Henrik Kindstedt
@HenrikKindstedt
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Replying to @sumlenny
Short list of the results of negotiations with Russia that it never respected:

1. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Russia agreed to “respect independence, sovereignty, and the existing borders of Ukraine” as well as “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. Breached by Russia invading Crimea in 2014.

2. The Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty of 1997. Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and “reaffirmed the inviolability of the borders” between the two countries. Russia breached it in 2014.

3. The OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999. Russia committed to withdrawing its troops from Moldova’s Transdniestrian region and Georgia until the end of 2002. That never happened.

4. The 2008 Georgia ceasefire agreement following Russian aggression against the country. Russia agreed that “Russian military forces must withdraw to the lines prior to the start of hostilities”. That never happened.

5. The Ilovaysk “Green Corridor” in August 2014 and other “humanitarian” death corridors. Russia pledged to let Ukrainian forces leave the encircled town of Ilovaysk in the east of Ukraine, but instead opened fire and killed 366 Ukrainian troops. In the following years, Russia attacked numerous humanitarian corridors in Syria.

6. The “Minsk” agreements of 2014 and 2015. Russia agreed to cease the fire in the east of Ukraine. There had been 200 rounds of talks and 20 attempts to enforce a ceasefire, all of which the Russian side promptly violated. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

7. The 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russia pledged to “provide maximum assurances regarding a safe and secure environment for all vessels engaged in this initiative." It then hindered the initiative's operation for months before withdrawing unilaterally a year later.

Above is only focused on deals made with Russia to address specific issues and conflicts. Not mentioning almost 400 international treaties that Russia has breached since 2014.

There are no conclusions to be drawn here, except that no one can seriously use the words "Russia" and "negotiations" in the same phrase. Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022.

Russia's tactic has remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: kill, grab, lie, and deny.

Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2024 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022? //

My theory is that it was released today because the Ukraine Peace Summit is kicking off tomorrow in Switzerland. Around 90 countries will be represented, but Moscow has declined to take part. I think Putin's speech was to underscore to the gathering that nothing they have to say matters, as Russia has its own agenda, making the outcome irrelevant.

The takeaway for the West should be that peace isn't possible without handing Putin a crushing defeat on the battlefield and devastating Russia's economy.
7:51 AM · Jun 14, 2024

Negotiations don't start from a position of maximalist demands unless you are able to enforce them. Even the alleged Putin confidants who talked to Reuters for the report admit that Putin is tired of the war and wants to move on.

Let me stop here for a moment and say that anyone who thinks five members of Putin's entourage talked to Reuters about Putin's personal position on peace talks without acting under orders from Putin to do so. Those people are a danger to themselves and to others. The fact that no one in the Kremlin has acknowledged this alleged cease-fire offer on the record tells you all you need to know about its seriousness.

This means that Russia is not only demanding to keep the territory it has overrun, but it is actually requiring Ukraine to relinquish more territory as a condition of negotiations. //

If we look at this offer as anything other than a propaganda ploy aimed at bolstering the spirits and imaginations of Putin's fan club in the West, we are probably idiots who deserve whatever comes next. //

The Russians are simply advancing a narrative ahead of the international peace conference Switzerland is hosting on June 15-16.

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. All the Russian proposal does, to the extent it is even a serious proposal, is reward Russia for criminal behavior, return control of Russian overseas assets to Moscow, remove war-related economic sanctions, and set the stage for another Russian invasion. Nothing in the Russian scheme is even vaguely just, and no sane government would consider it. Russia knows that and they don't want it considered, they want big social media accounts and some Republican Members of Congress and Senators to have talking points to advace Putin's agenda.

The bigger problem is the Biden Crime Family's close ties to the Chinese government, and because of those ties, Joe Biden is afraid of pushing the Chinese too hard. Calling them out for providing lethal aid to Russia could very well be a red line in Beijing's relationship with Joe, Jim, and Hunter. //

anon-aqgv Ed in North Texas
6 hours ago
Russia population: 144 million
Ukraine: 38 million

Which side do you think will run out of manpower first?

DaveM anon-aqgv
5 hours ago
1960:
US Population 173 Million
Vietnam Population 30 Million.

Which side do you think will run out of manpower first?

JSobieski anon-aqgv
5 hours ago edited
Population of American colonies in 1776: 2.5M

Population of Great Britain in 1776: 8M

Which side did YOU think ran out of manpower first?

JSobieski anon-aqgv
5 hours ago edited
Population of USSR in 1989: 286.72M

Poulation of Afganistan in 1989: 10.67M

Which side did YOU think ran out of manpower first?

JSobieski anon-aqgv
7 hours ago
Non-symmetrical demands for manpower, which shouldn't be too hard to understand.

Russia cannot apply 100% of its manpower to Ukraine, while Ukraine can and does apply 100% of its manpower to fighting Russia.

Russia has extended supply lines, while Ukraine does not.

Ukraine is fighting in its home territory, Russia is the invader.

These concepts are difficult to understand, but I get that some people just refuse to understand.

A great example of non-symmetrical warfare was 9/11. Fewer than 20 people with boxcutters shut down US airspace.

Dieter Schultz JSobieski
7 hours ago edited

These concepts are difficult to understand, but I get that some people just refuse to understand.

I keep recalling one of the most insightful comments I ever encountered on the web, namely: "And now we get to the crux of the matter, I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you."

If any of this sounds familiar, you need to think back to the Vietnam War and our policy of allowing the North Vietnamese Army to have "sanctuaries" in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. For most (maybe all) of that conflict, North Vietnamese Air Force fighters could not be attacked on the ground; they only became legal targets when airborne.

Though Ukraine is clearly able to use domestic weapons against targets in Russia, drones have their limitations. Because of US policy, Ukraine had to sit on its hands and wait for the Russians to cross the border rather than destroy units and equipment before they entered combat. I'm sure plausible arguments can be made that the White House and Pentagon are merely making recommendations, but there is no doubt that the Ukrainians are treating these recommendations as firm guidance, and the Russians are reacting accordingly. //

Since the one time Ukraine used US anti-aircraft missiles over Russian territory disjointed many noses in Washington, Ukraine has allowed Russia to launch glide bombs at Kharkiv and Ukrainian Army positions for the last five months with impunity. //

If the policy of the US is to bring this war to a conclusion, then the policy is an extremely stupid one. It allows Russia to strike Ukrainian population centers with impunity so long as the attack comes from Russian territory as recognized by the civilized world. Russia can mass troops and weapons on Ukraine's border at any point, and Ukraine is forbidden to attack them preemptively. They must let Russia strike first. If Biden's purpose is to drag the war out ad infinitum to maximize damage, slaughter, and political instability, then it makes sense. I'm not posing that alternative facetiously; as we saw during COVID, Biden and his appointees were willing to kill as many Americans as it took to impose policy preferences. There is no reason to think they hold Russian or Ukrainian lives in higher regard.

More disturbing is that we're seeing the return of Robert S. McNamara's Whiz Kids to policy making, only this time, we are using unqualified midwits and lackwits from the bowels of the Democratic foreign policy intelligentsia instead of legitimately smart people. They are trying to play cute "non-escalation" games that might be amusing in the faculty lounge after a few hits of some good Lebanese hash but which kill and cripple men, women, and children in Ukraine. Retreating to the establishment of sanctuaries where the Russians can train and stage operations is bizarre because we know that policy doesn't encourage negotiations; it encourages recalcitrance.

If we are serious about ending this war on terms acceptable to Ukraine and to our NATO allies, and that should be our only concern, then Russian forces and equipment must be put at risk inside Russian territory, and if it requires the use of American munitions to do that, then that's what we need to do.

Russia arrested Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov Tuesday on suspicion of large-scale bribery. Ivanov is one of 12 deputies reporting to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Ivanov, who was responsible for overseeing construction, property management, housing, and medical support for the military, was accused of running a "criminal conspiracy" in awarding military construction contracts that enriched him personally. //

According to Osechkin's sources, in 2021 Shoigu made Military Intelligence under the command of the General Staff fabricate countless reports for Putin which painted an apocalyptic picture: in the coming months NATO ground forces would enter Ukraine to de-occupy Donbas.

The false reports to Putin about NATO to instigate a crisis and a war to halt the investigation into their corruption worked, facilitating the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Shoigu and his mafia urgently needed this war.

Shoigu knows Putin well, and he was convinced Putin would not change horses midstream if they started a war against Ukraine. Not only did Shoigu manage to get rid of the 2021 corruption investigation against them by manipulating Putin, his MoD budget skyrocketed with the war.

Carey J Texas Vol Fan
12 hours ago
It will take Russia YEARS to rebuild what it has already lost, in Ukraine. Ukraine is wrecking the Russian Army for us, with our third-rate hand-me-down crap, and giving us an excuse to modernize our stuff. It's the best deal since the Dutch bought Manhattan Island for twenty-odd dollars worth of glass beads. //

Min Headroom llme Carey J
7 hours ago
Best deal: it certainly is, although Seward’s Folly was a pretty good deal too.

An unstated, but possibly beneficial side affect is that this spectacle might give Chairman Xi a little pause as well, although self deception might cause him to miss the lesson. //

Ready2Squeeze Min Headroom llme
an hour ago
Louisiana purchase should rate in there as well! //

Bryon Grosz
5 hours ago
Not for them, for us.

Opposing Russian aggression is in our interest just as opposing Chinese aggression or Iranian aggression. In a world full of evil, there are no good options, but you should still choose the least bad option.

Why us? Who else? It's us or no one. Some will follow our lead, but there is no one else capable and willing to lead in this regard.

The most likely system used here was the S-200, which first appeared in 1967 and was steadily upgraded over the years. Ukraine retired its S-200 batteries in 2013 but reactivated them in 2022. The system was designed to engage SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft and was nuclear-capable. //

streiff Walter Sobchak‘s doppelgänger
7 hours ago
one of the advances this war has brought about is that older SAMs are networked to state-of-the-art radar. The Patriot's radar can control S-300 and S-400 in addition to Patriot.

The veracity of their statements is of little import, mainly because their commentary is entirely detached from reality. What is clear is that the vote on the Ukraine aid package shook Kremlin insiders. That is what we should pay attention to for two reasons. First, the aid package is large enough that they are panicked, and second, they obviously thought the fix was in. The second item is something we should ponder. Are they getting their political intelligence from alt-right US social media accounts, or do they own someone who is telling them that?

Douglas Proudfoot
5 hours ago
Part of any Russian decision to use nuclear weapons has to be an evaluation of how likely it is that the weapons will actually work as designed, and how Russian soldiers will react.

The reliability of Russian military equipment and ammunition in Ukraine has been spotty at best. At least 10% of conventional Russian missiles misfire or fall short. Firing the nuclear versions of these weapons is not an attractive option. They could detonate in Russia or on Russian held Ukrainian territory.

The dud rate is also a problem. If Putin uses a nuke, and it fails to detonate, Putin gets huge embarrassment. The corruption rampant in the Russian military makes this outcome possible, even probable. Nuclear weapons require careful component storage and maintenance. They’re fragile. The overall Russian record on Russian military storage and maintenance is really poor. The weapons have to be assembled and readied by technical people who know what they’re doing.

If the Ukrainians pick up a Russian dud nuke, nothing will stop them from rebuilding it and using it on Belgorod, Russia. Ukraine most certainly has the knowledge to do it.

Few of the Russian troops in Ukraine have been issued any protection equipment for nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons. Some barely have complete uniforms and are using bolt action rifles designed for World War I. Hardly any have been trained for NBC. They are in no condition to suvive the use of NBC on the battlefield. They would most likely flee in panic from any use of NBC.

My guess is that beyond the usual risk considerations of nuclear retaliation, Putin has to worry, a lot, about the reliability of his nuclear weapons and soldiers. Combining all these risks, in my opinion, increases the uncertainty to the point that no rational Russian Commander in Chief would order a nuclear attack on Ukraine. Even if Putin isn’t completely rational, his subordinates definitely are. They could react to an order to use nukes by overthrowing Putin. //

And, very importantly, the gloves would come off; no more restrictions by US/NATO on what Ukraine can target and the West would supply more and better.

And don't forget the China angle. There is NO way China permits Putin to do this. A tac nuke strike by Putin would leave him out to dry b/c China's not stupid; China would almost certainly decouple from Russia. No way China allows its Long Game to be affected by Putin's stupidity.

That Biden would prop up Russia and throw Israel under the bus is just about as shocking as George H. W. Bush trying to keep the Soviet Union from imploding. These decisions are made by small men with inflated egos who are desperately afraid to do what is right because the new security paradigm will render their experience useless.

What isn't important here is that any of what Putin says is plausible, but, rather, that he says it. In the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.” //

A Ukrainian attack on a soft target like a concert, while not on the scale of the Russian attack on a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 16, 2022, that killed up to 600 civilians, could possibly create the national outrage needed to support increased mobilization.

Given the laser-like focus of the Russian government on blaming Ukraine, you can't help but recall the apartment block bombings in 1999 in Russia that killed over 300 and injured nearly 1,000. Those attacks were immediately blamed on Chechen guerillas, but it became clear that the FSB had carried out the bombings to create casus belli for the Second Chechen War.

To the extent this propaganda campaign is intended for the West, it will be used to justify increased attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Macron was asked about the prospect of sending Western troops to Ukraine, which he publicly raised last month in comments that prompted pushback from other European leaders. "We're not in that situation today," he said, but added that "all these options are possible."

Macron said that responsibility for prompting such a move would lie with Moscow – "It wouldn't be us – and said France would not lead an offensive into Ukraine. But he also said, "Today, to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak."

He said that the continent's security was "at stake" in the conflict which he said "is existential for our Europe and for France." He added that "if the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war."

He said there had been "too many limits in our vocabulary" since the Russian invasion in February 2022. "Two years ago we said we would never send tanks. We did. Two years ago, we said we would never send medium-range missiles. We did," he said. "Those who say 'let's not support Ukraine' do not make the choice of peace, they make the choice of defeat," he added. //

Inadvertently, Putin admitted what I and others have said all along. The only way to bring Putin to the negotiating table is to dangle the specter of a military defeat in front of him. This bullsh** of worrying about "off ramps" and "escalation" when Putin is clearly not interested in the first and unable to credibly do the second has increased the length of this war and its destruction. While Putin bears all the responsibility for the start of this war, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have much to answer for in how it has been conducted.

We constantly hear from pro-Russian voices on social media (like David Sacks) and in Congress (looking at you, JD Vance) that all that is needed to stop this war is for negotiations to begin on how much of Ukraine has to be surrendered to make Putin feel good about himself. We have the answer. There is no limit on the amount of territory that Russia declares to be its own.

In this speech by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council, he flat out says that Ukraine does not exist. //

As Lithuania's minister of foreign affairs noted:

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹 @GLandsbergis
·
Some people say NATO is no longer necessary while the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia stands in front of a huge map of the planned imperial conquest of Eastern Europe 🤷🏼‍♂️
1:03 PM · Mar 4, 2024 //

Again, a war that was conceived to dismember Ukraine and reduce the rump state to a Muscovite satrapy has expanded NATO and anchored Ukraine more firmly to the West than anything possible without the war.

The Russian propaganda outlet RT.com released a transcript Friday of senior German military officers discussing the deployment of the German Taurus stealth cruise missile to Ukraine.

Luftwaffe commander Ingo Gerhartz led the 38-minute call that took place on February 19 involved. Other participants were the German Air Force Head of the Operations and Training Section, Frank Graefe, a Luftwaffe Space Command Air Operations Center staff member, Stefan Fenske, and another staff from the center identified only by the surname Frostedte. The call was intercepted because General Gaefe, who was attending the biennial Singapore Airshow (sounds a lot like "hiking the Appalachian Trail"), participated in the discussion using an unsecured hotel telephone line. //

Divulging sensitive operational details in a call recorded by the SVR has caused a lot of problems for Scholz and Germany.

Germany's lack of seriousness in manning its armed forces and now in the way that it handles highly classified details is showing more and more EU nations that it can't look to Germany for competent leadership. The call, which apparently revealed Scholz's thinking on the subject of the Taurus missile that he hadn't shared with allies, foreign or domestic, has given his already flaccid credibility a body blow. This has caused France's Emanuel Macron to make a stab at wresting the leadership of the EU and European NATO from Germany. The tenor of the leaked conversation was one of lukewarm enthusiasm for assisting Ukraine with a strong shot of defeatism.

The long-term impact of the leaked conversation remains unclear. While it's unlikely to lead to an immediate shift in German policy, it has undoubtedly raised the stakes in the ongoing debate about military aid to Ukraine. The damage to diplomatic trust is very real, and the increased pressure from allies creates a complex situation for Scholz. Scholz's approval rate is roughly half that of Joe Biden (17%), and his coalition allies see self-preservation in jumping ship. However, Germany's constitution virtually guarantees that Scholz's government will continue to move zombie-like for the next two years when Germany's power and influence are sorely needed.

What is crystal clear is that this intelligence coup by the SVR has had a significant impact in dividing the pro-Ukraine coalition.

At Zelensky and Mitsotakis' joint meeting, Zelensky commented on the missile attack.

“They have either lost their minds, or they don’t have complete control over what their terrorist army is doing.”

Indeed, lobbing a ballistic missile into a city where a foreign head of government is visiting is the height of recklessness or indiscipline but totally on brand for the Russian Army.

Russia claims it was engaging in “a high-precision missile strike on a hangar in the industrial port area of Odesa where preparations were being made for the combat use of unmanned boats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” Precision, I suppose, is entirely in the eye of the beholder. //

olinka2022
5 hours ago
The last of the Mohicans still covering Ukraine

streiff olinka2022
5 hours ago
I'll be covering it until the last Russian is dead and composted.

Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the relationship between the citizens of the USSR and the government in this way.

We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country. //

As I've said many times, a stalemate tends to help Putin because his only strategy is to convince the West to accept defeat in Ukraine. It doesn't matter how many men Russia has available for conscription; Russia's ability to arm, train, and supply troops is limited, as is its ability to get them to the right place on the front at the right time with the right equipment. Ukraine's strategy is to continue to convince the West that it has the will to win. When you throw in Zelensky's relief of a popular commander-in-chief, you have a political imperative to chalk up a win somewhere.

On the whole, I don't think anyone predicted two years ago that the war would enter into a third year. I think most believed that Zelensky and his government would catch the first thing smoking (yes, Walsh, I owe you a beer for copyright infringement) for Zurich, and the Russians would easily carve up the country. I know I did. Since then, we've learned a lot. The big takeaway is that John McCain was right. Russia is a gas station with nukes. Its military is crap, and the command structure utterly corrupt. We've seen drones become a dominant weapon, even to the extent of driving Russia's Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol. We've seen that Western weapons and command and control methods are essential to winning battles. We've even seen that it takes a plausible threat to motivate Western countries to up their defense spending, not bullying and bluster. //

RoINTEL
@RoINTEL
·
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The German Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, warned, on Saturday, in a speech held at the Security Conference in Munich, that European countries and the #NATO alliance must prepare for a decades-long conflict with #Russia.
9:45 PM · Feb 17, 2024 //

The Russians are again claiming the aircraft were lost to friendly fire because Russian stupidity is a more palatable explanation than Ukrainian prowess.

In the words of Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

U.S. defense aid to Ukraine is not only bolstering the defense of a friendly nation but also creating jobs for American workers and revitalizing the defense manufacturing base that has been in a death spiral since 1992. According to an exhaustive meta-analysis of Ukraine defense spending in the Washington Post, well over 90 percent of the military-related aid provided to Ukraine is spent domestically. The spending has resulted in the opening of new production lines, increased operations at existing facilities, and thousands of direct and indirect jobs created. //

The end of the Soviet Union resulted in a bacchanalia of Department of Defense cuts. Not only were the military services offered up as Bill Clinton's "Peace Dividend," but a round of "cost savings" under the Base Realignment and Closure Program savaged facilities that had little peacetime use but would be critical in wartime. One of the major targets was government-owned, government-operated (GOGO) and government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) factories that built munitions and military hardware. Even those facilities that survived found themselves deprived of money for modernization and partially mothballed. The ammunition plants operate very much like they did during World War II. //

But this automated capability isn’t available for the nuances of mixing explosives or filling shells, Brig. Gen. Gavin Gardner, commander of Joint Munitions Command, told Defense News on a tour of the ammunition plant’s production line for the Mark 82, a 500-pound bomb used by the Air Force. Operators still manually mix explosives — like tritonal, which is 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder — using steam heated kettles, then adding it to the weapon mostly by hand.

That last sentence needs to be read carefully. The number of people alive who know how to steam-sweat tritonal and pour it into shell casings is in the low double digits. The number of those who are not Social Security recipients is a fraction of the total. With few facilities and limited production lines, providing a career path that would encourage someone to train for that job is very difficult. //

Another underlying problem is that the machine tool component of the defense industrial base is so decrepit that when we went to expand production of 155mm shells, we found we did not have the machine tools to build equipment for new production lines. //

As we've seen from the Israel-Hamas War, it is impossible for any friendly nation to defend itself without our assistance. Just three weeks into the war, Israel was making emergency calls for ammunition and equipment. What the Ukraine War is showing us is that we cannot help Taiwan provide a credible defense against China. Worse, we don't have the capacity to provide the United States military with the ammunition or equipment they would need to prevail should we end up in a shooting war with China.

If America’s foes quote critics of Biden, does it mean they’re wrong and their arguments can be dismissed? NR’s Jim Geraghty thinks so. //

Geraghty says if he ever wrote something that was quoted by Russian state media, he’d want to take a shower. Well then suds up, pal. Since 2018, Geraghty has been quoted at least five times by the state-run Russian television news network RT (here, here, here, here, and here) on topics ranging from intel leaks during the Afghanistan withdrawal, to social media censorship, to “Blade Runner” as an instruction manual for tyranny.

Not that Geraghty is special in this regard. RT is constantly talking about what NR writers have said, even on Ukraine. Here’s an RT post from June quoting Michael Brendan Dougherty, one of the few Ukraine war skeptics at NR, about low morale in the Ukrainian armed forces possibly causing problems in the planned counteroffensive (which never really materialized, so maybe Dougherty was on to something there). It seems RT has quoted or amplified National Review’s criticism of Biden and the Democrats hundreds if not thousands of times over the years, which is probably also true of every right-of-center publication that has been critical of the Obama and Biden administrations.

Do you know what that proves? Absolutely nothing. And only the most craven, dishonest hack would claim otherwise.