Ukraine war mega thread

[panama hat]

How do you know?

[bsnub]

VUHLEDAR /0200 UTC 16 FEB/ It is assessed that 2 RU Brigade Tactical Groups (BTGs) lost more than 40 Main Battle Tanks and upwards of 130 Infantry Fighting Vehicles in a series of haphazard attacks on Vuhledar-- making it one of the worst defeats suffered by RU since World War II.

[OhOh]

the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s 54 member

About 25% of the words countries and 16% of the worlds population.

[sabang]

Bill Burns travelled (in secret) in mid-January to meet Zelensky. Was it to prepare Zelensky for a shift in the American stance?

Hysterics at the Chinese balloon overflying the U.S. – taken to volume 11 – through scrambling a hush-hush Raptor jet (F-22) to ‘pop’ it, and then bally-hooing the ‘pop’ as Raptor’s first ever ‘air-to-air kill’, may be a source for quiet derision around the world, yet paradoxically this seemingly trivial event may cast a long shadow over the U.S. war-timetable for Ukraine.

For it is the U.S. political calendar that may yet determine what happens next in Ukraine – from the western side.

Seemingly nothing important occurred – it was an instant of spy frenzy, leaving Biden’s ‘tough task’ unchanged: He needs to convince the American voter, facing collapsing standards of living, that they misread the ‘runes’; that rather than gloom, the economy – contrary to their lived experience – is ‘working well for them’.

Biden needs to perform this magic against polls that say only 16% of Americans feel better off since the start of his tenure, and 75% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters wish him to not stand in 2024. Significantly, this message is coming today from the Democratic-leaning media, suggesting thoughts of replacing him are already in circulation.

For now, Biden’s allies in the party establishment (the DNC) continue to clear the way for his candidature – postponing initial primaries (in which Biden could be expected to be trounced) for a later South Carolina primary election, where Black and Latino voters would reflect demographics in which Biden might (possibly) shine. It may work; it may not.

Simply put, against this highly sceptical Party backdrop, Biden will have to change American perceptions of the economy at a moment when many indicators signal further deterioration. It will be a ‘heavy lift’. The economic team, for sure, will be insisting: ‘Keep the focus on economic achievements! We don’t want distractions from any foreign policy débacles; We do not want the TV debates to centre on Balloons, or around Abrams tanks: ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’’.

The ‘Chinese balloon’ was popped, yes, but similarly popped was Team Biden’s hope to negotiate a limited understanding with a tetchy President Xi that could stop China tensions becoming a spoiler issue in the primary debates. The balloon incident obliged the U.S. to cancel Blinken’s appointment with Xi (even though such a meeting with the head of state would be a rare event).The powerful ‘China hawk’ faction in the U.S. was ecstatic. The China balloon ‘kill’ inadvertently, and in an instant, elevated China to ‘Main Threat’. It was the chance for these hawks to ‘pivot’ foreign policy back from Ukraine and Russia – to fully focus on China.

They make the case that Ukraine was ‘eating’ too much of America’s arms inventory. It was leaving America vulnerable; already, it would take years for the U.S. to make up for this equipment loss by reinstating weapons supply-lines. And there is ‘no time to spare’. The military ‘deterrence fence’ around China has to be in place – ASAP.

Naturally, the tight neo-con circle around Biden – some of whom have invested in the ‘Destroy Russia’ project for decades – is not ready to ‘let go’ the Ukraine project, for China.

Yet, the Ukraine narrative ‘bubble’ has been punctured, and has been leaking helium for some time. The Beltway – and even the MSM narrative – has pirouetted from ‘Russia losing’ to an ‘Ukrainian defeat is inevitable’. Indeed, Kiev is defeated, and is hanging by the slenderest of threads.

Olexii Arestovich, Zelensky’s senior adviser and former ‘spin doctor’ in the Presidential office, speaking in late January this year, was candid in his assessment:

“If everyone thinks that we are guaranteed to win the war, then it is very unlikely. Since January 14, it has ceased to be like this. What do you think, that the assessment from the President of Poland, Duda, not only did he say this about the decisive months. That it is generally unknown whether Ukraine will survive …“The war may not end as the Ukrainians expect, and as a result, Ukraine may not return all its territories, and the West is ready to follow such a scenario … What will happen to the society that raised its expectations too high, but will receive a conditional Minsk-3? This recoil of unfulfilled expectations will hit us so hard – morally and everything else – that we will simply be stunned.

“The way out of this war may not be at all what it seemed to us three months ago, after the success of the Kherson operation. And not because the insidious Americans do not give weapons or delay, but because success requires 400 thousand of perfectly trained soldiers with NATO weapons to grind it all up and liberate the territories. Do we have it? No. Will it be next year? Will not be. There will not be enough training facilities…“We as a society are not ready for such an outcome. I decided to say it as the expectation of the Russian side. But the most unpleasant thing is that in the West they think the same way, and we are totally dependent on them. What should the West do? The scenario of two Koreas. Create South Korea with guarantees”, Arestovich said, adding that with this option, Ukraine can get a lot of bonuses.

Put bluntly, if Biden is to avoid a repeat of the humiliating Afghan débacle, America needs urgently to to move-on before the 2024 Presidential calendar kicks-off this summer – with Ukraine/Russia sucking all the oxygen out from the coming economic debates.

But that is not what is happening. Victoria Nuland – who has been ‘capo’ in Kiev for a decade – is overseeing a purge: Unreliables are ‘out’, and pro-American radical Ukrainian hawks are ‘in’. It is a make-over of the Kiev mafia, which leaves Zelensky without friends – and wholly dependent on Washington. It looks to be preparation for the U.S. to attempt a double-down in Ukraine.

Seymour Hersh’s detailed article on the backdrop to the Nordstream pipeline sabotage by the U.S., on which Hersh worked for many months (though his assertions have been denied by the White House), tells us something highly significant.

All the familiar, anti-Russia neo-cons (Nuland, Sullivan and Blinken) were part of the Nordstream sabotage plot – but the impulse for it came from Biden. He led it. And just to be plain, Biden is just as emotionally invested in Ukraine as his team mates; it is likely that he too cannot ‘let go’ in Ukraine.

BUT, doubling down now, in Ukraine, won’t work for Biden. It would be highly reckless (although the Nordstream plot was nothing, if not reckless).Doubling-down will not bring his hoped-for ‘win’, because its logic is based on an egregious mis-analysis.

Olexii Arestovich, Zelensky’s former ‘spin doctor’ and adviser, has described the circumstance of the Russian SMO first entry into Ukraine: It was conceived as a bloodless mission and should have passed without casualties, he says. “They tried to wage a smart war… Such an elegant, beautiful, lightning-fast special operation, where polite people, without causing any damage to either a kitten or a child, eliminated the few who resisted. They didn’t want to kill anyone: Just sign the renunciation”.

The point here is that what occurred was political miscalculation by Moscow – and not military failure. The initial aim of the SMO didn’t work. No negotiations resulted. Yet from it flowed two major consequences: NATO controllers pounced on this interpretation to trumpet their pre-conceived bias that Russia was militarily weak, backward and stumbling. That misreading underlay how NATO perceived Russia would prosecute the war.It was wholly incorrect. Russia is strong and has military predominance.

On the presumption of weakness, however, NATO switched plans from a planned guerrilla insurgency, to conventional war along the ‘Zelensky Defence Lines’ – thus opening the path for Russia’s artillery domination to attrit Ukraine’s forces to the point of entropy. It is an error that cannot be rectified. And to try it might just lead to WW3.The Abrams M1 tank will not save Biden from débacle in the lead-up to the U.S. election debates:

“It was designed for the kind of tank-on-tank combat that hasn’t happened since WW2. It’s huge, expensive, full of sorts of electronics. And powered by a repurposed jet engine. It breaks down quickly and needs its own army of mechanics, runs out of gas quickly and at almost 70 tonnes, it is too heavy to cross most bridges and needs specialized bridge crossing equipment. And it sinks in the mud. The Saudis used Abrams tanks in Yemen – and lost 20 to the Houthis, not exactly the most sophisticated military force”.

So, how does this all pan out? Well, the fight is on – in Washington. The China hawks will try to wrench the U.S.’ full attention back to China. The Biden neo-cons may try for some escalatory tactic in Ukraine that makes war with Russia unstoppable.

However, the reality is that the Ukraine ‘Balloon’ is popped. Military and civilian circles in Washington know it. The ‘elephant in the room’ of inevitable Russian success is acknowledged (albeit, with the compulsion to avoid seeming ‘defeatist’ – that persists in certain quarters). They know too that the NATO (as ‘formidable force’) ‘balloon’ has popped. They know that the balloon of western industrial capacity to manufacture weapons – in sufficient quantity and over a long duration – has popped also.

The consequences are the risk of severe U.S. reputational damage, the longer the war persists. These circles do not want that. Perhaps they will conclude that Biden is not the man to lead the U.S. out of this blind alley – that he is the part of the problem, and not the solution. If so, he must be gone in good time for the Democrats to work out who they want to lead them into the 2024 Presidential election (no easy prospect).They may sense too, that the 2024 campaign lines already are coalescing for the Republican Party, which has its own reading of the Ukraine débacle – ‘Let’s exit from Ukraine to confront China’ (with full bi-partisan support). This means firstly, that the thread of U.S. financial support for Ukraine – as Bill Burns (CIA chief) reportedly told Zelensky on his last visit – likely will taper this summer. And secondly, it hints that any bi-partisan support for further arming Kiev may be over by the time the primary season will be in full swing.

Bill Burns travelled (in secret) in mid-January to meet Zelensky. Was it to prepare Zelensky for a shift in the American stance? Burns, the long-standing U.S. quiet negotiator, is not party to the Nuland programme. The former said at Georgetown Universityin early February that “China remains the biggest geopolitical challenge the U.S. faces in the decades ahead, and the biggest priority for CIA”. His framing, ‘was not a bug, but the substance’ in his address.

Nuland may be planting U.S.-aligned hawks around Zelensky in order to continue the war, but there are other, wider interests within Washington. Financial circles are worried about a market collapse that could lead to the dollar haemorrhaging value. There are worries too, that the Ukraine war is contributing to a serious weakening of America’s standing in the world. And there are concerns that a reckless Team Biden could lose control and take the U.S. into a wider war with Russia.

In any event, time is short. The Election Calendar looms. Is Biden to be the Democratic candidate? Whether or not he will be a candidate in 2024 needs to be resolved before the early primaries to allow any successor to demonstrate his or her paces in good time.

https://thealtworld.com/alastair_cro...ica-vs-america

[Norton]

What should the West do? The scenario of two Koreas. Create South Korea with guarantees”, Arestovich said, adding that with this option, Ukraine can get a lot of bonuses.

Exactly what needs to be done and eventually will be. Just a question of how long.

[panama hat]

About 25% of the words countries and 16% of the worlds population.

. . . are actively supporting Ukraine . . . fairly well zero of the world's countries and zero of the world's population is actively supporting Russia. Finally you've made a logical post.

[sabang]

I enjoyed this, as a recap. Plenty of News and Demonstration footage from around Maidan and the aftermath (some bloody scenes). Obama and Kerry making quite a smooth talking duo on the American side, quite a contrast to stumblin' Joe and ....... Who? The Presidents 'Vice' has gone missing!

[sabang]

^ Called "Welcome to Nulandistan" btw, about 1hr20 long.

[bsnub]

So one year ago, this was the type of shit that sabang was posting. Screeching about how western intelligence was lying to us about Putin's intent to invade Ukraine. He was full of shit then, and he is full of shit now. Here is to one year of being wrong about literally everything to do with this war.

[panama hat]

So one year ago, this was the type of shit that sabang was posting.

And he has become and even worse apologist for murder and destruction since then

[Norton]

I enjoyed this, as a recap

Can't see. Age restricted.

[sabang]

The play button, bottom right worked for me.

[bsnub]

The play button, bottom right worked for me.

Congratulations on your one-year anniversary of being a vatnik clown.

Some of your homies...

[sabang]

Congrat's- maybe your mythical Winter 'Thunder run' that will surely drive the evil russkies out of Ukraine including Crimea will finally eventuate by... next Christmas! (I guess you just got the year wrong). Ask Santa Claus.

[Iceman123]

^
Good one, and on the Ukrainian side their population has shrunk by 8 million their cities flattened and approximately 100,000 dead. Tell me again who is winning?

[sabang]

How Much Is US Aid to Ukraine Costing You?

by David R. Henderson Posted onFebruary 18, 2023Reprinted with permission from Econlib.



In 2022, the U.S. government approved expenditures of $113 billion on aid to Ukraine. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget writes:
In total, CBO estimated that $6.6 billion of the $113 billion would be spent in FY 2022 and another $37.7 billion in FY 2023. Furthermore, CBO estimated more than half of the approved funds would be spent by the end of FY 2024 and more than three-fourths by the end of FY 2026.

How much will that cost the average household? There are approximately 131.2 million households in the United States. So the average cost per household is $113 billion divided by 131.2 million, which is $861.

Of course, averages are often under-informative. That’s true of this one. In 2018, according to the Brookings Institute, high-income households, those in the top 20% of the income distribution, paid about 68 percent of all the tax revenue that the federal government collected. To be in the top quintile that year, you needed to have an income of $153,301 or more.

Assume for simplicity that these numbers, adjusted for inflation, are about the same today. Also, I’ll assume, even though I know it’s false, that this $113 billion will be paid entirely out of taxes rather than new debt. It’s not as bad an assumption as it looks. To the extent it’s paid out of new debt and to the extent future taxes pay off that debt, based on a progressive tax structure such as the one we have now, it would be a pretty good assumption.

So the top quintile would pay 68% of $113 billion, which is $76.8 billion. There are approximately 26 million households in the top quintile. So the cost per top-quintile household is $76.8 billion divided by 26 million, which is $2,956.

That’s a lot to fight someone else’s war.

Consider my wife’s and my case. In 2018, our income put us in the top quintile, probably just below the top 10 percent. So because we aren’t socked by high income tax rates to the same extent as the top 10 percent, our cost is probably closer to $2,000 than to $2,956. Let’s say it’s about $2,200.

Put it in perspective this way. In the first month of the war, my wife and I wanted to “do something” to help Ukrainians. A friend recommended giving money to a local restaurant owner who has relatives in Ukraine. She trusts him and we trust her. So we gave him $100. I know that that’s not much, but the $2,200 number above gives an idea of just how “not much.” We’ll pay in federal tax revenues about 22 times the amount we contributed voluntarily.

David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an emeritus professor of economics in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey and co-author, with Charles L. Hooper, of Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Chicago Park Press). His latest book is The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (Liberty Fund, 2008). He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, the Jim Lehrer Newshour, CNN, MSNBC, RT, Fox Business Channel, and C-SPAN. He has had over 100 articles published in Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Red Herring, Barron’s, National Review, Reason, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Hill, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has also testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

He blogs at http://econlog.econlib.org.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/02/18/how-much-is-us-aid-to-ukraine-costing-you/


Awfully sorry junior recruit snubski, Santa says his goody bag is already full with stuff for Ukraine. Give generously. Can you wait another year?

[bsnub]

Oh look, sabang and his lapdog. How predictable.

the Ukrainian side their population has shrunk by 8 million their cities flattened and approximately 100,000 dead.

Care to provide a citation to back that up, or are you just talking out of your ass?

maybe your mythical Winter 'Thunder run' that will surely drive the evil russkies out of Ukraine including Crimea will finally eventuate by... next Christmas!

I explained to you why there was no winter offensive already, clown boy. It was too warm to drive tanks over the Ukrainian steppe. The thunder run happened in Kharkiv, where Russia suffered its worst defeat since WW2. It has since taken another massive defeat in Vulhedar where it lost two brigades and the commanding officer.

Tell me again who is winning?

Terrorist attacks do not win wars, dipshit. Tell me where Russia has had any success on the battlefield in the last eight months?



The clown car is rolling.

[sabang]

And we're all laughing at You. Give generously.

Tell me where Russia has had any success on the battlefield in the last eight months?

[bsnub]

And we're all laughing at You. Give generously.

We? You and icebitch?



Don't you think you have been clowned enough tonight?

[sabang]

[Norton]

How Much Is US Aid to Ukraine Costing You?

Nothing. File every year but I pay zero tax.

Let’s say it’s about $2,200.

Average annual health care cost per family $22,463.

Work on that David and stop wasting your time bitching about $2k.

[Hugh Cow]

^
Good one, and on the Ukrainian side their population has shrunk by 8 million their cities flattened and approximately 100,000 dead. Tell me again who is winning?

Jeezus iceman you sound like your almost gloating over the ukrainian dead. You need to nuance your writing. You are starting to sound like Sabang who waxes lyrical about Putin and totally ignores the 100 laws Putin has introduced to stop his own people talking or protesting the Ukrainian war yet points out every snippet of information that shows the ukrainians and their allies in a poor light. He makes goebels look impartial and you appear to be following him down the rabbit hole. I hope not.

[panama hat]

How Much Is US Aid to Ukraine Costing You?

Nothing . . . and even if it did, good. Happy for my taxes to go for this. We don't all slurp dictators' dicks like you

[sabang]

A typical New York Times propaganda piece is demonstrating how it intentionally misleads its readers:
Moscow’s Military Capabilities Are in Question After Failed Battle for Ukrainian City

As Moscow steps up its offensive in eastern Ukraine, weeks of failed attacks on a Ukrainian stronghold have left two Russian brigades in tatters, raised questions about Russia’s military tactics and renewed doubts about its ability to maintain sustained, large-scale ground assaults.

The battle for the city of Vuhledar, which has been viewed as an opening move in an expected Russian spring offensive, has been playing out since the last week of January, but the scale of Moscow’s losses there is only now beginning to come into focus.

The piece claims that the Russian attack on Ugledar (Vuhledar) has failed to achieve its purpose. But that is wrong.


The attack on Ugledar was a diversion operation. Ugledar was originally defended by two territorial brigades. The Ukrainian command pulled two artillery brigades, one motorized infantry brigade and parts of one tank brigade from other front lines to hold onto Ugledar. The Russian attack thus did what it was supposed to do. It allowed for Russian breakthroughs at the northeastern Kharkiv front and in Bakhmut because Ukraine had moved forces away from those fronts. The fighting around Ugledar has cost Russia some, but not big losses.



bigger
The Times itself admits that the Russian effort in Ugledar put the Ukrainian army into a bad situation:

The fighting over Vuhledar has come at a cost for Ukraine, too, both in terms of casualties and in the vast amounts of ammunition it has expended to repel Russia’s growing number of ground troops. Kyiv’s allies this week expressed concern about their ability to meet the demand, raising the possibly that Ukrainian commanders might at some point have to limit shelling to the most important targets.

Well, well ...

[Col. Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military forces in the area,] said the attacks on Vuhledar had been no surprise — the Russians even warned the Ukrainians of the coming assault through social media channels, in an apparent attempt to scare them. “It was announced and spread,” Colonel Dmytrashkivskyi said. “It was done to diminish the morale of the fighters.”

Yes. It was announced and spread. But that was obviously done because it was a diversion attack designed to drag Ukrainian units away from other fronts. The Ukrainian military fell for it and moved more then 10,000 soldiers from other fronts to Ugledar to defend an empty city.


The Russian president Vladimir Putin has lauded the marines who were fighting in Ugledar for doing their job well:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has highly praised the fighting efforts by marines during the special military operation, according to his remarks in a television program, an excerpt of which was posted by journalist Pavel Zarubin to his Telegram channel on Sunday.

"Marines are at work <...> right now. Fighting heroically. Both from the Pacific Fleet and the Northern Fleet," the president said following a meeting of the supervisory board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives on February 9, according to the excerpt from the program called "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" that comes out on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

But the British disinformation minister insists:

Mr. Wallace, the British defense secretary, cited reports on Wednesday that “a whole Russian brigade was effectively annihilated” in Vuhledar, where he said that Moscow “lost over 1,000 people in two days.” The British Defense Intelligence Agency reported last week that Russian units had “likely suffered particularly heavy casualties around Vuhledar.”

In reality the Russian army lost probably two company sizes equivalents. Some 300 casualties plus three dozen piece of larger equipment. That was simply the cost of the business.


Within the Times piece there several other misleading claims which also regularly appear in other pieces of the outlet.

In recent weeks, Moscow has rushed tens of thousands more troops, many of them inexperienced new recruits, to the front lines ...

There are no 'inexperienced new recruits' in the Russian forces in Ukraine.


I was drafted into the German army at the age of 18. I thereby was what one calls a conscript soldier. After four month I signed, mostly for financial reasons, a time limited contract. I had thus turned into a temporary regular soldier or contract soldier. When my two year contract ended I became a reservist. I was then mobilized thrice (each time on my request) to take part in large exercises in Canada and Britain and for additional qualification training. As a mobilized reservist I received the same pay, terms and conditions as a temporary regular soldier. There were also professional regular soldiers who had joined the military for a life time carrier.


Russia has fought most of the Ukraine campaign with contract soldiers and Wagner mercenaries. Conscripts were not supposed to take part. (A few accidentally did early on but were soon removed.) Only the Luhansk and Donetsk People Republics militia have used conscripts. Russia has mobilized reservists. These are trained former conscripts and contract soldiers who had done their regular time of service. They were retrained and then send into regular units to take part in Ukraine.


It is completely wrong and misleading to call these "inexperienced new recruits".


Then comes this:

Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC on Wednesday that “97 percent of the Russian army” is in Ukraine, though he did not elaborate or offer evidence for the claim. U.S. military officials estimate that about 80 percent of Russia’s ground forces are dedicated to the war effort.

Before the war the Russian ground forces were 360,000 men strong. The mobilization activated 300,000 additional reservists. Some 70,000 volunteers have also joined military services. The numbers of Russian troops in Ukraine may be 200 to 250,000, a third of the 700,000+ men currently in the Russian ground forces.


It is not just the Times that is spreading utter nonsense. This is from the Washington Post:


As Russians inch forward near Bakhmut, Ukrainians dig fallback defenses

The soldiers here expect the same grinding dynamic to continue, with Russia throwing mostly untrained conscripts at the new Ukrainian defensive positions as they have in the bloody streets of Bakhmut.

Same bullshit, same unacknowledged bullshit source.


Posted by b on February 16, 2023 at 15:40 UTC

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/ugledar.html

[bsnub]

More propaganda crap.