From the launch of the Special Military Operation, this site has warned that Russia could win the war and lose the peace. That risk is still very much in play. The political calculus behind the Special Military Operation and Putin’s goals of demilitarization, denazification and no NATO entry for Ukraine almost succeeded, with Ukraine agreeing to a draft outline of key terms in Istanbul in March-April 2022.
But as it has been apparent that the resolution will come by force, not words, and Russia will impose its will on Ukraine, it is not evident how Russia intends to achieve its overarching goal of stopping the West from ever again using Ukraine to threaten Russian security. As much as strategic flexibility is very valuable in negotiations, not being clear where you want to wind up is not a great posture for waging war.
Perhaps Russia has a clear vision of desired end states within its leadership and is keeping its own counsel for now. But Russia does not appear to have embraced the necessity of somehow subjugating most if not all of Western Ukraine, let alone the best way to manage the situation on a long-term basis.
As we have explained before and will update below, given the certainty of intense European hostility toward Russia even after fighting in Ukraine stops, Russia will have to conquer, subdue, or somehow get other countries to partition Western Ukraine. Any of these outcomes is a pretty tall order. But anything less would result in a rump Ukraine that the West would treat as NATO lite, particularly with respect to the thing Russia wanted most to avoid, installation of nuclear missiles.
Another reason that Russia will in some form have to control a significant part of Western Ukraine is the Dnieper watershed. Recall Russia by its own law now deems all of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporzhizhia oblasts to be part of Russia:
Note that Kherson (in particular the city of Kherson) and Zaporzhizhia (including the city of Zaporzhizhia) both straddle the Dnieper. We hoisted this comment from PlutoniumKun last month, and it bears repeating:
PlutoniumKun noted recently in comments:
I’m glad for once to see someone mention water and sewerage, something often overlooked in all the high level military/geostrategic theorising. Ukraine is topographically flat, which means that nearly all its water services require active pumping.
This has clear strategic implications (nevermind the hardships this will cause for millions of Ukrainians). There is a good reason why most uncontentious national boundaries follow watersheds, not the obvious boundary of rivers – because once a river is shared, you need intensive co-operation on a wide range of issues, from fishing to bridges and dams and flood controls and… water quality. This is obviously unlikely for many years after whatever resolves the war.
Since Russia needs to control the mouth of the Dnieper for strategic purposes, and needs to control the lower dams and canals for water supply, the obvious question is what happens if a rump Ukraine state is either unwilling or unable to maintain infrastructure upriver. Not just dams – what happens if they pump all of Kievs sewerage into the Dnieper? Russia can hardly complain if its crippled Ukraines infrastructure.
So Russia has three choices – seek complete control over most of the Dnieper watershed (which is most of Ukraine), or accept that it has no control over it becoming a sewer and construct alternative infrastructure, or it can try to ensure that whatever deal finally finishes the war includes a comprehensive watershed management. The latter seems very convoluted and unlikely, not least because Russia might then have no choice but to pay for a lot of Ukraines infrastructure repair. So this may well be a major factor in Russias calculations – maybe even more so than the more obvious military calculations. Water infrastructure is very, very expensive, its not something that can be overlooked.
The Dnieper watershed map:
By Francis McLloyd, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1729444
Russian officials have been pointedly silent on the question of what the end game for Ukraine might look like. One big reason is that is not how they conceptualize the military campaign. As we and others have repeatedly pointed out, Russia operates on Clausewitzian principles: destroy the enemy’s ability and will to fight, rather than focus on territory. Any acquisition follows from the elimination of combat capability. Historically has meant his armed forces. However, with the US having made color revolutions into an art form, that now includes informational warfare and NGO long-term campaigns to cultivate and coach Western friendly young people, ideally from academically accomplished or socially connected backgrounds, in the hopes that they will also be assets that can help accomplish US aims.
Russia (which recall at the start of the war had significant business ties to Europe, as well as a considerable number of its middle and upper middle class), did not anticipate that the US and NATO would go into vindictive divorce mode. Russia invaded with what it intended to be seen as an underpowered force, designed to drive Ukraine to the negotiating table. That did happen in less than a month.
After the deal fell apart, Russia muddled about, evidently lacking a plan B, until its embarrassing retreats in Kherson and Kharviv (which caused freakouts in the Donbass, since its people worried they could be abandoned too) led it to decide that it needed to engage in a serious, full bore campaign, and it set about to do so with its partial mobilization.
Due to the fact that the institutional might of the Collective West has gone all on trying not just to defeat Russia in Ukraine but also to subjugate Russia as a nation, a negotiated settlement is well nigh impossible. Aside from the perceived-to-be-high cost to personal and organizational credibility of the many deeply invested parties in the West, there is also the wee matter of what it would take to get Russia to have any faith in US/NATO pledges. Russian officials had been depicting the US as “not agreement capable” even before the conflict began. The news that Ukraine, France, and Germany had all engaged in a big con with the Minsk Accords was deeply disillusioning to Putin, who has, in an unusual display of sentiment and self-recrimination, discussed his bitterness about the betrayal. Putin has since taken to regularly mentioning (one might even say carrying on about even though is outside his normal mien) other instances of Western sharp dealing.1
Even as it greatly increased its military capabilities, Russia’s progress was regularly discounted by military officials, pols and pundits in the US/NATO sphere largely because apparent progress, measured in map terms, was meager. They could overlook that Russia was fighting in difficult terrain, an extended manufacturing/somewhat urbanized region that Ukraine had been fortifying since 2014. But Ukraine sacrificed some of its advantage by insisting on throwing men and machines against the extended (and over time, more formidable) line of contact, which was also conveniently close to the Russian border.
It should have been clear that Ukraine was in far worse shape than its backers were willing to recognize after the Russian defeat of the much-hyped Great Summer Counteroffensive. Ukraine did not even reach the first Russian fortified defense line and suffered serious losses of men and materiel, embarrassingly including Western wunderwaffen like Leopard 2 tanks.
To skip over close to a year of fighting: Russia is now getting close to the point of breaking the Ukraine army. Even if the trajectory of travel has been clear, the Ukraine-skeptic commentators have had a tendency to make early estimates of the culmination point. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s forces are becoming visibly less effective. The speed of Russia’s recent advance into Kharkiv caught many Western experts by surprise. Russia now has such strong control of the skies that it can drop massive glide bombs, capable of destroying concrete buildings. Even the normally staid TASS has gotten cheeky:
There are now regular reports of Ukraine units refusing to fight. Zelensky even recently made a tired-sounding speech where he depicted Ukraine as unwilling to continue the conflict due to battlefield losses and said he was going to present a settlement plan, which will presumably be different from his old “Russia go home” peace plan.
It still seemed aggressive for Putin to table his own peace proposal that required Ukraine to cede all of the four oblasts that Russia deems to be part of the Russian Federation, even though Russia is in full possession of only one of them. That is, until you consider the balance of forces. Russia is vastly outproducing all of the Collective West in nearly all major weapons categories. Ukraine’s allies have for many months been engaging in an all-too-visible scramble to come up with more armaments. A recent example is the US telling Israel to turn over 8 Patriot missile batteries. Informed sources say this is not as big a demand of Israel as it appears, since these platforms are in storage and probably not in great repair.2 And perhaps more important, the US has informed its allies, including Israel, that Ukraine has priority for delivery of Patriot missiles.
On the battlefield, Russia is continuing to grind its way through the Donbass, and is expected fairly soon to be able to assault the last Ukraine defense line there, in Slavynsk and Kramatorsk. The reason Ukraine fought so hard in the Bakhmut area, which was the third of four fortified lines, was that it was considered to be much more defensible than Slavynsk and Kramatorsk. Not only were the buildings in and around Bakhmut apparently better suited to digging in, but Bakhmut is on comparatively high ground, while Slavynsk and Kramatorsk are in a low-lying area. And on top of that, Ukraine had also build more formidable defenses in Bakhmut.
The imperiled and not-far-in-the-future-to-be-toast status of the Slavynsk-Kramatorsk line may seem to be yet another map-watcher obsession. In fact this will be a key inflection point whether it comes about via continued Russia force or accelerating Ukraine military collapse. This is the last major fortified line in the built-up Donbass area. Russia if it wants to, particularly given its control of the sky, would be able to move to the Dnieper in fairly short order and/or threaten Kiev if it wanted to make the point that Ukraine was now ripe for Russia’s picking.3
Another set of options is that Russia sticks (for the moment) to its knitting, and then focuses on taking control of the parts of Kherson and Zaporzhizhia it does not now possess. The major cities of both oblasts straddle the Dnieper, putting the control-of-the-watershed problem in focus.
Russia could proceed as John Helmer has repeatedly described, of subjugating the rest of Ukraine via the destruction of its electrical supply.
The big point is that Russia is finally getting to the point where it can define the end game. Yet what does Russia want?
One might argue that Russia having had to greatly increase the ambition of its campaign due to the ferocious response of the US and NATO, does not seem to have been accompanied by a rethink of its aims. Recall the Powell Doctrine, which is commonsensical but regularly ignored:
Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Russia may have fallen into the trap of getting fuzzy about its objectives, particularly as it became apparent internally that it was getting the upper hand, and not even at too high a cost to its citizens. In other words, there’s not much reason to rethink what you are doing when it seems to be working….even if you’ve now gone way beyond your original map.
Remember that despite Putin having been criticized for vague Special Military Operation objectives, he and his top officials did seem to have a clear idea of what the end state would have to include. The draft Istanbul agreement shows Russia and Ukraine haggling over how many weapons Ukraine could have. Denazification might seem vague, but like “pornography,” it probably was pretty clear to Russian officials, with minimum requirements like removal of all Stephen Bandera statues, purging and barring from office of anyone with neo-Nazi affiliations, restoration of the status of the Russian Orthodox church, and preservation of rights of ethnic Russians.4
Again, Putin’s lack of great specificity made sense given his plan to force negotiations. He was not about to lay out concrete terms but instead seemed to seeking a package, with horse-trading among elements, that would overall do a pretty good job of satisfying Russian concerns.5
But the exposure and cultivation of intense Western hostility and the West having severely over-invested in the idea that it could use this war to subdue Russia has greatly increased both the stakes and difficulty of coming up with a stable resolution that leaves Russia reasonably secure.
The Medvedev map, the brainchild of Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev still remains a clever solution:
The details are up for grabs, but the high concept is Ukraine is reduced to Greater Kiev and Ukraine’s neighbors, particularly Poland, gobble up big parts of pesky Western Ukraine.
The wee problem is that the West would reflexively reject anything that looked like it came from Russia as inherently bad. Is there a way to get the US and NATO to believe a variant of this scheme as theirs?
There is a remote possibility that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent travel to Ukraine, Russia, and now China could advance this plan. Orban has long been critical of the way ethnic Hungarians have been top targets for Ukraine conscription. He has recently issued a list of demands, all involving the rights of the Hungarian minority, that Ukraine must meet before Hungary will agree to Ukraine joining the EU. Note that these protections are weaker than the ones Russia sought for ethnic Russians in the Minsk Accords, which amounted to a federalized status for the Donbass within Ukraine. But it does take some steps in that direction.
We’ve often mentioned the plan described by John Helmer, of creating a big demilitarized zone in Western Ukraine. As he described, that could be achieved relatively easily via de-electrification. Russia has also been repeatedly warning the West that it would need to create a big buffer zone if the West kept helping Ukraine attack Russia, with the width of the no-go zone depending on the longest-range weapons the US and NATO deployed.
But even with Russia having repeatedly given a logical justification of why a measure like creating a large DMZ might be necessary, the results, of depriving civilians of functioning infrastructure, could be depicted as Gaza-like human rights violations. Alexander Mercouris argued in his July 7 show that Putin, like Lincoln, wants to occupy the moral high ground in this conflict. This method of subjugating the West would be ugly. But then so was the Reconstruction, but Lincoln did not live to see that.
Perhaps Russia has come up with a clever way to create a puppet state in the West. Given Ukraine’s spectacular corruption and near-certain US-UK determination to subvert it, I would not bet on it remaining tractable.
Mind you, it is way over both my pay grade and access to information to solve this problem. The big point remains: Russia looks to have been put in a position where it will have to bite off a lot more than it ever wanted to chew. So what will it do?
_____
1 From Putin in a recent press conference in Astana, explaining why Russia will not agree to a ceasefire before a peace agreement:
Let me remind you some things. When our troops were near Kiev, we received a proposal and even a plea from our Western partners to cease fire and stop hostilities in order for certain things to be done on the Ukrainian side. We did it. There was a moment when we did it. The Ukrainian side did not cease hostilities. Later we were told that the official Ukrainian authorities could not control all their military units, because there were allegedly those that were not subordinate to the central authorities. This is what we were told, no more and no less. This is first.
Second, we were asked to move our troops away from Kiev in order to create conditions to finally sign a peace treaty. We did this and faced deception once again: all the agreements reached in Istanbul were thrown in the trash. Such things happened repeatedly.
2 I have to think there are enough working parts among them to get at least 2 and probably more functioning batteries out of them. But where would they go for testing and reconfiguration?
3 Putin for some time has been making clear that both Kiev and Odessa are on the menu. Putin has taken to stressing that Kiev is part of Ancient Rus. Note conveniently that much of the Dnieper basin is also part of Ancient Rus, as least according to some maps. But it is possible that Russia could be leisurely about next steps. Once it has taken all of the Donbass, even if it intends to them march west in a big way, it would seem prudent to rotate troops and sort out supplies and supply lines.
4 A key point here would be education reform. Not only have ethnic Russians students been regularly and presumably widely harassed by teachers, but school texts demonize Russians as untermenschen.
5 It was important for Putin to stay within SMO framing. To the ongoing consternation of the very vocal Russian hawks, Putin has pointedly avoided going on a full war footing. Initially, that was to prevent NATO escalation. But even with NATO having been revealed to be weak and has successfully had many weapons stores drained, there are still reasons not to give them excuses to do things that are insanely stupid, which is well within their repertoire of responses. Putin therefore has been exceeding restrained about escalating. But that may be coming to an end with the Foreign Ministry just dressing down the US ambassador after the attacks on the Crimea beach and stating that Russia is no longer at peace with the US.
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Russia looks to have been put in a position where it will have to bite off a lot more than it ever wanted to chew
Not so, haven’t you been listening? According to Senator Graham of SC, Russia’s appetite is voracious. He knows that Putin’s intention is to swallow up Poland, then, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and eastward all the way to Lisbon until he is finally on U.S.’s Jersey shore.
I question though whether my senator represents the will or at least the full will of the Republican party. Helmer has suggested that, Putin statements and Michael Tracy aside, the Russians may hope for a Trump victory which at least would seat somebody who wants the war over rather than the incumbent who allegedly wants it to continue until Russian regime change. Now that it’s clear that Russia is going to win even the neocons might not squawk too much to have the thing over.
And getting cooperation from the USG for this would be a great coup for Putin who sees us as the problem. Meanwhile the MIC can be placated with a Cold War against China which Trump and his mostly fellow thinkers at The American Conservative (started by Pat Buchanan) are all for.
Not that a cold war with China is a good thing either but the Russians correctly see us as an existential threat going back to the 19th century whereas the Chinese also correctly do not. We need their stuff but buy very little from Russia.
And America is all about stuff–not just about the MIC.
Jersey Shore: The imagery of Vladimir “Vovochka” Putin drinking Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi under the table or mixing it up with Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino would be priceless.
Yup, there’s an unbiased source!
Senator Graham isn’t actually wrong in terms of what Russia has to do.
He is lying about Russia’s intentions, because neither the current inhabitants of the Kremlin have the stomach for such a thing, nor does Russia really have the military capability (other than just nuking everything and then moving in, which they may well still be forced to do eventually). The USSR did, but some of the previous inhabitants of the Kremlin sold the country out for shiny trinkets, and it is greatly diminished now.
But that doesn’t change the geostrategic imperative.
Because the objective reality is that easily concealable mobile launchers of hypersonic intermediate range missiles are incredibly destabilizing, and while NATO doesn’t have them yet, they will eventually. Then what? Every commercial truck and every shipping container is potentially hiding strategic nukes in them. That will arrive in singlle-digit minutes and won’t even apper on the radar for a good portion of the flight. How do you defend yourself?
The only way is to physically control the territory, and yes, that means pushing all the way to the Atlantic.
Note that the US doesn’t face the same problem because it is protected by oceans. That leaves ships as the only practical platform for launching the kind of mass decapitating salvo that would make them really afraid. But you can see ships approaching from very far away. SSGNs can also do it, but Russia doesn’t have them in numbers, and those can also be tracked if they are to go all out on such a mission.
Compare that with large numbers of scattered launchers the size of commercial trucks, or even actually being concealed as commercial trucks, dispersed all over Scandinavia, Central and Southeastern Europe.
It is a very real and grave threat.
Because here is another objective geostrateic reality — Europe has nothing that Russia wants, other than not being a platform for yet another Operation Barbarossa. But the relationship is completely asymmetric because the inverse is the exact opposite — precisely because Europe has nothing that Russia wants in terms of physical resources, Russia has a lot that Europe wants. Which is why Europe has gone on these missions to conquer Russia so many times in the past, the last time it was with an outright genocidal agenda, and the rhetoric is actually even more dehumanizing these days (the Nazis didn’t call Russians orks). So Russia has a lot to be afraid of. Especially with climate change and resource depletion starting to really bite. In fact the current war is already a manifestation of that desperation – nobody would have previously dared directly attack a nuclear power, and yet that is our daily reality now…
For a start , a main parameter would be absolutely zero trust in the west as far as negotiations are concerned. They have been burned by the west three times now with Minsk 1, Minsk 2 and the Istanbul agreements where Putin withdrew forces from outside Kiev. it would not be beyond the west to promise Russia that the Ukraine will be demilitarized – only to stash military gear in neighbouring countries and Ukrainian soldiers sent there to train on them so that when the time came, they could go roaring over the border as a new Ukrainian army. Or maybe one fine day, NATO will suddenly announce that the Ukraine is now in NATO through secret negotiations.
But for Russia, the Ukraine is all about the US wanting to get the nuclear drop on Russia. Blinken told Lavrov that they were going to station nukes in the Ukraine and the only thing up for discussion was the number. And it should be noted how a nuke will only take about 6 or 7 minutes to fly to Moscow from the Ukraine which leaves very little time to see if it was a real nuke attack or whether a dodgy reading off a computer screen, Russia would have to nuke the west first rather than take a chance. Remember too that the Ukrainians/NATO have hit at least one Russian base that houses their nuclear bombers as well as 2 early warning stations. This would show the true intent of the US if they succeed in the Ukraine. That country would be used to take out Russia’s nuclear forces and early warning systems and open them up to a US strike on that country. So for Russia, this is really an existential war and the elimination of the Ukraine as a NATO threat is their most basic priority.
So, in essence, it makes it more likely a nuclear war breaks out over dodgy info.
Way to go NATO.
Given the last two years, you were expecting NATO to act with even minimal sense? Europe, EU, NATO, the leadership have this hysterical and irrational hatred of all things Russian, an attitude shared by the neocons and those who trail after them. Let me remind them. Stalin died in 1953.The USSR disappeared c.1991. Russia tried to become, as Yeltsin said, “a normal nation.” Russians objected to being beggared individually and having the natural wealth of their land looted by predatory capitalist goons. How exactly does this make them and objected to be hated. Wait. WaitI have the answer. The West did not get what it wanted so it is having a tantrum.
Yes, and I would only add that Russia also disbanded the Warsaw Pact, closed its bases in Eastern Europe, and brought its troops and weapons home. I doubt most Americans even know this as we have been indoctrinated to believe nothing has changed with regard to Russia and the former Soviet Union, i.e. they are still an atheistic, communist, dictatorial, expansionist power bent on worldwide domination.
Americans also don’t know that Russians won WWII, with our help as well. That should be taught in schools.
Well, at least USA did withdraw from every nuclear treaty to mitigate that risk. Oh, wait, never mind…
“This would show the true intent of the US if they succeed in the Ukraine. That country would be used to take out Russia’s nuclear forces and early warning systems and open them up to a US strike on that country. So for Russia, this is really an existential war and the elimination of the Ukraine as a NATO threat is their most basic priority.”
I agree 100% with this.
And the latest article from John Helmer also sent a very, very cold shiver down my spine:
https://johnhelmer.net/natos-plan-for-permanent-war-in-ukraine-and-on-the-fareast-front-putin-has-stalins-hitler-problem/
Was the first time I truly felt the dangers of the nuclear mushrooms poping up in a big way.
The US system cannot imagine anything else but complete subjugation. This is how the country was formed, by anyhilating everything in its path. The little reservations that pokemark some of the poorest areas of the US, with natives having lost their languages, are the tamplate of how the US mindset has been formed.
Compare that with the still thriving ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation. Or China for that matter. Looking at the human created landscape in the US, I can say that their imposition on the world is a disaster that must be fought with all one has. The US is the representative of the party of oligarchs/plutocrats inside and outside and this is a plague on humanity and the world at large.
As such, Russians will have to continuously push Ukraine and attrite them until Ukrainians will say “no more”, see the utter destruction that was brought onto them and hang their tormentors like Mussolini was killed in 1944 by Italian resistence. Russians are really not treating and considering and approaching Ukrainians the way Israelis treat Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank. One should not forget that the consolidation of Israel and US in the region also means the consolidation of the Arab autocratic regimes and military dictatorships and destruction of Arab and Islamic republics in the area.
As for the West, the work to consolidate Eurasia and bring Africa and Latin America in good terms with Eurasia, while making the industrial capacity of the main players more efficient, more productive, and more economic and better overall, while the west’s population gets more and more immiserated under the yoke of out of bounds US Oligarchic ambitions.
So the actions of Russia in the Asian space, with the long term goal of eliminating outside military presence from the Eurasian space gives me some hope that Russians see Ukraine as a training ground for other actions and their realization that the American Monster needs to be pushed back unto its own shores and to be left to rot there in its own juices – because there is so much pent up anger in the US population, that a cleansing fire would be easy to start.
I am also convinced that the Stavka would never allow anyone “weaker” than Putin to come into power in Kremlin. I am sure that the 1990s are an episode more dreaded by certain Russians than the tragedy of the Civil War or the WWII, because the humiliation of having all those US advisors infiltrated like ticks in all governmental decision centers were a sign of total defeat and failure.
There is nothing to be trusted when it comes to the US elites. Europe’s population can ultimately rise up if the economic hardships start to bite and the accumulated fat is sucked away.
As such, I am thinking that maybe at the end of my life (hoping to reach the life expectancy for my area) some things might be cleared away. I also think that the comments and analyses Martyanov (and others) has made about the degradation of the capacity of the West to maintain and regenerate its human capital are on the mark, and the sheer idiocy and incompetence accross the board that this is producing will ultimately undermine the American Project. Pride and stupidity. Vanity, Devil’s favorit sin…
And I didn’t say anything about climate change… What will happen when the US cannot even feed itself due to massive droughts?
>>>And I didn’t say anything about climate change… What will happen when the US cannot even feed itself due to massive droughts?
If it comes to where the United States has famine, it is likely that the rest of the world, particularly Western Europe and parts of Asia will also be in the same situation. I can see multiple wars happening.
That is the key issue, and the only real reason the Kremlin went for the SMO (but not in order to protect “Russia”, but to protect the feudal fiefdoms of the Russian oligarchs from the extortion racket of the Western oligarchs that was going to be launched under the nuclear gun pointed to Russia’s temple).
But it is actually about a lot more than that. Because Ukraine can only exist as an anti-Russian project, as it has nothing else to base its identity on. Ukraine is the borderlands of the Russian world, inhabited by a mix of ethnic Russians and people of originally Russian extraction but with a very unstable sense of identity that have been under Western influence for extended periods of time in the past. These people have almost nothing in terms of their own literature, art, music, cultural achievements, etc., that would serve as the basis for building a Ukrainian nation. Thus hating Russia being what Ukrainian identity has been built on since the late-19th century when various intellectuals in “the borderlands” launched that project. Because if you don’t actively and rabidly hate Russia, you will be assimilated into it by the gravitational pull of Russian cultural influence. You can easily see that in Ukraine post-independence. Zelensky didn’t speak Ukrainian and all his movies and TV shows were in Russian. Without the coalition of Banderites and Western three-letter agencies pushing an anti-Russian identity, the place would have gone the way of Belarus eventually (where almost nobody speaks Belarusian).
So if you succeed in permanently establishing an independent Ukraine, you have also established the precedent of successfully tearing off a large chunk of the Russian world (about a quarter of it) from the motherland and turning it into an anti-Russia. That can then be repeated elsewhere and initiate the process of finally irreversibly splitting the country.
Plus it will be the Pakistan to Russia’s India militarily, it will physically block trade with Europe, etc.
The Kremlin has absolutely no choice but to take over the whole place and then Russify it. No matter what it takes in terms of internal mobilization and then “violation of human rights” in Western Ukraine. Too much has happened and all the other options are foreclosed now.
And note that “the Chechen scenario”, i.e. a bitter war, the rebels are defeated by the center, then they become loyal subjects to it, is not possible. With the Chechens it is a very different situation — the wars there have been over whether the Chechens are to be independent or not. But an independent Chechnya/Ichkeria is in fact not a viable proposition geographically (look at the map) and it is economically much better off inside the RF, and there is nothing to divide between the Chechens and the Russians in terms of culture and history (Chechens are ancient people with nothing in common with Slavs). The Chechens realized all that eventually, were given enough autonomy, and life is good, at least for the time being. With Ukrainians that is not possible because, again, you cannot actively be a Ukrainian without hating Russia; the moment you stop hating Russia, you are not far removed from the moment you will become Russian.
The big question is whether the current Kremlin has the stomach to do what has to be done. It doesn’t look like it from the evidence of the last two and a half years of not-war…
GM,
Every patronizing, dismissive, bigoted thing you wrote about the Ukrainians, from the Russian imperialist point of view, could be written just as easily, and perhaps more appropriately, about my nation, the Canadians, from an American imperialist point of view.
How much do you really know about Ukraine, GM?
For my part, I know relatively little about Ukraine, and that little knowledge of mine has always been gained incidentally from the pursuit of other studies, other things that have interested me more.
But it demands no long devotion, to observe a salient fact. On plain observation, I would say that two years of bitter fighting, at high cost, and from a position of disadvantage, constitutes a real world test of the national convictions of a people.
That fact alone puts the lie to your hackneyed apologia for these latest Russian impositions upon Ukraine. I say, “hackneyed,” because the belittlement of long-subjected peoples is an imperialist rhetoric both commonplace and tiresome.
So you don’t know much about Ukraine but you feel qualified to lecture others who do?
Does it really?
Why then did the Nazi regime in Kiev have to lay anti-personnel mines all along the western borders? Yes, the western borders. Not to prevent a NATO invasion into Ukraine, of course, but to stop people from escaping. If those people had such a strong “national conviction”, why would they be trying to escape? And why would they have to be literally kidnapped off the streets to be sent to the front? We have countless videos of that.
Also, do you have any idea that Ukraine is in an information control bubble second only to North Korea, and has been that way for a decade now? A decade of extreme brainwashing can achieve a lot. Plus two years of ratcheting it up even further. Many people in Ukraine until recently sincerely thought they were winning the war. Only after the cemeteries started running out of space in an impossible to ignore way did the awareness of the real situation become widespread.
Of course, the idiots in the Kremlin are to blame for this situation in a major way. They:
1) Expended zero effort into exercising soft power in Ukraine since 1991.
2) Gave the Ukronazis a major PR victory with goodwill gestures around April 1st 2022
3) Gave them another huge boost by failing to mobilize and allowing the Kharkov fiasco in September 2022
4) Gave them yet another boost by withdrawing from the right bank in November 2022
5) Continued to expend zero effort on countering internal Ukronazi propaganda ever since.
And still, despite all that, the number of Ukrainians with a sufficiently strong “national conviction” to be willing to go to the front capped out at around one million. The rest they are having to force to fight. With enforcement units ready to shoot them in the back, etc., the full program.
P.S. Because you brought it up, yes, Canada is an aritifical fake nation. But not from an “American imperialist point of view”, it’s just an objective fact. So are NZ, and Australia. Which is why they have never been truly independent entities (of course, they are not that even formally and legally).
Both Ukrainians and Canadians heil SS Galizia, and exterminate native population in order to steal their lands (which can get problematic if natives have tanks).
If Russia does annex large parts of Western Ukrainian territory, that means possibly even more Ukrainians living in permanent generational exile in The West, cementing animosity toward Russia like the Cuban exiles have toward Cuba.
Also, precedent that the first time since WWII that significant territory was transferred from a smaller nation to a larger nation l, or am I wrong?
Who of us who lived through the glasnost era could have imagined this?
Ukraine is admittedly making this a smidge easier for Russia by insisting on sending so many men, particularly many of the already-small reproduction-age cohort, into the meat grinder. And a lot of the Ukrainians who fled early in the war to richer European countries do not want to return. But there would still be quite a few who would be resentful. But a friend with diplomatic contacts who worked in Russia and Ukraine (more in Ukraine) said the Western Ukraine hatred of Russia was pretty full bore. So the only difference it they’d finally have some justification.
I agree that “a lot of the Ukrainians who fled early in the war…do not want to return.” I think this creates a serious political problem. How can NATO countries threaten or even contemplate deploying troops to defend Ukraine while perhaps millions of young Ukrainians are living in Europe?
Will Germans and Poles, for example, accept death and injury while eligible Ukrainians in Germany and Poland don’t?
Western Ukraine is the homeland of the Nazis.
Wherever the Russians stop they will have a lousy neighbour so does it matter.
And why reveal your plans to the enemy?
For Russia, the gain in Ukraine is mainly the grain?
Morocco annexing Western Sahara with the full support of Western powers is the most obvious precedent. Too many examples if you consider invading and replacing the government instead of outright annexation.
Off the top of my head, “wrong-way transfers” include
– annexation of Tibet by China
– annexations of Kashmir and of Sikkim by India (close to WW2)
– annexation of Chagos archipelago by UK (abrogation of return to Mauritius)
– annexation of Kuwait by Iraq (attempted)
– return of Sinai to Egypt (admittedly after annexation by Israel)
– annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan
– annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Russia
– annexation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey
– annexation of Cabinda by Angola (arguable which is “larger” out of Republic of South Africa and Angola)
I am sure there are more, sadly….
Annexation of Goa by India in 1961.
Some people suspected that the lack of response to that meant that it was safe for Iraq to reunify with Kuwait.
It is the exact opposite.
Russia must annex all of Western Ukraine and then de-Ukrainize and Russify it. It will take generations, but the alternative is having this monster permanently in your soft underbelly constantly attacking you.
And always remember that there are two nuclear power plants in Western Ukraine, plus another one quite close to it (depending on where borders would be drawn eventually) to serve as a source of fissile material.
This is an absolutely unacceptable situation strategically. And not just for Russia, BTW – has anyone in Europe stopped for a second to think about the implications of having a large European state whose foundational national mythology is worship of WWII Nazis, and in which Nazi death squads are used to enforce internal compliance with governmental policies? That will remain confined there forever, always targeted only against the Russians? Yeah, sure… And it has openly stated ambitions to acquire nukes, plus the technical experise and the facilities to do so…
On the other hand, the Ukrainians in exile in the West will be assimilated eventually. It will take a few more generations, but it will happen. And that is much preferable to the alternative of having them rule over their own country, potentially armed with nukes.
Ever since Ukraine became a thing in the 1840’s, there’s always existed a version of Ukrainian that is not an extreme Russophobe. Up until 2022 most of the Ukrainians rejected NATO and wanted good relations with Russia.
In best (for most parties) scenario Russia just has to give a chance to those Ukrainians to build Ukraine along their vision as an inclusive, multicultural country. It’s not like it didn’t happen in early 1920’s and late 1940’s – there’s a real reason the current ethno-nationalist regime wants to remove all that history under the guise of “de-communization”.
Not sure your view is correct. I have a colleague here who in the 1990s was developing software for Silicon Valley cos in Russia and Ukraine. He lived in both countries for extended period. He is also Scottish and blond.
He is strong of the view that Ukraine has many rabid Russia hating fascists based on his experience managing Ukrainians and negotiating deals with them. He was regularly told to keep his mouth shut in meetings, that people who heard his pretty good Russian would immediately hike out.
This is admittedly one person’s experience, but reinforced over a period of years. Admittedly his Ukraine dealings were in Kiev and Western Ukraine…but that is the sticking point this post harps on.
On top of that, you forget how effective mass propaganda campaigns are.
The Creel Committee in the informationally-seemingly-primitive time of World War I launched what was at the time a full spectrum operation, using every medium available, posters, local press, local meetings, to push the idea that Germans were monsters (bayonetting babies!) and the US needed to intervene for moral reasons and the potential threat to the US if all of Europe fell under its sway.
It took a mere 18 months to turn the US from pacifist to rabidly anti-German and pro war.
And I am not clear how long it would have taken to reverse the tide organically in the US. The biggest factor behind a serious reversal in attitudes towards Germany appears to have been the exposure in the 1920s of the workings of the Creel Committee, and the realization (and handwringing) among the elites as to how much they had been had, and that it had also been not very difficult.
Pro-Entente sentiment in the USA was considerable from the outset, and there were prominent leaders like Theodore Roosevelt who openly called for intervention.
The scale of private lending to the Entente powers by American banks and investors, all breezily overlooked by the Wilson administration, was such that by late 1916, the whole US financial system would crash if the Entente didn’t win. It could be fairly argued that the US entry to the war in early 1917 was, at least in part, a big bailout programme for US banks.
That’s such a shame, I was excited to learn about Putin’s peaches!
Great write-up Yves.
Oh too funny! Sadly I have to fix. Thanks for the catch.
The Presidents of the United States of America are also excited about peaches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GCrzjVdmSg
Excellent post! This is why Naked Capitalism is my go to news source.
Russia’s best option is probably to stay the course. Western governments seem to be self-destructing, and there’s no sense in getting in the way of that. It’s beyond Russia’s control.
Russia has been forced to turn eastwards economically and culturally. While this may have seemed inconceivable not too long ago, the economic and technological landscape has made that more feasible and even appealing. China and Russia are complementary economically and together have much to offer Turkey, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, etc.
The Ukraine issue will likely become more of a back burner issue for the West as it drags on without progress and popularity. Pressure will grow for the West (e.g. Germany, Korea, Japan, Australia, France, Romania) to ease sanctions and more fully embrace the world economic community. Eventually, the current leadershihp, including Putin, will be gone and the demonization of Russia will moderate in favor of economic interests. That is the end game and is consistent with Putin’s original and current goals.
Having followed the West-Russian relationship since before 2014, when I, a rank amateur, saw the Putin-Xi handshake just before the start of the war, I assumed we were on our way to WWIII. It seemed to me that at that moment, Russia and China made it clear that multipolarity, hence conflict with the West, was an existential issue for them. Everything else, including the SMO, is subservient to their goal of multipolarity, which of course implies significantly defeating the West. So that’s the end goal of Russia.
Too bad the West is so wedded to turning everything into an immense zero-sum game. Which on close examination is a ghastly negative-sum game. So many ways people of the West could do positive-sum dealings with the rest of the world, albeit after various prunings and haircuts — maybe one image would be sheep shearing. Good for the sheep, and for the shepherd, and weavers and knitters and grannies with thin old blood.
And it’s not like sanctions aren’t being evaded already, left and right, by people who just want to do deals.
But triumphalists of the neo stripes will have none of that. Maybe the only way to deal with that eat-the-seed-corn-first intransigence is a short night on Procrustes’ famous bed.
“Zero sum” is not exactly a good phrase here…. The arms industry
has done very well out of this. So much easier to sell new weapons technology when it has been ‘proven’ in actual combat. We used to
think a Russia/European war would be fought with massive numbers of
tanks on both sides. (Cheap) flying drones dropping bombs ended that
tactic. With the revolution now at fever pitch, semi- or fully- autonomous
robot killer platforms are very likely (and potentially lucrative). The US
is the world’s largest arms merchant.
… the world’s largest arms merchant. True but also massively the most expensive selling shoddy goods. This does not bode well for long term sales. Turkish purchase of Russian air defense missiles was only the beginning.
It should be noted that the US never recognized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania being part of the USSR, so they may continue to hold that vendetta.
Of course, the US does claim that the Golan Heights are Syrian territory, and the regions of Ukraine that Russia claims all voted to leave…
You’re a bit out of date on that: the U.S. declared the position that the Syrian Golan Heights were Israeli territory in March of 2019, and I wouldn’t guess there had been many official protestations since at least 2013, when Genie Energy was given an oil exploration contract. Here’s a zionist source for that: https://visionmag.org/cheneys-genie-energy-trump-golan-recognition/
I’d second that – eventually the West itself will change in the wake of it’s stupid moves because it has to. Paradoxically it mirrors the western plan: isolate Russia so it’s position becomes unsustainable. Only that it’s the West which is becoming more and more isolated. Taking on the rest of the world forever is unsustainable, and what’s unsustainable will in the end not sustain. I gather that is also Alexander Mercouris’ stance and why in the long run he’s still optimistic.
“The Ukraine issue will likely become more of a back burner issue for the West as it drags on without progress and popularity….”
Blowback is real thing.
Speculation here about what could be another proxy war set-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6JBaYkraIQ&ab_channel=NeutralityStudies/
Globalists Are Prepping FINLAND To Be The Next Proxy-War | Prof. Tuomas Malinen
I suppose it could continue from more than one direction…
Were this a poker game the West, Natostan, will keep drawing three cards to fill an inside straight until it is utterly and in every possible way irretrievably bankrupt. A child would not do that playing a board game. It is a moronic tactic.
“It is a moronic tactic.”
That’s supposed to stop them?
Those 8 Patriots Ukraine is getting will probably be cannibalized for parts, the Patriots they have left have been seeing some serious wear and tear.
Having become a larger existential struggle between east and west, or between nato and brics, or world ocean vs world island, or however you define it, the war cannot be won or lost “in Ukraine.” Ukraine is just a theater. If Russia “conquers” it, that will not be the end of anything. The war will continue in some other way(s), on some other front(s).
Which is one reason why Russia is not in any big hurry to “conquer” Ukraine.
Exactly. Ukraine is existential for Russia, but not for the U.S. or Europe. It’s a proxy war for NATO. So Russia can’t afford to quit, but can afford to take its time as the end game in Ukraine is part of a longer Cold War.
The end game for the U.S. in Ukraine is the usual ignominious retreat and focus on another part of the world while the domestic political wars get sorted out. Eventually a “strong man” will take charge in the sense that “only Nixon could make peace with China”. More defensible lines will be drawn.
I don’t think the GAE (Global American Empire) believes it can back down either. So for them, to some degree or another, at least perceptually, it is also existential. The sanctions were supposed to work. They didn’t think they’d get to this point.
Yes, it’s close to existential for many western leaders. But once they realize that they can’t win, they will recede and new leaders with less stake in the Ukraine game (and more stakes in other games) will emerge. This is already starting to happen.
What’s very upsetting to me about the trajectory we’re seeing here is that it seems counter the nature of both Europe and Russia, which have much more culturally in common than Russia with East Asia, or arguably, Europe and the United States, a country still young and evolving. If one looks at this as an intra Slavic conflict, or as a Russian friend described it to me, a “fraternal war”, it seems very much something that no one else should have ever meddled in. I think in world historical terms, this will be seen as the last time Europe tolerated any interference in its affairs by actors from outside the continent. I think NATO is doomed by this.
You have the causation chain backwards.
The “meddling” started long before there was a conflict, it created it in the first place.
I think the war would have happened without any Western meddling in 2014 – the UA extreme nationalists (Azov, Svoboda, et al) were determined to subjugate their Russophone brethren – but without the meddling, it would have been quickly quelled by Russia. Perhaps without Crimea being annexed. I guess I should have been more clear. My brain hurts lately from too much news.
I do not buy that. Even in the Rada, they never got more than 2% of the votes. They were estimated to represent 1-2% of the population then.
The US-backed coup gave them about 15% of the positions in the new administration, way overweight in ones that enabled them to implement anti-ethnic Russian policies.
To say nothing of the decades-long US engagement with the Banderites.
” a “fraternal war”, it seems very much something that no one else should have ever meddled in.”
You have that backwards. If there had been no previous meddling, there would have been no war.
Way too many people in the West still think that Yugoslav wars started just by themselves. And all the other recent wars, for that matter. If you see two fish fighting in water, you can be sure an Englishman passed by five minutes ago.
It is truly hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
Allowing Poland to take west Ukraine would lead to Western nukes in former western Ukraine.
I see Russia taking the Dniepr shortly after the culmination point, and then the border crossings into Ukraine, and finally fragmentation of the remaining territory into several smaller countries with new (Russian-oriented) governments, along with encouragement of emigration. Recall that Russia has successful experience in dealing with fanatical terroristic insurgents fulminated by the West in Chechnya and Syria.
Meanwhile, the Western ability to promulgate a proxy war in western rump Ukrainian states is weakening as its economic base (particularly in Europe) collapses.
My SWAG – Russian hypersonic nukes in Cuba and Venezuela, bringing Mexico into BRICS, and fomenting active terrorism in Europe could lead to a new detente and a new security arrangement.
I do not think Russia made its new European security arrangement proposal before the SMO without a plan (Ukraine had threatened a Donbas genocide a few months earlier.
Yes, every plan only lasts until one gets punched in the nose, but IMO, Russia had plan B ready (mobilization) on the drawing boards against Western perfidy, but it took time to implement (the milling-about period after Istana) – the fight in the more important economic war clearly was prepped well in advance, including the west pulling SWIFT.
Yes, with regard to Russia being prepared for “the more important economic war”. Military success ultimately depends upon economic and technological strength. Even today, NATO is meeting in DC while Russia is preparing host BRICS. Russia’s diplomatic approach has been more comprehensive as befits the new Cold War that the West has launched.
I too wonder how much the current national leadership is presently trapped in Cold War thinking about weaponry and national borders.
The idea that eastern Ukraine is “5 minutes flight time from Moscow” seems a bit dated at this point. In fact there are a ton of places where weapons can be placed a short travel time from important cities and national capitals, especially if one includes sea launched and air launched missiles, space-based weapons, and camouflaged missiles launched from land (and perhaps prepositioned weapons stored in shipping containers within the target country itself!) . The idea of trying to capture enough territory to provide a buffer zone for every important national resource seems like a doomed effort as missiles and other weapons continue to improve very rapidly.
Russia of course has every reason and excuse to want to put as much geography as possible between itself and whatever crazy European leader wants to invade it next. But most of these invasions took place when the technical picture was vastly different and invading armies could only travel at tens of miles per hour at most.
Indeed, it may seem like we are headed back to the hair-trigger, mutually assured destruction posture of the Cold War, only with a lot less hair (!) and a lot more triggers widely scattered around the globe. In a world where the Houthi can defeat the US Navy, it seems like a lot of the old rules must be reconsidered or discarded.
I agree with you. In light of the West’s and Ukraine’s perfidy, Russia cannot allow any Ukraine entity that can be reconstituted into another missile platform or exporter of ‘ Colour Revolutions’. Any land, occupied by Ukrainians that border the west can easily become re-armed… then the Nato powers suddenly drawback, and Presto.. a nuclear armed and Nazi Mini-me Ukraine, ready to fight… and this time they will dig really deep bunkers and tunnels like Gaza. Russia will have to continue the attrition strategy until the Ukrainians are frustrated and revolt against their masters, or despair and collapse, with mass surrenders of soldiers and total surrender of the government.
The solution is a landlocked, border locked, and surrounded Ukraine; a rump with Russia forming the bottle and lid with Belarus as the weight on top of the bottle. There will be ethnic transfers out of the border region between Nato and Russia, to make it an easier to monitor kill-zone for any trespassing. All trade to the Ukraine will have to pass through thorough Russian inspection. There can be no other solution; the Ukraine will lose, and even if Russia is kind, bitterness and hatred will one day arise again in the next generation of Ukraine due to this horror; so Russian must remain vigilant in order to keep revanchist elements under close monitoring and expedite fast elimination.
Perhaps after 150 years, the passing of two generations with a reckoning of the truth in the first 20years , and kindness but also hard firmness and swift action on the part of Russia (no more bandera rallies!) , can the seed of hatred and potential violent chaos, be culled down to acceptable levels
Parts of west Ukraine were added by Stalin in 1945. People in those parts were overrun or caught in between the bigger powers and probably hold a deep enmity to outsiders whether the Tsar, Prussia, or from Vienna. Subversion from outside is long tradition, resulting in hate.
I doubt those areas would be peaceful if partitioned out of Stalin sacred borders.
The fate of Cossack stragglers was always harsh, and terminal.
Probably, Poland and Rumania should get these regions good and hard.
Otherwise, Russia likely needs to push until NATO runs out of Ukraine and mercenaries troops.
Follow the money, please notice how China is investing in Hungary and Serbia , Chinese capital targets landlocked countries of Central Europe and Balkans. For this investment to have a positive return, Russia needs to have uninterrupted land based trade corridors to Hungry, Slovakia and Moldova. Moreover, Russia must have a total control of the delta of the Danube River and it’s sea ports. Recommend to consider Medvedev’s map as a “maskirovka” – disinformation designed to unbalance adversaries. The city of Odessa will seal Vlad’s legacy as one of the greatest rulers. All the present R military action is designed to pull away troops and hardware from the delta of Danube River. I have no idea how Vlad will liberate Odessa, it will be spectacular for sure. Once Odessa is in Russian hands, our overlords will deflate their appetite for more war.
The west really wanted crimea, now that that’s out of reach they want Odessa. But that’s a Russian speaking region, as is Kharkov. Imo all 9 such oblasts will join Russia.
Perhaps the goal of de-electrifying ukr is to force the west leaning Ukrainian citizens into Europe permanently, if there’s few people the sewage problem is maybe controllable and infra repair minimized. Plus fewer people make guerrila warfare harder.
Can’t imagine letting Poland move east, so imo medvedev’s map is a red herring. Imo russia will want a strong puppet with a strong enough police force to control the remaining population. Multiple states would make their task that much harder. I imagine the rump would at first be much like the old soviet satellite, west intruders/ngo’s would be dealt with harshly. But citizens would likely be treated pretty well, maybe a relaxed region by 2030. Perhaps China would be interested in investing in a bread-basket.
Trump seems likely to win, shifting attention to ME and China will get us to quickly forget about this latest debacle.
Hard to imagine any long term Russian success without their taking Odessa, yet also hard to imagine how they’d go about it without demolishing the place. I know there are reports of pro-Russian guerilla actions in the Odessa region which might presage an uprising, but I don’t know if that’s real, wishful thinking or run-of-the-mill disinformatsya.
Whatever else happens, Ukraine as we knew it is doomed. Whatever fraternal conflicts underlay it’s doom, the US’s “Let’s you and him fight” effort to weaken Russia has backfired spectacularly.
Give them Lvov?
As one of the Hyenas’ neighbors, we’re starting to wonder (still among ourselves for now) if it isn’t getting to be about time to tear them up again. They’ve had their traditional period together to get riled back into militarism and delusions of grandeur – it looks like they might still need another several generations under adult management again.
Maybe the next time will finally civilize them long-term.
I think this BRICS interest is but one aspect of the solution but a revealing one. I think Russia will take total control of current Ukraine through capitulation and then demerge the non-core bits.
Its control over the Ukraine will be economic:
– control the currency by replacing hyrvnia with rouble
– control the borders, within a CIS / BRICS economic union, with free transit
– control the power, by re-electrifying Ukraine on Russian grid
– control the drainage basins (shared with Belarus)
– control the telecoms
– control defence (neutrality, with guarantors)
– allow the puppet to do what it likes otherwise
Without dollars, power, telecoms and porous borders, it becomes very hard for NATO to use Ukraine as a proxy. With sweetheart access deals for Poland, Hungary, Romania, they can be bought off to stop sabre rattling. Russia does not need to garrison the Ukraine save for the borders as part of multilateral force with Belarus, Hungary etc.
The process may be sold differently:
– Russia to rebuild Ukraine as reparations, restore gas transit etc
– Ukraine to have privileged access to Russian markets
– Poland etc to man Ukraine borders, police neutrality as multilateral force
– Russia to assume Ukraine debts as rouble debts in return of roublisation of economy
Empire these days looks like Germany, not Gaza.
I’m mostly in agreement with your strategy, Revenant, except for Russia assuming Ukraine’s debts.
The price of the West’s attacks is to write off their “investments” and “loans”. Russia should simply repudiate those debts, and nationalize or re-distribute the Western-held assets to Russian loyalists.
The West lost their bet. Putin reaches across the table, scoops up the chips, turns to his team, and hands them out per their contribution.
“Well done, team, and here’s your reward”.
Remember: western oligarchs planned, fomented, and conducted this (attempted) theft of an entire country. Evil gets slapped down.
The correct anti-colonial spelling is “Counteroffensyiv”.
Yes, but you must pronounce it “counteroffenseev!”
From the article: “Russia is not getting close to the point of breaking the Ukraine army.”
I assume this is supposed to read: “Russia is now getting close to the point of breaking the Ukraine army.”
Yes, another typo! Fixing.
Seweage in urban towns is transmitted (after treatment) to the Dneiper River by electrified pumps. No electricity no transmission. The effluent stays in the urban town and cholera does the killing locally.
The Russian removal of power generation is the essential war fighting technique. This winter most people will find life in Ukraine un-BEAR-able.
This isn’t the US with a multiplicity of domestic systems and separate pumps. Centralized urban sewer systems are usually designed with ‘low point’ gravity fed reservoirs to ensure sewage does not back up into homes or apartments in the event of power failures. These are generally designed to overflow naturally by gravity into watercourses if there is no power, although in very flat environments this process will be very slow and very messy. If the power goes permanently in most Ukrainian cities, the system will still ‘sort of’ work – the untreated sewage will end up in the nearest watercourse, whether a main channel river or just a local ditch.
There are exceptions, but a lot depends on local conditions and the whims of various municipal engineers over the decades, but I suspect that like most Soviet engineering, Ukrainian water systems were designed simply and pragmatically.
Most US systems are gravity fed, as well. However, they have intermediate grinder stations that liquify the effluent and then pump it to higher ground for more gravity flow to the central treatment plant. Most US urban treatment systems are now tertiary treatment. I doubt that is the case in Ukraine. In any case, sewage effluent needs water for gravity flow. Water is forced into holding towers by electric pumps. No power, no pumps, no effluent flow.
It remains to be seen what will happen as the power sources are demolished, but I imagine the stench from stagnant effluent will drive most people away from the city. Eventually cholera and other diseases spread without electricity. Russia is being wise in its destruction of Ukraine. Like Israel, they are creating the conditions for death and disease to do to civilians what the RF is doing to the Ukes on the combat line
No solutions to add to this, just a few general observations:
The Russians have shown great strategic patience so far – but the problem with patience is that it assumes the situation will get more favourable the longer things go on. But it also increases the chance of an ‘unknown’ throwing your plans into chaos. What happens if the Russian public decides that a tipping point has been reached and it won’t accept ongoing casualties? What happens if a black swan event hits the Russian economy? What if the Kiev government simply collapses and you end up with a bunch of local renegade militarized neo-nazi enclaves from Odessa to Lvov to deal with instead of just one very corrupt government?
There does seem to be a lot of uncertainty now in Russia about its overall objectives. One military fact that has become apparent is that advancing, even against a much weaker enemy, has become very costly. For all its failures, the Ukrainian military has shown that just using mines and short range drones can make every few hundred metres costly for Russia. And crossing the Dnieper will prove very, very difficult, even with a highly degraded Ukrainian military. If Ukraine switched its strategy to one of swapping territory for Russian casualties, this could change the calculation significantly. There has to be a limit as to how many dead soldiers the Russian public will accept. But conversely, the more casualties there are, the harder it may be for Putin to persuade the public to accept a perceived compromise.
I think the idea of a ‘minimalist’ land take must be very tempting now for Russia – if it can persuade Kiev to accept a deal. But of course they will be aware that there is no incentive for the west to allow that to happen, for as long as there is a perception that this is bleeding Russia (while of course its not, there is only so long the Russian economy can stay focused on military production without there being some form of domestic backlash). I wonder if there is some thought in Moscow to waiting to see if Trump takes power, and then seeing if he will force the Europeans into making a deal.
I think we can assume that if it was militarily possible, an old style big arrow series of offensives that would cause a rapid and complete collapse is off the table – if the Russian military thought it was viable, they’d be doing it by now. I don’t think that the idea of just degrading Ukraine Clausewitz style is a tactical choice – I think its accepted that an Operation Bagration style attack (or, as was once discussed in detail, an amphibious operation to take Odessa), just isn’t workable, at least in the absence of a complete unambiguous collapse of the Ukrainian army. And even then there is no guarantee that local militias couldn’t thwart one in some circumstances, especially if they took control of key cities like Zaporzhzhia or Dniepro.
One item that I think is now off the table is the idea of some sort of imposed non-militarized border zone. As we’ve seen, even the Houthi’s have shown that its possible to strike over very long distances with little more than some balsawood, lawnmower engines and a GPS guidance. So even a 2 or 300 km wide zone would simply not work without some sort of agreement to disarm the Azov adjacent groups. One obvious reality that we’ve seen worldwide with contested borders, from Kashmir to Korea, Israel to Ireland, is that they are extremely expensive and difficult to deal with long term. I’m sure Putin would not want one as a legacy. But trying to find a solution…. thats a tough question to answer. Geography has cursed that region with no obvious boundaries.
I don’t know where you get the idea that Russian casualties have been high of late. Commentators have been pointing out as a proof of the serious weakening of Ukraine as a fighting force is that now Russia is on the offensive, albeit in its attritional manner, yet is inflicting way more casualties and deaths on Ukraine than it is suffering (as in an integral multiple of a bare minimum of 3, most experts still think 5 to 7 in favor or Russia). This is simply unheard of.
Russia is careful about minesweeping and other precautions. Remember it is in no rush to take ground. But I also recall someone claiming in Kharkiv that not only did Ukraine not build fortified defense line (dragon’s teeth, etc), that it didn’t even meaningfully/at all lay mined. That is how bad the looting has become.
Mediazona, which is rigorous and exhaustive in trying to identify Russian war deaths, has found only 58,000. I have heard experts guesstimate that that might be low by as much as another 50%, but probably not more. Russia has a very active military blogosphere that gets absolutely hysterical over even minor Russian setbacks. It would be impossible to hide big losses given the intensity of the war watching.
Yves, just a quick anecdote on this subject. My elderly uncle-in-law passed away in Russia a little over a year ago, and to inter him we walked past the military section of the very large graveyard complex. It was sad to see a number of fresh graves there. In April we visited again and there were far fewer new graves in the military section. Last month we visited once again for the one-year observance of our dear departed. Even fewer new military graves than April, so the trend is in the right direction. But whatever the numbers, it is a sight devastating to see. I cannot express the sorrow of it, to be there in person.
One day the bill for the US fomenting war will come due. It will be soon, and it will be costly. What a damn waste.
This is sad but the downward tend is consistent with the Mediazona data in the chart in the BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68819853
I’m aware that Russian casualties are very light compared to Ukraine, but in absolute terms 40-50,000 is still a lot of body bags – it is well in excess of its total losses in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, equivalent to US losses in Vietnam over a shorter period. That is a lot of families who expect some sort of result to justify the loss of their husband/brother/son. It also implies a six figure number of seriously injured soldiers returning home.
I remain sceptical of reports that Russia is taking its time as part of a strategic calculation. When you read detailed account of localised battles outside the main combat fronts where the heavy firepower is concentrated it seems to me clear that the Russians are taking significant casualties when they advance into peripheral areas (especially in rural areas and in villages) where there is resistance, and most of these casualties are from mines, drones and sniping. De-mining seems to be particularly slow and difficult as there are numerous mine variants available now of common mines that are specifically designed to evade normal sapping. This seems to be making deep armoured thrusts into enemy territory very difficult and costly for both sides.
Big Serge has compared the current situation to around 1943 in Ukraine, where a seeming stalemate was in reality a slow unravelling of the German defence, but a key difference between then and now is that Germany was holding generally hostile territory – this doesn’t apply now, its pretty clear that when moving outside the two breakaway republics Russia is moving into populated areas where the pro-Russians have long ago moved out. This seems to be making life very difficult for Russian strategists. They will know that they can’t just assume that the local populations will just move out or surrender.
I’m only playing armchair general like most of us of course, but by now it seems that the summer offensive, as predicted by so many, just isn’t happening in the way outsiders anticipated. The reasons could be strategic, but my guess is that its simply a case of local commanders reporting that armoured thrusts into Ukraine held territory are too risky at present unless Moscow is willing to accept a much greater number of casualties. And the cities that need to be taken are very, big, with enormous potential for even a small dedicated number of defenders to make life very difficult (Russian generals will be well aware of the issues they had in urban areas in Chechnya).
Ukraine is not Afghanistan. Russians recognize Ukraine as an existential threat. As indicated, the Russian Telegram channels are not complaining about the death counts but about local fuckups. Western pollsters still peg Putin’s approval ratings at over 80%. Support for the war is increasing, not diminishing, despite the body count.
Recall also that Mediazona puts 9,000 of those dead as the prisoners that Prigozhin used as cannon fodder in Bakhmut. Other sources have suggested as many as 20,000. The MoD very much disapproved of him sending them in with minimal training; this was one of several areas of conflict that led to the MoD insisting that the Wagner operation in Ukraine was to be brought into the MoD as of IIRC May 2023, which was the proximate cause of his revolt.
Contrary to your concerns, Mediazona also shows a big drop in the death rate in 2024, see the chart in this article
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68819853
See these snippets from recent polling data:
https://re-russia.net/en/analytics/0164/
This writeup goes on about self censorship, but even allowing for that, support for the war is increasing, not diminishing.
It’s easy to be enthusiastic when you’re winning.
Mediazona came out with new, significantly higher, estimates a few days ago:
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/05/a-new-estimate-from-meduza-and-mediazona-shows-the-rate-of-russian-military-deaths-in-ukraine-is-only-growing
I guess those that write the checks were not satisfied with quantity of their previous estimation, and they had to fix it.
Russia doesn’t have to beat Ukraine. It merely needs to outlast the US, which may very well implode in the coming winter. That is strategic patience.
I don’t see anything in the actions of the combined west that would make Russians change their minds. It looks like the Stavka and the Russian population at large are more incensed than “cool-bloded” Putin (in Orban’s words).
What black swan can hit Russia, which is very close to an autarchy, the way the US was not many generations ago? Climate change and burning of the Siberian taiga? Then the Western US and Canadian boreal will also be aflame, with everyone choking. And while the Siberian traps are likely to never start again, Yellowstone Caldera is on a timer, as wel as the Big One (over 9 on the Richter Scale) on the Pacific Coast.
Also, the fragmentation of the Ukrainian Army into fiefdoms run by Warlords would be mana for the Russian Army (Russia can also use maximally the “divide et impera” maxim).
And overall, you are missing the big picture here, which Putin seems to have quite a good grasp at.
“Also, the fragmentation of the Ukrainian Army into fiefdoms run by Warlords would be mana for the Russian Army (Russia can also use maximally the “divide et impera” maxim).”
aye. i never saw that eventuality as a necessarily bad thing for russia.
might be messy, at first…since those folks are all so full of piss and vinegar…but i reckon it would be a net benefit for russian control, in the long run.
generous application of rubles…more likely diamonds, gold and platinum…would be required, of course.
and ive studied the warlordism phase of imperial decline quite extensively….given that that is exactly what i expect to see out here, in the coming years…or at best, decades.
large authority loses its moxy, and withdraws=> bunch of street gangs/local gentry fill the void=>each are bought off with wine, womyn and song…and status=> some large authority thus reasserts its control…likely at a more limited level(tribute, taxes, etc) than before.
“The Russians have shown great strategic patience so far – but the problem with patience is that it assumes the situation will get more favourable the longer things go on. But it also increases the chance of an ‘unknown’ throwing your plans into chaos…”
That’s something that not only Russia has to worry about.
“With a snap election here
And a snap election there
Here a snap
There a snap
Everywhere a snap, snap…..”
Appreciate the levelheaded analysis. I have stopped following this conflict day to day on twitter and through youtube, etc., and instead now just read the periodic NC updates.
Biden has to go. That’s what Russia is waiting for. Either a loss in November, total disability, or death. Not necessarily waiting for a “friendly” Trump, although he’s at least going to cut off most money and aid to Ukraine. Just, pretty much anybody but Biden and his people. His hate of Russia and Putin is blatant, and now he’s lost to any kind of reason in his long slide downhill as a daft, angry old man, flailing about for survival. I know, deep state and all that will continue, but anybody is better than this.
If Biden’s replacement is Kamala, Hillary, Michelle, Gavin, or Gretchen, nothing will change regarding Ukraine. With most of those, nothing would change at all about anything, policy wise.
I know this is the cynical consensus of non NATO loving spectators to this war, but, from my meager understanding of history, individuals can make and alter the progress of events.
Just watch Biden right now, post debate. He’s delusional and angry, and refuses to think sensibly, because he can’t. It’s the angry male version of what we went through with Feinstein, and we all know what it took for that to resolve itself. Putin and his people are waiting for whomever replaces him, they know it’s useless to try to negotiate with a crazy old man who thinks he’s running the world. Literally. What’s the rush? They’re winning.
Via my TikTok and X-twitter feeds, I have a fair sampling of both Russophilic and Russophobic commentary coming my way and it is interesting to me that there has been over the last couple of months a definite increase in Russophobic narrative expectations of Russian military humiliation. The information vacuum combined with the absence of any kind of “scorekeeping” salient like verified casualty reports or rapid advances at the line of contact lends itself to imaginative speculation. The supposed fragility of Russian lines of supply and the possibility of Ukraine gaining at least hyper-local advantage in the contest over air defense and use of drones are a focus of these Russophobic narratives. (A lot of hope in those F-16s!)
I don’t know if the “breaking of the narrative” can come into play in the end game for Russia in Ukraine or not. I keep thinking one side or the other will find its expectations disappointed and have to make some kind of switch or double-down in some way to adapt to emergent facts.
In the end-game, a collapse of the state and infrastructure (rail, electricity), Russia risks provoking NATO intervention to rescue even the rump of a prostate Ukraine. Poland could conceivably extend its electrical grid into much of Western Ukraine, changing over the electrical system wholesale. It would be a massive undertaking, but nevertheless modest compared to what Russia faces in terms of the hydraulic infrastructure of the Lower Dneiper. Ukraine could benefit from a rivalrous competition over reconstruction, but how likely are they to get one, even if divided by agreement?
I cannot imagine that Russia would want to devastate Kiev or Odessa city centers with all their monuments to Orthodoxy and the Russian past. But, it is also not clear to me how either city could be integrated smoothly into the transportation and economic networks of the Russian economy, let alone how they could be populated with a majority of Russophiles. But, could those populations be reconciled via some other narrative of Ukrainian reconstruction and reconciliation with Russia? Seems like a tall order.
NATO has no capacity to intervene. Aurelien had a long post on the (remarkably large) bureaucratic obstacles. Russia has already drained NATO of weapons stocks. And NATO countries can decide to go in only on a country by country basis. Italy has said no. Both the French right and left parties said no boots on the ground. Germany has said no. Early on, Douglas Macgregor estimated that the most a coalition of the willing (US, Poland, Romania, very token troops from the UK because it has hardly any) would be 100,000 tops. And you’d have (see Aurelien) coordination and logistics issues because they all use different kit. Ukraine is losing 30,000 to 50,000 men a month now, between losses and serious casualties. Ukraine going into the war WAS the best trained NATO force in Europe. The idea of NATO going in is Western bluster.
Nukes are the big risk, not boots on the ground. The US is capable of doing something very stoopid like sending a submarine to the Pacific to send a small nuke into Siberia.
I don’t know about Romania. It is true that media is utterly subservient, but that is not a novelty there. It was subservient during the socialist system and ceausescu rule, and people still managed to distinguish black from white. So now.
This March I went to my mother’s funeral, and the Cemetery Orthodox Chapel was located very close to the enclosure of soldiers killed in the expulsion of German troops from the city. Romanian and Soviets (at that time they were fighting side by side). And the R|omanian and Russian flag were flying high up in each half of the plot.
My sister, who relocated from germany to Romania in her retirement is foaming at mouth on the madness that hit Germany, beset with worries that her grandson my be assaulted to / from school by roving immigrant teens, and punctures all the packages with Ukrainian sugar she can when in the grocery store. And she is not an isolated case.
I do not see how Russia can suffer a loss in short/medium term, but it also cannot keep taking one village per week for much longer. Army is running out of manpower. Even for modest Kharkov offensive it had to move units from other fronts. It keeps the level of recruiting stable for now, but signup bonuses already increased fivefold, and the pool of patriotic or greedy is running dry.
I’d say that by winter 2024 Putin will have a choice of some kind of freeze on more or less current lines or new draft. And new draft would be very, very damaging.
HUH? Are you actually following the war? It appears not.
First, this combat has been about attrition, not territorial gains. That can happen quickly as the Ukraine forces degrade further. Russia has in fact been gaining ground steadily at multiple points on the line of contact. The new strategy is to press Ukraine at 5+ spots and force Ukraine to move its dwindling forces around to plug holes. Russia is also attacking Ukraine in places it and the milbloggers did not anticipate, see here for a fresh example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuhProIGUY
Second, Russia now has over 300,000 men in reserve, FFS. The troops moved into Kharkiv appear to have a significant representation of newly trained men, given some rookie mistakes caught and criticized on film. Nevertheless, their pace of advance into Kharkiv was sufficiently fast so as to cause a Collective West freakout.
Third, Putin said in early June no further mobilization is necessary, so a falloff in intake levels is consistent with that, particularly since the military is competing with the private sector for labor when Russia is suffering from worker shortages. See: https://www.arabnews.com/node/2320961/world
Attrition works both ways, and is higher for attacker. I know popular estimate of losses is 1:7, but obituary tracking sites give values closer to 1:1 (https://zona.media/casualties tracking Russian deaths vs https://lostarmour.info/ukr200 tracking Ukrainian deaths).
If Russia had 300000 ready reserves, it would have used them by now. The whole Kharkov offensive was ~30000. If Russia could launch 10x such offensives at once, it would, and would likely collapse Ukrainian lines. The fact that it launches them serially, first Avdeevka, then Kharkov (yes, with modest ongoing pressure on other fronts) indicates it does not have enough.
And the fact that Russian officials are saying no mobilization is actually worrying. Last time they were saying that (and often the same people) was just before the previous mobilization. Note that in your article Putin does not say firm no – he says no at the moment, and then who knows.
I suggest you look at facts, not theory.
Attrition is now higher for Ukraine. Russia has been systematically taking out Ukraine weapons platforms (first its howitzers, now its Patriot launchers), its airfields, recently a large # of fighter jets, its electrical generation capacity. Russia is not suffering anything like as serious losses. Moreover. Russia is massively outproducing the West so it can afford to expend meaningfully more materiel.
Big Serge published a long piece on attritional warfare. One key bit is attritional warfare is hostile to the Western theory of weapons design: fussy, high tech, high maintenance, high training burden, high cost. It has been regularly reported, if you had been paying attention, that Ukraine is having difficulty operating and maintaining Western supplied equipment. By contrast, Russia’s design priorities include that their weapons be robust and simple to use. See Brian Berltic, who using Western sources, shows that Ukraine is out of air defenses and the West cannot reverse it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cMTDXbatHI
As a WESTERN funded, source, Mediazona, has found, Russian manpower losses in 2024 are much smaller than in 2022, even as it has more men deployed AND is killing and maiming Ukrainians at a much higher rate than then.
So your assumptions are badly off, confirming my opening comment, that you are not at all on top of what is happening.
“And the fact that Russian officials are saying no mobilization is actually worrying. Last time they were saying that (and often the same people) was just before the previous mobilization.”
They’ve been saying that at regular intervals since the beginning of the SMO (admittedly in response to speculation about how it has to happen soon). It’s practically background noise that coincided with an actual event once; not an indicator of anything.
Odessa is in the Russian speaking and nominally ‘pro-Russian’ voting area already. Kiev is not. But there is no need for Russia to “devastate” either. With a Ukrainian collapse they just need to be surrounded (besieged) for a few weeks. Without western supplies, ammunition will soon run out.
It seems to me that Russia has accomplished precisely what was needed and if the west wants a nuclear confrontation it will get one. The effective defeat of NATO (with Ukraine essentially defeated already) is, imho, a fait accompli, regardless of any concrete territorial gains or losses… just ask China and North Korea. Absent the the end of the world via nukes (or another western biological warfare, a la The Korean War) the western war chant is all bark and no bite. It now knows Putin is not bluffing. How quick were those recently deployed nukes to the Philippines recalled? How forcefully were the recent excursions by Russian nuclear subs to Cuba and around Florida confronted?
Let’s face it, the west’s only concern is how much money it can make for its chickenhawk warlords from the blood of others. If push comes to shove, it will not tolerate the destruction of its criminally maintained coffers. The “tale of Brave Sir Biden” will write itself.
Good analysis but ignores how the west has typically responded to this kind of conflicts in extremis.
When things get very dire for the Ukrainians and they are close to crumbling, NATO will have boots on the ground and WW3 will be the end game.
Europe will be devastated again, probably US too and China will emerge as the new empire.
Its the eternal path of empires, they travel west, from India to middle east to rome to europe and now it sits in terminal decline in the US, ready to take flight west again to China. Nothing stops this train.
See my comment above. NATO will not go in. Ukraine was the best trained NATO army and Russia is making mincemeat of it. And NATO has also drained itself of weapons. Many countries have stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, stating they need to keep what they have left for their own defense.
I misspoke with “boots in the ground” comment. What I meant is the full force and technology of Western military apparatus which I don’t think we know the extent of its capabilities. Right now what is going on there has more to do with WW2 mechanics rather than anything that current technology is capable of in matters of destruction. Russia has the upper hand because things haven’t moved up to the next level. I don’t pretend to have high security clearances or insider information but given the trillions we spent on military and our proclivity for being good at destruction, I would be very surprised if the state of affairs with NATO is what you describe.
Our weapons are produced for profit not for purpose.
Well, Oldtimer, let’s describe some of this “western military apparatus”. The F-35, which still has over 100 failure points to be addressed, is unable to fly very much because of maintenance requirements and has half the range, speed and manoeuvrability of the Russian and Chinese planes it will meet. The F-22, production of which was shut down because of, again, range, maintenance, upgrading and cost issues. Or take the Bradly Fighting Vehicle and the Abrams tank – they lie in smouldering heaps all over the Ukraine front. Then there are the ‘Littoral Combat Ships’ – all now cancelled and being scrapped – some are literally falling to pieces. The Zumwalt destroyers – cancelled because of cost and ineffectiveness – with no main gun because the shells were coming in at an enormous figure for each shell. The new aircraft carriers – lifts, catapults and even sewage systems not working. Whereas on the other hand, Russian armaments ‘just work’.
US’ Shock and Awe won in…..?
Hama is not done! Won’t be anytime soon!
US weapons are tested to produce profit, not sustainable weapons!
I think you will be disappointed when you discover what all of that money bought you in actually useful weaponry — it’s mostly been soaked off in the form of economic rents.
What is “next level”? Who decides on what level something is? Isn’t the whole purpose of “leveling up”, gaining the upper hand in the first place?
Do ships that are not seaworthy count as level-up or level-down? Do hypersonic missiles count as next level? Or kamikaze drones, laser guided artillery shells, gliding bombs used en masse. They sure help with having upper hand.
I don’t know, I have no privileged or classified information. I simply don’t think one can judge by what’s in the media as to the military capacity of nations.
It’s not outlandish to think that our military knows exactly the position of every single Russian soldier in the field and can track their move with high precision 24/24 and is able to instantly destroy all of them if they choose to do so. But could also be that we are stuck with obsolete weapons and the trillions we spend on our military are a gigantic taxpayer scam. Simply admitting ignorance here.
Have you been following recent Euro eld tion results? If you think it was bad for the pro Ukraine elites after the past few years, wait for the moment body bags start coming home to Germany, France, Britain, and even here in the US. The Euro voter is not falling for the Russians are coming, and are tired of their public monies going to the most corrupt country on the continent. No way boots on the ground will happen, but, if it ever did, they would then go up against what is the best manned, experienced, and equipped army in the world after over two years of this, and they’ll be doing it with weapons stocks severely depleted by this very war and now Israel, with no industrial base strong enough to replenish, and the money and will.
A related question is what response does Russia plan for actions like the attack that hit the beach in Crimea or the attack at the venue outside Moscow. I wouldn’t speculate personally until we see the outcome in west Asia. Disengagement from Ukraine + a potential bloody nose in the Med might change the calculus.
Russia is not letting provocations change its game plan in Ukraine, merely at most selectively accelerate it. It is not going to fall into the trap of becoming reactive.
But the significant part, after the Crimea beach strike (which Simplicius argues was no accident when you look at flight paths from the probable launch sites, you would not go anywhere near the beach to reach a military target) was that Russia told the US ambassador in Moscow that Russia was no longer at peace. That = it is looking at how to escalate across all possible theaters of engagement.
Or arguably, it did by Putin visiting North Korea and then Vietnam and signing significant deals. Those moves blindsided Washington and put South Korea and Japan on the back foot. Those pacts are a clear signal that Russia can and will arm or otherwise assist other US enemies. I would put the Houthis and Hezbollah at the top of the list the US is probably worrying about.
Agree they will not seek to widen the conflict while focusing on Ukraine.
It was Lavrov, and he recently said again “you will have our answer.” Could refer to the Houthis, or North Korea, or even Venezuela. Or they may have something else in mind.
The broader point, I think, is that they recognize their conflict is with the US, not Ukraine, and the final outcome will entail more than drawing borders with Ukraine or whatever survives it.
Shortly after that the NATO drone flights over the Black Sea seem to have been curtailed.
> Russia is now getting close to the point of breaking the Ukraine army
Your point about Putin visiting NK and Vietnam is really important and zooms out to show what’s actually in play.
Ukraine is in many ways a head-fake (proximate objective). Yes, there are very serious security issues Russia needed to address in Ukraine. Particularly the shelling of Donbas by the Ukrainians before start of the SMO and likely ‘invasion’ by a NATO Ukraine of these ‘Russian’ Oblasts and Crimea. All of which had to be responded to.
There is deeper purpose to these actions. Simply ‘pacifying’ Ukraine isn’t a solution in itself. Russia from the very beginning has been playing the long game. The ultimate objective is to break the West (which is the only way to make Ukraine ‘safe’). Ukraine is a useful means to that end. Putin will break the West economically and socially like Reagan did to the old USSR. Drawing ever more scarce Western resources into Ukraine which is now having to also pony up resources to contain Houthis and keep resources in play to contain an embolden NK.
Consequently, Russia doesn’t face an urgent need to resolve things in Ukraine. It actually pays to draw things out. Steadily keeping up the pressure. Counter-intuitively, Putin’s signalling for peace seems to embolden West to up the ante. West seems to think time is on its side. Which is what Putin wants.
Russia is now getting close to the point of breaking the West.
Russia overcoming Ukraine: I can see that.
Russia and China breaking the West…I’m not convinced that they really want to.
I’m guessing that in hindsight, those Minsk Accords are looking pretty darn good to the majority of Ukrainians right now. The longer they stall on a peace deal, the worse Putin’s terms are going get, hopefully, Ukraine won’t need to suffer through a long cold winter with no electricity to figure that out.
The question I have is how many AFU troops are still in the field? They’re suffering KIA numbers of around 900 soldiers a day at the current pace, but they’re still managing to defend 5 fronts and reportedly have a large group of reserves on the Belarus border. Their defense in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia is supposedly heavily based on drone superiority over the Russian forces in those areas. How long can the AFU defend those drone operators from Russian aerial attacks?
What Russia was probably hoping for at the beginning was getting a government in Kiev somewhere on the spectrum between “puppet government” and neutralist/nonaligned that would purge the Nazi element and oust the NGOs that operate as agents of the western financial interests. Now they probably want something closer to the “puppet government” end of the spectrum (maybe Arestovych?) and a much bigger buffer zone that is incorporated into the Russian state: so, beyond the already claimed Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, also Sumy, Kharkov, Chernihiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odessa. And let either Hungary or Slovakia eat up Zakarpattia. Kiev could remain the capital of Ukraine, but it would be within easy reach of armies from Russia and Belarus in case it started getting tempted by the west again.
The prospect of NATO “partisans” fighting against the puppet Kiev government and Russia is probably not that high, if Russia continues killing off the fighting age men (or making them flee the country to dodge conscription). Plus there are already “partisans” but, in this case, carrying out sabotage on behalf of Russia. So Russia can keep killing AFU troops and in an optimistic scenario (1) push the AFU out of the four oblasts it added to Russia in 2022 (maybe by mid-September), (2) break through into Mykolaiv, Kherson and Sumy (November?), and (3) get a new government in Kiev that negotiates the rest of the settlement (January or February?). I don’t see how they derive much benefit by worrying about who’s running the US during this.
No, total deaths and serious casualties most days over 2000 now. And Ukraine has a high level of death to total casualties due to having a poor evacuation/field hospital operation. They lose way more of the injured than they should.
Right, I’m estimating a little under 50% of the MoD numbers equal deaths, which would be shockingly high escept for the sorry state of the AFU troops on so many of the fronts. Plus reports of their wounded being abandoned in some of the bigger battles so far. So adding in the probable seriously wounded to the KIA they are up around 2000 a day the last couple of months.
And even if NATO could scare up some troops beyond the supposed “mercenaries” they already have near the front, I don’t think they would be prepared for this type of combat. They’re more of a colonial expeditionary force that can go in and bomb and machine gun the native militias, maybe try out some fancy new tech to please the MIC. If they aren’t going into, for instance, Niger, I can’t see them being much help in Ukraine.
The question should be, what’s Ukraine’s endgame to get out of this? Russia is not going away.
Regime change in Russia. That’s what they were promised, that’s what will save them. It’s quite easy to understand all the PR (read: terror) strikes and feeding the meat-grinder form that point of view – Ukraine just has to resist one more week, one more month, one more rasputitsa and the Putler will fall.
That’s also why Russia is attempting to save manpower even if it prolongs the war, that’s why the government is trying to retain – or even improve* – the standard of living in Russia and so on. If the Russian population remains content enough with this fraternal war and stands more or less united and focused, Russia will win in the end.
* apparently the recruitment bonuses and high salaries for the SMO volunteers from the provinces have transferred billions of dollars worth (PPP) of rubles in to the local economies all over Russia.
I’ve come to see the war in Ukraine as a sideshow to the collapse of Israel, or more precisely, just one more failed neocon rearguard attempt at staving off said collapse.
I think Russian calculations of the risks of confrontation with NATO must* consider what might happen as Israel’s agonals play out. I suspect this would tend to work in favor of more forceful action sooner, all the more so as the US/The West appears to be destabilizing, hence becoming less predictable.
*I wouldn’t say that about our guys, but the Russians seem more competent.
I agree. Simple version: PNAC (Project for New American Century) is coming apart in front of us.
Israel’s defeat will be catastrophic to U.S. force-projection bullying.
EU is economically damaged and now becoming wary of further war-making. The pillage Russia plan has imploded and back-fired badly.
While what happens in Ukraine is exciting, the main show is Asian integration, and Russia-China have the pedal to the metal. Every month shows more, and major progress.
The world is ready for the U.S.’ emotional meltdown. They’re expecting irrational and erratic, and they’re determined to work through it.
So what will the West do (after the acting-out, of course), once the facade crumbles? It’s hard to believe, but NeoCon and Zionism and Exceptionalism are out of gas. Busted hand.
What political force will emerge next in the U.S.?
The problem, I suppose, is what exactly a “victory” would mean for Russia.
A military victory limited only to Ukraine, even if it means total and complete subjugation of Ukraine, does not necessarily deliver what Russia has sought from the beginning: a security arrangement vis a vis the West. I would imagine that finding a path to that outcome, using Ukraine as a leverage vis-a-vis the West, is what the Russians will seek rather than just defeat Ukraine as such.
This seems to imply that Russia should actually want to slow down, rather than hurry. In fact, Russia may even want to, in a perverse way, prop up the Kiev regime so that it can keep on fighting and draw in the West–especially since a Ukrainian collapse would force escalation in Western involvement faster than Russia would like. If I were Russia, I’d want to keep the West involved in Ukraine just enough to keep it bleeding, but not so much that the conflict becomes too big or the anti-Russian sentiment in the West grows too much among the regular people, not just the elites (who are probably incorrigible in the medium term.) This seems a very difficult trick to pull off, especially since there are a lot of actors (and a lot of pthways) through which the conflict could expand beyond Ukraine (among others, F-16s operating out of Polish/Romanian air bases against Russia.) It seems like Putin et al are trying along this route, but can they pull it off?
The easier route would be a conquest of Ukraine in some form accompanied by a return to a worse version of Cold War than the last one. I think this is the most likely outcome, although what exactly it would mean are murky. The Dniepr basin issue is big (Mercouris has been pointing out for a long time that there are way too many things (cities, industries, etc) that straddle both banks to make Dniepr a realistic boundary. But where can the Russians stop? In absence of a comprehensive security arrangement, whatever rump Ukraine that is left will be Western bulwark protruding into Russia’s soft underbelly, so to speak. In this sense, Russia does have to consider its own “westward expansion” in the long run in some sense: it needs countries bordering Russia to be at least “non-hostile,” if not actually “neutral.” The people who confidently claim that Russia has “no designs” on the Baltics, Finland, or Poland, make me worry. Of course Russia has some sort of design on them–conquest would only be the last resort, but, in the medium to long term, Russia does seek to neutralize them in some fashion.
I suppose this is a rambly way of saying that the “endgame” is much bigger than just Ukraine. Since winning in Ukraine does not help Russia’s big goals, Russia has no good reason to wrap things up any time soon unless there are signs that the Europeans, at least, are about to give up (meaning normalize relations with Russia). There are no signs of that yet, at least not overt ones, so it will be some time before we can see the end of hte tunnel, IMHO.
One way or another the nuclear capable missile installations around Russia will go, first those in Romania and Poland, it looks like the Russians are pretty flexible how this happens. Looking more like the Vietnam conflict than ever.
It is a pity about Wagner self destructing they could have granted modern day Marquisates over west of the Dneiper, but they have other military companies similar.
And belonging to the EU or NATO no longer gets you much since Nordstream, Realpolitik with a vengance and what you can influence depends on the troops you can put on the ground today only. Russia will have security or no-one will.
Finally a comment that makes sense.
This war was never over conquest or control of “Ukraine.” It was always about creating a stable security architecture with the U.S. and its NATO vassals. Crimea has been part of Russia for longer than there’s been a U.S. Constitution.
The disorderly collapse of the USSR left the Sebastopol issue unresolved and the series of “color revolutions” in Kiev were an American-backed attempt to kick the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of its home port. I think that the slow bleeding of the AFU is going to continue for some time, until there’s an agreement-capable leadership group in the U.S. who will resolve the Sebastopol issue in good faith.
This would simply involve recognizing the status-quo that the Russian military has retained continuous control over the port since the secession of “Ukraine” thirty years ago, and then by eliminating the AFU as an organization capable of overrunning Crimea, along with Russian sovereignty over a buffer-zone of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Luhansk, and Donetsk.
On the other hand, the main event which will help the Europeans to give up will be the collapse of the Nazi regime in Kiev, although as you say, there is a bigger picture. It seems to be a chicken and egg situation in that respect. The decimation of European economies through lack of cheap energy and propping up the Ukraine may also be a slower process than would be optimally desirable.
What’s optimal, depends on criteria used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_optimization
Who decides what’s desirable? Everone, I guess. According to personal needs.
Yes, it’s close to existential for many western leaders. But once they realize that they can’t win, they will recede and new leaders with less stake in the Ukraine game (and more stakes in other games) will emerge. This is already starting to happen.
THe war makes sense if you see it as Russia playing defense. They have no choice but to defend Russian territories, but beyond that they don’t really want to stir things up.
I still think we are missing a piece.
Russia issued a proposal for a new security architecture in Europe, back in December 2021. And I think that is still the endgame (iirc, NATO back to its 1997 borders, and no foreign military anywhere, that is no US presence in Europe).
And within that kind of architecture, a denazified, demilitarized and de-electrified Ukraine can remain as it is today.
But I have no better idea as to how Russia plans to achieve that security architecture.
I more or less disagree with the premise here. I think the Russian government knows exactly what it wants, and I think it has been telling us, in the traditional late-Soviet “read-between-the-lines” way, exactly what it wants. I also think they just might not get it, and haven’t a clue as to how far they are prepared to go in terms of having a contingency plan.
What they want is some equivalent of a Warsaw Pact country, like a 60s-70s GDR. A technically sovereign and independent Ukraine, but one whose leadership is in lockstep with the policy priorities of Moscow rather than Washington. I think the ideal solution for Moscow is to get Ukraine to capitulate, then parachute in some friendly politicians, e.g. Medvedchuk, who, recall, was specifically targeted for a prisoner swap, then…
…then, you’d still have a complete basket case with ~20-25 million people (for every “pro-westerner” who’d run away to Europe, at least as many EU refugees would probably want to come back, I’d wager). One would assume western debts would have to be defaulted on, but who knows what happens to western ownership of land and other assets. One would also assume Moscow would kick in a few billion per year for rebuilding, no, not so much war damage, but the entire infrastructure, which hasn’t been maintained or upgraded since 1991 – though I’d wager at least some of that money would end up in the pockets of Russian construction companies. Finally, one would guess there’d be a need for 50k-100k of Rosgvardia and military police deployments, not so much because I expect a “Banderite” 1944-1949 style insurgency – but because the new “GDR-style” government would not have a security force of its own initially, and at the very least someone would need to disarm and “filter” Ukrainian army personnel, plus manage your basic law and order for a while, plus back up the newly recreated Ukrainian security institutions.
But all that is still a lot cheaper than just controlling the thing outright. And having to rebuild it, and police it, and re-educate it, and ye gods what else. This is the government that initially did not want the two Donbass regions, as you might recollect.
And from a security perspective, a GDR-style Ukraine would fit Russian objectives to a tee. Furthermore, what is NATO going to do if Ukraine capitulates and a new government is installed – attack? I am guessing the Russians are betting that NATO will not. Or, if they do, they can take everything west of the Zhitomir-Vinnitsa axis, and it still would not really affect the security situation overly much – the issue was always American missiles and (just as crucially) THAAD radars in the Kharkov region, not in around L’vov.
Now – is Moscow going to get its wish? More importantly, even if it does, will the new government stay “Tess Trueheart” true to Moscow’s wishes, and for how long? Those are the imponderables. But objectively, whether you look at the Istanbul agreement, or Putin’s most recent proposal, it’s as if they are waving a banner that reads – we want to control outright as little as possible, we just want a compliant regime in Kiev doing what we want it to do. To me personally, it’s a bit naive, but then so was negotiating with Kiev in March 2022 and expecting the Biden White House to just sit there and accept the results.
To be sure – Russian media, especially last year, had also made a great show of calling certain areas of Ukraine “Russian”, while also highlighting the artificiality of the way Ukrainian SSR had been put together in the early 1920s. [Conveniently omitting that this was driven first and foremost by the way the Russian Civil War had unfolded.] So I assume their backup plan is to keep grinding out more and more regions, but then even still, in the end, they would probably “release” some of them back as a puppet state of some description.
Is say that if anyone wants to guess what this is going to end like, East Ukraine will be integrated like Chechnya was. Like the Chechens, the East Ukrainian people are proud of being Russian.
In the East, there is going to be little to no resistance. Already we are seeing a reconstruction and some in the Donbass are surprised at how their standard of living has improved. The West was hoping to be able to bring an insurrection about, and that seems to be hopeless.
The West is another and far more difficult challenge. As others have noted, it may end up a bitter place, even with the reconstruction. The Russians are going to have to leave a puppet government in place. The Russians don’t want to govern the Western Ukrainian people and at the same time, don’t want to risk the West gaining traction again.
The big challenge is to change the mindset of those who remain. To be honest, I think that the Western Ukrainians for the most part aren’t the hardcore Banderists that they are oftbr portrayed – maybe 10 to 20 percent and many of them are going to be military causalties of war.
As for the ones who have fled, they may hate Russia, but Europe and the US are increasingly militarily impotent. There isn’t much they can do from a conventional military standpoint. As the West declines, I would contend that their ability to do much in terms of intelligence agencies will also decline. A declining nation is going to have far fewer resources to spend on covert wars of choice. The West may end up with nations that simply fall apart and in some cases split like the old USSR.
And we must not forget that the largest cohort of fleeing Ukrainians fled to Russia. And these folks will certainly be a factor — and play a big role in Ukraine — post the Russian victory.
There’s no permanent resolution to this existential threat to Russia’s existence that does not involve the implosion of the United States. Putin and Xi should gather the smartest people they have, and get them to think of ways to destroy the US stock market and make sure it stays down. The rest will take care of itself in short order.
I’m rather surprised that all of the speculation about what Russia will have to do with respect to the U.S. and NATO presupposes that the U.S. and its allies are not, themselves, embroiled in economic, social and political chaos. One thing the SMO has revealed is precisely the limits of U.S. and NATO “power” – military, economic and industrial – relative to Russia. Western sanctions are gradually de-industrializing Germany, deprived of the industrial life blood of cheap Russian LNG, while NATO weapons and tactics are being exposed on the battlefield as incapable of prevailing in quantity or quality against their Russian counterparts. One by one NATO member states are peeling off and pursuing their own agendas – Hungary, Slovakia, Türkiye – while Macron’s fantasy of sending French troops to Ukraine just went up in electoral smoke. The “dogs” of the Baltic and Scandinavian states bark but the caravan moves on.
Considered jointly, the West’s Ukrainian and Israeli adventures are accelerating the decline of the “rules based order” as the rest of the world heads for greener multi-polar pastures in which China, Russia and the other BRICS figure out how everyone can get along in a non zero-sum game rigged by the United States and its post-colonial poodles. All Russia needs to do is continue to deplete NATO weaponry, deny Europe access to Lindsay Graham’s trillions of Ukrainian natural resources, eliminate the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, and then invest – with China and other BRICS countries, in rebuilding what’s left and integrating into the multi-polar alternative reality.
Yes, it will be a lot of work but I expect to see more and more European states that are not Germany, the UK or France, look longingly at that alternative future and pursue that path rather than the one dictated from Washington and Berlin.