Ukraine Watch...

[Ralphw2]

Russia did this unprovoked. Your 'facts' are not there.

[Default0ptions]

Russia did this unprovoked. Your 'facts' are not there.

“When I was a journalist for The Times (London) in Moscow in December 1992, I saw a print-out of a speech by the then Russian foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, warning that if the West continued to attack vital Russian interests and ignore Russian protests, there would one day be a dangerous backlash. A British journalist had scrawled on it a note to an American colleague, “Here are more of Kozyrev’s ravings.”
Andrei Kozyrev was the most liberal and pro-Western foreign minister Russia has ever had. As he stated in his speech, his anxiety about Western behavior was rooted in fear that the resulting backlash would destroy liberalism in Russia and Russian co-operation with the West. He was proved right as we see today. Yet when he expressed this fear, in entirely moderate and rational terms, he was instinctively dismissed by western observers as virtually insane.
The point about this history is that the existing crisis with Russia has origins that go far beyond Putin.”

https://time.com/6141806/russia-ukraine-threats/

“John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia”

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation ... ian-crisis

“Nato’s arrogant, tone‐​deaf policy toward Russia over the past quarter‐​century deserves a large share as well. Analysts committed to a US foreign policy of realism and restraint have warned for more than a quarter‐​century that continuing to expand the most powerful military alliance in history toward another major power would not end well. The war in Ukraine provides definitive confirmation that it did not.

“It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly. Even the most modest schemes would bring the alliance to the borders of the old Soviet Union. Some of the more ambitious versions would have the alliance virtually surround the Russian Federation itself.” I wrote those words in 1994, in my book Beyond Nato: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, at a time when expansion proposals merely constituted occasional speculation in foreign policy seminars in New York and Washington. I added that expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ia-ukraine

“It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as "echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is factually wrong.

Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”

https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped ... on-1685554

[Potemkin Villager]

Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”

Now we know what turning out badly looks like as there can be no winners here. Mind you there is a whole wide world of things turning out very badly indeed and a world of folk deeply convinced their rightness is right and will prevail. We really are fecked.

[Ralphw2]

nato was not and will not be in ukraine, and before Russia invaded it was not and showed no sign of ever entering Sweden or Finland.

When Russia annexed Crimea NATO did exactly nothing. When Russia supported the insurrection in the Dombas the west did very little. When Russia invaded that had become a frozen war. Putin ordered the invasion because he was expecting Ukrainians not to fight, he expected them to accept their return Russian domination, possibly because he received bad intelligence, possibly because he has become so feared in his own regime that they were only prepared to tell him what he wanted to hear. Either way the initial invasion was a military disaster, and ever since Putin has been throwing every Russian life he can spare to save his own neck.

This is an existential war for Ukrainre and Putin. It is not an existential war for the Russian state unless Putin manages to make it so. In which case it will then be the end of the Russian state.

[Ralphw2]

Russia re-opens the north east front by crossing the border heading towards Kharkiv.

It will be interesting to see if this is a real attempt to take the region or a diversionary attack from the main front in the south east. The numbers of troops I have seen reported in the build up suggest the latter.

[Default0ptions]

Ralph: “nato was not and will not be in ukraine”

“Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo in February. NATO already assists Ukraine in virtually every possible aspect, from supplying weaponry and intelligence on Russian targets and the positions of enemy bombers”

“Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a conference in Warsaw on March 8 that there were already representatives of the Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine. “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine. And I would like to thank the ambassadors of those countries who have taken that risk.”

“NATO personnel already in Ukraine for arms control, intelligence operations and military training
The French proposal not to rule out sending soldiers to fight against Russia opened a debate that confirms there are soldiers from the Atlantic Alliance on the ground”

https://english.elpais.com/internationa ... ining.html#

[Default0ptions]

Ralph: “nato was not and will not be in ukraine”

“US and Nato troops begin Ukraine military exercise
Published 15 September 2014”

“About 1,300 troops from 15 countries - including the US and other Nato members - have begun a military exercise near Lviv in western Ukraine.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29204505

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/of ... s_8443.htm

“Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Bucharest on 3 April 2008”

Point 23:

“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

[Default0ptions]

2014 again - nato in Ukraine

“Hodges, now retired, oversaw the expansion of U.S. military cooperation with Ukraine after 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and backed an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has cost more than 13,000 lives. Since then, the United States has provided $1.5 billion in security assistance, including everything from Humvees and patrol boats to counterartillery radar and lethal weaponry such as Javelin antitank missiles.

"First and foremost, U.S. military aid represents a physical manifestation of American support, which is essential,"

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/78887484 ... since-2014

And direct US ‘meddling’ in the Maidan in 2014:

“Nuland also assessed the political skills of Ukrainian opposition figures with unusual candor and, along with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, debated strategy for their cause, laying bare a deep degree of U.S. involvement in affairs that Washington officially says are Ukraine’s to resolve.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... story.html

[Default0ptions]

Ralph: “When Russia annexed Crimea NATO did exactly nothing.”

Umm - exactly nothing?

You must have missed everything I’ve posted above at the time and ever since then?

Ralph: “ Russia did this unprovoked. Your 'facts' are not there.”

Which facts are you disputing from the mainstream western news agencies, official nato sources etc that I’ve posted?

[Default0ptions]

Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly—ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst.”

Now we know what turning out badly looks like as there can be no winners here. Mind you there is a whole wide world of things turning out very badly indeed and a world of folk deeply convinced their rightness is right and will prevail. We really are fecked.

The truly ludicrous thing is that all those sanctions against Russia have ended up with this:

“Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies says IMF”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68823399

[invalid]

Russia re-opens the north east front by crossing the border heading towards Kharkiv.

It will be interesting to see if this is a real attempt to take the region or a diversionary attack from the main front in the south east. The numbers of troops I have seen reported in the build up suggest the latter.

Well, given Ukraine's chronic lack of manpower there are múltiple benefits for Russia in launching this attack. Any land taken Will presumably be held onto, unlike the earlier suicidal Ukrainian incursions into Russia.

[invalid]

Reports that Ukrainian units abandoned positions and fled Up in Kharkov. How many more Ukrainians must die - it's never enough for Zelensky?

[invalid]

Remember Mr.z was in raptures, only five months ago, about the state of the Kharkiv defensive line (apparently the best in Ukraine). Very curious...

[Ralphw2]

Its been a few days now so we can begin to see what progress Russia is making on their new Kharkiv front.

Ukraine was well aware for weeks that this attack was coming somewhere along their long north east border with Russia, and maybe they could have done more to build defensive lines close to it, but digging trenches that close to a hostile border itself is a hazardous process. Cross border shelling has been frequent on both sides. However, the shortage of Ukrainian soviet era weapons remaining, and the prohibition on using Westenr weapons firing onto Russian soil, meant that Ukraine was unable to significantly disrupt the Russian preparations and logistics on their side of the border.

The forces that have crossed the border in two enclaves are infanty with drone and artilery and glide bomb support, but little mechanised support, just apcs. The troops seem to be operating in very small units, not even platoon size, and this suggests these troops have only received the most basic training and have not learnt to operate in any size of formation. The Russian tactic has been the usual one, of very large numbers of poorly trained troops overwhelming overstretched defences, but not before taking very heavy casualties. Once the Russians get a foothold in towns or villages they are much harder to dislodge without artilery support, and can slowly grind their way street to street.

The analysts seem to be pointing to Russia wanting to build an enclave close enough to Kharkiv city to be in artilery range, to destroy and depopulate the city, but not capture it. So far, they have maybe reached half that distance, and the pace of advance is slowing, with the front lines still fluid.

This is at best a minor diversion from the main offensive in the south and east, which has also slowed its progress, and its objective is to affect Ukrainian moralle, by destroying a city that had survived being surrounded in the original invasion.

If the West was to give Ukraine permisiion to use the weapons they have supplied against military targets on Russian ground close to the border, this incursion could be quickly reversed, but that may be just what Putin wants so that he can claim that this is evidence of Mother Russia being under direct attack by Nato, and so boost his chances of getting another draft or maybe get more international support from China or other 'non alligned'
sources.

I think this attack was brought forward before troops were fully trained because of the resumption of US weapons pipeline. I will not make a prediction on how this front will turn out, I do not have a crystal ball.

[Default0ptions]

Ralph: “Its been a few days now so we can begin to see what progress Russia is making on their new Kharkiv front.”

"The Russians Just Walked In": Ukraine Border Defense Funds Diverted To Fake Companies In Massive "Betrayal"

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rus ... es-massive

“According to Ukranian Pravda reports, the Russian military has begun to advance in the northern region of Ukraine where funding that was set for fortification was transferred to fake companies. The offensive from the Russian military launched on Monday with attacks on towns and villages, the Kyiv Post reports. A total of 7 billion hryvnias was spent there by Ukraine, according to the report.

“This comes as the BBC reports that a regional Ukrainian commander in Kharkiv has said that the first line of defense was missing in a massive "betrayal" in the northern region of the country. Denys Yaroslavskyi, a commander in the region in charge of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, told the outlet, “There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields."

“He told the BBC that government officials claimed to have built up the mines as the first line of defense at a huge cost. He told reporters, “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal."

So - all the money we gave them was wasted here. Hardly encouraging.

It was simply trousered into off shore accounts.

What a shining beacon of democracy.