What I despise most about warfare, is the hypocrisy if often breeds. I’ve heard euphemisms that we are ‘containing the enemy’, that our ‘sector of pacification is growing’. These are the tactics of the lie. Lies have the stench of death and defeat.
Colonel Strelnikov, Red Dawn (1984)
All wars, especially in their initial stages, produce lots of factually incorrect information, some deliberate lies and some not. The Ukraine War is producing more than usual. The military on both sides were trained in the Soviet technique of Maskirova, where military deception is a key element of all strategy. Russian sources are flooding the internet with complete fabrications as are Ukranian sources. Here is what we know for sure:
-  Putin is using very small forces and engaging in a decapitation strategy to replace the Ukrainian government with one of his choosing. It isn’t working thus far.
-  The Soviets are getting involved in street fighting in Kiev and now Kharkov. That is never a good idea for a relatively small conventional force.
- The Russian economy is taking a steep nose dive as a result of the war.
- The Russian anti-Putin movement is loud and vociferous in its denunciations of the war.
- Nato is sending anti-tank weaponry and ammunition to Ukraine, and implementing meaningful economic sanctions. I confess to being surprised by this.
- Russia is finding itself diplomatically isolated, with even China calling for an end to the war.
- The Russians have not yet achieved air supremacy over Ukraine.
- Putin needs to bring this war to a victorious conclusion quickly. The war is costing him around twenty billion dollars a day. Total annual Russian military expenditures are normally sixty billion in a year.
- It surprises me that the Russians have not been able to sabotage communications between Ukraine and the rest of the world. Their inability to take down the internet in Ukraine bespeaks a technological backwardness that I did not anticipate.
- Putin is trying to fight a 20th century traditional Soviet war without the means to do so. Never fight a war by last year’s rules and never go to war on a budget. War is always changing, with the exceptions to this rule being that the cost and length of a war are almost always going to be far greater than you anticipate at the outset.
Re: #9 … Elon Musk helped with that 🙂
https://notthebee.com/article/elon-musk-urged-by-ukraine-to-provide-his-broadband-starlink-service-to-the-embattled-country-responds-later-in-the-day-by-doing-exactly-that
#8… The war is costing him around twenty billion dollars a day
Good!
Bleed him dry.
This could be a big blessing. A shortening of the war possibly?
I’d love to see him ousted from his seat of power. A crippling of the nation’s economic structures might be a remedy. Back that up with marches into St. Petersburg numbering a few million protesters and just maybe?
Wishful thinking on my part.
#10 Putin is trying to fight a 20th century traditional Soviet war without the means to do so….
There is a kind of desperate aspect to this. Putin’s a thug no doubt, but did we poke the wounded Russian bear too many times? Was it wise to threaten to put NATO on his doorstep? Then when we abandon Ukraine, bolstered by high oil prices (Go Brandon) and weak western leaders he steps in.
Elon Musk helped with that.
Thanks CAG for the link.
Putin’s a thug no doubt, but did we poke the wounded Russian bear too many times?
The ability to defend oneself is not an insult, attack, incitement or any other form of “poking” a target.
If someone responds to a target getting the means to defend themselves by attacking, then they had already decided to attack, and were choosing a time which best suited their other plans.
If your crazy ex-husband responds to you signing up for gun classes by beating you, he was already going to do that. No matter what his excuse is at the time. “Oh, I’m helping Crimea”– “oh, I’m just recognizing these two providences” — there is always an excuse, a reason that the target is wrong for not doing what the attacker wanted.
It surprises me that the Russians have not been able to sabotage communications between Ukraine and the rest of the world. Their inability to take down the internet in Ukraine bespeaks a technological backwardness that I did not anticipate.
It might just be a lack of keeping up with advancements.
I know people whose response to the Ukraine was “Oh, no! Zepla!” and checking their video game streams– people do not invest huge amounts to be able to stream themselves playing Final Fantasy 14, the existence of her fairly well known (for those who watch those) stream means that there is a long-standing demand for good internet, and the oh-gosh-totally-not-Russian violence in the area Putin could reach before now means that the system has practice in routing around that damage.
Starlink means that there’s more routes, now, but the speed with which folks have to hustle to not become backwards is increasing.
Putin just picked the right time to invade and went for it. He was always going to. His excuses to do so, were not for the international community. His excuse to do so was and is to stir Russian national pride so that his own people would not question his actions to invade Ukraine and support him. I don’t think he envisioned the protest from his own people which appears to be growing.
It also appears that he thought he would be fighting Ukraine alone. What he underestimated was the support Ukraine would receive from the International community, particularly in terms of resources.
He’s also underestimating God in this. The Ukrainians are God-fearing people who love Christ, who have God on their side.
Kirill is silent about this barbarism. PF is silent about the American president’s genocide against the unborn. Talk about hypocrisy! What is it about modern high ranking clerics that can not speak to the ruler like the prophet Nathan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovbqVr4B0OQ&t=327s
Start at 3: 15.
This morning: Russia nukes are on high alert.
Somebody said, “In war, truth is the first casualty.” This is true of politics as well.
Conrad has Marlow comment on a lie in Heart of Darkness. Marlow, [not word for word] “It’s not that I’m more honest than the next man. It’ that a lie disgusts me. It’s like biting into something rotten.”
Don
I get the impression (from reading sources of varying reliability) that man for man and unit for unit the Ukrainian armed forces are in better shape than the non-elite Russian forces. Which is possibly why Putin has chosen his quick victory tactics. I think it is very likely that Russia will get a bloody nose. If Putin gets 6 months or so bring up the rest of the Russian armed forces to fighting shape Russia will win. Whether that is possible, politically, economically or diplomatically, I have no idea.
But then I’ve been wrong before.
I get the impression (from reading sources of varying reliability) that man for man and unit for unit the Ukrainian armed forces are in better shape than the non-elite Russian forces.
Military service has never had much attraction for most Russians, outside of a patriotic war where Mother Russia is invaded. The Russians currently rely upon one year conscripts, which ensures the bulk of their soldiers are counting their days until they get out, with the majority of their time in service taken up by basic and branch training, with little left for anything else. My guess is that morale is near zero among Russian privates in Ukraine, and they have figured out that whatever they were told was going on in Kiev was a lie, and that dying for nothing in Ukraine is at the absolute bottom of their list of things they want to do. Given enough combat experience they would make passable troops, but in these early days they are concentrating on staying alive, taking no risks and going through the motions when an officer is around. They are probably also trying to call their parents and anyone else they can get a hold of to complain about all this.
Most helpful if Russian soldiers have elected to work-to-rule.
Evidently, Putin’s conscript army is not back-boned by political troops following attacks and shooting those that don’t advance . . . That’s how Stalin’s army worked and, according to an old business associate, how the Bolsheviks did it in the Spanish Civil War.
$20B per day? May this come to a swift THX 1138 conclusion.
I saw a video where someone took a Starlink setup out into the wilderness. IIRC it all fit into his van. The setup had good performance. International availability is subject to regulations, as was touched on by the article in CAG’s comment. The direct satellite to satellite communications via lasers allows Starlink to reduce the need to run ground stations.
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On YouTube Ellie in Space did an episode on the Ukraine “Elon Musk sends Starlink help to Ukraine.” Her video also mentions regulations.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjdE7uunig
…..beacons for airstrikes …..
John Scott made a comment in the above link from GREGB.
That could hurt the user permanently.
Especially if Putin feels threatened with the information / videos, being transmitted.
The question first and foremost on my mind has to do with the possibility of Ukraine getting a NATO membership. If we do give them NATO membership in the future, it seems farcical that we would categorically refuse to give them direct military aid now. But if we refuse to give them NATO membership in the future, then we are bowing to Russia’s demands (or, at the very least, saying that Ukraine’s future is irrelevant to US interests and thus undermining the rationale behind the sanctions.)
The current policy seems to be something like “Ukraine must be defended at all costs but it is not worth a high cost to America to defend it.”
The president of Ukraine has stated that Ukraine does not want to join NATO; they want to be neutral. NATO has not asked Ukraine to be a member. Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Ireland are not members of NATO. Putin has issued a veiled threat to Finland and Sweden to remain neutral.