Ukraine war continuing into 2023
January 21, 2023 12:01 AM   Subscribe

The war has been going on for close to 11 months, and yesterday another donor conference in Ramstein was concluded. There has been significant support pledged the week leading up to the conference, but the thing on most observer's minds have been the German government's unwillingness to greenlight Leopard 2 tank donations or sales. No resolution was reached during the conference, but Germany stated that they ware looking into what stocks were available in-country, while stating that anyone is free to provide Leopard 2 training to Ukrainian crews. Providing fighter jets have seemed like a lost cause, but the Netherlands said that they were open to providing Ukraine with F-16s, re-igniting hope.

Highlights of the support pledged includes Estonia crossing the threshold of 1% of GNP provided in support, the US providing 109 Bradley IFVs and 90 Stryker wheeled APC among other things, Sweden donating 50 CV9040 IFVs and their ultra-modern Archer artillery system, Denmark sending their entire stock of field artillery, comprising 19 brand new CAESAR howitzers, the UK sending a dozen or so of their Challenger 2 tanks as well as AS-90 self-propelled howitzers.

In the meantime, Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets have been attacked weekly by Russian missiles, with a notable two week gap around Orthodox Christmas. In a recent development, Russia has stationed air defence assets on top of buildings in Moscow , among them the Russian Ministry of Defence. This is after Ukraine reported that they were near completion of their 1000 km range strike drone project.

Former Australian Army general Mick Ryan weighs in on the whole tank debate.

It has also recently come to light that Bulgaria, one of the poorest EU members and long perceived as pro-Moscow, secretly supplied Ukraine fuel and ammunition in the crucial early months of the war.

Two recent developments on the more judicial side of the conflict is that the US will designate the Wagner mercenary group as a "transnational criminal organization", and the EU assembly has passed a resolution 472-19 calling on the member states to back the creation of a special court to judge any war crime of aggression by Russia in Ukraine.

Actual developments on the fronts have been few lately, and on the scale of only city districts and villages trading hands.

The winter weather is not on the invader's side, with surprisingly mild weather in Europe, reducing the need for Russian gas, and cold weather inside Russia. However, civilians in Ukraine are suffering and Support Ukraine Now has ways for you to help.

As always, if you would like to discuss nuclear escalation, this is not the thread for that, and you are free to make your own FPP.
posted by Harald74 (302 comments total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
I know that there is a lot of civil society aid going towards Ukraine as well, such as the EU Generators of Hope program, French and Norwegian emergency bridges being installed, emergency vehicles and rescue equipment being sent and spare parts for the energy infrastructure, so if anyone has an overview of that please share.
posted by Harald74 at 12:09 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


October 7, UK Ministry of Defence:

Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian Main Battle Tanks and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion. Over half of Ukraine's currently fielded tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles.

It's pretty embarrassing when Putin is donating more tanks to Ukraine than we are.
posted by adept256 at 1:55 AM on January 21, 2023 [32 favorites]


Today are the funerals of victims of the helicopter crash in Brovary on Wednesday - both government officials (including the top three at the Ministry of Interior Affairs) and teachers and children at the kindergarten they crashed into. Investigation is ongoing, though heavy fog on that day brings to mind the 2010 Smolensk catastrophe due to pressure for keeping to schedule over safety.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:17 AM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


I don’t think there is a reasonable argument for denying tanks to the Ukrainian military. I think there is a reasonable argument that the Abrams isn’t the best choice, especially considering the wide availability of the Leopard across Europe. Instead, the US should be leading on other systems. Like maybe getting more HI-MARS into Ukrainian hands and giving them longer range rockets.

One thing I think we have learned is last-generation Western military tech is more than a match for the current Russian army. We do not need to send bleeding-edge technology. Russia simply isn’t capable of fielding and maintaining their army at the same level. There was concern at first that anything we sent would end up in Russian hands but those days and arguments are obsolete — the Ukrainians have proven themselves capable and deserve our full support.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:45 AM on January 21, 2023 [20 favorites]


The current wish list seems to have long range missiles for the M270 & HIMARS on top of the list, with tanks at #2. The Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) or ATACMS would be most welcome, it seems. We'll probably not be told about it until things go boom in the night.
posted by Harald74 at 4:51 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


There is definitely no justification for European Nato countries not contributing Leopards to Ukraine but I think the US justification for not contributing Abrams is some garbage as well. The "our tanks are too sophisticated for Ukrainians" requires one to believe that US military has prepped for a world war by equipping itself with tanks that require an absurd amount of lead time before deployment. If it takes a year of training then the Abrams will quickly be useless in a serious war. Supply chain arguments are also weird. The Ukrainian army's built its mechanized force from museum pieces and battlefield scraps. I wouldn't be surprised if their mechanics could make the Buran flightworthy at this point.

Biden needs to call Germany's bluff even it is just sending a small symbolic initial tranche of 10-15 Abrams, even if they will be slow to deploy or of little use, in order to unlock NATOs ability to supply Leopards. In effect the target of those Abrams would actually be Europe's reluctance to lead on this rather than Russia forces and it would still be worth it.
posted by srboisvert at 5:00 AM on January 21, 2023 [9 favorites]


The German reluctance to send the Leopards is... something I have yet to find/see a rational explanation for. There's a bit of an undertone of trepidation about pissing off Russia, but I have a hard time believing that's still operational as an issue.

If anyone has read anything that comes close to making sense, I'm all ears.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:12 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


Regarding the Abrams, I've learnt that the Australian army operates their fleet with diesel. Wikipedia:

The tank was built around this engine[112] and it is multifuel–capable, including diesel, gasoline, marine diesel and jet fuel[113] (such as JP-4 or JP-8). By 1989, the Army was transitioning solely to JP-8 for the M1 Abrams.[114] For logistical simplicity, JP-8 is the U.S. military's universal fuel powering both aircraft and vehicle fleets. The Australian M1A1 AIM SA burns diesel fuel, since the use of JP-8 is less common in the Australian Army.

So the engine was designed to use diesel. I was told that it used a helicopter engine that drank jet fuel. There is a big difference between driving up with a truck with some jerry cans and pouring diesel in, and getting an avgas tanker to wherever your tank is.

I will cite General Mark Ryan linked in the FPP here:

I have personal experience with this. I commanded an army combat brigade with M1 tanks in northern Australia. It is a very difficult physical environment (isolated, hot, rainy) with a small logistic capacity. But, if the Australian Army with its very light integral logistic footprint (and lack of tank strategic sustainment for the first decade in service) can run an M1 tank fleet in these circumstances, the Ukrainians definitely can!

I feel like there is a weird mix of elitism, infantalism and cowardice at play here.

You know what the Abrams was designed for? Fighting the Soviet Union. It began service in 1980.

Where was it going to fight the Soviet Union? Eastern Europe.

Where is the conflict now and what kind of force are they facing?
posted by adept256 at 5:14 AM on January 21, 2023 [16 favorites]


The Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) or ATACMS would be most welcome, it seems.

There's a big difference. Wikipedia:

Another system suggested for Ukrainian use is the SAAB-Boeing GLSDB. Each would cost $40,000 USD. [28] The price per unit for ATACMS is estimated to be well over $1M.[29]

Do you want 25 GLSDB or 1 ATACMS?

Trick question! They are both already paid for and sitting in stockpiles doing nothing.
posted by adept256 at 5:20 AM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]


It's worth paying attention to the specific capabilities of the equipment being sent, because it gives a pretty stark picture of what sorts of operations Ukraine and its allies are expecting to happen next.

In particular, the CV90 IFVs being sent by Sweden, which are capable of brutal direct fire against entrenched and/or armoured defensive positions. Most of the IFVs that have been used in this war to date are Soviet BMPs, generally equipped with 30mm autocannons firing conventional ammunition of various types.

The CV90 fires airburst ammunition which is linked to a laser rangefinder and automatically programmed as it leaves the muzzle. It can be fired over the top of a trench and set to airburst directly overhead. It can penetrate through armor and walls and burst on the other side. For an idea of what that sort of programmed airburst capability does to a trench system, watch this demonstration of the Mk44 Bushmaster II. Now bear in mind that's the 30mm version. What Sweden is sending is their own 40mm equivalent. Sweden never exported this, it only exists on their own CV9040s.

This isn't long range stuff. They're going to need successful combined arms operations to get these things right up to the front and then use them to push through. I hope that the Russians have the sense to fall back before that happens. This shit is technically impressive but it would be better if nobody ever had to see the results of using it.
posted by automatronic at 5:24 AM on January 21, 2023 [12 favorites]


The strongest argument for the Leopard over the Abrams is current location. As I understand it, any Abrams currently in Europe are attached to active-duty US forces — not sitting in mothballs. European forces, however, have both active and mothball fleets on hand. I don’t think any country is willing to sacrifice their current capability by donating active-use equipment (nor do I think they should be expected to) but retired/surplus equipment should absolutely be available for the Ukrainians.

Shipping hundreds of tanks across the ocean when a nearly equivalent tank could be sent by rail in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost makes very little sense to me.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:27 AM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


The complexity issues with the Abrams aren't the real problem.

The bigger issue is that the Abrams makes something like 0.3-0.5 mpg, which is about twice the fuel consumption of the Leopard, even when burning its preferred jet fuel; it's probably even less efficient when running on diesel. That's a serious practical consideration. It's normally fielded with the entire logistical infrastructure of the US military behind it, and Ukraine doesn't have anything like the same capabilities right now.

The absolute last thing the US wants to see right now is the Abrams running out of fuel at the front lines as its supply lines are compromised, and ending up in the hands of the Russians.
posted by automatronic at 5:43 AM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


No we are not, ask President Putin to withdraw his troops and we will all happily shut down the Ukraine army.
posted by sammyo at 5:54 AM on January 21, 2023 [17 favorites]


The German reluctance to send the Leopards is... something I have yet to find/see a rational explanation for.
...Germany refused to provide lethal weapons before the invasion started, reflecting a political culture rooted in part in the memory of Germany’s own history of aggression during the 20th century — including the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

“No German chancellor, of no party, wants to be seen out front in pushing a military agenda — you want to try all other options before you resort to that,” Kleine-Brockhoff said. "And therefore for domestic consumption, it is seen as a positive thing for a German chancellor not to lead on this, to be cautious, to be resistant, to have tried all other options.”

...But the cautious approach “drives allies crazy” and raises questions over whether they can count on the Germans, Kleine-Brockhoff acknowledged.

Berlin kept up its caution on the Leopard tank even after Britain announced last week that it would provide Ukraine its own Challenger 2 tanks.

The hesitancy isn’t just an issue between Berlin and Kyiv, since other countries would need Germany’s permission to send their own stocks of German-made Leopards to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Warsaw would consider giving its tanks even without Berlin’s permission.
German caution on Ukraine arms rooted in political culture
posted by y2karl at 5:59 AM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


indica's comment betrays a misunderstanding of the stakes here. There are two places where the fight against fascism is absolutely critical right now: the US and Ukraine. A loss in either place would certainly threaten democracy anywhere else. Putin isn't Hitler, but he is a direct threat to Western democracies, and has been for over fifteen years.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 5:59 AM on January 21, 2023 [29 favorites]


We don't insult each other on metafilter.

Everyone here wants the war to end. We want it to end in the Hague. We want the war crimes to be punished.

What we will never accept is the war ending with genocide. I believe I speak for all of us.

If defending freedom from tyranny does not suit you, I suggest you would not like the alternative.
posted by adept256 at 6:03 AM on January 21, 2023 [32 favorites]


No resolution was reached during the conference, but Germany stated that they ware looking into what stocks were available in-country,

"Looking into?" They don't have those figures right off the bat?
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:38 AM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


I think we insult each other on metafilter quite a bit, it's just bad when when we do it.

In a thread where there's significant discussion about tanks, it seems off to use "tankies" to refer to the people whose opposition to US-led imperialism manifests as support for other powers' imperialism, but I don't know what else to call them. They're full of shit, but there's some kernels of truth in the shit that are worryingly persistent.

One worry I have is that the people getting richest of the fight against tyranny in Ukraine are using that money to support tyranny in their own countries. In the US, the military-industrial complex has been quite supportive of the fascist takeover of the GOP, and I suspect a lot of that money finds its way into supporting both propaganda which feeds our culture war, and into the coffers of the proud boys, oath keepers, etc.

It doesn't mean Ukraine shouldn't get military support, but I'd like to see more discussion on how this can be done while giving less rewards to the worst people on our side (who, of course, are huge crybabies and will whinge and threaten and berate anyone who doesn't give them everything they want).
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:48 AM on January 21, 2023 [13 favorites]


I'm extremely disappointed by Germany's dithering. It's a given they will get to the decision eventually, but for whatever reason they have to drag it out and frankly end up looking weak and ineffective first. I hope Poland goes ahead and gives the tanks without permission, and that other nations follow suit. What is Germany going to do, sue them?

But equally, I want the US to stop dithering on the long range missile requests. Get the Ukrainians missiles that can cover all of Crimea sooner rather than later.

Y'all are well and truly simps for the military industrial complex.

Personally, I want to see the war of aggression stopped and Russian military forces back across their own border. The best pathway to that would of course be if the Russian populace, both living in Russia and those who fled to other countries, were to stand up, say "not in our name," and remove their support from the war -- even a dictator needs the consent of the population generally, along with the specific cooperation of bureaucrats and elites. But that isn't happening, not at all. I can understand and sort of excuse the passiveness of those living in Russia given the level of repression, but the passivity of those who are now living in other countries is disappointing and shameful.

So if Russians won't remove their consent from the war, that leaves supporting the Ukrainians militarily, and that's where I want to see other countries (primarily but not exclusively NATO) step up further. Like everyone keeps observing, one of the surprising things about this conflict has been how much better western surplus and scrapheap supplies have been than the best Russia can field -- if Ukraine started getting actual current, cutting-edge supplies, it would be just that much more lopsided technologically.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:51 AM on January 21, 2023 [12 favorites]


We don't insult each other on metafilter.
But to my mind, although I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor'd in the breach than the observance.

Wm. Shakespeare
Hamlet
posted by y2karl at 6:51 AM on January 21, 2023 [26 favorites]


One wonders tho, could there be an unspoken and certainly unacknowledged goal appreciation of the 'western powers' to allow this to drag on exactly for the long term attrition on both parties?
posted by sammyo at 7:04 AM on January 21, 2023


They're full of shit, but there's some kernels of truth in the shit

I have never hated a cleverer metaphor more.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:11 AM on January 21, 2023 [7 favorites]


Tanks, not thanks
posted by chavenet at 7:14 AM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


More honor'd than the breach than the observance.

"More honor'd in the breach than the observance"

I am politely correcting you, like an asshole.
posted by adept256 at 7:17 AM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]


the Netherlands said that they were open to providing Ukraine with F-16s, re-igniting hope.

This is the most important thing in terms of reframing the entire fight. Although if Gripens aren't going to happen, it should maybe be F-18s instead of F-16s. Twice as much engine maintenance, but a lot more rugged.

I've also been wondering if there should be some effort to get Antonov set up to manufacture whatever aircraft they can out of country. If it had been done immediately, they could be producing planes by now. Cruise missiles and such can be launched from modified transports, and Antonov could manage to license-build light attack planes at least. Especially with participation from Western contractors.

I wonder if Sweden is going to send any of the mortar-carrier versions of the CV90, the 'Mjolnir.' Those seem like they could be very effective in this war.

On the tanks, I'd like to see the Leopards go, and the Abrams if the logistical support can be reasonably provided all the way to the front. Or to protect Kyiv, if the talk of a new offensive there has truth behind it. That's a whole lot closer to repairs and resupply in Poland.

On the other hand, there are around 900 M60-A3s in Turkey and more scattered across Europe. 750HP v12 diesel, 105mm main gun. Tanks in this war aren't generally dueling other tanks. From the link:

Engine of the M60A3 can be replaced in field conditions within 4 hours. Newer M1 and M1A1 tanks were an entirely different matter; halts for maintenance occurred over either 30 miles traveled or 3-5 hours of constant operation, and were each over an hour long. Heat from the M1/M1A1's turbine also required a cooldown period (the operating temperature of an M1's engine compartment is in excess of 926°C) longer than the entire daily maintenance regimen of the M60A3, and even then all personnel handling parts in and from the tank were required to wear special heat-resistant gloves.

Ukraine also has plans on the shelf for putting a T-84 turret on an M-60 chassis, developed for Brazil by Malyshev in 2020 but not selected (as an alternative to the A3 upgrade) so fairly recently there were Ukrainian engineers familiar with it; though Malyshev's facility is/was in Kharkiv so who knows where those people are now.

In a thread where there's significant discussion about tanks, it seems off to use "tankies" to refer to the people whose opposition to US-led imperialism manifests as support for other powers' imperialism, but I don't know what else to call them

It's not off, the synecdoche is there for a reason and it's the same irony. They're mad because the tanks in question would be pointed in the wrong direction. Not because imperialism is happening; as somehow Russia is incapable of imperialism despite that its leaders are literally shouting about the Russian World and their True Religion. Or they should be Tankie-ing in favor of the tanks to be sent against Putin.

The complaints about war-profiteering are tossed off automatically, just like the GOP complaining about the nominal value of the equipment built into the announcement of the size of the aid packages, as if it were all being paid for out of pocket. The reality is that a lot of the stuff that is going that was paid for a long time ago, and the rest of it less long ago, and much of it was already replaced and in storage (at a cost) or being replaced and was going to need to be disposed of, in some cases expensively.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:18 AM on January 21, 2023 [10 favorites]


a lot of the stuff that is going that was paid for a long time ago, and the rest of it less long ago, and much of it was already replaced and in storage (at a cost) or being replaced and was going to need to be disposed of, in some cases expensively.

Yes, but my understanding is that clearing out our old stockpiles of weapons is all the excuse the lobbyists need to get Congress to order new stockpiles of weapons.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:34 AM on January 21, 2023


all the excuse the lobbyists need to get Congress to order new stockpiles of weapons.

You think they need an excuse? This relates to another argument: America is running out of weapons.

hahaha.
posted by adept256 at 7:38 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


More honor'd than the breach than the observance.

"More honor'd in the breach than the observance"
"Huh?"
posted by y2karl at 7:42 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


You have to think about newer military equipment in two different ways. Much like driving a car. It's not that hard to teach someone to use a tank or a howitzer or an anti-air missile. We do that all the time. But on the other side of that, there are ten times at least more people who do the fixing and maintenance on those things and that does take years of training.

The other older tanks that are just big diesel engines... they probably have enough people who can fix them and keep them running. Things like the Abrams and even the F-16s take a lot more well trained and skilled people to keep them flying or driving.

Mobile missile systems... not so much. The instructions for using a shoulder fired anti-tank missile are printed on the side and a smart teenager could fire one.

There has been plenty of time to train and build support for the hardware we've sold to other countries, they weren't in active conflict at the time, or we had mutual defense treaties with them. It's much more complex to figure out what could be sent to a country to help when they are in the midst of an active and ongoing conflict.
posted by zengargoyle at 7:45 AM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


the excuse the lobbyists need to get Congress to order new stockpiles of weapons.

I think that has to be true to a certain extent, like when it comes to drawing on consumables that weren't close to expiring—notably the Javelin, and the other munitions being sent; but all the generational equipment upgrades and etc. were already happening.

The stuff we've been operating in recent conflicts is going into the depots, the M-113s had to go one way or the other. Older F-16s, F-18s, the A-10 fleet.....we're already committed to replacing them. Everyone is going to be getting rid of their M-60s. And the US only wants to keep so many Abrams. etc etc.

Drawing down the old stuff has also exposed certain embarrassing cracks and poor management, like with not being able to make more Stingers, and not having a ready replacement. That wasn't glamorous or profitable enough, apparently.

I think it's more the breakout of war itself, and seeing what happens when old tech tries to resist new that's going to drive procurement fever.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:45 AM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


The "our tanks are too sophisticated for Ukrainians" requires one to believe that US military has prepped for a world war by equipping itself with tanks that require an absurd amount of lead time before deployment. If it takes a year of training then the Abrams will quickly be useless in a serious war.

It's not "too sophisticated for Ukrainians" but "too demanding for Ukraine's logistics" and "meant to operate under American doctrine." I have no doubt if Ukraine had been training to operate the Abrams for years and had the US' GDP it could operate it as well as the US does; among a number of other things it can't presently do.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:57 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


Mobile missile systems... not so much. The instructions for using a shoulder fired anti-tank missile are printed on the side and a smart teenager could fire one.

Thanks! This was the infantalism I was talking about. I was trying to express it in a different way, but there's this assumption that there are no experts in Ukraine. Did you know that the Soyuz rocket was built in Ukraine? It was the only way to get to the ISS for a while.

These people aren't babies. They surpassed NASA. They had a better manned space program than yours. You think they can't drive a tank?
posted by adept256 at 8:01 AM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


Ukraine is holding off WW3.

The plan was for Russia to flatten the Ukraine, roll up Georgia and Moldova, then start sending LGM into the Baltics. At the same time China could invade Taiwan and the US suddenly finds itself in a two front war trying to project power to opposite sides of the world at once. So we'd have all the powers with nukes bar NK, Pakistan, and India all fighting each other.

If my desire to give Ukraine all of the materiel it needs makes me a simp for the military-industrial complex then give me a fucking Raytheon hat and Lockheed Martin jersey because I don't want that alternative.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:05 AM on January 21, 2023 [49 favorites]


The instructions for using a shoulder fired anti-tank missile are printed on the side and a smart teenager could fire one.

And, all things considered, they usually are the ones who do.
posted by y2karl at 8:06 AM on January 21, 2023 [16 favorites]


They had a better manned space program than yours. You think they can't drive a tank?

They used to have a robust electrical grid, too. But right now they're using diesel generators in a lot of places (with more on the way,) and a notoriously fuel-guzzling tank might not be the best fit.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:14 AM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]


The "our tanks are too sophisticated for Ukrainians" requires one to believe that US military has prepped for a world war by equipping itself with tanks that require an absurd amount of lead time before deployment.

That's exactly what the US has done, and why it has huge military bases scattered across the globe, and a vast logistical network for moving crap to and from those bases from the US. Those bases contain, typically, enough materiel to sustain a "hot war" for just long enough for the gears of the logistics machine to start turning. (In particular, the Cold War era US bases in Germany generally housed what was regarded as a 'tripwire force', with what would be needed to deter or blunt a Soviet mechanized invasion of Western Europe long enough for the rest of NATO to get over there and really kick off WWIII.)

The issue with the Abrams in particular is that it's designed to be the tip of a very long logistical spear which goes back all the way to the continental US, where the turbine engines are made and refurbished. The engines are very high-strung, in the sense that they are absurdly powerful for their size and weight—they are effectively helicopter engines—but require frequent maintenance and overhaul. The US solution to this was to make them modular. They're part of a "power pack" that can be swapped out of the tank rapidly (using special equipment and accessory vehicles), and then sent back to large depots (quite possibly only in the US, I'm not entirely sure of the maintenance schedule) for work, while a new one is swapped in, and off the tank goes.

Without that constant logistical support, the Abrams will become a very expensive pillbox pretty rapidly.

The Leopard II, by contrast, uses a very conventional Maybach V12 turbodiesel engine, which the Ukrainians can probably maintain in the field and in depots much more easily. (They might even be able to swap it out for an indigenous diesel engine if parts availability is a problem; they are basically big industrial diesel engines and, to a first approximation, one is as good as another if it's in the same category of output power.)

So, while there may be an aspect of the US wanting Germany to lean forward while we "keep our powder dry", there are real reasons why the Abrams isn't a great choice for a lend-lease type arrangement. It's a thoroughbred, when what the Ukrainians need (or at least, what the West believes the Ukrainians need) is more of a workhorse.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:16 AM on January 21, 2023 [24 favorites]


The amount of cheering for arms dealers here is shocking. Y'all are well and truly simps for the military industrial complex.

Adopting fashy bully terminology (simp) to promote your peace over freedom argument is certainly a fascinating choice.
posted by srboisvert at 9:28 AM on January 21, 2023 [30 favorites]


the excuse the lobbyists need to get Congress to order new stockpiles of weapons.

I think that has to be true to a certain extent, like when it comes to drawing on consumables that weren't close to expiring—notably the Javelin, and the other munitions being sent; but all the generational equipment upgrades and etc. were already happening.

The stuff we've been operating in recent conflicts is going into the depots, the M-113s had to go one way or the other. Older F-16s, F-18s, the A-10 fleet.....we're already committed to replacing them. Everyone is going to be getting rid of their M-60s. And the US only wants to keep so many Abrams. etc etc.


Not only this but deploying those weapons in Ukraine in a legitimately justified opposition to a military invasion will actually keep those weapons from going to the much worse places that sunsetting armaments usually go! Even if you want to be a flower child peacenik while Russian tanks roll over Ukraine you have to accept the consumption of massive amounts of already existing armaments from all over Europe and Russia will actually make much of the rest of the world safer at least temporarily until stockpiles are replenished. The tier two dictators are going to find it very hard to arm themselves with previously owned armaments for the next couple of decades because they are being used and destroyed right now at a rate that can't be quickly replenished. There just won't be a surplus for quite some time.
posted by srboisvert at 9:40 AM on January 21, 2023 [7 favorites]


Ukraine is holding off WW3.

It's a fair point. Ukraine is not the end of Putin's larger, long-term plan to destroy Europe — and Germany, particularly, whose reluctance to push back on Russia may lead to its end, and the end of many other democracies, if Ukraine cannot hold out.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:49 AM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]


I posted the following to the "We Have a Himars, Ho-Ho-Ho" thread last night after hearing the news out of the Ramstein conference. I'm re-posting it here in case anyone finds it useful, I hope no one minds too much. Apologies to non US-ian MeFites for the US-centric tone.

I'm waiting for the sequel to this where the Ukrainians have Leopard 2 tanks.

So, I'm sending out a new Resistbot message. If you'd also like to send this to your Congresspeople and the President text "SIGN PUMWTP" to 50409.
Please provide Ukraine with M1 Abrams tanks as soon as possible!

Please send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as soon as possible. Ukraine needs powerful modern tanks to resist and fight back against the Russian invasion of their country. In addition to the M1 directly providing Ukraine with increased capabilities, by providing these tanks to Ukraine we can also eliminate the excuses that Germany is using to avoid approving sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. While it is sometimes argued that the M1 Abrams is not ideally suited to Ukraine’s needs, by providing them we can clear the way for Ukraine to receive the Leopard 2 tanks which would give them a great boost. The Ukrainians can decide how best to use the M1 Abrams and Leopards if they receive them both, but will be in a worse position if they receive neither. Therefore it is crucial that we do our part to give Ukraine the weapons they need.

I also would urge you to approve sending MQ-9 Reaper drones to Ukraine to increase their chances of succeeding in defeating the Russian invasion of their country.

Defending Ukraine is in the interest of the United States. A free, democratic, pro-Western Ukraine will be a valuable ally against authoritarian states like Russia who would seek to compromise our country after conquering Ukraine.

Thank you for your attention.
posted by Reverend John at 9:49 AM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


indica: The amount of cheering for arms dealers here is shocking.

Sanna Marin at the WEF in Davos:
In the session with CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria and a live audience, Marin said the world must ensure that Ukraine wins its fight against Russia.

"We don't know when the war will end, but we have to make sure that the Ukrainians will win. I don't think there's any other choice. If Russia would win the war, then we would only see decades of this kind of behaviour ahead of us," Marin said.

"I think other countries are looking very closely at what is happening now in Ukraine. And if Russia would win, then it would send a message that you can invade another country, you can attack another country and you can gain from that," she continued.
It's clear that Putin won't be stopped if not by force. It's also clear that it has to be sufficiently overwhelming force to clear Ukrainian soil from the invaders, make sure they won't and can't try again, and especially the Wagner war criminals should best be entirely, utterly Götterdämmered.

If Ukraine needs NATO equipment to achieve that, and they do, so be it.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:53 AM on January 21, 2023 [19 favorites]


And, all things considered, they usually are the ones who do.

Frankly, this is the level of ease with which I would like any and all weapons systems I'm going to use while in the vicinity of people actively trying to kill me and I count myself a smart and competent 42 year old man.

Making weapons safe and easy to operate safely and effectively as possible is definitely what they should be doing.


That there are some weapon systems in the US arsenal that require massive logistical support that only the US military is capable of providing doesn't really surprise me. Folks in previous threads with first hand knowledge have written extensively about it. I also remember hearing about the relentless pace of operations from pilots that had flown in the first gulf war. They were able to get planes reloaded and re-fueled and ready for take off so fast the pilots were having a hard time keeping up.

I'm sure someone closer to it could tell us all about how the, what are we on now M1A3?, is a different beast than the M1A1 the Australians field. We did learn months back about how the modern PATRIOT missile system is now a completely different weapons system than what saw service on TV in the 90s. Surely the modern Abrams has little in common with OG Abrams from the 80s.

About the fuel thing though. They're turbine engines which helicopters also use. Chrysler fiddled with using them in cars in the ~60s and they'd run on a darn near anything. Supposedly they did a demonstration in France with engine running where they stacked champagne glasses in a pyramid on the hood, poured the champagne, and then emptied the rest of the bottle into the fuel tank. They get stupid hot, require some high precision manufacturing, and have to spin up a lot before they provide and torque so they didn't past a handful of prototypes. Some nut bars also use retired helicopter turbines in a ridiculous motor cycle that Jay Leno owns and example of. They're neat engines!
posted by VTX at 9:55 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


Leno also owns the Chrysler Turbine.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:03 AM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


Frankly, this is the level of ease with which I would like any and all weapons systems I'm going to use while in the vicinity of people actively trying to kill me and I count myself a smart and competent 42 year old man.

Literally, back in the early 90's a couple of my roommates had been deployed to the first gulf war and came back with a spent anti-tank missile launcher. It's no harder to operate than a nerf gun. Most infantry use weapons are like this. Boot Camp and a week or two, train an eighteen year old who joined the military how to use. Same with guns and mortars and grenades and driving tanks and howitzers and all that. It's only the new stuff that is intended for extended use that requires more than basic maintenance to remain functional.

There was also the rubric from that time that Saddam wasn't prepared for nineteen year old Americans in Abrams tanks drinking a Coke while listening to Metallica and blowing shit up like a video game (BattleZone). The driving and shooting isn't the hard part. The Abrams just needs a lot of tender care from a lot of people pretty much every day to keep working.

Many of the other things in the arsenal can sit around for months and just need a handful of people who can point and shoot them after a small bit of training.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:24 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


Harald74: In a recent development, Russia has stationed air defence assets on top of buildings in Moscow , among them the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Exactly what you want to do when you want the debris of a cruise missile kill to drop somewhere in Moscow itself, instead of on farmland or in woods well outside Moscow proper. One could think that given the distance between an Ukraine launch site and a Moscow target the Russians would have sufficient time to lob a few SAMs at an incoming threat. But maybe the new long-range cruise missiles those cunning Ukrainians have been building look just like Cessna 172's, as one of those had already managed to reach Red Square without being molested.

Russian Army learning from past mistakes? Who are you kidding?
posted by Stoneshop at 10:51 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


The UK is sending tanks to Ukraine, so Scholz's foot-dragging by saying the US should send tanks over contradicts his earlier position that Germany wouldn't do it as an Einzelgänger. Not only that, since Poland and Finland also want to send Leopards, there would be at least four countries sending heavy tanks to Ukraine if Germany stopped blocking.

Frustrating for many here in Germany.
posted by UN at 11:13 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


Literally, back in the early 90's a couple of my roommates had been deployed to the first gulf war and came back with a spent anti-tank missile launcher. It's no harder to operate than a nerf gun.

Considering Poland's track record with Ukrainian launchers I'm reminded of the old joke where the devil gives a German, a Russian and a Pole two steel balls each and asks them to amaze him. The German produces a marvel of engineering. The Russian designs heartbreaking juggling choreography. The Pole loses one and breaks the other.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:16 AM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


I'm sure someone closer to it could tell us all about how the, what are we on now M1A3?, is a different beast than the M1A1 the Australians field

Ukraine would likely get the older M1A1. The newer Abrams variants have upgraded armor and it’s unlikely the US wants to risk Russia getting a closer look at it.

Coincidentally the USMC recently divested its M1A1s so there’s a lot of recently maintained hardware sitting around, ready for transfer to Ukraine if the political will is there.
posted by nathan_teske at 11:47 AM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


The accusation of war profiteering actually should be the default assumption by now, if you are minimally left leaning. It falls on those with political, financial, or cultural power, and to some extent any vocal supporter of specific ways to fight the war using certain technologies to justify that in this case that corporate war profiteering is minimized in the long run, and preferably that measures to minimize/prevent this have been taken by the state in the public interest. Unfortunately the reality is that problem of the military industrial complex is systemic, in America the checks and balances against privatized but effectively subsidized advanced military contractors is structurally nonexistent. Hence the default, again.
posted by polymodus at 12:02 PM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


The Pole loses one and breaks the other.

I was sure the punchline was going to be something like "the Pole's balls are stolen by the German and the Russian."
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:04 PM on January 21, 2023 [7 favorites]


The Russian invasion of Ukraine has certainly made it a lot clearer that we -- and by we, I'm speaking here about a whole set of countries, grouped in what might collectively be called a civilization -- do need to have a full range of up to date military equipment, and all the infrastructure to operate, manufacture, maintain and support that, because the alternative is that the Putins of the world will pursue conquest by violence, and go unopposed.

It doesn't follow however that this needs to be run as a private industry. In many cases, the major arms manufacturers are so closely intertwined with the state that the separation is practically a fiction, so why keep up the pretense? Having so much public money funneled into the pockets of shareholders just makes it all cost more. It would seem to make a lot more sense to nationalise the arms industry and make it a branch of the armed forces.
posted by automatronic at 12:46 PM on January 21, 2023 [10 favorites]


The accusation of war profiteering actually should be the default assumption by now, if you are minimally left leaning. It falls on those with political, financial, or cultural power, and to some extent any vocal supporter of specific ways to fight the war using certain technologies to justify that in this case that corporate war profiteering is minimized in the long run, and preferably that measures to minimize/prevent this have been taken by the state in the public interest. Unfortunately the reality is that problem of the military industrial complex is systemic, in America the checks and balances against privatized but effectively subsidized advanced military contractors is structurally nonexistent. Hence the default, again.

I don't understand how military spending reform reverses the Russian invasion of Ukraine though.
posted by srboisvert at 12:56 PM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


It would seem to make a lot more sense to nationalise the arms industry and make it a branch of the armed forces.

What came to mind is Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace in my native Norway, owned 50% by the Norwegian state, which will promptly veto any shenanigans by the board. (Developer of the now famous NASAMS system, BTW)

Another way to handle it and not stifle creativity is how the Soviet Union did (really!), with several different national design houses in competition with each other. One example is where the T-72 comes from, where two different design teams each had a go at improving the T-62. Wikipedia has the story, which is quite interesting.
posted by Harald74 at 1:06 PM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


An interesting thread about how German pussyfooting over Leopard sharing might actually serious damage Germany's position as the main battle tank supplier for almost all of Nato:

https://twitter.com/GresselGustav/status/1616723121238835200

Ukranian twitter users are starting to call Germany's promises of support and lack of follow though "Scholzing"
posted by srboisvert at 1:11 PM on January 21, 2023


One wonders tho, could there be an unspoken and certainly unacknowledged goal appreciation of the 'western powers' to allow this to drag on exactly for the long term attrition on both parties?

I definitely read pieces from both cynics and useful idiots to this effect in the earliest days of the war. It was predicted that NATO would give enough weapons so Ukraine could not lose, but not so much that Ukraine would win. The goal was to tie Russia up in a long, attritional war that would neuter their army and territorial ambitions.

I mean, at the time I wasn't sure NATO would give Ukraine anything at all, given they seemed to expect them to rapidly lose. But as the war has progressed, some of the otherwise inexplicable rationing of weapons to Ukraine does seem to fit the cynical predictions of stalemating Russia into a long, bloody conflict.

TL;DR: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is worth at least considering whether it is indeed a realpolitik duck.
posted by Rumple at 1:32 PM on January 21, 2023 [7 favorites]


what are we on now M1A3?

M1A2SEPv4 where SEP is apparently "system enhancement package." It reads a lot like they're really really trying not to have M1A3 because that sounds too expensive. See also them not wanting to call it the F-24 or whatever so they pretended it was the E model of the F-18.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:57 PM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


Tangential but relevant piece about those who aim to remove Kadyrov, and how Russia's war in Ukraine has perhaps created an opportunity:

A Chechen Separatist Aims to Unseat Putin’s Man:
For Akhmed Zakayev’s wager to succeed, he has to defeat the real enemy — the legacy of Chechnya’s recent history

posted by Kabanos at 2:25 PM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


Exactly what you want to do when you want the debris of a cruise missile kill to drop somewhere in Moscow itself, instead of on farmland or in woods well outside Moscow proper. One could think that given the distance between an Ukraine launch site and a Moscow target the Russians would have sufficient time to lob a few SAMs at an incoming threat. But maybe the new long-range cruise missiles those cunning Ukrainians have been building look just like Cessna 172's, as one of those had already managed to reach Red Square without being molested.


posted by Stoneshop

I suspect that the idea is for the building they want to protect to be protected, and the debris to land on an apartment block in the suburbs, killing eleven people and wounding fifty-three more. The destruction of the Moscow apartment block and the resulting highly publicized funerals would lead to ordinary guys on the ground enlisting to protect their country. But if the debris only destroys a tractor and sixty-four chickens it won't cause the same surge of enlistment.

I also suspect they'd be willing to lose a building or two of strategic importance to get the voluntary enlistment numbers up, but if the Wagner HQ in Saint Petersburg gets a direct hit they run the risk of having ordinary Russians merely nod, spit, say "It sucks to be Yevgeny Prigozhin."
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:26 PM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]


will actually keep those weapons from going to the much worse places that sunsetting armaments usually go

I've been wondering whether the rationing of armaments has to some extent been about worrying about what happens if this goes south. Lots of weapons could end up in bad places.

The other argument, which I've found persuasive, is that it takes time to build and then multiply competence on the platforms.

But still, I wonder... Are we afraid of what happens if there is an excess of weapons there if the good guys lose?
posted by sjswitzer at 2:47 PM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


I mean, at the time I wasn't sure NATO would give Ukraine anything at all, given they seemed to expect them to rapidly lose. But as the war has progressed, some of the otherwise inexplicable rationing of weapons to Ukraine does seem to fit the cynical predictions of stalemating Russia into a long, bloody conflict.

TL;DR: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is worth at least considering whether it is indeed a realpolitik duck.


Except the war is extremely bad for European and UK economies. They are not feeling it in full because it has been a mild winter so far which let them stockpile gas to them through 22/23 winter with buying up all the LNG on the market but that's a single shot trick that can't be expected to work as well if the war continues into 23/24 because the market will price it higher accordingly and we also might not get another mild European winter. Time will increase the effectiveness of Russia's gas blackmail.

Increased fuel costs, increased travel distances due to closed air spaces, massive refugee influx, sanctions hurt Russia primarily but also hurt domestic businesses that traded with Russia as well as consumers that used goods supplied by Russia and Ukraine. All these things bite into Europe's economy. The OECD is projecting the EU's GDP growth for 2023 to be just a bit above zero. More than three points lower than 2022. That will be pretty harsh and could factor in domestic politics.

The real question to ask is "What's up with Germany?" and I think the answer is that they have had some social and economic integration with Russia (at least East Germany) since WWII and it carried over after the fall of the Berlin wall. There are generational and economic ties and Putin has poured money into the pockets of a lot of Germans, particularly some former German leaders who still hold a lot of clout and until last Feb had seats on Russian corporate boards.

I'm still genuinely confused by what Germany is even doing because there just doesn't seem to any logic to it. Maybe national psychic trauma from WWII?
posted by srboisvert at 3:02 PM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]


I'm still genuinely confused by what Germany is even doing because there just doesn't seem to any logic to it.

Germany is a country with few natural resources and a giant manufacturing sector that is entirely dependent on imported fossil fuels, not only to fuel production but also carbon compounds that can be created to make plastics and other compounds that in some cases literally only Germany is producing. Without Russian imported oil (they were warned about this decades ago), they have nothing there to drive their economy.

I don't know exactly how this would be feeding into Germany's decision process, but it seems like a valid point to bring up in this discussion.
posted by hippybear at 3:14 PM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]


"the US suddenly finds itself in a two three front war trying to project power to opposite sides of the world and a fascist insurgence at home all at once."
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:41 PM on January 21, 2023 [9 favorites]


One thing that has gone unsaid so far is that the Russian dupes in the US Republican Party are looking for excuses to dial back support for Ukraine now that they control the House of Representatives. The first argument they are making is that the US shouldn’t be expected to bankroll a foreign war (no, the irony of that argument isn’t lost on me). If Germany were to say, “spend” $6-$10 billion by sending (or allow others to send) tanks that are already sitting in Europe to Ukraine, it would help Ukrainian allies in the US to keep sending meaningful aid by demonstrating that all of our NATO allies are willing partners and are doing what they can.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:02 PM on January 21, 2023 [5 favorites]


I don't understand how military spending reform reverses the Russian invasion of Ukraine though.

That's a weak false choice and not the point. A lot of people are grappling with internal conflict over supporting the defense of Ukraine and the knowledge that this will be done largely by supplying arms at an enormous profit to people and entities we tend to consider malevolent in peacetime. Whether Ukraine wins or loses, the military-industrial complex wins, which, unless you're a war fetishist or a profiteer, is not good.

It's all the more challenging when Metafilter, ordinarily a refuge for people who grapple with these things, becomes military armaments fansite. I gotta say, when everyone is suddenly an expert on tanks and rocket launchers, it feels a little weird.
posted by klanawa at 5:21 PM on January 21, 2023 [13 favorites]


Over the last few years everybody became experts on epidemiology, political science with a specialization in the rise of autocrats, and modern eastern european history. Why not military engineering too?
posted by Justinian at 5:28 PM on January 21, 2023 [22 favorites]


I have to say, kianawa, nobody here in MetaFilter is enthusiastic about this war. None of us wanted it to start, all of us wish it were done. I feel safe saying that. I also feel safe saying that nobody here wants Russia to win because that has implications for world politics that extend well beyond this current conflict.

But war is what we have, because Russia is being a bad actor on the world stage.

If you, kianawa, have an alternative that can be workable, all of us would love to hear it.

Otherwise, we are discussing the reality of the situation, and not the ever elusive pipe dream of peace, which in my 50-odd years has never been on this planet. I wish it were. I wish the brotherhood of man would learn to love each other and work to support all human success while never working toward human defeat. But... I don't live there.
posted by hippybear at 5:45 PM on January 21, 2023 [12 favorites]


More honor'd than the breach than the observance

A belated D'o-fuckin-oh!
posted by y2karl at 6:55 PM on January 21, 2023 [3 favorites]


Whether Ukraine wins or loses, the military-industrial complex wins,

Seems prudent to try and unsure that Ukraine wins if it isn't going to solve the military industrial complex either way.
posted by Dysk at 7:22 PM on January 21, 2023 [11 favorites]


For those against sending arms to Ukraine: how do you see Russian control over the country playing out?
posted by UN at 8:19 PM on January 21, 2023


I've probably been as big a cheerleader as anybody for supply more and more powerful arms to Ukraine. However, I think there is something to be said for pausing a second and asking what the long term effects are going to be of policies that massively benefit the military industrial complex, and having some restraint on our enthusiasm. I think polymodus and klanawa raise valid points.

We can support defending Ukraine without shouting down the people who raise legitimate concerns.
posted by Reverend John at 8:56 PM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


Because we've built 10,000* Abrams over the last 45 years, but the US MIC is going to metastasize if we give 100 to Ukraine.

* actual production number
posted by ryanrs at 8:59 PM on January 21, 2023 [6 favorites]


I'm still genuinely confused by what Germany is even doing because there just doesn't seem to any logic to it. Maybe national psychic trauma from WWII?

I don't think that's it. Most here either support or are 'not against' sending weapons to Ukraine. Two out of three political parties in the ruling coalition including their leadership support it and have been outspoken about defense support to Ukraine.

Even Scholz, at some point, gives his OK for weapons transfers — and has spoken for EU membership for Ukraine. .

It's impossible to know why the dithering. I've been watching this for a year now and I think it may be due to a character flaw in the top leadership of the SPD: they dig their heels under pressure. Apply more pressure, they become even more stubborn. So a general tendency to be cautious about sending arms turns into a total blockage when other politicians, allies or a Ukrainian ambassador demands they do so. They don't like being told what to do.

Maybe.
posted by UN at 9:04 PM on January 21, 2023


They are not feeling it in full because it has been a mild winter so far which let them stockpile gas to them through 22/23 winter with buying up all the LNG on the market but that's a single shot trick that can't be expected to work as well if the war continues into 23/24 because the market will price it higher accordingly and we also might not get another mild European winter.

The limiting factor in displacing Russian gas supplies is just how quickly Europe can suck LNG down from the rest of the world, not how much LNG the world has or how much it costs. Wilhelmshaven, Brunsbuttel, and Lubmin LNG terminals are up and running, Norwegian imports are up at the same time and even the US LNG export market is expanding on the back of the EU going from Russian pipeline to LNG so quickly.

Don't get me wrong, there are multiple separate problems going on in lower income countries because of this sudden LNG crunch that need to be addressed and quickly (Pakistan has had no offers for multiple tenders and is facing years of gas shortages for instance) but Europe is more than able to outbid everyone as more and more of their LNG import infrastructure comes online. This winter was Russia's only shot and Mother Nature gave them the middle finger.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:27 PM on January 21, 2023 [2 favorites]


This winter was Russia's only shot

Well, let's hope that's true. Putin has one card left to play, if all else fails.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:32 PM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


Well, let's hope that's true. Putin has one card left to play, if all else fails.

No, he doesn’t. But this isn’t the thread for that.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:56 PM on January 21, 2023 [8 favorites]


If you, kianawa, have an alternative that can be workable, all of us would love to hear it.

You, hippybear, are clever enough to recognize that my comment is specifically about people who are struggling with the recognition that there is not an apparent better way.

Yeesh, it feels like some of you have been waiting a lifetime to unleash your glee for war. Your own government has denied you that satisfaction for decades and now Russia has given it to you in spades.

I'm incredibly disheartened by Metafilter right now.

Slava Ukraini, etc.
posted by klanawa at 10:03 PM on January 21, 2023 [4 favorites]


It’s hard to understand how someone so obviously thoughtful doesn’t get that such a broad and uncharitable characterization stings.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 12:28 AM on January 22, 2023 [10 favorites]


You, hippybear, are clever enough to recognize that my comment is specifically about people who are struggling with the recognition that there is not an apparent better way.

Consider the possibility that a lot of US also struggle with this, but have had that struggle and made our peace with this instance. We could keep performatively wringing our hands, but if we have made our peace, then why?

But to suggest that, at this point, this far into proceedings, that anybody not talking about how awful war is in every comment on the matter must be a cheerleader. No. A lot of us have significant misgivings. We've just also already had the conversations about that, and while the situation on the ground can and does change, the fundamental calculus that makes fighting this war the right thing to do has not. So why have that same conversation again about the latter in every thread?
posted by Dysk at 1:23 AM on January 22, 2023 [21 favorites]


Also consider that some mefites are veterans, some work in the government, the MIC and related fields, and that might not have come up in other contexts, but now that there is a war to be discussed, they actually bring their experiences and knowledge to the table. It's not all fedora-wearing people that were "experts" on epidemiology a while back.
posted by Harald74 at 1:33 AM on January 22, 2023 [8 favorites]


Anyways, here's Timothy Snyder, american historien who specializes in the history of Eastern Europe, having an hour long conversation with Mikhail Zygar, Russian independent journalist, about Putin's and Trump's lies, "rashism", and whether Dostoyevsky is an imperial writer, among other things.
posted by Harald74 at 1:36 AM on January 22, 2023 [3 favorites]


... that anybody not talking about how awful war is in every comment on the matter must be a cheerleader.
it's this - it belies a wilful misunderstanding, which I choose to believe is a misunderstanding on my part.

Speaking of which, there was a good Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic about the whole stupid tank kerfuffle. On twatter there was a thread about this - reading it, I was struck at how damn well-nigh impossible it is to understand what the hell is going on, whether in German Gov circles, on the battlefield in Ukraine (somewhere I saw an article about how the 'Marder' vehicles (German) are proving instrumental in the successful fight against drones and etc.) or in the Kremlin. We have no freakin' idea what the hell anyone is doing, like, we still don't know who cut the pipelines, or blew up the bridge or assassinated Dugin's daughter and etc and etc. But at some point, the truth will pop out. In the meantime it's all speculation or/and propaganda.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:52 AM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]


Jane the Brown: I suspect that the idea is for the building they want to protect to be protected, and the debris to land on an apartment block in the suburbs, killing eleven people and wounding fifty-three more.

Still, a misfire or a guidance system failure like this is not something you want if the launcher is right on top of the building being protected. Or maybe they don't care, and consider they could easily spin such an event for propaganda purposes.

It's obvious you want the radars on top of a high-rise building if you want to place them within Moscow proper, but the launchers at ground level with a free trajectory south to west. Easier to reload and move if necessary.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:03 AM on January 22, 2023


This week's presentation from Perun:

How Politics Destroys Armies: Politics, Factions and Russia's War
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:16 AM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]


Yeesh, it feels like some of you have been waiting a lifetime to unleash your glee for war. Your own government has denied you that satisfaction for decades and now Russia has given it to you in spades.


Yeesh, it feels like your own ideology is blinding you to multiple realities.

Like that the US ('your own government') is not fighting this war, while it has indeed been engaging in non-stop conflicts in which "warmongers" have been able to "unleash their glee" for the two "decades" since 9-11.

Or that the right-wing conservatives who are usually the exponent of American militarism are against support for Ukraine, with all of the implications that flow from that...

Or what Russia winning would mean for the prospects for peace and war over the coming decades, or whether the MIC will be effectively re-affirmed through a new cold war, and with all else that hangs in the balance should broadening conflicts foreclose international cooperation on environmental and economic issues.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:26 AM on January 22, 2023 [12 favorites]


Yeesh, it feels like some of you have been waiting a lifetime to unleash your glee for war. Your own government has denied you that satisfaction for decades and now Russia has given it to you in spades.

I'm not sure what you mean by "your own government," but if you mean the US or any of its coalition partners (like Canada, UK, Australia, most of NATO, etc), all of us in those countries have had decades of war in just Iraq and Afghanistan alone. They were shitty wars that mostly made people feel bad (aside from the fast early rah-rah successes), but they were wars nonetheless. I'm personally very tired of these ongoing wars that waste lives and resources.

But in this case there was a clear aggressor and I'm glad that the US and other countries are supporting Ukraine it its defense. And, it is satisfying to see that support used effectively. I want that support to be increased to the point where Ukraine is in a position to win or to negotiate an end to the war on its terms, and one of the key steps there is for Germany to stop dithering on the tanks, and for the US to greenlight longer-range missiles.

More generally, maybe as a non-expert I am missing something obvious, but it sure looks like Russia is destroying its own military power in a way I haven't seen a country choose to do in my lifetime. Not so much in their casualty rates (since their military culture doesn't seem to care much about that) but in the sheer volume of vehicles and equipment that they've been losing, faster than replacement is possible). Even if they "won" tomorrow (which appears to be impossible), they will still end up badly weakened.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:22 AM on January 22, 2023 [10 favorites]


Speaking just for myself, I was surprised to find myself enthusiastic about a war, but not shocked.

From my point of view, this isn't evidence that People Are Disappointing, but rather that absolute pacifism is a mistake. I'd thought that the US military was ridiculously overfunded, but I'm no longer as sure about that. I didn't realize Russia was a live threat.

As for arms dealers, maybe they aren't simply the bad guys if sometimes people need heavy duty weapons. It's not obvious to me that arms dealers always want wars. On the one hand, weapons get used up, but on the other, wars reveal the qualify of weapons.

I believe and still believe that this is a disaster for Russia, including a disaster for those who had no part in this war. I was shocked to get a little pushback here at the idea that Russia will need to be rebuilt as a result of the technological sanctions. Lots of people, deteriorating infrastructure, hostile climate. This is very bad even if the war doesn't come to Russia.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:39 AM on January 22, 2023 [4 favorites]


Understanding the War: On the Exceptionality of Russia’s All-Out War Against Ukraine
Nicolas Tenzer argues for the critical need to understand the Russian state, as it currently exists, as a total threat -- a total enemy:
The reality is that Moscow is not in a position to seek a balance with the democratic world. It does not set itself limits that could prefigure any compromise, even one that is not very acceptable to us, and the search for a give-and-take on the basis of which a more or less lasting peace could be envisaged. An allegedly “prudent” approach to Russia would be the worst form of imprudence—the history of the last twenty-three years bears witness to this—and any prospect of negotiations a fool’s game. To continue to hold such a discourse about the end of the war in Ukraine is a serious mistake, because it is part of the Russian hope of reaching a compromise, even if it is less than its initial ambitions. To make such remarks would be to do exactly what Moscow is looking for: to present itself as a supposed partner with whom it is possible to reach an agreement, to believe in its signature—which is constantly flouted—and to suggest that the Russian regime is not an absolute enemy. This would again trivialize its crimes. To pretend to give any credence to Russia’s supposed interests as expressed by the regime would be to question the fundamental principles enshrined in the international treaties drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War. There is certainly no possibility of stability with a power that seeks instability through destruction.
posted by Kabanos at 7:46 AM on January 22, 2023 [18 favorites]


Unless there is some actual news about arms dealers doing something or something changes about the situation to provide an end to the violence, we can probably drop this massive derail about whether or not we're all anti-war enough for everyone else. It's a waste of time in a thread that is supposed to be about the war, not every mefite's feelings about it.

Let's please focus on news about the war and perspectives from those directly affected by the conflict.
posted by VTX at 7:56 AM on January 22, 2023 [15 favorites]


The "international criminal organization" designation stops short of "foreign terrorist organization." My understanding from reporting is that the Department of the Treasury already recognizes Wagner as a "proxy" for the Russian MoD for sanctions purposes, but whatever further steps this permits are good.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:59 AM on January 22, 2023


I believe and still believe that this is a disaster for Russia, including a disaster for those who had no part in this war. I was shocked to get a little pushback here at the idea that Russia will need to be rebuilt as a result of the technological sanctions. Lots of people, deteriorating infrastructure, hostile climate. This is very bad even if the war doesn't come to Russia.

The problem is that Russia was already rebuilt with Western assistance once and it produced Current Russia. Iraq has been rebuilt with Western assistance and it built current Iraq. Afghanistan was rebuilt once and it produced current Afghanistan.

Unless there is enough support for a country to choose and maintain a real democracy on its own the assistance really isn't really going to fix things. Also the rebuild is often a reflection of absurd American ideologies rather than what a country's people actually want or need.

Anyways so far Russia is largely militarily untouched other than being cut off some goods which is merely a restoration of about 40 years of post-war status quo and likely barely effects the majority of the population which was already impoverished by their own government's policies.
posted by srboisvert at 10:44 AM on January 22, 2023 [4 favorites]






Good on the tanks. Wow to the jets. I guess the training they've had going on is getting close to being done.
posted by hippybear at 2:01 PM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]


Mud. Mulling that the warm weather we're having everywhere but Buffalo, literally the entire northern hemisphere has been tweaked by la nina(?) leaving most of the war bogged down, slowed down until after spring rains. And perhaps there are smart logistics folks timing the deliveries for when they'll be most useful.
posted by sammyo at 2:02 PM on January 22, 2023 [2 favorites]


A mud season that bottlenecks or immobilizes armor is a good time for air to show up.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:18 PM on January 22, 2023 [1 favorite]


The only thing to watch is what is being done - the words are all smoke: Tanks are being delivered, jets are being delivered. I would not be surprised to find out that the pilots and tank crews have been training for months.
We're all mushrooms - despite all the open-source intel, there are still huge swaths that are perfectly opaque
posted by From Bklyn at 2:37 PM on January 22, 2023 [7 favorites]


the warm weather we're having everywhere but Buffalo

Apart from the three days either side of Christmas and a few days in November, it's been a very mild winter here in metro Buffalo too.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:30 PM on January 22, 2023


despite all the open-source intel, there are still huge swaths that are perfectly opaque

Exactly. Ukraine is the military-industrial complex being attacked, it was being attacked, politically and economically before the invasion. This: "In October 2018, speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker said that the United States had lifted the arms embargo on Ukraine.This gave big boost to the international cooperation and development of private companies."


In the last 5 years, the U.S. has sold billions in arms to europe and more since invasion, esp. a lucrative deal with Norway, a weapons powerhouse itself.

Russia saw the writing on the wall and Putin slammed into it. What position is Russia in today, rank wise, in selling arms.
There is alot more that we don't know and I think it is geo-political mostly.
The U.S. Defense Budget and Russia’s War on Ukraine.

It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia


United States Aid to Ukraine: An Investment Whose Benefits Greatly Exceed its Cost
by Tony "Slugworth" Cordesman.
posted by clavdivs at 5:25 PM on January 22, 2023 [1 favorite]


For the sake of a better thread than this one is becoming, since nobody else seems willing to back down, I hereby promise to try to read the best intentions in my fellow commenters’ words. I hope the rest of you can be persuaded to join me in this endeavor.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 9:48 PM on January 22, 2023 [6 favorites]


Witness! Enough epistemology, we do not need a deep dive into one anothers' psychology and motivations. Rerail please.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:47 PM on January 22, 2023 [4 favorites]


Mod note: A couple of comments deleted. If you want to discuss the Ukraine war, okay; if you want to attack / insult other members, please go do something else. If you'd like this discussion to focus on US weapon systems reform or war profiteering, rather than a general Ukraine news roundup thread, it's probably better to make a post about that. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 1:06 AM on January 23, 2023 [11 favorites]


There is some noise surrounding the replacement of leadership of the VDV (Russian airborne forces), as they have been placed under a new commander from the regular infantry. The previous commander was apparently popular, despite the VDV being decimated during the course of the war. There are some laments from Telegram about that linked from the Twitter thread. Note that nobody is suggesting "pack up and go home" as a solution for the problem of more and more dead paratroopers...
posted by Harald74 at 1:32 AM on January 23, 2023


When will Putin give up Ukraine? Only when his inner circle forces him to stop from Olga Chyzh
- The observation that Putin's lack of democratic accountability to anybody other than a small number of elite figures who, in turn, rely principally on him for their own support. He thus has now particular need to pay attention to dead soldiers, a tanked economy or international disapproval and can instead try to play a strategic long game with Ukraine. While it is hard to make concrete predictions, mine is that Putin will appear impervious until very, very, shortly before it is proved he isn't
posted by rongorongo at 2:09 AM on January 23, 2023 [4 favorites]


rongorongo: He thus has now particular need to pay attention to dead soldiers

Sorry, but was 'now' meant to be 'no' here?
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:17 AM on January 23, 2023 [2 favorites]


A bit of levity
posted by Stoneshop at 2:26 AM on January 23, 2023 [2 favorites]


Sorry, but was 'now' meant to be 'no' here?
Correct - unfortunate typo. I suspect for Putin, the bad news is corrosive: he can still stand on the gradually rusting platform that gives him power.
posted by rongorongo at 2:30 AM on January 23, 2023 [3 favorites]


One consequence of the invasion of Ukraine has been renewed efforts by Azerbaijan to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, though hostilities haven’t broken out. The EU’s representative to the region, Toivo Klaar, announced overnight on Twitter that he’s in Armenia for a day of meetings today. Here are a few recent stories about the situation.

Renewed Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict Underlines Russia’s Waning Influence by Anton Troianovski for the New York Times [archive]. Excerpt:
Since Dec. 12, the mountain road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia has been blocked amid protests by Azerbaijani activists claiming to be opposing illegal mining operations in the area. Azerbaijan’s government has endorsed the protests; Armenians say Azerbaijan engineered them and criticize Russian peacekeepers for not keeping the road open.

“It can be seen that Russia’s resources in the region are becoming limited,” said Farhad Mammadov, a pro-government analyst in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. “Russia is becoming weaker.”

The roadblocks are a new escalation in the bloody, decades-old dispute over an enclave home to tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders.

In Nagorno-Karabakh, supermarkets are stocked with little but alcohol and candy, and supplies of diapers and basic medicine are so low that residents post on Facebook in search of them, according to Tatev Azizyan, a local journalist. Starting Friday, people will have to present ration cards to buy rice, pasta, buckwheat or sugar.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped relations around the globe, perhaps nowhere more clearly than on the boundary between Europe and Asia, strengthening the hands of Turkey and Iran, now important sources of trade and weapons for Moscow, while undermining Russian influence in the Caucasus.
Thousands of Armenians trapped in Nagorno-Karabakh face humanitarian crisis by Taline Oundjian for France 24. Excerpt:
Supermarket shelves in the region are empty. On January 18, local authorities began issuing food coupons so that locals can access basic foodstuffs such as pasta, rice, sugar and sunflower oil.

Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh have set up bartering systems to deal with the shortages. “In the villages, people are trying to exchange eggs and potatoes for fuel. And the men will trade anything for cigarettes,” says Yana.

The population is anxious but calm, the young women say. “That’s because the famine isn’t here yet,” says Nina.
Analysis: Why tensions are high over a blockaded road in Azerbaijan by Jim Heintz for the Associated Press. Excerpt:
Two years after Azerbaijan and Armenia ended a war that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians, tensions between the countries are again high in a dispute over a six-kilometer (nearly four-mile) road known as the Lachin Corridor.

The winding road, which is the only land connection between Armenia and the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan, has been blocked by protesters claiming to be environmental activists since mid-December, threatening food supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh's 120,000 people.

The dispute raises fears that new fighting could break out. It also could destabilize Armenia's chronically excitable politics. As well, it casts doubts on the competence and intentions of Russia, whose peacekeeping troops are charged with keeping the road secure.

Mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh, smaller than the U.S. state of Delaware, has significant cultural importance to both Armenians and Azeris. It had a substantial degree of autonomy within Azerbaijan when it was part of the Soviet Union. As the USSR deteriorated, Armenian separatist unrest broke out, later turning into a full-scale war after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Most of the Azeri population was driven out by the end of the fighting in 1994. Ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia took control not only of Nagorno-Karabakh itself but of sizable surrounding Azerbaijani areas.
More on internally displaced people in Azerbaijan in this Al Jazeera report from 2021 by Liz Cookman.
posted by Kattullus at 2:42 AM on January 23, 2023 [7 favorites]


Can't read this entire thread before work but I found this WSJ piece useful in fleshing out the German reluctance (should be a shareable non-paywall link but if not use https://archive.is/w5O7n):

Why Germany Is Reluctant to Send Tanks to Ukraine

In addition to political and historical concerns (the PR value to Russia in capturing a German tank, e.g.), there's also this:

More recently, defense executives and officials have been concerned about Germany’s ability to quickly deliver the tanks without weakening its own defenses.

Germany could potentially send to Ukraine around 14 Leopard 2 tanks that are destined for the Czech Republic and Slovakia as part of a backfilling deal, officials said. Beyond that, it has little to offer.

“Even if the decision were to be made tomorrow to send our Leopard tanks to Ukraine, the delivery would take until the beginning of next year"

...The company owns 22 retired Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 models that would need to be refurbished before they can be exported. The German military has refused to donate some of its own models, according to Defense Ministry officials, because its fleet is already plagued by technical problems and many tanks aren’t battle-ready.

posted by mediareport at 4:07 AM on January 23, 2023 [1 favorite]




Two takes on the "German Tank problem":

1) Protection of German Industry:
“Any country that would supply Leopard 2s to Ukraine is being offered U.S. tanks from its own inventory & a long-term industrial partnership as a substitute according to German industrial circles.

All countries sending Leos to 🇺🇦 will be lost to the German tank industry”


(original source: Neue Züricher Zeitung: Deutsche Panzerdebatte: Welche Rolle spielen amerikanische Rüstungsinteressen?)

2) Bundeswehr in shambles:
Last February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the country was going to invest substantially in its military. But not much has happened since then. And now Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has been replaced. DER SPIEGEL takes a closer look at what is ailing the Bundeswehr.

Der Spiegel: An Examination of the Truly Dire State of Germany's Military
posted by kmt at 4:58 AM on January 23, 2023 [4 favorites]


Neue Züricher Zeitung: Deutsche Panzerdebatte: Welche Rolle spielen amerikanische Rüstungsinteressen?)

This article somehow completely ignores the Ringtausch fiasco some months back — which was largely attributed to Scholz's foot-dragging. Of course Poland and other countries will look for new tank suppliers after that. It's a problem of Germany's own making and Scholz is only making it worse by delaying approvals and shipments now.

Swapping out old Soviet tanks sent to Ukraine by Poland with modern German ones was the original plan that Germany was given ample opportunity to deliver on.

IMO it's not right to blame it on Americans pushing their own interests. It's not their fault if our (German) leadership is completely incompetent.

You'd think Scholz would understand what to do based on Germany's own experience.
posted by UN at 6:01 AM on January 23, 2023 [7 favorites]


Also: if we don't have the capacity to build tanks fast and cheap enough for export as the article stated ... what is there to complain about if other countries choose to go with Korean or American tanks? There are no German industrial interests to defend if there's no German industry for anyone to be interested in.
posted by UN at 6:35 AM on January 23, 2023 [2 favorites]




Also: if we don't have the capacity to build tanks fast and cheap enough for export as the article stated

Poland signed the order for the K2 tanks in July, the first were delivered in the beginning of December. In military procurement circles, that's blisteringly fast. Practically overnight.
posted by Harald74 at 9:46 AM on January 23, 2023 [5 favorites]


World Nuclear News: IAEA teams in place at Ukraine's nuclear plants: The International Atomic Energy Agency's newly-established missions at Ukraine's nuclear power plants are not just symbolic, but signify the presence of internationally renowned experts who "will provide advice and technical support at this very difficult time", IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
posted by Harald74 at 10:23 AM on January 23, 2023 [2 favorites]


The Ukraine war has exposed Europe’s reliance on Russia’s railways for trade with China—including for the defense industry BY JONATHAN TIRONE, ALBERTO NARDELLI AND BLOOMBERG Fortune.com
Giving Ukraine modern tanks remains a key question facing Kyiv’s allies after a meeting of top defense officials in Germany on Friday yielded little progress. But perhaps the most exposed link in supply chains for producing such weapons runs on train tracks through the foe they’re trying to defeat.

Russia is at the center of a rail cargo route supplying Western arms manufacturers with a steady supply of metals needed to make the microchips, electronics and ammunition used in modern weaponry. Most of the so-called rare earth elements are mined in China. Russian Railways JSC and other carriers are hauling a rising volume of critical metals needed for Europe’s defense industry.

The volume of Chinese rare earth metals shipped on trains across Russia surged to 36,074 tons in the first nine months last year, more than double the amount transported in all of 2021, according to European Union data seen by Bloomberg News. The value of that trade rose by more than fourth-fifths, to €377 million ($408 million) through September.
posted by srboisvert at 1:15 PM on January 23, 2023 [3 favorites]


...The Kremlin now uses Gogol’s work as evidence that Ukraine and Russia share a single culture. (An essay about Gogol’s Russianness appears on the Web site of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, which Putin started in 2007.) According to a 2021 article by Putin, Gogol’s books “are written in Russian, bristling with Malorussian”—Little Russian—“folk sayings and motifs. How can this heritage be divided between Russia and Ukraine?”

In Tbilisi, the Gogol story I kept coming back to was “The Nose”: the one where Major Kovalyov, a mid-level civil servant, wakes up one morning with no nose. Fearing for his job and his marriage prospects, he hits the streets of St. Petersburg, searching for his missing proboscis. A carriage pulls up nearby. A personage emerges, wearing a uniform and plumed hat that denote a higher rank than Kovalyov’s. It is Kovalyov’s nose. “Don’t you know where you belong?” Kovalyov demands. “Don’t you realize you are my own nose! ”

The nose coldly replies, “My dear fellow, you are mistaken. I am a person in my own right.”

Read enough Putin speeches and Kovalyov’s attitude toward his nose starts to sound familiar. How dare a mere appendage masquerade as an independent entity? What cruelty, to separate the Little Russian nose from the Great Russian face! In “The Nose,” as in so much of the Russian literature that I had been revisiting, the interests of empire prevail. The police apprehend Kovalyov’s runaway organ “just as it was boarding the stagecoach bound for Riga.” Tellingly, the nose had been headed west.
Rereading Russian Classics in the Shadow of the Ukraine War
posted by y2karl at 1:47 PM on January 23, 2023 [11 favorites]


Interesting.

"Russia has a sense of itself as having a great destiny on the world stage, a rightful place as a world power, dictating things within it’s “sphere of influence” without being subject to international rules, norms, or opinions.

Nikolai Gogol expressed this sentiment in his novel Dead Souls, wherein he compares Russia to a speeding troika (3-horse sled), flying at top speed, hooves thundering like some divine power, other nations stepping aside in the wake of its charge..."

posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:52 PM on August 23, 2022
posted by clavdivs at 2:19 PM on January 23, 2023 [4 favorites]


From Forbes Ukraine: The Battles of the First Days that Prevented Ukraine from Breaking [Google translated]
(It's from December 28th but first time I've seen it - sorry if posted before.)

The author, Volodymyr Dacenko, has a twitter thread today on how Russian tactics have changes since the start of the war.
posted by Kabanos at 2:55 PM on January 23, 2023 [2 favorites]


... What cruelty, to separate the Little Russian nose from the Great Russian face! In “The Nose,” as in so much of the Russian literature that I had been revisiting, the interests of empire prevail. The police apprehend Kovalyov’s runaway organ “just as it was boarding the stagecoach bound for Riga.” Tellingly, the nose had been headed west.

I found it interesting to read this on the same day as watching "Why Russia Hides Countries Inside Its Borders" - so, there are not just the ex-soviet countries on Russia's periphery , like Ukraine, battling for their continued independence - but also 22 republics contained within the Russian Federation: we will have heard of Crimea, for example - but Adygea...Altai ...Bashkortostan...Yakutia, and the rest? These republics were set up as such under Lenin and with the idea that each would be largely independent. So Russia has many potential noses struggling for autonomy and battling for their continued existence against Putin's plans for centralisation - which he launched back in 2000. In American terms it is maybe as if each state were much more ethnically distinct from the others - with its own languages, as if those those potentially richer states were finding their wealth channelled towards federal government - and if the federal government itself was intent on wiping out the concept of separate states.
posted by rongorongo at 1:06 AM on January 24, 2023 [4 favorites]




Sure but did the Poles fill out the tank export request form correctly?

[One of a number of sarcastic/impatient commentaries in the German press. A few politicians here have said "Well we haven't had an official request from Poland" as if that was somehow the reason for the delays.]
posted by UN at 2:43 AM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


UN - After having personally interacted with German bureaucracy, this somehow does not surprise me.
posted by jpziller at 8:47 AM on January 24, 2023


Germany will send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine in addition to giving Poland the go-ahead to re-export theirs.
posted by UN at 9:59 AM on January 24, 2023 [17 favorites]


Presumably this also means Finland will be able to send Leopard 2-tanks to Ukraine. President Niinistö was in Ukraine just earlier today and reiterated Finland’s desire to do that.
posted by Kattullus at 12:02 PM on January 24, 2023 [1 favorite]


Don't mess with Finland.
posted by y2karl at 12:36 PM on January 24, 2023 [3 favorites]


In ancillary news, the ecological and geopolitical mplications in this report activated my spidey sense:

North Korea issues ‘extreme cold’ weather warning as mercury plunges to -30 degrees Celsius
posted by y2karl at 2:45 PM on January 24, 2023


A bit of corporate FAFO:

Wintershall’s empty bank accounts expose plight of western companies still in Russia
Parent group BASF’s €7.3bn writedown reveals flaws in historical German industrial policy
Wintershall Dea chief executive Mario Mehren spent much of last year defending its continued presence in Russia, where the BASF subsidiary was one of the last western companies still pumping oil and gas in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

But he revealed last week that the company was finally leaving, saying Moscow-owned Gazprom had taken control of the German company’s joint ventures in Siberia and emptied their shared bank accounts.

Almost €2bn of Wintershall’s cash had vanished, Mehren told German newspaper Börsen-Zeitung, accusing Gazprom of having “cleared” the accounts of its three shared gas and oil extraction businesses. Gazprom did not respond to a request for comment.
posted by srboisvert at 1:05 AM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]


CNN.com: Zelensky shakes up Ukrainian government amid growing corruption scandal

Is Zelensky cleaning house linked to the sudden release of tanks, and some positive signals of eventual fighter jets? Was it a precondition that they got their house in order first?
posted by Harald74 at 1:21 AM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]


There is also quite a lot of anti-corruption homework to be done when applying for EU membership, so this might be a consequence of that.
posted by Harald74 at 1:22 AM on January 25, 2023 [3 favorites]


In other news, Ukraine has further dismissals of senior officials accused of corruption, and it seems unlikely that the timing is a coincidence.
posted by automatronic at 1:23 AM on January 25, 2023


BTW, I'm pleasantly surprised that at least some of the Leopard 2s to be sent are the A6 variant, which has upgraded both armour, sights and cannon compared to the now somewhat long in the tooth A4 variant which has been promoted as the most likely candidate.
posted by Harald74 at 1:26 AM on January 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


Now that there is a near full NATO consensus on providing Main Battle Tanks I think everything in the conventional warfare arsenal is on the table. Tanks are big and noticeable so they are in the news and they can't really be secretly delivered. So we are hearing about them.

Long range missiles and guided artillery on the other hand could be delivered largely without notice as part of routine armament shipments and arrive at Russian destinations either in Ukraine or just over the Russian border in a surprise move. I fully expect in the next couple of months there are going to be some very big explosions at Russian airbases and ports that are thought to be outside the range of Ukraine's current weapons.

An additional motive beyond 'defense of European democracy' is going to be that both the US and Europe won't want to see too many of their donated Main Battle Tanks get destroyed. Perceived underperformance would be pretty bad for future sales. So I think they will have big incentives to give Ukraine the ability to defend the tanks with longer range weaponry to eliminate Russia's artillery and missile systems. Modern jets may also be on the table quickly for similar reasons.

Yesterday was a big shift in the nature of this war. The West is now in it to win it.
posted by srboisvert at 1:31 AM on January 25, 2023 [6 favorites]


It also seems like Switzerland is finally relenting and allowing re-export of ammunition to Ukraine. This is mainly the 35mm ammunition for the Gepard air defence artillery, which is not readily available from elsewhere. The Gepards are defending Ukrainian civilian infrastructure from drone and cruise missile attack, so increased ammunition supply will translate directly to less civilian deaths. It should not be a hard decision to provide this ammunition even if you're on the fence about supplying weapons in general, I feel.
posted by Harald74 at 1:32 AM on January 25, 2023 [8 favorites]


Long range missiles and guided artillery on the other hand could be delivered largely without notice as part of routine armament shipments and arrive at Russian destinations either in Ukraine or just over the Russian border in a surprise move. I fully expect in the next couple of months there are going to be some very big explosions at Russian airbases and ports that are thought to be outside the range of Ukraine's current weapons.

To maximise impact they should not be announced beforehand, no. The Russians are also learning during the conflict, and their logistics hubs and HQs are now located juuust outside the range of the current long-range artillery available to Ukraine. They should just wake up one morning to most of their gear being on fire, not have a few weeks notice to move it juuust outside the range of the new munitions.
posted by Harald74 at 1:36 AM on January 25, 2023 [3 favorites]


Task Force KleptoCapture in action:

Briton arrested after 'hiding Russian yacht by changing its name from Tango to Fanta'
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) claimed Masters ran a yacht company in Palma de Mallorca and managed Tango after initial sanctions were imposed on Mr Vekselberg in 2018.

Masters allegedly called Mr Vekselberg's yacht "the Fanta" to hide thousands of dollars from banks that would ultimately benefit the oligarch.
posted by srboisvert at 4:35 AM on January 25, 2023 [1 favorite]


Oksana Dutchak: Together We Stand: Enforced Single Motherhood and Ukrainian Refugees’ Care Networks
The structures of gender and economic inequality have placed a disproportionate share of reproductive labor on women in all societies, including in Ukraine. However, in the case of Ukrainian refugees, it seems more appropriate to speak not about this disproportionate burden, but about the phenomenon of enforced single motherhood, where the entire responsibility of reproductive labor falls on women’s shoulders.

In this article I analyze how reproductive labor is managed by Ukrainian refugees in the context of enforced single motherhood. I am particularly focused on the role that informal networks of support play. While being deeply gendered and depoliticized, these networks offer women a source of time, critically needed for social reproduction. How are these networks of support (re)created in and after displacement? How do they structure the lives and experiences of Ukrainian refugees? Which structures of inequalities stand behind them and how should these informal networks be evaluated from a political perspective? I will provide some preliminary answers, based on interviews with Ukrainian refugees, participatory observation and, well, my own experience of enforced single motherhood in refuge.
posted by kmt at 6:56 AM on January 25, 2023 [3 favorites]


And today is Zelenskyi's birthday.

Don't know if the first Leopard will be gift-wrapped, but it would be one of those gifts where you can easily guess the contents from the shape of the package.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:34 AM on January 25, 2023 [9 favorites]


John Ridge on Twitter
🇺🇸 Abrams main battle tanks being delivered to 🇺🇦 under USAI rather than PDA is an interesting development. A short 🧵on the possible explanations.
1/5


tl;dr he thinks they're probably getting new tanks from the factory.

CNN thinks it's either that, or the new tanks are for Poland with older Polish Abrams getting a refurb and going to Ukraine.

it would be one of those gifts where you can easily guess the contents from the shape of the package.

An AMX-10? Thanks anyway, Auntie France.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:32 AM on January 25, 2023 [4 favorites]




A Twitter thread by military analyst Rob Lee, who’s been linked to in Ukraine comment threads countless times, where he explains what these tanks mean for the war. Excerpt:
Ukraine's goal is to retake all of its territory occupied by Russia. Breaking through well-prepared defensive lines (and exploiting success) is difficult without significant combined arms advantages, and Ukraine is unlikely to have air superiority. 2/

Challenger 2, Leopard 2, and Abrams are more survivable and have better optics and fire control systems. That will give Ukrainian tankers an advantage in tank-on-tank fights and other engagements, and tank crews will be more likely to survive (and keep fighting). 3/

These new tanks also open up a new line of ammunition available to Ukraine, which is critical since they have been using tanks as artillery. Procuring 3 new types of tanks will be a logistical headache, but it will also give them more options for replacing future tank losses. 4/

Tanks will undoubtedly play a key role in Ukraine's future offensives as in Kharkiv and Kherson. The new tanks will increase Kyiv's chances for success but not guarantee it. They are just one component of combined arms, and can only partially compensate for other weaknesses. 5/

Personally, I think deliveries of new IFVs and APCs, like the Bradley and Stryker, are more significant than tanks because Ukraine lacks enough IFVs/APCs and the relative improvement of a Bradley/Stryker over BMP-1/MRAP is even greater than Leopard 2 over many Ukrainian tanks. 6/
In related news, here’s a video of the moment Zelenskyy found out that Germany had decided to send Leopard 2 tanks.
posted by Kattullus at 12:34 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]


Lockheed ready with F-16s as Kyiv allies revive debate over fighter jets. US-German tanks deal gives impetus for aircraft but Washington and Berlin rule out sending them
Frank St. John, chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, the largest US defence contractor, told the FT that there was “a lot of conversation about third party transfer of F-16s” — whereby countries would re-export their US jets to Ukraine to defend its airspace. Lockheed is not directly involved in talks regarding the potential delivery of military aircraft to Kyiv.
However, St. John said the company was “going to be ramping production on F-16s in Greenville [South Carolina] to get to the place where we will be able to backfill pretty capably any countries that choose to do third party transfers to help with the current conflict”.
The White House has rebuffed Ukrainian appeals for modern fighter jets such as the F-16 out of fear they could be used to strike Russian territory. The US government must approve sales, or transfers to third countries, of American-made fighter jets, which means European countries would need political support from the Biden administration.
posted by srboisvert at 3:38 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]


So is Biden scholzing the jets now?
posted by UN at 7:26 AM on January 26, 2023


So is Biden scholzing the jets now?

That isn't a fair or valid comparison. There's a big difference between NATO armor helping to punch holes in the Russian lines in occupied Ukraine and US-made jets potentially conducting airstrike on Russian territory.

The US has not opposed transfers of Warsaw Pact-model fighters and fighter/bombers, because Russia has a lot less credibility in complaining about airstrikes conducted by their own aircraft.
posted by Gelatin at 7:35 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]


Scholzing began with helmets — anything more was too provocative. I'd argue that the difference between helmets and pretty much anything (ie Panzerfäuste) is greater than Abrams and F16s?
posted by UN at 8:43 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]


The US has not opposed transfers of Warsaw Pact-model fighters and fighter/bombers, because Russia has a lot less credibility in complaining about airstrikes conducted by their own aircraft.

Sure, but also the US doesn't have any actual or contractual authority to block such transfers, so it would look pretty silly if it tried.
posted by Not A Thing at 8:59 AM on January 26, 2023


The current major foot dragging from the US right now is about long range missiles, despite all the guarantees the Ukrainians have offered about not striking beyond their borders. We've already authorized a crap-ton of funding to train Ukrainian pilots on US aircraft, so that is in play and sooner or later they will end up with US aircraft. But the delays on the missiles are frustrating to see; I am hoping that more is happening behind the scenes.

Scholzing began with helmets — anything more was too provocative.

The amount of shaming that he requires at every step before advancing is phenomenal. The other day I saw it jokingly described as a kink of his, and while that obviously isn't exactly correct, it is a really weird dynamic. Everyone knows what will happen, and it eventually does happen, but only after a protracted and very public process that from the outside looks horrible for all parties.

While I feel that Germany could be doing much more to assist on the military front, they are one of the countries that has taken in huge numbers of refugees and that deserves a lot more recognition than it sometimes gets.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:00 AM on January 26, 2023 [8 favorites]


Two Turkish-owned ships hit by Russia. This hasn't been big in the news (no one killed), but it might be important
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:21 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]


Sure, but also the US doesn't have any actual or contractual authority to block such transfers, so it would look pretty silly if it tried.

The US might have some leverage in that it could block sales of backfill F-16s and replacement parts to anyone who does stuff it doesn't agree with.

But if I were some other country, I'd quite possibly call that bluff, and just tell the US and Lockheed that I'd be happy to buy Eurofighter Typhoons to replace the F-16s, if that's how they want to be. That ought to send Lockheed's Government Relations people screaming all the way up Capitol Hill, and they have a lot of Government Relations people.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2023 [1 favorite]


VOA: F-16 Deal Contingent on Turkey’s Support for NATO Expansion, Syria

We are doing exactly that kind of arm-twisting with Turkey. The US position is no F-16s if Turkey blocks Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
posted by ryanrs at 2:06 PM on January 26, 2023


give Ukraine the 16s then they could buy 35s and be state of the art, perhaps the fighters allocated for Turkey could go to Ukraine. Turkey lost those in 2019 and in 2020 the u.s. imposed CAATSA sanctions. Perhaps that's why Russia bombed those ships as some sort of warning.

"The Dutch case is instructive in understanding the Ukrainian appeals for the F-16, which can be understood at least in part as opportunism to get a hold of planes being phased out by European countries in favor of the newer F-35, before they're sold to someone else."
posted by clavdivs at 5:19 PM on January 26, 2023


We should try to revive the offer to buy those S-400s off Turkey, and offer Ankara a deal on Patriots and F-35s. Then we could keep a S-400 battery for ourselves for dissecting and analysis and send the rest to Ukraine to shoot down Russian hardware.
posted by Reverend John at 6:00 PM on January 26, 2023


That's insane. Turkey should never even see an F-35 until Erdogan is gone. Flying our newest stealth fighter in front of Russian air defense radars is not a threat you can take back.
posted by ryanrs at 9:32 PM on January 26, 2023 [4 favorites]


> Abrams main battle tanks being delivered to [Ukraine] under USAI rather than PDA is an interesting development

Yeah that's an interesting little twist.

(For those who don't have an ongoing interest in arms deals, basically that means the tanks are going to be purchased by Ukraine using US funds appropriated by Congress for that purpose, rather than coming directly from an existing US military stockpile via the President's direct order as Commander in Chief.)

Couple of thoughts: first is that maybe it's just a punt—it kicks the Abrams issue down the road, because the "purchase" process is so long and laden with red tape. (It doesn't have to be, of course—the process could conceivably move as fast as you could carry a piece of paper around or get the right people in a room—but it can be made to move at whatever speed is desired.) Second thought is that maybe it's creating a legal figleaf for the purposes of giving someone else an opportunity to save face.

I mean, if someone really wanted to, with a few hours practice in the mirror they'd probably be able to say with a straight face that: this was not the US giving tanks to Ukraine, it was merely General Dynamics Land Systems selling some of its fine products to the Ukrainian Institute (or maybe the American Institute for Ukraine, or the Ukrainian-American Friendship Club, or the Veterans of Russian Wars Booster Club; in any case a non-profit Washington DC corporation which might or might not have the same mailing address as the Ukrainian embassy), and at no time did the US Government own those tanks, ergo it could not have given them to Ukraine. (The fact that the Ukrainians basically went shopping using a giftcard from Uncle Sam, redeemable at any of America's esteemed defense companies, is beside the point.)

Seems a bit rules-lawyery to me, but I guess that's what diplomats do for a living?

Maybe it's a bit of both.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:34 PM on January 26, 2023 [11 favorites]


Occam's Pork Barrel: If they're really getting new production from GLDS — which is the first I've heard that intimated — it could be a way to get the some of the Republicans to STFU.

How President Trump Saved The Last Tank Plant In America (blergh) [Forbes 'contributor', 2018]

I had thought they were going to get the M1A1 'ODS' variant.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:23 AM on January 27, 2023


A rare glimpse into covert arms sales world: How Western companies make a fortune on brokering deals for Ukraine
posted by UN at 9:34 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]


Last night, someone apparently saw an opportunity to express their dislike of Iran producing Shahed drones.

There are at least four plausible suspects, and about the same number of less-plausible ones.

And near Tabriz, northwestern Iran, a fire broke out at an oil refinery. Cause not yet known.

(The 5.9 earthquake in northwestern Iran at the same time was a natural disaster as far as anyone can tell)
posted by Stoneshop at 4:20 AM on January 29, 2023


Looks like Ukraine is getting most of their modern tank shopping list - the Ukrainian ambassador to France mentioned the total pledged is 321, where 300-500 were mentioned before as necessary to push Russians out. This is on top of about 260 T-72, modernised variants and armoured personnel carriers they got from Poland alone so far. The US was negotiating for additional armaments from Columbia (helicopters) and Brasil (ammo), but both refused. Newest appeals are for fighter jets, which does point to plans requiring air support.

And the International Olympics Committee is planning to let Russians compete in Paris in 2024 under the international flag again. Ukrainians disapprove.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:36 AM on January 29, 2023 [7 favorites]


A railway bridge near Svitodolynske, on the line between Tokmak and Melitopol was struck, reportedly with HIMARS. This is the only railway line from the east into Melitopol and the occupied part of Kherson Oblast, so as long as it's out of order it's road transport only, or by rail through Crimea.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:05 PM on January 29, 2023


Interesting thread on evolving tactics, here focusing on the 777s:

Thread by @CasualArtyFan on Thread Reader App
Can towed artillery still be an asset on the modern battlefield?

Let’s take a look at M777s, the most numerous 155mm system and NATO arty system in Ukraine today.

Ukraine has innovated in many ways to still make them relevant in the face of UAVs.

Here’s a recent video👇

1|16
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:26 PM on January 29, 2023


The netting defense against HE loiter drones seems like something that could conceivably be built directly onto artillery - like, retractable tops on convertible cars/ dustcovers on open-topped semis.
posted by porpoise at 5:17 PM on January 29, 2023


In procurement, 'readily built onto artillery' means 18 - 32 months. With optimism. Most of what is being sent it as is its most recent upgrade, and in the alternative to keeping and upgrading it again. And then further upgraded, in theater, with whatever field expedients are available.

At least, that's what they're telling all of us informed via news and commentary.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:23 PM on January 29, 2023


(that is, for stuff developed in large numbers. UA (and Aerorozvidka) have shown they can iterate very quickly, but the scale there is presumably limited...)
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:40 PM on January 29, 2023


The US already has camouflage netting systems for their artillery. I've bought the used/surplus fiberglass poles for use as a portable antenna mast. So the artillery pieces should already have the basic building blocks for anti-drone netting.
posted by ryanrs at 7:47 AM on January 30, 2023 [1 favorite]


It's definitely available in some forms now—nets and the thermal masking stuff.

I'd be pretty amazed if they could come up with new variants of equipment integrating that stuff off the line and have it widely deployed within a year, but on the other hand this is different than any other conflict I've been around for.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:25 AM on January 30, 2023


One thing I managed to sharpen during my conscription year was my elite camo netting erection skilzz. It's more trouble than it looks, snags on every little protrusion on the vehicle as well as everywhere on your personal equipment. The thing that is a bit odd (to me) is that I practiced that skill following around the very same howitzers that Norway donated to Ukraine last year.
posted by Harald74 at 12:14 PM on January 30, 2023 [4 favorites]


Biden answered simply "no" when asked if the US would provide F-16s to Ukraine, according to Financial Times. At this stage it doesn't signify much, but it might be a sign that US authorities want to play their cards closer to their chests regarding upcoming aid.
posted by Harald74 at 4:39 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Mark Hertling and other credible people also think the IFVs provided will be more important than the tanks in the coming offensives.
posted by Harald74 at 4:50 AM on January 31, 2023


Biden answered simply "no" when asked if the US would provide F-16s to Ukraine, according to Financial Times. At this stage it doesn't signify much, but it might be a sign that US authorities want to play their cards closer to their chests regarding upcoming aid.

I agree, and there's a distinction between the US directly providing airplanes and the US allowing another country to donate them in exchange for the US backfilling. But regardless, there's also a pattern of the US (and other countries) saying "no, absolutely not" about each new weapons system right up until they switch to providing it, so I take these kind of denials as basically meaning "no, not right now, but maybe later."
posted by Dip Flash at 6:14 AM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


I think this underscores how important it is for all of us in western countries, especially the US, to keep contacting our political leaders and urging them to support Ukraine with all of the weapons they are asking for as fast as possible. I'm fine with them keeping quiet for geopolitical reasons, and even providing some disinformation to mislead the Russians, as long as the weapons to support Ukraine are on their way as fast as they can be provided and used by the Ukrainians.
posted by Reverend John at 4:58 PM on January 31, 2023 [5 favorites]


There is some reporting coming out that the next tranche of aid will include longer range missile systems. I really hope that is true, because it would expose much of the Russian back end to strikes.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:46 PM on January 31, 2023


That's a capability that really should not be announced beforehand, but come as a surprise.

Former Italian artilleryman Thomas C. Theiner on the GLSDB, if that is what it is.
posted by Harald74 at 10:53 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


Jomini of the West has resurfaced (since September?) on Twitter with a roundup of January developments.
posted by Harald74 at 1:03 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]


"80 years on, we are facing German tanks again - Putin"

Ok I laughed.
posted by mazola at 9:06 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


I agree, and there's a distinction between the US directly providing airplanes and the US allowing another country to donate them in exchange for the US backfilling.

If you want to parse it that closely, there's a difference between "providing" and "selling," as apparently evidence by the Abrams deal.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:08 AM on February 2, 2023


I agree, and there's a distinction between the US directly providing airplanes and the US allowing another country to donate them in exchange for the US backfilling. But regardless, there's also a pattern of the US (and other countries) saying "no, absolutely not" about each new weapons system right up until they switch to providing it, so I take these kind of denials as basically meaning "no, not right now, but maybe later."

The real tip off will be what we find out Ukrainians are training on. If I were Zelensky and Co. I'd be pushing the west (or the former Eastern Bloc allies) to train Ukrainians in advance of declarations of weapon support in order to shorten the operational lag for deploying promised weaponry. February will be a critical month and it would be terrible if support were delivered too late to be useful. Even the tank promises are probably cutting it too close to being late (and may well push up Russia's offensives schedule).

It could be this is already happening but I'd be surprised if it could be kept quiet and there seems to be nothing being said about it.
posted by srboisvert at 10:51 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]




Kabanos, your link doesn't work.
posted by fatbird at 3:59 PM on February 2, 2023


Try this one.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:06 PM on February 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Geez, can't the Russians even supply their guys with ear protection? The sound of that gun in a small concrete room must have been incredible.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:26 PM on February 2, 2023


Every piece of media that features a gun going off in an indoor space and then has characters whispering to each other immediately afterward makes me think, "Oh, you never did research about actual gun use, have you?"
posted by hippybear at 8:01 PM on February 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


WHAT?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:16 PM on February 2, 2023 [9 favorites]


As the war drags on I see more and more suppressors on Ukrainian rifles and high-end ear protection on their troops. It's not "just" to save the soldier's hearing, verbal communication in a combat situation also becomes a lot easier.
posted by Harald74 at 12:55 AM on February 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


Here's a story from the BBC on the electrical infrastructure and the people working to literally keep the lights on: Ukraine grid attacks: Engineers race to restore electricity supplies
posted by Harald74 at 2:10 AM on February 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


Ukraine may be able to join the EU within 6 years, but not realistically earlier, according to Anton Hofreiter (chairman of the Committee on European Affairs in Germany.)

I would imagine this is an acceptable timeline considering the size of the to-do list for Ukraine (defeat Russia etc.)
posted by UN at 4:13 AM on February 3, 2023 [4 favorites]


The story of how the countries of Europe came together to help each other rapidly reduce their consumption of Russian gas (and, indeed, their overall gas consumption year on year) - so as to deliver a collective “fuck you” to Putin’s threats - is a positive one I think.
posted by rongorongo at 6:10 AM on February 3, 2023 [9 favorites]




As the war drags on I see more and more suppressors on Ukrainian rifles and high-end ear protection on their troops. It's not "just" to save the soldier's hearing, verbal communication in a combat situation also becomes a lot easier.

I'd be surprised if using suppressors was the case on the hot fronts because they are complaining about wave attacks that are resulting in them practically melting their gun barrels. There was an article where they talked about swapping rifles on the fly because they were getting too hot. Suppressors cause more problems than benefits when you are shooting like that.
posted by srboisvert at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2023


Well, then that unit had a shocking lack of machine guns, unfortunately.

The USMC for one is going all in on suppressors.
posted by Harald74 at 10:32 PM on February 3, 2023


Paul Poast: The West’s Sanctions Against Russia Aren’t Working
Nearly a year into the application of these severe sanctions, a natural question arises: Are they working? Unfortunately, the answer is no. If the past year has reinforced any lesson, it is that economic coercion alone is not enough to achieve a policy goal. This lesson should already have been clear from numerous other cases of sanctions that failed to change a targeted country’s behavior, such as the long-standing U.S. embargo of Cuba. Instead, it will have to be learned again in this case. Indeed, given the comprehensive nature of these sanctions, they may well demonstrate the ultimate futility of economic coercion as a foreign policy instrument.
posted by kmt at 5:27 AM on February 4, 2023



💣 A fire has broken out
in the Belgorod region of Russia at an industrial plant and a neighboring oil depot. Local authorities claim that it is allegedly the result of "shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Local Telegram channels report that it is the Borisov Bridge Metal Structures Plant, which manufactured more than 40% of the metal structures of the Crimean bridge.

Two more images; the text in the green rectangle says "Blyatgorod".

Borisovka lies some 20km from the closest point on the Ukrainian border, and the entire region there has been under Ukrainian control since the Kharkiv offensive.
posted by Stoneshop at 5:40 AM on February 4, 2023 [2 favorites]


Paul Poast is sniffing glue. Did they lead to immediate unconditional surrender? That was not the expected outcome. The war is not over, so no way to yet say how the collapse of the Russian economy will play into the eventual outcome, but allowing Russia back into the civilised world will be a very useful and major element of an eventual peace settlement.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:54 AM on February 4, 2023 [6 favorites]


That link is paywalled. Without compiling a bunch of articles and videos to compare, from what I've seen my sense is that most of the "sanctions aren't working" discourse focuses on what's available to consumers in stores in medium to large Russian cities. I haven't seen much refuting the more macro effects; which sooner or later will catch up with the consumers.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:45 AM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


The thing with sanctions, whether the criticism is that they don't work well enough or that they're too cruel, is that they offer an alternative to the traditional means of settling international disputes, which traditionally led to a lot more death and violence. Their shortcomings need to be weighed against what actions would be taken (or not taken) instead of them.
posted by trig at 8:13 AM on February 4, 2023 [5 favorites]


Anything that makes it more difficult for Russia to carry on the war has effect. One less shell to fire on Ukrainian positions is one less shell.

The other instances of US sanctions mentions are totally worth discussion outside of this thread but they're probably examples of when sanctions are the wrong tool.

The policy aims with the Russian sanctions are very different than in Cuba, N. Korea, and pre-invasion Russia. None of them were actively at war.
posted by VTX at 8:14 AM on February 4, 2023 [6 favorites]


Non-paywall link for the Poast article.

I'm not sure how detached from reality is to review previous statements and predictions about the effect of sanctions to see whether they are effective. Links to the original sources in the article. Is this sniffing glue?
First, it’s not clear that the sanctions are doing as much damage to Russia as was hoped and intended. Sanctions can work as an “economic weapon” by degrading a target’s military capacity and creating economic hardship that pressures a country’s leadership to reverse course on a specific policy or general behavior. Initially, it seemed that both objectives might be achieved with regard to Russia. A widely publicized study by a group of Yale economists in July, five months into the war, characterized the sanctions’ impact as “catastrophically crippling.”

More recent reports, however, indicate that while the economic measures have posed challenges, Russia’s economy “has weathered the sanctions better than many expected.” RAND analyst Mike Mazarr noted that, while accurate economic figures for Russia are difficult to acquire, the currently available numbers are “daunting.” Russia’s trade has recovered to 2021 levels, and the International Monetary Fund projects that Russia’s economy will actually grow in 2023, though only by about 0.5 percent.
He is not calling to ease sanctions, he is saying that they are not enough. (emphasis mine):
In other words, it’s good that the “Free the Leopards” campaign worked, and hopefully the same will prove true for the push currently afoot to supply Ukraine with advanced fighter jets as well. Because winning the war will ultimately come down to real weapons, not economic ones.
posted by kmt at 12:38 PM on February 4, 2023 [3 favorites]


Thanks for the clarification, kmt.

If he's saying "¿por que no los dos?", then great, I agree.

I think the framing of "sanctions aren't working" of the headline draws the inference "they don't work in general", which doesn't help his cause.
posted by ishmael at 12:57 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


This came up in my Facebook scroll. Peter Zeihan is a name new to me but familiar here and this is at least three months old. It left me feeling grim and uncertain.

Peter Zeihan: Russia Is at the Point of No Return -- This Is What Will Happen With Russia If It Doesn't Stop

...but all the same I would like to know what is the take of the knowledgeable here.

I will say this after reviewing his previous YouTube content -- he has seriously upped his composition and production values.
posted by y2karl at 1:26 PM on February 4, 2023


He's been giving a version of that talk for years; among other things that leave me wondering is what's supposed to happen exactly in all these places suffering demographic collapse and who are going to "disappear?"

Like, who exactly does he propose will be living in Moscow? Or Ukraine, for that matter? As he says both are beyond the point of no return as "ethnicities."

With China, at least, he's more explicit that it's just the current state that won't last in its current form if the multinational system collapses into an era of autarchy.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:34 PM on February 4, 2023


y2karl it seems there are a million PZ rebroadcasters that are dressing up his stuff with the pianos and graphics.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:48 PM on February 4, 2023


yeah, he's taken a page from the big streamers and lets people clip and redistribute his stuff to expand his recognition.

This is the channel he uploads to (some of the others have very similar names).

A bunch of people have been popping up to try to debunk him lately, but mostly from a crypto-maximalist perspective (as he loves to shit on Bitcoin).
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:56 PM on February 4, 2023 [2 favorites]


Zeihan has, lets say, a thesis. His main three points, broadly:

1. Demography is destiny. Census data shows many global and military powers are headed towards population decline.
2. Russian empire is anchored by a land warfare doctrine, emphasizing a narrow set of gaps between natural barriers to invasion. Several of those gaps are not under Russian control.
3. U.S. demilitarized substantially after the Berlin wall fell, and the power vacuum left will be filled one way or another.

IMO its not all that clear to me that he's right. Retirees shifting into safer assets just means a relatively light restructuring of capital markets, not an end to them. If investors want bonds instead of equities, that's an easy trade: issue bonds, and use the proceeds to buy stocks back. Similarly, shifts in population dynamics shouldn't necessarily result in the end of trade, just a shift. If Chinese labor dries up, India and Africa have plenty of labor to employ.

And on Russian war doctrine, it's not real clear to me they want those gaps all that much. What they seemingly want is a warmwater port and strategic supply routes to it, to freely export oil without any middlemen. Hence invasions of Crimea and Donesk/Lunhansk, to secure Sevastopol and a land bridge to it. And why, having demolished the only bridge out of town, long range munitions will help cut off the supply routes currently in place.

Anyways, its an argument based on facts, which is at least a refreshing change of pace from the usual.
posted by pwnguin at 2:59 PM on February 4, 2023 [4 favorites]


That link is paywalled. Without compiling a bunch of articles and videos to compare, from what I've seen my sense is that most of the "sanctions aren't working" discourse focuses on what's available to consumers in stores in medium to large Russian cities. I haven't seen much refuting the more macro effects; which sooner or later will catch up with the consumers.

The idea that Russian consumers hold any power over their government is kind of undermined by soldiers looting washing machines at the start of the war. That means to ordinary russians these were significant enough luxury items that they would take the time to ship them across a country they've invaded. The discomfort of a "Russian consumer" is a complete non-factor. It already was a non-factor before the war and it will only be more so during the war.

But the real reason why sanctions on Russia are not working is because Europe is still giving Russia billions of dollars every month, many nations are not onboard with sanctions and even some that ostensibly are are still shipping weapons and weapons tech to Russia some directly and other indirectly via third party countries. The western approach to sanctions on Russia are about as effective as most of the Western world's attempts at stopping coronavirus at the border: Political theater with at best a marginal effect.

I still support it though because marginal effects are still effects. I just wish they were accompanied with support for things that would have major effects like long range missiles and airplanes.
posted by srboisvert at 3:07 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


Zeihan bothers me, he is no doubt informed and intelligent but his main project is self-promotion and always acting like the smartest-darned aw-shucks cutie-pie in the room.

Saying "shit is confusing and people will muddle through" is not nearly as profitable as being a soothsayer and doom monger.

Globalisation is over!
China will be completely screwed in 3 months!
Russia is done, forever! This is their last battle!
(input X) will be gone, it is not coming back! Next year there will be NO MORE (output Y), EVER! It will be an Ethiopia level famine across all of (wherever)...

I do not believe the whole world is going to fall apart, - people adjust, systems adapt, people muddle through.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:14 PM on February 4, 2023 [6 favorites]


I feel better already. I did not miss the self-promotional part but he was covering things in detail.

In other news, there are these:

Fiona Hill. Balancing Act: Russia, US and the World.

Distinguished Speakers Program on Ukraine: One year later with Dr. Fiona Hill
posted by y2karl at 3:38 PM on February 4, 2023


I think Zeihan makes some good points about demographics and the reality of globalization and how it's going. I think he's blowing a bit of smoke here and there, and his predictions about timelines are wildly overblown, but he makes points worth hearing. He is all one note, though, and I find what he says to be more interesting in the general than the specific.
posted by hippybear at 4:05 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


The idea that Russian consumers hold any power over their government is kind of undermined by soldiers looting washing machines at the start of the war.

A lot of the commentary has drawn a distinction between the people sent to fight and the people whose opinion matters to the regime; I don't know how accurate that is but the "sanctions aren't working, shelves are stocked" videos come from cities where expats and polyglots are, and whatever their situation they do seem like the kind of people who have washing machines already.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:11 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


I found this video of the unloading of tanks from planes and loading them onto trailers really interesting. Hard work! (not tanks for Ukraine though). It's kind of fascinating that they have to protect the plane ramps and the airport surfaces from the tanks.
posted by srboisvert at 4:14 PM on February 4, 2023


And to think, TFG wanted a military parade through DC.
posted by porpoise at 4:41 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


It's kind of fascinating that they have to protect the plane ramps and the airport surfaces from the tanks.

The pre-cut plywood pieces they were using seem like they would be easier to manage than the old tires that all the contractors here use when they have to move tracked equipment on paved roads. That is a brutal workout, carrying tires from the back to the front as the machine creeps along, especially on a hot day.

Interestingly, in that video the first tank they used wood under the tracks, but the second tank later in the video didn't use protectors.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 PM on February 4, 2023


It's that pavement chewing nature of tank treads that is one of the reasons why the military parade idea was nixed by the Pentagon. There were a lot of others, including it's a stupid idea, but that is a real thing.
posted by hippybear at 7:20 PM on February 4, 2023 [1 favorite]


Interview with members of the Bratstvo battalion - Ukrainians working on under cover operations in Russia. Interesting to have a job you can’t tell your family about and an association with Ukraine that they know the country will deny if they are caught.
posted by rongorongo at 1:07 AM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]


srboisvert: It's kind of fascinating that they have to protect the plane ramps and the airport surfaces from the tanks.

It's not really clear from this photo, but it appears that in the winter Canadian tarmac is frozen so hard that tank tracks can do no damage so they don't need to lay down some protective cover.

And if you're driving straight in, with street pads (paws?) on your Leopard the treads do little damage. The tarmac-chewing happens when you have to make turns, even with pads (and they get worn down quickly too), and with the first tank in the video it's clear that they expected they would have to turn while on the apron with the plane and the loader not perfectly lined up. The second tank (and that's somewhere else entirely) could probably just drive straight on until reaching a more replaceable surface.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:24 AM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]


There is quite a bit of talk in the media and from Ukrainian officials on a coming Russian offensive.

I don't really have a comment in that. I just hope it involves much failure for them.
posted by UN at 11:16 AM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]


I hope so too, but there is a distinct possibility that they are starting to get their ducks in a row. We in the West are fed a steady diet of "lol russkies" memes reinforcing their constant failing on everything, but they are still a force to be reckoned with. They managed an orderly retreat in Kherson, and have kept the pressure on Bakhmut for months (with horrific losses that don't seem to faze them at all) and apparently are managing to keep their logistics running at lower capacity but out of range of the current Ukrainian artillery systems. We should not assume that they suck at everything just because that's mostly what we see.

I would be a lot happier if the Ukrainians had already got tons of IFVs and longer range artillery like ATACMS or the yet-to-be-mass-produced GLSDB. Currently it seems like it will be a close call.
posted by Harald74 at 1:21 PM on February 5, 2023 [10 favorites]


Phillips O'Brian has some thoughts on his substack:

For a while now the Russian use of infantry-led assaults has been leading to very high casualties. It might be that this is going to get worse. We either are already in, or should soon be in a phase of increased Russian offensive activity as the soldiers that were mobilized in September are now thrown into the fray. It looks like its going to be a really bloody few months.
posted by Harald74 at 1:36 PM on February 5, 2023 [2 favorites]


as the soldiers that were mobilized in September are now thrown into the fray

I thought I had been reading reports for months about newly-mobilized soldiers on the front lines. What has Russia been doing with these soldiers for 6 months if not shipping them off to be cannon fodder? It isn't like they have a real boot camp system in the Russian Army.
posted by hippybear at 1:40 PM on February 5, 2023 [1 favorite]


What has Russia been doing with these soldiers for 6 months if not shipping them off to be cannon fodder? It isn't like they have a real boot camp system in the Russian Army.

Exactly. Any that haven't been immediately sent to the meat grinder have been sitting in tents, drawing down their savings and / or going hungry, and being treated like shit. Russia cannot turn mobiks into effective soldiers in the current context, period.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:27 AM on February 6, 2023


Some thoughts from Michael Kofman:

But, I suspect Kyiv does not believe that time is on Ukraine's side. Wary of Russian entrenchment and seeking to avoid the perception of a stalemate, UA is likely to move sooner than later. That's been the trend thus far. 22/

Western equipment may not arrive in time to be relevant for a UA offensive, but more significant in that it will allow UA to launch operations this spring knowing they have replacements secured. Hence the likely losses entailed won't leave UA vulnerable later this year. 23/

In general UA is still advantaged going into 2023, backed by countries with much greater GDP and defense industrial capacity. However, that depends on sustainability of external material support, and in the end potential is not predictive of outcomes. 24/

posted by Harald74 at 6:39 AM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]


I'm seriously frustrated by the slow pace of aid to Ukraine. I think its becoming clear that the hope that training and preparation for increased aid was happening at large scale in secret has not been fulfilled. I will be contacting my federal reps to urge them to step up the aid as soon as possible, but I wish I could do more.
posted by Reverend John at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]


What has Russia been doing with these soldiers for 6 months if not shipping them off to be cannon fodder? It isn't like they have a real boot camp system in the Russian Army.

Exactly. Any that haven't been immediately sent to the meat grinder have been sitting in tents, drawing down their savings and / or going hungry, and being treated like shit. Russia cannot turn mobiks into effective soldiers in the current context, period.


I think you're showing too much certainty here. Russia absolutely is sacrificing some troops as meat waves but even the likely inflated Ukrainian stats show it is only a small fraction of those mobilized. The Bakhmut captured POWs and intercepted communications show they are using hierarchies to determine who is expended: Wagner recruited prisoners in the sacrificial charges to uncover Ukrainian positions and then better trained troops in the follow up and best trained in the rear. Russia has a large number of troops training in Belarus and likely has large numbers training in bootcamps in country. You hear the horror stories of the sacrificial lambs and bad boot camp situations. You don't hear the troops getting proper training (possibly because they may be getting better op sec training as well) because that is the way propaganda works.

It's a war of attrition in trenches now and I don't think the training of Ukraine's forces gives them that big of an advantage anymore. Ukraine's troop training advantages will probably only manifest if they go a mobile offensive now.
posted by srboisvert at 8:01 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]




ITV: Battle of Bakhmut Trench warfare footage and a brief interview an inexplicable civilian "remainer".
posted by srboisvert at 8:24 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


I'm glad to see discussion of Zeihan here. He's frequently plausible, but I'm not sure I trust him. The US is going to win big, especially manufacturing in the mid-west? It might be true, or he might be biased toward things people will pay him to say.

As for who will be living in the depopulated countries, I would assume mostly the people who are already there and their smallish numbers of descendants. There will be lower population density. Zeihan doesn't lean on it, but sub-Saharan Africa is the major place where people are doing a significant amount of reproducing because it was the last to develop. If Zeihan is right, they will be a higher proportion of the world's population and at least some of them will be moving to other regions.

Zeihan talks about a coming major decline in world shipping, but part of that is that even a small increase of risk to commercial shipping leads to a big increase in the cost of (extremely required) insurance. I don't know whether the insurance companies will be more moderate in their demands if asking for too much means they have a lot fewer ships to insure. Or if there will just be a lot more ships with fake insurance. Or maybe the safety of the seas really will be over, and so is global trade in low and moderate value commodities.

I've seen an argument that it's not that Putin wants to ensure that Russia can't be invaded, he's just scrambling for his own political survival-- invading Ukraine may have been a plausible mistake. Alternatively for the timing, I've seen a claim that Russia invades whenever the price of oil goes up. (I think it was oil, it might have been oil and/or gas.)
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:53 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]


Norway has a plan to support Ukraine with 75 billion NOK over five years (approx USD 7 billion), a longer-term commitment divided between military and civilian aid.
posted by Harald74 at 9:33 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]


Russia cannot turn mobiks into effective soldiers in the current context, period.

I think you're showing too much certainty here.


Kofman's been the most even-handed commentator and he seems to think that some of the mobilization effort will result in more properly trained up units turning up in time for the campaigning season (i.e., after the mud).

Air. Ukraine needs tactical air. In whatever form it can be provided, before it's too late.

I'd imagine the US must have some Super Cobra attack helicopters in storage. Those should be on the table. Taiwan and Turkey still operate the type, so there's support; and it's an upgraded Vietnam era design so it should be relatively uncontroversial. And the US is already sending the MI-24s it has leftover from Afghanistan, as have other post-Soviet countries theirs.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:02 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


Air. Ukraine needs tactical air. In whatever form it can be provided, before it's too late.

I'm at the point where I just think all the excuses/explanation about not supplying hardware are just bullshitters post-facto bullshitting. Every single change in Ukrainian arm supply has been pooh-pooed for 'reasons' before it happened. Missiles and arty? Escalatory and supply chain/training issues. Then they were delivered and the supply chain and training was no problem. IFVs? escalatory and supply chain/training. Then no problem. Tanks? The same and now suddenly tanks are schedule to be delivered and those concerns evaporated (I expect they will be trained and using them well before anyone predicted - people at war are motivated learners!). The same will probably eventually happen with jets. Hopefully it happens sooner rather than later. Currently the excuse making is that they won't make much of a difference because theatre conditions mean they can't operate with impunity because of high altitude air defences and man portable low altitude air defences but Russia is still able to launch air-to-ground missiles. These concerns would also be alleviated by providing state of the art SEAD/DEAD equipment.

I really wish NATO would just 'nad up. At the very least they should consider this an opportunity to test their defense strategy & hardware without actually having to go to war themselves if they can't see their way to defending Ukrainian democracy and protecting their Eastern border countries from being next as a matter of principle. Going all in on arming Ukraine and giving Ukraine a shot at decisive victory would send a huge message to every militaristic country outside the alliance.

It does at least look like some countries are positioning for the possibility of Russia expanding the conflict. French Foreign Legion trains with UK troops and tanks in Germany
posted by srboisvert at 12:58 PM on February 6, 2023 [3 favorites]


David Patrikarakos reports from near the front line: The Madness Behind the Battle for Bakhmut.

A grim snapshot, but I did enjoy this:
Later, Coyote is in a playful mood. “What we sometimes also do,” he tells me, “is drop dildos from the drones, just to show them the contempt we have for them. Also, it’s a taste of what’s coming to them — how we’re going to fuck them.” I ask what happens if they hit a Russian soldier on the head. Everyone laughs. Coyote, still looking mischievous, describes how they sometimes find lists of “heroic deaths” written on the walls of Russian positions they capture. “You know, they have a photo of the guy and under it ‘Vlad was killed by a Bayraktar’ and so on…. Imagine: ‘Here lies Sergei — he was killed by a massive cock.’”
posted by Kabanos at 5:33 PM on February 6, 2023 [6 favorites]


An armoured push from the Russians near Vuhledar has apparently been stopped. The losses include three T-90S tanks that are possibly formally Indian owned but requisitioned by the Russian army while they were being service or upgraded in Russia.

There is some footage going around showing around 9 armoured vehicles along with infantry being stopped by Ukrainian artillery. It is a bit unclear if this was a major push, or reconnaissance-in-force by the Russian forces. However, if you go looking for that video, be aware that another video of the same battle is circulating, where Russian soldiers are hit by drone-dropped munitions, and slide into a water filled ditch and die horribly. I had enough by just reading the textual description.
posted by Harald74 at 1:15 AM on February 7, 2023


Ukrainian crews are training on the Challenger 2s being provided by Britain. The rather odd vehicle being shown in the pictures there is a driver training tank, which has had the turret removed and a superstructure for the driving instructor and observers put in place.

Future crews for the AS90 self-propelled howitzers have also arrived in Britain yesterday.
posted by Harald74 at 1:19 AM on February 7, 2023


Michael Kofman was a guest on today’s episode of the War on the Rocks podcast, and went over the general situation of the war in Ukraine, and how he sees the effect of the West sending tanks.
posted by Kattullus at 2:34 AM on February 7, 2023


Ukrainian crews are training on the Challenger 2s being provided by Britain.
But does this tank have a kettle for making tea? Why, yes it does, Aleksandr, old fellow!
posted by rongorongo at 3:03 AM on February 7, 2023


Not just for hot drinks, but you can also reconstitute freeze-dried combat rations. Here's the manufacturer's page, btw.
posted by Harald74 at 3:19 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]


However, if you go looking for that video, be aware that another video of the same battle is circulating, where Russian soldiers are hit by drone-dropped munitions, and slide into a water filled ditch and die horribly. I had enough by just reading the textual description.

There have been a series of really brutal/disturbing videos coming out in the last few days. For example, the video you linked of the three tanks is actually from a longer video that starts with the drone camera tracking a crewmember running while on fire, then panning back to the tanks. Others with very, very close up footage of dead and dying soldiers.

It's always good to be selective about what you choose to watch, but in recent days I think the need to pay attention and choose carefully has been more pressing.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:06 AM on February 7, 2023 [2 favorites]


SRF: "At the moment the whole arms export seems to be falling away"
Because in autumn 2021, Parliament tightened the Swiss War Material Act. It bans arms exports without exception if "the country of destination is involved in an internal or international armed conflict". With this new wording it is clear: Should the NATO alliance occur, for example because Russia also attacks a NATO state like Latvia, no NATO state should be supplied. "Regardless of whether such an alliance actually occurs or not, our customers measure us against it," says Zoller. "We therefore have to talk not only about re-exports, but also about direct exports."
Swiss neutrality is neutering their arms industry's ability to get new contracts because other countries want to be able to help their allies in times of war.
posted by srboisvert at 8:24 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]


Also countries would like to be able to restock their ammunition if they are being attacked, it's not just the reexports that are blocked. A tank you can't use after you run through your current ammunition is a no-go for any sensible nation.
posted by tavella at 10:45 AM on February 7, 2023


William Spaniel: Stalemate, Setup, or Counter-Counterattack? The Weird Winter of the Russia-Ukraine War
Thus far, neither Ukraine nor Russia has made much progress during the winter. What is actually going on? This video surveys four possibilities. On one extreme, Ukraine may be trapping Russia into attacking at high losses with few gains. On the other extreme, Russia may be engaging in a true counter-counterattack, and Ukraine will soon be put on its backfoot. We may also just be observing winter or a true stalemate.

0:00 What's Happening in Ukraine?
5:11 It's Just Winter
8:07 Ukraine Is Setting a Trap
14:36 A True Stalemate
18:41 A Russian Counter-Counterattack
24:52 A Russian Preventive Attack
posted by srboisvert at 12:14 PM on February 7, 2023




New Petey Zee dropped.

It's the usual spiel, with some updates. War stuff up front.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:18 AM on February 8, 2023


Military briefing: what the west’s shifting red lines mean for Ukraine: Allies wary of risk of Russian escalation even as arms decisions reflect Kyiv’s changing battlefield requirements.
The constant crossing of self-imposed boundaries reflects Ukraine’s changing battlefield requirements rather than a shift in allies’ assessments of the escalatory threat, according to western officials and analysts.

“The course of the war has been more fundamental in determining Russia’s escalation risk,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. “We’ve seen when concerns about escalation have been most acute, they have been at moments of extreme vulnerability for the Russians rather than a function of new weapons.”

For their part, US officials say they are constantly re-evaluating support for Ukraine. Missile strikes against critical infrastructure in recent months convinced US and allied officials that it was necessary to send more sophisticated air defence systems, for example.
posted by srboisvert at 9:09 AM on February 8, 2023 [3 favorites]


The UDF Beaver brigade is doing some battlefield shaping to discourage a Belarusian front.
posted by srboisvert at 11:33 AM on February 8, 2023 [4 favorites]


Dara Massicot: What Russia Got Wrong - Can Moscow Learn From Its Failures in Ukraine? (Foreign Affairs)
The Russian military has, however, corrected certain important problems. To overcome a bad plan, it fixed its command structure and changed many of its tactics. It has consolidated its positions in Ukraine after heavy losses while adding more personnel, which will make Ukrainian counteroffensives more costly. Russian military leaders announced their intention to bring back many of the larger divisions from before the 2008 reforms to partly correct for force structure problems. As the Russian economy mobilizes, the defense base could better produce more equipment to make up for wartime losses. Western defense industries, meanwhile, are straining under the demands of replenishing Ukraine. Russia may calculate that it can shore up its position while biding time until Western supplies are exhausted or the world moves on.

But analysts should be careful about forecasting outcomes. The classic adage still holds: in war, the first reports are often wrong or fragmentary. Only time will tell whether Russia can salvage its invasion or whether Ukrainian forces will prevail. The conflict has already followed an unpredictable course, and so the West should avoid making hasty judgments about what went wrong with Russia’s campaign, lest it learn the wrong lessons, devise incorrect strategies, or acquire the wrong types of weapons. Just as the West overestimated Russia’s capabilities before the invasion, it could now underestimate them. And it could overestimate a similarly closed system, such as the Chinese military. It takes time for analysts to learn how a combatant adapts and changes its tactics.
posted by kmt at 12:29 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]


"I would like to come and hug you, but I can't" -
@BBC_ua journalist told @ZelenskyyUa

Turns out, she can hug him!

posted by Harald74 at 11:12 PM on February 8, 2023 [3 favorites]


Maybe if Ukraine pays $8/month for a blue checkmark?

Guardian: Fury in Ukraine as Elon Musk’s SpaceX limits Starlink use for drones
posted by srboisvert at 11:03 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]


Is Musk trying to hand Biden another Dark Brandon win? Or is SpaceX actually hoping to get DPA'd on this and shed some of the cost?
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:08 AM on February 9, 2023




Russia appears to be draining an enormous reservoir in Ukraine, imperiling drinking water, agricultural production and safety at Europe's largest nuclear plant, according to satellite data obtained by NPR.
NPR: Russia is draining a massive Ukrainian reservoir, endangering a nuclear plant
posted by y2karl at 5:18 AM on February 10, 2023


Jomini of the West thinks that the Russian winter offensive is in full swing, but that we will have to wait until next week to see how it goes.
posted by Harald74 at 7:20 AM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I've been hearing rumblings for about a week that "it's already started". From this distance, I have no real idea. I think Ukraine is probably ready for whatever, as they've proven entirely resourceful and forward thinking thus far.
posted by hippybear at 7:45 AM on February 10, 2023


Several days in a row with around 1000 Russian casualties seems to indicate something's up, and there's been quite a few armoured vehicles knocked out as well. But we only know bits and snippets, of course.
posted by Harald74 at 8:06 AM on February 10, 2023


Harald74: and there's been quite a few armoured vehicles knocked out as well.

Nearly 200 over the past four days per Oryx' list, so likely even well higher.
And several videos have shown losses that are downright incomprehensibly stupid, like one armoured vehicle hitting a mine while moving through a gap in a tree line, then the next vehicle just tries to squeeze past the wreck and unsurprisingly hits a mine too.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:37 AM on February 11, 2023 [2 favorites]




Sounds like Wagner's stock in the Putin market has plummeted:

I saw he'd made a speech recently saying the Ukraine war could last years. I'm sure he's saying that as the head of a mercenary group who is reaping profits the longer it goes on. But I'd bet that Putin doesn't want news like that getting around, whether it might be true or not. This was supposed to only take 3 days at the beginning.
posted by hippybear at 3:35 PM on February 12, 2023


Phillips O'Brian has a new weekend update on Substack on the nature of the Russian offensive, what we can expect vs a Russian combined arms offensive:

Moreover, and I know this is my constant personal bugbear, no one bothered to analyse just how such a massive force of machines would be supplied. Once again, logistics lost out to scary hordes of Russian tanks streaking forward in the popular imagination.

All I can say, is that I see no indication whatsoever that the Russians could attempt such a major, air-armor breakout and exploitation. I don’t see how they could supply it, I don’t see any indication that their army knows how to execute it, and I cant see how the Ukrainians could be caught by surprise were the Russians to attempt it.

posted by Harald74 at 11:54 PM on February 12, 2023 [5 favorites]


Some captured Russian documents lay out the orders for the assault on a village, giving an insight into the rigidity of the Russian planning, at least in that unit at that stage of the war.
posted by Harald74 at 4:43 AM on February 13, 2023


I'm very curious about what military beliefs are being shattered by this conflict with the changes in weaponry and tech. The idea that an offensive has to have at least a 3 to 1 advantage to overcome defenders may no longer be true with modern artillery, drone surveillance and airburst ammunition. I'm not sure a static defense is as useful as it once was. Trenches seem pretty dangerous even when dug properly when a loitering drone can drop a grenade on you at leisure.

This kind of thing will only get worse as well because currently drones are just dropping grenades and mortars that are improvised to work but not quite ideal for the job. If you watch any of the drone drop videos you can see that their attacks are pretty survivable with as little as 5 feet of space and some cover as light as uneven ground. What kind of hell will it be when they start dropping airburst fragmentation weapons that don't lose a lot of their damage potential to the ground and obstacles? The Ukrainian artillery guys already talk about aiming for trees in wooded areas where the RU infantry hide because the splinters from exploding tree tops are better than the shells for inflicting wide area damage on infantry than shells exploding in the muddy ground.

I do continue to be amazed that the Russians are not learning at any level to improve even their most basic tactics in a life and death scenario though. Things like managing minefield passage, digging proper trenches, camo from aerial surveillance and so on. Hell there are western youtubers practically laying out strategic advice for how to fix everything and yet....nothing learned. Based on the Russian lack of learning if I were a Ukrainian strategist I'd be arguing for yielding to a Russian offensive pretending to be overrun to let them overextend themselves and then flank them. They did it last February and they could in all likelihood do it again even more effectively this March with all their experience and once they'v integrated all their new modern vehicles.
posted by srboisvert at 6:15 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]


Phillips O'Brian has a new weekend update on Substack on the nature of the Russian offensive, what we can expect vs a Russian combined arms offensive:

I think this is bit overly rah-rah Ukraine but only for one reason: Manpower. We have no idea what Ukraine's numbers are but we do know they are being somewhat steadily attrited and this is their one truly fixed capacity. They really don't have much more to add to what they already have and there are no outside sources of manpower. Even if they are much better trained and equipped what kind of battlefield ratio would they need to win the statistical victory? Ukrainian soldiers would have to be extremely effective. Maybe more effective than any force ever facing a near peer in modern history.

The question is going to be "Will the West sufficiently arm Ukraine while Ukraine still has troops to fight with those arms?" Russia will likely not be attrited to defeat before Ukraine is without a really major change in the battlefield balance like complete air superiority. Russia just has lots of equipment, manufacturing capacity and far more available manpower.

As it currently stands Russia doesn't really need a brilliant advance or any really advanced tactics at all. They can just grind down Ukraine's army. They probably win a long war as long as they can hold fast on the domestic front. A long war also opens the possibility that they eventually improve their tactics and even minor improvements distributed throughout a larger army would be very bad for Ukraine.

Like the Ukrainian memes have been saying "We are very lucky they are so very stupid".
posted by srboisvert at 9:15 AM on February 13, 2023 [4 favorites]


The idea that an offensive has to have at least a 3 to 1 advantage to overcome defenders may no longer be true with modern artillery, drone surveillance and airburst ammunition. I'm not sure a static defense is as useful as it once was. Trenches seem pretty dangerous even when dug properly when a loitering drone can drop a grenade on you at leisure.

These are all astute observations, but they were largely discovered (by Western countries) in the wake of WWI or early in WWII and incorporated—with varying degrees of foot-dragging—into modern combined arms doctrine.

Rommel's famous book Infantry Attacks, written in 1937, is often considered the earliest distillation of what would become "fire and maneuver" warfare, and approaches it via an in-depth analysis of several campaigns of WWI. (He was working on a second book during WWII that probably would have been the definitive treatment of combined arms warfare, but the Nazis forced him to commit suicide first. Oops.) A significant portion of the book discusses ways in which small numbers of highly-maneuverable attackers can confuse and overwhelm (and in the best case, force the surrender of) a larger number of static defenders.

The 3:1 ratio of attackers to defenders rule-of-thumb assumes that both sides are working from the same playbook.

The idea that "if you don't move, you die" (unless you're in a very deep bunker and/or nobody knows where you are) on a modern battlefield has been received wisdom in the US military for a couple of generations now, which makes those videos of Russian conscripts dying in foxholes when someone uses a $300 drone to drop a grenade on them, or fires a well-aimed artillery round, a little disturbing. It shows a regression back to something reminiscent of 1916, both in terms of tactics and regard for soldiers' lives.

The Ukrainian artillery guys already talk about aiming for trees in wooded areas where the RU infantry hide because the splinters from exploding tree tops are better than the shells for inflicting wide area damage on infantry

My understanding is that the Ukrainians have been running low on fragmentation shells for their artillery, forcing them to use more HE, and from watching videos I suspect they are running low on time fuses (or proximity fuses) as well. You generally do not use "quick" (contact detonating) fuses on entrenched infantry positions. This too is received wisdom from artillerymen of generations past. In previous conflicts the US has been involved in, the standard recipe for taking on dismounted infantry in woodlands was "HE and WP, timed and quick": that is, a mix of high-explosive shells with time-detonating fuses so they would go off overhead, maximizing the effect of the blast wave and pinning down troops, and white phosphorous rounds with contact-detonating fuses to set everything on fire and kill anyone on the ground. I have been told firsthand by people who have ordered and observed its use that it is highly effective. (The use of WP rounds for anything except illumination is, at least in theory, discouraged these days, so the modern mix would be HE and frag, or US shells that do both HE and frag simultaneously with proximity fuses.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:52 AM on February 13, 2023 [6 favorites]


They really don't have much more to add to what they already have

That's actually not true as far as I can tell; there was an interesting twitter thread that I'll see if I can dig up later, of a guy doing volunteer support stuff for the UKR military, who talked about how he had made sure his info was updated with the mobilization office, etc, that he was young and athletic, but they still hadn't yet called him up. They haven't actually pressed to the max in terms of recruiting able bodied men (and women -- 20 percent of their military is female.)

The real issues seem to be around supply chain; most of their existing stock of artillery has been out of commission for various periods because the world supply of soviet-caliber ammo was scraped clean months ago (at least of those willing to sell to the West), and the active production is very limited. Due to destruction of various facilities they don't have the ability to renovate their jet engines, so their existing stock of planes has a very limited lifespan as Soviet airplanes were not set up to run for long periods without renovation. They can't upgrade their existing tanks because all those facilities have been destroyed (not just the Kharkiv factories, but as I recall a major sensor facility elsewhere in the country).

The gear the West has supplied is generally very good, but very scant especially considering the huge length of front that has to be defended. And it turns out NATO did not have a plan for if they actually had to use artillery for any length of time and has been slow to spin up ammunition production, so there isn't always a generous supply of ammunition for that new equipment.

That's not to say that Ukraine is not paying a bloody cost, but it's more a loss for their future than it is the main limiting factor in being able to defend and attack.
posted by tavella at 1:57 PM on February 13, 2023 [2 favorites]


Any woodworkers here know the deal with Russian Baltic Birch in the US? I know the price has spiked and it's hard to get. But are new imports totally cutoff and we're just going through old stock, or is new baltic birch plywood being imported from Russia even today?

(For non-woodworkers, baltic birch is a type of "shop grade" or "engineering grade" plywood, with much higher quality than e.g. plywood for building construction. It's "precision" grade plywood with superior flatness, uniformity, no internal voids, etc.)


For what it's worth, I'm kinda enjoying quizzing my vendors on their plywood sourcing, and disqualifying anyone using materials from Russia and Belarus. And once I get done with their sales staff, I'm going to email the execs and pester them about their plans for replacing Russian lumber.

Anyone else running into similar issues with specific products where Russia dominates the market? Baltic birch plywood is definitely a niche product, but damn it's sure causing a lot of pain in that niche right now!
posted by ryanrs at 10:21 PM on February 13, 2023 [5 favorites]


Oboe reeds, I suspect should also be affected. But it's been a shitshow for decades/ last century (again, the Russian angle), and I haven't bought any in the last decade (and the stock available was atrocious).
posted by porpoise at 10:27 PM on February 13, 2023


In "war in everyday life" the big Trans European Network - Transport conference in Warsaw today just announced that the online panel on transport to Ukraine is cancelled because of an air raid in Kyiv that means the Ukrainian minister has to relocate to a shelter without a stable online connection. The conference is just starting, but it sounds like there's a tonne of EU money going into transport links to Ukraine, officially called Solidarity Lanes.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:16 AM on February 14, 2023 [8 favorites]




Solidarity Lanes should be the name of a bowling alley in Kiev.
posted by hippybear at 3:38 PM on February 14, 2023 [3 favorites]


Der Spiegel (in English): "Russians Have Little Compassion for the Ukrainians"
Lev Gudkov investigates what makes Russians tick with his independent opinion research institute. In an interview, he discusses the lack of morals in his home country, Russia's victim mentality and fears of nuclear war.


An interesting interview, touching on several facets of Russian society, and what trends the Levada Center can see.

Personally, I must say that both the high level of support for the war and the near total absence of compassion for the Ukrainians disappoint me.
posted by Harald74 at 5:32 AM on February 16, 2023 [4 favorites]


And in an interesting development, the Israeli foreign minister is visiting Ukraine right now.
posted by Harald74 at 5:39 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


Personally, I must say that both the high level of support for the war and the near total absence of compassion for the Ukrainians disappoint me.

The populace of Russia has been fed a State-media diet of "Ukraine is full of Nazis who are oppressing the Russians who live there" since before they took over Crimea. That this drumbeat toward genocide has colored the opinions there does not surprise me at all.
posted by hippybear at 8:09 AM on February 16, 2023 [3 favorites]


Honestly, it doesn’t sound too much different than what a substantial minority in America thinks about Mexico.
posted by pwnguin at 8:35 AM on February 16, 2023


Russia has always been condescending to Ukrainians, considering them a lesser people and peasant yokels. As long as Ukraine was obedient and submitted to them, it was more of a smug tolerance, but once Ukraine started forging their own path it turned bitter, and when they stood up to the "second army of the world" and humiliated them, it turned to vicious hatred.
posted by tavella at 8:46 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


Harald74: Personally, I must say that both the high level of support for the war and the near total absence of compassion for the Ukrainians disappoint me.

A depressing insight into Russian 'thinking'.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:06 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


Lev Gudkov investigates what makes Russians tick with his independent opinion research institute. In an interview, he discusses the lack of morals in his home country, Russia's victim mentality and fears of nuclear war.

Thanks for posting that. That deserves a read.
posted by mazola at 10:30 AM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


tavella: "second army of the world"

Not to get complacent about it, but "second-rate army" seems more fitting.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:43 PM on February 16, 2023


From second army of the world to second army of Ukraine is how I have heard it.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:15 PM on February 16, 2023 [1 favorite]


Don't underestimate the Ukrainian Salvation Army.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:24 PM on February 16, 2023 [5 favorites]


FT.com: Western intelligence shows Russians amassing aircraft on Ukraine border
Western intelligence shows Russia is amassing aircraft close to the border with Ukraine, an indication that Moscow is preparing to throw its jets and helicopters into the war to support a stuttering land offensive.

The fear of a looming air war in Ukraine has prompted allies to prioritise rapid shipments of air defence assets and artillery ammunition to Kyiv, western officials said, to respond to the shift in approach by Moscow as the almost year-long war enters a new phase.
There are also different leaks from the Russian MoD quoted in various semi-credible circles out there, saying that they are gathering for a massive air campaign over Ukrainian territory.

I would say that it makes some kinds of sense, except for probably being too little, too late, to really impact the ground war. I think the rationale is something like this:

a) The one-year anniversary of the three-day operation is coming up, and massive air strikes could feed into a "we're finally taking the kid gloves off" narrative vs the domestic audience.

b) The stocks of precision guided munitions are probably dangerously low, but there is an enormous amount of dumb bombs available. But those require the delivery aircraft to be above the targets.

c) They probably think they have a pretty good estimate of the current capabilities of the Ukrainian air defences, where they are deployed, how much it takes to overwhelm them etc.

d) Soon(ish) both Patriot and SAMP/T batteries will be in theatre, making things a lot more dicey for the Russians.
posted by Harald74 at 11:51 PM on February 16, 2023 [4 favorites]


Harald74: d) Soon(ish) both Patriot and SAMP/T batteries will be in theatre, making things a lot more dicey for the Russians.

And MANPADS and ATGMs[0]. There have been a couple of cases with SU24/25 damaged or downed by those, including one claimed to be the Wagner plane that Prigozhin was in when challenging Zelenskyi to a dogfight.

[0] I guess if you're Ukrainian and holding an ATGM, everything looks like a tank.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:29 AM on February 17, 2023 [1 favorite]


I've seen helicopters downed by ATGMs, but not jets...
posted by Harald74 at 1:20 AM on February 17, 2023 [4 favorites]


It's also likely that what was left of the Ukrainian Air Force is pretty small. Not only from losing a steady trickle of planes since the start of the war, but they no longer have facilities to renovate the engines and apparently Soviet-design planes aren't meant to run for long periods without engine renovation, compared to Western designs. The word is they have more pilots than planes, but of course the West has refused to give them any planes, even old Mig-29s like Slovakia's. Because it might make Russia mad.
posted by tavella at 10:27 AM on February 17, 2023 [2 favorites]


Poland is widely thought to have sent at least some of their MiG-29s, in pieces, as parts. I think talks are underway about Slovakia's?

Bulgaria is having trouble maintaining theirs; they might be willing to let them go to be refurbed with Slovakia's if they were to receive surplus F-16s cheaply, ahead of the new production they have on order. It would be simpler for them than supporting another European type. But they won't want to be left with nothing in the current climate.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:51 AM on February 17, 2023


Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph:

Russia no longer has the economic means to wage offensive warfare

Key Claims:
“They're producing and reactivating nowhere near enough to compensate for those loss rates." Quote from the International Institute for Strategic Studies concerning tanks.

“Despite this Russian effort to build a home-grown semiconductor industry, despite the propaganda, they haven’t succeeded, and I don’t think they’ll ever succeed. It leaves them critically dependent on foreign technology,” said James Byrne, head of open-source intelligence at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

"State energy revenues collapsed by 46pc and the budget swung to a $25bn deficit in one month." (Q4 2022.)

Triggering some sort of oil shock "would hurt China, India, and the global South even more than the West, and it would probably fail to shift democratic opinion."

Obligatory"Gradually then suddenly" quote.
posted by lovelyzoo at 4:38 AM on February 18, 2023


I would say that it makes some kinds of sense, except for probably being too little, too late, to really impact the ground war. I think the rationale is something like this:

E) they are planning a flying human meat wave. A zerg rush will likely cost them a lot of planes but if they send everything they've got then a lot will also get through and achieve whatever objectives they set for them. The question will be "Are their pilots as dumb as their mobiks?".

Ukraine should designate and publicize an unused airfield for them to surrender at and offer them cash for planes.
posted by srboisvert at 11:14 AM on February 18, 2023 [4 favorites]


Wagner’s involvement in the Ukraine air war became evident no later than late May, when Ukrainian troops firing a Stinger shoulder-fired, infrared-guided missile shot down an Su-25 over Popasna, 20 miles east of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
The BBC confirmed the man who died behind the Su-25’s controls while supporting the Russian attack around Popasna was Kanamat Botashev.
The 63-year-old Botashev was retired. He left the Russian air force as a general back in 2012 after “borrowing” a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter—a type he was not qualified to fly—and crashing it after a brief, acrobatic joyride. Following his retirement, Botashev reportedly signed with Wagner. - Forbes: Russia’s Shadowy Mercenary Air Force Is Losing More And More Jets In Ukraine


The very Russian version of a Top Gun storyline hits a little different.
posted by srboisvert at 11:51 AM on February 18, 2023 [3 favorites]


Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones former Standing Joint Force Commander, Charles Kupchan former senior director for European affairs on the staff of the National Security Council, and Lord George Robertson former Sec Gen of NATO on a panel for Times Radio: Putin's Downfall: Military experts outline how Ukraine conflict will end [1h7m]
posted by hippybear at 2:54 PM on February 18, 2023 [2 favorites]




Good New Yorker interview with Stephen Kotkin.

Thanks for posting that, it's really interesting whether or not he is correct on every point.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:37 PM on February 18, 2023


Nicholas Danforth interviews with Michael Kofman on the War on the Rocks podcast about the Russian winter offensive. It’s a fairly brief interview, 18 minutes or so, but it’s a good overview of what the military situation is like.

The tl;dl is that the Russian armed forces are now attacking in five different places, and seemingly waiting for cracks to appear in Ukrainian defenses so that they can intensify the attack there. So far Ukraine’s army is holding firm, though will probably have to drop back to a second defensive line in Bakhmut and Kreminna. Kofman thinks that Russia’s decision to attack first, and not wait for a Ukrainian offensive, is likely to prove a mistake, driven more by Putin’s impatience for results than sound strategy. He expects Ukraine to mount a counteroffensive once the Russian armed forces have exhausted themselves, and that Ukraine’s odds of success, though by no means certain, will be better thanks to Russia going first.
posted by Kattullus at 11:23 PM on February 18, 2023 [3 favorites]


Some thoughts on the interviews above:

I think one of the misleading ideas influencing a number of Western European and American commentators since the beginning of this war is sort of: Russia powerful, Ukraine small. You see it in Charles Kupchan and Stephen Kotkin’s appeal to reason in the interviews above: Ukraine will need to negotiate a territorial loss at some point. The idea being that a smaller country (Ukraine) doesn’t have the capacity or will to support a war against a major power (Russia) and it’ll end in a stalemate.

I’m not a historian but there are enough examples to show this doesn’t have to be true (Afghanistan vs. Soviet Union, Afghanistan vs. USA/NATO, Vietnam vs. France, Vietnam vs. USA, Vietnam vs. China, ...).

Western weapons aren’t there to decide whether Ukraine will win or not — they determine how long the fight will last, where it’s fought and how bloody it will be. There’s no resolution to this conflict that involves Ukraine ceding some territory for the right to join the EU, the argument Charles Kupchan makes (Obama’s senior director for European affairs??). Ukraine can’t join the EU with a war going on within its territory. But we trust Putin not to lob missiles into Ukraine from Russia’s newly conquered territories — or worse — while Ukraine is applying to join the EU, preventing it from ever joining the Union? That’s terrifically naive.
posted by UN at 4:03 AM on February 19, 2023 [6 favorites]


I find it interesting that it seems like Surovikin was carefully husbanding Russian resources to have a good chance of success later on, but Putin's impatience seems to have undone this. I hope it continues on like that, one of the benefits of despotism, I guess...
posted by Harald74 at 4:08 AM on February 19, 2023 [3 favorites]


This Dronebuster dyes hair by day and defends Kyiv from attack by night with an improvised double-Maxim AAA gun. (At least with this one, you can't cross the streams.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:18 AM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]


Good New Yorker interview with Stephen Kotkin.

From the interview:
We owe [Zelensky] the rejuvenation of the West—the rediscovery of the West—in institutional, not geographic, terms, including our Asian partners, Japan, Australia.
When I read this, two visions sparked to mind. The first, sunny and wholesome, pictures a wandering Knight, awoken to moral purpose by the flagrant injustice of Russia's brutal invasion, galvanized to defend the Good. The second, bleak and sardonic, pictures a sophisticated and alluring Vampire, who, when you let him in, proceeds to extract large quantities of blood to rejuvenate himself.

A fresh, invigorating war to fix the West‽
posted by dmh at 9:49 AM on February 19, 2023


UN: But we trust Putin not to $whatever?

No.

The only thing I trust him to do is die. Some day. Anything else, forget it.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:38 AM on February 19, 2023 [3 favorites]


Maybe the whole thing where he movings awkwardly and speaks only in ahistorical nationalist pastiche is to prepare us for Eternal Deepfake Putin. If you commit yourself to being utterly loathsome and entirely predictable, the singularity can be now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:56 AM on February 19, 2023


MetaFilter: commit yourself to being utterly loathsome and entirely predictable
posted by hippybear at 12:17 PM on February 19, 2023 [4 favorites]


As if we weren't already.
posted by y2karl at 2:39 PM on February 19, 2023 [2 favorites]


We've already seen plenty of evidence of that with 40 and 50 year old mobiks and PoWs.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:20 PM on February 19, 2023


So, uh, Biden’s in Kyiv.
posted by Kattullus at 1:56 AM on February 20, 2023 [7 favorites]


FYI, this was deducable a few days ago once the Warsaw mayor "mysteriously" announced Biden's visit in Warsaw would start on Tuesday morning rather than Monday afternoon, for road closure purposes. Sounds like he's even sleeping in Kyiv, unless he wants to try the pizza in the US base in Rzeszów again. He probably did leave Air Force One in Rzeszów before continuing by train, so that would make sense.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:07 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]


Nothing untowards on the flight tracker. I was expecting like a squadron of F-35 with their transponders on loitering on the Polish side of the border or something.
posted by Harald74 at 2:43 AM on February 20, 2023


Two AWACS planes on the wing near the border, though. That's a fairly big capacity for control of fighters and bombers (the 'C' in AWACS). And a Swedish SIGINT aircraft, for some reason.
posted by Harald74 at 2:53 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]


I am also curious about what level of US overhead and on the ground involvement occurred. The NYTimes initial reporting on the visit mentioned that the US gave Russia the heads up about the visit a few hours ahead of time, presumably with the implicit or explicit message of "there had better not be any attacks anywhere nearby or else."

Nothing untowards on the flight tracker. I was expecting like a squadron of F-35 with their transponders on loitering on the Polish side of the border or something.

Those things move so fast that there isn't a actually lot of time saved by having them already in the air vs sitting on the runway ready to take off. The other year when there was a plane stolen and taken for a joyride in Seattle (no really, someone actually did this), the US scrambled fighters out of an Air National Guard base in Portland. There were a number of articles at the time about just how fast the fighters could go from the standby alert on the ground to being in Seattle -- when there is an emergency they get to ignore all of the noise limitations and can really move.

That said, my guess is that there was almost certainly some covert overhead coverage, in addition to more sitting ready on the runway.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]


Teegeeack AV Club Secretary: I’m impressed he came by train.

So far foreign visitors have almost all all come by train, and Zelenskyy visiting abroad also travels by train to the Polish border as the first leg.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:29 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Deleted a derail. If you are linking to a new development, please post a credible news source rather than a random unsourced twitter post. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:00 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


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