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Disarming Ukraine – Day 2
The Russian operations in the Ukraine continue at a moderate pace. Some more troops were committed today. In all the Russian military may have now introduced some 20-40% of its prepared forces.
The Ukrainian military is not so much holding a line but concentrating in and around its bigger cities. It has destroyed some bridges north of Kiev to make an approach more difficult. That will slow down the Russian moves but will not prevent them. Russia's military is famously good at setting up combat bridges.
So far the Russians have used their artillery sparsely. An exception was last night near Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine where a strike by multiple launcher artillery systems (MLRS) hit some area target with yet unknown results.
A 13 minutes long video from a highway drive near Kherson, a city north of Crimea, shows nearly 100 destroyed Ukrainian trucks and tanks. These are likely victims of air attacks.
If this map from a Turkish think tank source is correct the Russian troops did not attempt much deeper strikes today but mostly consolidated their frontline.
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This map from Janes shows less progress. But it also has not marked the Donbas area in the southeast which is held by pro-Russian forces.
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Russia's President has called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow its government. I do not think he believes that will happen but it is a possibility so why not call for it.
Facebook now allows to praise Ukrainian Nazi groups like the Azov battalion. This was prohibited with Azov previously being in the same category as ISIS. Now these are 'our guys'.
There are a lot of discussions of sanctions against Russia and every western country is trying to get as much exemptions for its industries as possible . The U.S. has for example exempted everything that has to do with hydrocarbons from its own sanction package. It will still buy Russian oil and will continue to sell drilling equipment to Russia.
The EU countries are still negotiating with themselves. They should be careful with what they do.
Britain has had the stupidity of sanctioning the Russian air carrier Aeroflot. In a counter move Russia prohibited British Airways from flying over Russian territory. Normally all flights from Britain to the Far East cross Russian airspace. These will now have to be redirected to other routes which will significantly increase their flight time and fuel burn.
Russia has threatened 'inconvenient' counter-sanctions to those who sanction it. Overflight rights are only one of the tools it can use.
NATO has said it will continue to deliver weapons, including air defenses, to the Ukraine. NATO does not have any weapons but some NATO countries seem to strive for a larger war. The U.S. seem willing to sacrifice the Ukraine to create a quagmire for Russia.
Syria was also supposed to become a quagmire for Russia when Russia came to its help. It didn't turn out that way.
Why did the circle around Putin go for the sledgehammer and not the scalpel?
Posted by: Arne Hartmann | Feb 26 2022 2:10 utc | 164
What makes you believe it was the circle and not Putin himself?
Posted by: Circe | Feb 26 2022 4:55 utc | 204
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I would make a different analogy. Typically, a toothache can be relieved with cleaning and cleaning a cavity, but sometimes a tooth extraction is necessary, even though the aftermath is more troublesome. To make a proper decision, you need information, typically, tooth X-ray. Without that information and professional analysis, you would always recommend a filling because usually it is a better choice.
At other times you need to remove the root of the problem, in my analogy, the root of the tooth in question. Again, you need X-rays and expert interpretation. In short, more expensive and painful solutions may be better. To us non-dentists, a key problem remains: how to tell a dishonest dentist (or a head of state) who chooses a solution based on personal profit, higher fees for a root canal job, than on the welfare of the patient. Do we have any way to figure that out, not knowing the X-rays and/or not being able to analyze them?
Actually, there is a way. I would not trust a dentist who recommends expensive solutions much more frequently than others. In those terms, NATO swings sledgehammer with abandon, while Putin was remarkably patient, and has a track record of using scalpel, and performing necessary follow up to sledgehammer jobs.
Example 1: sledgehammer job in Chechnya was followed by betting on an effective local leader (you may scoff, but look at leader found by the collective West for Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq) and throwing enough money, and with sufficient effectiveness, on ruined autonomous republic that now it is actually in good shape and the majority of folks are satisfied.
Example 2: war with Georgia. Comparatively it was a scalpel job.
Examples in Central Asia. Civil war in Tadjikistan, color revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, recent disturbances in Kazakhstan, all scalpel jobs with quite stable outcomes (in Kyrgyzstan, there was a counter-color revolution, or color counter-revolution, Putin learns from examples).
Example 4: Syria. Putin started the intervention when the territory controlled by the government was like a narrow slice of Swiss cheese, full of holes full of the “moderate opposition” and a wide swath controlled by ISIS. It is amazing how much was achieved if you compare the challenges to outcomes and resources expended by Russia. A scalpel job of enormous complexity, without any parallels among NATO engagements. One can criticize stinginess of Russia, Syria is still a basket case, but after all, Russia has a relatively small economy and is forced to eschew foreign credits, so here one may blame China that could be more generous on economic front. Similarly, one can criticize Russia for not doing enough to defend Syria from aerial depredations by Israel, but sledgehammer approach it is not.
In short, Putin has a track record of adapting the policy to conditions without repeating the same approach mechanically. Even now, there are two surprises. First, the action is much larger than we expected. Second, the action is more gradual than we expected, and it has several subtle elements that look reasonable in retrospect, and make me optimistic that the final outcome will be OK.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 26 2022 7:19 utc | 220
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