Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[Riggo-toni]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-parliamentary-republic-russia-ukraine/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3811d1b%2F63370dcff3d9003c58fc9069%2F5972cc04ae7e8a1cf4afaedb%2F17%2F72%2F63370dcff3d9003c58fc9069&wp_cu=ef42c6fe7b4a99163a7adc78f7019819|3AC1FD6768D66469E0530100007FDC0A

 

Opinion 

 Alexei Navalny: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like 

 

 

There are several important things happening to Russia that need to be understood:

First, jealousy of Ukraine and its possible successes is an innate feature of post-Soviet power in Russia; it was also characteristic of the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. But since the beginning of Putin’s rule, and especially after the Orange Revolution that began in 2004, hatred of Ukraine’s European choice, and the desire to turn it into a failed state, have become a lasting obsession not only for Putin but also for all politicians of his generation.

 

Control over Ukraine is the most important article of faith for all Russians with imperial views, from officials to ordinary people. In their opinion, Russia combined with a subordinate Ukraine amounts to a “reborn U.S.S.R. and empire.” Without Ukraine, in this view, Russia is just a country with no chance of world domination. Everything that Ukraine acquires is something taken away from Russia.

Second, the view of war not as a catastrophe but as an amazing means of solving all problems is not just a philosophy of Putin’s top brass, but a practice confirmed by life and evolution. Since the Second Chechen War, which made the little-known Putin the country’s most popular politician, through the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas and the war in Syria, the Russian elite over the past 23 years has learned rules that have never failed: War is not that expensive, it solves all domestic political problems, it raises public approval sky-high, it does not particularly harm the economy, and — most importantly — winners face no accountability. Sooner or later, one of the constantly changing Western leaders will come to us to negotiate. It does not matter what motives will lead him — the will of the voters or the desire to receive the Nobel Peace Prize — but if you show proper persistence and determination, the West will come to make peace.

 

More at link.

[Wildbunny]

2 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I don’t think Turkey is gonna play ball. In 10 years maybe. But he is applying to get it done on an accelerated basis. Zero chance of that.

It depends.

Depends on if Erdogan is reelected or not next year. If not, that could be a huge deal in this direction.

If he is, it merely depends on what he'll be able to gain in such a move.

 

Never bet on a sure thing from Turkey nowadays.

[China]

Nuclear Experts On Chances Of Russia Using Atomic Weapons In Ukraine

 

he specter of nuclear war has loomed larger over the conflict in Ukraine in recent days. Russia's recent announcement of a partial mobilization was paired with direct nuclear threats from President Vladimir Putin and Deputy Chairman of the country's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev. Now combined with continued losses on the battlefield and the sudden illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories in the country's east and south, there appears to be a change in messaging and level of concern from the U.S. government and its NATO allies.

 

The possibility of Russia releasing the nuclear genie from its bottle after nearly 80 years is clearly being taken more seriously as is the potential for rapid escalation that could come as a result. And the stakes could not be any higher. A nuclear exchange is mankind's problem, not just one of nations, and even a very limited use of a tactical nuclear weapon would change the course of human history. We wrote a recent primer on this rapidly developing issue that you can read here for full background.

 

So, what are the chances that Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine?

 

To bring clarity to this extremely challenging and pressing question, The War Zone reached out to the smartest people we know that live and breathe the nuclear weapons issue on a daily basis for their unfiltered opinion. Our participating subject matter experts are:

 

Hans Kristensen — Director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists. Writes the bi-monthly Nuclear Notebook and the world nuclear forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook.

 

Ankit Panda — Expert on nuclear policy, Asia, missiles, & space. Stanton Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Author of ‘Kim Jong Un and the Bomb.’

 

Stephen Schwartz — Nonresident Senior Fellow at Bulletin Of Atomic Atomic Scientists, Fellow at N Square Collaborative, Editor/Co-author 'Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940'.

 

Michael Kofman — Director, Russia Studies at CNA. Senior Adjunct Fellow, CNAS.

 

We sent this impressive group the same questions independently so that their responses could be as direct and unfiltered as possible. Here they are in full.

 

Click on the link for the questions and responses

[FootballZombie]

7 hours ago, Wildbunny said:

I'm not so sure anymore.

 

Out of a vaccuum, I would say this won't happen.

But NATO countries have invested so much in Ukraine, and results are beginning to show on the battlefield that I could see NATO welcoming such ally.

 

It probably won't happen in the upcoming year or two. But in 10 years? most definately yeah.

 

NATO wont take in a country involved in an active engagement (cuz then all of NATO is instantly sucked into war) but I think your spot on with the down the line prediction.

 

Once the conflict is over, there are serious advantages to adding another NATO member, especially one that has already received billions in NATO aid and shares a boarder with Russia.

Many members will want that, and just like the current new join-ees there are ways for the main powers to get what they want.

 

Putin has already seen this blown up in this face. A NATO-Ukraine would be the biggest backfire of them all.

[Gurgeh]

17 hours ago, China said:

Putin Suffers Most Humiliating Ukraine Defeat Yet

 

Moscow planned to celebrated the annexation of huge swathes of Eastern Ukraine Friday but Putin’s party was wrecked by a lightning counter-attack that may have trapped thousands of his men in a key city supposedly now part of Russia.

 

Ukrainian sources claimed that the strategic city of Lyman, which has served as a Russian military hub in Donetsk, has been encircled and supply lines cut. “Lyman! The operation to encircle the Russian group is at the stage of completion,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko on Friday, although that claim could not be independently verified.

 

Pro-Kremlin forces have conceded that the Ukrainians have made major gains in the region and are close to cutting off the Russian staging post in northern Donetsk, which has been under Russian control since July.

 

...

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Reports this morning that Ukrainian forces are raiding as far east as Kreminna, which lies on the last road out of Lyman but is closer to the next line of Russian defense (around Lysychansk) than it is to Lyman. It looks like they've trapped anywhere between two and five thousand men, mainly because Putin refused to let them retreat after the embarrassment of Kharkiv.

 

[Switchgear]

Fog of war today, different reports of amounts of Russian troops, who controls what. But big picture, Ukraine seems to have taken Lyman, and the Russian army is fleeing/dying. I think we'll see another big surge in the Northeast of Ukraine, Russians are getting pushed out.

 

 

 

If they lost 3k troops in a day.... wow

 

[gbear]

So when Putin rambles on about the evil west with its teaching to children about sex beyond that with which we are born, who do you think his audience  is? Reading about some of his speech, I wonder if it isn't a call for support from the right wing in our country and Europe. Otherwise, it seems to come out if the blue.

[Switchgear]

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Switchgear

[China]

 

[PokerPacker]

1 hour ago, China said:

 

We were not vandalized.  We just thought it was time for a new look.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

That sure is Moscow red tho

[gbear]

They should have used Ukraine's colors.

[Switchgear]

On a more serious note:

 

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/how-the-war-in-ukraine-might-end

 

Quote

Goemans, who now teaches political science at the University of Rochester, wrote his dissertation on war-termination theory—that is, the study of how wars end. A great deal of work, Goemans learned, had been done on how wars start, but very little on how they might conclude. There were, perhaps, historical reasons for this oversight: the nuclear armament of the United States and the Soviet Union meant that a war between them could end human civilization; not just some dying, but the death of everything. The study of war during the Cold War thus gave rise to a rich vocabulary about deterrence: direct deterrence, extended deterrence, deterrence by punishment, deterrence by denial. But the Cold War ended, and wars kept happening. Goemans saw an opportunity for an intellectual intervention.

 

Quote

The other factor that had been ignored in the literature, according to Goemans, was domestic politics. States were considered unitary actors with set interests, but this left out the internal pressures placed on the government of a modern nation-state. Goemans created a data set of every leader of every war-fighting country between 1816 and 1995, and coded each according to a tripartite system. Some leaders were democrats; some were dictators; and some were in between. According to Goemans, democrats tended to respond to the information delivered by the war and act accordingly; at the very worst, if they lost the war but their country still existed, they would get turned out of office and go on a book tour. Dictators, because they had total control of their domestic audience, could also end wars when they needed to. After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was such a leader; he simply killed anyone who criticized him. The trouble, Goemans found, lay with the leaders who were neither democrats nor dictators: because they were repressive, they often met with bad ends, but because they were not repressive enough, they had to think about public opinion and whether it was turning on them. These leaders, Goemans found, would be tempted to “gamble for resurrection,” to continue prosecuting the war, often at greater and greater intensity, because anything short of victory could mean their own exile or death.

 

Quote

In a terrifying blog post, Goemans’s former student Branislav Slantchev laid out a few potential scenarios. He believes that the Russian front in the Donbas is still in danger of imminent collapse. If this were to happen, Putin would need to escalate even further. This could take the form of more attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, but, if the goal is to stop Ukrainian advances, a likelier option would be a small tactical nuclear strike. Slantchev suggests that it would be under one kiloton—that is, about fifteen times smaller than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It would nonetheless be devastating, and would almost certainly lead to an intense reaction from the West. Slantchev does not think that NATO would respond with nuclear strikes of its own, but it could, for example, destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This could lead to yet another round of escalation. In such a situation, the West may be tempted, finally, to retreat. Slantchev urged them not to. “This is it now,” he wrote. “This is for all the marbles.”

 

Quote

Goemans was feeling more worried. Once again, his thoughts took him to the First World War. In 1917, Germany, faced with no hope of victory, decided to gamble for resurrection. It unleashed its secret weapon, the U-boat, to conduct unlimited operations on the high seas. The risk of the strategy was that it would bring the United States into the war; the hope was that it would choke off Great Britain and lead to victory. This was a “high variance” strategy, in Goemans’s words, meaning that it could lead to a great reward or a great calamity. In the event, it did lead to the U.S. entering the war, and the defeat of Germany, and the Kaiser’s removal from power.

In this situation, the secret weapon is nuclear. And its use carries with it the risk, again, of even greater involvement in the war by the U.S. But it could also, at least temporarily, halt the advance of the Ukrainian Army. If used effectively, it could even bring about a victory. “People get very excited about the front collapsing,” Goemans said. “But for me it’s, like, ‘Ah-h-h!’ ” At that point, Putin would really be trapped.

For the moment, Goemans still believes that the nuclear option is unlikely. And he believes that Ukraine will win the war. But that will also take a long time, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

[DogofWar1]

 

[Switchgear]

Ukraine not resting on the last victory. On to the next city

 

 

Edit: Progress near Kherson, maybe:

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Switchgear

[China]

 

[China]

Russian executive’s body found on his balcony in latest ‘suspicious’ death

 

Yet another former ally of Vladimir Putin has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.

 

Pavel Pchelnikov, 52, was the director of communications at Digital Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian Railways which was hacked by Ukrainians earlier this year.

 

Initial reports suggest he was killed by a gunshot wound after he was found dead on the balcony of his Moscow apartment at around 6:30am on Wednesday.

 

Authorities have labelled his death a suicide and refused to say anything further.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TheGreatBuzz]

How much longer before this is such an embarrassment that some in Putin's inner circle caps him and apologizes for the invasion then promises to be better?

[CousinsCowgirl84]

41 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

How much longer before this is such an embarrassment that some in Putin's inner circle caps him and apologizes for the invasion then promises to be better?

What you mean is how long until Putin accidentally falls from his president balcony?

[Wildbunny]

21 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

What you mean is how long until Putin accidentally falls from his president balcony?

Kinda what I'm expecting.

Putin will suicide himself by jumping threw the window after eating some novitchock stuff and shoot himself in the head twice.

[Gurgeh]

2 hours ago, China said:

Russian executive’s body found on his balcony in latest ‘suspicious’ death

 

Yet another former ally of Vladimir Putin has been found dead in mysterious circumstances.

 

Pavel Pchelnikov, 52, was the director of communications at Digital Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian Railways which was hacked by Ukrainians earlier this year.

 

Initial reports suggest he was killed by a gunshot wound after he was found dead on the balcony of his Moscow apartment at around 6:30am on Wednesday.

 

Authorities have labelled his death a suicide and refused to say anything further.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Perhaps he shot himself while jumping from his balcony in a double suicide.

[DCSaints_fan]

I still say he's way too protected and paranoid for anyone to take him out.

 

Sadly the more likely trajectory is Russia devolving into North Korea 2, with a ceasefire along the Russia/Ukraine border assuming Ukraine is able to drive them out.  They may not even do that and just keep trying to fight with repeated (hopefully failed) invasions for years hoping to outlast Ukraine somehow.  Possible because Russian territory isn't going to be occupied anytime soon, so the only way Ukraine can end the war is if the Russian government agrees to (whatever government that might be, i.e. almost certainly not the Putin regime)

Also not sure how difficult retaking Crimea would be given the land frontage is extremely narrow and Ukraine doesn't have amphibious capability that I know of, nor the total control of air/sea that would be need in order to successfully flank that narrow isthmus.  It appears Russia is still capable of defending limited regions, its just that they are spread extremely thin and the Ukrainians have been really good at picking the weak points as of late.

 

Of course, even if no one takes him out, Putin won't live forever, and he is 70  But we don't know if his natural lifespan is going to be for two more years or twenty years.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, DCSaints_fan said:

I still say he's way too protected and paranoid for anyone to take him out.

 

Sadly the more likely trajectory is Russia devolving into North Korea 2, with a ceasefire along the Russia/Ukraine border assuming Ukraine is able to drive them out.  They may not even do that and just keep trying to fight with repeated (hopefully failed) invasions for years hoping to outlast Ukraine somehow.  Possible because Russian territory isn't going to be occupied anytime soon, so the only way Ukraine can end the war is if the Russian government agrees to (whatever government that might be, i.e. almost certainly not the Putin regime)

Also not sure how difficult retaking Crimea would be given the land frontage is extremely narrow and Ukraine doesn't have amphibious capability that I know of, nor the total control of air/sea that would be need in order to successfully flank that narrow isthmus.  It appears Russia is still capable of defending limited regions, its just that they are spread extremely thin and the Ukrainians have been really good at picking the weak points as of late.

 

Of course, even if no one takes him out, Putin won't live forever, and he is 70  But we don't know if his natural lifespan is going to be for two more years or twenty years.

Even if Putin dies who replaced him could  be worse…

[Wildbunny]

7 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:

I still say he's way too protected and paranoid for anyone to take him out.

Yes and no to be honest.

 

In these case, what is most likely to happen, if someone wants to take him out, he's gonna be taken out by his own "friends" and protection.

As devoted to him as they are, not everyone of them is stupid and some will do what they believe they have to to protect themselves and Russia.

 

With all the nukes ongoing right now, it's a real possibility Putin orders it. Will it be matched with acts considering the reaction Russia might face? It's not so sure many under his orders are willing to faces them. Especially considering the way war is going right now.

[DogofWar1]

13 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Even if Putin dies who replaced him could  be worse…

I was concerned about this pre-Aprilish.

 

But I'm far less concerned now.  (Unless it's like ****ing Kadyrov, but I'm pretty sure they Russian elites would off him if he ever sniffed within 5 steps of the throne).

 

They don't have a conventional army of any note any more, and are gonna be facing economic ruin.  The country, despite the polls, is really not thrilled with the war and mobilization.  The single most popular thing a successor could do would be to undo the mobilization and pull back.  Now Putin is "trying" to lock things in with the annexation but even Russia doesn't know what they annexed.

 

Now the Duma might specify things more when they formalize things but if they're ambiguous a new leader could keep like, 1 sq meter of territory and be like "it's within the letter of the law."

 

On the flip side one of the least popular things someone could do would be to ramp things up to a full general mobilization.  Not to mention they can't even train/equip the people they've partially mobilized, let alone millions more.

 

So they don't really have an army to threaten people with any more and even if you froze the conflict you can't make another one with the sanctions in place choking you of parts.

 

If you want to rebuild your army you need to make nice with the west.  And then spend a decade building up again.

 

And by then, Russia's demographics will have further collapsed making war even less feasible.

 

The only way someone could be "worse" than Putin would be to start dropping nukes early and often, but again, aside from Kadyrov and a couple nutjobs, I don't see anyone in the line of succession for whom that seems like a winning plan (even a guy like Patrushev).

 

* side note, the above tweet seems to be the latest pressure release valve the Kremlin is turning.  "Yes we annexed these territories BUT exactly how much land is subject to *insert bs excuse here*" which means they can basically play footsie on the exact lines however long they want to.  Doesn't mean they won't escalate, but does give them an out to lose territory and say "well it wasn't RUSSIAN territory we lost, so who cares."