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Ukraine: What’s Happening, What Might Be Next
This post is intended to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, as for instance BDB’s poll on support for weapons/troops for Ukraine.
What’s Happened
The MSM has been saturated with news of a hurricane that might be blamed on Republicans somehow, and a pipeline explosion that might be blamed on anyone, or sheer incompetence, depending on your favorite theory. So the operational details of what’s been happening in Ukraine after the big breakthrough East of Kharkiv may have disappeared unless you’ve been specifically tracking them (I have). So, a quick recap of the last couple of weeks:
Ukraine went into a short operational pause in the Kharkiv / north Luhansk area, presumably to resupply and reorganize.
Russia kept banging away on the Donetsk front, making little progress and continuing to lose troops and equipment.
Ukraine kept banging away in the Kherson area west of Dnipro, also making little apparent progress and expending a lot of HIMARS and other ammo blowing up bridges and Russian supply dumps and headquarters.
Things started moving quickly again last week. In the northeast, the Ukrainians managed to surround the town of Lyman, a rail and road hub. There were between 500 and 5,000 Russians and proxy troops trapped there, depending on who you believe. Some or most of the Russians may have made it out, losing a lot of equipment. The final retreat, mostly by LPR proxy troops, apparently became a slaughter by Ukrainian artillery, mines, and light recon forces. There’s plenty of video evidence of the latter out there, don’t go looking unless you’re ready for it. I’ll drop a link to a text-only report by an American volunteer in one of the recon teams, but you still don’t want to read it near meal or bedtime.
After the Lyman episode, the Russian front north of there is being pushed back daily. Some of this may be planned/controlled withdrawal, some seems to be a collapse. The Ukrainians now appear to control the important road between the towns of Svatove and Kreminna in Luhansk oblast.
Over the weekend, the Kherson front suddenly erupted. The Ukrainians punched in between several towns in the northeast of the oblast, west of a large reservoir on Dnipro, and have pushed the Russians back some tens of kilometers. The advance appears to be continuing. As of today, the Russians abandoned another portion of that front (Davydiv Brid) to avoid a possible envelopment. Again, this appears to be some combination of collapse and planned withdrawal.
Both of these fronts are moving daily, best followed in real time. A sampling of reporting sites: Most speculative, kinda conservative, really conservative. These are all more-or-less the Ukrainian view. For Russian side reports, try here.
Some of the ‘mobiks’ from the chaotic Russian mobilization have appeared at the front. Mobik prisoners have been taken, and the dead recovered. There are video reports and call intercepts reporting mobiks being dropped off along the front with little or no supplies or communications.
What Might Happen
A pattern of Ukrainian operations is emerging. They are pushing recon/sabotage teams in between Russian-occupied towns and strongpoints, followed by light mechanized forces heavily armed with anti-armor weapons and backed with artillery and rocket fire. These threaten to envelop a major position, leading the Russians to fall back to protect their flanks, or potentially become surrounded. For what it looks like from the POV of the scouts, this series of reports from the same volunteer I linked above gives a sample.
The UA is managing this because the Russians can no longer man a continuous line at the front. This implies that the larger numbers of casualty reports for Russia are credible. It’s also visible that some of Russia’s most elite formations have been shredded (‘heavily degraded’ is apparently the term of art) in the process. It also makes some ‘sense’ of the reports of untrained mobiks being dropped off with little support along the front. These poor [CoC] are being used as human trip wires to slow down the penetration by Ukrainian scouts and light forces.
The Russians left the mobilization too late to assemble a credible, trained, and equipped reserve force. They are being used as cannon fodder to delay Ukraine. Local Russian reserves have apparently been committed and defeated in Kharkiv/Luhansk and Kherson. This suggests Ukraine can continue to advance.
On the other hand, the fall mud season (rasputitsa) is beginning, which will slow everything down. Recent videos have shown muddy but still firm secondary roads in the north (Kharkiv/Luhansk), but there’s been enough rain that it’s likely armor would now bog down off-road. Roads in the south (Kherson) appear to be dry still.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Ukrainian attempt to punch much deeper into Luhansk, probably towards the key logistics center of Starobilsk, before the mud really sets in.
There are recurrent rumors of Ukraine preparing a third offensive, this one to punch South towards Melitopol and then Crimea. I haven’t seen any actual evidence of such, including from those who are buying up satellite photos. And it’s just what I’d spread around if I were the Ukrainians, to convince the Russians to keep reserves there while the other fronts collapse. But I could be wrong…
Published in Foreign Policy
Democracy vs autocracy might be one of the reasons, but not the only reason, that various nations are supporting Ukraine and are not supporting Russia.
Today North Korea fired a missile near Japan and this isn’t the first time this has happened.
If many people within nations that have representative government notice that it is dictatorships, not other nations that have representative governments, that are always harassing nations with representative governments, this would provide a practical reason to support democracy over autocracy.
Sure, but when you elect someone who then proceeds to do the exact opposite of what they campaigned on, to the advantage of the West but to the disadvantage of the citizens of his country, then there’s likely a systemic issue rather than just ‘politicians don’t always do what they say they will’.
Do you think banning other political parties and essentially taking over all the media houses functioning in the country might have an impact on free and fair elections?
You see significant moral goods? I see fraud.
It’s not a systemic issue in that case. It’s simply a case of one politician disappointing people, a problem that can be resolved in the next election contest.
Zelensky is very popular today, even among the people of Eastern Ukraine.
People in Ukraine have access to all kinds of media, including social media and media sources based outside of Ukraine. It’s not like Ukrainians are living in Putin’s Russia where if you write a few books critical of Putin you end up dead.
You see fraud. I see representative government and significant moral goods as a result.
Latest news:
Germany announces new weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
The weapons package provide to Ukraine by Germany will include the IRIS-T air defense system and 100 tanks from Greece and Slovakia.
If he keeps doing that, in return for foreign funds, that’s exactly what it is.
That’s great. Which of the banned political parties will dissenters be able to vote for? So that the election is meaningful in terms of options.
Oh, it’s so offensive for me to present information that is pertinent to the discussion. That’s like . . . abuse isn’t it?
I know. It’s why when Ricochet finally joins the civilized internet, he’ll be one of the first on my plonk list.
In the next election, Zelensky’s party won’t be the only one that voters can choose from.
Does Kolominsky have other candidates lined up?
1. “… you have a representative government (Ukraine) …”.
Nonsense.
Ukraine has been a semi-dysfunctional state since its inception as an independent nation 30 years ago, to-ing and fro-into between some authoritarian cabal in charge of its government plundering the country’s resources and some other rival authoritarian cabal who wanted to be the ones doing the plundering. A state of affairs that, to be sure, has been exacerbated and perpetuated by the geopolitical gamesmanship between Russia and the U.S. in their struggle (reminiscent of Cold War days) to make sure that Ukraine is their client-state. Add to all that all sorts of really, really complicated regional ethnic resentment dynamics that go back hundreds of years, and … well, describing Ukraine as simply a country with representative government is either woefully uninformed or egregiously misleading.
2. “… a dictatorship (Putin’s Russia). … Saddam Hussain and Putin are nearly identical in that respect. …”.
Yet more nonsense. Is Putin an authoritarian/strong-man leader of the type that the Russian people’s history and therefore culture and therefore politics keep producing and help get to the top? Most certainly. Is Putin “nearly identical” to Saddam Hussein, however? Of course not. That’s sheer facile poppycock.
Putin is a heck of a lot closer to Lee Kuan Yew type authoritarianism than to Saddam Hussein (let alone Castro, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.) type totalitarianism.
Oh? Will he unban the real opposition and allow it to compete against him? Will he allow media house independence? Because unless he does that the elections will be form without substance.
LOL.
Considering how the United States harasses other countries, I guess it is an autocracy.
I laughed so hard I almost spilled my coffee….
Putin’s Russia is much like North Korea.
Ukraine is closer to South Korea.
No one knows the future, in any country.
We do know from the past that Ukraine has a government that is representative while Russia is governed by the same former KGB agent for the past 20 plus years.
Good luck trying to vote Putin out of office.
Zelensky is very popular in Ukraine, including Eastern Ukraine. So, I would not be surprised at all if Zelensky wins re-election.
Z also indicated he wanted to join NATO – NATO country at Russia’s door? Some months after……invasion.
Yes. And many of the NATO countries have indicated that they want Ukraine to be accepted into NATO.
Ukrainians have proven themselves very skilled at beating the pulp out of Putin’s military. Welcome aboard, Ukraine!
It certainly had such an impact in Russia.
So why would the impact be different in Ukraine?
If he was truly that popular he wouldn’t need to ban the opposition or take control of all the media houses in Ukraine.
And yet, somehow, NATO keeps rejecting Ukraine’s applications. It’s a mystery, I guess.
To be fair I think the aspiration to join NATO is actually in the Ukrainian Constitution (now). Just wiki, but:
So there’s that.
The wiki article goes into some detail re the fluctuation of support for joining NATO within Ukraine, but it doesn’t specify how Crimea and parts of Donbas de facto exiting the country influenced this. As more pro-Russian people are functionally separate then the remaining anti-Russian people’s proportion automatically rises, even if nobody changes their mind (which they almost certainly do over a decade).
Zelensky is popular. Zelensky got elected.
I’m not trying to convince you that Ukraine is Switzerland or Denmark or Iowa (a state in the US).
What I am arguing is that Ukraine is in a very significant way better than Russia and the best way to summarize why Ukraine is significantly better than Russia is that it has representative government.
Is it perfect? Heck no. But we are talking about a conflict between democracy (Ukraine) and autocracy (Putin’s Russia).
It’s not surprising that other nations that have representative governments are backing Ukraine, not Putin’s dictatorship.
If the actions were of the same quality, they might not have a different impact. I doubt that they do, though, although I do find it fascinating that Putin likes to accuse Ukrainians of whatever wrongdoing he himself is doing.
Zelensky’s platform (peace with Russia) was popular. Hence he was elected.
Peace with Russia might still be a popular platform in Ukraine.
Representative government is certainly better than non-representative government. How representative Ukraine’s government is today remains arguable. I think it is a lot less representative, de facto, than you keep claiming.
Yup, that’s why we back Sisi but didn’t back Morsi. Or Juan Guaido and not Maduro. If one looks at the world since the 1960s it becomes really apparent.
Why? Based on what data or information?
Did you think Zafar didn’t know what Iowa was? How . . . odd. Odd enough to get my antennas up.
I just know it’s in the Mid West somewhere. So not 100% familiar. Not next to Indiana, that I do know.
Polls show that Ukrainians do not want to give land to Russia in exchange for peace. Ukrainians agree with Zelensky on this, or more accurately, Zelensky is reflecting Ukrainian opinion in rejecting giving into Putin’s extortion.
As I see it, for Ukraine to qualify as having a representative government, Ukraine does not need to pass all of the tests that you have presented. Would it be better if Ukraine did pass all of the tests that you have presented? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe a bit of each.
Still, even a nation that has a flawed, imperfect representative government is still far superior to Putin’s brutal dictatorship. No wonder Ukrainians find the current, imperfect, flawed Ukraine worth fighting for. Also, notice how many Russians, when “mobilized” by Putin, decided to leave Russia.
That is another indicator that, to put it simply, Ukraine is on the morally good side of this conflict.
Yes. But in this particular conflict about 30 or so nations with representative governments are backing Ukraine.
It’s not like Denmark and Italy are backing Ukraine while the Netherlands and Norway are backing Russia.
The only countries that are supplying significant weapons to Russia are Iran and North Korea. That should be another hint that Russia is on the morally bad side of this conflict.
I could have left that explanation out. But I didn’t want to assume that someone who has never lived in the United States would know about a state like Iowa.
I didn’t say that. And if you do things like that, you might wonder what grounds you have for complaining about the style of responses you get from others.