For Every Action, a Reaction. Attention! The Dialectics of War.

Jake and Lindsey in Kiev

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Redpublican Senator Lindsey Graham have visited Kiev in recent days. The upshot of their visits is that the Biden Administration’s proposed $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel (primarily) remains stalled in the House of Representatives. Here, Republican Speaker Mike Jonson has so far declined to allow it to proceed to a vote, on the pretext that he wants to see a grander commitment to control over the southern border of the USA.

Some members of the House of Representatives are exploring ways of securing support for the package in a way that would bypass the leadership. If something of this kind was do-able at all, it would require a majority vote of the House. Lindsey Graham has been telling Ukraine that a different route to aid, one proposed some time ago by President Trump, would be to offer a loan, not an appropriation, but one offered on very generous terms (no interest, no closing date). Numbers I have heard so far suggest that this would come in at a point significantly less than Biden’s aid package. Just like Biden’s aid package, a very large proportion of all the money would presumably be spent on the US armaments industry in a process that resembles initiatives to promote jobs, development and spending in any state of the USA that happens to host components of weapons manufacture. It conveniently turns out that this is most states. Mike Johnson has noted that discussions in the House about any such proposals will not be possible until mid-April.

MICIMATT

As Scott Ritter has reminded us all this morning in interview with Judge Napolitano, the entire US government, under the weight of what President Dwight Eisenhower originally referred to as the Military Industrial Congressional complex (he later dropped the Congressional bit in order to secure votes), and what Ray McGovern today calls the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academic and think-tank complex), operates in order to instigate or prolong foreign conflicts that US politicians vote on, or stay silent over, and which justify appropriatons that perpetuate MICIMATT interests and which support political re-election campaigns with promises of jobs and prosperity that more weapons expenditure will bring to local districts. This machinery is also expected to operate to serve domestic political interests as it is right now in Democrat efforts to ensure that Ukraine does not utterly collapse before the US presidential election. If lots of young Ukrainian men must die in service to this end, so be it.

The Israeli lobby, AIPAC, is allowed to operate a similar scam that in effect robs the US Treasury on the basis of AIPAC support for political election and reelection campaigns that translates into continuing military aid for Israel - no matter how egregious Israel’s war crimes and how unsatisfactory is the fundamental rationale for the development of the apartheid state of Israel.

Mobilize! Die for Biden! Lose!

But in Kiev this week the offerings of Western leaders to Zelenskiy were meager by contrast to the outrage of their demands, mainly to pass the mobilization bill - currently stuck in RADA - as quickly as possible and to send whatever numbers of under-25 young men that still remain in Ukraine to the combat lines to be slaughtered. In other words, there is US pressure on Ukraine to reduce the age of conscription from 25 to 18. It is even disputed whether there are sufficient numbers of such men left in Ukraine to make up the numbers envisaged in the still-stuck mobilization bill. To even attempt to proceed with this will merely exacerbate Ukraine’s catastrophic demographic sitution.

Sullivan could barely offer anything substantial by way of additional arms saying only that for the time being the USA is not ready to provide long-range ATACMS missile systems, but only a shorter-range variety. The German parliament, incidentally, has just reiterated its opposition to the sending of long-range, German Taurus missiles (that German officers answerable to Defense Minister Pistorius were overheard just a few weeks ago conspiring to use for an attack on the Russian Kerch bridge). No significant supplies of 155mm shells to Ukraine are anticipated before the end of June and then only if the Czech Republic can deliver on its bravura proposal to buy up to 800,000 shells on international markets (involving transactions with the hyper-dubious crowd who run private international arms markets and the extraordinarily high prices they typically charge), a process that will take goodness knows how long.

French troops may be heading north of Paris, but most likely in the direction of Romania and Moldova, at least for the time being. If they are headed for Ukraine, then we are, as Ritter asserts today, on the path to nuclear war, and mainly because people like Macron cannot bear the pain of being proven idiots and fools over their Ukraine policies. They will have secured the end of NATO as a credible military organization. Ritter is skeptical, by the way, that Macron could actually find the 20,000 troops that he has previously talked about; 2,000 is more likely, and if they go, they will die. Russia is not bluffing, either about “red lines” or about nuclear weapons (and that’s not just “small” nukes, its nukes generally).

Dialectics

The dialectics of war, to a degree unanticipated even by most of those who fight wars, require that for every action there is a reaction. So it was, that following Ukraine’s almost certainly failed attempts to invade Russian territory in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts (in Kozinka and Gravyvaron, in particular, from which Ukraine is now trying to evacuate its wounded), and while Ukraine bombed civilian areas of Belgorod city, Russia in the past 24 hours launched a missile and drone attack over the entirety of Ukraine (the first such attack in over 40 days, as I noted here a couple of days ago as one of my “unanswered questions”), and, in particular, Kiev. Why Russia has not conducted such a raid in recent weeks is unknown: it may suggest that Russia was conserving missles and drones for a major offensive, but if Russia is as generously supplied with these as pro-Russian commentators constantly tell us that it is, then there would be no need of such conservation. One possibility is there was a delay while Russia waited to put into effect a new wave of technologically more advanced weaponry. For example, Russia is increasingly using AI drones that can operate semi-autonomously.

Air Defenses

A prime target of the current Russian missile attacks is the further weakening of Ukraine’s already weak air defense infrastructure. The attack on Kiev is primarily intended to take advantage of this weakness, and to oblige Kiev to redeploy S-300 and other air defense systems from the combat lines to the Kiev area.

These had been moved out of Kiev in an effort to counter the escalating Russian freedom of skies above the combat lines, making them and the remaining Ukrainian air defenses more vulnerable than ever to destruction by Russian guided bombs and missiles.

Clearly, if Ukraine’s air defenses in the areas of combat are now depleted by the necessity to give priority to the major cities, then Russia is likely to be able to advance further and faster than it otherwise would.

This is all the more significant if, as Dima suggests this morning on the Military Summary Channel, Russia is planning to stage a major offensive within the next three months or so, whether from Belgorod, of Avdievka or some other location. Avdievka would be a promising possibility given that Russia has established control over most of the region to the immediate west of Avdievka. This is another way of saying that Russia has, or is about to, demolish the hastily-constructed defense line that Ukraine had erected behind Avdievka. This is a region that stretches from Berdychi down through Orlivka to Tonenke, stretching in the north towards Ocheretyne and, in the south, towards Pervomaiske and Krasnohorivka.

In the Bakhmut region Russia is still battling for complete control over Ivanivkse so as to consolidate its overall strength in a circle stretching around Bakhmut that would eventually include all of Bohdanivka, Chasiv Yar, Ivanivske, Kromove, Klishchiivka and Andivka. Further north a promising area would be the circle, to be created eventually, giving Russia control from Bilohorivka to Siversk in the West, to Heorhiivka, to Serebrianka, down to Siversk, to Verkhnokamiaske. Russia is making progress up the railway towards Vyrmka, which lies south east of Siversk. Initial Russian attacks north of Zolatarivka have been repulsed by Ukrainian forces, with significant Russian losses.

Further north in Lyman area the Russians are close to a ground operation in Terny suggesting the likelihood, soon, of Russian control of all the territory up to the Zherebets River, from Terny down to Yamopolivka.

In recent days significant damage has clearly been caused by both Russia and Ukrainian strikes on one another’s territories. Both sides routinely exaggerate the number of missiles that they shoot down (I suspect that Russia, on account of having a stronger air defense system overall shoots down a higher percentage than does Ukraine). Russia generally tries to reassure the international community that its targets are military. Given the high proportion of pro-Russian citizens in many of the areas of combat, this is plausible. Ukraine has a far less reassuring record in this respect: much of its aggression against Donetsk City and Belgorod appears to be motivated simply by a thirst for revenge. A complicating factor is that the missiles used in air defense (sometimes two air defense missiles required for every incoming missile) regularly fall towards the ground in highly populated centers and cause sigificant damage as they do so.

As Russia pummells Kiev, it is also paying more attention to Kherson and Odessa regions, attacking boats and naval infrastructure in places like Novi Bilari near the Dnieper Gulf which Ukraine may have been planning to use in what Ukrainian intelligence chief Badonov said a few days ago would be an offensive against Crimea. Near Yuzhne, Russian planes bombed small islands and spits controlled by Ukraine.

Shoigu: The Numbers

Russian Minister of Defense, Sergie Shoigu, yesterday talked of the recent Ukrainian attempts to invade Russian territory in Kursk and Belgorod. The number of Ukrainian forces involved was 3,501. There were 790 “unrecoverable casualties” over the operation. Ukraine lost 23 tanks, 34 armored vehicles (including 11 Bradleys), 5 Vampire (Czech) MRLS - their use possibly indicative of a diminution in the supply of superior HIMARS missiles - and one M-i8 helicopter.

Shoigu also claimed that since January 1 this year, Russia has neutralized 4 Abrams and 5 Leopard tanks, 27 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 6 HIMARS launchers, and 11 anti-aircraft missile launchers (including 5 Patriots). In just this same space of time, Shoigu claims, Ukraine has lost 71,000 (dead and wounded, presumably) and 11,000 machines, almost three times higher than for the same period last year when Ukraine was still defending Bakhmut. A former Polish general, along with Scott Ritter, talk of a total of up to 3 million Ukrainian casualties in this war so far, including dead, wounded and misplaced, and millions more lost through population shifts. Up until now I have estimated the total Ukrainian dead and severely wounded at 500,000, but we now know there are very large numbers of soldiers who are unaccounted for.

Shoigu also referenced significant imminent increases in troop and unit deployment including two combined armies, one army corps, 15 divisions, and 16 brigades (far greater than the very moderate 50,000 NATO troops accounted for by new members Finland and Sweden), made possible by the agile Russian recruitment and training of contract volunteers. Russia is massively building up its airforce and its drone fleet (including AI drones) in time for the second half of 2024. It has also started production of 3,000 kiloFAB guided bombs.

The Enormous Costs of Ineffective US Weapons Systems

The burning shells of US and other Western “advanced” weaponry on the war fields of Ukraine tell a big enough story. But Scott Ritter this morning also references the crazy US expenditure (several $trillion) on weapons systems such as the ballistic missile to replace the Minute Man 3, the bomber to replace the B52, and the submarine which will replace the Ohio Class. All these significantly exceed their original budgets and they wont work as desired anyway. In short, defense spending is far greater than it should be. The MICIMATT benefits; nobody else does. There is never a shortage of money for the Pentagon: they just “found” $300 million as emergency aid for Ukraine. In recent years the Pentagon somehow lost $1 trillion dollars which audits have never been able to uncover.

Not so Peaceful

China’s foreign affairs emissary has tried to persuade Zelenskiy and others that Russia must be invited to the next round of the Copenhagan peace talks initiated by Sullivan last year. Copenhagan’s principal focus is Zelenskiy’s impossible peace plan - a general feature of Banderite ideology, incapacity for compromise. The one time that a willingness to compromise was signalled (making one wonder whether even this could ever have been in good faith), as in the peace talks of March 2022 in Istanbul, the West prevented the talks from reaching fruition. If Russia is not invited to Copenhagen, China will not attend either. Meantime, Russia and China put more and more distance between their growth and the relevative economic weakness of the US and Europe.

Palestine

Nothing will happen, says Scott Ritter this morning, until Biden stops sending weapons to Israel. The IDF has been busily shooting women and children even when they wave white flags, killing pediaticians as they attend to wounded children, and executing hospital patients - further evidence that Jeffrey Sachs is correct to refer to the Israel government as a “criminal organization.” Netanyahu has told the Knesset that it must unite against US attempts to dissuade Israel from bombing Rafah whose population is normally 200,000 and is now 1.3 million because Israel forced them into Rafah. There is a possibility of a US ceasefire proposal to UNSC but this may be conditional in such a way that neither Hamas nor anyone else will want to support it. The real problem is that American Jewish organizations (think AIPAC) use Israel in the US as a domestic political weapon, not to mention the repulsive attitudes displayed, for example, in the Trump family camp that prioritize coastal land values about Gazan lives.