stopped, vehicles destroyed, and units were forced to hide in cover. Ukrainian group was… pic.twitter.com/AmZuwLk0Ok

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) February 13, 2024

 

Group of 11 (5 on the video) russian servicemen of the 71st rifle regiment surrendered to the fighters of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade in Zaporizhzhia direction.

Russian assault was stopped, vehicles destroyed, and units were forced to hide in cover. Ukrainian group was dispatched for sweeping and after a few machine gun bursts and a fire breaking out in the dugout, russian servicemen surrendered.

https://t.me/brigade128/1308

Kreminna front:

Strike on Russian ammunition storage, Kreminna front. https://t.co/CKWAPb2x9r pic.twitter.com/IKtzaje9Zz

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) February 13, 2024

 

What a schmuck!

Looks like Tucker literally did whatever he was told. pic.twitter.com/jvEgMqzqHi

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) February 13, 2024

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

If you stare at the fire for too long, you start to imagine something. What would you like to burn? According to all fire safety regulations, of course ☺️ pic.twitter.com/EzCb0KyNJU

— Patron (@PatronDsns) February 13, 2024

Open thread!