Ukraine 13: Pavlov's Bellum

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m just floored by how short sighted and stillted their POV appears to be.

None seems to be a figure of particular political significance.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The possibility of losing the Donbas. Although the Russians haven't made a big breakthrough, it's also unclear if they've really gone all-in yet. Maintaining the counterattacks on the extreme ends of the line (Kharkiv and Kherson) could ease pressure on the JSO in the centre of the line and dissipate the force Russia is trying to bring to bear on a small area.

I see your point.  However, the Russians are gaining meters at a time, not Kilometers.  If this is the best the Russians can do, wait, and punch as hard as you can when the Russians overextend.

[Kalbear]

30 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I see your point.  However, the Russians are gaining meters at a time, not Kilometers.  If this is the best the Russians can do, wait, and punch as hard as you can when the Russians overextend.

That's not really how modern warfare works. By this token Desert Storm was completely stopped.

Until it wasn't.

Modern warfare doesn't inch forward. It starts with softening up targets, removing AA and fires and other support, weakening logistics - all from long range attacks. Intel and imagery is used instead of probing attacks to find weak points or understand when the enemy is degraded. Then you mobilize quickly, with the goal of moving everything up so that you can start on the next hardpoint again - or break through completely, though that sort of thing is significantly harder with combined arms. 

Right now Russia doesn't appear to be doing any kind of major mobilization and is instead using heavy fires to soften targets. 

[Werthead]

9 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

That's not really how modern warfare works. By this token Desert Storm was completely stopped.

Until it wasn't.

Modern warfare doesn't inch forward. It starts with softening up targets, removing AA and fires and other support, weakening logistics - all from long range attacks. Intel and imagery is used instead of probing attacks to find weak points or understand when the enemy is degraded. Then you mobilize quickly, with the goal of moving everything up so that you can start on the next hardpoint again - or break through completely, though that sort of thing is significantly harder with combined arms. 

Right now Russia doesn't appear to be doing any kind of major mobilization and is instead using heavy fires to soften targets. 

All true, but Russia is behaving bizarrely in some of those areas. It knows the value of massed artillery and is proceeding with that, but it seems to be suffering from a logjam in PGMs, which is preventing it from maximising its air power (and the second it starts using dumb bombs, it starts losing planes again). It does seem to genuinely be using probing attacks along the lines in some locations, a very WWII tactic that, as you say, should be unnecessary in this age of aerial photography and satellites. However, Ukraine has had spectacular success in recent days with shooting down recon drones, so it might be that Russia is having problems with fast satellite interpretation and is using probing attacks in lieu of that.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

All true, but Russia is behaving bizarrely in some of those areas. It knows the value of massed artillery and is proceeding with that, but it seems to be suffering from a logjam in PGMs, which is preventing it from maximising its air power (and the second it starts using dumb bombs, it starts losing planes again). It does seem to genuinely be using probing attacks along the lines in some locations, a very WWII tactic that, as you say, should be unnecessary in this age of aerial photography and satellites. However, Ukraine has had spectacular success in recent days with shooting down recon drones, so it might be that Russia is having problems with fast satellite interpretation and is using probing attacks in lieu of that.

That makes sense to me. I also suspect some of their probing attacks are due to their continued lack of control cohesion and command. It could be that simply they think that's what they need to be doing or at least their commanders do, especially in places like Kherson where they aren't quite as linked up with the rest of the major forces. 

I would say that in general the Russian forces still appear to be heavily decentralized and uncoordinated. They also appear to have lost the initiative and in many places are reacting to Ukrainian behaviors. But they're also in great defensive positions and have the umbrella of significant air power while near that border, so Ukraine can't just go in and attack heavily. Ukraine doesn't have a great mobile AA system that can give their land forces cover, and they can't attack broadly enough.

[Gorn]

39 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

I would say that in general the Russian forces still appear to be heavily decentralized and uncoordinated. They also appear to have lost the initiative and in many places are reacting to Ukrainian behaviors. But they're also in great defensive positions and have the umbrella of significant air power while near that border, so Ukraine can't just go in and attack heavily. Ukraine doesn't have a great mobile AA system that can give their land forces cover, and they can't attack broadly enough.

20th century defensive tactics don't really work against an opponent who has access to modern drones.

Armenia had one of the strongest defensive lines of the modern age in Nagorno-Karabakh. They were digging in for almost three decades, and they had countless bunkers, hundreds of tanks, huge amounts of overlapping artillery, best anti-air defenses that 80s Soviet technology could provide, cruise missiles... All this combined with high morale of soldiers who were defending their homes, an incredibly strong natural defensive position, and a very short line to be defended, none of which Russia has in Ukraine.

Had, past tense. Azerbaijan used loitering munitions to destroy their AA defenses, and then used Bayraktars to destroy everything else. Three decades of digging in, undone in a month.

Maybe the Russian generals will surprise me. Maybe they will come up with some genius new battlefield tactic to counter drones and make them ineffective. But I don't really think they will.

[Werthead]

One US analyst has suggested that Donbas is the last offensive Russia can afford. Whether it succeeds or fails, the Russian military will be exhausted and will require national mobilisation to continue. In fact, I've seen some suggestions that even mobilisation might not help: putting half a million barely-trained conscripts into the theatre when you can't magic up the thousands of vehicles they'd need to support them is just an invitation to mass casualties and increased domestic instability.

Obviously this is just one view and it may not be accurate, though Kofman's pre-war analysis in January is interesting.

Quote

Had, past tense. Azerbaijan used loitering munitions to destroy their AA defenses, and then used Bayraktars to destroy everything else. Three decades of digging in, undone in a month.

Yup, and the loitering munition drones Ukraine now has are superior to what Azerbaijan has.

[Werthead]

Apparently three villages north of Kharkiv have been retaken by the Ukrainians: Bezruki, Slatine and Prudyanka. Kharkiv itself has come under renewed artillery attack. Also, the Mariupol steelworks has come under renewed attack, despite it apparently being put under siege.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Kyiv tomorrow, with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Zelensky has renewed calls for dialogue with Putin directly.

Turkey has closed its airspace to military and civilian planes carrying troops from Russia to Syria. Turkey apparently engaged in consultations with Russia beforehand. However, it's unclear if this applies in the other direction: so far 700 Syrian mercenaries are apparently on the ground in Russia, training for possibly deployment to Ukraine, but apparently several thousand more could be deployed.

The Syrian government is apparently showing some signs of alarm at not just allied Syrian militia groups redeploying to Ukraine, but Russia pulling some of its own forces out to join the fight there. There has been a dramatic scaling back of Russian military operations against rebel groups and what's left of IS in recent weeks.

[Maithanet]

Kofman and some other military planners have been emphasizing the point that Russia is not rotating its forces.  Even troops with good morale, training and supplies will lose combat effectiveness over months of fighting.  Many Russian trips do not have any of those advantages, and could have a complete collapse of discipline.  Obviously the level of combat and degradation varies, but it is a problem Russia doesn't have a good answer for.

How much rotation Ukraine is doing is a little hard to discern, but it looks like the answer is "some".  Plus Ukraine has reserve troops and interior postings to help lighten the load, which Russia mostly lacks.

[maarsen]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m just floored by how short sighted and stillted their POV appears to be.

I suppose, considering their age, that they could have been ex Stasi agents whose files Putin has access to, and is pressuring.

[Zorral]

Putin's Holy War in Ukraine. Long article, alas behind subscriber paywall.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-long-holy-war-behind-putins-political-war-in-ukraine

Quote

 

Leaders of religious communities in the U.S. with histories in the region have some answers. Throughout Lent—the penitential season prior to Easter, which for the Orthodox is this Sunday—Ukrainian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops, metropolitans, clergy, and scholars have been consumed with the issues of the war. At conferences, on Zoom, and on Public Orthodoxy, a Web site hosted by the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, they have engaged in arguments that are often abstruse, but the underlying feeling is simple and shared: Anyone paying attention should have seen this coming. At a conference at Georgetown University, Metropolitan Borys Gudziak, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop based in Philadelphia, who also serves as the president of the Ukrainian Catholic University, in Lviv, said, “There are so many precedents, and there are so many trends, that were under way for such a long time.” He listed several long-term developments that he saw as having enabled an eventual Russian invasion, from the lack of any Nuremberg-like reckoning with the evils of Soviet Communism to the personal friendships that Western politicians of all stripes have cultivated with Putin. “There are so many explicit expressions of intention that our surprise is actually a result of us not wanting to hear—not hearing,” he said.

Last week, on Fox News, George Demacopoulos, a theologian at Fordham who has been honored as an archon—a distinguished Christian—by Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, declared that “Putin is an instrumentalizer of religion.” Demacopoulos meant that, rather than looking to religion as a guide to action, Putin (who is Russian Orthodox) attacked Ukraine and then invoked Christianity to justify the invasion as an act of holy war. At a March 18th rally in Moscow, Putin paraphrased from the Gospel of John to exhort the self-sacrifice that his war against “genocide” in Ukraine would require of many Russians: “And this is where the words from the Scriptures come to my mind: ‘There is no greater love than if someone gives his soul for his friends.’ ”

There’s no question that Putin is using religion for political purposes, yet it is also true that Kirill has instrumentalized the invasion for Russian Orthodoxy’s purposes. Eastern Orthodox and Catholic leaders in this country thought it improbable that Kirill would stand back from this war, because they see the war as an extension of the Russian Orthodox Church’s efforts in Ukraine. For two decades, the R.O.C. has used state money and propaganda to assert itself in that country. Through his full-throated support for the war for a greater Russia, these leaders say, Kirill is militating against their own transnational Orthodox project, which has been under way since the fall of Communism. ....

 

 

[Zorral]

A second  tranche of the New York Magazine report's subscriber paywall concerning the Russian Orthodox Church as pro-Putin doctrine Ukraine doctrine:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-long-holy-war-behind-putins-political-war-in-ukraine

Quote

 

As Russia’s 2014 occupation of parts of the Donbas and annexation of Crimea—regions where Russian ethnicity and Orthodoxy are robust—escalated the Russia-Ukraine fight, the conflict in Ukraine between Russian and Eastern Orthodoxy was also growing. Bartholomew I had attended Pope Francis’s inauguration in Rome, in 2013, becoming the first ecumenical patriarch ever to attend that papal event. Then, in 2015, his ideas were featured in the Pope’s encyclical on climate change, “Laudato si’,” auguring an alliance of the two leaders and their churches on “care for our common home.” Meanwhile, a pan-Orthodox council was being planned for 2016, and Bartholomew signalled an intention to eventually grant autocephaly to the church in Ukraine, aware that Kirill—now the patriarch of Moscow—would see the act as an encroachment on R.O.C. territory.

Kirill, too, was strategizing. Capping two decades of negotiations between Rome and Moscow, he met with Francis—the first such meeting in a thousand years—in Havana, and saw to it that their joint declaration referred to plans for a more independent Ukrainian church as a “schism” violating “canonical norms”—a clear rebuke of Bartholomew. And Kirill deepened long-standing relationships with Christian fundamentalists from the United States, making common cause with them on issues of gender and sexuality, especially. When the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church was held on the island of Crete in July, 2016, the R.O.C., along with a number of other national churches, did not participate. After the council, several dozen Eastern Orthodox leaders who had attended drafted a hundred-and-ten-page document framing a common “social ethos” in terms associated with the West—denouncing nationalism and racism, and affirming liberal democratic ideals of freedom and equality. “What we’re seeing on full display” in the R.O.C.’s support for Putin “is a kind of rejection” of that ethos, “a kind of religious nationalism that in many ways is cancelling out the other,” Aristotle Papanikolaou, an Orthodox theologian at Fordham, who helped draft the document, said at the Georgetown conference. “Regardless of how the other Orthodox churches see it, it’s out there, and thank God it’s out there, because it’s at least a prophetic witness for a different way of thinking and living the Orthodox faith.” Finally, in December, 2018, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was established at the St. Sophia Cathedral, in Kyiv. The next month, Bartholomew recognized it. Kirill declared the new church illegitimate and accused Bartholomew of “violating all rules.”

All this maneuvering, José Casanova writes, has resulted in “three competing ‘national’ churches”: one loyal to the ecumenical patriarch; one loyal to the Moscow patriarch; and a third, much smaller one that is loyal to the Pope. In polls conducted in 2019 and 2021, between a third and just over half of Ukrainians identified with the new church, and between a fifth and a quarter with the Moscow-allied church; others identified as “simply Orthodox,” as Ukrainian Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, or Muslims, or claimed no religion. Yet the striking element was how well all these communities (the Russian Orthodox excepted) were working together. Given Russian Orthodoxy’s long sway over Ukraine and the historic pattern of religion in the region—a dominant state-allied church in each country, and a limited presence for other churches and other faiths—the religiously diverse post-Communist Ukraine, Casanova says, was a “sociological miracle.”

After the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s religious diversity has been subsumed into national unity. Whatever the war’s outcome, the biggest loser, in religious terms, will almost certainly be the Russian Orthodox Church. Last month, nearly three hundred R.O.C. priests and deacons signed an open letter in which they denounced the “fratricidal war in Ukraine” and called for an “immediate ceasefire.” (Those church leaders, however, are a tiny minority of the forty thousand clerics in the R.O.C.) Ukrainians who worshipped in churches tied to Moscow may sour on a religious leader who has lent holy purpose to Russia’s bombing of their country and its killing of their neighbors, and whose stature has been diminished forever by those acts. During services in Moscow on April 10th, Kirill gave a long discourse on the exercise of power, and concluded with a prayer: “May the Lord help us all in this difficult time for our Fatherland to unite, including around the authorities,” in order to “have true solidarity and the ability to repel external and internal enemies” for the sake of “goodness, truth, and love.” ....

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m just floored by how short sighted and stillted their POV appears to be.

So back, sorry for delayed response, but had to attend to my religious needs at the cathedral of St. Pauli (effing tossers, no salvation story today...), anyway...

A few pages back Toth reciting Brecht's Mr. Keuner and the violence.

They are orthodox in their pacifist views. That's an extremely unpopular minority position right now. But being against armendment/violence/war is in itself a very respectable position. It's just not tenable wrt Ukraine, esp. after Bucha. The signees, well, I wouldn't refer to most of them as German Intellectuals. I'll post the list below. I'll link their english wiki page, if they have one.

Quote

PD Dr. Johannes M. Becker, Politologe, ehem. Geschäftsführer des Zentrums für
Konfliktforschung in Marburg

Daniela Dahn, Journalistin, Schriftstellerin und Publizistin, Pen-Mitglied

Dr. Rolf Gössner, Rechtsanwalt und Publizist, Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte

Jürgen Grässlin, Bundessprecher DFG-VK und Aktion Aufschrei ‒ Stoppt den Waffenhandel!

Joachim Guilliard, Publizist

Dr. Luc Jochimsen, Journalistin, Fernsehredakteurin, MdB 2005-2013

Christoph Krämer, Chirurg, Internationale Ärzte für die Verhütung des Atomkrieges IPPNW (deutsche Sektion)

Prof. Dr. Karin Kulow, Politikwissenschaftlerin

Dr. Helmut Lohrer, Arzt, International Councilor, IPPNW (deutsche Sektion)

Prof. Dr. Mohssen Massarrat, Politik- und Wirtschaftswissenschaftler

Dr. Hans Misselwitz, Grundwertekommission der SPD

Ruth Misselwitz, evangelische Theologin, ehem. Vorsitzende von Aktion Sühnezeichen
Friedensdienste

Prof. Dr. Norman Paech, Völkerrechtler, ehem. Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages

Prof. Dr. Werner Ruf, Politikwissenschaftler und Soziologe

Prof. Dr. Gert Sommer, Psychologe, ehem. Direktoriummitglied des Zentrums für
Konfliktforschung in Marburg

Hans Christoph Graf von Sponeck, ehem. Beigeordneter Generalsekretär der UNO

Dr. Antje Vollmer, ehem. Vizepräsidentin des Deutschen Bundestages

Konstantin Wecker, Musiker, Komponist und Autor

For the record. Konstantin Wecker is a btec Hannes Wader.

Additional comment. Kinda sad to see Rolf Gössner on that list. A few words on him, since he has no english wikipedia page. He is a Lawyer and he has made name for himself in civil and human rights cases. He has also served an observer during the trials for the EU (I think Öcallan's trial being the most famous one). So he really isn't some random wacko bird.

Anyway, most of the signees are really there on a principled pacifist base. Which again, is in itself a respectable position, just not a tenable one in this conflict imho. 

[Martell Spy]

Will Smith Slaps Vladimir Putin Sideways In New Pro-Ukraine Street Art In LA
Street artist 1GoodHombre wanted to use the “ridiculous situation” of the Oscars slap to raise awareness and money for relief efforts in Ukraine.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/will-smith-putin-street-art-ukraine_n_6263cdf2e4b00b4e017eabf0

Quote

 

Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap has been recreated in street art form in Los Angeles.

But instead of comedian Chris Rock receiving the sharp end of the actor’s palm, it’s Russian President Vladimir Putin who is being knocked sideways by the “Ali” star in the latest artistic show of solidarity with Ukraine.

“Keep Ukraine out your fucking mouth!!!” Smith is depicted as saying in the piece, a reworking of the actor’s comment to Rock’s joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

 

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

10 hours ago, Ran said:

A survey of recent media clips from Russian TV shows and news shows a complete wild west of disinformation, wishful thinking, saber rattling, etc.

Oh almost forgot to mention this; RT had nick fuentes on to discuss russiaphobia.

[Werthead]

This analysis is something.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

14 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Anyway, most of the signees are really there on a principled pacifist base. Which again, is in itself a respectable position, just not a tenable one in this conflict imho. 

It can be genuinely hard to discern  those whose genuine sense of ethics  has lead them to adopt an unreasonable position (like the signees here) from just pro-Russia or anti-nato or anti-America concern trolls appropriating pacifistic rhetoric.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So back, sorry for delayed response, but had to attend to my religious needs at the cathedral of St. Pauli (effing tossers, no salvation story today...), anyway...

A few pages back Toth reciting Brecht's Mr. Keuner and the violence.

They are orthodox in their pacifist views. That's an extremely unpopular minority position right now. But being against armendment/violence/war is in itself a very respectable position. It's just not tenable wrt Ukraine, esp. after Bucha. The signees, well, I wouldn't refer to most of them as German Intellectuals. I'll post the list below. I'll link their english wiki page, if they have one.

For the record. Konstantin Wecker is a btec Hannes Wader.

Additional comment. Kinda sad to see Rolf Gössner on that list. A few words on him, since he has no english wikipedia page. He is a Lawyer and he has made name for himself in civil and human rights cases. He has also served an observer during the trials for the EU (I think Öcallan's trial being the most famous one). So he really isn't some random wacko bird.

Anyway, most of the signees are really there on a principled pacifist base. Which again, is in itself a respectable position, just not a tenable one in this conflict imho. 

When did pacifism become “hope like hell the bad folks are nicer than they look give them everything they want”?  Gandhi opposed the use of violence to oppose violence… but he still planned to oppose violance with non-violent confrontation.

These people aren’t merely opposing violence.  They are advocating capitulation.  The latter point I simply do not understand.  I thought most pacificists took Ghandi’s position.  Not give in to the aggressor because the aggressor is aggressive.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

This is scary bit of Projection from the Russian Ministry of Defense:

 

[Werthead]

Apparently Austria is going to block Ukraine's EU accession bid. They have not explained their reasoning so far.