Ukraine Open Thread 2023-69

Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

The Rebirth Of The Axis of Evil

Twenty years ago the U.S. launched its war on Iraq. This proceeded by a massive propaganda campaign payed for and directed by the Pentagon.

Selling the Iraq War: a How-to Guide - Mar 23, 2023 - Jeffrey St. Clair / Counterpunch

According to the trade publication PR Week, the Rumsfeld Group sent “messaging advice” to the Pentagon. The group told Clarke and Rumsfeld that in order to get the American public to buy into the war on terrorism, they needed to suggest a link to nation states, not just nebulous groups such as al-Qaeda. In other words, there needed to be a fixed target for the military campaigns, some distant place to drop cruise missiles and cluster bombs. They suggested the notion (already embedded in Rumsfeld’s mind) of playing up the notion of so-called rogue states as the real masters of terrorism. Thus was born the Axis of Evil, which, of course, wasn’t an “axis” at all, since two of the states, Iran and Iraq, hated each other, and neither had anything at all to do with the third, North Korea.

Twenty years later we see the rebirth of that propaganda meme. First as a drip drip in rarely read magazines, then in rightwing mass media and into Congress. That then legitimates librul media to pick it up.

Cont. reading: The Rebirth Of The Axis of Evil

Ukraine Open Thread 2023-68

Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

The 'Junior Partner' Meme Gives No Insight To Real Changes

It is quite interesting how 'western' political memes are created and spread.

• China’s New Vassal - How the War in Ukraine Turned Moscow Into Beijing’s Junior Partner - Aug 9, 2022 - Foreign Affairs
• China used to be Russia’s junior partner. Ukraine changed that. - Feb 24, 2023 - MSNBC
• Russia Becoming China's 'Junior' Partner - Bolton - Mar 13, 2023 - MENAFN
• Fatalism is not an option for addressing China-Russia relations - Mar 17, 2023 - Brookings
  > China’s leaders appear guided by three top objectives in their approach to Russia. The first is to lock Russia in for the long term as China’s junior partner. <
• White House knocks Russia as China’s ‘junior partner’ - Mar 21, 2023 - Washington Post
  > Is Russia now a client state of China, a reporter asked National Security Council spokesman John Kirby at the daily White House briefing. “They certainly are the junior partner,” Kirby replied, a line sure to echo inside the Kremlin and at Chinese Communist Party headquarters. <

From an older piece in Foreign Affairs to an MSNBC opinion writer, then through warmonger Bolton and the librul Brookings think tank to the White House.

And from there it is all over the synchronized media:

• Meet China’s ‘junior partner’ - Mar 21, 2023 - Politico
• Xi Jinping-Vladimir Putin talks highlight Russia’s role as ‘junior partner’ to China - Mar 21, 2023 - Financial Times
• A Slim Rhetorical Wedge Could Drive China and Russia Apart - Mar 22, 2023 - DefenseOne
  U.S. officials must skip no opportunity to remind Moscow that it is Beijing's junior partner.
• A new cold war with Russia as junior partner and the US as a ghost of itself - Mar 22, 2023 - Digital Journal
• Xi's visit to Russia was humbling for Putin and showed how much China is dominant, experts say - Mar 22, 2023 - Insider
• Blinken dismisses Xi-Putin ties as ‘marriage of convenience’ - Mar 23, 2023 - AlJazeerah
  Blinken said Russia is “very much the junior partner” in the relationship and noted that China had so far declined to provide weapons to Moscow for its war in Ukraine.
• China's drive for a new global order leaves Putin in the back seat - Mar 23, 2023 - NBC News

> But what Xi’s visit mostly underscored, experts say, is how imbalanced the China-Russia relationship is becoming.

“It certainly shows Russia needing Beijing far more than the other way around,” said Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, who specializes in Chinese foreign policy. <

But is this really true? Is there really a 'junior partner' in the Russian Chinese relations? Does Russia really need China more than China needs Russia?

Well, who of two, Russia and China, has all the stuff that is needed for a modern life?

Cont. reading: The 'Junior Partner' Meme Gives No Insight To Real Changes

Ukraine Open Thread 2023-67

Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2023-66

News & views (not related to the war in Ukraine) ...

Ukraine SitRep - Avdiivka

Bakhmut is encircled. All roads in and out of it are under Russian artillery fire. Over the last three days fighting has largely stopped there. No one seems to know why the operation was halted.

There are unconfirmed claims that Ukraine is preparing a counterattack to free Bakhmut from its encirclement. That attack is supposed to go off as soon as the muddy ground has dried up a bit.

Meanwhile other encirclement has taken place in Avdiivka:

Avdiivka (Ukrainian: Авдіївка, IPA: [ɐu̯ˈd(j)ijiu̯kɐ]; is a city of regional significance in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The city is located in the center of the oblast, just north of the city of Donetsk. The large Avdiivka Coke Plant is located in Avdiivka. The city had a pre-war population of 31,392 (2022 est.); in August 2022, its population was estimated at 2,500.

Avdiivka was within the claimed boundaries of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, before Russia declared its annexation of the entire region in September 2022. During the war in Donbas, Avdiivka became a frontline city and saw a battle in 2017. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, heavy fighting led to Avdiivka being largely destroyed and most of its population having fled.

March 8, 2023

Source: LiveUAmap - bigger

Avdiivka is strongly fortified. Its coke plant is a strong-point. The Ukrainian army used the city to lob artillery into Donetsk city. But attempts to seize it were largely unsuccessful.

Two week ago the situation suddenly changed. The Russian airforce started to bomb Avdiivka with heavy glide bombs. At the same time an operations was launched to envelope the city from two directions.

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep - Avdiivka

Geopolitical Rumblings Leave U.S. Behind

Over the last month we have seen astonishing geopolitical developments.

In February China publicly lambasted U.S. hegemony, launched a global security initiative and offered a peace plan for Ukraine.

On March 10 China mediated an agreement which restored relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

On March 15 Moscow rolled out the red carpet for the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Yesterday al-Assad and his wife Asma arrived in the UAE for talks with Sheikh Mohammed

Also yesterday Iran and Iraq signed a security cooperation agreement that will stop the CIA sponsored Kurdish activities against Iran.

Also yesterday King Salman of Saudi Arabia invited the President of Iran to a visit in Riyadh.

For the last 30 years the U.S. considered the Middle East as its backyard. Twenty years ago it illegally invaded Iraq and caused 100,000nds of death and decades of chaos. Now China, by peaceful means,  changed the balance in the Middle East within just one month.

Today China's President Xi arrived in Moscow for three days of talks with Russia's President Putin. An article by President Putin was published in the People's Daily while Russian media published a signed article by President Xi.

The U.S. is afraid that China's peace initiative for Ukraine will gain ground. It has openly come out against a cease-fire and peace talks. I had thought that was for Ukraine to decide?

It is likely that Putin will publicly endorse the Chinese peace plan while the U.S. is paranoid that peace might indeed happen. It may even want to sabotage the Saudi Iranian deal.

China's people are by the way the most happy in the world.

Xi and Putin are now running the multilateral global show. Biden and the hapless 'unilateral' people around him are left aside.

Casino Aficionados Will Have A Busy Day

Warren Buffet:

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

• Credit Suisse Bonds Gain in a Weekend Trading Session - Mar 18, 8:21 UTC - Bloomberg/Yahoo

One large dealer was quoting Credit Suisse bonds at levels that were as much as 6.5 points higher than Friday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private activity in the over-the-counter market.

• Credit Suisse says $17 billion of its debt now worthless, angering bondholders - Mar 19, 20:46 UTC - Reuters/Yahoo

Holders of Credit Suisse Group AG bonds suffered a historic loss when a takeover by UBS Group AG wiped out about 16 billion Swiss francs ($17.3 billion) worth of risky notes.

The deal will trigger a “complete write-down” of the bank’s additional tier 1 bonds in order to increase core capital, Swiss financial regulator FINMA said in a statement on its website. Meanwhile, the bank’s shareholders are set to receive 3 billion francs.
...
Pacific Investment Management Co., Invesco Ltd. and BlueBay Funds Management Co. SA were among the many asset managers holding Credit Suisse AT1 notes, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Their holdings may have changed or been sold entirely since their last regulatory filings.
...
AT1 bonds were introduced in Europe after the global financial crisis to serve as shock absorbers when banks start to fail. They are designed to impose permanent losses on bondholders or be converted into equity if a bank’s capital ratios fall below a predetermined level, effectively propping up its balance sheet and allowing it to stay in business.

• HSBC Tumbles in Hong Kong as AT1 Debt Selloff Weighs on Banks - Mar 20, 5:01 UTC - Bloomberg/Yahoo

HSBC Holdings Plc fell as much as 6.6% in Hong Kong trading, the biggest drop in nearly six months, with its newly issued AT1 bond declining more than 5 cents. Standard Chartered Plc slid as much as 5.6%.

The complete write-down of Credit Suisse’s AT1 debt as part of a Swiss bailout has investors in the $275 billion market scrambling to determine how much protection the notes offer in a crisis.

• Investors dump Credit Suisse stock and bonds after UBS rescue - Mar 20, 7:18 UTC - Bloomberg/Yahoo

A $1 billion AT1 bond with a coupon of 4.5% was bid as low as 1 cent on the dollar, Tradeweb pricing showed.

• Stocks plunge despite Credit Suisse buyout, central banks' pledge - Mar 20, 8:32 UTC - AFP/Yahoo

Hong Kong plummeted 2.7 percent, with heavyweight HSBC off nearly six percent on worries about its exposure to risky bonds related to Credit Suisse. Standard Chartered also sank.

The losses came even as the city's de facto central bank said its banking sector had "insignificant" exposure to Credit Suisse.

Other regional bank shares were also hit, including Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, National Australia Bank and India's ICICI.
...
London, Frankfurt and Paris all fell in early Monday trade.

Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul and Mumbai were also in the red.

Shanghai rose after the Chinese central bank cut the amount of cash banks must keep in reserve, hoping to boost the country's economy.

'Modern Western Aircraft' - Ukraine Open Thread 2023-65

NY Times - More MIG fighters will help Ukraine, but what Kyiv really wants are F-16s.

“To some extent, this will increase our combat capabilities,” [Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force,] said in an appearance on Ukrainian national television Friday morning. “But one should not forget that these are still Soviet and not modern Western aircraft.”
...
The Ukrainian argument is that the F-16 is better than the MIG at shooting down cruise missiles because of its powerful radar and modern missiles, and could offer vastly more protection from Russian bombardment.

F-16:

The initial production-standard F-16A flew for the first time on 7 August 1978 and its delivery was accepted by the USAF on 6 January 1979.
...
The AN/APG-68 [radar], an evolution of the APG-66, was introduced with the F-16C/D Block 25. The APG-68 has greater range and resolution, as well as 25 operating modes, including ground-mapping, Doppler beam-sharpening, ground moving target indication, sea target, and track while scan (TWS) for up to 10 targets. The Block 40/42's APG-68(V)1 model added [...] a high-PRF pulse-Doppler track mode to provide Interrupted Continuous Wave guidance for semi-active radar-homing (SARH) missiles like the AIM-7 Sparrow.

MiG- 29:

[T]he MiG-29, along with the larger Sukhoi Su-27, was developed to counter new U.S. fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The MiG-29 entered service with the Soviet Air Forces in 1983.
...
The latest upgraded aircraft offered the N010 Zhuk-M, which has a planar array antenna rather than a dish, improving range, and a much superior processing ability, with multiple-target engagement capability and compatibility with the Vympel R-77 [active radar homing beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile] (or RVV-AE).

Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.