Ukraine War 6: what the hell are the Russians thinking?

[IheartIheartTesla]

The US on its part has been courting Venezuela (partly to supplant Russian oil, but partly also to make sure Russian allies in Latin America dont become security threats). At least on this side of the pond there will be no overtures to Iran.

[Fez]

Seems bad for the Russian people if true

 

[Zorral]

24 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The US on its part has been courting Venezuela (partly to supplant Russian oil, but partly also to make sure Russian allies in Latin America dont become security threats). At least on this side of the pond there will be no overtures to Iran.

Ya -- not only Venezuela, as I reported on this a couple of days ago, I think, on the US Politics thread.

However, most of Africa, such as South Africa, are in support of Russia's war on Ukraine.  Kenya, is certainly an exception, but mostly Africans think Russia is fine.  Or, at least their own klepto rulers do.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

27 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The US on its part has been courting Venezuela (partly to supplant Russian oil, but partly also to make sure Russian allies in Latin America dont become security threats). At least on this side of the pond there will be no overtures to Iran.

Not enough to compensate if Russia is shut out.

Best case scenario for Venezuela they can up their production. That would only cover for about 25% of what Russia is pumping into global markets (1.2m bpd vs 5m bpd). And the issue is really not your side of the pond anyway. That'd be getting the oil hungry states of China and India onboard for the sanctions.

Estimates for Iran, if sanctions go away in March, they could add the missing 4m bpd by the end of the year. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not enough to compensate if Russia is shut out.

Best case scenario for Venezuela they can up their production. That would only cover for about 25% of what Russia is pumping into global markets (1.2m bpd vs 5m bpd). And the issue is really not your side of the pond anyway. That'd be getting the oil hungry states of China and India onboard for the sanctions.

Estimates for Iran, if sanctions go away in March, they could add the missing 4m bpd by the end of the year. 

Then we need to make a deal with Iran.  Reingaging Iran to the wider world will do more to counteract radicalism than 40 years of sanctions have.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Cynical me thinks, that Israel'S main concern is to stop  the revival of the Iran deal.  The pressure to revive it, would certainly increase, if oil embargos are the next stop. Somebody would need to step in to make up for the short fall of Russian oil. 

I suspect it's probably more that they like Russia rather than Iran being the senior partner in propping up Assad in Syria. An extended conflict going badly wrong for Putin in Ukraine is probably bad news for them on that front.

[Conflicting Thought]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The US on its part has been courting Venezuela (partly to supplant Russian oil, but partly also to make sure Russian allies in Latin America dont become security threats). At least on this side of the pond there will be no overtures to Iran.

Venezuela's fascists yeah

[Werthead]

Almost 5,000 protestors arrested across Russia today. Kazakhstan has also permitted large-scale demonstrations against the war to go ahead.

Russia making odd comments about the jet deal, apparently they don't like it but will only have a massive problem with it if third countries permit Ukrainian jets to fly missions from their territory. If the jets are based on Ukrainian territory (i.e. Russia can destroy them) they seem less fussed about it. Of course, another bit of obfuscation there, would they considered the initial flight from the selling country to Ukraine to count as flying a mission from that territory?

Today has been fucking horrifying. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians fleeing from Kyiv's north-western suburbs, with the BBC catching a mortar round taking out an entire family (they have refused to show that footage). The evacuation from Mariupol had to be abandoned for a second time as the Russians refused to honour the ceasefire apparently agreed by a separate commander.

It's hard to see the point there. Killing civilians serves no militarily useful tactic and enflames the local population further. Do it enough and if it somehow gets on your television sets, then you've got major problems on the home front. Letting them go creates massive logistical problems for Ukraine and the surrounding (quasi-allied) countries, which is more militarily useful.

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I suspect it's probably more that they like Russia rather than Iran being the senior partner in propping up Assad in Syria.

Yeah this is the intuitive, and widely reported, reason for Israel's concerted interest. 

I think it should also be noted, as discussed yesterday, that Russia is using the invasion and subsequent sanctions to muck up the negotiations on reviving the Iran deal.  So Israel's interest in squandering the Iranian deal by mediating a Russian/Ukrainian agreement is..complicated at best.

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah this is the intuitive, and widely reported, reason for Israel's concerted interest. 

I think it should also be noted, as discussed yesterday, that Russia is using the invasion and subsequent sanctions to muck up the negotiations on reviving the Iran deal.  So Israel's interest in squandering the Iranian deal by mediating a Russian/Ukrainian agreement is..complicated at best.

I think it's more that there's a lot of Jews in Ukraine and Russia, and a lot of former Ukrainian and Russian Jews now in Israel. I haven't seen any polls of Israel, but I suspect this war is very unpopular there and they want to see it end. Plus there's the whole thing about Israel supposed to be caring about protecting Jews everywhere. Which would motivate Bennett I would think; plus a big foreign policy win like this of any sort would be a nice feather in his cap for the next election.

[Werthead]

8 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah this is the intuitive, and widely reported, reason for Israel's concerted interest. 

I think it should also be noted, as discussed yesterday, that Russia is using the invasion and subsequent sanctions to muck up the negotiations on reviving the Iran deal.  So Israel's interest in squandering the Iranian deal by mediating a Russian/Ukrainian agreement is..complicated at best.

In that sense, maybe it's better Israel does not negotiate the deal and we look to someone else.

China did a round of talks today, reiterating that it does not want to see the conflict either escalate or continue, but it also believes Russia has legitimate concerns about NATO expanding to the Russian border. So maybe they'd be happy to negotiate based on a Ukrainian declaration of neutrality.

Russia seems to have passed all of its reserves now being in Ukraine and seems to be drawing in older equipment and troops from elsewhere, but their ability to continue bringing pressure to bear on Ukraine now seems undefinable. They likely don't have a ton of cruise missiles left and it's unclear if they can continue to sustain the current rate of aerial losses. From the Russian military perspective, negotiating a ceasefire and buying time for a proper resupply is in their interests. Again, the question must be if that is actually getting through to Putin.

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Almost 5,000 protestors arrested across Russia today. Kazakhstan has also permitted large-scale demonstrations against the war to go ahead.

Russia making odd comments about the jet deal, apparently they don't like it but will only have a massive problem with it if third countries permit Ukrainian jets to fly missions from their territory. If the jets are based on Ukrainian territory (i.e. Russia can destroy them) they seem less fussed about it. Of course, another bit of obfuscation there, would they considered the initial flight from the selling country to Ukraine to count as flying a mission from that territory?

Today has been fucking horrifying. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians fleeing from Kyiv's north-western suburbs, with the BBC catching a mortar round taking out an entire family (they have refused to show that footage). The evacuation from Mariupol had to be abandoned for a second time as the Russians refused to honour the ceasefire apparently agreed by a separate commander.

It's hard to see the point there. Killing civilians serves no militarily useful tactic and enflames the local population further. Do it enough and if it somehow gets on your television sets, then you've got major problems on the home front. Letting them go creates massive logistical problems for Ukraine and the surrounding (quasi-allied) countries, which is more militarily useful.

Terror has its value, and it makes it more likely for politicians to sue for peace if they have any semblance of a soul.

It also makes the rebuild harder and more expensive. 

You're right that it had no military value. It probably has a fair amount of political value especially in the short term. 

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Fez said:

I haven't seen any polls of Israel, but I suspect this war is very unpopular there and they want to see it end. Plus there's the whole thing about Israel supposed to be caring about protecting Jews everywhere. Which would motivate Bennett I would think; plus a big foreign policy win like this of any sort would be a nice feather in his cap for the next election.

I suspect you're right that the war is very unpopular there, but I'm not sure that provides motivation for Bennett to act as neutral arbiter between Ukraine and Russia from a political/domestic standpoint - or at least it's potentially quite risky.  Though of course, yes, as a personal political victory mediating a resolution would be great for him.

13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

In that sense, maybe it's better Israel does not negotiate the deal and we look to someone else.

Well, compared to the other candidates, I think they're the ones the west would most prefer.

[Werthead]

There are signs that Russia is preparing to severe its connections to the global internet and switch to an internal system only. That's an alarming sign that Russia might be preparing to go full North Korea, except of course being vastly bigger, having 1600+ nukes ready to go rather than a couple and a far bigger population. That's very alarming - Russia going full fash before our eyes - but a lot of commentators don't believe it's possible to sustain it. Russia is far too intimately connected with the world and the global economy, the absolute collapse in living standards would be catastrophic and Russia cannot control its borders in the same way. The Russian-Finnish border is seven times longer than the border between the two Koreas by itself. It might be they're more looking at going China and constructing a Great Firewall, and when the sanctions lift they will reconnect, but in a much more tightly controlled way.

Looking at the big picture today, the media has been very focused on individual horror stories, particularly around the civilian evacuation fuck-ups. Zooming out from that, US military assessments and intelligence seems less pessimistic. Ukraine has remained hotly contesting Kharkiv and Chernihiv, and the areas abutting Kyiv to the north-west, although Russian infiltration of the north seems to have been beaten back, with apparently fighting resuming (again) near Hostomel Airport. The Russian mega-convoy is still stuck where it was, with drivers and crew seen camping on the roadside, and Russian missile launches are now totalling 600 since the war started, which is a remarkable drop in numbers fired on a daily basis for the past several days. The Russians have made some sweeping advances in the south and the north-east between Chernihiv and Kharkiv, but for the most part there's absolutely nothing there.

The concern seems to be over Odesa and a believed Russian naval assault on the city seems to have been delayed. Some speculation that Russia only wants to attack the city if it can take it, which requires an attack in concert from both sea and land, and their land forces are not in position yet.

[ThinkerX]

Given the across the board ineptness displayed by the Russians thus far, and allowing for monumental internal corruption, could they even isolate themselves from the global internet?  Seems to me this is the sort of thing that would be 'honored in the breech' much more often than actually enforced. 

[The Dragon Demands]

Ukraine’s mud season starts in about two weeks. If the Russians are going to do anything they’d have to do it soon. Combined with their logistics scraping the bottom of the barrel, time is not on their side.

[Werthead]

The mud season has already come early in some parts of the country, apparently shredding a lot of Russian vehicles' tyres to pieces. Which given in some cases they were already five or six years old anyway and waaaay past the point of replacing, has not exactly helped things.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

49 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Almost 5,000 protestors arrested across Russia today. Kazakhstan has also permitted large-scale demonstrations against the war to go ahead.

Russia making odd comments about the jet deal, apparently they don't like it but will only have a massive problem with it if third countries permit Ukrainian jets to fly missions from their territory. If the jets are based on Ukrainian territory (i.e. Russia can destroy them) they seem less fussed about it. Of course, another bit of obfuscation there, would they considered the initial flight from the selling country to Ukraine to count as flying a mission from that territory?

Today has been fucking horrifying. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians fleeing from Kyiv's north-western suburbs, with the BBC catching a mortar round taking out an entire family (they have refused to show that footage). The evacuation from Mariupol had to be abandoned for a second time as the Russians refused to honour the ceasefire apparently agreed by a separate commander.

It's hard to see the point there. Killing civilians serves no militarily useful tactic and enflames the local population further. Do it enough and if it somehow gets on your television sets, then you've got major problems on the home front. Letting them go creates massive logistical problems for Ukraine and the surrounding (quasi-allied) countries, which is more militarily useful.

Is Putin trying to bait NATO into a stand up fight?  Russian performance would seem to indicate that’s a really poor idea.

[Wilbur]

17 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There are signs that Russia is preparing to severe its connections to the global internet and switch to an internal system only. That's an alarming sign that Russia might be preparing to go full North Korea, except of course being vastly bigger, having 1600+ nukes ready to go rather than a couple and a far bigger population. That's very alarming - Russia going full fash before our eyes - but a lot of commentators don't believe it's possible to sustain it. Russia is far too intimately connected with the world and the global economy, the absolute collapse in living standards would be catastrophic and Russia cannot control its borders in the same way. The Russian-Finnish border is seven times longer than the border between the two Koreas by itself. It might be they're more looking at going China and constructing a Great Firewall, and when the sanctions lift they will reconnect, but in a much more tightly controlled way...

I have a hard time believing that Russia will actually create either an effective air gap for their internet or a Great Firewall.  This sounds like an idea from someone who is Putin's age and with a similar predilection for centralized control and lack of understanding of how the internet works.

Furthermore, the appetite for samizdat in the old Soviet Union was HUGE, and that was before an entire generation got a real taste for Western consumables and media.  Human nature is such that the effort to air gap or firewall the Russian internet would be about as successful as the Trump Wall.

[Werthead]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is Putin trying to bait NATO into a stand up fight?  Russian performance would seem to indicate that’s a really poor idea.

I think Putin is trying to avoid a NATO fight at this time. Who knows what he might be prepared to risk further down the line, but in this conflict, I think he is trying to avoid that entanglement. I think the idea is Ukraine, maybe Moldova at a push, and then regroup. The interesting thing is if he goes for the "rump Ukraine" buffer-state. If he does, that might be a sign he sees a natural limit to Russia's borders there at this time and some successor can try to prise apart the alliance of European states and pick countries off later on.