On Not Listening to what Russia is Saying
Summary of Mercouris (Mercouris 11.27.2022)
Brief Summary of the Battlefields Situation
Scattered reports of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine. Cannot tell yet whether these amount to a major missile attack. British MOD says it has found a Soviet missile with ballast in place of the usual missile warhead, offering this as “proof” that Russia is running out of cruise missiles - Mercouris considers this story of Russia’s use of old missiles (actually for the purpose of distracting Ukrainian air defenses) as symptomatic of Russia supposed “running out” of cruise missiles, is wholly dismissible.
There is a story of Russia surrounding a Ukrainian-held village in Donetsk. There is another Daily Telegraph story of heavy Russian shelling of Kherson city and of the whole Kherson region west of the Dnieper. The article admitted that corpses are being left on the streets because the scale of the missile attacks makes it difficult to collect the bodies. Ukraine is trying to repair the damage caused by Russian missles. Each attack creates more damage than its predecessor. Ukraine is taking very seriously reports of a likely Russian attack from Belarus. nUkraine is reinforcing Kharkiv City in anticipation of a Russian attack.
Putin and Rostek
Reports of a meeting yesterday of the Russian Security Council. The Kremlin’s own comments give the impression that reports of significant meetings from Lavrov (following his presence in Bali) and Naryshkin, the FIS chief (re. his meeting with the CIA’s William Burns) were submitted yesterday (and not closer to when they actually occurred a week ago). Putin has been involved in meetings in Armenia with Armenia’s prime minister re. the Armenia-Azarbaijan conflict, and with the Rostek corporation (created by Russian govt. 15 years ago, and which brings together key parts of Russia’s military industrial complex, and also plays a significant role in the civilian economy, including civil airlines and ship-building). Rostek has been compared with Samsung’s role in South Korea, although Rostek is entirely state-owned whereas Samsung is not. Putin talked about increasing military production not just because of the war in Ukraine but in the context of continuing expansion and modernization of Russia’s military apparatus in general as a powerful deterrent against the western powers. He talked about micro-electronics as a priority area for Rostek to develop, remarks that come shortly after the Russian Academy of Sciences has appointed a chief who is specialist in microchip production, a Russian industry which is vaster than western analysts care to acknolwedge. Russia is talking about setting up its own alternative Cloud systems, amongst other things.
Putin and the Russian Mothers
There has been a major meeting between Putin and mothers of Russian soldiers engaged in the SMO in Ukraine. This measure is quite unusual in the history of Russian presidents. Soviet leaders tended not to meet with families of soldiers, and have never been criticized for this. Putin’s meeting received a lot of advance notice and has been given heavy coverage in Russian media. The meeting showed that Putin felt a moral duty to the mothers. His form of interaction was very different to what one might expect were the leaders of the US or UK to do something comparable. The focus was on mothers, not fathers. The idea of a special relationship between mother and son is especially Russian, and was completely uncontroversial. The mothers tended to come from regions which traditionally provide soldiers to the Russian army, not the intellectual class, closer to the working class, but not entirely. They might be described as patriotic.
There was also a clear intention that the families be drawn from the various different ethnicities that make up Russia including Chechnya, Dagestan, Touva (a Turkic people), and various categories of Russians, including Cossaks. There was a heavy emphasis on the idea that the struggle involves the entire Russian nation regardless of ethnicity. The conflict has had nation-building aspects to an extent that is probably underestimated by the West. The mothers were selected carefully to include mothers of sons who are serving actively, others whose sons have been severely wounded, and mothers whose sons had died in action. They expressed pride in the sacrifices of their sons. It was a measured, not ostentatious meeting; there was a general avoidance of sentimentality. There was no prayer meeting, but Putin was careful to reference religion (the mothers came from different religions).
There were criticisms. These were very detailed. There was not much criticism of the conduct of the military operation as such, but there were complaints that uniforms were not fit for purpose; that there was inadequate provision of social benefits; concerns about the suitability of kit; concerns about care of street children. There were plenty of admissions from Putin that things were not always as they should be. He agreed that it was possibly a mistake for the Russian government not to have given up on Minsk earlier - had it acted earlier, the Ukrainian army would have had less time to construct its immense fortifications in Donetsk, the conflict might have been shorter and fewer lives would have been lost. Putin said he and his government would work hard to address all concerns. He admitted that he had carefully prepared for the meeting.
Lavrov
On Russian television Lavrov has talked about the liberation of Ukraine from fascist governance. He spoke about that as a given thing. He dismissed the idea that Ukraine could recapture Crimea which, he says, is extremely well defended. Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said a few days ago there was no Russian agenda to take Ukraine, but Lavrov’s comments, which forecast Ukrainian defeat, appeared to suggest otherwise. Mercouris’ broad conclusion: however long it takes, given that Russia’s economic condition has steadied, there is no worry about the oil price cap in the light of Russia’s agreed sales to China, India etc., Russia’s recent mobilization of 370 000 will be a critical turning point. Russia feels that the initiative has passed back to Russia, that the Ukrainian invasion of Kharkiv is exhausted and Kherson is proving to be a poisoned chalice for Ukraine, where evacuations of civilian populations are even now proceeding.
Merkel
It is widely expected in the West that there will be a fall of Putin, that Russia will run out of missiles, etc., etc., all of that … yet the mood in Russia, the facts on the ground, and Putin’s comments on Rostek, points to Russian determination to see things through, even if only in a slow, incremental way, in order to save Russian lives, and there is no sign that the government of Russia itself is in any particular danger.
Angela Merkel, former German chancellor, has given an interview with Die Spiegel in which she indicates that had she been in control the crisis would not have taken place. She mentioned her initiative with Macron to get a conversation going between Russia and the EU in 2021. She discovered that the Russians by that time were skeptical and doubtful whether she would be able to deliver on her promises, given that she would not be chancellor for much longer. She was regretful that she ran into opposition from the Baltic States, from Poland, from the Netherlands which made dialog with the Russians impossible. She also talked about the Minsk agreements, which she largely authored, about how by 2021 the Minsk agreement had been hollowed out (Ukraine’s Poroshenko has openly admitted he never intended to honor it anyway) and she indicates she was looking for some form of Minsk III.
Mercouris considers that Merkel lacks understanding of how Russia thinks about these things. He recalls how Macron offended the Russians intensely by telling Putin to forget about Minsk II, to hand the Donbass back to Ukraine, and talk with Zelenskiy. Neither Merkel nor Macron ever understood how giving up on Minsk and letting Zelenkiy off the hook for Ukraine’s egregious failure to implement the peace agreement, poisoned relations with Russia. They seem to have thought that, provided the price was right, Russia could be persuaded to give up the Donbass, despite the clarity with which Russia had told Europe otherwise - reminiscent of the US attitude to the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015 when the Americans thought they could get Russia to agree to abandon its support for Assad. Russia insisted that the joint interest was fighting the jihadists.
Merkel’s inability to understand Russia, to take its positions seriously, is critically revealing of Europe’s fateful disdain for its opponent. The West badly underestimates Russian persistence, and maintains wholly flawed misconceptions of the true nature of Russia and Russian institutions.