Ukraine Conflict: Crimea-a-River

[SeanF]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This article illustrates, again, how the Ukraine war, on the Ukraine side, is quite different from how contemporary powers have conducted their colonial wars, i.e. Ukraine unlike Russia is not engaged in a grab for territory and resources.

What it means when the mercenaries appear
Elliot Ackerman’s new novel is “2054,” written with retired Adm. James Stavridis. This piece is adapted from an essay in the spring 2024 issue of Liberties, a journal of culture and politics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/15/liberties-mercenaries-wagner-group-warfighting/

 

Sean -- I sent the full text of the piece to you via private message, thinking lots of bits in it would be of interest to you -- not necessarily informing you -- unlikely! -- but still of interest.  It goes rather well, too, in places with Brett D's latest entries.

 

I thought it an interesting piece, but I disagree with a lot.  But, rather than derail the Ukraine thread with my comments on Rome, I thought I'd post my response to the History in Books Section, as well as PM you.

Edited April 15 by SeanF

[Maithanet]

Speaker Johnson announced last night that Ukraine and Israel aid were going to come to a vote in the House on Friday.  Details of exactly what will be included are not clear, but it is expected to be close to the $60 billion that has been discussed.  It may include some less favorable things like loans for a portion of the aid (but not even close to the full amount, maybe like $10 billion in long term loans and $50 billion in aid).  This is Donald Trump's stupid idea and so we should assume Johnson will probably include it. 

Now, there are still a lot of potential hurdles.  The biggest is probably Johnson straight up changing his mind before Friday, but this is the first time that we've had an actual date on a vote.  In all likelihood if it comes up, it will pass, because there are plenty of Republicans and virtually all Democrats that will vote for this.  It will then almost assuredly need to go to the Senate which will slow things down again, but probably it goes through there without too much issue, since McConnell and Schumer are both pro-Ukraine. 

So...we'll see but there's reason for cautious optimism. 

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Speaker Johnson announced last night that Ukraine and Israel aid were going to come to a vote in the House on Friday.  Details of exactly what will be included are not clear, but it is expected to be close to the $60 billion that has been discussed.  It may include some less favorable things like loans for a portion of the aid (but not even close to the full amount, maybe like $10 billion in long term loans and $50 billion in aid).  This is Donald Trump's stupid idea and so we should assume Johnson will probably include it. 

Now, there are still a lot of potential hurdles.  The biggest is probably Johnson straight up changing his mind before Friday, but this is the first time that we've had an actual date on a vote.  In all likelihood if it comes up, it will pass, because there are plenty of Republicans and virtually all Democrats that will vote for this.  It will then almost assuredly need to go to the Senate which will slow things down again, but probably it goes through there without too much issue, since McConnell and Schumer are both pro-Ukraine. 

So...we'll see but there's reason for cautious optimism. 

MTG will rant and rave.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

MTG will rant and rave.

It is Tuesday.

[Makk]

MTG will probably go ahead with her motion to vacate and the dems will have to protect Johnson. It will be a very bitter pill to swallow. 

[Maithanet]

Just now, Makk said:

MTG will probably go ahead with her motion to vacate and the dems will have to protect Johnson. It will be a very bitter pill to swallow. 

Meh.  This is a results based business.  The Republican House is not going to pass much that will actually become law regardless, and the weakness/disunity amongst the Republican members has already allowed Democrats to have influence over bills they otherwise would not.  If the Democrats need to vote "present" on a motion to vacate to get important bills passed like keeping the government funded and preventing Ukraine from being overrun, that is a small price to pay. 

I personally can see the upside of a Republican speaker who needs to stay in the Democrat's good graces.  It sounds completely untenable for Johnson, but it sounds pretty good for Democrats (and the country as well). 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Would be better if MAGA Mike was not such despicable creature. But finding a somewhat palatable law maker in the House, who has the ability to become speaker. Let's just say, finding a(nother) planet with intelligent life in our lifetime presumably doesn't have that much worse odds.

[Maithanet]

58 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Would be better if MAGA Mike was not such despicable creature. But finding a somewhat palatable law maker in the House, who has the ability to become speaker. Let's just say, finding a(nother) planet with intelligent life in our lifetime presumably doesn't have that much worse odds.

Mike Johnson is a scumbag, but not a particularly noteable one.  He willingly signed up for a position that has a lot of responsibility but very little power.  He can be removed at any time based on the feelings of crazy people like MTG, and this is bound to happen sooner or later.  Thus his tenure as Speaker is basically doomed to failure.  The only hope is to get something passed before this happens. 

[Makk]

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Meh.  This is a results based business.  The Republican House is not going to pass much that will actually become law regardless, and the weakness/disunity amongst the Republican members has already allowed Democrats to have influence over bills they otherwise would not.  If the Democrats need to vote "present" on a motion to vacate to get important bills passed like keeping the government funded and preventing Ukraine from being overrun, that is a small price to pay. 

I personally can see the upside of a Republican speaker who needs to stay in the Democrat's good graces.  It sounds completely untenable for Johnson, but it sounds pretty good for Democrats (and the country as well). 

I completely realise how important, and way overdue, the aid to Ukraine is. Not just for Ukraine but to the entire global security. But I absolutely despise Mike Johnson as much, if not more, than Trump. I would not trust him and it would not surprise me at all if after being saved by the dems he pulled a 180 and altered whatever deal they had agreed on. For that reason I don't believe he is any asset going forward. 

It would have been better off to reach out and save McCarthy. Or strike a deal with some other republican now. How long does it take? If he was vacated does the house go back into recess? Or can someone new be nominated and voted in straight away? You could make up time by voting on the original Senate bill therefore sending it straight to Biden.

[Maithanet]

24 minutes ago, Makk said:

I completely realise how important, and way overdue, the aid to Ukraine is. Not just for Ukraine but to the entire global security. But I absolutely despise Mike Johnson as much, if not more, than Trump. I would not trust him and it would not surprise me at all if after being saved by the dems he pulled a 180 and altered whatever deal they had agreed on. For that reason I don't believe he is any asset going forward. 

It would have been better off to reach out and save McCarthy. Or strike a deal with some other republican now. How long does it take? If he was vacated does the house go back into recess? Or can someone new be nominated and voted in straight away? You could make up time by voting on the original Senate bill therefore sending it straight to Biden.

That's odd, because I feel kind of the reverse on Johnson/McCarthy.  I'm not an expert on this kind of insider politics, but from what I've read McCarthy was ousted because he was a liar.  He would make a bunch of promises that were contradictory and when he failed to deliver he would just point fingers at whoever was convenient (the democrats, the far right, the Senate).  People figured this out fairly quickly and nobody wanted to deal with that anymore.

In contrast, Johnson does not make a bunch of idle promises.  Not that this makes him some paragon of virtue, but he doesn't make one deal with establishment Republicans and then the exact opposite deal with the far right.  Instead, he mostly just waffles around doing nothing much and trying to find something that his caucus can actually live with, even if none of them are particularly happy about it.  That's basically what happened in the budget deal, where he ran out the clock and then got some window dressing to throw to his caucus so that at least he could claim he's "fighting for them" and not completely folding.  That was enough to keep his job, although eventually MTG and co will tire of his milquetoast compromises and cast him aside.  Then it's just a question of whether Democrats want to stick with Johnson or see what Speaker is in the Mystery Box.  But in all likelihood, any priorities like Ukraine aid are dead if the House has to do another round of leadership wrangling, because it's an election year and nobody is going to be doing actual legislating after June 1. 

 

[Werthead]

The Czech Republic has sourced 180,000 more shells and now says it believes it has created a "robust supply chain" for more artillery shells that could yield a continuous supply of not-insubstantial numbers. Which I think is code for "South Korean factories and a few others are going to start churning out supplies we can buy and send on to Ukraine."

The CR was also pretty withering on other efforts to supply Ukraine which have failed, and particularly on attempts to keep production within Europe (a sideswipe at France).

Good news for Ukraine, but better once the shells start arriving en masse.

[Wilbur]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

...I'm not an expert on this kind of insider politics, but from what I've read McCarthy was ousted because he was a liar.  He would make a bunch of promises that were contradictory and when he failed to deliver he would just point fingers at whoever was convenient (the democrats, the far right, the Senate)...

 

Also, he apparently couldn't count, which resulted in bills being brought to the floor with insufficient votes to pass.  Surely that ability is the minimum job requirement of the Speaker.

Edited April 16 by Wilbur
cain't spel

[Werthead]

 

[Werthead]

The new Ukrainian bill includes provisions for more ATACMs.

It doesn't require Biden to send them, but it clears the US to do so if deemed necessary.

Interesting.

Meanwhile, large chunks of Russian towns are going underwater. The flood has hit Kurgan, imperilling the machine building plant that constructs armoured vehicles.

A weird incident in the sticks, the Chechnya Minister of Emergency Situations was stopped by police in Dagestan and pulled out of his car for unclear reasons. Whilst they were arguing, Chechen bodyguards from the Akhmat special units pulled up, pulled weapons on the Dagestani police and took the minister, apparently by force. Unclear why the Chechens and Dagestanis seemed to be at odds, and what the minister was doing. Fleeing from the Chechen bodyguards?

 

Edited April 18 by Werthead

[Bironic]

Ukraine claims to have shot down a Tu22M Bomber with an S-200 SAM near Krasnodar, while Russia claims it crashed due to a technical malfunction...

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Bironic said:

Ukraine claims to have shot down a Tu22M Bomber with an S-200 SAM near Krasnodar, while Russia claims it crashed due to a technical malfunction...

Maybe both simultaneously?

With an S-200 does suggest the aircraft was in serious trouble anyway, that's a very old system. Ukraine has said they are using an "unknown weapon," possibly the up-ranged Patriot blamed for previous Russian losses.

This is a critical moment, if Russian Tu-22 pilots start refusing to fly combat missions within range of Ukrainian AA (as it's believed many Su-34/35 pilots have after heavy losses), then their ability to send cruise missiles far beyond Ukrainian front lines will be lost and attacks like today's on Dnipro will become impossible.

There is also continued US speculation that all of this is creating "elbow room" for F-16s to operate closer to the front than originally hoped, from where they can engage Russian AA systems and aircraft engaged in the glide bomb campaign.

The crash footage makes it look like either a hit or the engine exploded.

Ukraine has scored a big scalp, the commander of the 59th Guards Signal Brigade was killed in a Storm Shadow strike on his unit's headquarters in Luhansk.

One Russian analyst, Shlepchenko, has said that he does not expect a Russian major breakthrough, and at best a very slow pushback of Ukrainian forces modest distances in some areas. His analysis chimes with a few opinions I've seen recently that both Ukraine and Russia are experiencing deficiencies in recruitment, ammunition, war fatigue, morale issues and equipment issues almost simultaneously with one another, and western political/journalistic analyses have not accounted for Russian problems in these areas whilst Ukraine is also suffering from them. He estimates that the war will continue into 2027 at this rate.

Russian partisan units continuing to shell Belgorod, which surprised me, I thought that'd withdrawn. Heavier rockets were used to hit Russian military and police sites in and another the city, and Russia was force to use some pretty big AA rockets to shoot them down, which is quite expensive.

A Buryatian soldier has returned home to to find that robbers broke into his house and stole everything, even unbolting and scarpering off with the toilet. His income from fighting in Ukraine for two years is basically going to go entirely on replacing his property.

Edited April 19 by Werthead

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

He estimates that the war will continue into 2027 at this rate.

Remember when this war was supposed to be over in a week? With some of the first Russian troops in Ukraine around Kyiv packing their parade gear? 

[Werthead]

Ukraine hit Kardymovo in Smolensk Oblast overnight, setting fire to two oil depots. Both depots are still on fire as of this morning. Ukraine also destroyed the Novo Bryanskaya electrical substation yesterday.

Ukraine also hit and damaged Russia's only 29B6 Container over-the-horizon radar system outside Kovylkino. This system can monitor long-range ballistic and cruise missile attacks from several hundred kilometres away. The facility seems to be operational, but one of the two primary antennas appears to have been damaged. This facility has been monitoring airborne activity over Ukraine but it has a major blindspot between the antennas where vehicles could approach and destroy it. The main reason it's survived so far is its distance from the front, but it is now in range of Ukraine's new long-range attack drones.

Bizarre factoid of the day: after the 2014 invasion of Crimea and Donbas, under Russian pressure, the US apparently agreed to a stricture that its weapons transferred to Ukraine cannot be used by the Azov battalion due to its alleged Nazism. For some reason this stricture is apparently still in place. Ukraine has been getting around it in some ways but to not annoy the US, they're following it in the main. There's now a growing (and hugely late) movement to have that stipulation repealed, given that Azov's alleged Nazism is a thing of the past.

The Russian losses at Novomykhailivka are officially deranged:

 

1 minute ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

Remember when this war was supposed to be over in a week? With some of the first Russian troops in Ukraine around Kyiv packing their parade gear? 

Odd, as the Russians are not known for their sunny optimism.

[SeanF]

On 4/16/2024 at 4:26 PM, Makk said:

MTG will probably go ahead with her motion to vacate and the dems will have to protect Johnson. It will be a very bitter pill to swallow. 

The weird thing is MTG denouncing the Ukrainians as Nazis.

You’d expect her to think that a good thing.  After all, she herself is a Nazi.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@Werthead

Any speculation on the political and military impact assuming all goes well and the $60 Billion military aid package is passed by the US House today?

Edited April 20 by Ser Scot A Ellison