Russia-Ukrainian War

[no_free_lunch]

 

The above is a Kazakhstan journalist, from what I understand.  Shows the potential (hopefully does not happen) for a second front in Kazakhstan.   It all ties into Ukraine and this is one reprecussion.  The bully does not have the same power now that they are stood up to.

 

Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan:  Nazis / nationalists live in Kazakhstan.  if necessary will conduct a special military operation.

 

Kazakhstan Journalist: God forbid you decide to come to us for an easy victory.  You will not have an easy victory.  The entire Kazakh steppe will be strewn with the corpses of your conscripts.

[Spekulatius]

On 12/9/2022 at 4:52 AM, Blugolds11 said:

I dont know how many people watch/listen to Lex, but he is of Ukranian/Russian heritage, moved to states around 13, father is professor, speaks Russian/English fluently. He recently went to Ukraine to interview there but hasnt published those interviews yet, he has interviewing Putin himself as a goal. Has some pretty good guests, all very interesting and does a good job asking questions and discussing a variety of topics.

 

I thought this episode was interesting, getting the take on the situation of an ex-CIA agent. Viewpoint on Ukraine starts at 13:50. 

 

 

 

Agree with him or not, his take is interesting and I like hearing alternative viewpoints. 

It is important to keep in mind that this interview was done in August 2022 when Russia had advanced as far as they ever came, just having captured Severodoneskt. Since then, the Russians have lost a huge area around Kyiv as well as Kherson. Not a whole lot winning as far as I can tell here. So it seems like Lex Friedman has been wrong on this matter, plain and simple.

[UK]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-drone-warfare-russia-732jsshpx

 

“We’re still using the same escalatory calculations but the fear of escalation has changed since the beginning,” a US defence source told The Times. “It’s different now. This is because the calculus of war has changed as a result of the suffering and brutality the Ukrainians are being subjected to by the Russians.” Washington is now less concerned that new long-range strikes inside Russia could lead to a dramatic escalation. Moscow’s revenge attacks have to date all involved conventional missile strikes against civilian targets. Previously, the Pentagon was warier of Ukraine attacking Russia because it feared the Kremlin would retaliate either with tactical nuclear weapons or by targeting neighbouring Nato nations. However, Washington does not want to be seen publicly giving the green light to Kyiv attacking Russian soil. Its position on Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia was defined this week by Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, who said: “We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.” However, a US defence source said: “We’re not saying to Kyiv, ‘Don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea]’. We can’t tell them what to do. It’s up to them how they use their weapons. But when they use the weapons we have supplied, the only thing we insist on is that the Ukrainian military conform to the international laws of war and to the Geneva conventions.

 

The drone Ukraine wants more than any other is the American MQ-1C Gray Eagle, which has a range of 250 miles, is armed with four Hellfire missiles or eight Stinger missiles, can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and is equipped with sophisticated reconnaissance systems. Eric Edelman, who was a top policy specialist at the Pentagon and worked with the state department as ambassador to Finland and Turkey, believes the delay in supplying such weapon systems is no longer sustainable. “The administration is excessively self-deterred by the prospect of an alleged escalatory spiral which is largely illusory,” he said. “The best thing for all concerned is for the Ukrainians to be able to win as quickly as possible. Hence it makes sense to give them ATACMS and Gray Eagles and help them to put together a package of main battle tanks as well.”

The prospect of waves of Ukrainian drones heading towards Russian military bases raised concerns among the Russian military. “We are not in a position to effectively counter these drones,” an unnamed Russian soldier told the Volya Telegram channel. “There will be massive raids on air bases inside Russia, as well as on other military and infrastructure targets. In theory, they can even get to Moscow.” The British defence ministry said the Kremlin was likely to consider the drone attacks to be among Russia’s “most strategically significant failures” since the start of the war. “Psychologically, I think it strikes a blow,” a western official said. The attacks, together with setbacks on the battlefield, look certain to further undermine the Russian public’s support for the invasion. Only one in four Russians want their army to continue fighting in Ukraine, according to leaked Kremlin polls. State television has even discussed the prospect of Russia losing the war, warning of “catastrophic” consequences for the country if that happens. In public, Putin and other Kremlin officials continue to insist that their “special military operation” will be a success. Yet in private, the president and his henchmen are thought to have begun to make plans for an escape. “Putin’s entourage has not ruled out that he will lose the war, be stripped of power, and have to urgently evacuate somewhere,” Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter who is now a political analyst, wrote on Telegram. Citing an unnamed insider, Gallyamov said the Kremlin was considering Argentina or Venezuela as safe havens. Igor Sechin, a senior Putin ally, is thought to be overseeing the project, which is codenamed Noah’s Ark.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-09/putin-says-russia-may-add-nuclear-first-strike-to-strategy?srnd=davos

 

Vladimir Putin said Russia may consider formally adding the possibility of a preventive nuclear first strike to disarm an opponent to its military doctrine, just days after warning that the risk of atomic war is rising. “We’re thinking about this,” the Russian president told reporters after a summit in Kyrgyzstan. “If we are talking about a disarming strike, perhaps we should think about using the approaches of our American partners,” he said, citing what he called US strategies to use high-accuracy missiles for a preventive strike.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by UK

[Blugolds11]

21 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

It is important to keep in mind that this interview was done in August 2022 when Russia had advanced as far as they ever came, just having captured Severodoneskt. Since then, the Russians have lost a huge area around Kyiv as well as Kherson. Not a whole lot winning as far as I can tell here. So it seems like Lex Friedman has been wrong on this matter, plain and simple.

 

Did you watch the entire discussion regarding the war? Lex just interviews, he had no position on the matter, he steel mans positions of his guests, or asks them to, but remains pretty neutral for the most part. He lets the guest take whatever position they want. Bustamante was the one taking a position. I agree, time has passed since the interview and thats a fair point, but I shared it because it was interesting to hear another point of view regarding the intelligence that Putin received, is receiving, as well as our own intelligence in the US and the rest of the world. His guest as an ex-CIA op has a good feel for that region of the world and how geopolitics work, gives another perspective that has been different than pretty much everything else I have heard anywhere. Im not saying that he is right, just that it is an interesting perspective that is different, and thats always valuable when contemplating anything. He also offered explanation for why Putin thought it would be a cake walk. Bustamante also was pretty adamant that it would be over by fall due to reliance on Russian gas for NATO countries heating, and obviously here we are approaching Christmas, so he hasn’t called everything correctly, but I think he makes some decent points overall regarding intelligence and geopolitical strategy and priorities. 

[Spekulatius]

@Blugolds11 The interview is almost 4 h long, so it didn’t watch it entirely. Yes, I mixed up in the interviewer with the Bustamante who seemed to have wrongly assessment the situation (claimed Russia was winning) based on what happened since the interview was given.

[Xerxes]

On 12/10/2022 at 11:05 AM, no_free_lunch said:

 

Xerxes, I am curious about that PDF you linked but am afraid to click on the link!   If possible could you attach the pdf or let us know the summary?

 

 

It is from Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studie

 

Nothing with virus or anything like that. Attached anyways. I think we shoud all read it. It is a heavy read, I dont expect myself to be able to catch all of the nusances as it is heavy in details. It is very detailed analysis of the war, thus far.

 

Here is the Executive Summary (page 1 of 3)

 

Executive Summary The full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 has provided an invaluable opportunity to assess the capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) and the implications of a range of capabilities for modern warfare. Many publicly made judgements on these issues have lacked supporting data or insight into Ukrainian operational planning and decisionmaking. To ensure that those drawing lessons from the conflict do so from a solid foundation, this report seeks to outline key lessons, based on the operational data accumulated by the Ukrainian General Staff, from the fighting between February and July 2022. As the underlying source material for much of this report cannot yet be made public, this should be understood as testimony rather than as an academic study. Given the requirements for operational security, it is necessarily incomplete. Russia planned to invade Ukraine over a 10-day period and thereafter occupy the country to enable annexation by August 2022. The Russian plan presupposed that speed, and the use of deception to keep Ukrainian forces away from Kyiv, could enable the rapid seizure of the capital. The Russian deception plan largely succeeded, and the Russians achieved a 12:1 force ratio advantage north of Kyiv. The very operational security that enabled the successful deception, however, also led Russian forces to be unprepared at the tactical level to execute the plan effectively. The Russian plan’s greatest deficiency was the lack of reversionary courses of action. As a result, when speed failed to produce the desired results, Russian forces found their positions steadily degraded as Ukraine mobilised. Despite these setbacks, Russia refocused on Donbas and, since Ukraine had largely expended its ammunition supply, proved successful in subsequent operations, slowed by the determination – rather than the capabilities – of Ukrainian troops. From April, the West became Ukraine’s strategic depth, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) only robbed Russia of the initiative once long-range fires brought Russian logistics under threat. The tactical competence of the Russian military proved significantly inferior compared with the expectations of many observers based within and outside Ukraine and Russia. Nevertheless, Russian weapons systems proved largely effective, and those units with a higher level of experience demonstrated that the AFRF have considerable military potential, even if deficiencies in training and the context of how they were employed meant that the Russian military failed to meet that potential. Factoring in the idiosyncrasies of the Russian campaign, there are five key areas that should be monitored to judge whether the Russian military is making progress in resolving its structural and cultural deficiencies. These areas should be used to inform assessments of Russian combat power in the future.

 

 

359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

Edited December 12, 2022 by Xerxes

[Xerxes]

On 12/9/2022 at 4:47 AM, UK said:

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who expressed confidence in continuing U.S. backing for Kyiv, said fears about preserving Russia reminded him of the so-called “Chicken Kiev” speech of 1991. Then, President George H.W. Bush in a speech to Ukrainian lawmakers warned against “suicidal nationalism,” urging Ukrainians to preserve the Soviet Union and abandon their quest for independence from Moscow. “I’m calling on the world not to be afraid of Russia falling apart. If the wheels of history begin to turn, no human will change it,” Mr. Kuleba said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Kyiv. “Instead of thinking of how to help Russia survive and become a normal member of the international community, it’s time to accept the fact that this Russia cannot be a normal member of the international community,” he said. “I don’t think the world will fall apart if Russia falls apart. But it will be the people of Russia who will make their country fall apart, as it happened with the Russian Empire” in 1917.

 

 

 

I was not aware that George Bush pushed back on the breakup

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Xerxes

[Xerxes]

Jeffrey Sachs is not going to get invited to Bloomberg after the comment he made about the pipelines but doesnt mean his views get expunged.

 

It is very sad that at the end of the interview, he needs to re-affirm his opposition to the brutality of the war, because these days the narrative is that you push to stop the flow the arms to Ukraine as a bid to force people to talk to each other that means you like Putin. 

 

So if you are a neo-conservative, or part of the "war party" or a NATO-maximalist you better not watch this !

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Xerxes

[Spekulatius]

This whole thing is so bizarre on many levels:

 

[Xerxes]

LOL ... What a guy ! He is having a champaign while doing his thing in a nice looking room in the Kremlin. For a moment i thought he was going to cry when he mentioned the Kerch bridge. Watch closely, he does not call Ukraine by name, but rather as the "neighbouring country" that speaks volume of how he feels.

 

Kremlin's PR machine gets a zero as a grade when it comes to PR.

 

However, Ukraine PR machine gets an A+

 

Zelensky does not need to be in green military fatigue all the time, with every one of his footage showing him in a dark/half-lit room sometimes with sandbags around. He also has access to electricity, which means he can shave, (maybe not recently with the infrastructure bombing). It is all part of the "resistance" portait that he does so well and he gets exactly what resonates with the West.

 

Bottom line, like everything else in this war, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be extremely adaptable and leveraging all they can. Like it or not, the PR campaign is a huge compenent of the war effort.

 

-----------------

EDIT: 

My assessment is that it will take a good 30-40 years before the scars are healed. An entire generation and then some !  Thanks to all the parties, governments, etc who pushed this to the brink and to the point of no return. Really well done (sarcasam)

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Xerxes

[no_free_lunch]

Zelensky himself may overplay his very particular role but the people of Ukraine often have no electricity and are subject to bombings, that is a fact.

 

Hopefully it takes longer than 30-40 years for things to heal.  Part of the issue is not learning from the Holodomor of the 30s.   The only lesson here is never to trust Russia.

[Xerxes]

Don't get me wrong, they are lucky to have Zelensky.

 

He is the leader that the country needed in time of crisis. If you take out Zelensky from the equation today, the fight will continue as the genie of resistance is already out of the bottle, and it is much bigger than him now. But if he was taken out in Feb, during those fatefull days before he made the call to arms as he stood his ground, history would have taken a different path.

 

Now interestingly and ironically, it may also been truth that no invasion would have taken place, if he never became the president. Meaning that it is very likely that as a former comedian, he must have seen as a "pushover" by Putin and this must have played into his calculus. With Putin everything is about image, therefore, how one appears to him plays a role.

 

You cannot take a look at this image below from this pre-war meetings with Macron and not come out thinking that this comedian is way out of his league.

 

[UK]

7 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

This whole thing is so bizarre on many levels:

 

 

Very bizarre indeed, maybe after everything what has happened or for some other reasons he/they do not care about how everything looks like to the world anymore.

[james22]

15 hours ago, Xerxes said:

My assessment is that it will take a good 30-40 years before the scars are healed. An entire generation and then some !  Thanks to all the parties, governments, etc who pushed this to the brink and to the point of no return. Really well done (sarcasam)

 

 

You'd think, but was pretty surprised when visiting Tbilisi several years ago when a girl I met said I'd love the Russian girls who visited Georgia.

As she'd just shared that her brother had fought against the Russians when they invaded ten years earlier.

When I asked her about it, she said no one held individuals responsible for their government's actions.

[Parsad]

Not sure if I'm worried more or worried less:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/us-patriot-missile-defense-system-ukraine/index.html

 

Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

30 minutes ago, Parsad said:

Not sure if I'm worried more or worried less:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/us-patriot-missile-defense-system-ukraine/index.html

 

Cheers!

My main worry would be that Ukraine starts to shoot down cheap $20K drones from Iran with $500K missiles. What concerns do you have?

 

Ukraine needs longer range weapons to destroy the drone / rocket bases from which Russia launches their missiles, imo. The US knows where they are (I presume) based on trajectories and satellite surveillance.

[Xerxes]

5 hours ago, james22 said:

 

You'd think, but was pretty surprised when visiting Tbilisi several years ago when a girl I met said I'd love the Russian girls who visited Georgia.

As she'd just shared that her brother had fought against the Russians when they invaded ten years earlier.

When I asked her about it, she said no one held individuals responsible for their government's actions.

I meant mostly at government/state level (even with Putin being gone, government-level hate/dislike has interia). Think Vietnam and U.S. Or other example. 
 

Normal everyday people are often more mature, more reasonable (and dare I say, more humane) than their own government. 

Unrelated, incidentally, Putin’ presidency is up for grab in 2024. I think that is where the presidential term ends. A nice exit ramp for Putin to retirement (with state protection, just like the one he offered Yeltsin in 1999) and a fresh face taking over. 
 

I don’t buy these stories circulating of Putin and Igor Sechin looking for Venezuela or elsewhere in South America as escape plan. I think that is complete fabricated bullshit (and I don’t know by whom).

They know that they live or die by Russia. Their fate and those of the state is intertwined. There is no escape. 

[james22]

29 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

I meant mostly at government/state level (even with Putin being gone, government-level hate/dislike has interia). Think Vietnam and U.S. Or other example. 

 

Gotcha.

 

29 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

Normal everyday people are often more mature, more reasonable (and dare I say, more humane) than their own government. 

 

No doubt.

[Parsad]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

My main worry would be that Ukraine starts to shoot down cheap $20K drones from Iran with $500K missiles. What concerns do you have?

 

Ukraine needs longer range weapons to destroy the drone / rocket bases from which Russia launches their missiles, imo. The US knows where they are (I presume) based on trajectories and satellite surveillance.

 

The system is for defense purposes only...not to take out drone/rocket bases.

 

My concern is you add the patriot missile defense system, and now Russia will look to unconventional weapons in the war.  

 

You could hope Putin may say..."Oh well, our rockets can't get in now, so we'll call a truce!", but that's not him.  The war may become more volatile and dirty than it's already been! 

 

Cheers!

[Pelagic]

I think missed in the news around Patriot batteries is Ben Wallace's statement yesterday that he's open to sending longer ranged missiles to Ukraine if Russia keeps targeting civilian infrastructure. Patriots are just part of a unified NATO message to knock off the attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

 

Also possibly a preemptive response to Russia acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran as a lot of the other air defense aid has focused on cost effective solutions to low altitude cruise missiles and drones.

[no_free_lunch]

On this board, on social media, the argument from day one has been that supporting Ukraine will just make things worse.  Yet they now have retaken some of the seized territory.   You can see that so far that logic has proven wrong.  I don't see why patriots are going to tip the scales, it's not like it will completely seal the skies.  Just give them the weapons they need so they can finish this thing.

Edited December 14, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[Parsad]

21 minutes ago, no_free_lunch said:

On this board, on social media, the argument from day one has been that supporting Ukraine will just make things worse.  Yet they now have retaken some of the seized territory.   You can see that so far that logic has proven wrong.  I don't see why patriots are going to tip the scales, it's not like it will completely seal the skies.  Just give them the weapons they need so they can finish this thing.

 

I'm not sure anyone said not to support Ukraine.  The fear was that with too much support, it may just lead to a larger scale war engaging other European nations on both sides.  Cheers! 

[Blugolds11]

"Just give them the weapons they need so they can finish this thing."

 

Everyone supports Ukraine defending itself, but the only one that can finish it is Russia, ultimately they decide when it ends. 

 

 

[ANP301191]

I dont think the risk of war expanding to encompass other European nations is as high a risk today as it was a few months ago. Putin has had multiple opportunities to expand the warzone, but he hasn't (probably the easiest would have been when Finland applied for NATO membership). I also believe that most European countries do not have the popular political will to actual engage in anything more than what is being done today. If you read the local papers in Belgium for example, 60% (my estimation over the past 2 weeks - annecdotal) of the articles that cover Ukraine and Russia, also talk about how energy prices have risen because of the war. Speaking for myself, our energy prices are up over 150% year on year. Food inflation is probably closer to 30% than the official 12% put out by the Belgian government. I am pretty confident that most, if not all, EU countries are in a similar predicament, and hence, I dont see any of them wanting to heat up the conflict either.

 

I think the most logical endpoint of this has to be an exit ramp for Putin, as much as I hate saying it. He has to be able to declare victory because I don't see him surviving in Russia if the elites think of the war as a complete loss, and from everything he has done and whatever he has said, I believe that he will absolutely burn down the world with him if he goes down. It, then, behooves us in the West to provide the Ukrainians with sufficient arms to make sure that the victory he declares is as small as possible. Whether the Patriot Missiles are the right armaments or not, I cannot say, I have no understanding of arms, but I don't accept the belief that by providing more/better arms to Ukraine we risk a larger conflict.

[UK]

My understanding is that Patriot systems is needed for possible balistic missille atacks, and thee could also come from Iran in the future. RE drones, they say in a video one round / 6 bullets of this "creature" is enought to take one drone down: 

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by UK