Comments on Ukraine

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Some underlying background from here:
https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-…

“Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try,” Putin said during a meeting with the heads of the State Duma party factions that aired on state media television Russia-24.

“We have continuously heard that the West is ready to fight with us until the last Ukrainian is left standing. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. However, it seems like everything is going towards this,” he said.

My personal reading of this conflict (which doesn’t jibe with the assorted military commentators on Western news sources):

Russia has, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, been leasing the port of Sevastopol in the Crimea, Ukraine as the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet (originally, the Soviet Black Sea Fleet). That was fine as long as the government of Ukraine was sympathetic towards Russia. Once the Orange Revolution changed the government, the Ukrainian government did not renew the lease.

Russia subsequently took the Crimean Peninsula and Ukraine constantly maneuvered to take it back. The West encouraged Ukraine to be more like them (though the US lagged for a while while the previous administration tried to use withholding aid as a blackmail lever).

Eventually, Russia decided to invade Ukraine directly and take the territory they required to both protect Crimea as well as place a buffer between their border and the West.

It’s true that they initially tried to get the Ukrainian government to bolt by attacking Kiev and then isolated it from the rest of the country by what was described as a “sitting duck” column (which obviously was well enough protected that Ukraine’s air force was not able to come close to it).

That didn’t work, but diverted attention from their grabbing land in the east. The column has since been redeployed to the east as well.

Comparing the Russian military to the Ukrainian military is like comparing the US to Mexico. Russia has already demonstrated its ability to strike anywhere in Ukraine at-will. They, in fact, have the ability to take the entire country if they choose to. Unless they used “strategic” weapons, they would likely lose a politically uncomfortable number of troops doing so, so I believe Putin will be willing to accept what has been taken, unless Ukraine continues to attack them with the intent to “win” and take back the captured territory.

They can’t accomplish this on their own, so they continually ask the West for more destructive weapons and saber-rattle that they are going to push Russia from their land. Ukraine has been asking to join NATO so that the EU, UK and US will be forced by treaty to come to their military assistance.

IMHO, that’s not going to take place as it would risk a third world war.

The West has to save face, but is clearly aware that the only way that the war ends without being extremely costly to Ukraine is for Russia to essentially be successful and left in possession of their gains so far. We are at a point where we have to seriously think about how much damage Ukraine has to bear before agreeing to an armistice.

Jeff

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The West has to save face, but is clearly aware that the only way that the war ends without being extremely costly to Ukraine is for Russia to essentially be successful and left in possession of their gains so far. We are at a point where we have to seriously think about how much damage Ukraine has to bear before agreeing to an armistice.

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I disagree with your pro-Russian view point on Ukraine situation.

The West is more unified than ever to make sure that Russian never gets to keep any Ukrainian territory (Crimea and Donbas). Even Henry Kissinger said today on PBS News Hour that Russia should never be allowed to Keep any Ukrainian territory

Putin is digging a big hole for Russia and Russia will lose in the end. The West has at least 10 times more weapons and resources than Russia.

And at the NATO summit Biden announced that US will be increasing its military might in Eastern Europe:

WARSAW, June 29 (Reuters) - Poland’s president on Wednesday hailed a U.S. commitment to establish the 5th Army’s Headquarters in the country as the realisation of a long-held dream that would enhance its security by sending a clear signal of deterrence to Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden told a NATO summit in Madrid earlier on Wednesday that the United States will ramp up its forces and equipment across Europe and set up a new permanent army headquarters in Poland in response to potential new threats from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

“We have a PERMANENT U.S. presence in Poland… It is also a clear signal to Moscow.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/warsaw-hails-planned-us…

With Finland and Sweden on Russia’s Northern flank, NATO controlling the Baltic Sea, and more US troops being sent to Poland and Rumania, Russia is wasting its resources on trying to carve out some Ukrainian territory which they will never get to keep.

Jaak

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Ukraine has been asking to join NATO so that the EU, UK and US will be forced by treaty to come to their military assistance.

Mostly right but Ukraine has not asked to join NATO but the EU.

It is up to the Ukrainians when they want to quit. If Masada is precedent, never.

The Captain
they do now have a Jewish King…

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The captain may be right. I based the statement on the following quote found on the above link (which is not definitive):

“The world is doing a lot, but it could have been easier — Ukraine could have been accepted as a NATO member. It would be much more straightforward than people imagine,” Zelensky said.

Jeff

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I disagree with your pro-Russian view point on Ukraine situation.

Jaak, as you are well aware, I am far from pro-Russian. What I have always tried to be is cynically realistic. There are three factors which led to my analysis:

  1. The daily map of what is going on, along with news reports - ignoring all associated "military analysis as probable propaganda.

  2. The relative size of Ukraine’s and Russia’s military (in a simple war of attrition, Russia can hold out far longer than Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated that it can hit anywhere it wants in Ukraine (and cause extreme devastation each time Ukraine attempts to do the same on the Russian side of the border)

  3. The geopolitical issues which caused Russia to take these actions has, no doubt, been explained in-depth to the Western countries by Russia’s ambassadors. Russia apparently felt the threat of losing their Black Sea presence on its west coast was an existential risk as it could encourage other similar erosion (Kaliningrad comes to mind) and they felt it worth taking the expensive and risky action. The West is well aware of the likely outcome if they directly attack Russian troops or Russia in an effort to block Russia at this stage of the game. The best they can accomplish is to use the Ukrainian Army as a means to help destroy Russia’s military wealth.

The West cannot militarily force Russia to retreat without unacceptable lose and has limited capability to apply financial stress on Russia without too much domestic pain to politically tolerate (in the US it resulted in higher gas prices and accelerated inflation, in Europe a dependence on Russian fuel is obvious).

So, as long as Ukraine keeps firing at Russian troops, the West will give them bullets, but they will lose more personnel and national wealth than Russia does. As soon as they stop firing, the West will push for a negotiated truce leaving most of what Russia has taken in their hands. Under no circumstance that I can conceive (unless Russia directly attacks a NATO member), will the West directly attack Russia in support of Ukraine. There may be some long-term sanctions but, in essence, Russia has already more or less achieved their goals. All Ukraine can do about the situation is to keep poking Russia attract enough unacceptable retaliation to move the West’s position.

Jeff

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“The world is doing a lot, but it could have been easier — Ukraine could have been accepted as a NATO member. It would be much more straightforward than people imagine,” Zelensky said.

Would be difficult to get unanimous consent to accept a country that is in the middle of fighting a war?

Tim

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They, in fact, have the ability to take the entire country if they choose to.

The Vietcong had no place to go. The Mujahideen had no place to go. The Taliban had no place to go. The Ukrainians have no place to go. How long are the Russians willing to swan about in another people’s home, taking casualties, until they leave?

Steve

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They, in fact, have the ability to take the entire country if they choose to.

The Vietcong had no place to go. The Mujahideen had no place to go. The Taliban had no place to go. The Ukrainians have no place to go. How long are the Russians willing to swan about in another people’s home, taking casualties, until they leave?

Steve

Good point Steve.
Russia now controls areas with the largest numbers of ethnic Russians.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682
https://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv-ukrtaz/files/2014/04/UkraineNa…
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-viLcPGsjtDk/UzBnVrac9xI/AAAAAAAAE7…
(this one shows where ethnic Ukrainians dominate)

As long as Ukrainians continue to fire; so will the Russians.
As Jeff points out, the US is quite willing to supply armaments as long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight-weakening Russia. But Jeff again points out the Ukraine has less population & economic wealth than Russia. The Ukrainian cannot fight forever & US/NATO will not become involved.
So Russia likely will end up with Eastern Ukraine. Then what? Will Vlad stumble into a war with by aggressive moves into the Baltic countries. I would think or hope not. But with humans you never know.

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Jeff,

You are not analyzing the long game. Not America’s, not Ukraine’s and most importantly not Putin’s long game. This is not one and done.

What you are saying in a vacuum like a class room hypothetical is cool. Nice compromise could be wrapped up.

That is not life.

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I think it was Churchill who said: Each nation feeds the crocidile hoping he will be satiated and go away. But alas he returns hungry again.

Russia cannot be allowed to win. If they win its only a matter of time before they return for more. Recall they want the whole Soviet Union back and probably the eastern Europe satelites.

So long as Ukraine has the will and manpower to fight, we should continue to supply them with weapons. The war will continue until Russia decides to call a ceasefire and begin negotiations. Ukraine may well be totally devastated in the process.

It looks like war with Russia is inevitable. As long as Putin follows this course.

From time to time criminals come to power in neighboring countries. When that happens war is the usual result.

Asking him to stop (Momma make him don’t) usually fails. Success drives ego. And he asks for more.

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The West has to save face, but is clearly aware that the only way that the war ends without being extremely costly to Ukraine is for Russia to essentially be successful and left in possession of their gains so far. We are at a point where we have to seriously think about how much damage Ukraine has to bear before agreeing to an armistice.

I have a somewhat different take. In various speeches over the years, Putin seems to have an imperialist view towards Ukraine. He views Ukraine as Russian, merely an administrative creation of the Bolsheviks, and post Soviet collapse Ukraine has become corrupted by oligarchs and western influence, according to him. Pretty good overview of Putin’s thinking in Vox, published just before the war. Worth a read:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/r…

Putin views Ukraine as part of Russia and wants to reconstitute the Russian empire. I think we should take Putin’s words at face value. Putin isn’t going to be satisfied with what he’s capture so far. Sure, he might negotiate a cease fire for now, but he won’t stick to it.

At the beginning of the conflict, Russia had a much larger and in theory much more capable military. But since the failure to capture Kyiv that advantage appears to be nearly spent. If you look at the map, there is a big salient in the Donbas. An obvious military strategy would be to cut off the salient and capture Ukrainian troops and territory. And Russia has been trying to do just that. But despite overwhelming advantages in firepower, Russia has been limited to capturing just a few villages and towns. Almost all Russia’s territorial gains were in the first month of the war. Since then, after three months of fighting Russian advances have totaled only a few square miles, and has even lost territory in the north and southwest. The war is clearly not going well. To that end Putin has fired several generals and arrested the head of the FSB. Those are not signs of a successful campaign.

Looking forward, Russian losses have been ferocious. Ukrainian losses probably have been too. But Ukraine has a draft and can replace its soldiers. Russia has to rely on volunteers. Similarly, Ukraine is being re-supplied by the West. Russia has to draw down its substantial stocks, but seems to be at least starting to run low. For example, T-62 tanks have been observed (destroyed). As the name suggests, T-62 was designed in 1962 and is decades out of date. The Russians are starting to rely on junk equipment, while Ukrainian equipment gets better and better.

I don’t know how this plays out, but the Russian offensive appears to be stalled, and Ukraine might be ready to counter attack. I suspect we are about to enter a new phase of the war. Will be interesting to watch.

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“The Vietcong had no place to go. The Mujahideen had no place to go. The Taliban had no place to go. The Ukrainians have no place to go. How long are the Russians willing to swan about in another people’s home, taking casualties, until they leave?”

I remember conversations I had with a “super patriot” acquaintance during Iraq II. They were
delirious with pride over the blitzkrieg of the American offensive. I told them not so fast,
let’s see what happens when the occupation and nation rebuilding begins, told them the Iraqi’s
were probably really good at urban guerrilla warfare. This acquaintance didn’t like that, was
convinced that the Iraqi’s should be showering the American soldiers with love, lol. We all
know how that turned out.

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Russia apparently felt the threat of losing their Black Sea presence on its west coast was an existential risk as it could encourage other similar erosion (Kaliningrad comes to mind) and they felt it worth taking the expensive and risky action.

This seems to be the underpinning for your whole argument. Ukraine had been leasing port services in Sevastopol to Russia for their Black Sea fleet. Then Ukraine ended that lease. Russia needed the port, so they took it from Ukraine, along with much of the Crimean peninsula.

Do I have that part right?

If so, their current actions seem to have undermined the fleet. Turkey has closed the Bosporus Strait to all Russian military ships. Russia seems to be partly circumventing this closure by using “civilian” ships to transport military goods to Syria, and possibly for some other purposes. https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/russia-is-usin… Whether this will be allowed to continue is questionable. (I should also point out that there is some question about Turkey’s ability to close the straits under the 1936 Montreux Convention. For the moment it appears Turkey is prevailing in that international legal question, although longer-term questions remain.)

So the attack on Ukraine seems to have negated the need for this port. Without free passage through the Bosporus, Russian military ships are trapped in the Black Sea, and military ships based elsewhere are prevented from getting to Sevastopol. The port has become worthless - except for the thinly disguised civilian ships.

I’d also argue that Kaliningrad is somewhat different. Most importantly, Kaliningrad is widely recognized as sovereign Russian territory. That differs from Crimea (and therefore Sevastopol) which is more properly called a Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine. Also, shipping out of the Baltic is not controlled as tightly. Neither Denmark nor Sweden have the rights to close the straits between the two countries. So the Russian ports at Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg do not have the same international legal risks as the port at Sevastopol.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Russia isn’t feeling the situations are similar. But feelings are not the same as actual or potential risks.

–Peter

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Peter

Exactly right and saved me having to compose a post beyond this to say thank you.

david fb

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Russia now controls areas with the largest numbers of ethnic Russians.

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Half of those Russians are married to Ukrainians and other half hate Russia’s war with Ukraine which is killing/raping many ethnic Russians and destroying their homes, farms and businesses.

Jaak

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The problem with Russian claims is they can be extended to all sorts of places. We could endlessly be saying in the years blank it was Russia’s.

We have been sternly told NATO is the problem. Think about that first. The Russian claims cover NATO.

Reading Jaak the endless warring around Russia is just one claim after another. We will have war no doubt. Or Putin be hung.

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I remember conversations I had with a “super patriot” acquaintance during Iraq II. They were delirious with pride over the blitzkrieg of the American offensive. I told them not so fast, let’s see what happens when the occupation and nation rebuilding begins, told them the Iraqi’s were probably really good at urban guerrilla warfare.

Hey, the invasion of Iraq was very well done and quite successful.

(The occupation, on the other hand…)

(Actually, this reminds me of what I was told the military sides of the Pentagon recommended at the beginning of our involvement in Vietnam, by an Air Force officer who at the time had been a lieutenant in the Pentagon: plan A, stay the eff out; plan B, send massive force, overthrow both governments, appoint some likely relatively-not-corrupt local to be the new boss, and see how fast we can get the eff out. The politicians, Pentagon or otherwise, chose plan C.)

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There is an overarching pattern between us, Russia and China in all of these smaller wars. Will the other powers follow suit.

Our Vietnam became Russia’s Afghanistan. The abstract notions of power brought Russia to create what we did in Vietnam in Afghanistan. We will licked our wounds and worse, the Soviets fell apart in the wake of a massively failed war to keep non Christian Russians out of control of the USSR.

We lost a lot of power in Indo-China. We never needed power in Indo-China.

Russia is at odds without having the power of empire.

Truman and Ike decided we would not build an empire. The UK and US decided on divided and conquer for the emerging world though.

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Russia taking ‘operational pause’ in Ukraine
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/russia-taking…
Foreign analysts say Russia may be temporarily easing its offensive in eastern Ukraine as the Russian military attempts to reassemble its forces for what it hopes could prove decisive new assault on its neighbor…

Russia’s Defense Ministry seemed to confirm that assessment, saying in a statement Thursday that Russian soldiers had been given time to rest.

“The units that performed combat missions … are taking measures to recover their combat capabilities. The servicemen are given the opportunity to rest, receive letters and parcels from home,” read the statement, quoted by Russian state news agency Tass.

DB2

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So, as long as Ukraine keeps firing at Russian troops, the West will give them bullets, but they will lose more personnel and national wealth than Russia does. As soon as they stop firing, the West will push for a negotiated truce leaving most of what Russia has taken in their hands. Under no circumstance that I can conceive (unless Russia directly attacks a NATO member), will the West directly attack Russia in support of Ukraine. There may be some long-term sanctions but, in essence, Russia has already more or less achieved their goals. All Ukraine can do about the situation is to keep poking Russia attract enough unacceptable retaliation to move the West’s position.

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As long as Russian troops are firing at the Ukrainians, the West will give them weapons and financial support to defend themselves. Ukrainians are not going to stop fighting Russian incursions and bombing. The West is not pushing for a negotiated truce leaving leaving any ill gotten territory in Russian hands. The goal of the West is not leave anything in the Russian hands because that will just embolden them to do more and embolden other countries to invade neighbors and be rewarded by getting territory that is not their territory.

If you think Russia has achieved their goals, then why are they still pushing on with the war?

IMO Putin wants the whole country, but it is too big and too strong to be swallowed by Russia.

Ukraine can keep on fighting for years with the support of the West.

Jaak

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