Month: July 2022

Ukrayinska Pravda

Ukrainian Air Defence eliminates nine Russian cruise missiles over past 24 hours, while strike aircraft destroys two Russian ammunition depots

Valentyna Romanenko – July 5, 2022

On 5 July, Ukrainian Air Force Air Defence eliminated nine cruise missiles, while strike aircraft destroyed two Russian ammunition depots, two of their platoon strongholds and 20 pieces of military equipment.

Source: Air Force of Armed Forces of Ukraine, Press Service on Facebook

Quote: “Air Force strike aircraft continue to attack the enemy on several strategic fronts, exterminating the aggressors’ positions with fire from the air.”

“On 5 July, bombers and attack aircraft of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed two field ammunition depots, two platoon strongholds of the Russian invaders, up to twenty pieces of military equipment and killed enemy troops.”

Details: The Air Force Press Service reports that Russian forces launched sea-based Kalibr cruise missiles targeting Ukraine from the Black Sea on Tuesday, 5 July.

At 4:00, six out of seven such missiles were destroyed by anti-aircraft missile units belonging to Skhid [East] Air Command in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Anti-aircraft missile units and aviation shot down three Russian cruise missiles on the western front at about 20:00. They were destroyed by operational crews from an anti-aircraft missile unit and portable surface-to-air missile system. Another cruise missile was destroyed by the pilot of a Ukrainian fighter jet.

AFP

What next for Putin in Ukraine fight?

July 5, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin must now decide his next steps in the five-month invasion he started in February.

After Russian troops captured the strategic Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Sunday, here are five different options raised by security experts who spoke with AFP:

– Grinding advance –

Russian forces appear on course to take full control of the Donbas region that was already partly held by pro-Kremlin separatists before the February 24 invasion.

With Lysychansk and its twin city Severodonetsk captured in the past weeks, Putin’s troops “can hope to take Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and the surrounding regions,” said Pierre Grasser, a researcher at Paris’ Sorbonne university.

Sloviansk in particular is home to “a relatively welcoming population — at least those who have remained there” rather than fleeing the fighting, he added.

But there may be limits to how far the Russians can press into their neighbour’s territory.

“Their steamroller works well near their own borders, their own logistical centres and their airbases. The further away they get, the harder it is,” said Pierre Razoux, academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES).

– Control the Black Sea –

Southern Ukrainian city Kherson was one of the first to fall to Russian forces in the opening days of the war.

But Russia’s grip on the country’s Black Sea coast is not secure.

“Counter-attacks by Ukraine in the south… place Russian forces in a dilemma. Do they sustain their eastern offensive, or do they significantly reinforce the south?” said Mick Ryan, a former general in the Australian army.

The question is all the more pressing as “the war in the south is a front of greater strategic importance” than the Donbas, he added.

Claiming territory along the coast could allow Moscow to create a land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, while both sides want to control Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

– Crack Kharkiv –

Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv is close to the northeastern border with Russia — and located in a pocket still controlled by Kyiv that could yet be cut off by Russian forces.

“If the Ukrainians collapse and Kharkiv is completely isolated, the Russians could force them to choose between committing to defend the city or taking the pressure off in the south towards Kherson,” said Pierre Razoux.

It will be up to President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian commanders “to deploy their units so as to prevent a big summer breakthrough” that could encircle Kharkiv, he added.

Home to 1.4 million people in peacetime, a siege of Kharkiv could be a bloody affair lasting up to a year, Razoux said.

– Divide the West –

While the West has so far kept up a mostly united front of sanctions and support for Ukraine, continued Russian advances could drive the allies’ judgements of their interests apart.

“The goal for Russia is to continue to grind down Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, while waiting for the political will to support Ukraine to fade among Western countries,” said Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center think-tank in New York.

Deliveries of Western military aid have been too slow and too small to turn the battle decisively in Kiev’s favour.

Meanwhile, the war’s inflationary impact on basics like food and energy may gradually turn public opinion away from the strong initial support for Ukraine.

“The Americans could tell the Ukrainians ‘you can’t go on’,” said Alexander Grinberg, an analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy.

– Open talks –

Russia itself is suffering heavy costs from Western sanctions, battlefield casualties and losses of military materiel.

“Putin will be forced to negotiate at some point, he’s bitten off more than he can chew,” said Colin Clarke.

In late June, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov already raised the option of talks — on condition of “applying all the conditions set by Russia”, which remain unacceptable to Kiev.

But his control over domestic information means the Russian leader has a free hand to tell the public that his objectives have been achieved and justify a pause in the fighting.

A bigger challenge might be divisions on the Ukrainian side.

Hardliners and military leaders would “refuse any compromise with Russia” even if Zelensky were willing to strike a deal, said Pierre Razoux.

“They could tolerate a frozen conflict, but not a defeat.”

The Tennessean

After attacking Ukraine, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has made NATO great again | Opinion

John Knubel – July 5, 2022

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in 1949 following the death of 250 million people in two world wars the first 50 years of the 20th century.

It’s been the most effective alliance in history, having preserved a rule based comparative peace enabling 70 years of worldwide human progress: Entire diseases have been eradicated, the world’s population has tripled and humanity today enjoys more individual freedom and national self-determination than ever before in history.

NATO’s initial mission was to “Keep the Americans and British in, the Germans down, and Russians out.”

It was supported by an array of international institutions and alliances like the United Nations, World Bank, Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and a Middle East alliance (CENTO), created to contain a perceived international Communist threat. It led to today’s European union.

How Putin emerged

A dedicated Russian Nationalist and former KGB agent, Putin was stationed in East Germany when the USSR collapsed. He emigrated back to Moscow finding Russia in chaos, faced down the oligarchs, a small group of businessmen who today control the economy and achieved absolute power.

Simultaneously, NATO expanded into the former Soviet empire countries and under the reassurance of NATO, Ukraine, the ‘bread basket’ of Europe, abandoned its nuclear weapons but did not join NATO.

America gradually drew down our European troop presence while President Obama announced a ‘pivot towards Asia’ and President Trump frequently referred to NATO as ‘outmoded.’

Putin claims Russia requested NATO membership and its expansion threatens Russia, propaganda which only makes sense if his aim is to attack the defensively structured alliance which of course it is. He was emboldened by his Crimean annexation and simultaneous use of chemical weapons in Syria which President Obama failed to respond to after pledging, he would.

The new world disorder and the lessons of Nazi Germany

The effectiveness of the Ukrainian army’s response on the ground has been expectedly effective due to their defending their families and homeland from foreign invaders. NATO’s recognition of the seriousness of continued Russian expansionism is encouraging. There’s widespread agreement with the apt comparison with Hitler’s restoring order to a chaotic Germany in the early 1930s and subsequent aggression leading to WWII.

It’s now crystal-clear Putin’s an unprincipled murderous dictator trying wanting to restore the former USSR. Ukraine has become a ‘buffer state’ where a hot sequel to the former cold war is joined. President Biden’s resurrection of the WWII Lend Lease program is evidence of how serious America and NATO take the invasion.

Putin’s fall-back invasion strategy is to connect previously annexed north eastern Ukraine with Crimea and the sea ports of Mariupol and Odessa to the south. Putin now hopes to strangle Ukraine which needs ports to export the wheat which supplies 80% of Egypt’s needs and much of Africa.

The Way Forward

NATO has been unified and will benefit from the membership of Finland and Sweden.

Finland adds substantial military capability having held off Russian invasions historically and both protect NATO’s northern flank and the vulnerable Baltic States. For an empowered Ukraine and revitalized NATO, the goal must now be to preserve Odessa or another channel for exporting Ukrainian grain.

NATO’s demonstrated remarkable unity in creating economic sanctions. But sanctions will take time impact Russian expansionism.

The final outcome of this chapter two of the post WWII cold war, now hot, will be determined by the combination of the sanction’s long-term effectiveness and most importantly the ability to the Russian people to throw off the yoke tyranny that Vladimir Putin has become.

John A. Knubel is a resident of Franklin, Tennessee.

The New Voice of Ukraine

Putin in revenge mode, while his generals make money. What’s next for Russia’s ‘special operation?’

July 3, 2022

Read also: Russia is mobilizing more recruits and hiring, firing generals – ISW

However, Putin also says this: There should be “the creation of conditions that would provide security guarantees for Russia” – but at the same time he downplays this argument in his rhetoric. Such a thesis creates further uncertainty.

Obviously, producing more uncertainty is a regular tactic for Putin, he never says anything just for the sake of saying it. He always has a reason for saying it.

The uncertainty circles around what it means for Putin to be able to reach certain goals that would “provide security guarantees” for his country.

Read also: Russians lost almost $1 billion dollars worth of equipment during occupation of Snake Island — Forbes Ukraine

Of course, by saying this, Putin wants to preserve himself as much space for further actions as he thinks is needed. If necessary, he may always go back to his original plan for the “special operation.”

If necessary, he can reschedule and replan those territorial gains that he’s thinking about right now. Even for the Russian army, the goals of Putin’s “special operation” remain quite unclear. They’re volatile, they’re being changed all the time according to the progress, or lack of it, on the battlefields.

To add more uncertainty to Putin’s rhetoric, Russia made a “goodwill” statement after retreating from Snake Island in the Black Sea.

This is the second such declaration of “goodwill” during this war. Remember the end of March, when Russia was withdrawing its troops from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts in northern Ukraine? Back then, we heard talk of “goodwill” too.

This is a sign of how Russia understands “goodwill,” and what particular actions it might take after expressing it.

Now let’s move on to analyzing all those versions voiced in the past several days to explain the most recent wave of Russian escalation – missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and their civil infrastructure. Obviously, this has nothing to do with achieving any particular military goals – it is rather revenged against Ukraine for all the success that it has had during the war.

You can’t judge Ukraine’s success by the number of its local advances, as it’s a strategic success of a much greater scale. Look at Snake Island – it’s a very painful assault on both Russia’s military positions and Russia’s public image. Moreover, it’s an assault on Putin as a strong leader.

There’s another way to explain the Snake Island developments: corruption among the Russian generals who report much bigger usage of munitions for targeting “military goals” in Ukraine, then they have a number of munitions that are not mentioned in the reserve arsenal anymore – this allows the generals to sell them and earn some money.

Russia has some sort of control procedures over the use of munitions, but it’s very likely the numbers on paper and the numbers in the storages don’t really match.

Recently I read an interesting article, the conclusions of which resonate with my previous writings. According to official information from Russian Ministry of Defense, their army destroyed several times more Ukrainian tanks, artillery and all kinds of vehicles than the Ukrainian army has ever had.

What we see is that Russians are producing fake information even within own military planning.

Therefore, I wouldn’t be surprised to see fake numbers on how many missiles Russian army is launching on Ukrainian territory. With fuel, it’s even more obvious: it gets stolen all the time.

Talking about cruise missiles, Russians can’t really sell those anywhere – even delivering them from a weapon-trading commercial entity in Russia abroad is a huge problem.

Very few countries would be able to buy Russian cruise missiles – maybe North Korea, or Iran. But these would be highly risky steps, even with a high degree of adventurism that is now prevailing in the Russian Federation.

By the end of the day, it’s Russia’s large-scale corruption and a total ignoring of international law that is becoming a decisive factor. This is why you can’t really tell what Russia will be doing next with its weapons.

The New Voice of Ukraine

Paralysis in Moscow

July 2, 2022

Vladimir Putin seeks to convey an indomitable will. Here is a man who has set his course and will stick to it, whatever the obstacles in his way and the costs of overcoming them. It is an image that serves him well. It is now widely assumed in the West that he will not back down in the war with Ukraine and, if things go badly, he will lash out.

Such a man must not be provoked. Yet the image is starting to fray at the edges. Behind all the braggadocio his power is slowly eroding. The symptoms of this are to be found not in a readiness to compromise on the war, which remains absent, but instead in policy paralysis, pressing on with his established strategy because he can think of nothing better to do.   

Putin’s St Petersburg Speech

A good place to start is with the 70-minute speech he delivered at the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

This is intended as an alternative Davos. Putin’s audience was not as substantial as in previous years, with representatives of the Taliban helping make up the numbers.

The theme of his address was that, despite facing an American-led ‘economic blitzkrieg’, Russia would emerge even stronger as the rest of the world suffers from inflation and recession.

Read also: A catastrophe for Putin

He described in great detail the measures being taken to protect the economy against this onslaught which would ensure self-sufficiency.  ‘We are strong people, he insisted, ‘and can cope with any challenge. Like our ancestors, we will solve any problem, the entire thousand-year history of our country speaks of this.’

He presented the current conflict as being essentially about Russia standing up to American arrogance – they ‘think of themselves as exceptional. And if they think they’re exceptional, that means everyone else is second class. This is a theme that provides common ground with China. President Xi sent his own video message along similar lines.

Putin’s assertions of invincible Russian strength were undermined by his speech being delayed for an hour by a disruptive cyberattack, demonstrating that this supposedly favored Russian instrument of modern conflict can be used against it in an embarrassing way.

Although he boasted about how well the economy will weather the storm, even official forecasts see the economy contracting this year by some 8 percent and unofficial estimates go as high as 15 percent. One reason why Russia’s economic position is not worse is because of the boost to revenues resulting from the huge rise in oil and gas prices, yet Putin is currently seeking to add to the pressure on the West by cutting gas supplies to EU countries.

He will fight the economic war by demonstrating to Europeans that siding with the US will mean that they are committing ‘economic suicide’. At the moment, if there is a punitive option available he is anxious to take it.

Read also: Hybrid war from Lenin to Putin

With regards to the huge issue of the effects on world food supplies of the blockade of the Black Sea, and the real prospect of famine in many countries, Putin again deflected the blame on US and EU sanctions against Russian fertilizer and grain exports, and the obstacles put in the way of Russian efforts to send exports to those in direst need.

Another perspective was provided in one of the more telling interventions in the forum. Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-controlled RT media organization, who specializes in blood-curdling threats and in making Russians feel cheerful about their prospects by warning how bad it is going to be for everybody else, presented famine as a Russian weapon in the economic war: ‘The famine will start now and they will lift the sanctions and be friends with us, because they will realize that it’s impossible not to be friends with us.’

On the war itself, Putin promised that Russia would meet its goals fully: ‘freedom for the Donbas’.

As if ignorant of the cruel realities of the war, and the devastation being inflicted on Ukrainian towns and cities, he urged that: ‘ We must not turn those cities and towns that we liberate into a semblance of Stalingrad. This is a natural thing that our military thinks about when organizing hostilities.’ Those who urge a peace deal got little comfort from Putin.

The Kremlin line is now firmly that Ukraine will have to live with new borders: those areas under Russian occupation are being prepared for annexation.

The only possible concession came when Putin stated that he had no objection to Ukraine joining the EU because the EU ‘isn’t a military organization.’

This admission is one of those moments equivalent to an alternative ending to Hamlet when the old King returns from an overseas trip to reveal that the tragedy that has just unfolded was based on an unfortunate misunderstanding.

This whole sorry business began in the summer of 2013 when Putin put the Russophile President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, under intense economic pressure, including cutbacks in energy supplies, to prevent him from signing an association agreement with the EU.

This pressure succeeded and the agreement was not signed, but the effect was to trigger the Euromaidan movement which eventually led to Yanukovych fleeing the country, Putin annexing Crimea, and encouraging the separatist movement in the Donbas.

The admission shows that Putin realizes that he must pick his fights carefully. He can’t do much for now about the EU opening negotiations with Ukraine so best not to try.

Read also: Who will get to power in Russia after Putin is gone?

For a similar reason, the Kremlin dismissed the moves by Finland and Sweden to join NATO as being irrelevant, despite previous lurid warnings of the terrible fate awaiting those countries should they take such a step (and the assumption by some Western geopoliticians that NATO enlargement is all Putin really cares about). This is another development he can’t do much about and so is inclined to let pass.

Which may be just as well because the challenges keep on coming. One of the most intriguing moments at the forum came when Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the only head of state to join Putin onstage, made it clear that his country would not recognize the ‘quasi-governments’ in the Donbas, as well as those in South Ossetia or Abkhazia (in Georgia) or for that matter Taiwan. ‘If the right to self-determination is to be realized everywhere on the planet, then instead of 193 governments on Earth, there will be 500 or 600 …. Of course, it will be chaos.’ This was not what the audience – or Putin – expected to hear.

This led to the normal warnings that because Kazakhstan has a large Russian-speaking population Russia was bound to take an interest, and if it started to be unfriendly Russia could get very interested indeed.

Simonyan’s husband and fellow propagandist, Tigran Keosayan, had, even before the forum, complained about Kazakhstan’s ‘ingratitude’, after it canceled a Victory Day parade on 9 May, and suggested that Tokayev ‘look carefully at what is happening in Ukraine.’ (The reference to ingratitude was to the brief Russian-led intervention last January to help put down civil unrest).

Read also: Putin: The mask is off. Europe is next

Elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, Moldova and Georgia are exploring their own links with the EU (with Georgia’s population apparently more enthusiastic than its government), while Belarus, which is now stuck in an unequal alliance with Russia, has avoided committing forces to the war.

As Tom McTague noted in an essay reflecting on his recent travels in  Kyrgyzstan, it is only in Russia that there is any nostalgia for the old Soviet Union, and Putin has not found a way to develop a positive appeal. ‘The question for Russia’, he asked, ‘is, right now, what does it have to attract its former colonies beyond history?

It is not rich enough, advanced enough, or ideologically compelling enough. Nor does it show the kind of love that suggests it would preside over a happy family.’ Who looks at Belarus or Crimea let alone the Donbas and thinks there is something there to emulate? Hence the Kremlin’s dependence upon coercion and control. Putin only knows the way of the bully. When an individual, or a state, or any other entity, starts on a path that he doesn’t like all he can do is threaten and if his threats lack credibility then he has to let it pass.

Lithuania and Kaliningrad

This can be seen with the latest flash point in Russia’s conflict with the West. The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, home to some 430,000 people, is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. This was formerly the German Konigsberg, captured by Soviet forces right at the end of World War Two and valued by Moscow for its Baltic port. Because it is home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet it is a territory of strategic importance.

Its position became exposed when Poland and Lithuania joined NATO. This vulnerability has now been underlined as the Lithuanian government has blocked deliveries of coal, metals, construction materials, and advanced technology through its territory by means of both rail and road. This move is in line with, and does not go beyond, EU sanctions, does not stop the movement of passengers and unsanctioned goods and does not preclude Russia from supplying Kaliningrad by sea.

Dmitry Peskov – the Kremlin spokesman who has spent a lot of his recent career warning other states about one thing or another – has reported that Russia is preparing ‘retaliatory measures’. Putin’s close buddy and Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has vowed that these measures, yet to be determined, ‘will have a serious negative impact on the Lithuanian population.’ It’s not clear what options are available.

Not a lot of Lithuanian goods travel through Russia these days while the option to cut off gas supplies is negated by the fact that Lithuania stopped taking Russian gas in April, having had the foresight after 2015, when nearly all of its gas supplies were imported from Russia, to have built an off-shore LNG import terminal in the port city of Klaipeda.

So Moscow is short of available economic forms of coercion. The move has been described on Russian TV as tantamount to a declaration of war, but retaliatory military action against a NATO country would be a bold and dangerous step to take simply because of the implementation of sanctions which Moscow insists in general are really no big deal.

Read also: Nothing will save Putin from God’s wrath, says Ukraine’s permanent UN rep. Kyslytsya

Paralysis in Moscow

All this fits in with the gradual erosion of Putin’s authority in Russia along the lines recently outlined by Titania Stanovaya. Russian elites are struggling to come to terms with a war that Putin began without consultation and which he does not know how to end on favorable terms.

He is unwilling to take the even greater risks required to secure a military victory (assuming that these could succeed) yet unable to accept anything that would look like a defeat. Because no one amongst the elite has a clue how to escape this conundrum or, even if they did, has the political courage and opportunity to move against Putin, the odds of him being overthrown in a coup are low.

Instead, there is paralysis as internal divisions grow along with the consequential problems caused by the war. Putin, she notes, ‘has created a situation for which he was not prepared and which he doesn’t know how to deal with, while the Russian power system that he himself built is constructed in such a way as to prevent effective decisions from being made collectively and in a balanced way.’

This paralysis is reflected in the conduct of the war. Russian tactics and strategies remain inflexible and predictable.

Having identified Severodonetsk as a vital objective, just as Mariupol was before, failure cannot be contemplated, and so all available firepower and manpower has been hurled at it to break the Ukrainian resistance and then prevent the defenders from retreating.

This has come at a heavy cost for Ukraine and questions have been asked in Kyiv about the wisdom of committing so much of its own military capability to the defense of a city that has acquired strategic relevance only because it seems to matter so much to Moscow. Yet, the Ukrainian military insists, the effort has been worthwhile: Russian forces have suffered the greater attrition; this defense has delayed advances elsewhere, as Ukraine waits for – and now starts to receive – much-needed Western weaponry; and it has diverted Russian capabilities from places where Ukraine is now able to start moving on to the offensive. Evidence of this offensive is seen in Ukrainian advances in the Kherson area.

A Test of Endurance

From the start of this crisis, Russia has acted to demonstrate its strength and show why it deserves to be treated at all times like a great power. But its power is limited and Russia is now facing the possibility that it really has bitten off more than it can chew.

None of this means an early end to the war. Nor does it mean that things will get easier for Ukraine. Putin’s default strategy is always to inflict pain even if he can achieve little else. The risk of more reckless action cannot be precluded. Nonetheless, we should not assume that Russia is inexhaustible or, just because we cannot pick a winner in the battle at the moment, that the war is destined for a prolonged stalemate.

The political paralysis affects Russia’s military strategy. Putin is unwilling to accept defeat and see what he can extract by way of concessions for an offer to withdraw. Nor does he want to mobilize all of Russian society for the war effort, so the limits on troop numbers will remain, and will affect operations more as those that are lost cannot be replaced and Russian advantages in firepower begin to be eroded.

He can propose a cease-fire to allow him to hold the territory already taken but he knows that will be rejected by President Zelensky unless it is accompanied by a promise of withdrawal.

His best hope, in pressing on with his current strategy, is that at some point, preferably quite soon, Ukraine’s Western supporters will tire of the war and its economic costs and urge Kyiv to accept some territorial compromise.

Read also: A psychiatrist explains why Putin hates Ukraine and Ukrainians

Here his problem is that there is also paralysis of a different sort on the Western side. The economic costs are high, but they have already been incurred. The commitment to Ukraine, and to ensuring that Russia does not win its war of conquest, has been made.

So long as Ukraine continues to fight, and suffer the costs, then even leaders who think a compromise might at some point be necessary are holding their tongues. The West is settling in for the long haul, looking for ways to keep Ukraine supplied with the weapons and ammunition it needs, while adjusting foreign policies to be able to concentrate on the war.

The fight can be presented as a conflict between democracy and autocracy. But at its core it is also now about the future of the European security order, and if that means improving relations with autocracies, whether in urging the Saudis to pump more oil or keeping relations with China calm, then so be it.

This means that the most salient test of endurance is still on the field of battle. When Russia began to suffer setbacks, after the initial offensive in February, the Ministry of Defense moved smartly to recast the operation as being solely about the Donbas.

The problems the Russian military has faced over the last couple of months have not so much resulted from Ukrainian counter-offensives as the meager territorial gains they have achieved for such an enormous effort.

If it is the case that the Ukrainian armed forces are beginning to increase the tempo of their offensive operations then Russian commanders will face a new set of challenges. It may be that their troops will be as tenacious in defense as their Ukrainian counterparts, even as they take heavy blows, but it is as likely that they will not do so with the same conviction.

Problems of morale and disaffection may begin to tell. From the start of this war, its most important feature has been the asymmetry of motivation. In the end, the Ukrainians are fighting because they have no other choice. Russians have the option of going home.