quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
long article

Claims Ukraine is counter attacking Kherson

https://hotair.com/allahpundit...on-has-begun-n493130

Can't wait until the Ukrainians lift the news blackout. Even ISW can't say much, although there are unconfirmed reports about fighting from the Dnieper down to the sea.
http://www.understandingwar.or...assessment-august-29

No (other?) signs that America and the West are "collapsing before our very eyes".

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe class="rumble" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://rumble.com/embed/v1fajnu/?pub=sxx5h" width="640"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

That guy lost me in the first two minutes when he went off on a "We never went to the moon" conspiracy theory.

Clayton Morris has always been an idiot. He was doing Fox and Friends for a few years and I always wondered how he kept a job there. They finally canned him and, as I recall, he's now selling real estate.

Yeah, I'll take what he has to say to the bank.

This would not surprise me if this is true, especially with the Biden administration wanting war to bankrupt even more the USA; have Russia use up most if not all of their conventional weapons; have their defense contractor buddies produce more and able to test out their toys, etc. making more money for their investors. Putin did give plenty of warnings. Thoughts ??? God Bless

^^^ Putin and Lavrov consistently - as in, every time there were Ukraine-Russia talks - insisted on what amounted to unconditional surrender. This has included ceding territory to Russia, getting rid of the entirety of the Ukrainian government's civil leadership, and turning over elections, control of ports and other basic elements of sovreignty to Russia. When they haven't gotten it, they've blamed the Ukrainians for being "unrealistic" and broken off talks.

OTOH, the Russians themselves have never quite lived up to their commitments, whether to support the talks or to carry out side agreements like humanitarian corridors. Basically they've treated the talks as an opportunity to either get everything they've wanted or another means to manipulate events on the battlefield. At the same time, the Russians have been happy to slam cruise missiles into civilian centers in an effort to force the Ukrainians to make concessions. The bottom line is that the Russians themselves have been the ones to turn any "talks" into farce.

Finally, you have to take rhetoric at face value some times. Putin, Lavrov and other Russian authorities (including that great Russian talking head, Solovyov) have consistently made it clear in utterly unambiguous terms that what they're after is the elimination of even the concept of Ukraine as an independent country by denying that it ever was a country, a nationality or even a language group, and by stating that they would eliminate anything that would remind anyone that Ukraine ever existed.

"How In The Name Of God": Shocked Europeans Post Astronomical Energy Bills As 'Terrifying Winter' Approaches

https://www.zerohedge.com/ener...ng-winter-approaches

Over the past week, shocked Europeans - mostly in the UK and Ireland - have been posting viral photos of shockingly high energy bills amid the ongoing (and worsening) energy crisis.

Several of the posts were from small business owners who getting absolutely crushed right now, and won't be able to remain operational much longer.

One such owner is Geraldine Dolan, who owns the Poppyfields cafe in Athlone, Ireland - and was charged nearly €10,000 (US$10,021) for just over two months of energy usage.

As the Irish Times reports, "The cost of electricity to the Poppyfields cafe for 73 days from early June until the end of August came in at €9,024.70 an increase of 250 per cent in just 12 months. There doesn’t include the €812.22 in VAT, which brought her total bill to €9,836.92."

"How in the name of God is this possible," tweeted Dolan.

UK pensioners are also facing a "terrifying" winter, as elderly Britons are about to get hit with an 80% rise in energy bills in October.



"A Structural Rupture" - German Companies Shutting Down In Response To Record Energy Prices

https://www.zerohedge.com/mark...record-energy-prices

It's not just European smelters shutting down due to soaring energy prices: the entire German economy is about to get its plug pulled.

... Europe is facing economic devastation and depression at a scale that will make 2008 seems like a walk in the park.

As the FT reports, German manufacturers are halting production in response to the surge in energy prices, a trend the government has described as “alarming”. German economy minister Robert Habeck said industry had worked hard to reduce its gas consumption in recent months, partly by switching to alternative fuels like oil, making its processes more efficient and reducing output. But he amusingly clarified, some companies had also “stopped production altogether” — a development he said was “alarming”.

“It’s not good news," he said, “because it can mean that the industries in question aren’t just being restructured but are experiencing a rupture — a structural rupture, one that is happening under enormous pressure.”

Habeck said rising gas prices were affecting everyone from big industrial companies to small trading firms and the medium-sized enterprises that make up the “Mittelstand”. “Wherever energy is an important part of the business model, companies are experiencing sheer angst,” he said. And since energy is a crucial part of every business model, one can only imagine the chaos, fear and loathing hammering the largest European economy right now.

Confirming that Trump was right all along, the German minister said the business model of large parts of German manufacturing was based on the abundance of gas from Russia that was cheaper than gas from other regions. That competitive advantage “won’t come back any time soon, if it ever comes back at all”, Habeck said.

Whether he was aware of it or not, Habeck effectively echoed what Zoltan Pozsar said over the weekend, that Europe is facing a Minsky moment triggered by excessive financial leverage "and in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage: in Germany, $2 trillion of value added depends on $20 billion of gas from Russia… …that’s 100-times leverage – much more than Lehman’s."

Habeck’s comments echo the May warnings from Siegfried Russwurm, head of the main German business lobby, the BDI. He said earlier this month that a lot of companies were having to shut down production because “expenses and income are no longer matched”. He said German companies were not only labouring under higher energy prices but also under the recent interest rate hikes in the US and the slowing growth in China, one of Germany’s largest export markets.



You Have No Idea How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is

Natural gas prices are 10 times the usual—upending industries, angering consumers, and panicking politicians.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022...-gas-economy-winter/

If most of the world is struggling with higher energy prices, Europe is being stretched on the rack, forcing European leaders to improvise bailout plans and emergency measures to spare consumers from damaging economic pain come winter.

The biggest problem is spiking natural gas prices, which have been wreaking havoc across the continent, turbocharging inflation, hamstringing industries, and making ordinary people shudder when they get their power bills in the mail. European natural gas prices are now around 10 times higher than they were on average over the last decade and about 10 times pricier than in the United States. Alex Munton, an expert on global gas markets at Rapidan Energy Group, a consultancy, said European natural gas is so expensive it’s like paying $500 for a barrel of oil. And these are the good months.

“Things are [at] a crisis point,” said Munton. “We have astronomic gas prices, and we’re still a few months away from when gas demand really peaks during the winter. There’s genuine uncertainty whether there will be sufficient gas to meet demand throughout the winter.”

The gas problem is largely due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has disrupted exports of Russian gas to Europe and raised prices everywhere else. But it’s not just the war: Alternative supplies of gas are expensive, climate change has drained rivers so much that many of Europe’s nuclear plants are offline, and there’s been more than a decade of confusion among European policymakers about how to build shock absorbers into the system. Power prices in both Germany and France reached record levels this week (again), a reflection of the continent’s ever-deepening power emergency. As nations buckle under the economic pressures, desperate times have called for desperate measures: Britain announced a painful 80 percent spike in the cap for household energy costs while Germany increased bills by almost 500 euros.

“The alternative would have been the collapse of the German energy market and with it, large parts of the European energy market,” said German Economy Minister Robert Habeck.

Normally, Europe can refill its gas storage during the summer and coast in the winter, when usage is higher. Now, with colder months looming and Russia’s tightening chokehold on natural gas flows, Europe has been locked in a race against time to fill its tanks, which leaders have stocked by paying eye-watering prices. So far, experts said, European nations have been largely on track with their plans—but that doesn’t mean that they will be out of the woods come winter.

In the winter, Europe typically “uses a lot of what it has in storage while, at the same time, importing lots of gas from other sources,” Munton said. “It needs both. But as we think about this winter, there is a very real threat that there won’t be any Russian gas at all.” In normal times, Russian gas supplies about 40 percent of European imports.

Without Russia’s supply in the winter, Munton added, European nations will be forced to rely on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) even more from suppliers such as the United States. The problem is that Asia—a larger LNG market—is also vying for the same supplies, which means prices are always going to be higher than old piped gas from the East.

“That’s really the crisis that Europe and the world confronts,” he added.

As Europe abandons Moscow’s energy supply, many leaders have rushed to secure alternative deals and supplies with other countries. Italy has secured more gas from Algeria while other nations have turned to Azerbaijan, Norway, and Qatar. Germany has also expressed its hopes for a new LNG deal with Canada, which in turn has been considerably less optimistic. Others have invested considerably more into LNG infrastructure, with Germany racing to build five floating LNG terminals and the Netherlands, Finland, and Italy all preparing for more floating units to import gas.

More at links

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wcb6092,

Ukraine – the situation (August 31, 2022)

Thick fog of war and propaganda enshrouds who is really behind dangerous shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

https://asiatimes.com/2022/08/...tion-august-31-2022/

Summary/Overview

Ukraine says an offensive in the Kherson region has begun – with some initial successes. Russia agrees and says offensive actions have been beaten back and substantial losses in men and materiel have been inflicted. Thick fog of war, thicker of propaganda.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to investigate the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant complex, will reach the city of Ernegodar on August 31 after a stopover in Kiev. Artillery shelling of the six-reactor area in Russian-controlled territory south of the Dnepr River continued on August 30.
Natural gas pumping over the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will be halted from August 31 through September 3 for repairs, according to Russian operator Gazprom.

Russian forces continued their slow grind toward Sloviansk and into Bakhmut at the mouth of the Donbas salient and moved slowly west from locations opposite and south of the city of Donetsk.



South

The south, notably the Kherson region, is not necessarily where the action was, but certainly the area that caught most of the public attention after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday (August 29) that a Ukrainian offensive had begun and that the Ukrainian troops would chase the Russian army “to the border.” He warned: “If they want to survive, it’s time for the Russian military to run away.”

Zelensky’s senior advisor Oleksy Arestovych commented that Russian defenses in the Kherson region had been “broken through in a few hours.”

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense said the Ukrainian offensive operations in the Nikolaev-Krivoi Rog (Mikolaiv-Kryvyi Rih) area resulted in the “rout of the Ukrainian forces.”

Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported: “In the past 24 hours, in their effective operations the Russian forces eliminated 48 tanks, 46 infantry fighting vehicles, 37 other combat armored vehicles, 8 pickup vehicles with large-caliber machine-guns and over 1,200 Ukrainian servicemen.”

We are facing a thick fog of – if not actual, then at any rate propaganda – war. MODUK, Britain’s ministry of Defense, usually not shy about touting Ukrainian successes, made a surprisingly subdued comment saying it was “not yet possible to confirm the extent of Ukrainian advances but its [Ukraine’s] army had increased artillery fire in front line sectors across southern Ukraine.”

What is known from direct observations reported by NATO military sources, which report its observations of Russian but not of Ukrainian moves, is that Russian forces probed against the town of Potomkyne some 35 kilometers south of the city of Kryvyi Rih. They also have increased artillery fire directly into the city of Mikolaiv.

Perhaps the more important action in the South is the visit of the IAEA’s 14-member mission to the town of Ernegodar in the Russian-occupied area south of the Dnepr River where Europe’s largest nuclear power complex is located.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the area near and at the Zaporizhzhia power plant over the past several months, which clearly has created the danger of a nuclear disaster.

It can only be hoped that the IAEA mission can get to the truth of what’s been happening there and get both sides to stop.

On the face of it, for Russia to direct artillery fire at a power plant that they control and at which they have stationed some 500 of their soldiers appears to be an absurdity. The Ukrainians, though, are blaming the Russians for mounting “false flag” operations and for shooting at themselves.

The Americans say maybe the Ukrainians did some of the shelling because the Russians were shooting at the fairly large city of Nikopol, on the Ukrainian side, from the area of the power plant.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this story of the six reactors as seen from the Ukrainian-controlled north side of the Dnepr River. Certainly nice big easy targets.

East/Center

East of Siversk, a town by now largely destroyed, Russian forces conducted ground operations against the village of Ivano Darivka and gained some new ground.

Farther south, around Bakhmut, fighting continues in Kodema and near Zaitseve. Fighting in and around Soledar seems to have subsided and most of the town is now in Russian hands. Still, Bakhmut is holding out and does not appear to be an immediate Russian priority.

The Donetsk City area and places farther south have seen much heavier fighting and there is no doubt that Russian forces will keep up the threat of a breakout into the western part of the Donetsk Oblast – in particular, if a more threatening situation develops around Kherson and it becomes a necessity to tie down Ukrainian forces that might otherwise be moved to the southern theater.

Assessment

Ever since late April and certainly since late July, the great Ukrainian counteroffensive starting with the liberation of Kherson City has been repeatedly announced. On Monday night, President Zelensky and his spokesman and since then several other Ukrainian government officials have said that this time it’s for real.

Talk alone, of course, doesn’t make it so. Launching a major offensive without significant air cover amounts to an astonishing undertaking not many military strategists would dare. By all accounts, the Ukrainian air force is lucky if it can mount some 10 sorties a day.

So why throw all caution to the wind and try a counteroffensive anyway?

The answer clearly cannot be found in military logic. Instead, it lies almost certainly in what Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday after he met with French President Macron: that there is a growing divide within the EU on the Ukraine conflict and that “certain member states” would prefer to seek peace rather than sticking with Kiev until it prevails. “So yes, a certain threat of implosion [of the EU bloc] exists,” he said.

President Zelensky and his closest EU and NATO supporters may well have concluded that even a failing offensive would be preferable to the current slow grind and might reinvigorate flagging support.

Rallying NATO’s troops could likewise explain why Oleksandr Tkachenko, the Ukrainian minister of culture and information policy, recently told the major German newspaper Die Welt that Putin will attack Poland and then march to Berlin.

^^^ Again, for those who would prefer to see the original assessment rather than the Asia Times' Red-China-friendly edited interpretation of the assessment, and who would rather form their own conclusions than rely on the Asia Times to analyze European politics for them:

http://www.understandingwar.org

Assessments provided daily. Don't trust a newspaper that feels obligated to kowtow to Beijing - go check the original source instead. You may be surprised by how many stories and "takes" you don't see anywhere but in the Asia Times and that certainly don't come from any source the Asia Times will actually cite.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
^^^ Again, for those who would prefer to see the original assessment rather than the Asia Times' Red-China-friendly edited interpretation of the assessment, and who would rather form their own conclusions than rely on the Asia Times to analyze European politics for them:

http://www.understandingwar.org

Assessments provided daily. Don't trust a newspaper that feels obligated to kowtow to Beijing - go check the original source instead. You may be surprised by how many stories and "takes" you don't see anywhere but in the Asia Times and that certainly don't come from any source the Asia Times will actually cite.

General Jack Keane (US Army, Retired), Chairman, Institute for the Study of War ; President, GSI, LLC
Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Founder & President, Institute for the Study of War . Sister in law of Victoria Nuland.

Neocons

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
^^^ Again, for those who would prefer to see the original assessment rather than the Asia Times' Red-China-friendly edited interpretation of the assessment, and who would rather form their own conclusions than rely on the Asia Times to analyze European politics for them:

http://www.understandingwar.org

Assessments provided daily. Don't trust a newspaper that feels obligated to kowtow to Beijing - go check the original source instead. You may be surprised by how many stories and "takes" you don't see anywhere but in the Asia Times and that certainly don't come from any source the Asia Times will actually cite.

General Jack Keane (US Army, Retired), Chairman, Institute for the Study of War ; President, GSI, LLC
Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Founder & President, Institute for the Study of War . Sister in law of Victoria Nuland.

Neocons

You keep saying that.

And then keep posting Chinese propaganda.

Do you have any substantive retort?

Although most media have not reported on this story, both the Washington Post and the New York Times (I wont post links, since I dont want to drive traffic to these "newspapers") are reporting that the Solomon Islands have recently refused to allow both US and UK military vessels to dock and replenish stores at Honiara. Earlier this year, the Solomons entered into a security pact with China. Solomons officials have downplayed the docking refusals as some kind of bureaucratic issue that will be remedied. However, there are reports of Chinese naval vessels using Solomons ports.
Evidently, the Solomons government has forgotten that their soil is soaked with American blood. I wonder what JFK, if he were still with us, would say about this, given his experience in the Blackett Strait. And if the Biden administration has mentioned this at all, I missed it. A Chinese military presence in the Solomons is a real threat to Australia and New Zealand.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Although most media have not reported on this story, both the Washington Post and the New York Times (I wont post links, since I dont want to drive traffic to these "newspapers") are reporting that the Solomon Islands have recently refused to allow both US and UK military vessels to dock and replenish stores at Honiara. Earlier this year, the Solomons entered into a security pact with China. Solomons officials have downplayed the docking refusals as some kind of bureaucratic issue that will be remedied. However, there are reports of Chinese naval vessels using Solomons ports.
Evidently, the Solomons government has forgotten that their soil is soaked with American blood. I wonder what JFK, if he were still with us, would say about this, given his experience in the Blackett Strait. And if the Biden administration has mentioned this at all, I missed it. A Chinese military presence in the Solomons is a real threat to Australia and New Zealand.

I posted a video on this on the China thread about the Solomon Islands.

Of course the Institute of the study of war (The Neocons) are pushing hard to start arming Taiwan
to the teeth which will provoke China more.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/8280017394/p/4

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

― Rahm Emanuel

If a crisis doesn't present itself- Create one.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
General Jack Keane (US Army, Retired), Chairman, Institute for the Study of War ; President, GSI, LLC
Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Founder & President, Institute for the Study of War . Sister in law of Victoria Nuland.

Neocons

And yet those neocons are precisely the people who are the sources and authors of the content you're posting when you post Asia Times articles on the war in Ukraine. All the Asia Times is doing is lifting what the neocons wrote, adding a pro-Russian spin (or editing out things that would have the opposite effect) and then printing it as an Asia Times article, original ISW maps (when the Asia Times chooses to print them) and all.

You don't need the extra layer of biased editing, so you might as well go directly to the source.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
General Jack Keane (US Army, Retired), Chairman, Institute for the Study of War ; President, GSI, LLC
Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Founder & President, Institute for the Study of War . Sister in law of Victoria Nuland.



Neocons

And yet those neocons are precisely the people who are the sources and authors of the content you're posting when you post Asia Times articles on the war in Ukraine. All the Asia Times is doing is lifting what the neocons wrote, adding a pro-Russian spin (or editing out things that would have the opposite effect) and then printing it as an Asia Times article, original ISW maps (when the Asia Times chooses to print them) and all.

You don't need the extra layer of biased editing, so you might as well go directly to the source.

Prove that to me. The map may be similar at times but the analysis is different. Also point out anything that has been posted from the Asian times that has proven to be false. There are several articles that have been posted many times here and they seem to be fairly accurate in the long run. Also prove that this publication is a mouth piece of the Chinese government, or even has ties to the government and I will stop posting it.

Also feel free to post publications that are providing insights into the battle for Ukraine that are not tied to the biased Institute for the Study of War. I have some RAND Corporation documents from 2019 that I will post later that sheds light on assessments they made in 2019 that are very accurate.

Mainly what I see from the Western media is Ukrainian propaganda like the Ghost of Kiev and the mass rapes of Ukrainian women, and Zelensky's million man counter offensive that is going to drive the Russians completely out of all of Ukraine and the Crimea. Oh, and the the tale of Russians shelling the nuclear power plant that Russia has controlled since March, that now even American officials now are saying was most likely the Ukrainians shelling it.

I look forward to you proving me wrong and coming up with an unbiased source of information about the situation on the ground. I would like to see a source that is unbiased and fairly accurate
no matter who posts it. I don't have any stake to Asia Times.

From 2019 an analysis that was funded by the U.S. Government. Make your own conclusions. If President Trump had been in office instead of Biden I do not think Russia would have felt a need to go further into Ukraine and Russia would not have enjoyed the prices they are now receiving for their energy exports. The U.S. was finally energy independent and President Trump wanted to increase our production to export energy to Europe. Biden put the same people back in power that Russia deemed a threat when Obama was President.


Extending Russia Competing from Advantageous Ground

https://www.rand.org/pubs/rese..._reports/RR3063.html

This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options). After describing each measure, this report assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood that measure could be successfully implemented and actually extend Russia. Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Some of these policies, however, also might prompt adverse reactions from other U.S. adversaries — most notably, China — that could, in turn, stress the United States. Ultimately, this report concludes that the most attractive U.S. policy options to extend Russia — with the greatest benefits, highest likelihood of success, and least risk — are in the economic domain, featuring a combination of boosting U.S. energy production and sanctions, providing the latter are multilateral. In contrast, geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself and ideological measures to undermine the regime's stability carry significant risks. Finally, many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

Key Findings

Russia's weaknesses lie in the economic domains

Russia's greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports.
The Russian leadership's greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime.
The most promising measures to stress Russia are in the realms of energy production and international pressure
Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia's export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk.
Sanctions can also limit Russia's economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, involving (at a minimum) the European Union, which is Russia's largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital, larger in all these respects than the United States.
Geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself are likely impractical, or they risk second-order consequences
Many geopolitical measures would force the United States to operate in areas that are closer to Russia and where it is thus cheaper and easier for Russia than the United States to exert influence.

Ideological measures to undermine the regime's stability carry significant risks of counter escalation
Many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

( Biden came into office and immediately handicapped our energy production weakening The U.S. while strengthening Russian energy export prices My conclusion)

The next section is 274 pages that I encourage everyone to read. I am going to highlight some sections I found interesting.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/rese..._reports/RR3063.html

This report documents research and analysis conducted as part of the R AND Corporation research project Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-8, Headquarters, Department of the Army. The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as measures that would lead Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence. This report deliberately covers a wide range of military, eco-nomic, and political policy options. Its recommendations are directly relevant to everything from military modernization and force posture to economic sanctions and diplomacy; consequently, it speaks to all the military services, other parts of U.S. government that have a hand in foreign policy, and the broader foreign and defense policy audience. The Project Unique Identification Code (PUIC) for the project that produced this document is HQD177526. This research was conducted within the RAND Arroyo Center’s Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. R AND Arroyo Center, part of the RAND Corporation, is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the U.S. Army.

The maxim that “Russia is never so strong nor so weak as it appears” remains as true in the current century as it was in the 19th and 20th.

In some respects, contemporary Russia is a country in stagnation. Its economy is dependent on natural resource exports, so falling oil and gas prices have caused a significant drop in the living standards of many Russian citizens. Economic sanctions have further contributed to this decline. Russian politics is increasingly authoritarian, with no viable political alternative to the highly personalized rule of President Vladimir Putin. Militarily and politically, the Russian Federation wields much less global influence than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, a condition Putin is trying to change. In addition to these real vulnerabilities, Russia also suffers from deep-seated anxieties about the possibility of Western-inspired regime change, loss of great-power status, and even military attack. Yet these problems belie the fact that Russia is an extraordinarily powerful country that, despite its systemic weaknesses, manages to be a peer competitor of the United States in some key domains. While not the superpower that the Soviet Union was, Russia has gained eco-nomic strength and international weight under Putin and now boasts much greater military capabilities than any country with similar defense spending—to such a degree that it can exert its influence over immediate neighbors.

Imposing tougher sanctions is also likely to degrade the Russian economy, and could do so to a greater extent and more quickly than maintaining low oil prices, provided the sanctions are comprehensive and multilateral. Effectiveness of this approach will depend on the willingness of other countries to join in such a process Furthermore, sanctions come with substantial costs and considerable risks and will have impact if widely adopted. In contrast, maximizing U.S. oil production entails little cost or risk, might produce second-order bene-fits for the U.S. economy, and does not need multilateral endorsement.

The Ukrainian military already is bleeding Russia in the Donbass region (and vice versa). Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it. Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing more Ukrainian territory. While this might increase Russia’s costs, it would also represent a setback for the United States, as well as for Ukraine.

Belarus is Russia’s only real ally. Successfully promoting regime change and altering the country’s orientation westward would be a real blow to Moscow. But the prospects of a so-called color revolution in Minsk are poor, and should one became imminent, Russia might well intervene militarily to prevent it. Again, this would extend Russia but generally be regarded as a setback for the United States. Most of these measures—whether in Europe or the Middle East—risk provoking Russian reaction that could impose large military costs on U.S. allies and large political costs on the United States itself. Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict.

Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia’s export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk.

The other area where Russia has maintained parity and even achieved superiority is in air defense and long-range fires. Here, greater U.S. investment in longer-range air defense suppression, more-advanced electronic warfare, new and longer-range sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, and more-exotic systems with advanced capabilities would likely lead to an expensive Russian response.

Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escala-tory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. In addition to the specific risks associated with each measure, there-fore, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competi-tion with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. Consequently, every measure needs to be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect.

This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevitable, we seek to define areas where the United States can do so to its advantage. We examine nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military, its economy, or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have defense or deterrence as their prime pur-pose, although they might contribute to either or both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, inspiring Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.

Russia also is not America’s most formidable potential adversary today. Russia cannot afford to compete head to head with the United States, whereas China can, with increasing strength. Some measures that could stress Russia at little cost to the United States might prompt Chinese responses that, in turn, could stress the United States. Washington is no longer in a bipolar competition with Moscow, and this introduces new complexities in any effort to design cost-imposing or extending strategies focused on straining Russian capacity, will, and legitimacy. The United States can select from a range of approaches for extending Russia that emphasize different strategic objectives. These choices each present a unique set of costs and risks that policymakers must weigh against their potential benefits. Furthermore, most of these choices affect U.S. allies and strategic partners at least as much as they do the United States, and some of these measures would require the participation of allies to be effective. This report examines a variety of measures that the United States and its friends and allies might take to extend Russia.

Declining Relations with the United States Particularly over the past five years, Kremlin leaders have concluded that the United States under Barack Obama was their implacable adversary.

Fear of Direct Attack on Russian Territory

While many Westerners consider the idea of a direct military attack on Russia as not credible in light of the country’s massive nuclear arsenal, the Kremlin’s military procurement demonstrates that its fear of such an assault is very real. Russia originally developed its formidable air defense systems, such as the S-400, to defend its own heartland from attack by a major military power, presumably the United States. In contrast to the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation does not maintain a massive land army in readiness to invade Western Europe.

Geopolitical Measures

Perhaps the most literal way to extend Russia would be to increase the costs of its foreign commitments. As early as the 1940s, George Kennan—the father of containment—suggested that the Soviet Union was already overextended and that the military, economic, and political costs of sustaining its empire would ultimately be one of the factors leading to the reform or collapse of the Communist system. Russia today is far less extended than the old Soviet Union. Its domestic population is much more homogeneous, with ethnic Rus-sians composing more than 77 percent of its population. Its external commitments are far more limited, comprising only small bits of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and a larger portion of Syria. It does face active opposition, however, in both Eastern Ukraine and Syria. The United States has provided limited support to Russia’s opponents in both countries and might do more, thereby driving up Russian costs. Proxy competition of this sort is not new. Indeed, the “great game” characterized interstate relations for several centuries, as aspirant global powers clashed over conflicting spheres of influence. The renewal of such maneuvering marks a return to a form of geopolitical competition that some analysts argue took a brief hiatus after the end of the Cold War, when the United States was left as the lone superpower and the ideology of liberal democracy seemed to reign supreme.

Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine

On November 21, 2013, protests in Maidan square broke out after President Yanukovych—under pressure from Moscow—rejected an association agreement with the EU.4 More than 100 protesters were killed over the next several months, and the Yanukovych regime col-lapsed in February 2014.5 Within days, Russian troops seized Crimea’s airport and other strategic locations in a largely bloodless invasion, and 96 percent of Crimean voters—many of whom are ethnic Russian—voted in a referendum marred by accusations of fraud to secede from Ukraine and join Russia on March 16, 2014.6 In the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, a Russian-inspired intervention started similarly but did not go as smoothly. Armed separatists seized key buildings in the region in April 2014 and later held referendums, where the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly (89 percent and 96 percent of those voting, respectively) for independence.7 This time, however, Ukraine fought back. Newly elected Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko ordered an “anti-terrorist operation” targeting the separatists that summer.8 By early 2017, some 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers were facing off against some 40,000 Russian-backed separatist forces—including an estimated 5,000 Russian soldiers—in a conflict that has so far cost some 10,000 people their lives.


From then through fiscal year (FY) 2016, the United States provided $600 million in security assistance.11 These funds have been used to train Ukrainian military forces and provided nonlethal military equipment, including counterartillery and countermortar radars, secure communications, logistics systems, tactical unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, and medical equipment.12 During the 2014 Wales Summit, NATO also agreed to aid Ukraine with command, control, communications and computers, logistics, cyberdefense, military personnel, and medical support issues.13The United States could increase its military assistance to Ukraine—in terms of both the quantity and quality of weapons. In a February 2, 2017, open letter to President Trump, Senator John McCain urged him “to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine to defend its territory against further violations by Russia and its separatist proxies” in response to the uptick in violence in Eastern Ukraine.14McCain’s statement echoed a February 2015 letter from Democratic Assistant Minority Leader Senator Dick Durbin and Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman also calling for the United States to provide anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.15 In December 2017, the United States approved the sale of “defensive” lethal weapons to Ukraine, although it did not specify what weapons fell into the category.16The United States could also become more vocal in its support for NATO membership for Ukraine. Some U.S. policymakers—including Republican Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio backed this approach in the past and Ukrainian President Poroshenko recently promised to hold a referendum on the issue in the near future. While NATO’s requirement for unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the foreseeable future, Washington’s pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian resolve while leading Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a development.

Risks

An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the conflict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for precisely this reason.21Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre-empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.

Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to esca-late the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for World Policy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia . According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption.

There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians winding up in the wrong hands. A R AND study conducted for the President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential misuse of Western military aid. While Ukraine has been tarred by Russian propaganda claims that it mishandled Western military aid, the R AND team also found that “Ukraine’s paper systems for tracking equipment are outdated and vulnerable to corruption.”23 Moreover, the R AND team also expressed concern that, absent reforms to Ukraine’s defense industry, Western military equipment might be reverse- engineered and enter the international market in competition with U.S. suppliers.24 Ultimately, the team concluded, “The perception of misuse or corruption, whatever the reality, is sufficient to deter donors that might otherwise provide free equipment or supplies, and to make U.S. or other officials concerned that Ukraine cannot be trusted with high-tech systems.”25 The R AND team also concluded, however, that these problems are fixable and offered recommendations to Ukraine on how to overcome them.

Likelihood of Success

Eastern Ukraine is already a significant drain on Russian resources, exacerbated by the accompanying Western sanctions. Increasing U.S. military aid would certainly drive up the Russian costs, but doing so could also increase the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory or result in a disadvantageous peace settlement. This would generally be seen as a serious setback for U.S. policy.


Measure 3: Promote Regime Change in Belarus

Risks

Russia likely regards a friendly Belarus as even more important to its security than Ukraine.66 Any effort to alter the character or geopolitical orientation of the government in Minsk would likely encounter a strong and, if necessary, violent Russian reaction.

Conclusion

Promoting regime change in Belarus is one of the most escalatory options considered in this report. Such an effort probably would not succeed and could provoke a strong Russian response, including the possibility of military action. Such a reaction might extend Russia by requiring the nation to commit resources to preserve its grasp over Belarus, thereby provoking the United States and its European allies to respond with harsher sanctions, but the result would be a general deterioration of the security environment in Europe and a setback for U.S. policy. Nevertheless, if the United States were to step up its ideological and informational competition with Russia more generally, as will be examined in Chapter Five, including Belarus in such a campaign might make sense.

Measure 4: Exploit Tensions in the South Caucasus

Measure 5: Reduce Russian Influence in Central Asia

Measure 6: Challenge Russian Presence in Moldova

Recommendations

Extending Russia through geopolitical competition is a fundamentally difficult and dangerous proposition. One might bait Russia into extending its foreign commitments, but only at the risk of serious setbacks to local U.S. partners.

Russia’s commitment in Eastern Ukraine is its greatest point of external vulnerability; local opposition is active and Ukraine is a larger and more capable adversary than any of the other states where Russian troops are committed. Even here, however, Russia possesses local military superiority and thus controls the possibility of escalation dominance. Any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider and even more violent conflict.


Conclusions

In any competition with the United States, Russia’s greatest vulnerability is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports. Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety is for the stability and durability of the regime. Russia’s greatest strengths are in the military and information warfare realms. Russia has deployed advanced air defense, artillery, and missile systems that greatly outrange U.S. and NATO air defense suppression and artillery counterbattery capabilities, potentially forcing U.S. ground forces to fight without air superiority and with inferior fire support. Russia has also matched new technology to old techniques of misinformation, subversion, and destabilization. The most-promising measures to stress Russia are those that directly address these vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same will maximize pressure on Russian export receipts and thus on national and defense budgets. Among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk. Sanctions can also limit Russia’s economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, at a minimum involving the EU, which is Russia’s largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital—larger in all these respects than the United States.

The other area where Russia has maintained parity and even achieved superiority is in air defense and long-range fires. Greater U.S. investment in longer-range air defense suppression, more-advanced EW, and new and longer-range sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, as well as more-exotic systems with comparable capabilities, would likely
generate an expensive Russian response.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:

TL : DR - Go woke go broke. How is the EU and to a slightly lesser degree the US giving up critical national security/prosperity for a glimmer of hope in counteracting mother nature? Want to be green, cool, turn back on the nuclear reactors to start with. Then provide for national security next, then lastly avenue to green utopia.

Don't sacrifice your citizens or your entire country for hopes and dreams that may or may not stop global warming.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

quote:

From 2019 an analysis that was funded by the U.S. Government

It's interesting how much of that analysis didn't turn out to be true once Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 - three years later.

- "Russia has gained economic strength and international weight under Putin and now boasts much greater military capabilities than any country with similar defense spending to such a degree that it can exert its influence over immediate neighbors."

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine Kazakhstan and other small republics on Russia's eastern border have cut side deals with the rest of the world for oil and such other goods as they sell, and have made no real contribution - despite Russian demands - to either the war in Ukraine or Russia's effort to use oil to influence other governments. Meanwhile, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, Western European defense spending is gearing up, Western European countries grow more and more committed to reducing or eliminating dependency on Russian oil and gas by reverting to nuclear power and coal-burning plants, and Russia's vaunted role in world agricultural production turns out to be a nonissue.

- "Imposing tougher sanctions is also likely to degrade the Russian economy, and could do so to a greater extent and more quickly than maintaining low oil prices, provided the sanctions are comprehensive and multilateral."

I'm confused - why is this an either/or proposition? Sanctions will never work perfectly and neither will lower oil prices. Increase American production, increase the number of sources of supply to Europe, and two things can be reasonably expected to happen: oil prices go down for everyone and more countries will do more to make sanctions effective. Everyone thought that Europe would undercut oil sanctions (as they certainly have in the past), but no one foresaw Europe realizing that they were facing a direct threat to their sovreignity. Now Europe's demonstrated a willingness to aggressively pursue alternatives.

- "Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it. Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing new Ukrainian territory. While this might increase Russia's costs, it would also represent a setback for the United States, as well as for Ukraine."

True as far as it goes, but it overlooks three things -
- Russia doesn't actually have enough deliverable military capacity to overwhelm resistance to it in Ukraine when that resistance enjoys all kinds of support from the various NATO countries - which it does, and that shows no signs of changing.
- Russia has an extensive recent history of losing Ukrainian territory it has seized to Ukrainian counterattacks.
- Russia is in no position to "punish" the West for supporting Ukraine in any way. It can't match Western support for Ukraine's conventional warfare capabilities. The nuclear bluff only works so well now that people have figured out that (1) even the Russians don't consider Putin's war in Ukraine to pose enough of an existential threat to justify nuclear war, and (2) nuclear war would simply deny the Russians what they hoped to conquer by force.

- "Belarus is Russia's only real ally."

Well, China certainly hasn't done much to help Russia, and neither have the other countries that still rely on Russian oil. At the same time, Lukashenko of Belarus can only offer passive assistance - allowing Russians to use bases in Belarus and transit through Belarussian air space and territory - but won't put a single boot on the ground.

- "The other area where Russia has maintained parity and even achieved superiority is in air defense and long-range fires."

Actually, no. Their long-range fires have quickly lessened in number and degraded in accuracy now that they can't replace the Western electronics they needed to make those systems work and the Ukrainians have used the HIMARs to blow Russian ammo dumps and air assets to hell with almost boring regularity. As for air defense, it's pretty damned interesting to see that (1) Russia cannot establish air supremacy over Ukraine, (2) Russian navigation technology is downright primitive in comparison to that of the West (there are pictures of commercially available navigation systems from the West being used in Russian military cockpits), and (3) the S300 and S400 air defense systems cannot stop HIMARs attacks and are only so effective against drones and mid-range missiles.

Meanwhile, Western artillery and counterbattery weapons in the hands of Ukrainians are at least equal to those in Russian hands and the Excalibur rounds recently provided to Ukraine have been outranging Russian artillery while maintaining a perfectly useful degree of accuracy.

Incidentally, this might be a good place to point out that Russians have demonstrated pretty much no ability to fight combined arms battles - they've only tried it - recently - one or two times.

In other words, the idea that "Russia has deployed advanced air defense, artillery, and missile systems that greatly outrange U.S. and NATO air defense suppression and artillery counterbattery capabilities, potentially forcing U.S. ground forces to fight without air superiority and inferior fire support" has, in the Ukrainian fighting, been proven to be absolute nonsense.

All of which raises the obvious question: If the Europeans can revert to coal- and nuclear-powered electricity, that is, to defer their green dreams to both deal with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and avoid letting Russian oil dictate European policy, then why on earth can't Biden loosen his stupid choke hold on U.S. oil and gas production to give Americans economic relief, give the oil sanctions against Russia larger, more effective teeth, support our allies in Europe and end Putin's expansionist and revanchist fantasies that much more quickly? It makes ZERO sense to do what he's doing, and we have even more reason to know that's true in the fall of 2022 than the vaunted RAND Corporation did in 2019.

Ukraine – the situation (September 6, 2022)

No clear signs of Ukraine’s ballyhooed counteroffensive while protests in Europe show waning public support for the war

https://asiatimes.com/2022/09/...on-september-6-2022/

Summary/Overview

Russia cut Nord Stream 1, its main natural gas pipeline to Europe, blaming it on sanctions and saying it would be long-lasting. Energy prices surged; European currencies dropped to multi-decade lows.

Ukraine President’s office “explained” the Kherson offensive – or low visibility thereof – by telling the Wall Street Journal the goal was not quick territorial gains but the “systemic grinding of Putin’s army.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to investigate the safety situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has arrived. Mission leader Rafael Mariano Grossi has not yet delivered his report on the shelling of the facility and the plant’s overall safety. But ten or so members of his mission remain at the Energodar site and have proved the value of their continued presence by clarifying plant safety after a powerline was cut two days ago.

Russia claims – and there’s some independent evidence – that just prior to the arrival of the Grossi mission the Ukraine military sent commandos on barges and speed boats across the Dnepr River from the Nikopol side attempting to take over the plant. All that’s known for certain is that there was fighting near the plant in the early morning prior to the IAEA mission’s arrival.

In the South, there was company-strength fighting along the lines of control since March at and to the north and northeast of the town of Arkhanhelske.

In the East/Center theater, Russian forces continued their slow grind west out of the city of Donetsk and, further north, into the town and transportation hub of Bakhmut.

South

Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Oleksy Arestovych yesterday told the Wall Street Journal that the goal in the south is the “systemic grinding of Putin’s army” and that “there’s no rush.”

This was underlined and amplified by Ukrainian special operations officer Taras Berezovets, who told Al Jazeera that the Ukrainian offensive will gain speed as Western military equipment arrives in Ukraine and adding that, “Currently the armed forces of Ukraine feel the lack of armored vehicles for our infantry. We feel the lack of our air forces. We need tanks and we need artillery first of all.

“From this perspective, I would say any sort of counteroffensive [to retake Kherson city] would be possible after receiving all of these armaments. It will take several months at least.”



While the Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) has been quiet following its August 29 reports on breaking through Russian defenses at several points in the Kherson region, it is now clear that no such break-outs occurred. And this, of course, is clear to NATO observers who frequently follow the action (or lack thereof) in real-time.

The lines of control established in March running about halfway between the cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, some 60 kilometers north-northeast from Kherson City around a Ukrainian bridgehead across the Inhulets River and about 100 to 110 kilometers northeast of Kherson City from Arkhanhelske to the Dnepr River have remained largely unchanged.

To the east of Arkhanhelske, Russian forces have been probing north toward the village of Potomkyne; a bit further west the Ukrainians claim to have moved into the village of Olhyne. But on our map that marks the line of control as established in March and both of those villages were in Ukrainian-held territory.

Somewhat more telling action may be happening at the Inhulets bridgehead where the Ukrainians have tried to push in a southeasterly direction. But after a few kilometers’ move into Sukhy Stavok, they were stopped on August 31 and have not moved any further.

As we noted near the end of July when the Ukrainian offensive was first announced on July 23, it would be an obvious Ukrainian move to push east and southeast out of the bridgehead while simultaneously moving south from the Kryvyi Rih area and trapping Russian forces west of the Dnepr. If we saw that, then surely the Russians did as well and now the obvious has become a standoff.

Ukrainian special operations officer Berezovets is right: the Ukrainian army does not have enough tanks and artillery to mount a fast-moving counteroffensive. Most importantly, they do not have any significant air support.

The UGS reported 21 sorties yesterday, including drones. By any measure, that certainly does not support decisive offensive actions. Much of it is probably for artillery guidance and some quick hits on an ammo dump here or there.

There’s action on the main road connecting Kherson City with Mykolaiv, but no visible progress by either side and not much conviction in the moves.

So much as in the East and Center, the war has settled into a grind. But a war of attrition is not the war a smaller country wants to fight against a much larger invading army.

Assessment

What’s noteworthy is that the Russian grind westward out of Donetsk is progressing a kilometer here, two kilometers there and over time even such slow advances pose the threat of a breakout of Russian forces into the western parts of the Donetsk Oblast. If nothing else, that’s enough to prevent the Ukrainians from shifting additional forces South.

To the north, the Donetsk region action is supported by continuing pressure, spearheaded by Wagner Group paramilitary units, on the transport hub of Bakhmut that controls the mouth of the Donbas salient. South of the city of Donetsk, Russian forces are continuing to probe north toward Vuhledar and beyond Velyka Novosilka.

Along all front lines, Russian artillery is firing up to 40,000 rounds daily compared to about 6,000 to maximally 8,000 by the Ukrainians. Against 20 Ukrainian air force sorties, the Russians never fly less than 100 per day and are clearly holding air power in reserve.

Those are key “grind ratios.” As noted above, a slow grind is hard to construe as a winning Ukrainian strategy.

This is underlined by the broader strategic constellation. Russia is making big money on energy without even trying. Europe is in an energy crisis that will only deepen as winter nears.

Popular support for Ukraine in Western and Eastern Europe is waning. Perhaps this became most strikingly obvious when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Prague recently, “I don’t care what my German voters think. I will support Ukraine.” (Bit of a strange comment for someone fighting for freedom and democracy).

Meanwhile, 70,000 demonstrated in Prague and called for “warmth” and peace. In Leipzig, Germany, the rally cry of thousands was “No weapons, diplomacy!!”



For now, Ukraine can still count at least on American support. But this is threatening to become an American war, at least an American-financed one. Does Ukraine want to bet that that continues? That’s the main risk of a slow grind strategy.

And in conclusion another matter of “diplomatic” concern. As an American military analyst writes:

“Geolocated video from 2 days ago showed Russian artillery firing MLRS rockets from the area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). It is worth noting that that was not the original issue, the issue was rounds headed into the plant; it was accepted that Russian forces were firing from the general vicinity of the plant.

This seems to wind back to my suspicion that when the HIMARS arrived in southern Ukraine, with their much-improved accuracy, someone got a bit cocky and returned fire, comfortable with the idea that the rounds would not hit the reactor. (The first report that I recall of worries of rounds being fired at the plant, except in early March when the Russians fought their way in, came after HIMARS arrived in country.)”

The IAEA’s Grossi might be able to supply an answer. But most likely he won’t.

Can you please stop posting these walls of text?

Howsabout a pertinent paragraph or two, or just a synopsis, and the link? It would make perusing and reading these threads much easier.