Stoking the Embers of Resistance to Neocon Dominance
This is a provisional update only; I shall return to this post during the day of Friday, February 3 when more information has become available. Although tensions appear to be considerable, my most regular sources (Alexander Mercouris; The Duran; Brian Berletic on New Atlas) have been unusually quiet on Ukraine, as such, over the past 24 hours or so - somewhat surprising given what appears close approximation towards a significant finale at Bakhmut. I don’t anticipate this will last for long.
Dima of the Military Summary channel (Military Summary 02.03.2023) publishes his customary report today. It is a significant report, as it appears to show several instances of Russian advances and Ukraine withdrawals, together with significant Ukrainian losses, and he appears very confident that a major Russian offensive (or offensives) will take place within the next few days or, at most, before the end of the month, assisted by a hardening of the ground, something I presume is helpful for transit of armored vehicles over non-paved surfaces. The timing of the offensive may depend on a more conclusive end to the fighting in Vuhledar, Bakhmut, Sversk, Kreminna, Kramatorsk. Ukraine is redeploying some troops that had been in Soledar towards some of these hot spots, suggesting something less than totally suicidal dedication to staying in Bakhmut, even while raising questions about use of Ukraine’s recently mobilized reserves.
Dima notes, interestingly, that Kazakhstan is now sending back to Russia those young Russians who fled there a few weeks ago to avoid mobilization; he further notes that Russia has closed the borders with Mongolia and Georgia which had also been popular destinations for “refusniks.” He anticipates that at the moment of the major Russian offensive there will be a further Russian mobilization, to match the recently-initiated Ukrainian mobilization. He also notes a strange absence of reports of losses of Ukrainian armored vehicles close to the front lines and speculates that either Ukraine is experiencing major problems with its fleets of armored vehicles or that it is withdrawing these well behind front lines in order to conserve them for Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s offensive (and for any Ukrainian offensives of its own).
With this in mind it is important to note that the first of the recently promised western armaments (notably, Bradley tanks and Strykers, which originate in the US and Canada respectively) have today crossed from Poland into Ukraine and are headed for the front lines.
Further afield, the recent EU meeting in Kiev to discuss Ukraine’s progress towards membership of the EU; meetings between Sweden and Finland to reassert their determination to join NATO, even while they wait to see whether Turkey will relent in any way on its obstruction to their bids for membership or whether they can work around this; and commitments of even more US money ($2 billion, I believe) to Ukraine, all suggest continuing western escalation, not to mention western media stories of nuclear threats from both Zelenskiy and Russia.
Recent indications that Washington might have been sounding out Russia’s willingness to negotiate (in the wake of a confluence of unfavorable reports on the implications of the war for the west from RAND, CSIS and the IMF) do not appear to have been fruitful, assuming they were sincere or that they seriously expected a productive response. A recent interview with Mearsheimer - The West is Playing Russian Roulette (included along with many other links in my post yesterday) represents an intensifying gloom in expectations.
For light relief perhaps, Blinken is expressing concern over the apparent identification of a Chinese spy balloon over Montana (China has already apologized, I believe, for the apparently unintentional drift) and even cancelled a planned trip to Beijing on this account. This might signal Washington concern that a major Russian offensive is about to occur and that Blinken cannot afford to be away at this time. The merits of a panic over a “spy balloon” are of course zero, at a time when the US already stations thousands of troops in China (albeit in Taiwan, which US officially recognizes as a part of the one state of China), amidst very aggressive talk from senior US political and military leaders about the coming war with China in response to what they call, with absurd confidence, the coming Chinese “invasion” of Taiwan (in other words, invasion of itself, which should be of no concern of Washington’s), and what appears to be refreshment of US-Philippines military cooperation in readiness for combat with China, and news that Japan finances a US military contingent in Guam). Given the decline in US global hegemony, the anticipated further weakening of its international credibility and influence (including the decay of the petrodollar), Brian Berletic recently speculated that US policy is to bring everyone else down with it, as it sinks, with the hope that it may end up the last man standing.
Mercouris Broadcast (Mercouris 02.03.2023)
Since first drafting this post earlier today I see that Mercouris has finally broadcast his own daily roundup (put up around midday, California time).
Western media realism
He notes that the Financial Times, in a very long article, cluttered with all the usual western media tropes (e.g. about how Russia engages in “human wave” tactics) now concedes that Ukraine may be compelled to withdraw from Bakhmut. Another source notes that battlefield losses in world war two amounted to around 8.6 million for Germany and 8.7 million for the Soviet Union. The whole legend that the Red Army engaged Germany with “human wave” tactics proved to be a legend, as we can say with absolute certainty is the case of Ukraine today. The Wagner Group has been reinforced with well-trained Russian regular troops. Interesting that the Financial Times now accepts that Russian regular troops can be “well trained,” a concession perhaps inspired by the need to paint the Wagner Group as living up to the US designation of it as a “criminal organization.” Also the Bloomberg news service refers to an “emerging consensus” that Ukraine is losing in Bakhmut. And the Guardian, fiercely pro-Ukrainian, appears for the first time to admit that there are serious problems on the Ukrainian side, to the extent that “there is talk” about civilians, in effect, being press-ganged (“presented with recruitment papers on the streets”) by the Ukrainian regular army. The Guardian declines to refute this kind of “talk.” It confirms instead that the situation is becoming very difficult in Bakhmut and this situation will likely continue for the rest of the year, and that western weapons never seem to arrive fast enough, despite the promised, soon-to-arrive delivery of 100-150 tanks. By May or later, perhaps, the 88 German Leopard IIs will have arrived and 14 British Challenger tanks. The Guardian cites anxieties in western “political circles” about how long Ukrainian soldiers on the frontlines can be expected to continue fighting without a break, their concern about the level of suicides among Ukrainian soldiers, and worries about the level of motivation amongst Ukraine’s most recent recruits. In summary, Russians may be readier than Ukrainians by the spring. One of Zelenskiy’s own officials has said that Ukraine has suffered a very heavy cost for trying to hold on to Bakhmut but admits that there wont be discussion about how great those losses have been.
There is still no sign of a pullback from Bakhmut and it appears Ukraine is still sending supplies in the one road through Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka that leads into Bakhmut. In other words, Ukraine continues to reinforce failure, something which now baffles even the west. Its persistence in holding on to Bakhmut is very difficult to understand given that its troops are on the edge of being encircled. The Guardian, for the first time, is beginning to entertain the possibility that Ukraine may experience some kind of collapse. Today, Friday, its coverage of the Ukraine war has been sharply reduced.
Bakhmut
The Russians, via TASS news agency, cite Prigozhin as saying that Wagner has taken control of the settlements close to Bakhmut of Mikoliivka and Sacoyvanzetti (spelling provisional!). These were reported to have been captured yesterday. This is a coal mining and steel region that was very militant and left wing at the time of the Russian revolution, a characteristic which it retains to this day. North of Bakhmut and Soledar, these settlements lie closer to Sversk - a town of around 10,000 people (before the war), that represents the most northern point of the Ukrainian defense line, called the “Zelenskiy line.” Its position is increasingly vicarious. General Zaluzhnyia has been advising Zelenskiy to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Sversk, but Zelenskiy has refused to do so.
According to highly reliable sources, yesterday Russia (re)captured Belogorodvka to the east of Sversk. Russia had control of it before, following the fall to Russia of Lysychansk, and held it until the Ukrainian Kharkiv offensive in the fall, when it lost it. But Russia has now regained Belogorodvka. It is a very small settlement and largely uninhabited. Its capture signifies that the noose around Sversk is tightening and it is only a matter of time until Ukraine either pulls troops out of Sversk or finds itself encircled there.
Back nearer to the town of Bakhmut itself, Russia has not yet taken Chasov Yar nor Ivanovka, but is in control of or close to control of the road north of Chasov Yar that is the main Ukrainian route into Bakhmut. We are waiting for confirmation of actual encirclement of Bakhmut from Prigozhin, but he says he will let us know when this has been achieved, an indication, judging on the basis of previous instances, that he believes that it will soon fall.
Yesterday reports poured in that Russia has undertaken a big advance in the Svatove-Kreminna area. This is a few kilometers from the battle lines and it is the place where, according to a Forbes report a few weeks ago, there is a very big Russian gathering of forces including its most sophisticated T90 tanks, clearly an important sector. Russian troops are pushing up from the Oskil river towards Kupiansk. Up until now they have remained on the offensive, reliant on their enormous recently-constructed fortifications. The situation is now changing, and the most recent Russian advance involves mechanized infantry and tanks, pushing the Ukrainians back one or two kilometers.
On the southern front, the Russians a few days ago were pushing forward in the Zaporizhzhia region advancing along the Dnieper towards Zaporizhzhia City. The situation has gone quiet. Ukrainians have rushed reinforcements to the places Russia had reached near and around Orrikiye. Further east, near Vuhledar, Russia says that it has cut off several Ukrainian supply routes, and is applying a pincer movement around Vuhledar, as it has almost done in Bakhmut. Ukrainians rushed reinforcements to Vuhledar. The town is important because it sits astride main supply routes from Zaporizhzhia to Ukrainian forces near Marinka and Dontesk City. It lies very close to one of the main railway lines that pass from Donbass and Russia to Zaporizhzhia region and Crimea, a railway that will be more easily used by Russia with the fall of Vuhledar, because Russia’s logistics situation will be much simplified and it will put an end to further talk of Ukraine cutting off the Russia-Crimea land bridge.
Vuhledar is easy tank country. But the city itself is challenging to capture because it rests on high ground and is comprised of high apartment buildings which help form natural fortresses. [Note this point: “residential buildings” that are reported to have been targeted by Russian missiles have frequenty been commandeered as fortresses by Ukrainian troops].
The primary purpose of Russian advances appears to be not to achieve great breakthroughs - the numbers of forces involved is not great and they are drawn from military formations that have been already present since the start of the conflict. Rather, the purpose is twofold: (1) to pin down Ukrainian reserves so that Ukraine has to shuttle troops from one place to another rather than concentrate on Bakhmut. And (2) Russia is keeping up the pressure on the front lines with a view to dispersing Ukrainian reserves and equipment and to keep Ukraine guessing as to what Russia intends next.
Western sources do not consider these Russian advances represent the beginning of the anticipated big Russian spring offensive. Keeping up the Russian pressure along all the front lines is exhausting Ukrainian troops, leading to high suicide rates, while Russia prepares what it may hope to be a knock-out spring offensive.
Tanks but No Thanks
On the question of tanks, the Guardian has talked about 130-140 tanks that might get to Ukraine by May, leaving time only for very basic training. Many of the promised 88 Leopard IIs need refurbishment; arriving in multiple packages at different times, these tanks will be fairly easily picked off by Russia as they arrive. The same is likely to happen to Challengers. The German government has now decided to send more tanks, but these will be Leopard 1s, used from 1965 up to the 1980s, a tank that has been retired from NATO active service long ago, and for which there is no ammunition.
Assuming that the ammunition problem is solved, there are concerns that this tank is effective only to tackle heavy machine guns and other low-caliber weapons. Russia, meanwhile, is stepping up tank production . T90s may not be as easily reversible, may not have as good an armor or guns or firing systems (probably untrue) and may not be as easy to operate as some western equivalents, but the T90Ms are more closely equivalent (with steering wheel as opposed to levers, and a more powerful engine).
There are many more Russian T72s than T90Ms, yet the number of Russian T90Ms itself probably exceeds the entirety of the western tanks that have already been committed. The T90M is a far better tank than the Leopard 1. It is a misconception that western tanks will change the nature of the battlefield. There are many different Russian tanks and the most modern of them are comparable to the best western tanks that have so far been provided and they are available in much bigger numbers.
RAND, CSIS, and IMF
The three reports recently cited - from RAND, CSIS and IMF - suggest Ukraine cannot win the war and it is contrary to US interests for the war to continue for much longer and the US needs to avoid a prolonged war. US General Staff want to be able to concentrate on China; they do not want to see their existing stocks depleted. The US military industrial complex needs a complete refit, but there will be insufficient funds if the Ukraine situation continues unresolved. Russia, on the other hand, is planning a long war that will exhaust Ukraine (and the west). An article in Politico finds senior US officials looking for ways of ending this war, acknowleding that Russia will never give up Crimea, and that Ukraine needs to recognize the reality [not that Russia is going to negotiate just on the basis of preserving Crimea!].
But people like Boris Johnson, the Atlantic Council, and similar neocons still want Ukraine to be given every possible weapon (including F16s which need 5 years of pilot training). The Washington Post claims there is a faction in the Pentagon that is surprised that F16s have not yet been supplied. Robert Kagan, chief neocon ideolog and husband of Victoria Nuland (doubtless still giggling over Nord Stream sabotage), regurgiates the same cliches and tropes he has been peddling for the past thirty years, calls on the US to keep going until Ukrainian victory so as to achieve a “free world.” Meantime the London Times reports that German investigators are now considering the possibility that a western party (it won’t say who!) may have been responsible for Nord Stream.
Ever so gradually, the hardliners are being challenged by the realists. None of the hardliners’ promises have been fulfilled, yet the realist view is nowhere near dominance, even if a stirring of the embers can begin to be heard.