Ukraine 13: Pavlov's Bellum

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I strongly believe "about now" would be the right time to do everything possible to stop this war, before it becomes something truly ugly on every imaginable level, for very wrong reasons.

Except this dinosaur size elephant in the room is the something truly ugly on every imaginable level for all the wrong reasons is happening right now.  Ask the people to whom it is happening.  These truly ugly somethings on every imaginable level for all the wrong reasons are happening because RUSSIA IS DOING THEM.  So we stop supporting Ukraine, and Russia stops doing them?  The lessons of the past say the Russians will keep doing them and escalate doing them, yes?

Only Russia can stop this and it won't.  I will quote here something I quoted on the US Politics thread:

Quote

 

April 17, 2022
Heather Cox Richardson
Apr 18    

... political scientist and member of the Russian legislative body Vyacheslav Nikonov said, “in reality, we embody the forces of good in the modern world because this clash is metaphysical…. We are on the side of good against the forces of absolute evil…. This is truly a holy war that we’re waging, and we have to win it and of course we will because our cause is just. We have no other choice. Our cause is not only just, our cause is righteous and victory will certainly be ours.”

Nikonov was defending the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Russian troops have leveled cities, killed thousands, kidnapped children, and raped and tortured Ukrainian citizens.

The intellectual leap from committing war crimes to claiming to be on the side of good might be explained by an interview published in the New Statesman at the beginning of April. Speaking with former Portuguese secretary of state for European affairs Bruno Maçães, Sergey Karaganov, a former advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin, predicted the end of the western democracies that have shaped the world since World War II. Dictators, he suggested, will take over.

Democracy is failing and authoritarianism rising, Karaganov said, because of democracy’s bad moral foundations. As he put it: “Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

In a different key:

Using the “Find My” feature of his Apple AirPods, a Ukrainian man has been tracking the movement of Russian troops after a soldier pillaged the wireless headphones from his home. Vitaliy Semenets claims his AirPods were snatched from Hostomel near Kyiv when occupiers invaded the town last month. When Russian forces withdrew from the region, Semenets used the location technology to track the troops as they retreated across the border to Belarus. The Times reports that the AirPods made their way across the Russian border to Belgorod last week.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/apple-find-my-helps-ukrainian-vitaliy-semenets-track-russian-troops-with-looted-airpods-near-kyiv?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@Werthead

Does the West have any idea how many Kaliber Cruise missiles Russia has left after its Missile strikes over Western Ukriane?  Are the Russians cannibalizing other equipment to put more Kalibers into action?

[DMC]

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

At some point during these talks, the Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said that the US "would not close doors to NATO to anyone," which was a known red line for Moscow. Maybe she was grandstanding, but I see no reason to think that

Of course she wasn't grandstanding.  Russia dictating who can and cannot join NATO was just as much a redline for the US as Ukraine joining NATO was for Russia.  This was all very clear and discussed openly and publicly.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that and it doesn't in any way indicate the US was "pushing" for this war.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

This is interesting Google Earth has deliberately increased the resolution of its images over Russian military bases.  Are some Russian planes decoys?

 

[Werthead]

38 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

@Werthead

Does the West have any idea how many Kaliber Cruise missiles Russia has left after its Missile strikes over Western Ukriane?  Are the Russians cannibalizing other equipment to put more Kalibers into action?

Unclear. The Kalibr cruise missile has been in service for about a decade and it's clear that Russia could have built quite a lot of them. However, they have expended quite a few over Syria and they've fired apparently several hundred in this conflict (certainly far more than they ever envisaged). US and other sources have indicated they believe that Russia may have expended around 50% of their Kalibrs to date, but maybe somewhat lower. Russia using Kalibrs on low-military-value civilian targets might be a sign that they are trying to project they have far more than people thought (true or not) or it could be a sign of desperation, perhaps driven by the need to retaliate for the Moskva (which officially they still haven't blamed on Russia).

The Kalibr is advanced enough that I don't think cannibalising other equipment is much use.

8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This is interesting Google Earth has deliberately increased the resolution of its images over Russian military bases.  Are some Russian planes decoys?

 

Dummy aircraft was extraordinarily effective in World War II (my grandfather helped assemble and put some up) but resolution has increased a bit since then.

Russia using styrofoam planes to pretend they have far more aircraft than is actually the case would be on-side for them, and might explain why they're using less and less advanced modern aircraft and more and more tried-and-tested, decades-old planes.

[Gorn]

For intimidation/deception purposes, a styrofoam airplane works just as well as a real one. I don't think anyone in the Russian military hierarchy really expected to have to fight a full-scale war where a large percentage of their declared strength would actually be needed.

Plus, styrofoam airplanes provide untold possibilities for large-scale theft, which is always a plus in a kleptocracy. Declare you're buying 20 planes, budget for 15 real ones and 5 decoys, actually make 10 real ones and 10 decoys while stealing money for 5.

[SpaceChampion]

Appears to have mean Lake Como, in Italy.

[Werthead]

Looks like the big push is starting. Large scale Russian artillery fire towards Mykolaiv and Kharkiv on the flanks, whilst ground units will probably be going in in central Donbas. Ukraine has been preparing positions and some of the NATO heavy equipment they need has arrived but not all of it.

On the other hand, the Russians seem to have gone in at least a week too early, with relatively few reinforcements and most of their new troops being reconstituted from units already degraded in combat.

To what degree that makes a difference, we'll see. It looks like ~75 BTGs are engaged in the offensive, which is the 55 the JSO has been fighting off since the invasion begun plus 20 extra. We don't know how heavily the JSO has been reinforced though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

52 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Looks like the big push is starting. Large scale Russian artillery fire towards Mykolaiv and Kharkiv on the flanks, whilst ground units will probably be going in in central Donbas. Ukraine has been preparing positions and some of the NATO heavy equipment they need has arrived but not all of it.

On the other hand, the Russians seem to have gone in at least a week too early, with relatively few reinforcements and most of their new troops being reconstituted from units already degraded in combat.

To what degree that makes a difference, we'll see. It looks like ~75 BTGs are engaged in the offensive, which is the 55 the JSO has been fighting off since the invasion begun plus 20 extra. We don't know how heavily the JSO has been reinforced though.

What frightens me is that we could be dealing with battle hardened veterans who know what to do to survive on the Russian side with the competent officers who know how to get it done. Hope the offensive falls flat.

[Makk]

Hope Ukraine is ready for this pivotal moment. I feel it is a chance for Ukraine to effectively win the war, if they can comprehensively counter this offensive I don't think Russia will be able to regroup for another one. It will be a tricky fight in much more open terrain but if Ukraine can get some early damage in Russian morale might fail and they get routed. Even if they don't collapse I'm not convinced they will be able to adapt to a plan B in the field if their first attempt doesn't work.

[Padraig]

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

For instance, the US and Russia negotiated over Ukraine in January in Geneva, Blinken and Lavrov, especially. No Ukrainian representative was present, though to be fair, the US did pay lip service to the idea.

What DMC said.  I think you are reading too much into those talks.  They were quite public.  In fact, IIRC Russia wasn't interested in negotiating with Ukraine before the war started?  They wanted the US to shut the door to Ukraine joining NATO (a quite powerful precedent).

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That is established beyond any level of doubt. It was always clear that should negotiations fail (and they were doomed to fail due to the issue of NATO expansion alone), Russia would progressively escalate and consider military action (at least covert).

Yes.  In the months before the invasion, the US was clear that Russia was going to invade.  And it was expected that we could end up with an insurgency type operation.  Especially if Russia tried to occupy the whole country, which was questionable, even then.

But, maybe I read too much into your earlier post.   If you are just saying that the US could have stopped the invasion once it knew Russia was going to invade, then I still don't agree (I thought you were previously suggesting it as a long term plot to get Russia to invade).  I'm not sure what the US could have done to stop the war?  Refuse to help Ukraine?  And even then, I think Ukraine would have tried to stop Russia.

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Hence why I strongly believe "about now" would be the right time to do everything possible to stop this war, before it becomes something truly ugly on every imaginable level, for very wrong reasons.

But there is no suggestion that Putin would accept peace right now.  Unless Ukraine offered him half the country (perhaps).

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Thing is, historically speaking, US decision-makers have very often done both, since weakening a regional power by supporting or fueling nationalism is a rather easy thing to do (Russia has been playing the same game with the EU after all).

Was it nationalism or pro-democracy?  I'm sure the US was supportive but anything I have read suggests that Russia was far more involved in Ukraine in the 2000s and early 2010s than the US.  Whatever it was doing in the EU or US, it obviously was doing way more in Ukraine.  Russia knew its strategic value.  Its way too simple (and insulting to Ukrainians) to say that the US was largely responsible for what the Ukrainian people decided. 

And of course, the biggest factor in the growth of Ukrainian nationalism was the seizure of Crimea and the Donbas.  Up to then there was a roughly 50:50 pro Russia v anti Russia sentiment.  (But even then, some of the pro-Russians saw some advantages in having closer ties to the EU, which Putin was very against.  It was those potential links to the EU that started this current conflict in 2013).

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

In all honesty, at this point, I don't know for sure, which is also a solid reason for me to revert to my default "let's stop killing people" position

You do know that is a win for Putin?  Sow enough doubt, the West will blink like it has done so often?  And when it takes half Ukraine, Russia will still view itself as the victim?  Look what the West keep's making it do, as it rolls into Moldova and Georgia...and more.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

In all honesty, at this point, I don't know for sure, which is also a solid reason for me to revert to my default "let's stop killing people" position, gutless coward that I am.

Do you have any reason, at all, to believe the Russian dictator, if given full control of Ukraine tomorrow, would refrain from continuing to kill Ukrainians?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Pro Russian Ukrainian MP calls for Russia to use Nuclear weapons on Ukrainian troops:

 

[Kalbear]

Seems relevant

 

[SpaceChampion]

 

[Gorn]

A thread by Kamil Galeev, relevant to the recent discussion:

https://unrollthread.com/t/1516162437455654913/

Quote

 

Some Western analysts unfamiliar with Eastern European cultural context perceive Z-war as an accident. They presume that Russian invasion results from some sort of "misunderstanding" or mistake which can be resolved via negotiations.

That's a textbook example of wishful thinking. Why would such a renowned analyst as Luttwak argue that "the war need not continue"? Because *he* doesn't need it to continue. I don't need it -> Nobody needs it -> A peaceful settlement is possible. But that's not how it works.

You may want to stop this war ASAP, but it's not up to you to decide. It's up to Russia which invaded Ukraine for a reason.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Do you have any reason, at all, to believe the Russian dictator, if given full control of Ukraine tomorrow, would refrain from continuing to kill Ukrainians?

If you want to push back on the idea of diplomacy not being effective right now it might help if you didn't suggest something ridiculous like this.  Even the least charitable interpretation of the post you're responding to wouldn't assume it was suggesting giving Russia full control of Ukraine.  

[Winterfell is Burning]

22 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

If you want to push back on the idea of diplomacy not being effective right now it might help if you didn't suggest something ridiculous like this.  Even the least charitable interpretation of the post you're responding to wouldn't assume it was suggesting giving Russia full control of Ukraine.  

You're missing the point: he's saying diplomacy is useless because even Putin was given EVERYTHING it still wouldn't be enough to make him stop.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

34 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

If you want to push back on the idea of diplomacy not being effective right now it might help if you didn't suggest something ridiculous like this.  Even the least charitable interpretation of the post you're responding to wouldn't assume it was suggesting giving Russia full control of Ukraine.  

What did Russian troops do in the areas of Ukraine they had control of during March?  Pray tell.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

You're missing the point: he's saying diplomacy is useless because even Putin was given EVERYTHING it still wouldn't be enough to make him stop.

Yes.  At least we have no good reason to believe he would stop in my earnest opinion.