Ukraine: Ongoing…

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Where Lukashenko at?

 

[Zorral]

War and politics
Why what happens in Bakhmut matters in Russia:

Quote

I think it possible that Wagner, at this point, is meant to lose in Bakhmut.

 

TIMOTHY SNYDER
MAY 12, 2023

https://snyder.substack.com/p/war-and-politics

Quote

 

.... This is politics where there is supposed to be none.  It is Russian domestic politics, boomeranging back from Ukraine.  Christo Grozev believes that Prigozhin has been profiling himself as a rival or successor to Putin from the beginning of this war.  Prigozhin has been putting his own image forward on billboards and Telegram videos with relentless regularity.  Wagner has in general been more successful than the regular Russian army in gaining territory.  And Prigozhin has not hesitated to make loud public claims on state resources on this logic.

It is a logic that might have run its course in Bakhmut.  Russia has been trying to take this minor city in the Donbas for about a year, at huge cost in lives.  The area has some economic significance in mines and minerals.  But in the Russian official mind it seems to function like Stalingrad (a turning point in the Second World War): a battle that must be won for the honor of the leader.  Bakhmut was clearly supposed to be taken by 9 May, so that Putin would have something of which to boast in his Victory Day speech.  This did not happen.  What happened instead was politics. ....

.... It is hard to interpret both Russian politics and battlefield realities, and smart people take opposing sides all the time.  So let me offer, with that proviso, a personal interpretation of the politics of Bakhmut.  I think it possible that Wagner, at this point, is meant to lose in Bakhmut.  If what Prigozhin says was broadly true (a very big if, I accept), then he has been tricked by the Russian command into not withdrawing, and has not been armed the way that he wished to be, right before a Ukrainian attack.  A trap. If that is the case, the motives of his rivals would not be far to seek.  Prigozhin has been mocking the Russian military leadership for months.  He has now criticized Putin directly.  His prestige rests on on the image if Wagner as vicious and successful.  If Wagner fails in Bakhmut, that image is tarnished, and his position is weaker.

Western analysts spend a lot of time plunging the depths of Putin's mind, often to explain to us that his psychological commitments are such that he cannot lose in Ukraine.  I agree that he cares about Ukraine to an unhealthy degree; I was writing about this long ago, and his misunderstanding of the country has indeed brought hubris, catastrophe, nemesis.  But the fixation on Ukraine is connected to something deeper: the idea that tyranny is forever, a personal obsession with losing power. 

Putin’s obsession with eternal personal power was one of the forces that led him to try to suppress Ukraine by military force: a neighboring country where people made their wishes known, where elections worked, where protest was commonplace.  Ukraine was a dangerous model for Russia, at least as Putin understands Russia.  His idea of "rescuing" Russian-speaking people in Ukraine always meant conquering them, humiliating them, taming them.  Remember, Zelens'kyi himself is one of those people!  Ukraine is the country in the world where more people say what they want in the Russian language than anywhere else.  It was that freedom, expressed in Russian, that threatened Putinism.  Now Ukraine threatens Putinism in other ways, which can bring other reactions.

I might be wrong about Bakhmut; it's risky to analyze while a battle is underway, especially on the basis of limited sources.  But if I am right, or something like right, I hope we can think about this war as the continuation of politics by other means, where the continuation is unpredictable, and forces adaptation.  Putin is not fighting the war he imagined, nor should we be.  He is now embedded in a politics he did not anticipate. 

Putin initially connected Ukraine to a dream of posthumous glory.  But now he has no choice but to connect Ukraine to earthly politics, since he cares about retaining power to the end.  To keep power, Putin must control all Russian armed forces, which is not the same thing as keeping them in Ukraine.  Those two things might well contradict: the recent spectacle of disunity around Bakhmut shows how.  The better Ukraine does on the battlefield, the more they will contradict.  More broadly, keeping power is not the same thing as pushing for victory in Ukraine.  If Ukraine seems likely to win, Putin will seek another story of power.  His propagandists are good at changing the subject.

We in democracies sometimes get a bit enraptured by dictators, and particularly dictators at war.  We can get a little carried away by the notion that they can do what they want.  If I am right, though, that Russian politics has continued in an unexpected war thanks to the war, it is easier to see its end.  Putin will not want to see challenges to his rule begin abroad.

War brings political pressure, and not necessarily where the aggressor intended.  Pressure forces choices.  Putin can afford to lose in Ukraine, but he cannot afford to lose in Russia.  He must face that choice if this war is to be brought to an end. 

 

 

[Werthead]

The Ukrainian city of Ternopil was attacked by missiles just as Ukraine's Eurovision entry, which is from the city, took to the stage. Reports of a building damaged and some injuries but no deaths so far.

Russia taking desperately sad, state-sponsored pettiness to a new level.

[horangi]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The Ukrainian city of Ternopil was attacked by missiles just as Ukraine's Eurovision entry, which is from the city, took to the stage. Reports of a building damaged and some injuries but no deaths so far.

Russia taking desperately sad, state-sponsored pettiness to a new level.

Pathetic and both tactically and strategically useless.  I have a hard time even understanding the internal PR value of such an attack. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Where Lukashenko at?

 

Would it service Russia’s interest for him to die?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

War and politics
Why what happens in Bakhmut matters in Russia:

 

TIMOTHY SNYDER
MAY 12, 2023

https://snyder.substack.com/p/war-and-politics

 

Long story short. He implicitly likens Russia in 2023 to Germany in 1918 (or on its way there). The war in Ukraine is in that sense the Western Front in WWI. Not a particularly original idea, as I've seen those comparisons being made last year already. 

[Toth]

4 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Would it service Russia’s interest for him to die?

Depends. We have discussed the pro's and con's of Russia taking Belarus and forcing them to join the war effort before. It's a good idea if you want to make this war three times more messy and take the risk of sparking a civil war at your doorstep in which you have very little left to intervene with. Given how both the population AND the Belarussian military vocally oppose joining the war, much less getting annexed by Russia to be used as cannon fodder... I'd consider that risk of loosing Belarus as a safe haven to launch rockets from to be far too great for it to be a sensible idea to bet on Lukashenko's death. If anything, as Putin I would be shitting bricks about the possibility of chaos erupting there due to a power vacuum.

Then again, Putin hasn't acted the most rational these days and I can't completely deny the possibility that he could have been told he can stave off assured defeat for a couple more months by throwing Belarus under the bus.

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Long story short. He implicitly likens Russia in 2023 to Germany in 1918 (or on its way there). The war in Ukraine is in that sense the Western Front in WWI. Not a particularly original idea, as I've seen those comparisons being made last year already. 

Probably by Snyder himself?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Zorral said:

Probably by Snyder himself?

Nah, I think it was invoked in one of those Austrian Military Videos that were linked back then, where I first came across that idea. 

[Werthead]

According to the Belarusian opposition, Lukashenko spent part of the weekend in a medical facility outside Minsk. Curious and curiouser.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

36 minutes ago, Werthead said:

According to the Belarusian opposition, Lukashenko spent part of the weekend in a medical facility outside Minsk. Curious and curiouser.

So, do you think this is a Russian play for control to get a new source of fresh troops and equipment?  Will the Belarusian opposition take this as an opportunity to try to wrest back Belarus from the pro-Russian Lukashenko disciples?

[Werthead]

27 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, do you think this is a Russian play for control to get a new source of fresh troops and equipment?  Will the Belarusian opposition take this as an opportunity to try to wrest back Belarus from the pro-Russian Lukashenko disciples?

Or Lukashenko suffered a minor/moderate accident and is recovering from it. It's odd, but I wouldn't write him off just yet. 

[The Anti-Targ]

If Putin is telling Lukashenko to declare a special military operation in Ukraine and invade from the north, and Lukashenko is resisting, then I can certainly see Putin wanting to take him out.

If Belarus declared a special military operation on Ukraine, could the US and UK declare the same on Belarus only and not risk direct escalation with Russia? As long as they don't invade and just lob cruise missiles at Belarus could they get away with limiting that engagement? I don't see any EU countries declaring a special military operation in Belarus regardless of what happens.

[Toth]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If Putin is telling Lukashenko to declare a special military operation in Ukraine and invade from the north, and Lukashenko is resisting, then I can certainly see Putin wanting to take him out.

If Belarus declared a special military operation on Ukraine, could the US and UK declare the same on Belarus only and not risk direct escalation with Russia? As long as they don't invade and just lob cruise missiles at Belarus could they get away with limiting that engagement? I don't see any EU countries declaring a special military operation in Belarus regardless of what happens.

You are aware that Belarus is part of a defensive alliance with Russia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Security_Treaty_Organization

That thing may be in trouble given how Russia blatantly refused to do anything after Armenia invoked Article 4 last year when Azerbaijan attacked them, but Russia will certainly have to retaliate when NATO countries attack a country they actually give a shit about. So no, will never happen. Though I have been wondering these days whether in such an event of Belarus getting forced to join the attack or even get forcibly annexed, whether the CIA may be willing to loose a few crates of javelins on their way to Ukraine that just so happen to end up in the hands of Belarussian opposition parties...

[Maithanet]

9 hours ago, Toth said:

Though I have been wondering these days whether in such an event of Belarus getting forced to join the attack or even get forcibly annexed, whether the CIA may be willing to loose a few crates of javelins on their way to Ukraine that just so happen to end up in the hands of Belarussian opposition parties...

Don't you think the CIA is already doing that?  I certainly assume that they are. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Maithanet

[Toth]

20 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Don't you think the CIA is already doing that?  I certainly assume that they are. 

Mmh, last I checked acts of resistance so far were limited to stealing railway signalling equipment.

[Which Tyler]

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1658038646937624576

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1658038646937624576

Ukraine is doing an excellent job of making it look like they are at least considering a major thrust across the Dnipro into the rest of Kherson Oblast.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On 5/14/2023 at 10:03 PM, Werthead said:

Or Lukashenko suffered a minor/moderate accident and is recovering from it. It's odd, but I wouldn't write him off just yet. 

Somehow I like to think this happened.

Putin: So you know, I'd really like to ask you to support our war efforts more actively.

Lukashenko: I am afraid I can't do that, Sir.

Putin nods and his bodyguards grab him.

Putin: Break his arm.

Lukashenko: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I beg of you, please. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

Putin: About the role of Belarusk in our war effort....

 

[Which Tyler]

Surely, he just fell out of a window - just from a lower floor than normal