Trump Road to China

Battlefields

Dima reported early today March 7 that the president of pro-Russian Gagauzia (Moldova) has been successful in receiving a commitment of Russian support for the people of Gagauzia in their resistance to harrassment by Moldovan authorities. Moldovan authorities, meanwhile, have initiated a “criminal investigation” into the Gagauzian president.

In Odessa, the visit of Zelenskiy yesterday revealed his location to Russian forces which struck the location in a commercial port area, by missile, possibly in an attempt to take out a training center for operators of the kind of sea drones that were used to hit the Ivan Kotov a few days ago. Zelenskiy, who was with the prime minister Mitsotakis of Greece, was unharmed, but a squadron was wiped out. We do not know whether Russia actually intended Zelenskiy to be a target.

Visiting the Czech Republic, French President Macron is escalating NATO rhetoric with statements to the effect that the time is approaching when Europeans will have to stop being cowards, at the very least by providing non-combatant NATO troops to Ukraine for border duty in order to relieve Ukrainian border troops for duty on the combat line. .

It is reported that Ukraine is sending reinforcements to the Robotyne area (where Russia currently controls the southern end and the east of the settlement) with a view to re-establishing positions between Robotyne and Verbove, perhaps seeking to penetrate Novoprokopivka to the south and proceeding to Tokmak.

That Ukraine would even consider a further expenditure of lives in this sorry venture to reach the coast and cut off Russia’s landbridge between Crimea and the mainland is beyond extraordinary. It more prosaic purpose could simply be to tie Russian forces down once again into this salient and provoke Russia into redeploying forces from other more sensitive areas currently subject to Russian advance.

In Novomykhailivka, Russia now controls the eastern end of the settlement and the entire southern belt. Russian forces penetrated the settlement from the southwest in the past day. Ukraine controls four kilometers of the western end, and Ukrainian forces will be pushed back towards Konstantynivka. Dima declares that the days of Novomykhailivka are numbered, giving it perhaps only a few days to a week. He has said much the same thing before, but the reality is much more in Russia’s favor now.

Further north, Dima confirms Russian penetration of the eastern end of the settlement of Heorhiivka. Russia has continued to subject the settlement of Krasnohorivka to FAB-1500 bombing and the settlement will likely fall to Russia quite soon, allowing Russia to move westwards through the last Ukrainian defense belt in this area towards settlements such as Nevelske, Pervomaiske, and Kurakhiivka. In the Avdiivka area, Russian forces have cut roads between Orlivka and Tonenke, complicating the continuing hold over Orlivka by Ukrainian forces, but consolidating Russian control over the area directly to the south towards Tonenke. Ukraine retains control over Berdychi (subject to Russian bombing). In the Bakhmut area, Russians continue to storm Ivanivske and to bomb Chasiv Yar. Further north, there is new evidence of Russian advances in the Synkivka area north of Kupyansk, which has been a tortured zone of combat now for several months.

Nuland

On the subject of the resignation of Victoria Nuland this week, Alexander Mercouris in his daily broadcast today notes that her role as Acting Deputy Secretary of State came to an end on February 12 when she was passed over in favor of Kurt Campbell, and then resumed her former role as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, a position which is now occupied at least on a temporary basis by former US ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass.

The China Turn

The fact that Nuland is described in Secretary of State Blinken’s relevant statement as retired suggests that she will not be returning to the State Department. She did leave it once before, when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, only to return to it when Biden became President. This development might indeed confirm that official Washington policy is moving away from Ukraine towards China as the principal focus, a transition which reflects the viewpoint of the new head of the Chiefs of Staff, John Brown, and negative reaction to the disastrous failure of the Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive.

The departure of Nuland therefore is symbolic of the current elevation of the China Hakws at the expense of the Russia Hawks. But because Biden is a member of the latter club, the system may well wait until what seems very plausibly the likely return of Trump to the Presidency by early 2025. Trump, by the way, can be counted on for being tough on China, but whether he will be an enthusiast for military engagement of any kind with China is a somewhat more difficult issue. He is not your standard neocon. Nonetheless, nobody who heard Trump this week encourage Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza can presume that Trump is any less brutal, stupid, or dangerous than Biden.

As official Washington moves away from Ukraine, heralded by the NYT exposure of the CIA’s role in the conflict, the pressure now builds on Europe as to how they should accommodate to an ending of the scale of the flow of Western aid to Ukraine, and the rise of Russia as a hitherto underestimated but impressive military and economic power. Answers to this challenge, which must inevitably and painfully emerge from a basis of shockingly poor judgement on the part of the collective European leadership in needlessly provoking the Russian bear in the first place, will be multivarious and conflictful.

Can Europe provide the cash and the weapons systems that up until now Washington has principally provided? Can they actually produce anything very much so far as weapons are concerned, in the light of their fiasco even to produce sufficient numbers of 155mm shells that could make any difference to the balance of force on the battlefield and in view of pictures of burning Western tanks, artillery and air defense systems? (Somewhat pathetically, Zelenskiy is currently trying to get his hands on shells from Saudi Arabia, firmer friend to Russia than to Ukraine, that were stockpiled from the first Western “gulf war” against Saddam Hussein). Can they convince themselves that they have a credible ideological and geopolitical purpose for such a strategy, sufficient to motivate the enthusiasm or at least the tolerance of their people as Europe moves into negative economic territory? Are they capable of dissecting and drawing the necessary lessons from the profound stupidity that European leaders have so far demonstrated? Do they have the diplomatic skills, intellectual sharpness and good faith to engage in conversation with Russia?