The New York Times reported this morning that the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the “first phase of its military operation in Ukraine was mostly complete and that it would focus” on “liberating” (Russia’s word) the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east.
How I wish there were a way to make Putin pay a solid geopolitical price, like having to return the Donbas or Crimea to Ukraine as reparations. Or all the sanctions stay in place until the Russians pay to rebuild Ukraine - they tore it down..... Russia cannot be allowed to get away with this or it will happen again. At least the bulk of the Russian army has been shown to be a paper tiger.....
The perfect riposte to Russia and its Donbas pro-Russians would be to help Ukraine reform its government and economy, join the EU, and become a western-oriented economic power, leaving the pro-Russian areas behind. Sometimes living well IS the best revenge.....:-)
Yet, again, a detailed analysis that explains the military situation in Ukraine. Giving me some hope. But, most important, good information. Thanks! TCinLA ❤️🤍💙
“According to the latest reports, Ukrainian forces, following a series of advancements, took nearly 80-85% of the Irpin city territory and also gained a foothold in the key town of Makariv some 30 kilometers west of Kyiv.
Fresh Ukrainian progress against towns of Borodyanka and Ivankiv, key supply points on the roads to Belarus, might further deteriorate the position of the Russian troops northwest of Kyiv, which reportedly includes two undermanned infantry brigades.”
As I came to the end point of THE RUSSIANS ARE CUTTING THEIR LOSSES WITHOUT ADMITTING DEFEAT, the Russian military may not be able to take all of the Donbas and Lukhansk Oblasts to complete their 2014 territorial theft. Is that correct? Would Ukraine settle for that or look to prevent the Russia to consolidated those areas, which would be under Russia''s control. Might it be alright for Ukraine not to have to keep defending there? Can settlement of Putin's war be based on Russian control of Donbas and Lukhanskk and nothing more of Ukraine?
The following combines reports from WAPO and NY Times, 3/25 and 26, indicating that fighting for control of Donbas and Lukhansk Oblasts to be fierce.
'In the east, Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have pushed the frontline forward, claiming more areas of Ukraine. Intense fighting has continued for days for Izium, a small city southeast of Kharkiv. Ukrainians still hold Izium, and recent Russian advances have moved around it, heading west toward the city of Dnipro, a key Russian target.'
'But inside Ukraine, where Russia’s brutal onslaught continued, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky said officials were “very disappointed” in the outcome of the series of summits Wednesday among NATO and European Union leaders in Brussels that brought Biden to Europe.'
“We expected more bravery. We expected some bold decisions,” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, told the Washington-based Atlantic Council via live video Friday.
'... Yermak’s remarks served as a reminder that Ukraine remains outmanned, outgunned and facing more destruction each day.
'By issuing a general statement of ongoing military support, while continuing to deny Ukraine’s requests to send it Soviet-era jet fighters, impose a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft over Ukraine, and speed the flow of more heavy weaponry, Yermak said, NATO “is just trying to ensure that it is not provoking Russia to a military conflict” with the West, calling the alliance’s inaction “appeasement.”
“We need very concrete things. But we still have to repeatedly remind you,” he said.
Yermak said Ukraine needs NATO to “close our sky” to Russian air power and provide “intelligence in real time,” as well as more antiaircraft and antitank weaponry — some of which is now in short supply in the West. He also pleaded for more long-range artillery, rocket launchers and small weapons.
“Without it,” Yermak said, “our war will not be able to stand.”
'The West underestimated Ukraine's bravery. Now, it's underestimating Russia's brutality.'
' The Pentagon said Friday that Ukraine has made “incremental” progress against Russia outside the northern city of Chernihiv, and other offensives were underway in the western suburbs in Kyiv, the capital. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said that Russian troops, stalled outside Kyiv for weeks, have begun to establish defensive positions instead of prioritizing an advance.
'The renewed focus on Donbas could be a face-saving measure as the Russians fail to achieve their larger aims, such as the capture of Kyiv and decapitation of Ukraine’s government. Russians have made modest gains in the east, and their focus now may be to enlarge territory controlled by separatists and declare victory. It could also be designed as a ruse to allow beleaguered Russian troops to rest.'
'It is not clear whether Russian troops will be pulled from elsewhere to reinforce Donbas, the U.S. defense official said, but there is evidence that they have shifted how they fight in other places.'
We need to be objective about what NATO/US 'expressed' support, literally, means and the situation in Ukraine.
'Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s population centers and other targets continued, with the senior defense official reporting Moscow is flying 300 sorties over Ukraine per day — an increase over a week ago. On Friday, Ukraine’s air force also claimed that Russian missiles had hit a command center in Vinnytsia, in west-central Ukraine, “significantly” damaging some buildings.'
'The southern port city of Mariupol remained under heavy Russian attack and cut off from food, water and humanitarian assistance. Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said at a news conference Friday that her agency had received “increasing information” and satellite images of mass graves in Mariupol.'
'One mass grave identified appears to hold some 200 bodies, she said, although it remained unclear how many of the deceased were civilian casualties of the war.'
'Bogner said the U.N. human rights office had also documented 22 cases of Ukrainian officials disappearing or being forcibly detained in Russian-controlled territories, 13 of whom have since been released. A number of journalists in areas under Russian occupation in the southeast have disappeared or been killed.'' As reported in today's WAPO.
..in the analysis by John Mearsheimer, the U.S. talked a good game about Ukraine becoming a member of the West, starting in the early 2000's. It provoked Russia; they announced that would be unacceptable. The U.S. continued with the same position. Now that Russia is "calling our bluff," the U.S. is not willing to bear the full responsibility.
Mearshimer is wrong. If we had left the Eastern Europeans who were part of the Warsaw Pact out of NATO and worried about Putin's tender fee-fee's, he would be mucking around in the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and the rest of the former WarPac countries the way he is mucking around in Ukraine. If we had given Ukraine the protection of NATO, the damn KGB scum would just be sitting there pouting in the Kremlin because he knows not to fuck with NATO. My wife's Lithuanian relatives were overjoyed the day the country joined NATO and they knew the generations-old enemy would have to think twice before fucking with them again.
Thank you, Tony. It is in absorbing yours, Adam Tooze's and Heather's lessons, along with ideas of mine and others and our exchanges that learning comes alive. I thought Mearsheimer's lectures instructive, rigid and one sided, so recommended his tapes to two knowing friends. One of them emailed the following, and our discourse has just begun:
'First video: 15:55 No, I don't get that bit about supposed western expectations at all. Surely we know damned well that there is no question of Putin backing down, because he does not do that. However, what follows sounds correct, at least as far as the destruction of Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war are concerned.'
'For the time being, I have not started on the second, longer, film.'
'I see that I have always looked at Ukraine in terms of its own geography, its own outlook—not Russia's, not the West's—seeing it, as I've said before, as a natural bridge, a natural buffer state. But in the early 2000s and until relatively recently, I was very troubled by the extreme weakness of Ukraine, especially in terms of political governance and great corruption, consequently regarding the country as a threat to peace because that weakness made it a standing temptation both to Russia and to unwise Neo-Con type elements in the West. The term I often used for the country was a “black hole”. And the temptation for the neighbors, to see it in terms, not of a bridge or a buffer, but of bridgeheads.'
'Consequently, I regarded it as a very dangerous place, one that I would not want to touch with a bargepole if I were in a position of responsibility in Moscow, in Washington, in Western Europe...'
'Since, however, the danger would persist if nothing was done to help, something would have to be done about this morass of a state...'
'I shall send you these few preliminary remarks as they stand.'
'I have difficulty in following some of Mearsheimer's reasoning because they don't seem to take adequate account of the problems that arise from the neighborhood of states that function relatively well and dysfunctional states, which must include both Russia and Ukraine. This exerts a strong pull on the inhabitants of regions bordering the West, as it did at the time of the Soviet empire... M seems to think solely in terms of governments, not peoples... I'm reminded somewhat of Kissinger, without his political bent. Or bent politics...'
***
I will email the rest of what he writes if you are interested.
Thank you, Jeff. Your sense of overload with articles and books -- I won't number the books to read behind me and you're suggesting another I would like to read!
Jeff, Do you object to me posting your response to me, along with the link to John Mearsheimer's lecture to a subscriber on LFAA? I will strongly recommend his lecture.
Jeff, THANK YOU! 'Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer', which you linked is an excellent teacher concerning the West's (through NATO) threats to Russia as well as a sane understanding of Putin's moves to protect its borders. His lecture exposes the ignorance of 'educated' Americans as they maintain the idea of American exceptionalism, while knowing that the U.S. has made serious foreign policy mistakes, such as invading Iraq. I am curious about Mearsheimer's thoughts concerning Putin's war on Ukraine and whether there is any hope of Ukraine being a buffer state, (neutral) as the country is being wreaked. If you know of any current material of Mearsheimer's, please let me know. Of course, I will pursue for myself.
"One possible explanation is that this is the Russian attempt to declare victory and go home, recognizing the reality of the military failures without publicly absorbing the sting of military defeat. I think broadly that is what it is." YES!!!!
“The moral is to the physical as three to one.” Hmm. Considering Putin has darkness and greed in his morals, that statement makes sense in explaining the glory and might of the Ukrainians.
In any conflict, the Light will always triumph. There is no other way possible. Explain, refute or agree with it as you will, but the Light has no opposite.
Would be an impressive feint. Leaves with Ukraine forever ready to extract revenge for the destruction ... and a taste to repatriate eastern Ukraine. Leaving Russia forever justified in maintaining a defensive force near and anticipating Western European threats. Ukraine becomes the potential forever threat to the Russian people ... so the resolution of peace brought to the Russian people would read. Interesting.
How I wish there were a way to make Putin pay a solid geopolitical price, like having to return the Donbas or Crimea to Ukraine as reparations. Or all the sanctions stay in place until the Russians pay to rebuild Ukraine - they tore it down..... Russia cannot be allowed to get away with this or it will happen again. At least the bulk of the Russian army has been shown to be a paper tiger.....
Well done TC. The analysis that's been missing from most 'news' reporting. Thanks.
I agree. And TC thanks for writing it in language we can understand!
Yes.
The perfect riposte to Russia and its Donbas pro-Russians would be to help Ukraine reform its government and economy, join the EU, and become a western-oriented economic power, leaving the pro-Russian areas behind. Sometimes living well IS the best revenge.....:-)
Yet, again, a detailed analysis that explains the military situation in Ukraine. Giving me some hope. But, most important, good information. Thanks! TCinLA ❤️🤍💙
from The Kyiv Independent:
“According to the latest reports, Ukrainian forces, following a series of advancements, took nearly 80-85% of the Irpin city territory and also gained a foothold in the key town of Makariv some 30 kilometers west of Kyiv.
Fresh Ukrainian progress against towns of Borodyanka and Ivankiv, key supply points on the roads to Belarus, might further deteriorate the position of the Russian troops northwest of Kyiv, which reportedly includes two undermanned infantry brigades.”
https://kyivindependent.com/national/%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8bukraine-reaches-breaking-point-in-russias-war/
As I came to the end point of THE RUSSIANS ARE CUTTING THEIR LOSSES WITHOUT ADMITTING DEFEAT, the Russian military may not be able to take all of the Donbas and Lukhansk Oblasts to complete their 2014 territorial theft. Is that correct? Would Ukraine settle for that or look to prevent the Russia to consolidated those areas, which would be under Russia''s control. Might it be alright for Ukraine not to have to keep defending there? Can settlement of Putin's war be based on Russian control of Donbas and Lukhanskk and nothing more of Ukraine?
The Ukrainians won't want to let this happen, and I don't think Putin should be allowed to keep any of his ill-gotten gains.
The following combines reports from WAPO and NY Times, 3/25 and 26, indicating that fighting for control of Donbas and Lukhansk Oblasts to be fierce.
'In the east, Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have pushed the frontline forward, claiming more areas of Ukraine. Intense fighting has continued for days for Izium, a small city southeast of Kharkiv. Ukrainians still hold Izium, and recent Russian advances have moved around it, heading west toward the city of Dnipro, a key Russian target.'
'But inside Ukraine, where Russia’s brutal onslaught continued, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky said officials were “very disappointed” in the outcome of the series of summits Wednesday among NATO and European Union leaders in Brussels that brought Biden to Europe.'
“We expected more bravery. We expected some bold decisions,” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, told the Washington-based Atlantic Council via live video Friday.
'... Yermak’s remarks served as a reminder that Ukraine remains outmanned, outgunned and facing more destruction each day.
'By issuing a general statement of ongoing military support, while continuing to deny Ukraine’s requests to send it Soviet-era jet fighters, impose a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft over Ukraine, and speed the flow of more heavy weaponry, Yermak said, NATO “is just trying to ensure that it is not provoking Russia to a military conflict” with the West, calling the alliance’s inaction “appeasement.”
“We need very concrete things. But we still have to repeatedly remind you,” he said.
Yermak said Ukraine needs NATO to “close our sky” to Russian air power and provide “intelligence in real time,” as well as more antiaircraft and antitank weaponry — some of which is now in short supply in the West. He also pleaded for more long-range artillery, rocket launchers and small weapons.
“Without it,” Yermak said, “our war will not be able to stand.”
'The West underestimated Ukraine's bravery. Now, it's underestimating Russia's brutality.'
' The Pentagon said Friday that Ukraine has made “incremental” progress against Russia outside the northern city of Chernihiv, and other offensives were underway in the western suburbs in Kyiv, the capital. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said that Russian troops, stalled outside Kyiv for weeks, have begun to establish defensive positions instead of prioritizing an advance.
'The renewed focus on Donbas could be a face-saving measure as the Russians fail to achieve their larger aims, such as the capture of Kyiv and decapitation of Ukraine’s government. Russians have made modest gains in the east, and their focus now may be to enlarge territory controlled by separatists and declare victory. It could also be designed as a ruse to allow beleaguered Russian troops to rest.'
'It is not clear whether Russian troops will be pulled from elsewhere to reinforce Donbas, the U.S. defense official said, but there is evidence that they have shifted how they fight in other places.'
The U.S. is committed to supporting them to the last Ukrainian.
With what?
Exactly. With nothing more than we have seen given.
We need to be objective about what NATO/US 'expressed' support, literally, means and the situation in Ukraine.
'Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine’s population centers and other targets continued, with the senior defense official reporting Moscow is flying 300 sorties over Ukraine per day — an increase over a week ago. On Friday, Ukraine’s air force also claimed that Russian missiles had hit a command center in Vinnytsia, in west-central Ukraine, “significantly” damaging some buildings.'
'The southern port city of Mariupol remained under heavy Russian attack and cut off from food, water and humanitarian assistance. Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said at a news conference Friday that her agency had received “increasing information” and satellite images of mass graves in Mariupol.'
'One mass grave identified appears to hold some 200 bodies, she said, although it remained unclear how many of the deceased were civilian casualties of the war.'
'Bogner said the U.N. human rights office had also documented 22 cases of Ukrainian officials disappearing or being forcibly detained in Russian-controlled territories, 13 of whom have since been released. A number of journalists in areas under Russian occupation in the southeast have disappeared or been killed.'' As reported in today's WAPO.
..in the analysis by John Mearsheimer, the U.S. talked a good game about Ukraine becoming a member of the West, starting in the early 2000's. It provoked Russia; they announced that would be unacceptable. The U.S. continued with the same position. Now that Russia is "calling our bluff," the U.S. is not willing to bear the full responsibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Mearshimer is wrong. If we had left the Eastern Europeans who were part of the Warsaw Pact out of NATO and worried about Putin's tender fee-fee's, he would be mucking around in the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and the rest of the former WarPac countries the way he is mucking around in Ukraine. If we had given Ukraine the protection of NATO, the damn KGB scum would just be sitting there pouting in the Kremlin because he knows not to fuck with NATO. My wife's Lithuanian relatives were overjoyed the day the country joined NATO and they knew the generations-old enemy would have to think twice before fucking with them again.
Thank you, Tony. It is in absorbing yours, Adam Tooze's and Heather's lessons, along with ideas of mine and others and our exchanges that learning comes alive. I thought Mearsheimer's lectures instructive, rigid and one sided, so recommended his tapes to two knowing friends. One of them emailed the following, and our discourse has just begun:
'First video: 15:55 No, I don't get that bit about supposed western expectations at all. Surely we know damned well that there is no question of Putin backing down, because he does not do that. However, what follows sounds correct, at least as far as the destruction of Ukraine and the threat of nuclear war are concerned.'
'For the time being, I have not started on the second, longer, film.'
'I see that I have always looked at Ukraine in terms of its own geography, its own outlook—not Russia's, not the West's—seeing it, as I've said before, as a natural bridge, a natural buffer state. But in the early 2000s and until relatively recently, I was very troubled by the extreme weakness of Ukraine, especially in terms of political governance and great corruption, consequently regarding the country as a threat to peace because that weakness made it a standing temptation both to Russia and to unwise Neo-Con type elements in the West. The term I often used for the country was a “black hole”. And the temptation for the neighbors, to see it in terms, not of a bridge or a buffer, but of bridgeheads.'
'Consequently, I regarded it as a very dangerous place, one that I would not want to touch with a bargepole if I were in a position of responsibility in Moscow, in Washington, in Western Europe...'
'Since, however, the danger would persist if nothing was done to help, something would have to be done about this morass of a state...'
'I shall send you these few preliminary remarks as they stand.'
'I have difficulty in following some of Mearsheimer's reasoning because they don't seem to take adequate account of the problems that arise from the neighborhood of states that function relatively well and dysfunctional states, which must include both Russia and Ukraine. This exerts a strong pull on the inhabitants of regions bordering the West, as it did at the time of the Soviet empire... M seems to think solely in terms of governments, not peoples... I'm reminded somewhat of Kissinger, without his political bent. Or bent politics...'
***
I will email the rest of what he writes if you are interested.
It's 1:37 AM -- morning or night?
Perhaps, I'll see you tomorrow.
Goodnight,
Fern
In esponse to your points, TC and Fern, I have found the clearest understanding from Alfred W. McCoy in his book, To Govern the Globe.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58648492-to-govern-the-globe?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=Q3e8xHEhmU&rank=1
I hope you may get a chance to read it.
Thank you, Jeff. Your sense of overload with articles and books -- I won't number the books to read behind me and you're suggesting another I would like to read!
Jeff, Do you object to me posting your response to me, along with the link to John Mearsheimer's lecture to a subscriber on LFAA? I will strongly recommend his lecture.
Please go right ahead.
Thank you Jeff, I posted both links to a subscriber mentioning your help without using your name.
Jeff, I did find the following: John Mearsheimer Ukraine-Russia 2022 Analysis, which is linked below. I have not seen it yet. Salud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6mw9U62ZJU
Jeff, THANK YOU! 'Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer', which you linked is an excellent teacher concerning the West's (through NATO) threats to Russia as well as a sane understanding of Putin's moves to protect its borders. His lecture exposes the ignorance of 'educated' Americans as they maintain the idea of American exceptionalism, while knowing that the U.S. has made serious foreign policy mistakes, such as invading Iraq. I am curious about Mearsheimer's thoughts concerning Putin's war on Ukraine and whether there is any hope of Ukraine being a buffer state, (neutral) as the country is being wreaked. If you know of any current material of Mearsheimer's, please let me know. Of course, I will pursue for myself.
"One possible explanation is that this is the Russian attempt to declare victory and go home, recognizing the reality of the military failures without publicly absorbing the sting of military defeat. I think broadly that is what it is." YES!!!!
“The moral is to the physical as three to one.” Hmm. Considering Putin has darkness and greed in his morals, that statement makes sense in explaining the glory and might of the Ukrainians.
In any conflict, the Light will always triumph. There is no other way possible. Explain, refute or agree with it as you will, but the Light has no opposite.
Thanks for this fascinating look into the machinations of the military story there.
Thanks for this very understandable analysis. Even I could understand it!
Would be an impressive feint. Leaves with Ukraine forever ready to extract revenge for the destruction ... and a taste to repatriate eastern Ukraine. Leaving Russia forever justified in maintaining a defensive force near and anticipating Western European threats. Ukraine becomes the potential forever threat to the Russian people ... so the resolution of peace brought to the Russian people would read. Interesting.