RE: Russian lawmakers authorize Putin to use military force outside the country, Part II
10-16-2023, 04:35 AM
10-16-2023, 04:35 AM
Day 600: I have to confess that I have had a good deal of "Ukraine fatigue" myself, so I haven't posted any kind of update here lately. But after seeing the war start up in Gaza, I feel I should get back to this one, because this is still the most important war. Israel and the Middle East will still be a mess no matter how that war turns out, but if Ukraine wins, it means the end of imperialist wars — at least for a generation, but hopefully for far longer.
One thing I have done in the interim is watch Professor Timothy Snyder's History of Ukraine course, which is a taping of his classroom at Yale. I learned so, so much about something I knew almost nothing about... which is unsurprising, given how little is known about Ukraine in general in the U.S. Including by U.S. diplomats and generals! If you have a have twenty or so hours to spare, it's really worth your time (though the guest lecture on Russian colonization is really skippable if you know anything at all about colonization). If you want a short preview, here's a snippet of an interview of Prof. Synder, where he explains how this turned into a genocidal war.
One thing it gave me is a lot of context for the Canadian Parliament kerfuffle, where a Ukrainian freedom fighter was applauded by the members, and the speaker had to resign because said person fought for the Waffen SS. But, like, of course he did! The communists had inflicted the Holodomor on the Ukrainian people, where the collectivization of agriculture combined with ridiculously cruel policies left something like four million Ukrainians dead. (The closest comparison is to the Irish Potato Famine; both Ukraine and Ireland mass exported food during the famine.) Why wouldn't you, as a nationalist, fight for the army that was fighting against those who had committed a genocide on your people? Even if they were Nazis? (Especially if they were Nazis, since extreme nationalists like other extreme nationalists.) Remember, very few people knew how bad the Holocaust was until the end of WWII.
Another core point is that WWII itself was fought primarily for Ukraine, at least in the European Theatre. Germany was after Lebensraum, which meant imperial conquest. And the land at the center of this was the rich agricultural land around Ukraine, the coal and iron Don Basin (Donbass for short), and oil fields beyond. Poland was pretty much just in the way, even though that marked the start of the war. And here in 2023 we see another war fought for pretty much the same reasons by another asshole nationalist dictator, seeking another genocide.
-- Main Ukrainian thrust continues near Tokmak and Robotyne. There's been lots of fighting here, with Ukrainians taking most of the high ground, but not penetrating the next lines of defense towards Melitopol.
-- Melitopol is definitely seeing partisan action, though. Things explode.
-- Russian offensive in Avdiivka started, oh, last week or so (sorry I haven't really been watching). There's an attempt to close a pocket here, but there are pretty good supply lines, so it's a lot like Bakhmut.
-- 36 Russian tanks destroyed in one day outside Avdiivka becoming a total of 102 tanks and 183 armoured vehicles lost, with 2,840 troops killed
-- Soldiers plead for more body bags. Orcs earning their name as orcs.
-- Bahkmut continues to see offensives from both sides. Is there anything worth fighting over left?
-- Apparently Putin ordered the military to take Donetsk by the end of the year, which explains why
-- It seems like Ukraine has an artillery advantage in Avdiivka, and getting close to parity in the entire war. Several reasons why this deficit was overcome:
---- HIMARS go boom
---- West slowly gives Ukraine more arty, longer range
---- Russian barrels shot so much, they wore out
---- Ukraine keeps getting new barrels from German steel; Russia can't make this high grade steel now
---- Russian national myth is about how they won WWII, (un)conveniently forgetting the absurd amounts of American artillery and armor given to the Soviets
-- Ukranians missile strike an ammo train, cutting off supplies to the southern front for a couple days. Railroads can be rebuilt in hours, train wrecks take days.
-- Ukrainians launch flag on balloons. Russians shoot at floating flag. Ukrainians shoot at revealed Russian location.
-- Russia's Black Sea Fleet has abandoned Crimea, leaving Sebastopol for the safety of Novorossiysk.
-- The Russian Navy has always sucked, but other nations with navies are going to look really seriously at anti-drone warfare now
-- Predictions are that Russia's economy will start to really suffer by 2025, and arms will run out by 2026.
-- Honestly everyone is looking at the drones. If Russia starts jamming drones effectively, we may get the autonomous killbots we always dreamed about.
-- We're closing on 290k Russian dead, which is a lot of Ivans.
-- Russians make more nuclear threats lol
-- Let's take a quick detour to Armenia, where Armenia ceded their historic lands in Karabakh to Azerbaijan (it's also historic Azeri land), almost overnight. Russia's security guarantee for Armenia turned out to be worth nothing as Russia has overextended itself.
-- Armenia already making noises about joining the West. The government that betrayed Nagorno-Karabakh may not last, but in their eyes Russia did an much worse betrayal.
-- 243 Ukrainians trapped in Gaza
-- Another thing from that class: Greeks and Jews are the oldest documented inhabitants of what is now Ukraine.
-- Russians were pretty quick to blame Hamas' attacks on arms given to Ukraine. It's possible some captured arms made the path US -> Ukraine -> Russia -> Iran -> Hamas in order to embarrass Ukraine, but it's more likely Russian propagandists are talking out their ass.
-- Israel is in the odd spot of being an ally of both Russia and the United States, the former largely due to similar interests in Syria.
-- US House of Representatives continues to not operate, but having passed a lend-lease bill earlier, Biden doesn't actually need budget to "lend" arms to Ukraine
-- Russia suspended from the Olympics again, this time for taking over local Olympic councils from occupied Ukraine
-- Lists of properties to restore electrical power to first for the FSB is basically a leak of FSB facilities and safe houses. Infosec is hard.
-- Occupied Ukraine sees billboard in classic smiling propaganda style offering kids' summer camp in the North Korean Rus'. Implication: behave or we'll send your kids to Korea.
-- Do you like big animated musical numbers with a huge cast of characters? How about Wagner's Prigozhin? How about together? The Kremlin Presents: A Rumor in Rostov-on-Don! (youtube, reddit -- use whichever video actually works for you).
One thing I have done in the interim is watch Professor Timothy Snyder's History of Ukraine course, which is a taping of his classroom at Yale. I learned so, so much about something I knew almost nothing about... which is unsurprising, given how little is known about Ukraine in general in the U.S. Including by U.S. diplomats and generals! If you have a have twenty or so hours to spare, it's really worth your time (though the guest lecture on Russian colonization is really skippable if you know anything at all about colonization). If you want a short preview, here's a snippet of an interview of Prof. Synder, where he explains how this turned into a genocidal war.
One thing it gave me is a lot of context for the Canadian Parliament kerfuffle, where a Ukrainian freedom fighter was applauded by the members, and the speaker had to resign because said person fought for the Waffen SS. But, like, of course he did! The communists had inflicted the Holodomor on the Ukrainian people, where the collectivization of agriculture combined with ridiculously cruel policies left something like four million Ukrainians dead. (The closest comparison is to the Irish Potato Famine; both Ukraine and Ireland mass exported food during the famine.) Why wouldn't you, as a nationalist, fight for the army that was fighting against those who had committed a genocide on your people? Even if they were Nazis? (Especially if they were Nazis, since extreme nationalists like other extreme nationalists.) Remember, very few people knew how bad the Holocaust was until the end of WWII.
Another core point is that WWII itself was fought primarily for Ukraine, at least in the European Theatre. Germany was after Lebensraum, which meant imperial conquest. And the land at the center of this was the rich agricultural land around Ukraine, the coal and iron Don Basin (Donbass for short), and oil fields beyond. Poland was pretty much just in the way, even though that marked the start of the war. And here in 2023 we see another war fought for pretty much the same reasons by another asshole nationalist dictator, seeking another genocide.
-- Main Ukrainian thrust continues near Tokmak and Robotyne. There's been lots of fighting here, with Ukrainians taking most of the high ground, but not penetrating the next lines of defense towards Melitopol.
-- Melitopol is definitely seeing partisan action, though. Things explode.
-- Russian offensive in Avdiivka started, oh, last week or so (sorry I haven't really been watching). There's an attempt to close a pocket here, but there are pretty good supply lines, so it's a lot like Bakhmut.
-- 36 Russian tanks destroyed in one day outside Avdiivka becoming a total of 102 tanks and 183 armoured vehicles lost, with 2,840 troops killed
-- Soldiers plead for more body bags. Orcs earning their name as orcs.
-- Bahkmut continues to see offensives from both sides. Is there anything worth fighting over left?
-- Apparently Putin ordered the military to take Donetsk by the end of the year, which explains why
-- It seems like Ukraine has an artillery advantage in Avdiivka, and getting close to parity in the entire war. Several reasons why this deficit was overcome:
---- HIMARS go boom
---- West slowly gives Ukraine more arty, longer range
---- Russian barrels shot so much, they wore out
---- Ukraine keeps getting new barrels from German steel; Russia can't make this high grade steel now
---- Russian national myth is about how they won WWII, (un)conveniently forgetting the absurd amounts of American artillery and armor given to the Soviets
-- Ukranians missile strike an ammo train, cutting off supplies to the southern front for a couple days. Railroads can be rebuilt in hours, train wrecks take days.
-- Ukrainians launch flag on balloons. Russians shoot at floating flag. Ukrainians shoot at revealed Russian location.
-- Russia's Black Sea Fleet has abandoned Crimea, leaving Sebastopol for the safety of Novorossiysk.
-- The Russian Navy has always sucked, but other nations with navies are going to look really seriously at anti-drone warfare now
-- Predictions are that Russia's economy will start to really suffer by 2025, and arms will run out by 2026.
-- Honestly everyone is looking at the drones. If Russia starts jamming drones effectively, we may get the autonomous killbots we always dreamed about.
-- We're closing on 290k Russian dead, which is a lot of Ivans.
-- Russians make more nuclear threats lol
-- Let's take a quick detour to Armenia, where Armenia ceded their historic lands in Karabakh to Azerbaijan (it's also historic Azeri land), almost overnight. Russia's security guarantee for Armenia turned out to be worth nothing as Russia has overextended itself.
-- Armenia already making noises about joining the West. The government that betrayed Nagorno-Karabakh may not last, but in their eyes Russia did an much worse betrayal.
-- 243 Ukrainians trapped in Gaza
-- Another thing from that class: Greeks and Jews are the oldest documented inhabitants of what is now Ukraine.
-- Russians were pretty quick to blame Hamas' attacks on arms given to Ukraine. It's possible some captured arms made the path US -> Ukraine -> Russia -> Iran -> Hamas in order to embarrass Ukraine, but it's more likely Russian propagandists are talking out their ass.
-- Israel is in the odd spot of being an ally of both Russia and the United States, the former largely due to similar interests in Syria.
-- US House of Representatives continues to not operate, but having passed a lend-lease bill earlier, Biden doesn't actually need budget to "lend" arms to Ukraine
-- Russia suspended from the Olympics again, this time for taking over local Olympic councils from occupied Ukraine
-- Lists of properties to restore electrical power to first for the FSB is basically a leak of FSB facilities and safe houses. Infosec is hard.
-- Occupied Ukraine sees billboard in classic smiling propaganda style offering kids' summer camp in the North Korean Rus'. Implication: behave or we'll send your kids to Korea.
-- Do you like big animated musical numbers with a huge cast of characters? How about Wagner's Prigozhin? How about together? The Kremlin Presents: A Rumor in Rostov-on-Don! (youtube, reddit -- use whichever video actually works for you).
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto