Moon of Alabama

November 26, 2022

Ukraine Open Thread 2022-208

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

The current open thread for other issues is here.

From a New York Times piece today:

Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It’s Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.

Cont. reading: Ukraine Open Thread 2022-208

Posted by b at 16:19 UTC | Comments (253)

Syria - Another Turkish Invasion Is Imminent

After two years of relative quietness the situation in Syria is again escalating.

This follows a terror attack in Istanbul two weeks ago allegedly committed by a woman who had traveled there from the Kurdish controlled city of Kobani in northeast Syria. Turkey accused the U.S., which is occupying northeast Syria, of complicity in the attack.

A week after the Istanbul incident Turkey started to bomb Kurdish positions in east Syria. It has now threatened to (again) invade it.

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I have not written about the conflict for quite a while and there are many new readers. So here is a list of names and abbreviations relevant to the story:

PKK - Kurdistan Workers Party - fighting, often with terrorist methods, for a larger Kurdistan country to be formed from Kurdish areas in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey
YPG - People's Defense Units - Kurdish-Syrian part of the PKK, currently silently allied with the U.S. occupation force in eastern Syria
YPJ - Female units of the YPG
SDF - Syrian Democratic Forces - 'former' YPG currently openly allied with the U.S. occupation force in eastern Syria
Mazlum - 'former' YPG head, current SDF head in Syria collaborating with the U.S.
Rojava - self-administrating area in northeast Syria under SDF / U.S. control
Barzani - head of government in the Kurdish ruled province in north Iraq - hostile to PKK/YPG, friend with U.S.
SAA - Syrian Arab Army - Syria's regular military
HTS - Hayat Tahir al-Sham - Al-Qaeda derivative, Turkish proxy which rules parts of northwest Syria

Stealing from the Turkish commentator Agitpapa here is, slightly edited, the latest news from the area.

agitpapa @agitpapa - 9:09 UTC · 26 Nov 2022
It's the PKK's anniversary tomorrow and there are rumors that Turkey wants to kick off its land war against the Kurds in Rojava on that date.

Cont. reading: Syria - Another Turkish Invasion Is Imminent

Posted by b at 16:01 UTC | Comments (102)

November 25, 2022

Ukraine Open Thread 2022-207

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

Nov 24, 2022

Source: NASA Worldview - bigger

Cont. reading: Ukraine Open Thread 2022-207

Posted by b at 13:41 UTC | Comments (378)

November 24, 2022

Ukraine - Running On Empty

Yesterday the Pentagon announced another transfer of weapons to the Ukrainian military:

According to the Pentagon, the package includes:
Additional munitions for NASMAS
150 heavy machine guns with thermal imagery sights to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Additional ammunition for HIMARS
200 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
10,000 120mm mortar rounds
High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
150 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs)
Over 100 light tactical vehicles
Over 20,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition
Over 200 generators
Spare parts for 105mm Howitzers and other equipment

The $400 million is being sent to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows President Biden to send arms straight from US military stockpiles.

The Pentagon is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Cont. reading: Ukraine - Running On Empty

Posted by b at 17:54 UTC | Comments (300)

November 23, 2022

Ukraine - Lights Out, No Water And Soon No Heat

Earlier today the Russian military shut down the Ukrainian electricity network.

Previous attacks had limited the distribution capacity to some 50% of demand. Controlled blackouts over several hours per day allowed to give some electricity for a few hours to most parts of the country. The attack today created a much larger problem. Not only were distribution networks attacked but also so the elements that connect Ukraine's electricity production facilities to the distribution network. All four nuclear power stations of Ukraine with their 15 reactors are now in shutdown mode.

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Kiev along with most other cities of Ukraine no longer has electricity.

Moldavia is likewise effected as it received some 20% of its electricity from Ukraine. When the Ukrainian network shut down the only local thermal power plant shut down too. It is likely that it can be switched on again but that can be a complicate process.

Limited electricity imports from the European system into Ukraine may still be possible but that electricity would only be available in Ukraine's western cities.

Before today's attack the Washington Post reported of the difficulties in repairing the network. As we ad explained before the Russian attacks are hitting the transformers that connect the national 330 kilovolt backbone network. These are hard to replace:

Cont. reading: Ukraine - Lights Out, No Water And Soon No Heat

Posted by b at 16:56 UTC | Comments (432)

November 22, 2022

Ukraine Open Thread 2022-206

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.

Posted by b at 16:47 UTC | Comments (289)

Open (Not Ukraine) Thread 2022-205

News & views NOT related the war in Ukraine ...

Posted by b at 16:46 UTC | Comments (208)

November 21, 2022

Ukraine - No Way To Peace Without Further War

A week ago I welcomed the talks between CIA director Bill Burns and the director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin but was skeptical of any outcome:

There will be no ceasefire now but the talks are good anyway. Both sides should do there best to keep them going.
Russia has asked for a lot: a pullback of NATO to its 1997 position, four parts of Ukraine to become parts of Russia, a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. The U.S. is certainly not willing to commit to those steps - at least not yet.

It will need time and many more talks for the U.S. to come to its senses and to make the necessary concessions to end the conflict.

It will also require the defeat of the Ukrainian military, and anyone who joins it, on the battle field. Russia can do that if it concentrates on that effort.

Since then Russia released another salvo of missiles on the electricity network of Ukraine. This confirmed that the talks were not moving in a positive direction.

Now Yves Smith and Gilbert Doctorow name additional handicaps to the necessary compromises that could end the war.

Smith starts be examining the recent utterances from the U.S. side. There is no sign in them that anyone within the Biden administration is seeking some way towards peace. General Milley, who went public with talk suggestion after he had lost the internal discussion, was in fact whistled back:

Some of the close watchers of the Russia-Ukraine conflict have been talking up the prospects of peace talks. As we’ll discuss shortly, your humble blogger thinks this view is not currently well aligned with reality. Yes, things look to have thawed to the point that the US has backed off of worst-than-the-darkest-days-of-cold-war non-communication with Russia. But while thawing from close to absolute zero to a mere deep freeze is technically warming, it’s still awfully frigid. The two sides have zero bargaining overlap in their positions, which means no basis for discussions.

Another problem with talks is that there is no one to talk to. The Ukrainian comedian Zelensky is not in a position where he can give up and stay alive:

Cont. reading: Ukraine - No Way To Peace Without Further War

Posted by b at 17:19 UTC | Comments (351)

November 20, 2022