How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

57 minutes ago, dan/california said:

So will this result in the war being prosecuted with more energy and effectiveness? Or the first negotiating offers that have some vague connection to reality.

 

No, not likely. My position has been that this wasn’t really a coup. It was a renegotiation of the silovik terms of service. Before the blow up Prigozhin was going to be out, the war was going to lurch along and Putin was going to retain the ability to decide who wins, who loses and who to pin the blame for the war on. Prigozhin has his own personal reasons which drove him but his krisha and other factions have different motivations. Those folks want to have a say in where things are going, to end Putin’s monopoly on outcomes and to make sure that if the war is lost the onus remains entirely on him (and Shoigu/Gerasimov/etc). In terms of the war, we can already see that it is hurting it…with the MoD leadership even more distrusted, the commanders in theater ever more unhappy, Wagner out of the fight, etc, etc. 

I think we are still pretty far away from negotiations. Neither side has what it wants, what looks stable and/or what it thinks it might get with a longer war. And whoever makes the first move in effect says that they are in the weaker position. 

So this will go on…in what I’ve taken to calling “Brusilov’s Defensive”…and we’ll see how long it takes for someone else to assemble the men and arms to renegotiate the terms of service irrevocably. 

[Lethaface]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

Oh, cool. The old stabbed-in-the-back/we-wuz-robbed mythology. That always works out well in the end.

Edit: which kind of raises an interesting thought experiment. He Who Shall Not Be Named(tm) arose out of abject anonymity to controlling (albeit briefly) most of Europe barely two decades later. I wonder if there's some corporal currently dodging cluster munitions in Luhansk that could be running Russia by the end of the decade.

Nice semi-double entendre

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

So the commander of the 58th CAA wishes he had joined Prigozhin's march on Moscow, and the assistant commander is spread all over what use to be a very nice Black Sea Hotel in pieces parts. Unless the fix is already in I am guessing Ukraine is about to push a little bit. 

By the fix I mean the surrender or withdrawal of the entire 58th CAA...

It is well worth listening to entire clip of his resignation. Popov gives off strong 1917 Czarist army vibes: 

 

[Kinophile]

Interesting thread on Ukrainian experience training with US Rangers in Germany. 

Really sounds like Drone Warfare hasn't landed within the US army culture yet.  Not surprisingly,  as the guy notes -  US hasn't fought a peer level war in decades,  so the pressure isnt there. 

@Haiduk what is Nettle? 

[chris talpas]

Pretty good video on logistic chokepoints in Russia occupied southern Ukraine 

 

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Lethaface said:

PS Maybe we in the West sometimes communicate to ourselves (and or others) that we have more to do with with the plot of 'as the world turns' than we actually do have influence on it.

Oh I think there are several dozen trillion reasons why this war is about the West:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/

I do not believe for an instant that the West was outside the Russian calculus for this war.  Russia did not need Ukraine to survive - politically or economically.  Putin’s regime has been shown to be robust so I doubt it was teetering in Feb 22.  So why then did Russia decide to invade Ukraine in the first place?  A whim?  There were definitely internal reasons but it would be very shortsighted not to see this entire war as a statement against Western world order - hell, Putin said so last Sep…it is not like it is a secret.

This is not about being all about the West, it is about great power competition.  Again if Ukraine were Uzbekistan we would not even be having this conversation.  And frankly before this war most people in the West could not find Ukraine on a map, let alone really care deeply about Ukrainian independence or democracy - we do not fight wars because they are righteous, we fight them because they are in our interests. And right now Ukrainians are fighting and dying for Western interests.  The second that our interest divide western support will dry up overnight.  

And frankly none of this is the failure point.  The failure will be losing interest after the war is over: “oh the NGOs are handling it”.  We can dump boatloads of weapons onto Ukraine but it won’t mean a thing if they do not have an economy after this is over.

Edited July 13, 2023 by The_Capt

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, JonS said:

Oh, cool. The old stabbed-in-the-back/we-wuz-robbed mythology. That always works out well in the end.

Edit: which kind of raises an interesting thought experiment. He Who Shall Not Be Named(tm) arose out of abject anonymity to controlling (albeit briefly) most of Europe barely two decades later. I wonder if there's some corporal currently dodging cluster munitions in Luhansk that could be running Russia by the end of the decade.

 

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

It is well worth listening to entire clip of his resignation. Popov gives off strong 1917 Czarist army vibes: 

 

 

Prig offered more war, done better, at least publicly. General Popov seems to losing his stomach for the whole thing, at very least hope for successful conclusion. I am still waiting for the Coup leader that offers "peace, land, and bread". That guy might start an avalanche that carries all the way to Kremlin.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

BLUF: Prigozhin won.

 

So I made up the whole love story thing but it is starting to make more and more sense.  I mean what the hell else does Prig have on Putin?  The guy blew aircraft out of the air and marched on Moscow.  Who is on whose leash?!  That or maybe Prig has a sudden heart attack soon but he would have to be phenomenally dumb not to see it coming.  Seriously who is running Russia right now?

[cesmonkey]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

Interesting thread on Ukrainian experience training with US Rangers in Germany. 

Really sounds like Drone Warfare hasn't landed within the US army culture yet.  Not surprisingly,  as the guy notes -  US hasn't fought a peer level war in decades,  so the pressure isnt there. 

@Haiduk what is Nettle? 

Interesting ... but definitely bring a thread reader to read this. So many very short posts in this thread.

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

 

 

Prig offered more war, done better, at least publicly. General Popov seems to losing his stomach for the whole thing, at very least hope for successful conclusion. I am still waiting for the Coup leader that offers "peace, land, and bread". That guy might start an avalanche that carries all the way to Kremlin.

The Russian people have land, bread and peace tho. There isn't empty shelves in supermarkets, there isn't mass mobilization, just a slow crawl, and Ukraine isn't destroying homes, or threatening invasion. The Russian people are largely not effected by the war so far. Not enough to revolt. The apathetic reaction to Prig shows that. Sure, no full blood defense of Putin but apathy is still quite good for Putin.

Hell, I think I argued that if Ukraine won the war completely enough to gain all territory, I think the people of Russia might just shrug at it. Certainly no lack of shrugging at thousands of deaths so far. The apathy given to the coup, anti or pro just reinforces my point I think the Russian people might accept the loss of the Donbas and Crimea if it occurs. I mean what changes if the Donbas is lost or Crimea materially? Not much.

Emotionally, just blaming NATO I think would be enough to get people to not be mad.

[sburke]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/russias-economy-dealt-crushing-blow-000937531.html

Russia's current-account balance has collapsed, in another blow to the floundering economy.

The nation's surplus tanked 93% to $5.4 billion last quarter from a year earlier, Bank of Russia data show.

That comes as Western sanctions squeeze Russia's energy exports.

Russia's economic woes are worsening, with the latest blow coming in the form of a collapse in its current account.

The nation posted a current-account surplus of $5.4 billion for the April-June quarter, which marks a 93% plunge from a record $76.7 billion in the same period of 2022, Russia's central bank data show. That's also the smallest excess since the third quarter of 2020.

The worsening trade dynamics are also reflected in the plunging fortunes of the ruble. The Russian currency tumbled to a 15-month low of around 94.48 per dollar earlier in July, hit hard by the country's weakening terms of trade.

"The decline in the surplus of the balance of the external trade in goods in January – June 2023 compared to the comparable period of 2022 was caused by a decrease in both the physical volumes of export deliveries and the deterioration in the price situation for the basic Russian export commodities, energy commodities made the most significant contribution to the decline in the value of exports," the Bank of Russia said.

Moscow's key source of revenue is through sales of its oil and gas products, but price caps and bans imposed on Russia's energy exports by a pool of nations following its unprecedented attack on Ukraine, have meant its commodities business has taken a huge hit.

In June, Russia's Finance Ministry revealed that revenue from oil and gas taxes fell 36% compared to a year ago to about 570.7 billion rubles, while profits from crude and petroleum products tumbled 31% to 425.7 billion rubles.

 

 

[paxromana]

40 minutes ago, sburke said:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/russias-economy-dealt-crushing-blow-000937531.html

Russia's current-account balance has collapsed, in another blow to the floundering economy.

The nation's surplus tanked 93% to $5.4 billion last quarter from a year earlier, Bank of Russia data show.

Sure. That's what official sources say ... and Russians never ever lie ... so what is the real situation?

Gotta be a lot worse.

[Taranis]

 

[Grossman]

President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the US was considering sending long-range missiles to Ukraine after France and the UK sent similar systems, a potentially significant shift as Washington alters its risk calculus in Ukraine as the war drags on. 

Kyiv has long sought the weapons to better penetrate Russian defences, but Washington has held off out of fears of Russian escalation. France announced this week it would send such weapons and the UK has already sent its Storm Shadow missiles. 

“They already have the equivalent of ATACMS now. What we need most of all is artillery shells,” Biden said, using the name for the American long-range missiles as he boarded a plane from Vilnius, where he was attending a Nato summit, for Helsinki  Source FT London

[DesertFox]

 

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1679390504331485185?s=20

[TheVulture]

from telegram, Wagner convoy supposedly moving along the M4 north from Rostov-on-Don, presumed heading towards Belarus.

Quote

 

PMC "Wagner" seems to have begun redeployment from field camps. A long convoy without heavy equipment is moving along the M4 highway towards Moscow, accompanied by police. According to subscribers, there are buses with Belarusian numbers in the convoy, which may indirectly indicate the destination.

 

https://t.me/navideovidno/63881

[Holien]

16 hours ago, womble said:

Word. It'd be nice if Starmer would keep him as Defence, when the Tories cave at the next election (to leave Labour or a Coalition holding the nasty, badly-cared-for crack baby that the economy will be by then) but that simply isn't going to happen.  

Stupid party politics.

 

If Labour offered him the position do you really think he would take it? Really

BTW he has said some pretty silly things in the past and one man doesn't make defence decisions alone. I have a feeling the British senior military figures might have greater sway than Ben.

[FancyCat]

Disgusting, absolutely appalling. Civilians used as forced labor in active war zones, used as human shields, touture, executions, it's just insane, and it's policy, as Putin has signed laws expanding detention centers in both Ukraine and Russia and the ability to deport people from Ukraine into Russia.

Quote

An @AP investigation inside Russia's vast detention system for Ukrainian civilians revealed routine torture, slave labor and mysterious transfers between prisons. The stories of those who have made it out are horrific and remarkably similar.

https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-prisons-civilians-torture-detainees-88b4abf2efbf383272eed9378be13c72

 

[cesmonkey]

 

[billbindc]

12 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So I made up the whole love story thing but it is starting to make more and more sense.  I mean what the hell else does Prig have on Putin?  The guy blew aircraft out of the air and marched on Moscow.  Who is on whose leash?!  That or maybe Prig has a sudden heart attack soon but he would have to be phenomenally dumb not to see it coming.  Seriously who is running Russia right now?

I think blackmail in this context would have weak traction and I think the answers are both simpler and more complex than that. Putin still controls most messaging in Russia and can deal with mundane corruption claims. What Prigozhin has simply is the support of enough of the power structure in Russia that Putin is forced to deal with him. But it's complicated because that backing is often tacit or simply about holding back support for Putin if push comes to shove. What Putin learned, probably to his great surprise, is that a large portion of his regime is indifferent or hostile to him and needs only coalesce around a sufficiently effective locus of force to overthrow him. So at this point, everyone is trying to find out where the balance is...and if it can be tipped over.

[Bearstronaut]

14 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Interesting thread on Ukrainian experience training with US Rangers in Germany. 

Really sounds like Drone Warfare hasn't landed within the US army culture yet.  Not surprisingly,  as the guy notes -  US hasn't fought a peer level war in decades,  so the pressure isnt there. 

@Haiduk what is Nettle? 

Pretty enlightening thread. I share the Ranger trainers shock that these Ukrainian soldiers don't use maps and roll around using cellphones and Chinese-made tablets. If they are able to do so then perhaps Russian EW isn't as good as expected. Still, they should be able to navigate using a map so they can get around when their high tech GNSS gear is jammed. Looks like that training was useful at least. 

Also, I got a pretty big laugh at this guy complaining about showing up at 0600 for a 0900 range time. Classic US Army right there.

[sburke]

Kadyrov’s unit base in Mariupol reportedly hit; casualties removed secretly (yahoo.com)

[sburke]

Panicked Russians withdrew 100 billion rubles from banks during the Wagner revolt, central bank says (yahoo.com)

[kevinkin]

ISW July 12:

The aim of preventing NATO expansion and, indeed, rolling back earlier rounds of NATO expansion and pushing NATO back from Russia’s borders was one of the Kremlin’s stated demands before the invasion. The Kremlin has repeated this aim continually throughout the war. The lack of general outcry within the Russian information space regarding developments at the NATO summit, as well as Finland’s NATO accession and Turkey’s agreement to forward Sweden’s accession protocol, likely indicates that the Kremlin has internalized these defeats and desires to avoid dwelling on them. Many Russian gains sources are reporting on the NATO summit in a dispassionate and muted manner that is not commensurate with the wider defeat that the summit actually represents for Russia’s pre-war aims.

On the flip side, this represents a wider victory for NATO in geostrategic terms. Of course at a horrible cost. Does anyone think the west will rest on its laurels believing the tactical and operational situation on the ground is just fine to hold on to  those geostrategic gains?  Meaning the status quo is OK with western political and business leadership while they coax the war toward rounds of negotiations. Negotiations at first for public consumption only. 

[womble]

4 hours ago, Holien said:

If Labour offered him the position do you really think he would take it? Really

Well, he might if his own party don't manage to find him a new seat* (his will not be re-elected, due to vanishing in recent constituency boundary changes)... But seriously, no, I have no expectation, or even hope, of the offer (even if everyone in the world agreed he'd be the bestestest Minister).

* So Labour could offer him a Peerage and Lords are allowed to hold Cabinet posts, I believe.

4 hours ago, Holien said:

BTW he has said some pretty silly things in the past

No response because British Domestic Politics is off-topic, and this is going on too long.