The Kremlin is fighting a bigger war with the West: Moscow takes the blame for its failure in the Kiev debacle in Lyman
Russian troops were taken back from Russia by the Ukrainians on Sunday, despite Moscow’s claims that they had fled with empty eyes.
The debacle in the city of Lyman, a key railway hub in the east of the country, caused more pressure to be put on the Russian leadership already facing withering criticism at home.
Russian forces in the last days of their occupation in Lyman were plagued by desertion, poor planning and a delayed arrival of reserves, according to an article published on Sunday by the Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The saying is that truth is the first casualty in war. In Russia, there is a campaign of false advertising to sell the invasion of Ukraine to the public.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Putin lost Lyman just as he was publicly declaring that the Donetsk region – in which Lyman sits – was now annexed by Russia.
But the soldiers interviewed on the Sunday broadcast said they had been forced to retreat because they were fighting not only with Ukrainians, but with NATO soldiers.
The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of operational military details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has similarities to the milblogger discourse over the past week. The narrative from the Kremlin was focused on general statements and avoided detailed discussions of current military operations. The Kremlin had never openly recognized a major failure in the war prior to its devastating loss in Kharkiv Oblast, which prompted the partial reserve mobilization.”
The broadcast seemed intended to convince Russians who have doubts about the war or feel anger over plans to call up as many as 300,000 civilians that any hardships they bear are to be blamed on a West that is bent on destroying Russia at all costs.
The idea that Russia is fighting a bigger campaign was brought up again in an interview with a far-right thinker whose daughter was killed by a car bomb.
Mr Putin and Mr. Dugin have both accused the Western countries of damaging theNord Stream gas line, which was damaged when underwater explosions occurred last month.
The West claims that we blew up the gas line ourselves. “We must understand the geopolitical confrontation, the war, our war with the West on the scale and extent on which it is unfolding. We must join this battle with the mortal enemy who won’t hesitate to use any means, including exploding gaspipelines.
The nonstop messaging campaign may be working, at least for now. Many Russians feel threatened by the West, said Aleksandr Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who is from Russia.
“There is anger; there is fear; there is an idea to hide and flee, but it is not necessarily against Putin,” he said in a phone interview. Part of the anger is against the West and the people who live there.
The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World as a Crisis in Washington D.C. Bergen’s View of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
Peter Bergen is a national security analyst for CNN, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen wrote “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” His own views are expressed in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had a plan to seize Ukraine quickly. The Russians failed to capture Kyiv in the first days of their invasion.
With even his allies expressing concern, and hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing partial mobilization, an increasingly isolated Putin has once again taken to making rambling speeches offering his distorted view of history.
(Indeed, his revisionist account defines his rationale for the war in Ukraine, which he asserts has historically always been part of Russia – even though Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.)
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they planned to install a puppet government and get out of the country as soon as it was feasible, as explained in a recent, authoritative book about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, “Afghan Crucible” by historian Elisabeth Leake.
The US was initially hesitant to support the Afghan resistance because of fear that it would lead to a larger conflict with the Soviet Union. The Soviets lost their total air superiority in Afghanistan when the CIA gave them anti-aircraft guns in 1986, which led to them leaving three years later.
The American weapons are playing a major part in Russian fortunes on the battlefield. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the US was also initially leery of deeper involvement, fearing a wider conflict with the Russians.
The satellite-guided HIMARS — short for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — currently have a range of 80 kilometers. A longer-range 300-kilometer HIMARS has not yet been authorized, despite repeated Ukrainian pleas. (The Biden administration has worried that the longer-range system could expand the war beyond Ukraine’s frontiers and lead to an escalation of hostilities.)
The Russian city of Valuyki is under constant fire – what can Putin’s political influence tell us about the Russian revolution and the Russo-Japanese war?
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was sped up by the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, according to Putin.
Looking further back into the history books, he must also know that the Russian loss in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 weakened the Romanov monarchy. Czar Nicholas II, who was feckless during the First World War, led to the Russian Revolution. The Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.
There is a lot of incentive for Putin to prolong the conflict so that some of these forces in the West can kick in. A long, cold winter in Europe, persistent inflation and higher interest rates leading to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic could mean irresistible pressure on already skeptical leaders to dial back on financial and military support.
“Our Russian city of Valuyki… is under constant fire,” he said. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. There was no one else. The reports from the Ministry of Defense are always the same. They say they destroyed 300 rockets, killed Nazis and so on. People are aware. Our people aren’t stupid. They don’t want to give a complete picture of the truth. This can result in a lost of credibility.
Putin is tragic in that he can be allowed to influence events without facing a critical challenge. Autocrats who put their cronies into key positions, control the media to crowd out discordant voices … are able to command their subordinates to follow the most foolish orders.”
“First of all, we should stop lying, because that is the only way we can improve our situation,” said a former colonel general in the Russian military, and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. “We brought this up many times before … But somehow it’s apparently not getting through to individual senior figures.”
The Ministry of Defense was not telling the truth about cross-border strikes in the Russian regions of neighboring Ukranian complained Kartapolov.
Valuyki is in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. When it comes to hitting Russian targets across the border, Kyiv usually doesn’t confirm or deny.
Both sides – Russia and Ukraine with its western backers – are doing their best to turn the screws ahead of a winter which could ultimately decide who will win the most titanic clashes of forces in Europe since the Second World War. This is a very interesting area to look at right now.
“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. “Indeed, many say that the Minister of Defense [Sergei Shoigu], who allowed this situation to happen, could, as an officer, shoot himself. But, you know, the word officer is a new word for many.
Kadyrov has been less shy about naming the commanders that he blames for the retreat from the Ukrainian city of Lyman.
Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.
“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.
Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He said in another post that if he had his way, the government could use extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.
“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.
Violations of the Ukrainian Counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, revealed by Ukranian missile and drone attacks
Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst who in summer relocated from Canada to Ukraine. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The bridge explosion came at a time when the Ukrainian counteroffensive took control of key areas of Russian-controlled territory.
At least 76 strikes on Friday were attributed to missile and drone attacks on vital power infrastructure in Ukranian. As winter bites, millions of Ukrainians are enduring long periods without heat, electricity and water. The Ukrainians have displayed resilience since the start of the war, and many are prepared to endure hardship for another two to five years if it means defeating Russia.
The significance of the strikes in the city cannot be overstated. Western governments should consider it a red line when it’s crossed on this day.
As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. Normally, at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers and chatter of upcoming weddings and parties.
The attacks were just a day after multiple strikes on apartment buildings were reported in Zaporizhzhia, which is close to the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.
In a video filmed outside his office on Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky was defiant and said that it appeared many of the 100 missile strikes acrossUkraine were aimed at the country’s energy infrastructure. At least 11 important infrastructure facilities in eight regions and the capital have been damaged; some provinces are without power, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
When Russian forces neared the capital, some media outlets moved their operations to underground bomb shelters. In one metro station serving as a shelter, large numbers of people took cover on platforms as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.
Millions of people in the cities will be in bomb shelters for most of the day, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.
With many asylum seekers returning home, the attacks could cause another blow to business confidence, and as many regions of Ukrainian were starting to roar back to life.
For Putin, the symbolism of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated. That the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday (the timing prompted creative social media denizens to create a split-screen video of Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President”) can be taken as an added blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to withstand shame and humiliation is probably nil.
Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. Putin opened the Kerch bridge by driving a truck across it. That same year, one of the first things Chinese President Xi Jinping did after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong was to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.
Ukrainians are Jubilating After the Crimea Anomaly: What do they have to tell their American friends and neighbors about Vladimir Putin?
The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was hilarious: comical meme lit up social media channels. Many shared their sense of jubilation via text messages.
It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.
Before Monday’s strikes, the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate at Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, had told Ukrainian journalist Roman Kravets in late August that, “by the end of the year at the minimum we have to enter Crimea” – suggesting a plan to push back Russian forces to pre-2014 lines, which is massively supported by Ukrainians I’ve spoken to.
What is crucially important now is for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to urge China and India – which presumably still have some leverage over Putin – to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.
Victory will surely depend on the West maintaining a united front against Russia. Zelensky and his envoys abroad have done an enviable job of warning Western leaders that if they don’t support Ukraine in pushing Putin back completely, their own nations’ security could be caught in the crosshairs of Russian aggression.
High tech defense systems are required to protect the energy infrastructure around the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.
The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.
The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.
The Putin message to the world is clear: How do we respond to reversals of Putin’s assault on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure?
The message was obvious for the world to see. Putin does not intend to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. He is going to cause carnage and terror in his response to his string of battlefield reversals.
The targets that were on Monday did little to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.
The bombing of power installations, in particular, appeared to be a hint of the misery the Russian President could cause as winter sets in, even as his forces retreat in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.
President Joe Biden Monday spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air attacks, but the White House did not specify exactly what might be sent.
John Kirby, who works for the national security council, suggested that the Americans were in contact with the government in Ukraine almost every day. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.
Kirby could not say whether Putin was shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to bombardUkrainian cities and infrastructure, which he suggested was a trend that was already in the works.
It was an idea they had been planning for a long time. Now that’s not to say that the explosion on the Crimea bridge might have accelerated some of their planning,” Kirby said.
The new general in charge of the war has served in Chechnya and Syria, and that would be consistent with the onslaught on civilians. In both places, Russia indiscriminately bombarded civilian areas and razed built-up districts and infrastructure and is accused of committing serious human rights violations.
And finally, Moscow is left with a question nobody ever wants to learn the answer to: if its supply chains for diesel fuel for tanks 40 miles from its border do not function, then how can they be sure The Button will work, if Putin reaches madly to press it? There is no greater danger for a nuclear power than to reveal its strategic missiles and retaliatory capability do not function.
Western concerns were underscored by French PresidentEmmanuelMacron that the rush-hour attacks in Ukraine might be the beginning of another pivot in the conflict.
Retired Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs on the National Security Council, said that by attacking targets designed to hurt Ukrainian morale and energy infrastructure, Putin was sending a message about how he will prosecute the war in the coming months.
According to Zelensky’s chief diplomatic adviser, the missiles and drones that were fired by Russia in retaliation for the bridge explosion were shot down by the Ukrainians.
“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we probably could raise the number of those drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or wound and injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.
Any prolonged campaign by Putin against civilians would be aimed at breaking Ukrainian morale and possibly unleashing a new flood of refugees into Western Europe that might open divisions among NATO allies that are supporting Ukraine.
The lesson of this horrible war is that everything Putin has done to fracture a nation he doesn’t believe has the right to exist has only strengthened and unified it.
Olena Gnes, a woman who is documenting the war on her website, told Anderson Cooper on Monday that she was angry at a return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians.
“This is just another terror to provoke maybe panic, to scare you guys in other countries or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, he is still powerful and look what fireworks we can arrange,” she said.
“We do not feel desperate … we are more sure even than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as fast as possible because … only after we win in this war and only after Russia is defeated, we will have our peace back here.”
For months the state media in Russia has insisted that the country was hitting only military targets, leaving out the millions of civilians who have been affected by the invasion.
On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed plumes of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.
The First Day of General Reconstruction: France’s Unretarded War on the Battlefield with the Kremlin and the European Commission
Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He used to be a reporter for The New York Times and CBS News. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.
This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.
In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed a roadmap to control energy prices that have been surging on the heels of embargoes on Russian imports and the Kremlin cutting natural gas supplies at a whim.
There is an emergency cap on the Dutch title transfer facility, and permission for EU gas companies to form a cartel to buy gas in the international market.
While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.
Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. There are concerns that a cap on consumption would encourage higher usage, and ministers must work out details with Germany.
Europe is trying to deal with Russia in a state of denial, hoping it becomes a state of decline. One abiding comfort may be that, after underestimating Moscow’s potential for malice, the risk for Europe would be to overstate its potential as a threat.
Italian Prime Minister meets with U.S. Senator Markovian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, D.C.Putin, and Deputy Prime Minister Mia Jacob
Germany and France are at odds with each other over a lot of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.
And now a new government has taken power in Italy. Italy has a first woman prime minister, who tried to downplay the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.
Berlusconi, in a secretly recorded audio tape, said he’d returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of Lambrusco wine, adding that “I knew him as a peaceful and sensible person,” in the LaPresse audio clip.
The other leading member of the ruling Italian coalition, Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as deputy prime minister, said during the campaign, “I would not want the sanctions [on Russia] to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.”
At the same time, Poland and Hungary, longtime ultra-right-wing soulmates united against liberal policies of the EU that seemed calculated to reduce their influence, have now disagreed over Ukraine. Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban has pro-Putin sentiments that Poland finds offensive.
Similar forces seem to be at work in Washington where House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, told an interviewer, “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it.”
On Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to begin talks with Russia to end the conflict as its troops are still occupying vast sections of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.
Mia Jacob was the chair of the caucus and she sent reporters a clarifying statement about her comments in support of Ukranian. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.
While the US has given more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.
This support in terms of arms, materiel and training, has been the main driver of their battlefield successes against the weakened and ill-prepared Russian military.
The actions point to desperation on the part of Russia to get components for production of high-tech weaponry that is held up by western sanctions.
Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts, plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down, and “Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks” for replenishment. The Soviet era ended more than 30 years ago.
A day before this report, the US announced seizure of all property of a top Russian procurement agent Yury Orekhov and his agencies “responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end-users…including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors.”
The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.
Prigoszkin on Russia’s role in the democratic process: A comment on Russian billionaire Sasha DovZHyk
The leader of the Russian puppet in Eastern Europe, whose real purpose was to convince Ukrainians, is still hardliners like Pavel Gubarev. But if you don’t want to be convinced, we’ll kill you. We’ll kill as many as we have to: 1 million, 5 million, or exterminate all of you.”
A lecturer at the School of Slavonic and East- European Studies in the University College London, as well as a special projects curator at the Ukrainian Institute London, Sasha DovZHyk is also an associate lecturer. She obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of London. She divides her time between the UK and Ukraine. The IWM project Documenting Ukraine supports her work. The views she expresses in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
Russian billionaire Prigoszkin said in response to a journalist question that Russia has interfered and will continue to interfere in the democratic process of the US.
I will answer you delicately and I apologize for allowing a bit of an ambiguity. Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere,” Prigozhin said.
A dark Ukrainian fairy tale: Surviving the death of Prigothlin’s baby during the Russian invasion of February 17-21, 2009
Carefully, precisely, and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once,” he added.
Ahead of Tuesday’s presidential contest, as well as the 2020 election, prosecutors warned about similar Russian attempts to hack into US computer systems. Private researchers say that suspected Russian operatives have been attacking Democratic candidates in five states on far right media platforms.
There have been reports that Russia’s power elite have been trying to remove Prigothlin’s wings. Some considerations factor in a skeptical take on Prigozhin’s rise offered by a Russian political analyst. She pointed out in a recent article that there are rivalries between Russia’s power ministries and she doesn’t have much showing in polls.
Many of those advances were led by the soldiers of the company called the Wagner Group. Many reports on Wagner have focused on the group’s brutal tactics, including human-wave attacks and summary execution for waverers or deserters.
Long nights with the promise of a miracle: December is the month of fairy tales, when we peer into the darkness only to be reassured of the “happily ever after.”
We used to joke that our life had a dark fairy tale vibe to it. Ievheniia, a Ukrainian woman who has been living in Poland since 2007, is nursing her two-month-old son and is grieving for her child’s father.
Ievheniia was unable to travel to her husband’s funeral because she had a newborn baby. She asked her relatives to watch it. The internet connection in Ukraine is unreliable because of Russia’s attacks on critical infrastructure. Denys was buried in a coffin.
The most important moments of this dark Ukrainian fairy tale take place via video link. This is what love looks like in a time of war, shifted to the digital space and disrupted mid-plot.
In the video call, Ievheniia told me her story, about being a PhD candidate and working as an IT consultant. She relied on the stranger to raise awareness about the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers since the start of Russia’s invasion in February.
The country in Europe was plunged into darkness during Russia’s barbaric imperialist war, as we hurry to bring gifts to our loved ones.
Magical encounter between a woman and a refugee in the country of Ukraine during the first half of the 19th century: Ievheniia and Denys
After driving westwards across the country under Russian bombardment, Ievheniia finally arrived at an enlistment office. She was told to sign the contract the next day after being interviewed on a Friday.
On the weekend, she decided to take a pregnancy test, just in case. “With war and evacuation, the ground was slipping under one’s feet,” she said with a laugh. I found out that I was pregnant.
The pregnancy test provided that plot twist: the woman who planned to defend her homeland instead joined the flow of refugees looking for safety in Poland.
Ievheniia and Denys wanted to show their partnership in the state after the war. The everyday ingenuity of the country at war was at work, now Ukrainian servicemen are able to marry via video call. We got married by a handsome man in a uniform instead of boring civil servants. Ievheniia said she had nothing to complain about.
Over the following months, Denys kept the magic alive via the Internet, with flower deliveries and professional photoshoots ordered for Ievheniia from the trenches.
Denys raised the alarm, as Ievheniia didn’t pick up her phone, and a rescue squad took her to the hospital. A delay could have resulted in death. A Caesarean section was followed. Because the baby was born two months early, the father was able to meet his new son.
Ukrainian servicemen are not currently allowed to leave the country under martial law. Denys was allowed to cross the border, and was allowed to stay with his family for five days.
It was a time filled with ordinary things, and it was magical. He left after that. Ievheniia said that they sent him greetings on his birthday. “The next day he was killed.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html
The time to be consoled: A tale of the Wily Kid and the Ieveniia of the Kiev armed forces (an Italian folktale from the Renaissance)
Italo Calvino, the celebrated Italian journalist and editor of folktales, among other works, called them “consolatory fables” because it is that a rare fairy tale ends badly. The time to be consoled hasn’t yet come if it does. Instead, it is time to act.
The narrative logic of a fairy tale must not be lost on us. The wily kid will not defeat the monster with the aid of magic. Ukrainians need military aid to bring a victory over Russia because they have been fighting for 10 months without success. Ukrainian victory depends on our collective effort.
I was a teenager and I wondered how I would act in a fight against evil. Would I be able to turn away and proceed with my daily life?” I was told by Ievheniia. “Today, all of us have a chance to find out.”
Moscow has begun a new campaign to encourage Russians to enlist in the armed forces and fight in Ukraine, despite the Kremlin having denied needing more recruits.
Russian troops in Ukraine — an escape from the day in the life of a soldier rather than drinking booze, or to stay in the jungle
A video posted on December 14 has a young man who is choosing to fight instead of partying with his male friends and buying himself a car with money he made from fighting on a military contract.
In another video, posted on December 15, the former girlfriend of a soldier is newly impressed with his courage and begs him to get back together with her. An example shows a middle-aged man who quit his job in a factory and did not sign a military contract because he wasn’t getting enough money for it.
A group of well-off Russians are asked by elderly women where they are going, in one of the videos. One of the men replies: “To Georgia. Forever.” When one woman spills a bag of groceries, the men just get into the car and leave instead of helping, while younger Russian men hurry to pick up the groceries. “The boys have left, the men stayed,” one of the elderly women concludes.
The war has been portrayed as an escape from the daily reality of drinking booze and poor living. There are still reports and complaints of shortages in the Russian military.
During a meeting with mothers of the mobilized in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that it was better to be killed fighting for the motherland than to drink oneself to death on vodka.
As the war in Ukraine failed to make progress, Putin called on more than 300,000 Russians to join his military force. There has been no official word on the number of Russian soldiers killed and injured in the fighting.
Earlier this month, addressing a news conference after a summit of Eurasian countries in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Putin attempted to reassure the public that there were no plans for additional mobilization.
Putin said that there was an issue with the military equipment and that he was in contact with the Russian defense ministry.
Zelensky’s famed comforter-in-chief during a campaign against Vladimir Putin in the coup of September 11 2001: The memory of his nightly appearance at the Élysée Palace
Zelensky developed his political muscles earlier in his career when he stood up to Donald Trump in the quid pro quo scandal, it is easy to forget.
In Paris at the time, I witnessed how Zelensky pulled up to the Élysée Palace in a modest Renault, while Putin motored in with an ostentatious armored limousine. The host hugged Putin but didn’t shake hands with Zelensky.
Zelensky had been in a downward trajectory in his popularity ratings in the days leading up to Russia’s invasion, despite his popularity being the all-time high in the first days of his administration.
Zelensky grew up in the rough and tumble neighborhoods of central Ukraine, where he learned how to respond to physical abuse.
“After the full-scale invasion, once he got into a position of being bullied by someone like Vladimir Putin he knew exactly what he needed to do because it was just his gut feeling,” Yevhen Hlibovytsky, former political journalist and founder of the Kyiv-based think tank and consultancy, pro.mova, told me.
This is the leader who when offered an escort by the US as Russia launched a full-scale invasion quipped, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
It’s a long way since Zelensky thanked his supporters with a fresh-faced smile at a campaign event in a renovated nightclub in a war zone. He looked in disbelief after he beat Petro Poroshenko on stage.
His ratings appeared to have been changed by the war. After the invasion, Zelensky’s rating went from 40% to 90%, and remain high this day. Zelensky was given high scores by Americans early in the war for his handling of international affairs.
He had many people from his previous career as a TV comedian in the group Kvartal 95. In the middle of the war, a press conference held on the platform of the metro station in Kyiv features perfect lighting and camera angles to emphasize a wartime setting.
As for his skills as comforter in chief, I remember well the solace his nightly televised addresses brought in the midst of air raid sirens and explosions in Lviv.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/opinions/volodomyr-zelensky-profile-ukraine-russia-bociurkiw/index.html
A New Look at Fashion and Politics: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Zelensky-Rih era in the U.S.
“By wearing T-shirts and hoodies, the youthful, egalitarian uniform of Silicon Valley, rather than suits, Zelensky is projecting confidence and competence in a modern way, to a younger, global audience that recognizes it as such,” Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, a fashion historian and author of “Red, White, and Blue on the Runway: The 1968 White House Fashion Show and the Politics of American Style,” told NPR.
Zelenska has shown herself to be an effective communicator in international fora, as she traveled to where her husband couldn’t. Most recently, she met with King Charles during a visit to a refugee assistance center at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family in London. Zelenska was not on the cover of Time magazine, but a reference was made to her in the supporting text.
There are subtle signs that Zelensky’s international influence may be diminishing. Zelensky tried to get the G7 to set a cap on Russian crude at $30 in order to hurt the Kremlin, but it was set at $60 a barrel.
All this adds up to a complex path ahead for the Zelensky administration, especially if liberating Crimea from Russia is part of the definition of victory envisioned by most Ukrainians. The tough guy from Krevsky Rih shows no sign of backing down at the moment, for the time being.
“Paradoxically, Zelensky achieved the thing that Putin most wanted to achieve but failed … to rally support domestically with a patriotic war in order to deflect and distract from his abject failures at home. Michael Popow, an analyst with New York-based geopolitics and business said to be shown up by a mere decadent comedian must be painful for Putin.
As Zelensky said in a recent nightly video address: “No matter what the aggressor intends to do, when the world is truly united, it is then the world, not the aggressor, determines how events develop.”
The fight of the people in Ukrainian is connected by the speech to our own revolution and the idea that we should be warm in our homes to celebrate Christmas and to know how much the people are in danger, because many will be caught in the cold.
Zelensky’s historic address “strengthened both Democrats and Republicans who know what is at stake in this fight against Putin and Russian aggression and now with their ally, Iran,” she said.
She hopes that they will send more than one. She noted there’s “been some reluctance in the past” by the US and NATO to provide advanced equipment, but added “We’ve seen with our own eyes how effective Ukrainian military is.”
Clinton, who previously met Russian President Vladimir Putin as US secretary of state, said the leader was “probably impossible to actually predict,” as the war turns in Ukraine’s favor and his popularity fades at home.
“I think around now, what [Putin] is considering is how to throw more bodies, and that’s what they will be – bodies of Russian conscripts – into the fight in Ukraine,” Clinton said.
“It was horrible to live under Putin and it was very far from the idea of democracy, but you still had some established institutions which you would almost take for granted that they would exist no matter what, and all of a sudden, everything collapsed,” he said, pointing to the near complete eradication of any remaining independent media, civil society and human rights groups.
She stopped attending demonstrations when she was too scared to do so after the war began. She doesn’t see a scenario under which the regime in Russia could be overthrown any time soon, she said, pointing out that all of the opposition leaders “are in jail or have been killed.”
CNN is not publishing the woman’s name and is using a pseudonym at her request because of the risks to her personal safety. She was speaking to foreign journalists about her involvement in the demonstrations and the use of the word “war”, which puts her at risk of arrest and a lengthy prison sentence.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country, some out of principle, others for fear of persecution, or to avoid being drafted into the military, as a result of Western sanctions. Thousands have been detained, according to rights groups. Many others have been forced to withdraw from public life or lost their jobs, after hundreds of western companies withdrew from Russia and many local and foreign NGOs and campaign groups were shuttered.
Like many others, he is accused of spreading false information about the Russian military and law enforcement, and is now on Russia’s wanted list. He says he was only reporting the truth about the actions of the Russian government before and during the invasion of Ukraine.
The war has wiped out the remnants of a free press. Western publications and social media sites have been blocked online, forcing Russians seeking alternatives to the official propaganda to go underground using virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow people to browse the internet freely by encrypting their internet traffic. Data from Sensortower, an apps market research company, show the top eight VPN apps in Russia were downloaded almost 80 million times in Russia this year, despite the government’s efforts to crack down on their use.
Russian citizens were the subjects of 36,271 encounters with the US Border Patrol. The number includes people who have been expelled by the border force, which is much more than the number of people who had been expelled in the previous two years.
OK Russians, a non-profit helping Russian citizens fleeing persecution, said its surveys suggest those who are leaving are on average younger and more educated than the general Russian public.
“If you take the Moscow liberal intelligentsia, and of course, I’m talking only about the people I know and I know of, I would say that maybe 70% left. It’s journalists, it’s people from universities, sometimes schools, artists, people who have clubs and [foundations] in Moscow that got closed down,” Soldatov said.
“If you are losing the educated middle-class portion of the population, then it matters for your economic prospects, but it also matters for the potential political reconstitution of the country,” said Kristine Berzina, a Russia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She pointed to the exodus of liberal, educated Iranians following the country’s 1979 revolution as an example of what can happen when large numbers from such demographics leave the country.
Maria said she remains determined to stay in Russia, even though all of her friends and her son have left. Maria is not going to leave her mother because she doesn’t want to travel abroad. “If I knew for sure that the borders would not be closed and I could come at any time if my mother needed my help, it would probably be easier for me to leave. But knowing that something else could happen at any moment scares me,” she told CNN.
She believes her work is important, but her lack of hope for the future is a problem. She described her life as a constant state of panic, horror, shame and self-doubt.
Are you to blame? Is there more you should have done? Can you do something else or not, and how should you act now?” she said. There are no prospects. I’m an adult, and I didn’t exactly have all my life figured out, but all in all I understood what would happen next. Nobody knows anything. People don’t even understand what will happen to them tomorrow.”
Soldatov said he had begun to question his own identity. He said that the memory of the Second World War was compromised as a result of Putin’s baseless claims that Russian forces are not denigrating Ukranians.
The message was used by Putin and it feels wrong for the Russian army to have helped to win the war against Hitler. You start questioning the history,” he said, adding that the favorable reaction by some parts of the Russian society to the invasion prompted him to research pre-war rhetoric in Germany.
“This book is a confession. I was guilty of not reading the signs sooner. Russia’s war against Ukraine was my responsibility as well. As are my predecessors. Regrettably, Russian culture is also to blame for making all these horrors possible.”
Maria is a historian and has spent years taking part in anti-government protests, which she describes as a liberal deeply opposed to Putin. I knew that we shouldn’t trust anyone from the KGB to lead our country. It is too deeply rooted with horrors, deaths and all that,” she said.
It is not realistic for some in the west to think that a wave of protests will happen when people start feeling like their leaders are doing wrong.
“Almost all opposition leaders and opinion leaders are now either in prison or abroad. People have a huge potential for political action, but there is no leader and no power base,” she said, adding that civilians will not come out against the armed police, the National Guard, and other security forces.
It is difficult for people from democracies to understand the reality of life in an autocracy. It was a terrifying feeling of one’s own insignificance and helplessness in front of a giant machine of death and madness.
What Has Russia Learned in 2022, and What Has It Meant to Europe? How Has Russia gotten Sober-Rattled?
And finally, to those who felt nuclear saber-rattling was an oxymoron in 2022 – that you could not casually threaten people with nukes as the destruction they brought was complete, for everyone on the planet.
Europe is not in favor of increased security despite the noticeable decline of Russia. Even at a time when Russia reveals itself to be less threatening, calls for greater defense spending are louder.
Russia has met a West that was not hesitant to let its weapons go to its eastern border. Russia has limited non-nuclear options, so it might be surprising that its red lines shift constantly. None of this was supposed to happen. Europe now has, so what are they going to do to prepare?
Key is just how unexpectedly unified the West has been. Europe and the US have the same script when talking about Ukraine, despite being split over Iraq, fractured over Syria, and partially unwilling to spend the 2% of GDP on security. At times, Washington has seemed like a warier place than it actually is. But the shift is towards unity, not disparity. That is quite a surprise.
Russia has lost the war and it’s premature to say so. There are variables which could still lead to a stalemate in its favor, or even a reversal of fortune. NATO could lose patience or nerve over weapons shipments, and seek economic expediency over long-term security, pushing for a peace unfavorable to Kyiv. At the moment, that seems unlikely.
Yet some good has come from this debacle. Europe knows it must get off its dependence on Russian gas immediately, and hydrocarbons in general in the longer term, as economic dependence on the fossil fuels of dictators cannot bring longer-term stability.
On the Unprofessional Practices of the Russian Army: The Case of the Makiivka Attack and a New Call to Arms Detention
If the Russian account is accurate, it was the cell phones that the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately. The Ukrainian government did not give information on how the attack was executed. The implications are broader for how Russia is conducting its war now.
President Putin called for a truce days after the Russians were killed in the Syrian civil war. The move was seen as a cynical attempt to gain breathing space for Russian forces who are having a bad start to the year.
Russian officials said four Ukrainian-launched rockets hit the school where the forces were housed, next to the arms depot. (Another two HIMARS rockets were shot down by Russian air defenses).
Compounding the problem, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said after the recent Makiivka strikes that “the Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate.”
Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow for the Defense Program and co-head of the Gaming Lab at the Center for New American Security in Washington, has told me that Russia’s failure to break up or move large arms depots is largely a function of the reality that their forces cannot communicate adequately.
It’s a view shared by other experts. James Lewis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in an e-mail that bad security communications are standard practice in the Russian Army.
The killings of conscripts in Makiivka are indicative of a larger picture of Russian troops being shipped to the front lines without proper training and with weapons that are very sub-standard.
Some of the most recent arrivals to the war are inmates freed from Russian prisons, and then transferred to theUkrainian front. One can only imagine how appealing the use of cell phones would be to prisoners accustomed to years of isolation with little or no contact with the outside world.
Semyon Pegov, who writes under the name WarGonzo and was granted the Order of Courage by President Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the Ministry of Defense for its attempts to blame the troops for their own use of cell phones.
He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/russia-makiivka-deaths-cell-phones-andelman/index.html
How long can the blame for Ukraine be in the wake of Makiivka, and what can the West say about Russia? The case of Sergei Shoigu
How long Putin can insulate himself and prevent the blame from turning on himself is the key question in the wake of Makiivka. As the war enters a new year, there isn’t any indication that Ukrainian forces want to decrease their pressure on Russians in the east or south.
The defense ministry had a change in leadership a month ago, when the deputy defense minister became the butcher of Mariupol. The location of the arms depot would have been on Mizintsev’s watch.
Still, Putin-favorite Sergei Shoigu remains defense minister — as recently as Saturday, before the Makiivka attack, telling his forces in a celebratory video: “Our victory, like the New Year, is inevitable.”
There seems to be no chance that the West will allow itself to be distracted by its support for Ukraine. Both the US and increasingly Europe, which recently committed to raising its funding by $2 billion in 2023, appear determined to see Ukraine through this winter and beyond.
Just this week, the Biden administration announced the US was considering dispatching Bradley armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine. Light tanks will been sent by the French President, even though Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky wants heavier battle tanks. All of which puts German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under increasing pressure to add its powerful Leopard 2 tanks to the mix.
Putin war on Ukraine: an anniversary of the first 100 years of the Russian war on earth, a reminder to come back to Kyiv
I was supposed to go to Kyiv in February 2022, but I did not. We had to stay in Moscow after my husband broke his shoulder. The surgery happened at 9:00 a.m.
The next morning my phone was buzzing from all the messages and missed calls. A red headline in all caps on the Kyiv Independent website read: “PUTIN DECLARES WAR ON UKRAINE.”
In the space of a year, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions more. It has unleashed unfathomable atrocities, decimated cities, driven a global food and energy crisis and tested the resolve of western alliances.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/opinions/one-year-anniversary-putin-war-ukraine-russia-wrap-opinions-ctpr/index.html
The first folk hero: Vladimir Zygar is a hero for the most ultraconservative part of Russian society, and if so, when did we go to Berlin?
February 23, 2022, is Zaporizhzhia. I went to bed thinking that I would celebrate my husband’s birthday the next day. Our life was getting better. My husband was running his own business. When our daughter started school she made friends there. We were lucky to have arranged support services and found a special needs nursery for our son. I had time to work. I felt happy.
Completely exhausted, crushed and scared, we had to brace ourselves and come to terms with our forced displacement. I would like to thank the many people that helped us arrive in Prague and adjust to a foreign land.
My husband got a job after he was provided opportunities by the Czech Republic. I found a classroom for my son. He now attends an adaptation group for Ukranian children. My daughter goes to a Czech school while studying in her Ukrainian school remotely.
“He’s the first folk hero (in) many years,” Zygar said. “He’s a hero for the most ultraconservative – the most, I would say, fascist – part of Russian society, as long as we don’t have any liberal part in Russian society, because most of the leaders of that part of Russian society have left, he’s an obvious rival to President Putin.”
We were woken in the morning to find that the invaders were starting. 12 Russian writers, directors, and cultural figures signed an open letter rejecting the war. Soon it was published, and tens of thousands of Russian citizens added their signatures.
We moved to Berlin. The refugee camp next to the railway station had thousands of Ukrainians arriving every day, and my husband went to work at it as a volunteer. A new book was being written by me. This is how it begins:
The Great Empire that Russia has Built – What Have We Learned in the Last Three Months? How Ukrainians Have Been since the First Russian Revolution
I am certain that the Russian people are affected by imperialism. We failed to spot just how deadly the very idea of Russia as a “great empire” was – now we have to come a long way, healing our nation from that disease.
This whole year has been full of tears and worries. I read stories about how Russians killed people that were close to me, like a teammate or the director of a sports school.
If anything, for me, the son of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada, this has been a war of history repeating itself – from the forced deportation of upwards of 2.5 million Ukrainians, including 38,000 children, to the stealing of Ukrainian grain to the wanton destruction of Ukrainians museums, libraries, churches and monuments.
The darkness in my father’s eyes is what keeps me from hearing the stories of my relatives who were shipped off to the Soviet Union after the Russian invasion. The stories of millions of Ukrainians who didn’t survive Stalin’s famine of 1932-33.
What’s changed since Russian missiles first began falling on February 24, 2022? The Ukrainians have taken to standing up to the rockets and drones with more anger than fear.
A year into the full-scale invasion, my passport is a novel in stamps. My life is split between London, where I teach Ukrainian literature, and Ukraine, where I get my lessons in courage.
My former classmates from Zaporizhzhia whom, based on our teenage habits, I expected to perish from addictions a long time ago, have volunteered to fight. I expected my hairdresser, a sweet summer child, to stay in the town, but instead she ran away on foot with her mother, grandmother, and five dogs.
The capital of Russia, which was to fall in three days, has stayed safe because of terrorist bombings and energy-saving measures. These dark winter nights, one sees so many stars over Kyiv which the Russians have only managed to bring closer to eternity.
It seems like since February 21st, we have experienced several eras. The first time was when Putin got more than 80% approval from the population after a period of stagnant ratings.
He canceled the future by aborting the past. Those who were disoriented, preferred to support Putin: it is easier to live this way when your superiors decide everything for you, and you take for granted everything you are told by propaganda.
For me personally and my family, what happened was a catastrophe to which it is impossible to adapt. As an active commentator on the events, I was labeled by the authorities as a “foreign agent,” which increased personal risk and reinforced the impression of living in an Orwellian anti-utopia.
On February 23, I washed my dog, cleaned the house, and took a bath. I have a cozy, one-bedroom apartment in a northern district of Kyiv. I loved taking care of it. I liked the life I had. All of it – the small routines and the struggles. That night was the last time my life mattered.
I talked to my colleagues about getting a small army of volunteers to help strengthen the newsroom. My parents need to organize buying supplies.
The life I knew was falling apart, starting with the small things. It no longer mattered what cup I used to drink my morning tea, or how I dressed, or whether or not I took a shower. Life was unimportant, only the battle mattered.
It was hard to remember the happy moments of the pre-war era when the full-scale invasion occurred just a few weeks ago. I could no longer relate to the person I was upset about. My life was stolen on February 24, and it did not change.
My initial shock and fear turned into a desire to participate in sports. Athletes could fight against Russian propaganda in the best way. We just had to tell the truth about the war and Ukrainians – how strong, kind and brave we are. How we have united to defend our country.
I was no longer concerned with my personal ambitions. The common goal was to raise our flag and make clear that we are doing what we can.
I didn’t like my victories on the track. They were only possible because so many defenders had laid down their lives. I got messages from soldiers on the frontline. It was my primary motivation to keep working, and they were happy to follow our achievements.
The Great Patriotic War is Coming: How Russians fought the First Siege on Stalingrad and where to send them to the Front. Vladimir Putin and the Russians in Volgograd
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is fond of a phrase, “the wonderful Russia of the future,” his shorthand for a country without President Vladimir Putin.
Since last February’s invasion, Putin has shrugged off protests and international sanctions. Independent media and human rights groups have been branded as foreign agents or shut down entirely.
Putin visited the southern Russian city of Volgograd on February 2 to mark the 80th anniversary of the soviet victory at Stalingrad, which was considered by the Russians a turning point in the Great Patriotic War.
“Those who draw the European countries, including Germany, into a new war with Russia – and all the more irresponsibly declare this as a fait accompli – those who expect to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield, apparently do not understand that a modern war with Russia will be completely different for them,” he warned.
“A return to rapid warfare with tanks ruins this new strategy that Russia has just set its sights on,” Baunov wrote. New people might be needed to hold the front.
Exactly why this is risky should be clear: The first mobilization caused major tremors in Russian society. Hundreds of thousands of Russians voted with their feet. Police faced off against anti-mobilization demonstrators in multiple cities in the ethnic minority region of Dagestan where protests erupted. There was a flurry of videos and complaints about how the new recruits were being treated.
But Wagner’s methods are also a flashback to a bleak chapter of Soviet history. Prigozhin has recruited thousands of prisoners with the promise of amnesty or a pardon, a practice that mirrors Stalin’s use of penal battalions and convicts to take on desperate or suicidal missions in the toughest sectors of the front, using human-wave attacks to overwhelm enemy defenses, regardless of the human cost.
“There have been a lot of changes (in Russia), but I can’t really make a difference,” said Ira, a 47-year-old who works for a business publication. “I just try to keep some internal balance. Maybe I’m too apolitical, but I don’t feel it (further mobilization) is going to happen.”
Ira said she felt acute anxiety in February and March of last year, immediately after the invasion. She was worried she wouldn’t pay her mortgage because she hadn’t yet bought an apartment.
She said that it got worse in the spring. We seem to have gotten used to a new reality. I started to meet and go out with girlfriends. I decided to buy a lot more wine.
She stated that the restaurants were full but that the faces were different. The hipsters – you know what hipsters are? – There are fewer of them.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html
Russia’s economic situation during the first eight months of the Cold War, and the prospects for a G-Class model of Western-style autonomy in the next decade
Olya, a 51-year-old events organizer with two teenage children, said her family had opted for more domestic holidays. Europe is largely closed to direct flights from Russia, and there are more limited opportunities to travel abroad.
Despite the war, life continues, Olya said. “I can’t influence the situation,” she said. Friends of mine say, we do what we can. It doesn’t help to get depressed.”
Helping matters for the Russian government is the unexpected durability of parts of the Russian economy, despite heavy Western sanctions. The war has been costly for the government – the country’s Finance Ministry recently admitted it ran a higher-than-expected deficit in 2022, in large part due to a 30% increase in defense spending over the previous year – but the International Monetary Fund is projecting a small return to GDP growth for Russia in 2023 of 0.3%.
Those who reorganized quickly were able to see growth. We had an unusual number of deals in January, and the activity usually picks up in February.
He said that everything has stayed the same, even regarding the cutoff of Western imports. “If we’re talking parts for a (Mercedes Benz) G-Class, it might be trickier.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/europe/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-intl-cmd/index.html
A Comment on “The State of the State” by L. E. Macaulay and R. Vlasov, Phys. Lett. A. McCann, B. C. Schroedinger
He looked for other sources of information and was skeptical of state media. He acknowledged that he could possibly be called up in the next wave.