All Things Russia & Ukraine

[MDlaxfan76]

Poor Tony Blinken sounds like Baghdad Bob as he stands in front of a backdrop of smoke plumes from Odessa & declares Russia has suffered a strategic defeat.
https://thehill.com/news/sunday-talk-sh ... ic-defeat/

The WSJ dissents :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/strategic- ... _lead_pos1

Ukraine Isn’t yet a ‘Strategic Defeat’ for Putin
by The Editorial Board, April 3, 2022

The human carnage and ruins of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, were on display this weekend after Russian troops withdrew. It’s a horror show, with bodies of unarmed civilians lying in the street, some reportedly shot in the back of the head. Some appear to have been executed. This is the gruesome legacy of Vladimir Putin’s invasion that the world will have to consider as part of its calculations as his war of attempted conquest continues.

***
Western journalists were able to see and confirm the Bucha destruction as they entered the suburb after the last Russian troops retreated on Friday. Russian tank columns had moved through the town as they sought to surround and lay siege to Kyiv from multiple directions. They were stopped by fierce Ukrainian resistance, but not before laying waste to much of the city and, on the visual evidence, murdering its trapped population.

Readers can see the bodies in the streets in videos online, which appear to be real. They are proof of the modern world as it is. For liberal internationalists who think military force is no longer a dominant force in human affairs, behold the dead in Bucha, where illusions about the “rules-based international order” are buried with the bodies.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, called Russia’s war a “genocide” on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, called the scenes from Bucha “a punch to the gut” on CNN, though he declined to call them war crimes. He said the U.S. will collect evidence in Ukraine and make a judgment.

There is already a strong prima facie case that Russia’s bombing of civilians is a war crime, even if it doesn’t meet the definition of genocide. Scenes like those in Bucha, Mariupol and Kharchiv will have to inform the extent of Ukrainian, and Western, cooperation with Mr. Putin even if he withdraws from all of Ukraine.

Is the U.S. really going to work with the Kremlin to implement another nuclear deal with Iran? And how is Russia still a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council? Its irrelevance in this conflict has exposed that the United Nations is worse than useless. It implicitly abets the world’s dictators by giving them political legitimacy.

The Russian withdrawal from the Kyiv region marks a setback for its original war aims, but it is still not a defeat for Mr. Putin. He might be regrouping his forces for another attempt on Kyiv later. Or perhaps he is changing his war aims to focus on conquering the east and south of the country. The Sunday bombardment by Russian ships suggests that Odessa, a city of about one million on the Black Sea, remains a Kremlin target.

Which makes it dismaying that Biden officials continue to assert that the war is a “strategic defeat” for Mr. Putin. They repeat the talking point as if they’re trying to persuade Americans that the war has already been won. “If you step back and look at this, this has already been a dramatic strategic setback for Russia and, I would say, a strategic defeat,” Mr. Blinken said on CNN Sunday.

No, it isn’t. Russia has killed thousands of Ukrainians, inflicted untold damage, and still controls more territory than it did before the invasion. If Mr. Putin secures a truce that ratifies those territorial gains, he will have snatched the part of Ukraine that contains the bulk of its energy resources. He would be able to re-arm and continue as a lethal threat to the rest of Ukraine, the Zelensky government, and the border nations of NATO.

This is no doubt why Mr. Zelensky continues to express frustration with the reluctance of the U.S. and NATO to provide the heavy weapons Ukraine needs to go on offense and retake lost territory. Leaks on the weekend suggest the U.S. may finally be helping to get old Russian tanks into Ukraine, but the country also needs advanced antiship missiles to protect Odessa, as well as aircraft to attack Russian tanks and artillery, and anti-aircraft systems.

***
The West’s goal shouldn’t be some abstract “strategic defeat” but an actual defeat that is obvious to everyone, including the Russian public. Ukraine will have to decide how long it is willing to fight. But as long as it is willing, the U.S. and NATO should provide all of the military and sanctions support it needs. If Mr. Putin gains from this war, there will be more invasions, more war crimes, and more horrific scenes like those in Bucha in the future.

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/0 ... atrocities

Putin says this isn’t true. Our Sympathizers in this country take his word for it……

YES, THAT is him,” says Zoya Merchynskaya, peering into the drain where her husband’s body had been dumped. “You can see his tattoo.” She steps away and covers her face. She returns and looks down again. Hennadiy Merchynskyi, aged 44, was slumped in a sitting position, immersed in dirty water up to his waist; murdered, it seems, by Russian soldiers. His torso was naked. A black strap was fastened around his neck. “They did not take his ring.” She sounds relieved.

During weeks of fighting, Russian troops in the territory around Kyiv have been pounded by Ukrainian forces. As they fell back from farmsteads and up-and-coming suburbs like Bucha and Irpin, they left behind the wreckage of tanks and armoured cars as well as loot that they could not take with them. But the Russians also left behind evidence of summary executions and random murders—war crimes on a terrible scale. On April 3rd Irina Venediktova, the Ukrainian prosecutor-general, said that the bodies of 410 civilians had so far been found around the capital. Nobody doubts that the final toll will be much higher.

Mr Merchynskyi was killed in the village of Motyzhyn, 50km to the west of Kyiv. He had been a member of the volunteer Territorial Defence Force. Mrs Merchynskaya said that he had been arrested by Russian troops along with an old man who was later released, and that she believed they had killed her husband after finding photographs of destroyed Russian tanks on his phone.

The Russians took control of Motyzhyn on February 26th and left on March 28th. Villagers there say that, during their month-long occupation, some soldiers had been sleeping in a big unfinished villa, in the garden of which Mr Merchynskyi’s remains were found. Two hundred metres away in a wood is a sandy pit where they buried Olha Sukhenko, the mayor of Motyzhyn, her husband, her son and one other man. Locals say the mayor had been arrested on March 23rd.

Their bodies were exhumed soon after Ukrainian control was restored. All appear to have been blindfolded. Ms Sukhenko’s earrings, a ring and her bloodied chest were visible. A local security official said he believed that Russian troops had tried to get the mayor to cooperate with them. When she refused, they murdered her and her family.

General Sir Richard Barrons, who commanded Britain’s joint forces until 2016, says that the evidence of civilian abuses by Russian forces “reveals a failure of leadership at all levels, a collapse in morale, a failure of training in the most fundamental rules of war, and probably above all a failure of collective and self-discipline in the face of the staunch resistance.” The outcome, he says, will be militarily and diplomatically counter-productive: “to redouble Ukrainian resistance, spur on Western military support for sanctions and military aid, and significantly reduce the space for dialogue.”

Russia’s ministry of defence declared that the accusations about Bucha were fake, issuing a statement which said that “all the photos and videos published by the Kyiv regime in Bucha are just another provocation”. It branded them a “hoax” designed to mislead the Western media. But going by Russia’s conduct in recent wars, the killings in Ukraine are all too familiar.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, retorted that: “Putin's rampant violence is wiping out innocent families and knows no bounds. Those responsible for these war crimes must be held accountable. We will tighten sanctions against Russia and…support Ukraine even more in their defence.” Charles Michel, president of the European Council, has promised yet more sanctions on Russia and more support for Ukraine. Tony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, called the photographs of Russian atrocities, “a punch to the gut”. The Washington Post has quoted officials in the Biden administration who intend to respond to the outrages with tougher sanctions, too.

The killings cast yet more doubt on the nature of Russia’s military modernisation. In the 1990s the country’s armed forces were a post-Soviet wreck, starved of resources, bedevilled by corruption and infected by bullying. Conscripts were still stripped of dignity and abused. That was supposed to have changed after years of reform following the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. The size of the army shrank, and it contained more professional soldiers.

None of that supposed progress was to be seen on April 3rd in Bucha, in the north-western outskirts of Kyiv. The barricades get bigger the nearer you get to former Russian positions: sand, tyres, concrete, then cement mixers. An upturned digger stands at the entrance to the suburb, daubed with the message “Welcome to Hell”. Opposite, lying by the roadside, is the corpse of an elderly bearded man who went shopping at the wrong time. The contents of his shopping bag are strewn over the verge. Assam tea, yoghurt, wine glasses, green peas—a glimpse into the life of a man cut short by an incoming missile.

Corpses are still scattered over Bucha’s streets, two days into a police operation to collect them. The local authorities say that at least 280 have been buried in a makeshift mass grave. About 30 bodies, some in black bags, were still left exposed. A day earlier, reporters had seen bodies, apparently of civilians, littering the roads, up to 20 in one street. Locals say that Russian troops had shot them for no reason.

The Economist was able to verify reports of what appear to be summary executions. Nine bodies lay at the side of a builder's yard, and another two on the road linking Bucha with Irpin. All had puncture wounds to the head, the chest or both. At least two of the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs. From the smell of the decomposing bodies, they had been there for some time–giving the lie to Russian claims that the killings were carried out by Ukraine, which liberated Bucha on April 1st. Serhiy Kaplichny, director of the municipal burial service, says he knew one of them. His friend worked as a driver. “He wasn’t in the army or anything,” he says, fighting back tears. “His only crime was not immediately accepting Russky mir [Russian World].”

There are those in Bucha who say that the Russian soldiers were polite. “Some of them even said sorry,” says one. However, an elderly woman queuing for food and medicine at the central hospital on Energetykiv Street cries as she remembers the five-week occupation. “We tied white ribbons to our arms so they wouldn't shoot,” she says. Nelya Lytvynenko, aged 82, branded Russian soldiers “Nimtsy” or “Germans”. “What else would you call them?” she hisses.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, an investigative group, says that the Russian units involved in Bucha were likely to have come from Russia’s Eastern military district, or from one of the other formations involved on that axis: the VDV airborne forces, the Rosgvardia (the Russian national guard) or troops loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov, a Chechen warlord. Mr Kadyrov has long been accused of human-rights abuses, including assassinations, in Chechnya.

Indeed, the atrocities in Ukraine have disturbing echoes of Russia’s wars in the 1990s and early 2000s. In one incident in February 2000 Russian riot police and soldiers entered Novye Aldi, a suburb of Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, and went from house to house executing civilians,, according to eyewitness accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch, an NGO. Brutal sweeps like these became known as zachistka, or “mopping-up” operations.

Elena Racheva, a social anthropologist at Oxford University who reported on the war in Ukraine in 2014 for Novaya Gazeta, says the cult of violence continues partly because of the shadow of such wars. Some 620,000 Russian soldiers fought in Afghanistan, with the loss of 15,000 lives and 50,000 casualties. Another 140,000 fought two wars in Chechnya, which cost 11,000 lives and 37,000 casualties. Afterwards, they received little psychological help for their trauma.

Instead the Kremlin has fostered a cult of aggression, which has been growing in Russia since Vladimir Putin took power in 1999. Encouraged by state television, soldiers look to a father or a grandfather who fought in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 as their role model. “The aim is to legitimise senseless military campaigns,” Ms Racheva says. “Many of them deliberately emphasise their ability to commit violence.” One veteran of the Chechen war told her: “I always had principles. My principle was not to leave enemies alive.”

On April 1st the Russian defence ministry released a video featuring Aleksei Shabulin, commander of a battalion that carried out a zachistka in the “Hostomel-Gucha...Bucha-Lozero direction”. “My great-grandfather went through the entire second world war and up to the year 1953 chased the fascist devil called Bandera fighters through Ukrainian forests,” he said. “Now I am a glorious successor of this tradition. Now my time has come and I will not disgrace my great-grandfather—and I will go all the way.”

Jack Watling, a military expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think-tank, who was in Ukraine in the weeks before the war, was warned by a senior security official that there would be killings by the Russian forces massing in Belarus. “Anyone saying that Bucha is the result of brutalisation or rogue behaviour is wrong,” insists Mr Watling. “This was the plan. It was premeditated. It is consistent with Russian methods in Chechnya. And if the Russian military had been more successful, there would have been many more towns like it.”

[Typical Lax Dad]

I am waiting to see who will be the first…..

[old salt]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

[cradleandshoot]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

[old salt]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

[MDlaxfan76]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

All reasonable until you use a word like "failed"...rather than "not yet" and then speculate as to motivations keeping him from actually wanting to be more persuasive. How about, all things in due course, keeping the Russian aggression always in front of the response, such that public support, including within our allies, can be sustained?

Seems to me that the momentum is to do more in support, as each horror becomes more publicly clear. It's not that we haven't been expecting to find these horrors, it's that until they are revealed, the public sentiment just isn't there to take actions that might otherwise backfire.

Combine the revulsion people are feeling about what the Russians are doing with the actual progress being made on the ground and the sentiment for actually repelling Russia altogether grows.

I quite agree that actually repelling Russia will need to include control of the airspace, which, of course, is what the Ukrainians have been begging NATO to do...but they seem to accept now that they will need to do it themselves...but they need the tools...

[old salt]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

All reasonable until you use a word like "failed"...rather than "not yet" and then speculate as to motivations keeping him from actually wanting to be more persuasive. How about, all things in due course, keeping the Russian aggression always in front of the response, such that public support, including within our allies, can be sustained?

Seems to me that the momentum is to do more in support, as each horror becomes more publicly clear. It's not that we haven't been expecting to find these horrors, it's that until they are revealed, the public sentiment just isn't there to take actions that might otherwise backfire.

Combine the revulsion people are feeling about what the Russians are doing with the actual progress being made on the ground and the sentiment for actually repelling Russia altogether grows.

I quite agree that actually repelling Russia will need to include control of the airspace, which, of course, is what the Ukrainians have been begging NATO to do...but they seem to accept now that they will need to do it themselves...but they need the tools...

Ukraine does not have the time to wait. Every day they use up more than they can resupply. That's why Russia is attacking their fuel storage depots in Odessa.

It is impossible to provide Ukraine what they need to gain control of their airspace. Given the proximity to Russia, US forces would be hard pressed to gain control of Ukraine's airspace, even IF our NATO allies allowed us to use their bases & airspace. Whatever gains Ukrainian forces make will have to come from land warfare, with their air defenses limiting Russia's close air support.

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and- ... -the-s-400

[Typical Lax Dad]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

Don’t sound like the perfect aircraft…

[MDlaxfan76]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

All reasonable until you use a word like "failed"...rather than "not yet" and then speculate as to motivations keeping him from actually wanting to be more persuasive. How about, all things in due course, keeping the Russian aggression always in front of the response, such that public support, including within our allies, can be sustained?

Seems to me that the momentum is to do more in support, as each horror becomes more publicly clear. It's not that we haven't been expecting to find these horrors, it's that until they are revealed, the public sentiment just isn't there to take actions that might otherwise backfire.

Combine the revulsion people are feeling about what the Russians are doing with the actual progress being made on the ground and the sentiment for actually repelling Russia altogether grows.

I quite agree that actually repelling Russia will need to include control of the airspace, which, of course, is what the Ukrainians have been begging NATO to do...but they seem to accept now that they will need to do it themselves...but they need the tools...

Ukraine does not have the time to wait. Every day they use up more than they can resupply. That's why Russia is attacking their fuel storage depots in Odessa.

It is impossible to provide Ukraine what they need to gain control of their airspace. Given the proximity to Russia, US forces would be hard pressed to gain control of Ukraine's airspace, even IF our NATO allies allowed us to use their bases & airspace. Whatever gains Ukrainian forces make will have to come from land warfare, with their air defenses limiting Russia's close air support.

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and- ... -the-s-400

Resupply can now come from the west, not totally uncontested, but nearly so.

We may not be speaking quite the same language re "control" and I suspect your terminology is far more likely to be exact rather than my looser usage. I mean that Ukraine needs the ability to strike from the sky, not with impunity necessarily, but definitely striking deep into whatever Russian strongholds may exist, destroying supply lines, etc. Not unlike what they just did with the gas depot within Russia. And they need to make it very difficult for Russia to so with as much impunity as they did early on.

Yes, that's going to take systems and craft that are not yet in place.

When we're looking at the huge amount of destruction to Russian materiel on the roads and ditches of Ukraine, do you think the bulk of that has been done from the ground or is some of that happening with the drone attacks?

Seems to me that this war could certainly go for many months, maybe more than a year, before the Russians leave. But I don't see the Ukrainians being willing to give up the land bridge or the southern areas, choking the country...maybe willing to give up Donbas at the end, but frankly, I'm not sure they won't insist on complete withdrawal by Russia before this all done. And I think that should be fully supported, along with reparations and a war crimes tribunal.

The Hungary situation is an interesting complication.
Am wondering whether they will be able, or want, to stay in NATO?

[old salt]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

Don’t sound like the perfect aircraft…

They are the perfect aircraft in uncontested or lightly defended airspace like Afghanistan & Iraq after the initial invasion.

[old salt]

In your rush to criticize the Biden Admin, you may have missed that the WSJ editorial board believes that Russia can and should be repelled from Ukraine. And that we, the USA, (and NATO) should provide all necessary support to do so.

Here's my prediction: Calls like this from the right, and the images of the war crimes, genocide, now coming through, the lies by Lavrov and Moscow, and the sense that Ukraine can actually achieve success in repelling Russia, will lead to a collective will to do more to help, including the weapons systems needed...including those MiG's, S-300's, anti-ship missiles, drones...some of those challenges to moving the equipment into Ukraine, both psychological and practical, have shifted.

I agree with the WSJ. I have said from the outset that we should provide everything the Ukrainians can use effectively.
I have been detailing all the Soviet legacy equipment which our E NATO allies could provide.

I've argued against the things that won't help or that the Ukrainians can't use effectively.
imo -- the media has not yet verified that the Ukrainians are using their Mig-29's or that they will survive if they are used enough to justify removing that capability from Poland's contribution to NATO's front line integrated air defense. imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace. Likewise, I question the survivability of US MQ-9 Reaper drones & Ukraine's ability to operate them.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces.

Biden has failed to convince our E NATO allies to transfer this Soviet legacy stuff. Possibly he shares their fear of escalation, seeks a quick ending of hostilities for economic reasons, & wants to retain Russian's help in restoring the JCPOA with Iran.,

All reasonable until you use a word like "failed"...rather than "not yet" and then speculate as to motivations keeping him from actually wanting to be more persuasive. How about, all things in due course, keeping the Russian aggression always in front of the response, such that public support, including within our allies, can be sustained?

Seems to me that the momentum is to do more in support, as each horror becomes more publicly clear. It's not that we haven't been expecting to find these horrors, it's that until they are revealed, the public sentiment just isn't there to take actions that might otherwise backfire.

Combine the revulsion people are feeling about what the Russians are doing with the actual progress being made on the ground and the sentiment for actually repelling Russia altogether grows.

I quite agree that actually repelling Russia will need to include control of the airspace, which, of course, is what the Ukrainians have been begging NATO to do...but they seem to accept now that they will need to do it themselves...but they need the tools...

Ukraine does not have the time to wait. Every day they use up more than they can resupply. That's why Russia is attacking their fuel storage depots in Odessa.

It is impossible to provide Ukraine what they need to gain control of their airspace. Given the proximity to Russia, US forces would be hard pressed to gain control of Ukraine's airspace, even IF our NATO allies allowed us to use their bases & airspace. Whatever gains Ukrainian forces make will have to come from land warfare, with their air defenses limiting Russia's close air support.

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and- ... -the-s-400

Resupply can now come from the west, not totally uncontested, but nearly so.

We may not be speaking quite the same language re "control" and I suspect your terminology is far more likely to be exact rather than my looser usage. I mean that Ukraine needs the ability to strike from the sky, not with impunity necessarily, but definitely striking deep into whatever Russian strongholds may exist, destroying supply lines, etc. Not unlike what they just did with the gas depot within Russia. And they need to make it very difficult for Russia to so with as much impunity as they did early on.

Yes, that's going to take systems and craft that are not yet in place.

When we're looking at the huge amount of destruction to Russian materiel on the roads and ditches of Ukraine, do you think the bulk of that has been done from the ground or is some of that happening with the drone attacks?

Seems to me that this war could certainly go for many months, maybe more than a year, before the Russians leave. But I don't see the Ukrainians being willing to give up the land bridge or the southern areas, choking the country...maybe willing to give up Donbas at the end, but frankly, I'm not sure they won't insist on complete withdrawal by Russia before this all done. And I think that should be fully supported, along with reparations and a war crimes tribunal.

The Hungary situation is an interesting complication.
Am wondering whether they will be able, or want, to stay in NATO?

A rocket attack by 2 assault helos, 18 mi across the border on an undefended fuel depot, is hardly a deep strike.

It's a long haul to get enough fuel from the Polish border to the front lines in Donbas to sustain a counteroffensive.

The war does not need to end in a negotiated settlement which the Ukrainians accept. It could settle into a frozen conflict.

[Typical Lax Dad]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

Don’t sound like the perfect aircraft…

They are the perfect aircraft in uncontested or lightly defended airspace like Afghanistan & Iraq after the initial invasion.

Too bad that isn’t the job at hand.

[cradleandshoot]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

Disagree, the A10 was designed for this sort of high intensity CAS. That GAU cannon is a difference maker. You may have to pick and choose your strafing runs. The A10 would be a plane that would make more of a difference than any obsolete MiG.

[old salt]

The Hungary situation is an interesting complication.
Am wondering whether they will be able, or want, to stay in NATO?

https://washington.mfa.gov.hu/eng/news/ ... -accession

[old salt]

imo -- any aircraft at altitude are at great risk unless the S-400's are suppressed. Small, short range drones & assault helos, flying below the radar horizon, & avoiding manpads & AA locations, are the only effective & survivable short range strike aircraft that can be used within Ukraine's airspace.

I question the ability to repel Russian forces while they dominate the airspace & deny Ukrainian air strikes & close air support of their ground forces

What about our A10s the perfect aircraft for the job at hand. It can fly above the weeds, has devasting results against armor and is I believe not a difficult plane to fly. It was built to survive in this kind of environment.

A-10's would take heavy losses, as have the SU-25's which are the Russian & Ukrainian equivalents.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 46dec73319

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... c5d2357934

Disagree, the A10 was designed for this sort of high intensity CAS. That GAU cannon is a difference maker. You may have to pick and choose your strafing runs. The A10 would be a plane that would make more of a difference than any obsolete MiG.

The 5 week air war in Desert Storm in '91 is probably the closest thing to what would be encountered against Russia's integrated air defense in Ukraine & inside Russia's near border region. Russia's integrated air defenses are superior to Iraq's @ '91.

Interesting to compare US aircraft losses during that 5 week air war. We don't know how many combat sorties or CAS missions the A-10's flew compared to other US aircraft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ietnam_War

[old salt]

The Hungary situation is an interesting complication.
Am wondering whether they will be able, or want, to stay in NATO?

https://washington.mfa.gov.hu/eng/news/ ... -accession

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/ ... -on-earth/

Hungary Is/Isn’t the Best/Worst Place on Earth
by DAVID HARSANYI

Hungary is illiberal within the normal illiberal standards of modern Europe.

Hungary held an election yesterday — which probably came as a surprise to a number Americans who’ve been convinced that the small Central European nation functions as a totalitarian state. The bugbear of the American Left, and false savior of nationalist conservatives, Viktor Orbán, won his fourth consecutive term. Fidesz, his party, won two-thirds of Parliament against a cluster of center-Left, socialist, environmentalist, and hard-right-wing nationalist parties (Jobbik has only recently moderated from its xenophobic and antisemitic stances, allegedly).

Trying to decipher European parliamentary elections through the prism of American politics is a waste of time. Orbán ran on a traditionalist, socially conservative platform. A referendum on a law limiting the teaching of gay and transgender issues in schools passed; the EU opposes such limits. He leaned into anti-war rhetoric as well as anti-Brussels sentiment, though Fidesz has no plans to leave the EU. It recently instituted a significant minimum-wage increase, and its economic positions have as much in common with statist progressivism as mainstream conservatism.

The truth is, Hungary is illiberal within the normal illiberal standards of modern Europe. And that’s bad enough. Hungary is singled out for ridicule mainly because it declines to share the cultural values of the European Union or the progressive Left, especially pertaining to social policies and to the flow of Middle Eastern migrants into the European Union, which Fidesz aims to block. These positions, in the parlance of modern debate, are “anti-democratic.”

In a recent Atlantic piece, “There Is No Liberal World Order,” Anne Applebaum preposterously dumps “Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Hungary” into the same authoritarian pot, while treating Ukraine, less free than Hungary by nearly any metric, as a bulwark of democracy. She’s right that there is no genuine “liberal order.” There is the United States, where courts (for now) often protect ideals of liberalism and democracy embedded in the U.S. Constitution, and then there is Western Europe, where liberal ideals, self-determination, and minority rights are protected only to varying degrees, as convenience and fashion dictate.

Right now, for example, Germany is considering prosecuting people who show support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Unneutral treatment of speech may not bother progressives, or they may even advocate it, but it is not a “liberal” position. Volksverhetzung, Germany’s strict post-war ban on Nazi symbols and Holocaust denial, has led to the normalization of laws restricting “hate speech,” an evolving category that just happens to mirror the concerns of leftists. Germans can be imprisoned for up to five years and face huge fines for breaking these laws. Cops may show up at your door and arrest you, as they did at the homes of 36 people in 14 German states not long ago. In 2020, German lawmakers made the destruction of foreign state flags or the denigration of national anthems punishable by up to three years in prison. The German government as well as the European Union regulate media platforms in a way that would be unconstitutional in the United States.

I bring all this up to note that Hungarian speech laws and elections are no more illiberal than German ones. No one in Hungary is arrested for railing against the government. No one is poisoned by the head of state. No party is banned from participating in debate or voting. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the Hungarian election was “well run and competitive.” It did complain about a lack of ideological diversity in the media. If this is the prerequisite for genuine democracy, then the United States is in big trouble as well.

Critics also like to claim that Hungary is in league with Putin. Orbán, certainly less antagonistic toward the Russian dictator than some of his neighbors are, condemned the invasion of Ukraine and supported European Union sanctions on Russian interests and oligarchs. Hungary says it has, to this point, received 432,000 Ukrainian refugees, more than four times as many as the United States has accepted. In a nation of 10 million, that’s no small commitment. Like Germany, Hungary relies on Russian oil. Unlike Germany, it does not have the economic might to threaten Putin without the possibility of incurring ruin. So, like other small European nations, it has refused to be a conduit for lethal weapons.

On the other side, there are the Orbán cheerleaders such as Rod Dreher and the natcons types who have given up on small-L liberalism. “Make no mistake: #ViktorOrban is the leader of the West now — the West that still remembers what the West is,” Dreher tweeted after Sunday’s election. Orbán isn’t a bigger champion of the West than the average American conservative. He is simply more willing — or, rather, more able — to use state power, or “illiberal democracy,” to achieve his goals. That’s what excites national conservatives: the statism.

I’m certain that for an American sitting in a café a few blocks from the Danube, during a visit to Hungary subsidized by a think tank, this must all look terribly exciting. Hungary is a beautiful country. People aren’t suffering. An average household in Hungary makes around $10,000 less than average Mississippians, the poorest group in the United States. The average Hungarian is far less religious than the average American. The replacement birth rate in the United States is at historic lows, and yet still higher than the rate in Hungary, which is now 1.53 births per woman — up from 1.31 in 2002 — even after the government employed a slew of policies that were meant to nudge the population into having more children. The largely homogenous Hungarian population has been either stagnant or shrinking every year since 1980.

Hungary isn’t North Korea or Russia. Neither is it a place Americans should aspire to emulate.

[Seacoaster(1)]

Pretty interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/opin ... value.html

"President Biden bragged on Twitter on March 26 that “as a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble.” It was an ill-timed tweet. The Russian currency did crash in February after sanctions were imposed, but by the time Biden exulted, it had already regained lost ground. It’s now worth about 1.2 cents, which is down from 1.3 cents before the war but well above its wartime low of less than 0.8 cents.

What does the ruble’s 50 percent rise from its nadir tell us? Does it mean that Russia’s economy is holding up better than expected and that sanctions haven’t worked? That would be bad news, because it would indicate that Russia has abundant means to continue its invasion of Ukraine. “The strength in the ruble is reinforcing the argument for those who think that we need to take greater steps on the energy side,” making it harder for Russia to sell oil and gas, Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Politico. “It’s definitely increasing that political pressure.”

The reality is that Russia’s financial position is stronger in the short term than many expected but still weak in the long term. Some of the actions that Russia has taken to prop up the ruble are taking its financial system back to the way it was under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which crumbled in 1991.

For the past couple of decades the ruble has been freely and readily traded around the world, its value determined by the forces of supply and demand. This convertibility gave Western investors confidence to invest in Russia and do business with Russian companies. But that era is over, at least for now. To prop up the ruble’s value, the Russian government has at least temporarily shut down the free market in foreign exchange.

“The ruble is not convertible anymore,” Sergey Aleksashenko, who was deputy finance minister and then first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia in the 1990s, told me. “It’s like 1993 or 1994.”

One reason currency experts were bearish on the ruble early in the war was that Russia’s reserves of foreign currencies held outside the country had been frozen. Ordinarily, Russia would spend those reserves to buy up rubles when the ruble was weak. With those reserves no longer accessible, it appeared that its central bank had become toothless.

But Russia doesn’t urgently need access to its foreign-exchange reserves because for now, at least, it has no shortage of dollars, euros and other foreign currencies. It is continuing to export oil and gas in large volumes, and the war-related spike in prices has only increased its revenues. On April 1, economists for Bloomberg predicted Russia’s energy export earnings would increase by more than a third in 2022.

And while more hard currency is flowing in, less is flowing out. Western nations are punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by cutting off sales of many products, both consumer and industrial goods. And Russian authorities are clamping down on imports that would use up foreign exchange. The upshot is that Russia’s current account — the broadest measure of trade in goods and services plus investment income — is headed for a record surplus this year, according to the Institute of International Finance.

Even though Russia has plenty of foreign exchange at the moment, authorities are placing controls on it in case things get worse. Ordinary citizens can no longer take euros and dollars out of the country in large quantities. The central bank is requiring 80 percent of euros, dollars and other hard currencies that enter Russia to be converted into rubles, either on a Moscow exchange or through an authorized bank. The central bank then directs those hard currencies to the Ministry of Finance and private banks, which use them to repay foreign debt, and to companies that the bank decides should be allowed to import products.

The Kremlin is also requiring that unfriendly nations settle their purchases of natural gas (not oil so far) in rubles. They can pay in euros, dollars or whatever other currency is specified in the contracts, but 100 percent of those currencies will be converted into rubles by Gazprombank (the bank that serves Gazprom, one of the world’s biggest gas producers) at the official exchange rate to complete the transaction. “The anticipation of this policy has changed many traders’ outlook on the ruble,” Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, told me.

Germany and Italy, the nations most affected by this requirement, have been pushing back against the Russian demand, claiming that it violates their contracts. “Right now there’s a real game of chicken,” said Jane Foley, a currency strategist in London for Rabobank of the Netherlands.

Propping up the ruble, and proving Biden’s rubble remark wrong, “is a very important propaganda signal,” Sergei Guriev, a professor of economics at Sciences Po in Paris who ran the New Economic School in Moscow from 2004 to 2013, told me.

Also politically valuable to Vladimir Putin is Russia’s insistence on settling oil and gas transactions in rubles rather than dollars. “Putin is saying: ‘I want to impose my rules. I won’t be a rule taker. I will be a rule maker. I want you to settle in rubles,’” Aleksashenko said.

Still, shutting down the ruble’s convertibility can’t insulate Russia from market forces forever. The sanctions are already pushing up the inflation rate and will increasingly cause shortages of key components for manufacturers, Aleksashenko said. The currency will come under renewed pressure as Russia faces big payments on debt denominated in foreign currencies, Foley said. The ruble will also face downward pressure if Russia allows foreign companies that are pulling out of the country to sell assets and cash out, she said.

Then there’s brain drain. “Everybody I know is trying to run away” from Russia, Guriev said in March, in a Princeton video seminar. Lichfield told me: “The economic outlook for Russia is still very gloomy. The fact that capital controls have been reimposed has negative implications for Russia’s future.”

Bottom line: Russia is paying a heavy price for its invasion of Ukraine, no matter what the ruble’s value seems to indicate.

Number of the week
54.6

That’s the estimate by Action Economics of the March level of the S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index for the service sector in Germany, down from 55.0 in February. A reading of 50 or more indicates expansion. The war in Ukraine has dampened the optimism of German businesses and investors, but that’s been offset by the waning of the Omicron outbreak, Action Economics says. S&P Global is set to release the official number on Tuesday.

Quote of the day
“When the Soviet authorities during the 1940s exhibited the 1940 movie of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ as evidence of how miserable the poor were in capitalist America, it backfired. What amazed the Soviet audiences was that the Joad family fled starvation by car.”

— Deirdre N. McCloskey, “Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World” (2010)"

[MDlaxfan76]

The Hungary situation is an interesting complication.
Am wondering whether they will be able, or want, to stay in NATO?

https://washington.mfa.gov.hu/eng/news/ ... -accession

Interesting, this, of course, is the position of Victor Orban.
Claiming "shared values" deficit, from Orban, is quite rich.

But it was a semi-viable excuse, however the issue is quite different today, given the Russian war crimes.

Wanting a law about languages to be moderated is no excuse for supporting Putin in this environment.

[Seacoaster(1)]

https://www.ft.com/content/d80a42c1-bd1 ... 1ebdb304fb