quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
As I posted on the Mike Johnson thread by mistake (only afterwards realized it wasn't one of the Ukraine ones; goes to show these debates look all the same), the new US aid package clearly shows that both candidates in the presidential race have decided Ukraine faltering before the election would be bad for their campaign. By next year, the country can probably satisfy most of its material needs from European production, including joint ventures in Ukraine itself.

Interestingly, the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence told British press last week that "peace talks could happen in late 2025, as he expects Russian arms production to plateau early the following year due to a shortage of engineers and supplies." This week I heard directly from a German source that Russian production was still ramping up to the degree they were starting to put equipment back into depots rather than taking it out, and were prepared to prosecute the war into 2026.

At first I thought that to be a contradiction, possibly based upon wishful thinking by the Ukrainian side. Reading the latter's statement over, it occurs to me it might not be, and both sources essentially agree that Russian production will increase until early 2026 - but if they haven't made a decisive breakthrough in Ukraine by then, they will hit a ceiling that mandates to open negotiations some time earlier while they're still in a position of relative strength, before the strategic situation deteriorates for them again.

Such a breakthrough remains possible of course due to the overextended Ukrainian defenses, lacking both men and materièl, and being vulnerable to an additional Russian push - if the latter can find the strength for that. You can sense the Western worry about that, particularly in the controversial statements by French president Emmanuel Macron that in such a case he might deploy troops to relieve Ukrainian forces from securing their border with Belarus, releasing them to counter the Russian thrust. When I first heard that, I thought it was just tough talk to distract from the fact that Ukraine might not have its current ammunition problems if Macron hadn't blocked the use of EU funds to buy from non-EU sources so long.

That might still be, but by now I'm coming around to the interpretation that he is successfully introducing an element of strategic ambiguity into the Western stance to counter the one Russia has employed from the start with its threats against NATO members for supporting Ukraine, possible nuclear use, etc.; a principle mirrored in French nuclear doctrine. He certainly managed to throw pro-Russian propaganda sources aimed at impressionable Western audiences out off their continuity, making them oscillate between their two standard modes of "Russia has already won in Ukraine, all that remains is to dictate terms to the West" when it's going well for them, and "if the West threatens Russia's existence by supporting Ukraine it will cause nuclear war" when it's not, on a daily basis.

There are other signs, like the slowly hardening attitudes in Europe on the 600,000-plus military-age males from Ukraine who have fled there, though tough action is unlikely anytime soon. Yet for now, while Russian propaganda touts continuing offensive successes, their overall extent remains negligible on a strategic scale as the below maps of the Institute for the Study of War show; light blue being territory taken by Ukraine during its summer offensive last year up to the continuous red line, the dashed red line marking Russian advances since December, and contested areas in yellow.

The never-ending war brought to you by the US Taxpayer!

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
Such a breakthrough remains possible of course due to the overextended Ukrainian defenses, lacking both men and materièl, and being vulnerable to an additional Russian push - if the latter can find the strength for that.

Well, they certainly found the strength for an economy-of-force operation, crossing the border from Russia proper near Kharkiv in three thrusts across a width of 15 miles last Saturday, either side of a salient around the Russian town of Sereda with an estimated three regiments/brigades each. While the center thrust either stalled quickly or was held back intentionally to not outrun those on the flanks, the latter made good initial gains against weak Ukrainian defenses, as deep as three miles towards the town of Lyptsi. Russian artillery and aviation also targeted bridges and other LOC nodes all the way to Artemivka on the Pechenizke Reservoir of the Donets River, almost 30 miles from the border.

It was notable how everyone but the Ukrainians appeared to downplay the move. Russian milbloggers initially talked of reconnaissance in force, noting the half-dozen villages taken on the first day were long deserted and destroyed in border skirmishes anyway, and most of the civilian population had already been evacuated by Ukraine. Official sources declared it an attempt at creating a buffer zone against the long-time Ukrainian shelling of, and raids by pro-Ukrainian "Russian volunteer groups" into, the Belgorod region. Even hardliners on pro-Russian propaganda sites noted that the push towards Kharkiv, 20 miles from the border, didn't have the strength to take a city of 1.5 million.

Given that the city of Belgorod is another 20 miles in the opposite direction on the Russian side, it would remain well within range of rockets and aviation munitions even if Russia advanced to the outskirts of Kharkiv, so the buffer zone argument is a little dubious. Even when they had the city almost surrounded in the first year of the war before they had to retreat behind the border during the Ukrainian counter-offensive of late 2022, Ukraine conducted airstrikes on Belgorod (not to talk of the Russian Su-34 which had an accidental release over it, luckily only blowing up a friendly parking lot at night).

Most likely this is simply aimed at overtaxing Ukrainian defensive strength overall by opening another front, hoping that their lines will eventually suffer a major break somewhere along the hundreds of miles of fighting. As it is, after the first two or three days Ukraine found sufficient troops down the back of the sofa to move towards Kharkiv and slow the Russian advance to the snail's pace usual for most offensive operations in this war - though likely at the price of weakening other sectors. Russia managed to move to the edge of Lyptsi in the western thrust, and break into the town of Vovchansk in the eastern, but has not managed to get much further in the last two days.

However, there are indications for a similar operation towards Sumy, further to the northwest opposite the Russian region of Kursk. And if the deployment maps at militaryland.net can be trusted in the fog of war, there is very little in operational units Ukraine has left to back up the two territorial defense brigades it currently has there. Which is why there's renewed talk of French and Baltic, possibly Polish troops relieving Ukrainians from routine tasks like training or demining in safer parts of the country itself; or taking over security on the border with Belarus, which is unlikely to become a frontline again, but can't be left unattended either.

Even among German parlamentarians there are suggestions that NATO should establish an air defense zone to a depth of about 45 miles on Ukraine's western border. Which frankly is a no-brainer and should have been done at the outbreak of the war, or at the latest when some missiles of either party dropped on Polish and Romanian territory, killing some Poles in one incident. In my opinion it should extend to 125 miles or so, too, which is the range of a Meteor air-to-air-missile fired by an Eurofighter Typhoon or Rafale from the NATO side of the border.

At this point, it would establish a protected zone for bilateral missions training Ukrainian troops on their own soil rather than in Western Europe, simplifying logistics and releasing some of their personnel for immediate defense tasks; and/or securing the Belarus border for them. However, in Germany specifically, nothing is likely to move ahead of the EU elections on 9 June, when the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz are advertizing their old and tried buzzword of "peace" on campaign posters. So the best Ukraine can hope for right now is that their lines will hold as new ammo comes in from the US, and the first F-16s arrive from Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway; and that if they don't, France et al will follow through on their talk of bilateral support deployments.

China is declaring intentions to “reunify” with Taiwan and appears to be displaying the will to do it soon.

Linkasaurus rex

So the Russian offensive towards Kharkiv has been stuck for two weeks. Ukraine may even have taken some minimal terrain back, though it's still at the expense of having moved considerable troops from other fronts there. Yet while Russia continues making the same grinding advances elsewhere, those fronts haven't dramatically collapsed after being weakened like that. It seems that with American artillery ammunition coming in again, Ukraine can manage both the same defense of previous lines, and stopping the Kharkiv thrust completely. That casts an interesting light on the timing of the bi-partisan American decision to resume aid.

There's a suggestion that Russia launched the offensive prematurely to pre-empt just that, moving before they had really built up enough strength while the Ukrainians were still suffering from ammo shortages, under an attempted political cover of renewed nuclear threats aimed at impressionable Western audiences by announcing an unannounced exercise of their tactical nuclear forces. Thus trying to maintain the advantage that they would attack directly across their own border with their logistics safe from deep strikes by Western-supplied long-range weapons, which Ukraine has so far been barred from using against Russian territory proper for reasons of "non-escalation".

Of course Ukraine quickly demonstrated that those nuclear threats have long been devalued by gratuitous overuse when they struck two Russian ballistic missile early warning radars around a thousand miles behind the frontlines with their own long-range drones. Theoretically, attacks on their nuclear warfare infrastructure could be a case for nuclear counterstrikes under Russian doctrine, so it got everyone's attention. But we already know Russia is deterred from using nukes in Ukraine; because the one time they were actually building a case for it in the fall of 2022, when their situation in the south and east became untenable leading up to collapse of their frontlines, they got told by the US to stow that shit or else, and shut up overnight.

By the end of that year Ukraine also struck Russia's strategic bomber airbase at Engels, which had been used for long-range bombing raids against them, but is technically also nuclear warfare infrastructure. Back then Russia quietly relocated most of the bombers based there further east. In the present case, they haven't even officially acknowledged the strikes on their early warning radars; though the usual suspects like former Roskosmos space agency head, now Senator Dmitry "the American moon landings were faked" Rogozin demanded their usual nuclear response "if it wasn't a Ukrainian fake".

Anyway, any attempt to deter Ukraine's supporters from matching the escalation of the Kharkiv offensive clearly failed. Notably, the US, UK, France and Germany stated this week that Ukraine was allowed to use weapons supplied by them in accordance with international law in "areas adjacent to Kharkiv", the exact limits not made public for obvious reasons. Denmark also clarified that the F-16 fighters it is about to deliver could be used for strikes on Russian territory proper. It's frankly not a big deal if you take the Russians at their own words, since they also claim the occupied areas of Ukraine, and then some, as "their" territory, and have always accused NATO of being complicit in strikes on it.

There are other major aid packages carrying the label "biggest so far" from NATO countries, which may have been planned anyway or in reaction to recent developments. Particularly interesting is the Swedish, which includes two Saab Erieye AWACS besides leftovers like their entire fleet of old Pbv 302 armored personnel carriers, the Swedish M113 equivalent. Germany also announced a package worth half a billion Euro, mostly surface-to-air missiles, possibly major amounts of ammunition for the Skynex anti-air system and replacement barrels for the PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers which Rheinmetall just stated they got orders for, the new RCH 155 wheeled SPH, and three HIMARS launchers bought from the US. Another IRIS-T SAM battery was also delivered last week.

Another thing the Russian offensive seems to have triggered is France and some others following through with their statements that they would react to anything like that by bilaterally deploying some of their troops to relieve Ukrainian forces of rear-area tasks in the country itself. At least Ukraine's supreme commander General Oleksandr Syrsyi announced this week that he signed off on allowing French instructors into domestic training centers, though France said they were still in talks about specifics. I'd imagine such a mission to happen in the far southwest of Ukraine adjacent to Romania, where France already leads the forward-deployed NATO tripwire battlegroup including SAMP/T long-range SAMs, which could cover against air threats across the border.

In general, Russia seems currently more occupied with cleaning its own house. Putin used the recent elections to promote away defense minister Sergei Shoigu, long criticized for at best ineffective leadership, to become secretary of the national security council, replacing him with another long-time confidant, economist Andrey Belousov. Both before and after, some high-ranking defense officials were arrested on corruption charges, including Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, the head of the ministry's personnel department, the deputy chief of the army's general staff, and the commander of 58th Army. In tandem with major tax hikes announced this week, it appears they realized they can't continue the war on the previous income/spending level.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:

...they got told by the US to stow that shit or else, and shut up overnight...

Are you sure about that? In the fall of 2022 they had been in Ukraine for over six months and all Biden could say to Putin was "Stop or I'll say stop again!"

I enjoy reading your posts, but I have a hard time believing Putin gave in to warnings from the US.

There has of course been some background rumbling of Russian nuclear threats to deter Western intervention from before the start of their invasion. Notably, four days into their attack, Putin put their nuclear forces on alert, and there were ongoing claims of Ukraine using or planning to use chemical and biological weapons (remember the whole "US biolabs" thing?), release radiological agents by shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, etc.; just this week the head of the Russian NBC protection troops made his regular statement that Ukraine deploys choking agents and other chemical weapons. Something both sides have been accusing each other of, and is probably happening in some instances - though most of the claims are about CS and similar, still banned for military use, but not exactly a weapon of mass destruction.

The more serious debate started in September 2022 after Ukraine launched its counteroffensives towards Kherson in the south, and Kharkiv in the east. By 19 September, the US seemed to take it seriously enough that Biden warned of a "consequential reponse" to potential Russian nuclear use. On 21 September, Putin made implicit threats in reply to alleged "nuclear blackmail" by NATO while announcing a partial mobilization of conscripts, subsequently followed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the always-dependable ex-president Dmitry Medvedev. After Ukraine's Kharkiv offensive peaked by retaking the city of Lyman on 1/2 October, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov became the first major official to explicitely call for the use of tactical nukes.

The American response was wheeling out former officials like ex-CIA head David Petraeus with the time-tested approach of saying "well I haven't talked to anyone in the current administration, but if Russia did that, we would likely lead a NATO effort to, for example, destroy their troops in Ukraine as an effective fighting force, and sink their Black Sea Fleet, too" (that was when the latter was still a somewhat effective force). Things came to a head on 23 October, when Russia faced imminent collapse of its forces opposing the Ukrainian offensive towards Kherson. That day, Defense Minister Shoigu and other Russian defense officials directly called their US, UK, French and Turkish counterparts with claims that Ukraine was preparing to detonate a low-yield nuclear device or radiological "dirty bomb", and blame it on Russia in a false-flag operation.

Shoigu also announced that Russia was preparing its troops to work in conditions of radioactive contamination. This was seen as making the immediate case for nuclear use, and drew a joint American-British-French statement rejecting the allegations as a transparent pretext for further escalation. Whatever was communicated to the Russians non-publically - and there's a belief in the local security community that it included threatening a range of responses like those mentioned by Petraeus earlier - they shut up within 48 hours. Within the next three weeks, they withdrew from the Kherson area to the south bank of the Dniepro River.

I think our military is foolish to squander the defense budget on childish toys like helicopters, aircraft carriers and tanks.
For a fraction of the money they could simply send front men into hostile countries and buy up their television and radio stations, newspapers, entertainment companies and other information sources.
We could run their stock market, tell them which politicians to support, run their elections, omit any criticism of US policy, Tell them the US is their greatest ally and promote a host of bad ideas and lessons of subjugation.
We would have the power of social engineering. With that influence we could tell the men to be women, the women to be men
and the children to choose their gender.
Within a short time the majority would stop having children.
We could tell them their ancestors were mean and hateful and shame them into accepting millions of immigrants from the jungles of Africa and India and if any of them complain we could label them extremists and racists and trigger their guilt. Then we could offer them redemption from their guilt by suggesting they intermarry with the immigrants.
Eventually the people of that country would lose their national and ethnic pride and identity and they would be willing to negotiate with us rather than resist in the name of their ancestors.