How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[panzermartin]

Not very good news from Turkey, Erdogan will probably win the elections. I had the impression the dynamics were not in his favor. Do you think Russians could have played a role here... Another few years of agony in the aegean. 

[kimbosbread]

Related to Belarus, I consistenly fail to understand how the Transnistrian garrison has not been bribed or threatened out of existence. If Belarus and Transistria were to fall out of Russian orbit, in conjunction with the "SMO", that seems like it might precipitate political collapse in Russia, as it gives the other regions the green light to consider breaking away.

EDIT: Less related but still related, how do the elections in Turkey and Pakistan affect/get affected by this?

Edited May 14, 2023 by kimbosbread

[billbindc]

This is interesting: 

 

[billbindc]

7 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Not very good news from Turkey, Erdogan will probably win the elections. I had the impression the dynamics were not in his favor. Do you think Russians could have played a role here... Another few years of agony in the aegean. 

He almost certainly will lose. The question is whether or not he accepts the loss and has the power to get away with it. Istanbul and Ankara aren’t counted yet.

[Haiduk]

21 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is interesting: 

 

Direct communication with Wagner, bypassing official channels, likely exists in questions of POWs exchange. It's not a big secret, we exchange Wagner captivities directly to Wagner and Russian MoD doesn't participate in this. Wagner in own turn has own places, where they hold our soldiers, captured by their merceneries. If you have seen official stattistic of exchanges, the number of exhanged is almost always equal (except cases of VIPs or valuable officers). So, if you have seen that officially says 50 UKR soldiers were exhanged for 40 Russians, that indeed there was 50 on 50, but rest 10 were Wagners.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Haiduk

[Grossman]

34 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Not very good news from Turkey, Erdogan will probably win the elections. I had the impression the dynamics were not in his favor. Do you think Russians could have played a role here... Another few years of agony in the aegean. 

We hoped the election would be free. But for someone been in power for 20 years, and rewrote the constitution in his favour, some hope. What will follow?  Not good. 

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, billbindc said:

He almost certainly will lose. The question is whether or not he accepts the loss and has the power to get away with it. Istanbul and Ankara aren’t counted yet.

Yup.  It is always important to remind people that results are never even throughout the counting process.  Therefore, what has NOT bee counted is often times more important than what HAS been counted.

I've been following the results every couple of hours and the predicted shift is starting to happen.  Hopefully the remaining counts will go favorably.

Steve

[Seminole]

43 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is interesting: 

 

Zelensky trying to avoid getting dragged into confirming or acknowledging any of the leak materials isn't in and of itself a story at all.  Nobody taught him the words, 'can neither confirm, nor deny.'

WaPo scrubbing that part of the story after posting it has the Streisand Effect, and makes them look like state media.  Just dumb.

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

Putin has consistently made logical choices...taking into account the facts as he believed they stood. There is nobody in Moscow who thinks a Belarus takeover will augment Moscow's strength in any way except as some sort of face saving move in the event of a collapse in Ukraine. So, until the latter happens...  

The one and only scenario I can see of Russia trying to overtly take over Belarus is if they sense another "color revolution" in the making that will succeed.  There is no way Putin will sit by and let this happen any more than he did 2014 Maidan.   But the timing and scope of involvement of Russian forces may not work out so well, so he might not have a realistic chance of stopping it from happening.

If I were in Belarus, I would be thinking that now is a great time to storm the castle!

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

She is not some ambitious, independent player though, just another boring aparatchik; she can be somewhat compareable to Valentina Matvyenenko in Russia. Person to stamp documents without political will or ambitions, with some flair of post-soviet version of protofeminism.

There are hardly any such independent persons in Lukashenka clicque; this "camp" visibly lacks any recognizeable figures like opposition ones. Not comparable to charismatic leaders like Ms. Tsichanouskaya or brave and hard-as-nail Maria Kalesnikava (currently tortured in prsion).

That is what I expected.  Dictators tend to make sure there's nobody really interesting waiting in the wings which is why transitions are often messy.  The solution is the Cuba and North Korean model where it is basically a monarchy where family succeeds family.  Well, the family that isn't murdered along the way that is!

So my guesses remain the same.  When Luka dies or is incapacitated the likelihood is that constitutional process will be followed and Kaczanava will assume the powers of the President.  This is a solid bet, I think.  The questionable stuff happens after.  Does the opposition demand immediate elections?  Does Kaczanava deny them?  With the timeline for the next election fairly near, is it enough to get people riled up?  If they do restart the 2020 protests are they squashed with the same ruthlessness or worse?

As I said, knife's edge.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Zelensky trying to avoid getting dragged into confirming or acknowledging any of the leak materials isn't in and of itself a story at all.  Nobody taught him the words, 'can neither confirm, nor deny.'

WaPo scrubbing that part of the story after posting it has the Streisand Effect, and makes them look like state media.  Just dumb.

 

Yup.  If they were going to self censor the time to do it is before publishing, not after.  Some senior Editor screwed up.

Steve

[billbindc]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  It is always important to remind people that results are never even throughout the counting process.  Therefore, what has NOT bee counted is often times more important than what HAS been counted.

I've been following the results every couple of hours and the predicted shift is starting to happen.  Hopefully the remaining counts will go favorably.

Steve

As I understand it, the AKP is challenging every ballot box it can that look to be CHP dominated so that they are held out of the count. Andalou and other regime oriented outlets are touting a call based on that total. And of course, on Twitter the opposite view is being choked off because Musk agreed to Erdogan's censorship. 

The idea is that Erdogan will simply declare victory, try to suppress a full count and stay in office. We'll see how it plays out.

Edited May 14, 2023 by billbindc

[DesertFox]

2 minutes ago, billbindc said:

As I understand it, the AKP is challenging every ballot box it can that look to be CHP dominated so that they are held otu of the count. Andalou and other regime oriented outlets are touting a call based on that total. And of course, on Twitter the opposite view is being choked off because Musk agreed to Erdogan's censorship. 

The idea is that Erdogan will simply declare victory, try to suppress a full count and stay in office. We'll see how it plays out.

I don´t think Erdo will make it. But before tomorrow morning we wont know.

 

 

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, DesertFox said:

I don´t think Erdo will make it. But before tomorrow morning we wont know.

 

 

I agree. But whether or not he uses state power to ignore that outcome is another question.

[dan/california]

25 minutes ago, BornGinger said:

Wow! Another large war in Europe possibly involving loads of countries if a few more would get involved. Just like last time. Lovely!

The Ukraine war happened because Lukashenko was in the process of getting kicked out by his own people, and was only able to hang on by selling his soul to Putin. It was being able to start the invasion of Ukraine from Belarus, only a ~hundred miles from Kyiv that convinced Putin he could win this thing in three days. LOSING Belarus reduces Russia's option space massively, probably for generations, as the The_Capt likes to put it.

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, panzermartin said:

Not very good news from Turkey, Erdogan will probably win the elections. I had the impression the dynamics were not in his favor. Do you think Russians could have played a role here... Another few years of agony in the aegean. 

I've met a lot of Turkish people online and not a single person liked when I brought up the word "Erdogan". He's pretty hated, at least by the younger population.

[Beleg85]

17 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

So my guesses remain the same.  When Luka dies or is incapacitated the likelihood is that constitutional process will be followed and Kaczanava will assume the powers of the President.  This is a solid bet, I think.  The questionable stuff happens after.  Does the opposition demand immediate elections?  Does Kaczanava deny them?  With the timeline for the next election fairly near, is it enough to get people riled up?  If they do restart the 2020 protests are they squashed with the same ruthlessness or worse?

As I said, knife's edge.

Steve

Fair question, probably nobody knows answer. I find any revolts/protests rather unlikely unless Russia itself implodes (which is not impossible) or Putin doing some massive mistake trying to use own troops to shoot people like they did in Kazakhstan. For now the most logical scenario is some form of provisional government with shadowy Muscovite support, perhaps even with Luka's son groomed as heir.

To be fair Belarus seems bound to be in Russian influence for foreseeable future. That being said, 2020 showed we live in unpredictible reality, and there is clear and visible generetional rift in this society with youngsters preferring Western style of life and freedoms.

Generally one of main problems in longer term for of all those post-Soviet dictatorships in Europe and Asia is that people under 30 are active, know internet perfectly and rarely find attractive this silly Soviet political-cultural millieu. In Russia this can be replaced by nationalism and imperialistic hubris deeply ingrained in political culture, but in sourrounding countries it doesn't work like that.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Fair question, probably nobody knows answer. I find any revolts/protests rather unlikely unless Russia itself implodes (which is not impossible) or Putin doing some massive mistake trying to use own troops to shoot people like they did in Kazakhstan. For now the most logical scenario is some form of provisional government with shadowy Muscovite support, perhaps even with Luka's son groomed as heir.

To be fair Belarus seems bound to be in Russian influence for foreseeable future. That being said, 2020 showed we live in unpredictible reality, and there is clear and visible generetional rift in this society with youngsters preferring Western style of life and freedoms.

Generally one of main problems in longer term for of all those post-Soviet dictatorships in Europe and Asia is that people under 30 are active, know internet perfectly and rarely find attractive this silly Soviet political-cultural millieu. In Russia this can be replaced by nationalism and imperialistic hubris deeply ingrained in political culture, but in sourrounding countries it doesn't work like that.

My impressions from the 2020 protests is that the younger generation is fed up with the economic and social stagnation, which they blame their own government for and that's what they were seeking to change.  Unlike Ukraine, I've never had the impression that Belarusians understand how much Russia is responsible for all of this and, therefore, aren't necessarily looking to separate from Russia.  I don't know how much their view of Russia changed over the last 2 years.  Objectively they should now understand that the root of their problems at home are coming from Moscow, but they might be slow to understand this.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I agree. But whether or not he uses state power to ignore that outcome is another question.

Looks like it will go to a runoff as both lead candidates have apparently conceded that neither is likely to receive 50% of the vote.

Steve

[Eddy]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ukraine, I've never had the impression that Belarusians understand how much Russia is responsible for all of this and, therefore, aren't necessarily looking to separate from Russia.

I worked with a Belarusian team for a couple of years and this was not the impression I got. Tbf most of them were in their late 20s or early 30s and from Minsk but they were very anti-Russian and also quite bitter that the West would help Ukraine but not them. This was back in 2017-19 or so. 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Eddy

[Beleg85]

55 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My impressions from the 2020 protests is that the younger generation is fed up with the economic and social stagnation, which they blame their own government for and that's what they were seeking to change.  Unlike Ukraine, I've never had the impression that Belarusians understand how much Russia is responsible for all of this and, therefore, aren't necessarily looking to separate from Russia.  I don't know how much their view of Russia changed over the last 2 years.  Objectively they should now understand that the root of their problems at home are coming from Moscow, but they might be slow to understand this.

Steve

When comes to those active and abroad- 2020 protests bring massive change. The scale and sheer length of resistance (and subsequent repressions) was quite unexpected even to those few already western-minded. Hell, I cannot count number of times I heard before from political activists "we are meek, unlike Ukrainians, we will never oppose Lukashenka who is btw. maybe not so bad in the end, it's all pointless and could be worse. Yadda yadda".

    Then boom- and 50-100k crowds gather in Minsk out of the blue. And march for several months. Men are bitten, women march. Women are bitten and kept in arrests, older ones march. I suddenly find my friend and several collegues (previously completelly apolytical students here in PL, occupied chiefly with music, smoking pot and flirting) in bloody TV with megaphones enchanting people on the streets to oppose Luka. Now, AD 2023 4 guys from small Belarussian community in my town are already fighting in Kalinousky regiment, one already dead (23-years, student of philosophy). Students form my university even made several money-gathering actions to equip their collegues with top-end stuff before they go; reportedly, Ukrainians made big eyes when saw one of those guys in his vest, with kolimator and what not they bring.

    So yes, protests were supressed in the end by various means, but was formative period for thousands younger ones. Ofc. let's not fool ourselves, this may be not enough against entire state apparatus with its propaganda and passive majority of apolitical homini sovieticii and their philosophy of "nachuism", especially in current moods of geopolitical danger...but meeting some of these folks, I have silent hopes it may not be the end.

Perhaps they will end like those Iranian Shah-supporters or Chechen opposition abroad, nurturing their lost hopes for entire lives spend in some thematic cafees. But it seems a lot of them are young enough to not give up, and especially this small military force in Ukraine is something to look for for the future. Who knows, sometimes history can get very unpredictable, and fate of this country is very closelt connected with Ukraine.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Beleg85

[dan/california]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-means-war/id1629454648?i=1000612600682

Outstanding podcast about airpower lessons learned in Ukraine, and what Europe needs to do going forward.

 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Looks like it will go to a runoff as both lead candidates have apparently conceded that neither is likely to receive 50% of the vote.

Steve

That result is almost certainly due to manipulation. Here is one CHP heavy district in Istanbul undergoing it's 11th recount with the votes unregistered still. AKP is pulling out all the stops to delay results. 

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Eddy said:

I worked with a Belarusian team for a couple of years and this was not the impression I got. Tbf most of them were in their late 20s or early 30s and from Minsk but they were very anti-Russian and also quite bitter that the West would help Ukraine but not them. This was back in 2017-19 or so. 

Oh, for sure I think the youth are clued in.  But how about the older generations?  In Ukraine it took two Russian invasions before the bulk of the population understood their true relationship with Russia is.  For many the first war was confusing and foggy, but the second one clear as day.

But as Beleg85 said, the protests of 2020 were an incredible surprise to just about everybody.  As it was happening I was reminded of the earlier uprisings in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland prior to the wall coming down.  Everybody, including the people within those countries, underestimated how aware the people were that they were being screwed over.

54 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

When comes to those active and abroad- 2020 protests bring massive change. The scale and sheer length of resistance (and subsequent repressions) was quite unexpected even to those few already western-minded. Hell, I cannot count number of times I heard before from political activists "we are meek, unlike Ukrainians, we will never oppose Lukashenka who is btw. maybe not so bad in the end, it's all pointless and could be worse. Yadda yadda".

This is exactly why I think a transition from Luka to ANYBODY hand picked will not go unchallenged  The two questions are how much challenge and will the new government's response led to the end of the regime.  I said 50/50 chance only because I'm being conservative.  I think the chances of a revolution are higher than that and, if it happens, it will be at least initially successful.  Long term?  I'm hopeful because it will be easier to clean up Lukashenko's mess than Putin's.  For starters, Belarus is not going to splinter and Russia won't be able to do a Donbas type "peace keeping" action.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

22 minutes ago, billbindc said:

That result is almost certainly due to manipulation. Here is one CHP heavy district in Istanbul undergoing it's 11th recount with the votes unregistered still. AKP is pulling out all the stops to delay results. 

 

Yeah, I've been wondering about the definitions of "votes counted".  Currently it's at nearly 94%, but if large numbers are stuck in a recount, they're probably in the "votes counted" column but not in the "official results" column.

At the very least it seems Erdogan can't quickly declare victory and squash the recounts.  Seems to me the best he can do is manipulate it into a recount.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of would-be tyrants in the West watching this and trying to learn some tricks to use at home.  Having the ability to challenge the vote counts before they are provisionally tallied is, I must say, very clever.

Steve

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Eddy said:

Tbf most of them were in their late 20s or early 30s and from Minsk but they were very anti-Russian and also quite bitter that the West would help Ukraine but not them. 

And that's the problem with that kind of outlook. Help who exactly? What's the name of at least a single domestic paramilitary organization in Belarus that is willing to take up arms and fight to make Belarus a western country?

The only one that could've been one is only few thousands people and isn't fighting in Belarus because it isn't supported at home. And it does get western help.

What exactly do these people mean by "help"? I mean if, say, UK sends a bunch of NLAWs to Belarus  right this very moment - who is receiving them?

Edited May 14, 2023 by kraze