An Oreshnikian Future

As Treasury employees watched Janice Yellen press the “send” button, the US yesterday sent $20 billion to Ukraine in the form of a loan to be repaid from the interest earned on seized Russian assets.

This is the US part of a deal that would see Europe and the US send a total such loan of $50 billion to Ukraine.

I am not sure the legal niceties have been sorted out in Europe, related in some measure to resistance from Hungary, but I conclude that this scheme is broadly proving workable and can do a great deal to prolong the war in Ukraine.

This is so regardless of whether or not the US pulls out. Trump’s motivation for doing so is presumably diminished if it is the seized Russian assets, not the US taxpayer, that is being weaponized for this purpose.

The additional money will keep Kiev’s illegitimate, Banderite clique in pocket money for their Mediterranean villas but cannot magically create new weapons if Western manufacturing capacity is exhausted. More likely, it will further inflate the cost of new weapons for everyone who depends on Western sources. Those, like India, that don’t, will be smiling.

Ukraine will need the weapons if it continues to resist Western pressure to mobilize its 18 year olds, even if it may then lack the manpower to fire the weapons.

Which is why France and Poland are talking about dispatching a European force (20000 men?) to Ukrain, an effort for which they hope the new government in Germany will pay.

Or is thisEuropean force really intended to help divide up Ukraine for European benefit when the Russians complete their advance to the Dnieper? Or, again, will it be acting as a debt collector for Blackrock?

The US ATACMS attack on Tagenvog (near Rostov, Gerasimov’s military base, in southern Russia) yesterday sends the message that the US is not intimidated by Russia’s Oreshnik non-nuclear but nuclear near-equivalent hypersonic missile, even though it understands that its ATACMS attack will provoke another Oreshnik attack by Russia.

A Russian MOD statement yesterday warns Russian citizens against travel to the US or Europe - on the not totally plausible pretext that Western law enforcement agencies like to hunt down Russians for the purpose of harassment, detention and extradition. (But why?). Or is it because Russia is considering a Western target for its next Oreshnik strike - perhaps on Poland’s US missile site?

Ukrainian sources estimate that Russia has production capacity for the manufacture of 300 Oreshniks each year.

The ATACMS attack on Tagenvog was reportedly on or next door to a factory that makes planes that form a part of Russia’s early nuclear attack warning system. There was apparently little to no damage, and what damage there was may have been the missile debris falling to the ground after hits by Russian air defense.

Continuing on Russia’s nuclear defense architecture, needless to say, constitute a reckless provocation with potentially catastrophic consequences. They follow strikes a few months ago on Russian early warning radar systems.

Another provocation from amidst the dying embers of the Biden defend-Ukraine-at-unimaginable-cost regime is anticipated by Bloomberg and other reports to take the form of additional sanctions against Russian oil and gas exports. Among other things these will be designed to hit tanker companies that carry the oil but do not insure with Lloyds in London.

Such measures will likely have a temporary dampening effect on Russian trade, while contributing to higher energy prices for all, higher inflation, and even greater Chinese and Indian irritation with Washington.

Latest reports that I have seen suggest that Russia will continue to use its naval and Air Force bases in Syria. This may also be a useful check on the aggressions of Turkish-backed HTS and SN forces and those of the US and of Israel currently battling over the spoils of a defunct if badly misunderstood regime. Israel has fired on hundreds of former Syrian Army installations in the past few days to stop them falling into HTS hands although Jake Sullivan is reportedly interested in channeling them to Ukraine (mmm, perhaps at a cost of $20 billion?).

I say the Assad regime was misunderstood out of exasperation with western media reports that denigrate the Assad regime as sectarian. Those who think it was sectarian will soon learn what sectarianism really looks like. The Allawite minority in Syria, which dominated the military elite, actually functioned as a beak against extremist Sunni sectarianism and was seen by almost all other minority groups, with the partial exception of the Kurds, as a protector against sectarianism. Indeed, the Allawite regime was extraordinarily tolerant of religious and ethnic difference. It was a secular regime. It endorsed gender equality to a greater extent than anywhere else in the Middle East. It even tolerated a de facto autonomy for the Kurdish communities (themselves badly divided over political differences).

The Russian bases will be useful if and when full scale war between Israel and Iran is ignited. But even without them, Russia has other choices for Mediterranean security, useful if Erdogan closes down passage to Russian ships through the Dardenelles. Turkiye will probably not do this because it does good business with Russia. Russian oil is crucial to Turkiye’s ambition to grow as a regional energy hub. Russia, meanwhile, is developing nuclear power stations in Türkiye.

Alternative bases include Libyan and other North African ports. Additionally, I have heard it suggested that Iran could offer Russia a facility in the Indian Ocean. This might not make up for the Mediterranean but could grow Russian influence in the third front of the war to sustain US hegemony, namely against China.