Waiting the Countdown
Existential Enmity
Jeffrey Sachs was a western advisor to Poland during its transition from a command to a market economy. He relates how many of his recommendations for the adjustment were accepted by Washington, sometimes within hours of his proposing them. But when he later advised Russian presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the very same recommendations were ignored or denied - not because they were wrong or inadvisable, it seems, but because Washington culture was simply, irrationally hateful of Russia in whatever form Russia came, whether Czarist, Communist or Capitalist. And much the same can be said of Washington’s attitude towards China. It seems to be similar to the racist bigotry, arrogance. hypocrisy and stupidity that informed the attitude of the US to the Native Americans, to African Americans, and to many new immigrant groups that lingers beneath the concept of American Exceptionalism, the Monroe Doctrine, Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communism, the Wolfowitz doctrine, and the Bush doctrine and, closer to our own times, the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world.
US opposition to this transition helps explain US immovability on the issue of Ukraine, when the threats of a western economic crisis, the deterioration of Europe generally, and the fundamental rights of the Donbass people for protection against the absurd centrism and anti-Russian sentiments of the coup regime in Kiev, all cry out to reason and justice for settlement and peace. The same vexatious spirit, the fear of being anything other than the world’s Number One 4% lecturing the other 96% on how to live, and insisting on its devine right to rule, is beating the drums for war with China, using Taiwan as pretext and in violation of the US’s own One China foreign policy which recognizes that Taiwan and mainland China as entities of the same nation, governed by Beijing.
Counteroffensive Considerations
In Ukraine the west continues to pressure Kiev to prepare a major counteroffensive against Russia (under the threat presumably of just giving up on it after the Autumn), even this means Ukraine giving up on Bakhmut to better concentrate its forces for the larger counteroffensive. Ukraine meanwhile is determined to fight to the last Ukrainian in Bakhmut, but holds off, for the moment, from any kind of counteroffensive, according to Zelenskiy, while it waits for more weapons from the west. Western weapons supplies have surged in preparation for the offensive but, as noted here previously, that surge is not in itself so impressive. So what if Ukraine gets to a total tank force numbering around 800, of all different kinds (Leopard 1s, Leopard 2s., Madars, Challengers, possibly Abrams), different ages, from different countries, requiring different training standards and different training and repair manuals, to replace the larger force of Ukraine’s Soviet era tanks that have been previously destroyed by Russia? Russia is stepping up its production of modern tanks to 1550 a year (enough for five tank divisions); it has already been producing around 250 a year, and has a vast reserve of older tanks - 10,000 (!). Yes some of them are “old” but when the most modern tanks have cut through the defense lines and head towards the Dnieper and beyond, there is still plenty of use for the 10,000 old tanks that follow up in the rear. Must the same story can be told about air defense systems, armored personnel vehicles, and fighter jets (of which the west is supplying a relatively small number. And shells. Russia fires at least 20,000 of these per day, in contrast to the 2000-5000 a day estimates for Ukraine). Russia has several million shells available for its tanks,which puts into, some perspective the one million shells that Europe is cobbling together to get to Ukraine. France says it has increased the number of 155m shells it supplies to Ukraine from 1,000 to 2,000 a month: not enough to cover Ukraine even for one day. Some NATO countries like Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are simply throwing their hands in the air and saying they have nothing more to give.
Depleted Uranium
Some of the western supply is simply idiotic and counter-productive. Britain’s decision to supply Depleted Uranium shells has provoked anger around the world, since it introduces a nuclear element to the war that is dangerously counterproductive, and the people who are most likely to suffer the consequences of the radioactive toxicity of DU shells will most likely be Ukrainians, following the experience of Iraqis in 1991 and 2003, and Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Even many Ukrainians are protesting the use of DU shells because they understand what they represent for their health. Russia’s decision to place nuclear weapons in Belarus is said by some commentators to be a response to Britain’s DU shells, and perhaps there is an element of that, but it is more likely that the Russian decision - no different in principle to the vast assistance that the US supplies to the nuclear armories of so many of its allies - was likely taken some time ago.
Battlefields
On the battlefields there is still no evidence of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in Bakhmut, nor of a bigger one from Zaporzhzhia. Zelenskiy’s claim to have delayed the counteroffensive until more weapons have arrived from the west does likely make sense on its own terms, given that the longer he waits, the more weapons, presumably, there will be, and the harder the ground to facilitate the movement of tracked vehicles. But then so too Russia will have produced more of practically everything it needs and will have continued the construction of fortifications that are already apparently impressive behind the front lines. It had previously been rumored that Ukraine’s major counteroffensive might not take place anyway until May.
The situation in Bakhmut barely seems to change much day to day, with the latest significant news being that Russia has confirmed that it has now taken over the Azom industrial plant near the center of the city, while reports indicate that Russian (Wagner, to be more precise) forces have entered the western and southern outskirts of the city. It is still something of a mystery why, if asphalt road access to the city has fallen under Russian fire control, as Russian reports mostly claim, there is not yet a more determined effort by Ukraine either to cut through Russian lines in defense of the Bakhmut garrison or by the Ukrainians in the city to break out. Perhaps the level of their provisions is so great that they can continue to hold out for weeks or more, while awaiting some kind of Ukrainian army relief.
There are continuing reports of Russian successes or advances in the areas of Kremenna, Avdievka, Marinka, etc., and also in Suny. Here, it has been suggested that greater involvement of Russian Sukoi 35 fighter jets and of glide bombs may signal a warning reminder of the Russian threat to Kiev, particularly given the removal of so many Ukrainian forces from the border with Belarus (deployed to Bakhmut and Avdievka) not so far away. Or the campaign may be intended to test Ukrainian air defense systems. If the latter, then it would seem that the absence of a strong response by Ukrainian air defense to high value enemy weapons such as Sukoi 35s is indicative of the poor state of Ukrainian air defenses generally (Ukrainian sources indicated about a month ago that Kiev has only 300 air defense systems for its entire front lines).