Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

It’s a doggy dog world.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

The lights are all blinking red.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

I really should read my own blog.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

He really is that stupid.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

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

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 899: Belgorod

War for Ukraine Day 899: Belgorod

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A quick housekeeping note. Rosie is still doing excellently. She has this week off before her next treatment. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

As I begin tonight’s update at 7:35 PM EDT/2:35 AM local in Ukraine, almost all of Ukraine is under air raid alert. And drone attacks are being reported.

Here’s the butcher’s bill from yesterday’s attack in Kostiantinivka, as well as from Russia’s attacks on Kharkiv and Kramartosk.

A russian war crime that will likely go unnoticed by Western media, yet demands as much attention as any massive missile strike. Last night, russian forces targeted the village of Pershotravneve in the Izium district of Kharkiv Oblast. The attack claimed the lives of a 24-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman, who perished beneath the rubble of their home. A 58-year-old man later died from his injuries in the hospital.
#RussiaIsATerroristState

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

Ukraine Is Proving that it Really Knows How to Restore Justice – Address by the President

10 August 2024 – 20:47

I wish you good health, fellow Ukrainians!

First of all, I would like to commend all our warriors for this week – the combat brigades, which are highly effective in defending our country and destroying the occupier. We leave no part of the front unattended. Every direction, every point of combat engagement. The Sumy region, the Kharkiv region, all directions in the Donetsk region, especially the toughest ones – Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kramatorsk – and the south of our state. Everywhere, there is something to thank the Ukrainian warriors for.

In particular, I would like to mention the 47th and 110th separate mechanized brigades. This is the Pokrovsk direction specifically. Well done, guys! Also, the 1st separate assault battalion, the 35th separate marine infantry brigade, the 54th separate mechanized brigade, the 57th and the 59th separate motorized infantry brigades, the 77th separate airmobile brigade and the 100th separate mechanized brigade. Thank you all! And also, I thank the special units of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine for their actions in the south direction.

Today, Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi has already reported several times – on the frontline situation and on our actions to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory. I thank every unit of our Defense Forces that makes this happen. Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.

I also want to thank our partners – all those who made this week effective in terms of sanctions against Russia and individuals associated with it. This should be felt every week – that sanctions truly work, and anyone who tries to circumvent them will get a response from the world. We are preparing new decisions that will impose restrictions on the Russian state. I am thankful for the new defense packages for Ukraine. This week we have an American package. Missiles for Stingers, shells for HIMARS, 155-mm caliber artillery. We are working on timely logistics, to make the aid tangible on the frontline as soon as possible. And we look forward with great anticipation to decisions on long-range capabilities – from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France – we look forward to strong decisions that will bring a just peace closer.

And one more thing. I have just held a preparatory meeting on a decision that will strengthen our Ukrainian spiritual independence. We must deprive Moscow of the last opportunities to limit the freedom of Ukrainians. And the decisions to achieve this must be one hundred percent effective – they must really work. We will ensure them.

Glory to Ukraine!

For want of a nail!

The reason:

It looks like the Ukrainians have also crossed Russia’s border into Belgorod Oblast:

Ukrainian military next to the Porozovsky village club
Belgorod region, village Poroz, Sergeevka street. 3km from the Ukrainian border. (50.5771226, 35.4506268)

Russian sources confirm movements of the Ukrainian soldiers in Poroz area: “Under the cover of artillery, the Ukrainian Armed Forces entered the settlement of Poroz, Graivoronsky urban district, Belgorod region.”

The Ukrainians Soldiers are holding a Georgian flag, which is covered in signatures, and a Ukrainian flag with the battalion’s crest.

Day five of Ukraine’s “special military operation” in Russia.
🔴 Ukrainian forces continue advancing east of Sudzha, heavy fighting reported throughout the area.
🔴 Russia says at least 76,000 Russian civilians have fled the border areas of Kursk region.
🔴 Ukrainian soldiers post a video from another cross-border incursion, in a village in Belgorod region.
🔴 Russian Ka-52 helicopter downed in Kursk, both sides lose some tanks and fighting vehicles. More videos of Russian POWs emerge.

Kursk Oblast, Russia:

On Day 5 of incursion into Kursk, Russia announces anti-terrorist operation in three bordering oblasts “to maintain public order.” Here’s what this tells us:

1. Restrictions on using Western weapons and limiting military aid to Ukraine to avoid escalation are pointless. Putin only understands strength. 1/👇🏻

From The Wall Street Journal: (emphasis mine)

In the five days since Ukrainian forces pushed into Russia’s Kursk region, at least 76,000 Russian civilians have fled the fighting—some seen racing away in shrapnel-peppered cars. A tent city for refugees is being set up in the regional capital.

The first major foreign military invasion of Russian territory since World War II, the Ukrainian incursion caught Moscow by surprise. Kyiv’s forces have advanced at least 20 miles in from the border and raised a Ukrainian flag in the town of Sudzha.

Videos posted online show a column of Russian reinforcements taking heavy losses Friday near another town in the area, Rylsk, and Ukrainian troops released footage with well over a hundred Russian prisoners. At least three Russian combat helicopters have been shot down, according to Russian military analysts.

Still, on Russian TV—and in the Kremlin’s pronouncements—the tumultuous events of recent days are presented as nearly routine, with Ukrainian forces usually referred to as “saboteurs” who are “attempting” an incursion. President Vladimir Putin described the advance of Ukrainian armored units as “yet another large-scale provocation.”

The chief of Russia’s general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said no more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops were involved. Russia’s Defense Ministry later said 1,120 Ukrainian troops have been killed, sparking online ridicule of the defense establishment by Russian nationalist bloggers.

On Friday, the Russian government described activities in the border regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod as a “counterterrorist operation,” giving them the same legal status as law-enforcement actions against Islamist extremist groups in the northern Caucasus.

This placed the fighting on the Ukrainian border under the overall command of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency—rather than the military.

“There can be no rally around the flag effect for an authoritarian regime that is losing,” said self-exiled Russian political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, who used to be one of Putin’s speechwriters. “The authoritarian public only respects strength—if you win, you become more popular. But if you start losing, and the defeat in Kursk is obvious, then you remain alone and people don’t just turn away from you, they start hating and despising you.”

It was a wave of public outrage about the conduct of the war—and Russian combat losses—that fueled the most serious challenge to Putin’s rule so far, last summer’s brief mutiny by the Wagner paramilitary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Wagner easily took the southern Russian city of Rostov and rolled virtually unopposed toward Moscow before aborting the uprising.

It appears that Russia has managed to slow down Ukrainian advances in Kursk, but it is nowhere near regaining the lost territory so far, and Russian military bloggers said Kyiv seized an additional Russian village, Plekhovo, on Saturday. “We must look at this situation with sobriety,” Russian lawmaker Andrey Gurulev, a retired lieutenant-general, told Russian TV as he pointed to the size of invading Ukrainian units. “We won’t be able to push them out quickly.”

The Ukrainian move into Sudzha followed a similar, but less successful, Russian cross-border offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in May. That operation prompted the U.S. and allies to relax longstanding restrictions on using Western-supplied weapons on Russian soil. Washington still maintains the ban on striking Russian targets outside border areas, such as military airfields, with American-supplied ATACMS missiles, out of fear of sparking escalation by the Kremlin.

Putin’s muted reaction to the invasion of Kursk, however, raises questions about what red lines the Russian leader really has—and whether Western hesitation to arm Ukraine, a result of concerns about Russian escalation, was a strategic mistake.

“We have to see how the Russians respond, but this is an assault on its territorial integrity and ultimately sovereignty,” said John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attaché in Russia. “So the question is what is a red line.”

For now, at least, there is no evidence of popular outrage directed at Putin outside the immediately affected areas of Kursk region. Russia’s hypernationalist war analysts are fuming about the failures of the Russian Defense Ministry. Some of them have demanded the firing of Gerasimov, and the return to the front of former Ukraine war commander Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was briefly detained and sidelined last year because of his ties to Prigozhin, and Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army who criticized the General Staff last year and is now in jail on corruption charges.

But this criticism is limited—in part because several hypernationalist commentators have been jailed or died in mysterious circumstances in the wake of the Wagner uprising. Just as the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk began, Russia tightened restrictions on YouTube and imposed curbs on the Signal messaging service, trying to contain the flow of information.

“War has become so routine in people’s minds, that even such serious failures as the seizure of internationally recognized Russian territory is treated as something like: Meh, it happens,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and a former adviser at the Russian central bank. “I don’t think anything can mobilize Russian society at this point. Generally speaking, the Russian people have wanted and keep wanting the same thing: to be left alone.”

While the Ukrainian offensive into the internationally recognized Russian territory might seem a dramatic turn of events to many in the West, it is less so in Russia because the Kremlin’s propaganda treats all of the fighting in the Ukrainian war as occurring on Russian soil.

Moscow, after all, announced the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine in the fall of 2022—and, from the point of view of the Russian constitution, there is no legal distinction between a Ukrainian offensive in Kursk or in occupied southern Ukraine.

Much more at the link.

NATO expansion really is non-negotiable. Who knew?

Putin has declared a counter-terrorist operation in the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions. And this means that the operation will be managed by the FSB.

The FSB, which has long been actively pursuing the military on Putin’s orders, bringing criminal cases against them and arresting high-ranking generals, has now been given control over an operation that should involve the same military. I highly doubt that the generals of the Russian military will just swallow this and comply.

Let’s see where such decisions will lead, because, as we know, most of the coups have occurred precisely in times of war, when tensions between the various branches of government reach a critical point.

#Kursk #RussialsATerroristState #UkraineRussiaWar

It is significant that Putin has put the response to the Ukrainian cross-border offensive under the FSB. The FSB is the successor of the KGB, which was Putin’s professional home before he was placed into politics in St. Petersburg. It is the one institution he trusts within Russia. It may be the only one. The FSB is unlikely to actually have the resources and the capabilities to actually deal with this on their own.

The thinner the FSB’s forces and personnel get stretched on Russia’s borders, borders which include the Kaliningrad enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

This isn’t going to help things:

Danish military expert Anders Nielsen @anderspuck tells how Putin is using Russian conscripts in the war with Ukraine.

▪️ Historical context
During the Afghan War, the forced dispatch of conscripts to the war zone caused panic in families. Fear was fueled by the zinc-lined coffins of “Cargo 200” arriving in every corner of the country.

This public sentiment was one of the reasons why the USSR actually lost the war and withdrew its limited contingent from Afghanistan.

▪️ Conscripts and the “SMO”
Given the lessons of the Afghan War, the Kremlin leadership promised not to send conscripts to Ukraine.

Nevertheless, conscripts have been in the war since the first days of the invasion. Some of them allegedly voluntarily signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, while others were part of the advancing units.

At least 159 Russian conscripts died during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This figure is given by the BBC Russian Service, analyzing information from open sources together with the Mediazona media outlet.

▪️ Conscripts on the border
Since the fall of 2022, Russian conscripts have been actively used to protect the most difficult parts of the border, where they replaced the contract soldiers who had been sent to the front line.

It was conscripts, along with border guards, who were on the first line of Russian defense during the large-scale breakthrough into the Kursk region. They lacked heavy weaponry, equipment, and proper training. As a result of the fighting, dozens of conscripts could have been captured.

▪️ What next?
According to Danish military expert Anders Nielsen, the Kursk incursion presents Putin with a dilemma – replace conscripts with units intended for the war in Ukraine or recognize the participation of conscripts in combat operations.

And this is a highly sensitive issue that will affect the majority of Russians.

“If Ukraine kills some poor guy that is from Siberia and he joined the army to earn some money, then that’s not something that’s going to get people upset in the middle-class neighborhoods. But if the conscripts start dying, then they will care.”

Russian occupied Crimea:

The Russian occupied Black Sea:

Here’s the machine translation of Sternenko’s tweet:

The Navy is clearing the Black Sea of ​​Russian junk!

That night, they struck one of the gas towers in the water area, where the enemy had placed technical reconnaissance equipment and held up to 40 personnel.
Now these are underwater and at the same time fried katsaps.
The gas platform is still burning 🔥

The Navy of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is armed with twin Sea Baby drones with a range of up to 1,000 km and a warhead of about 900 kg, so the Russians will have fewer and fewer chances to survive in the Black Sea.

I am attaching an exclusive video of a successful strike by our sailors.

Chasiv Yar:

Rostov on Don, Russia:

Reuters reports that Iran will be sending ballistic missile systems to Russia:

Aug 9 (Reuters) – Dozens of Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, two European intelligence sources told Reuters, adding that they expected the imminent delivery of hundreds of the satellite-guided weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Russian defence ministry representatives are believed to have signed a contract on Dec. 13 in Tehran with Iranian officials for the Fath-360 and another ballistic missile system built by Iran’s government-owned Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) called the Ababil, according to the intelligence officials, who requested anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters.

Citing multiple confidential intelligence sources, the officials said that Russian personnel have visited Iran to learn how to operate the Fath-360 defence system, which launches missiles with a maximum range of 120 km (75 miles) and a warhead of 150 kg. One of the sources said that that “the only next possible” step after training would be actual delivery of the missiles to Russia.

Moscow possesses an array of its own ballistic missiles, but the supply of Fath-360s could allow Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets beyond the front line, while employing Iranian warheads for closer-range targets, a military expert said.

A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council said the United States and its NATO allies and G7 partners “are prepared to deliver a swift and severe response if Iran were to move forward with such transfers.”

It “would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” the spokesman said. “The White House has repeatedly warned of the deepening security partnership between Russia and Iran since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Russia’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said in a statement that the Islamic Republic had forged a long-term strategic partnership with Russia in various areas, including military cooperation.
“Nevertheless, from an ethical standpoint, Iran refrains from transferring any weapons, including missiles, that could potentially be used in the conflict with Ukraine until it is over,” the statement said.

The White House declined to confirm that Iran was training Russian military personnel on the Fath-360 or that it was preparing to ship the weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.

The two intelligence sources gave no exact timeframe for the expected delivery of Fath-360 missiles to Russia but said it would be soon. They did not provide any intelligence on the status of the Abibal contract.

A third intelligence source from another European agency said it had also received information that Russia had sent soldiers to Iran to train in the use of Iranian ballistic missile systems, without providing further details.

Much more at the link.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos, so here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I read a report (link of which I can’t find now) that half of the NK KN-23 SRBMs launched by Russia have failed in flight, possibly due to the house appliance grade ball bearings being used to steer the control surfaces.

  3. 3.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Someone under the moniker of “Lovely Lad” has a series of fairly detailed analysis of the Ukrainian attack into the Kursk region, based on mostly open source information. He is updating daily. Not sure how credible he is, but John Helin reposting his threads, so…

    I think Ukraine is & will make a lot of political/propaganda hay from this series of attacks into Russia, which is certainly useful (warfare, after all, is politics by other means). However, this investment of scarce Ukrainian combat power is only a net positive if the assault force does not suffer great losses before getting back to Ukraine. Given the unsurprisingly sluggish Russian response so far, they probably can get back w/o too much trouble, as long as the Ukrainian formations do not concentrated & fixed in place to be targeted by long range Russian fires (artillery, aviation & drones).

    The attacks has been launched from a salient of Ukrainian territory, & the grounds taken to date has pushed that salient quite a bit further. I don’t see how the Ukrainian Army has the wherewithal to hold these territories against determined Russian counterattack, given how much pressure they are still under in Donbass & Kupyansk. So far, it does not appear that Russia is pulling combat formations from other fronts to meet this new threat, & instead is pressing their current attacks further .

  6. 6.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: I have been struck by how relatively infrequently NK ballistic missiles are reported as incoming by Ukraine.

    I would have thought that NK should be able to procure high grade ball bearings on the international black market, or from PRC suppliers looking to make a buck (even if Beijing is not directly supporting NK’s ballistic missile program). Then again, I would not be surprised if the missiles that NK is supplying Russia are new builds made as cheaply as possible, rather than from current stock. Alternatively, NK is selling off the lower quality early tranches nearing end of useful life. Kim III has no incentive to provide Putin with the relatively better stuff, he will certainly keep them for himself in case he needs to fight the US & SK.

  7. 7.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    In response to a moron Vatnik post on the Dead Bird site, showing two curved arrows, one from the left, one from the right, cutting off the salient,

    Somebody who actually knows things, pointed out, “sure, just build two new highways, 150km long, 14 bridges, through forested swamps, easy peasy.”

  8. 8.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Doug R: Who knows. The low cadence of NK SRBM launches by Russia could also be due to some of the TELs being destroyed by missiles blowing up on launch.

  9. 9.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: I read that tweet. The Russian Army is incapable of such grand maneuvers. However, the current Ukrainian position is very exposed on 3 sides, & I doubt it is defensible against a determined Russian counterattack, especially due to the lack of well prepared defensive positions (which the Ukrainian Army does benefit from in Donetsk). I am just pushing back at the suggestion that Ukraine should try to hold on to these conquered Russian territory to exchange for occupied Ukrainian territory later.

    To me, that is a sure way to take losses that Ukraine cannot afford for prizes of very dubious value.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    warfare, after all, is politics by other means)

    Taps the sign, again, “War is politics with other means.” The German part of speech between politics and other is “mit,” which translates as with.

  12. 12.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: You are right! I knew I had it wrong right after I posted it.

    So many things get mistranslated but are etched in popular minds. I am reminded of the claim that the Chinese word for “crisis” are made up of characters for “danger” & “opportunity”. False.

  16. 16.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman: That makes sense. The old NK stuff from the 90s & 00s are really low quality (on par or worse than the legendary Romanian or Albanian stuff from the late Cold War), but why wouldn’t Kim III price-gouge Putin for them anyway?

  18. 18.

    Damien

    I see three maybe four reasons for this incursion, but as this isn’t my area of expertise I throw myself on the mercy of those for whom it is.

    A miniature Sherman march to the sea, burn down everything remotely militarily useful.
    2. Reveal Putin’s paper tiger nuclear threats and red lines to encourage the UAF partners to ovary up and take the cuffs off.
    3. Undermine Putin at the border and finally put some of the cost of the war on Russians.
    4. Capture territory. But this one seems hella unlikely.

    I dunno, just my feeling.

  19. 19.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    The UA forces are just exposed on the front side, because they are attacking along the ridgelines, up the valleys that define the terrain there. The north/south roads that would allow encirclement are single lane dirt roads over the lower parts of the ridges, under observation from the ridges. The only paved roads run East/West.

    Personally, I suspect that the UA strategy is to aid ruZZia in achieving a “sanitary zone” between ruZZia and Ukraine, by forcing ruZZia to bring ruZZian Military Mir to a 150km deep ruZZian zone along the borders.

    The RUAS/RA has already completely destroyed one Kursk village, (not evacuated by ruZZia) with air strikes and GRADs. There were no UA forces there. Nobody knows the death toll as ruZZia is not talking.

    A well managed defense and strategic retreat, would, given ruZZian tactics and strategy basically destroy every road, bridge, airport, village, forest, farm and field all the way back to Ukraine leaving the area a dead zone full of UXO and landmines.

  20. 20.

    Anonymous At Work

    Would anyone at FSB with a military background or is the FSB “career path” a complete alternate to  the military?

    If the latter, I can see Russian generals replying with “I shall give the order *exactly* as you said it” to FSB officials trying to direct a military operation.  And I foresee the Russian counterattack to be have no sense of logistics.

  22. 22.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay: The UA position is exposed to Russia indirect fire from 3 sides, whenever the Russian Army manages to bring such assets to bear (as it eventually will).

    I think the rest of your post makes sense, but managing that fighting withdrawal will be tricky. Yes, the UA has had plenty of experience w/ such maneuvers in 2 years of high intensity fighting in Donbass, but in the Kursk region the UA does not benefit from strong & layered defenses in depth, constructed over years. I doubt Russia will be so slow as to afford the UA the time to prepare defenses in depth. & Syrsky seems to have a reputation of ordering Ukrainian unit to hold fast to positions well beyond their military utility, to the detriment of the overall Ukrainian war effort.

  24. 24.

    Jay

    @Anonymous At Work:

    The FSB is an internal security organization with combat experience in both Chechen Wars, Georgia, the Donbass, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

    They don’t have a stellar military reputation, relying for the most part on terror and brutality.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​

    I am reminded of the claim that the Chinese word for “crisis” are made up of characters for “danger” & “opportunity”. False.

    Damn. Another bit of linguistic “knowledge” bites the dust, like the Eskimo words for snow.

  28. 28.

    Gin & Tonic

    Just a quick language note: “Donbas” is the transliteration of the Ukrainian spelling for that region, “Donbass” is the russian. Just like “Odesa” and “Odessa.” The double “s” doesn’t occur in Ukrainian.

  34. 34.

    karen marie

    Russian civilians are surprised.  Fuck.  I mean …

    Maybe they should consider how Ukrainians have been feeling for the last two plus eight years.

  35. 35.

    The Pale Scot

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    this investment of scarce Ukrainian combat power is only a net positive if the assault force does not suffer great losses before getting back to Ukraine

    Hopefully after blowing up the water, sewer and electrical systems.

  36. 36.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    There is no “Eskimo” language.

    There is Innu, Yupik, Inuit, (which is actually a large language family of 9 languages with some similarity), Unnagam Tunuu, (two similar but different languages).

    As the Canadian Encyclopedia article points out, the Innu have 10 basic words for ice and snow, dozens of compound and derivative words for describing snow and snow conditions and 93 for ice. Eg.  piqsirpoq, for drifting snow, qimuqsuq, for a snowdrift.

  37. 37.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic: This scholarly essay from a decade & half ago is the definite debunking of the “crisis/危机” meme, at least in the English language.

    Another poor translation of a Chinese classic that has nevertheless become etched in Western imagination is the following quote from Sun Tzu:

    “知己知彼，百战不殆”

    It is often translated as “know your enemy & know your self, and you will be victorious in a hundred battles”. However, the proper translation is “know your enemy & know your self, and you will never be in jeopardy in a hundred battles”. Sun Tzu would never suggest that any commander could remain ever victorious, but he did suggest that a commander could avoid ever being in a position to be defeated so badly that he/his army could never fight again,

    For a couple of decades now Sinologists have tried to correct the record, but the former translation is just so much more meme worthy.

    In fact, for over a century virtually all Western translators have distorted Sun Tzu to create the mystical Oriental sage of their imaginations. You can read John F. Sullivan’s (former US Army Foreign Area Officer for China) long running missives on Twitter to correct the Western misconceptions of Sun Tzu, present the ancient military commander as he truly was in history (w/ all the limitations associated w/ being human), situating Sun Tzu in the much broader Chinese traditions for military & strategic thought, & attempt to develop the study of Chinese tradition in military and strategic thought on its own terms (as opposed to the Western Orientalist lenses), which has always been & remains virtually non-existent in the West.

  40. 40.

    Trivia Man

    @Parfigliano: I am expecting the war to increase in importance as the campaign goes on. My speculation is at least one big chunk of the convention dedicated to global security with a huge emphasis on Ukraine. It is my impression that the Republican party is vulnerable to a schism here. You have the Putin wing but also the not insignificant wing that wants to destroy any enemy and expand every war.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Jay: ​

    There is no “Eskimo” language.

    I know. I might suggest you read the article I posted in its entirety. It is not long.

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​Thank you for a far more erudite and comprehensive reply than my throw-away comment deserved.​

    ETA: And a reference to my second-favorite blog, too.

  44. 44.

    jonas

    This offensive sort of strikes me as the Ukrainian equivalent of Doolittle’s Raid — taking the war to the enemy and showing, esp. the civilian population, that there are consequences coming and their leaders are lying to them about being invulnerable. From what I’m reading here and elsewhere, it doesn’t seem likely that this is meant to permanently seize territory, but if it starts deflating Putin’s propaganda campaign among the Russian people about how everything is going swimmingly in Ukraine and how they should continue to send their sons to enlist, this could be a BFD.

  46. 46.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Gin & Tonic: I took it as an opportunity to share something I suspect many of the readers may not be aware of, as you have done so much in these threads for Ukrainian language, culture and history.

    What I find dismaying is how much Western (& one could include Russia here) Orientalization/”Otherization” of the peoples/cultures on the imperial peripheries have influenced the self-conception of the latter peoples, even to the subconscious, through the centuries of dominance over discourse. I can’t tell you how pissed off I get when the average Chinese person starts spouting about the supposed “dual” implication of the word “crisis”, as supposedly constructed in Chinese.

    I imagine this is something you can relate to.

  47. 47.

    Traveller

    I am pleased to see on several different videos, different locations, what seems like mass surrenders of Russian conscript soldiers. OTOH one or two Ukrainian soldiers holding 30 prisoners seem potentially problematic.

    There is also the logistical problem, instead of transport vehicles being  used in service of the advancement of Ukrainian forces, they are by necessity being used to transport these prisoners to the rear…again, you have to care for them, yet make certain that one crazy person is not concealing a hand grenade or pistol to use at an opportune time.

    Still, these are just the risks of war anyhow…I want mass surrender of Russian Troops as much as possible and have images of humane treatment of these prisoners published as far and wide as possible.

    So far, this is looking good.

    Yes, there are negative possibilities with this cross boarder operation, but the news has been so negative for Ukraine for so long this year, and with the winter closing of much movement coming soon, this is all good. (winter will restrict both sides, but is my premise true that Ukraine and Russia are forced to remain in place by winter?…this may be true or not). Best Wishes, Traveller

  48. 48.

    jonas

    @Jay: During this war, I’ve always been a little bemused to hear Russians complain about various defeats or setbacks by claiming that it’s only because they were facing Ukrainians using US or NATO equipment/training/support or whatever. It’s like “Of *course* NATO would totally kick our asses! But if these Ukrainians would just fight fair without outside help we could take them no problem.”

    Not sure they’re thinking through how that sounds…

  49. 49.

    wu ming

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    What I find dismaying is how much Western (& one could include Russia here) Orientalization/”Otherization” of the peoples/cultures on the imperial peripheries have influenced the self-conception of the latter peoples, even to the subconscious, through the centuries of dominance over discourse.

    it’s a common pattern, historically. there’s an interesting parallel with the various peoples that chinese states have conquered and “civilized” over the millennia, in the territories of both present-day china and taiwan.

    more often than not, even those people’s own ethnonyms end up deriving from earlier chinese names for them, and much of the imperial civilizing discourse ends up shaping those peoples’ collective identity and/or self-image to some degree, either to protest that they are not barbarians as the chinese describe them, or to hold up the various pejorative attributes proudly in defiance of the civilizing rhetoric.

    empire, especially literate empire, has a way of inscribing itself onto those whom it conquers. just as it invariably ends up internally transformed by the conquered, and the process of conquest and colonization.

    p.s. i was happy to see your 危机 comments, having run into it a ton online. in that spirit, i’ll toss a “may you live in interesting times” onto the pile. it’s crazy, when chinese is so absurdly stacked with great idioms for seemingly any occasion, that we get these dull american knockoffs that don’t even translate back into a nice 4- or 7-syllable rhythm.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @Traveller:

    There is also the logistical problem, instead of transport vehicles being used in service of the advancement of Ukrainian forces, they are by necessity being used to transport these prisoners to the rear…again, you have to care for them, yet make certain that one crazy person is not concealing a hand grenade or pistol to use at an opportune time.

    The biggest point of danger, is when “taking” a prisoner.

    Once they are a prisoner, they are carefully searched, blindfolded, id’d, restrained, recorded, “tagged”,…….

    Logistic’s trucks mostly return from the front empty, other than with prisoners or wounded.

  52. 52.

    Carlo Graziani

    Synthesizing some takeaways from a recent WOTR podcast of Kofman’s, chatting with Dara Massicot:

    (1) The size of the Ukrainian invading force appears to be in the 10,000-15,000 personnel range. Basically, the equivalent of a single division, drawn from units belonging to several different brigades. That is a relatively modest force, certainly incommensurate with any “March To The Sea” design.

    (2) There is no information yet apparent concerning the degree of control that Ukrainian forces have over the territory where their forces are reported on Telegram, X, etc. The maps appearing in various places, including ISW, Pfarrer, etc. are in all likelihood quite misleading about the extent of the salient over which Ukraine may expect to defend and assert control when the dust settles.

    (3) There is no information yet about either the degree of logistical sustainment of the thrusts in-progress, or the pace of defensive preparation to meet the certain Russian counterstrokes. The former would be key to understanding the ambition of the offensive; the latter to understanding it’s prospects for stabilized conquest.

    (4) The Ukrainian strategic and operational objectives may be flexible, and be contingent on the success of operations. In this, the analogy with the 2022 Kharkiv offensive is informative: then, there were both set objectives and opportunistic gains, and the forces deployed were prepared to exploit opportunities or settle for a minimal set of objectives.

    My reflection: In the current offensive, it is useful to distinguish between strategic and operational objectives.

    The operational (updated Clausewitz: “use of combat in war”) objectives amount to taking some Russian territory that can be defended for an extended period, taking prisoners, and possibly taking the pressure off the Donetsk front.

    The strategic (updated Clausewitz: “use of war for national purpose”) objectives amount to putting unbearable political stress on the Russian regime by demonstrating its hollowness and exposing its weakness. The Gallyamov quote above is 100% correct:

    “The authoritarian public only respects strength—if you win, you become more popular. But if you start losing, and the defeat in Kursk is obvious, then you remain alone and people don’t just turn away from you, they start hating and despising you.”

    This is a restatement of the “Mob Boss” model of Kremlin power, which, so far as this war is concerned, has always seemed to me a far superior alternative to the Realist “Nations Contesting Their Interests” model. Putin’s power, and loyalty to his leadership, are based on the perception that he represents success. As with Mafia leadership, that loyalty gets creaky when the pattern of success becomes doubtful. This is, in my opinion, the strategic meaning of the offensive. It is a direct attack on the basis of Putin’s power.

    Whether the Ukrainians have taken the proper risk here is not for me to say. But I think that the general shape of the thing makes sense.

  54. 54.

    wjca

    @Traveller: There is also the logistical problem, instead of transport vehicles being  used in service of the advancement of Ukrainian forces, they are by necessity being used to transport these prisoners to the rear

    At some point, you have to send those transport vehicles back to pick up more supplies.  Not much increased cost to send them full of prisoners, rather than empty,

    EDT  Jay got there already.  Not surprising.

  55. 55.

    Traveller

    @Jay: and in response to Carlos and wjea and Adam:

    Yes and no. The video’s I saw had unsecured surrendering Russians, some with their hands up, some with them down, some Russians on their knees, some kind of turning around in a circle trying to take it all in. In another, all Russians were kneeling but seemingly otherwise unsecured.

    Both were problematic…(though there is nothing else that can be done at that point except try to  herd them  together). Also it looked like they were maybe going to be boarded on a 2.1/2 truck…that, while maybe suited transporting troops…maybe you want to carry back other things…81mm mortar tubes, your own wounded…who knows?

    Still, the less time these trucks are on the road the better…and transporting 300 plus, maybe 500 plus surrendering Russians, who have to be guarded, fed and wherever you are taking them…how far back from the lines? PortaPoty’s? This has got to  be a logistical problem while in the heat of a major movement.

    Be that as it may, the Ukrainian General Staff seem to be keeping their options open…there may be a fantastic opportunity…or it may be a Russian trap trying to lure them too far forward…war, all difficult choices.

    Lastly, this post of Adam’s remembers for me again the breath of this war…I had forgotten Chasiv Yar and the Black Sea…Adam covers it all in a single post. Best Wishes, Traveller

  56. 56.

    Jay

    At the point of surrender, is the most dangerous part. It might be a trap. Grenade, IED, weapon.

    Once they have surrendered, and have been searched, in general, their will to fight is gone. They are usually just happy to be alive.

    Blindfolds are generally used to preserve OpSec, but seriously limit the mobility of the prisoners.

    Restraints are usually used, when evac of the prisoners puts them in close quarters of their guards, (eg, trenches), where they might grab for something.

    Conscripts are mostly sheep. A couple of armed guards saying march that way, (because that’s basically the only military task they are trained to do), or “get in the fucking truck” is usually enough. During WWII, the average guarding of German Prisoners was 1 guard per 50.

  57. 57.

    trnc

    What an incident when other people’s tanks are on our land!

    US republican levels of cognitive dissonance.

  58. 58.

    trnc

    @Adam L Silverman: ​
     

    warfare, after all, is politics by other means)

    Taps the sign, again, “War is politics with other means.” The German part of speech between politics and other is “mit,” which translates as with.

    That doesn’t really change the meaning of the phrase much, does it? I don’t mean that it shouldn’t be quoted correctly, but the takeaway is still pretty much the same. IMHO, of course.

  59. 59.

    dhd

    @Jay: As the Canadian Encyclopedia article points out, the Innu have 10 basic words for ice and snow

    Linguist here, just have to make a nitpicky correction.  The Innu are *not* the same people as the Inuit (note also singular of Inuit is “Inuk”), they live further south in eastern Quebec and Labrador.

    Neither of them have hundreds of words for snow, but both Inuktitut/Inuttitut/Inuktut (depending on dialect!), which is the language of the Inuit, and Innu-aimun / Ilnu-aimun, which is the totally unrelated language of the Innu, are polysynthetic and thus they do have a practically unlimited number of words *derived* from the basic stems for snow (of which there are a handful, not sure how many).

  60. 60.

    Bill Arnold

    @trnc:
    It’s been linked before, probably by Adam. From my notes:
    Everything You Know About Clausewitz Is Wrong – A botched translation of Clausewitz has had an enduring impact on our thinking on warfare. (James R. Holmes November 12, 2014)

    Read in the original German (insert favorite Hitler joke here), Clausewitz’s masterwork On War proclaims — uniformly — that war is a mere continuation of policy “with other means” (mit anderen Mitteln), or sometimes “with the addition of other means” (mit Einmischung anderer Mitteln). Nowhere in On War or his prefatory notes does the Prussian write “by” other means.
    Yet this false quotation refuses to die. “By,” “with,” who cares?
    …
    Take the misquoted passage first. Declaring that war is a mere continuation of policy “by” other means implies that diplomatic, economic, and ideological interaction between the combatants screeches to a halt when the shooting starts. Statesmen set nonviolent policy implements aside while armies, navies, and air forces batter away at one another. In wartime, then, violent force is the one implement whereby military commanders and their political overseers seek strategic and political aims. Combatants cross a kind of event horizon, passing from routine peacetime politics into a dark realm ruled by violent interaction. A discontinuity separates war from peace.

  61. 61.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Bill Arnold: Yes, well, taking that one phrase as “everything you know about Clausewitz” is a little like taking “To be, or not to be?” as “everything you know about Shakespeare”.

    On War is the first inquiry into the subject of conflict from the perspective of the Western philosophical tradition, and despite its very Germanic prose is filled with gems of clarifying insight that, in its time, served to steam-hose the Augean Stables of post-Napoleonic French military theory. One example: we owe our modern use of the distinction between strategy and tactics to Clausewitz, who impatiently dismissed confused ideas based on distance scale (e.g. “tactics concerns fighting on scales of a few kilometers, strategy is the science of fighting on larger scales”). Instead, Clausewitz introduced a hierarchical functional distinction: Tactics is concerned with the use of armies in combats, whereas strategy is concerned with the use of combats in war. This was so witheringly clarifying that it was thereafter adopted with little debate as the controlling framework for the distinction (*).

    In his The Collapse of the Soviet Military, William Odom made the startling (but in my view very sensible) claim that Marx and Engels owe a huge unacknowledged debt to Clausewitz, and Lenin even more so, in that Marxism and Marxism-Leninism are, fundamentally, theories of war, which describe the struggle between different socio-economic classes and between the nations that are ruled by those classes, in terms set down by Clausewitz. In this sense, On War is one of the foundational texts of Western Civilization, and deserves to be included in basic college curricula between Hegel and Marx. Although I suppose that might rub some educators the wrong way…

     

    (*) Modern usage introduces a third, intermediate level of the hierarchy, the “operational” level, which takes over the definition of  Clausewitz’s strategic level. In this context, strategy then becomes the study of the use of war to gain national objectives, and is the province of national political authority, whereas the operational and tactical levels are strictly the responsibility of the military.

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