09:40
The Russian eagle has fallen, or if it is the bear, that can only be the conclusion after almost a year of high-intensity war in Ukraine. It is irreversible and the question is mostly how long it will take.
Their battle plan was not stupid, they probably started around the turn of the millennium to weaken Ukraine’s defense forces. I don’t know what it looked like before Yanukovich but even Poroshenko was corrupt and has probably had some investigations hanging over him. We know that the SBU was partly infiltrated at the start of the war and that is why they got across the Dnieper. Zelensky has made at least two purges in the administration and the leader of an opposition party had close ties to Putin.
We all probably remember that film around 2014 when the garrison in Sevastopol made a protest march against the green men who stood firm, they had to turn back. Unarmed conscripts against the elite in a professional army who looked professional.
Ukraine mobilized what they had in 2014 and some brigades could only muster a company. ATO went quite badly and in between the Russians struck with maneuver units (BTG) like in Ilovaisk and caused Ukraine significant losses.
It is not clear to me why the Russians were satisfied with Crimea, LPR and DPR in 2014 – maybe they thought they could topple the country with subversive activities and psyops when it was chaotic enough and that in the West’s eyes it was then legitimate when the regime and elite were replaced by a Russia-friendly counterpart and the country was sucked back into Russian peace?
The psyops were magnificent, I could not know enough and Ukraine was no Western democracy directly so it was easy to fall for it. Sure it was Ukrainian territory but they tried to ethnically cleanse the Russia-friendly, who doesn’t remember Unionbuilding in Odessa where Ultras broke in with spiked clubs and wrapped pregnant women in barbed wire before they were clubbed to death. There were very violent scenes broadcast and it was hard to distinguish right from wrong.
Then there was a period when right-wing extremists set up militias and marched through the cities with Nazi attributes, when this was broadcast it looked bad.
One must be very clear that if the USA had not stepped in with a huge effort to reform the entire Ukrainian defense force, Ukraine would not exist today. If I understand this correctly, the army officers started training in the USA in the early 2000s and after 2014 training of maneuver brigades took place in Ukraine. Territorial and NG I don’t know but at least NG has proven very capable so probably training. They have also trained SOF on a large scale. It was a group effort with the UK, Canada, Sweden, USA and a few other countries. Poland and the Baltics assisted with training on Soviet weapons and donated some Soviet weapons.
Not much weapons were delivered during ATO/before the war except of one type, close-PV. I think here that the USA analyzed this completely correctly and understood that close-PV paired with the Ukrainian infantry would be enough to start with.
I remember some tweet that flew by a couple of years into ATO that Ukraine made a counterattack and they used new tactics, the infantry moved “westward”. In basically 8 years they have transformed Ukraine’s defense force from nothing to something that can bite back and now also master combined arms warfare.
If one may guess, the logistics chain, domestic production and workshops/repairs have made a similar journey.
There are also signs that they are breaking with the Soviet legacy – corruption – and that Ukraine has a real desire to join the EU. Now we have thoroughly corrupt countries in the EU so that is no guarantee for Western democracy (and we also have corruption in Western democracies) but it gives citizens a reason to challenge corruption.
Ukraine cannot be an easy country to navigate, there are the three branches within the defense forces, we have the SBU which the Russians have a penchant for infiltrating, one or some other agencies, the grey eminences in the background (the oligarchs), the Soviet legacy, corruption and finally an enormous subversive activity from Russia as well as (before the war) 15-20%(?) Russia-friendly areas that did not feel that Kiev wanted their best.
I made a guest appearance in one of the trickier countries in Africa, it was governed through – politics/government, a couple of kings, influential businessmen, the generals and finally those who practiced traditional religion (or whatever is a good word for black magic). The last group was the only one no one dared challenge, all others were in a constant game of chance, the country was in chaos and the population accepted it and just tried to survive. That’s a bit how I imagine Ukraine was until Maidan.
I believe that when history is written, the USA has had quite a lot to do with this. They had the strength to offer security and an alternative to those who challenged the Soviet legacy and the grey eminences.
But without the citizens of Ukraine who wanted to approach the EU, nothing would have happened at all.
This has been incredibly educational – partly how a nation is born, how democracy is the unique form of government that trumps everything else, how it is always the USA and UK that save the free West since the Napoleonic wars, how a Nazi state is born, how Russian psyops have been exposed and not least how a WWII intense war is fought.
One is old enough to fully calibrate the compass and has gained understanding of things one previously suspected but did not know.
I’ve probably said it a few times but the last time there was such a journey was the herring and mink traps on Skalman. Everything falls into place and a large group with broad knowledge pools together and shares it which is somewhat fantastic. Otherwise it often becomes echo chambers that think the same and then you learn very little.
10:00
Down in the Balkans there seems to be a breeding ground for Russian influence and now that one begins to understand the overall Russian plan it was not stupid, we mentioned demilitarization above and then –
Lull Ukraine and the West into security that they would not attack – it worked because Ukraine was not mobilized. Zelensky refused to believe there would be war and did not want to provoke.
Bribe their way to a win where belonging/other was not enough (most notably SBU in southern Ukraine).
They would cut off the head of the snake immediately, 1500 infiltrated spec ops and then paratroopers dropped straight over Kiev. There was not enough defense so veterans from ATO ran to the depots, armed themselves and defended the city.
The column that stopped was pure luck – the Russians sold the soup for vodka and the materiel was in poor condition and it was enough with pinpricks to stop it, one must assume that the willingness to take own initiatives has been completely stamped out in the Russian army so when the vehicle in front stopped then they stopped. Had the column reached Hostomel in time and gone straight east it would have looked different. The fact was that the Russians pressed on from Hostomel towards Kiev and at certain crossings over waterways it was platoon strength defending against battalion attacks that took 90% losses before reinforcements arrived.
VDV flights destined for Hostomel had to turn back, some were probably shot down.
That Belarus did not attack down towards Lviv was probably one of the bigger miscalculations; the idea should reasonably have been to cut off all supply routes from the EU as early as possible?
East of the Dnieper they made the mistake of not conducting preliminary attacks, not informing the army, and going straight for the cities. If they had struck deep, bypassed the cities, and let the 2nd and 3rd echelons handle the cities, it would have looked different.
At the stalemate line, there were 40,000 Ukrainian defenders according to their own reports.
If they had air-landed at Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, pushed straight north from the Southern front and straight south from the Northern front, Zelensky would likely have faced a fait accompli with 40,000 encircled soldiers at the stalemate line and Russia controlling all crossings over the Dnieper. Eastern Ukraine up to the Dnieper would have fallen.
If Russia had launched its missile attacks from the start together with its indirect fire, it probably would have gone quickly. For example, they could have taken out all crossings over the Dnieper immediately?
None of this was luck – the Ukrainian infantry died defending rather than fleeing or surrendering, the Russians ran an Afghan-style operation straight through the entire defense force, Putin intervened and micromanaged, Russian command is to give orders and then follow them regardless of what happens on the field, and higher command does not lead from the front (they tried for a while and it went so-so), plus a layer of Russian incompetence and corruption on top. Meanwhile, Ukraine wanted peace by preparing for war.
When Ukraine was neutralized or the conflict frozen with the Russians then controlling at least all terrain east of the Dnieper, they would have, if not taken over countries in the Balkans, at least quickly installed Russia-controlled leaders in Hungary, Serbia, Moldova, and maybe Albania?
Against Romania and Bulgaria, subversive activities would have increased astronomically.
The same threat would have been presented to the Baltics, Finland, Poland as with Ukraine – beginning to mobilize units against the border but without starting a war. It would have cast a wet blanket over Eastern EU.
At this point, China would have started moving in Asia and the other rogue states would have begun to smell opportunity.
Then NATO would have been quite stretched and the West would have faced two choices – de-escalation through compromise with Russia and China – let Russia have the Balkans, China have Taiwan, and what else?
Or to put the entire West on a war footing and push back Russia and China – WW3.
The West would have been deeply divided and it is easier to argue for de-escalation than for a third world war, so my money is probably on them trying to make another round of concessions.
At the same time, Russian subversive activity in Europe would have been on steroids, the number of technical failures in our power supply would have skyrocketed, and left- and right-wing extremist groups would have taken to the streets in all countries (probably also ethnic groups like BLM and environmental groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Save the Mink). Then the EU countries they managed to turn in the Balkans would probably have started sabotaging politics in the EU as much as they could to paralyze the organization.
It is somewhat incredible that the country Ukraine on its own crashed this chain of events; we are probably not on solid ground yet but well on the way.
10:45
Looking ahead, it feels like Europe has done what it always does, is divided and does too little, and without the US leadership role, Ukraine probably would not exist today.
A year into the war, Europe is not delivering enough materiel to Ukraine and there is still dialogue between Western leaders and Putin who are not Orban or Erdogan; I can really only imagine the Troika?
The only difference from Hitler’s startup is that Ukraine wanted peace but prepared for war and listened to the world’s best – the US (and UK), and that Russia is Russia.
Ukraine has really done its part here – now it is up to the free West to take the baton forward and ensure we do not get a third world war.
My view of despots of Putin’s caliber is that concessions and compromises do not work, so you simply have to throw them out of Ukraine and fortify the entire border against Russia with NATO; a couple of -stans need to join. If the Russian population wants democracy and to move closer to the West, that should of course be encouraged, but right now I don’t see how that would happen to be honest. The newly mobilized are angry about poor maintenance and bad materiel, not about being forced to fight Ukrainians.
China, in my opinion, is somewhat at a crossroads; they can go in a totalitarian direction but they can also back down and find a balance with the West, or alternatively turn inward. The question largely depends on how this recession plays out. I read the other day that their real estate sector has started shaking badly. I have invested so much of my future working life in China that I am probably quite biased and maybe believe a bit more good about them than they deserve 😃
There is much positive in this mess, the West has managed to unite somewhat, -stan is moving towards the West, the Russian threat has been exposed, and it seems Iran is about to fall?
I don’t think it’s a nothing burger that they burned Khomeini’s family home and apparently are now shooting protests with 12.7mm ammunition, no rubber bullets there…
Belarus is probably ripe for a democratization process; I perceived the latest round of demonstrations that were suppressed as them almost succeeding with a popular revolution, and the Ukraine war is a huge event in the Russian sphere, the father figure who held the family together has fallen.
Kaliningrad should at least be demilitarized as a demand when that fruit is ripe, and if it can become more autonomous, that would be desirable?
Belarus and Kaliningrad are a bit of a Trojan horse in the middle of the EU and one would have a more manageable eastern border if Belarus and Kaliningrad were no longer a threat.
Then I sincerely hope that Russian subversive activity and psyops can be stamped out without the West going in a totalitarian direction because it causes a lot of damage. The whole EU, for example, has shut down fossil electricity production and nuclear power and made itself dependent on Russian gas. For some strange reason, only Western gas is bad, not Russian gas. Our hydropower was threatened with shutdown along with all combined heat and power, and wind power was praised – the only energy production that is directly harmful to an electrical system because it fluctuates too much. Before that, we had groups against each other, the refugee crisis, the environmental movement, the great bandage death, hatred of the USA, and what else. My guess is that there are Russian fingerprints on everything. And then the cement industry was to be shut down…
They have an enormous organization actively working to divide the West, and if you can isolate Russia from the West, you can also over time get at this subversive activity. There is absolutely no reason to allow it but you have to balance it in an open democracy.
That’s where the terrorism classification might come in, because then all aid to Russia, all contacts with Russia, and all dealings with Russia become illegal and you can stamp out this subversive activity legally through our legal system.
13:39
Yes exactly, I left out a bit, like how the USA always goes out and tells what Russia is going to do just before they themselves announce it. Must be incredibly annoying.
There were also rumors that the FSB stole the bribes so they were only paid out to a few, whether true or not, probably no one knows.
After quite a few years in highly corrupt countries, it also became my conclusion – less corruption increases prosperity in all groups.
The other thing learned was also that it is easier to make money if you have the right conditions but it comes at the expense of everyone else.
Ukraine should be able to become a real powerhouse after this war if they get access to the EU internal market and corruption declines.
13:50
There were many kind comments, thanks everyone for the kind words and fun that someone is reading 👍😃
13:55
The Russians took Khakovka the first day around lunchtime if I remember correctly and by then they had passed a number of easily defensible bridges/channeling terrain. It went so fast that what drove over looked chaotic, passenger cars, trucks, armored vehicles, ptgb. The Ukrainians were in quarters and were knocked out on the way as they rushed to the combat area.
The above is a bit simplified but roughly.
After a month or two we read that Zelensky had fired the SBU chief down south and a few others and in harsh terms made it clear that they had worked for a foreign power.
I have added the bribes 😃
14:03
The main role is a tired father of small children with beginning hair loss who after having dragged the power transmission cable from the continent when his electricity bills skyrocketed was thrown right into the center of events and happened to bump into Putin at an airport so he burst his spleen and died on the escalator (Putin, that is).
By the way, this is my belief about what the ambition level was, quite a lot has been exposed since the start of the war.
For example those 2500 soldiers in Transnistria and Serbia + Hungary’s stubborn support.
14:20
I have worked with Chinese contractors since 2006 as an employee of a consultant and understand them quite well, and they “accept me”, I know it sounds a bit like becoming friends with the lemurs at the zoo and that is not meant at all but they are quite difficult towards non-ethnic Chinese and if you want to make it work (= get paid!) you have to have that balance which I got for free when I worked as an employee.
They are still in 2022 quite lost in international contracts like FIDIC and when there are problems on projects, disputes or similar they can’t handle it, or they try to find a compromise (= pay their way out) and if that doesn’t work there is a call to a consultant they trust to sort out the mess they got themselves into and that is when we jump in.
14:44
Has this been up?
The EU is giving 18 billion EUR for 2023.
A pretty neat sum 👍
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1595739836182413312?s=20&t=i3O_eKxqpGxkHAoaAexAag
14:54
From Defmon, WARNING potentially dead Russian in the video.
It is daytime and a group is lying in a trench when the drone drops a grenade in one corner and presumably kills a Russian soldier.
The other soldiers barely move, I think that even if you had been sleeping you would have jumped up pretty quickly at a detonation in the trench?
What can be read into this, exhaustion, alcohol/drugs?
Could it be that to get newly mobilized over the potato fields going they have to take heavy drugs?
https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1595512413050310682?s=20&t=aM9MALdQ4UDeKz1eG0TjOg
09:29
What should we now call Russia. LW now writes the word -terror before everything which is very neat.
The terror state Russia is a bit too long, is it possible to find something snappy and easy to write?
It is not entirely clear to me what the terror classification from the EU means in practice but it is a statement that is better than nothing.
It would be desirable if The Hague could now just open cases against crimes against humanity where the Russian leadership stands as suspects.