Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[Rob Ray]

Excellent piece on the war in the L'Unità newspaper today. Attacco folle dell’Ucraina in Russia: solo Putin può scongiurare la Terza Guerra Mondiale

Translated:

The Madness of the West in Arms

Ukraine's Crazy Attack on Russia: Only Putin Can Avert World War III​

There is no point in pretending that nothing has happened. We are on the brink of the third world war. In a condition in which there is only one hope that this war can be avoided.

Editorials - by Piero Sansonetti
August 17, 2024 at 07:00

The enthusiasm that the crazy attack by Ukraine on Russian territory has aroused in the establishment and in the mainstream Western press – especially the Italian one – is astonishing. Anyone who is capable of reasoning – completely outside of their political ideas – cannot fail to understand that we have entered a phase of the war from which it will be very difficult to emerge. And that the war, now completely evident and without any possibility of misunderstanding, is between Putin 's Russia and NATO.

This war directly and dramatically involves Europe above all. Which, however, is at this moment an entity without a government or political idea, with its two leading countries experiencing a very acute crisis of leadership – the German Social Democracy is exhausted, the Macronists and the French Socialists are in a clear minority – and finds itself completely at the mercy of the United States, which, in turn, is experiencing a crisis of leadership that they have not known since at least the 1930s. There is no point in pretending that nothing has happened. We are on the brink of the third world war . In a condition in which there is only one hope that this war can be avoided. And that hope, paradoxically, is Putin. The only possibility of avoiding Armageddon is for the Russian dictator to prove himself wiser than Western leaders and save the world as Nikita Khrushchev did in 1962 at the time of the Cuban crisis.

It is in this situation that politics shows its agony. It is not there. It has closed the shutters. Let the big lobbies, the weapons manufacturers, the agglomerates of economic power that control the intellect and information, let them decide. Or let the fate of humanity be entrusted to the hands of a few leaders, weak, unprepared, without personality, capable only of making some electoral calculations based on polls. Do you remember how the First World War began, which produced about 25 million deaths and then caused Nazism? No, you don't remember, because no one knows exactly why it broke out. They say it was the fault of a certain Gavrilo Princip. Student. There. Who knows if there will still be anyone alive in the world to say that it was a whim of a certain Zelensky...

If by "excellent" you mean "incoherent", sure. As "phases of the war" go I see no serious step change here. Russia's not going to invade anywhere else, while Europe and the US have made it clear their enthusiasm, beyond the aid already promised, is pretty much limited to a bit of vague cheerleading (largely because, as the piece notes, the EU lacks energy while the US has internal chaos).

The reality atm seems to be that Ukraine's taking a gamble that the political fallout from an "invasion" of a slice of fairly nondescript land will force Putin to a compromise, while the Kremlin is largely not taking the bait and continuing to grind through towards key interim targets. The editorial makes no case explaining why this situation would be more likely to escalate into WW3 in comparison to any other point in the war.

 

[teqniq]

Doubtless this has already been posted extensively about but I wouldn't know as I've not been reading the thread. Great, informative piece here from the Wall Street Journal on the Kursk operation. amazingly it doesn't seem to be paywalled atm, worked fine for me anyway. If, however you find it's paywalled there is an archive link as well which is missing a lot of the images/graphics:

https://www.wsj.com/world/behind-ukraines-russia-invasion-secrecy-speed-and-electronic-jamming-188fcc22?st=machz5kcqxxkfbq

Behind Ukraine’s Russia Invasion: Secrecy, Speed and Electronic Jamming

 

[HAL9000]

Explanation of what this map tell us is here...

Weekend Update #94: The Kursk Offensive Initial Goals

The Campaign Against Russian Airfields; Russian Micro Advances Continue

phillipspobrien.substack.com

 

[two sheds]

Have we actually mentioned an obvious consequence of Ukraine's invasion?

Russia pulls 5,000 troops from Ukraine to defend Kursk Oblast against Ukrainian offensive

Russia withdrew several brigades totaling up to 5,000 soldiers from Ukraine to repel the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, as of mid-last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 17.

english.nv.ua

I really hope Russian forces aren't going to annihilate them.

 

[kebabking]

Have we actually mentioned an obvious consequence of Ukraine's invasion?

Russia pulls 5,000 troops from Ukraine to defend Kursk Oblast against Ukrainian offensive

Russia withdrew several brigades totaling up to 5,000 soldiers from Ukraine to repel the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, as of mid-last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 17.

english.nv.ua

I really hope Russian forces aren't going to annihilate them.

There are huge risks - the force could get tied down and destroyed in place, they could retreat and it could turn into a rout, they could stay there and be great and the Russians could instead concentrate all their force on smashing through the Ukrainian lines in the east - if they get to Kyiv, what does it matter that the Ukrainians hold Kursk....

The flip side is that OS research is showing that the Ukrainian invasion, and holding, of Ru territory is having a political effect in Russia - that comments/trends on Russian social media have become markedly more hostile to Putin and the whole concept of war with Ukraine over the last two weeks - so the longer they hold it, the more damage they do to Putin, but the longer they stay, the greater the risk.

Personally, I have a bad feeling about it.

 

[Dogsauce]

There are huge risks - the force could get tied down and destroyed in place, they could retreat and it could turn into a rout, they could stay there and be great and the Russians could instead concentrate all their force on smashing through the Ukrainian lines in the east - if they get to Kyiv, what does it matter that the Ukrainians hold Kursk....

The flip side is that OS research is showing that the Ukrainian invasion, and holding, of Ru territory is having a political effect in Russia - that comments/trends on Russian social media have become markedly more hostile to Putin and the whole concept of war with Ukraine over the last two weeks - so the longer they hold it, the more damage they do to Putin, but the longer they stay, the greater the risk.

Personally, I have a bad feeling about it.

Even if they get out in an orderly fashion there is likely to be some negative fallout, it’d be seen as a pointless waste of men and equipment, Russia will boast of a crushing victory. The way they would have to look at things then would be that they’ve destroyed or captured a lot of the enemy in the process, but how that balances up isn’t really known. At the moment they are still pushing forwards without significant resistance, mostly facing young conscripts who seem not massively keen on dying. Note that conscripts aren’t allowed to fight on foreign soil so haven’t generally been deployed to Ukraine, hence their use here on the ‘motherland’.

 

[ska invita]

My armchair worry is that if they are advancing so far and fast then they are leaving the rear of the advance relatively undefended and Russia could come around the back of the advance, cut supply lines and they'll be stranded .

 

[emanymton]

My armchair worry is that if they are advancing so far and fast then they are leaving the rear of the advance relatively undefended and Russia could come around the back of the advance, cut supply lines and they'll be stranded .

I think it might be better to pull back now and try and hold a smaller amount of territory than keep going and try and hold too much.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Putin the brave defender of The Motherland is supporting the people of Kursk by heroically legging it over to Azerbaijan...

 

[Rimbaud]

Explanation of what this map tell us is here...

Weekend Update #94: The Kursk Offensive Initial Goals

The Campaign Against Russian Airfields; Russian Micro Advances Continue

phillipspobrien.substack.com

They have destroyed 2 of the 3 bridges now.

Ukraine says second Russian bridge destroyed in strike

Ukrainian forces continue their incursion into Russia's Kursk region, claiming destruction of a second bridge.

www.bbc.co.uk

And damaged the third.

Ukraine hits third bridge in Russia’s Kursk, says buffer zone is final goal

Stating the incursion’s aims for the first time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine needs border ‘buffer zone’.

www.aljazeera.com

The continued advance makes more sense if they have decided to take an area which has optimal geography for defense.

Does anyone have a map which shoes where the river goes in relation to where Ukrainian forces currently hold? If they are holding an area pretty much surrounded by a river it is feasible that they could set up supply lines and dig in for the long haul.

Could be a turning point?

 

[maomao]

Is there any chance of flanking the Russians on the way back or is the scale of manoeuvre required just too big?

 

[T & P]

Perhaps it's time for Putin to accept this 'new reality' and concede that the Kursk region is now irrevocably Ukrainian territory. Then peace can be achieved.

 

[agricola]

Modi heading to visit Zelensky in Kiev this week, according to reports.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Does anyone have a map which shoes where the river goes in relation to where Ukrainian forces currently hold? If they are holding an area pretty much surrounded by a river it is feasible that they could set up supply lines and dig in for the long haul.

I think this is the one (they're now saying the third bridge is totalled too)

 

[TopCat]

You would've done if I'd said the opposite.

It’s not about you

 

[Spymaster]

It’s not about you

 

[MrCurry]

Putin the brave defender of The Motherland is supporting the people of Kursk by heroically legging it over to Azerbaijan...

View attachment 438824


View attachment 438825

Has his head been remodelled by a bowling ball press machine ?

 

[tim]

Putin the brave defender of The Motherland is supporting the people of Kursk by heroically legging it over to Azerbaijan...

View attachment 438824


View attachment 438825

I think this was the last time the Azerbaijani President greeted a visiting foreign Head of State



Sanctions can wreak havoc with aircraft maintenance.

 

[maomao]

Has his head been remodelled by a bowling ball press machine ?

Steroids.

(not a prediction of impending death, one of my kids was on them for years and is very alive)

 

[TopCat]

My armchair worry is that if they are advancing so far and fast then they are leaving the rear of the advance relatively undefended and Russia could come around the back of the advance, cut supply lines and they'll be stranded .

They will live off the land. Welcomed by the people.

 

[MrCurry]

Steroids.

(not a prediction of impending death, one of my kids was on them for years and is very alive)

Yeah, have been on them for years myself. Never achieved anything close to that spherical perfection though. A side effect is aggressive outbursts - just what you want in a nuclear armed dictator.

 

[TopCat]

All this pro NATO excitement. Your despondency has lifted! (For a bit).

 

[Spymaster]

All this pro NATO excitement. Your despondency has lifted! (For a bit).

Whilst your hard-on for Putin and the rapists will have subsided (for a bit!)

 

[teqniq]

All this pro NATO excitement. Your despondency has lifted! (For a bit).

For my part there is no pro NATO excitement to be had anywhere and I am not particularly interested in you assertion that there may be. Regarding your position on this as evidenced by your tagline I would refer you to this blog piece which I have posted before from a Syrian activist:

The ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots - Leila Al-Shami

Once more the western ‘anti-war’ movement has awoken to mobilise around Syria. This is the third time since 2011.

libcom.org

 

[Yossarian]

Whilst your hard-on for Putin and the rapists will have subsided (for a bit!)

The clown has spent the last two and a half years acting like this is a football game and Russia is his team

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Putin's now popped up in Chechnya to ask if he can have some more Chechens come and die in Ukraine on his behalf. Hopefully they'll stick to making (funny) tik-toks instead.

 

[Pickman's model]

Putin's now popped up in Chechnya to ask if he can have some more Chechens come and die in Ukraine on his behalf. Hopefully they'll stick to making (funny) tik-toks instead.

Sure you're much mistaken and they're expected to fight near kursk

 

[_Russ_]

The clown has spent the last two and a half years acting like this is a football game and Russia is his team

I honestly can't see why people keep accusing TC of this pro putin crap

 

[TopCat]

The guardian reports that despite Ukrainian success attacking Russian airfields with drones and the jaunt into Kursk, the Russians are reinforcing the attack in the East.

Ukraine strikes airfield near Volgograd as Russia presses forward in Donetsk

Marinovka airbase becomes latest target of Kyiv’s ambitious long-range drone campaign

www.theguardian.com

 

[_Russ_]

There it is flying by, fuck. Fucking flying over again, fuck. It’s all fucking fucked up! Everything. It’s fucked as fuck. They’re fucking bombing it since 2.30 am,… Show more

Bill Paxton is alive and well...and living in a small village outside Volgograd