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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
Hi HW, I lived in the US for ten years (a long time ago – it’s where I received my education). I appreciate your intention.
Exactly.
This is a country where the opposition is banned, the government controls all media houses and there is significant risk to not supporting the government line. You’ll forgive me if I have my doubts about these polls’ veracity.
I’ve mentioned my colleague’s first hand reporting of the opinions of Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia (blame Zelensky, not Putin).
Not exactly the same group (in Ukraine vs refugees in a country with freedom of expression) but worth considering.
How low is your bar?
It could be a meaningful comparison if Ukraine allowed military aged men to leave – which it does not.
Countries prosecute their own interests. It is in the US Administration’s interests to support (undemocratic) Sisi and oppose (democratically elected) Morsi. It is in the US Administration’s interests to support Zelensky. The common factor is perceived national interest.
??
Are you arguing that Zelensky has not banned opposition parties? That he does not control all Ukrainian media houses? That this time, unlike all the other times in history, these actions will not damage Ukrainian democracy?
In the United States, in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, George W. Bush’s approval rating rose to 91 percent. Prior to 9-11, George W. Bush’s approval rating was about 47 to 51 percent. After the memory of 9-11 faded, GWB’s aproval rating settled back to where it was.
I do think that leaders of nations do often enjoy a rise in popularity when the nation is confronted with a crisis. This is often called a “rally around the flag effect.”
I think Zelensky is enjoying a rally around the flag effect.
Worth considering. But since I am learning about this person from you, in an online forum, this sort of second hand, anecdotal information isn’t very persuasive to me.
My bar is low enough such that I think Ukraine has jumped over it. That said, it would be great if, once having defeated Putin’s murderous venture, Ukraine improved its government.
What I am saying is that it is interesting how the only countries that perceived it as in their national interest to provide weapons to Putin’s Russia are North Korea and Iran while dozens of nations with representative governments perceive it as in their national interest to provide military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Perhaps it has something to do with Putin being a brutal dictator and Ukraine being a struggling nation with a representative government. Also, the fact that Putin invaded Ukraine while Zelensky did not order an invasion of Russia could have something to do with this too.
Either way, it’s easy to conclude that the Ukrainians are in the right to want Putin’s military ejected from Ukrainian territory so that Putin’s military can’t murder more Ukrainians than they already have. Perhaps the people in Europe and Canada and Japan look at the Ukrainians suffering under Putin’s murderous campaign and have informed their governments that they don’t want Putin’s behavior rewarded. Maybe.
Do you think their relationship with the US Administration comes into it? How many countries who have bad relations with the US are supporting Ukraine or opposing Russia?
This gets to the question of why various countries want good relations with the US.
Take Denmark as an example. Sure, Denmark could drop out of NATO and join in a military alliance with China. But most Danes would probably reject being allied with a regime as awful as that of China. If you are a candidate for parliament in Denmark, running on a platform of “I will break our alliance with NATO and form a military alliance with China,” is probably a recipe for electoral defeat.
Imagine running for parliament in Japan on the platform of getting the US military out of Japan and inviting North Korea’s military into Japan for protection. That’s not going to be very popular among Japanese voters.
Why? Because of the nature of North Korea’s regime.
So, you are right that most of these nations do not want bad relations with the US. But that’s because the US and these other nations are similar in the sense that they have representative governments, not awful dictatorships. If you are a voter in Poland, you don’t want a military alliance with Putin, who wants to put you in the grave, but would rather have an alliance with the US who will allow you to live.
Again. Democracy vs. Autocracy.
Do you think Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela?
Who doesn’t want good relations with the world’s largest Superpower?
I’m sure that China and Russia would prefer to have good relations with the US, all else being equal.
But awful dictatorships also want good relations with the US, all else being equal. It isn’t about being similar, it’s about the US being richer and more powerful than most other countries.
Most places prefer good relations with rich and powerful countries. It’s only when their own vital interests are in conflict with the US’ agenda that they don’t strive for this.
Iran is arguably more democratic – or if you prefer, has a more representative government – than Saudi.
Venezuela ditto.
So why aren’t they automatically aligning with the US? Why has completely undemocratic Saudi aligned with the US for so many years?
Yes. Certainly more legitimate than Guaido.
US-China relations aren’t as good as US-Japan relations. That, I think is because of the democracy vs autocracy divide.
The US doesn’t want China to invade Taiwan. Taiwan doesn’t want China to invade Taiwan. Japan doesn’t want China to invade Taiwan.
So, it isn’t surprising that the US sells more weapons to Taiwan than it does to China.
Sure. But I think if you are living in Poland, the choice between having American soldiers on your soil and having Russian soldiers on your soil is an easy choice, a choice between life and death.
Why doesn’t North Korea want US soldiers on US soil? Because the North Korean dictator doesn’t want the US to use its military power to impose representative government on North Korea.
Japan, on the other hand, allows the US military on its soil to protect itself from North Korea (dictatorship) and China (dictatorship).
Why did Saudi Arabia allow the US military on its soil during the 1990s? Because they wanted protection against Saddam Hussain’s regime. Today Saudi Arabia wants protection against Iran’s brutal theocratic regime (Saudi Arabia’s regime is brutal and theocratic too).
I suppose Saudi Arabia could have asked the Russians or the Chinese to protect them against Saddam Hussain and later Iran. Perhaps that wasn’t an attractive option?
That answer of yours explains quite a bit.
I think it’s because the US defeated Japan completely and put in place a dispensation that had a more constrained understanding of Japan’s vital interests than the pre-war (and during war) government there had.
I’m not certain, but I think the US wrote the Japanese constitution, which enshrines the principle of non-agression – that’s why Japan has a self-defence force rather than an army. (Semantics?) This built ongoing dependence on the US into the Japanese system while facilitating US bases off the coast of Asia.
And to be fair – the US won the war. What were they going to do, set Japan free to make alliances with other countries?
It was dependent on the US for defence – and may still be. At the end of the day what else was it going to do?
Russia was a mess in the 1990s (the Soviet Union had just collapsed). China wasn’t strong enough yet.
But tell me – why did the US put its troops in Saudi then? Or keeps them currently in Bahrain? Neither of these places are democracies.
It’s good to test each other’s assumptions.
I know there has been some banning of opposition parties that have greater loyalty to Putin than to Ukraine. Perhaps it goes further than that, too. I am not familiar with the details.
But I recall that the United States was very harsh on German-speaking populations in the U.S. during WWI (some of my relatives felt it greatly), outlawing the use of the language in public and in church services in some states where the governors fully cooperated with the Wilsonian regime. Lots of repressive stuff happens in wartime. These things were undone later. Sometimes wartime restrictions never go away. Roosevelt’s New Dealers didn’t want restrictions on the freedom of private business to go away when the war was over, but they did.
I think wartime restrictions in Ukraine will go away a lot more easily than wartime restrictions in Russia. There are Russians who are afraid the restrictions in Russia will not go away, that it’s a one-way ratchet. You could ask the people who are lined up at the borders to get out of Russia. I imagine if you ask around you might find people in Ukraine who feel the same way about their country. You probably can’t find any lines of people escaping Zelensky’s government trying to get into Poland or Romania, but maybe Herr Putin could provide us with a list of such people. There are some who fled to Russia; maybe he’d let us go interview them.
We can keep going with this ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ type stuff, but what’s the point if we want to have a conversation?
Perhaps, and perhaps not. What makes you think this will happen in Ukraine? Last time the government reflected the different opinions across Ukraine there was a colour “revolution”. Why would future diversity be treated any differently, especially if there’s a critical mass of voters who want good relations with Russia?
There’s nothing stopping mainstream media houses from going to Russia and doing just that. The reason they aren’t, I suspect, is that the results would be unfortunate for today’s dominant narrative.
The US defeated Japan and did play a role in drafting Japan’s constitution. However, if the Japanese public really wanted to invade the Philippines again, the Japanese public could elect politicians on that political platform, amend their constitution (or toss it out and replace it with a new constitution).
But the Japanese people don’t want to go back to days when they were cold-blooded killers. They rather prefer the free society, a society very similar to American society, with cultural differences.
Originally, the US put its troops in Saudi to prepare for the 1990-1991 Gulf War, to expel Saddam Hussain’s military from Kuwait and to defend Saudi Arabia from being attacked by Saddam Hussain’s military.
What I saying, and this is a bit different than what you are saying, is that in a society that has representative government, the voters are likely to elect political leaders who will put their nations in alliances with other nations with representative government. This is a general principle and there are exceptions.
But it is important to understand why this is generally the way things turn out.
I listened to a podcast recently featuring a high ranking member of the Japanese government. He was interviewed by someone from the UK. The Japanese politician said that Japan has only one ally: The United States of America. The journalist from the UK asked if Japan was interested in forming alliances with any of the nations of Europe. The Japanese man’s answer was, “No. We have good relations with the UK. But we aren’t looking for other alliances.”
The Japanese people know that when they invite the US military to be located on Japanese soil, the US military isn’t going to load up the Japanese people and put them into mass graves the way that Putin’s military would.
Ukraine has had a series of competitive elections and they aren’t the kind of elections where the person in charge (the incumbent president) gets 99 percent of the vote.
In Putin’s Russia, trying to win an election against Putin is a recipe for getting killed or being put in the hospital and under house arrest.
Putin likes to kill journalists.
Also, Putin’s military has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainians. Putin is genocidal. No wonder Ukraine is so united in the effort to kick Putin’s military out of Ukraine.
I just found an article in Vox with this title: How Venezuela went from a rich democracy to a dictatorship on the brink of collapse.
Here is the start of it:
Well the next election is going to be one where the real opposition parties are banned. Make of that what you will.
They make fair points. Also to consider:
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21249203/venezuela-coup-jordan-goudreau-maduro-guaido-explain
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela
But they overstate ‘rich democracy’. Maduro’s predecessor, Chavez, was elected and remained pretty popular till his death because Venezuela was a deeply unequal country.
And it’s inconsistent to argue that Zelensky should be cut some slack with his democracy because the Ukrainian state is under attack but not take the same stance with Maduro when Venezuela is pretty much being crushed by sanctions.
Putin’s invasion in 2014 cured a lot of Russian-speaking fence-straddlers of any idea they could have both, and his invasion this year cured a lot more of them. The reason they are fighting is for independence and a path that would align them more with European freedom than with Russian authoritarianism. They are putting their lives on the line for a future of more freedom. When the war started, I didn’t know they were that determined on a future separate from Russia, nor did Joe Biden, but they have proven it many times over. It’s an amazing thing.
There is no way they can come out of a war as the same people as they were at the beginning. An authoritarian future is always a danger for any country coming out of a war. You could say that Britain and the U.S. are more authoritarian now than they were before WWII. But they did escape the level of authoritarianism that succumbing to Hitler would have brought about. As for Ukraine, I doubt that they are willing to throw away everything they are fighting for. (There are Ukrainian bloggers who are grateful for the help they are getting from some of the centralizing global organizations, while maintaining a healthy skepticism on whether those organizations are really where Ukraine’s future should lie. I find that very encouraging.)
Wait? The only real opposition parties are political parties connected with Putin? That’s a bit of hyperbole, I think.
But the main reason why those sanctions were imposed was because first Chavez and then Maduro were acting as authoritarians.
Chavez and Maduro have taken a nation that once was Latin America’s wealthiest nation, with its very large oil reserves, and transformed it into one of the poorest nations in Latin America.
Venezuela is now much like Cuba, except it’s a bit easier for Venezuelans to emigrate to Columbia.
But what does that have to do with us? That we impose sanctions for such idiotic reasons – and then you don’t think it is bullying is simply incredible.
Frankly, I think that John Bolton should be extradited to Venezuela for plotting a coup against the government.
The US sanctions oil producing countries if their governments are authoritarian? Okay.
(Send Saudi a memo.)
Here’s an insight:
So.
They happened because the wealthiest nation didn’t have the richest people.
One could think that the US sanctions were unjustified or at the least not consistent with US willingness to trade with Saudi Arabia. I wasn’t advocating US sanctions or sanctions placed by other nations in Latin America.
I think you were implying in a previous comment that Maduro’s authoritarianism was a result of economic sanctions while Zelensky’s alleged authoritarianism was a result of Putin’s invasion. I was pointing out that Chavez/Maduro authoritarianism came first while the sanctions were a response to the authoritarianism, not the reverse.
Most of the nations of the Western Hemisphere placed economic sanctions on Venezuela for the purpose of trying to weaken the Maduro regime and ultimately restore representative government in Venezuela.
Maybe it’s not an effective policy. We have placed economic sanctions on Russia too.
That’s you opinion. But that’s about all it is.
and those non rich people are poorer and less free than ever.
Chaves is widely believed to have looted a massive fortune during his rule-estimates range from$1B to $2B+ and Maduro has been following in his footsteps. All the while the average Venezuelan has lost 20 lbs of weight due to poverty. Their thievery alone should cause us to oppose them even if they weren’t aiding the Russians. Almost no other kleptocrats have managed to so immiserate their people.
https://www.news.com.au/world/south-america/children-of-venezuelas-elite-including-exleader-hugo-chavezs-daughter-flaunt-wealth/news-story/22af92afbb1a12ec841fa36348748a1f?amp
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/04/06/how-chavez-and-maduro-have-impoverished-venezuela
One could indeed say this was inconsistent at best.
No, I was trying to clarify that Venezuelans’ current economic situation is in part due to US sanctions.
But Saudi gets a pass. Perhaps there is more to it than an authoritarian government? If you go with national interest it is actually completely consistent.