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A Recap Of The War In Ukraine – by Gonzalo Lira
Gonzalo Lira just delivered a decent recap of the war in Ukraine.
Gonzalo Lira @GonzaloLira1968 – 10:28 UTC · Apr 26, 2022
Quick recap for those who haven't followed what's been going on in Ukraine but want to understand: 02/24: The Russians invaded from the south, south-east, east and north, in a lightning campaign. The Russians invaded with 190K troops—against 250K combat troops from Ukraine.
The RF put 30K troops near Kiev—nowhere near enough to capture the city—but enough to pin down some 100K AFU defenders. The RF also launched several axes of attack, with reinforcements on standby (including a famed 40km long tank column), to see where they might be needed.
Crucially—the Russian's blitz on several axes pre-empted an imminent UKRAINIAN blitzkrieg. The AFU had been about to invade the Donbas. This was the immediate motivation for Russia's invasion: To beat them to the punch and scuttle Ukraine's imminent invasion—which they did.
Also, by attacking from the north and south, the Russians disrupted weapons supply chain from NATO. Had the RF only attacked in the east to prevent the AFU invasion of Donbas, there would have been an open corridor for resupply from the West. Threatening Kiev stopped that.
So the main AFU army was left stranded in east Ukraine, with the rest of the Ukr. forces isolated and pinned down—with no easy resupply from the West. The RF then went about hitting AFU command/control and resupply links, further isolating and immobilizing Ukrainian forces.
The Russians soon nominally controlled land the size of the UK in Ukraine—but it was a tenuous control. The south of Ukraine was more fully in Russia's grip. The AFU around Kherson simply scattered. Mariupol became a clear battleground, as did the Donbas proper.
What the Russians initially wanted was to:
- Short-circuit the imminent Donbas invasion – which they did.
- Scare the Zelensky regime into negotiating a political settlement – which they failed to do.
Kiev had no intention of negotiating a ceasefire because of orders given to them from Washington: “Fight Russia to the last Ukrainian!” Also, the Neo-Nazi goons around Zelensky threatened him if he negotiated and surrendered because they are terrified of the Russians.
So Zelensky launched a massive PR and propaganda campaign, primarily to motivate AFU forces to fight to the death. Myths were created (Ghost of Kiev), false flags were carried out (Bucha, Kramatorsk) and relentless media stories were flogged relentlessly.
The Russians kept negotiating and trying to NOT destroy Ukraine infrastructure. In fact at first they were even trying to minimize AFU casualties. The evidence for this is overwhelming: The RF did not hit civilian infrastructure – water, electric, phone, transportation. They did not hit AFU barracks, command centers, government buildings, etc.
The Russians' initial priority was for a *negotiated settlement*. But by late March, they realized this was impossible.
This is why the RF withdrew from Kiev. There was no sense putting men near the city when they were not doing what they were supposed to do – putting political pressure on the Zelensky regime to negotiate. This withdrawal was claimed as a “victory” in the “Battle of Kiev”! lmao
Starting in late March, the Russians pulled back and solidified their control over the area they had captured, ceding to the AFU areas that were either pointless to or potentially too costly to control. The Ukraine propaganda machine called all these pull- backs “victories”.
There was still a glimmer that the war might end in a negotiated settlement but that ended in early April. After the Istanbul talks of 3/30, the Ukraine side gingerly agreed to some compromises but within a week publicly disavowed those concessions.
That's when the Russians realized the Zelensky regime was agreement-incapable: Their Washington masters, Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken in particular, wouldn't allow a peace. They want this war to sap Russia dry. It is a classic proxy war and Ukraine will pay the price.
Something else the Russians realized: Sanctions. They hurt but Russia bounced back with remarkable speed. They didn't really hurt that bad. But the theft of Russia's $300 billion in foreign reserves by the West DID hurt – badly. The Russians realized they were in a total war with the West and since their foreign reserves were lost forever (likely to be pilfered by corrupt Western politicos), the Russians now have nothing left to lose. By stealing their reserves, the West lost all power over Russia.
This has sealed Ukraine's fate: The Russians now have no incentive to give up what they have conquered. It has cost them too much in terms of men and treasure. And they know that they can't negotiate a ceasefire. The Zelensky regime will simply break it later.
Which means:
The Russians intend to conquer and permanently annex all the south and east of Ukraine. This is why their strategy on the battlefield has dramatically shifted: Now they are carrying out a slow, methodical grinding down and destruction of the AFU.
The war in the first 30 days was speed, feints, nominally capturing vast swathes of Ukraine territory, with the aim of pressuring the Zelensky regime into a negotiated settlement. But the West's total financial and political break with Russia means they have nothing to lose. And they have a lot to gain: The Donbas is mineral rich, the really productive farmlands of Ukraine are in the east and south, Kharkov is a major industrial city, the Sea of Azov has untold natural gas reserves.
And besides – the people love them. Why would the Russians now give up this hard-won prize?
And they *have* won – make no mistake. Ask any military man who is not a system pig, he'll tell you: There is no way for the AFU to retake their country. They have no armor, no air defense, no fuel, no comms – it's over.
The great tragedy is that so many THOUSANDS of young men will die, and die NEEDLESSLY!!, in order to postpone the inevitable. These brave boys will have fought so valiantly – and died so young, so cruelly -because of the evil of the Zelensky regime.
That's the hard truth.
And in the end, this will be the map that will remain—a bitter image of Ukraine's future. Russia will pour billions into their newly acquired territory. It will prosper and flourish. But the rump-state of Ukraine will be left poor, destroyed, forgotten.
A tragedy.
bigger
I concur with the above except for two minor detail. The move on Kiev was not intended to hinder resupply to Ukrainian troops in Donbas but to 'fix' potential reinforcement around the capital. That enabled Russian troops to open the corridor from Crimea to the Russian boarder as well as to cross the Dnieper in the south and to take Kherson. Those were the most important moves for the further development of the war.
I also do not believe that Russia will 'annex' the areas it is liberating from fascist control. Once librated the people in those areas will vote on becoming independent from Ukraine and the various regions, Donbas, Luhansk, Kherson, Odessa, will form states that will become part of the Federal Republic of Novorossia.
That country will be recognized and supported by Russia and its allies.
It’s interesting to watch barflies debate anthropogenic climate change and Covid in the midst of the Ukraine and broader international relations discussions. MoA’s commenters strike me as similar to Naked Capitalism’s “commentariat” in that both are composed primarily of contrarians like me. Contrarians are skeptical toward dominant narratives, and rightly so, since they are constructed by elites to deceive us into believing that the people who rule our societies: 1) care about our welfare; and 2) know what they’re doing.
But the constructors of our dominant narratives operate under some limitations imposed by reality. Simply claiming that an economy is humming along will not cut it when declining living standards and homelessness are the life experience of growing numbers of people. A more believable narrative must mix fact and fiction while always keeping in mind the ultimate purpose of all these narratives: to nudge us along in the direction they want us to go while cementing our trust in our “betters.”
This mix of truth and lies makes things tricky for us contrarians. Rejecting every fact claimed in a narrative may end up leaving us further from perceiving reality than if we pursued a more careful, selective approach. For example, I had been reading about Covid in Wuhan and then Bergamo on Naked Capitalism for weeks before many people in the U. S. were even aware of it. When we were finally hit here, and the NBA shut down and the stock market was “all headed to zero,” there was initially a battle between narratives. Democrats, out of power and anxious to make Trump look bad, were happy to maximize Covid and demand unlimited testing and extensive lockdowns. Trump Republicans, desperate to prop up what they consider the pre-eminent measure of American well being–the stock market–wanted to pretend that it was “just the sniffles.” The reality was that it was a very serious disease with a significant mortality rate, especially among us elderly, and that its longer term effects on the health of even younger people were unknown. Letting the disease become endemic presented fat tail risks of long term damage to the health of millions, a declining life expectancy and the development of variants that could be both more transmissible and more deadly.
Once in power, the Democrats pushed an entirely different narrative. The wonders of American technology and capitalism had combined to create the wonder MRNA vaccines. All that was needed was to vaccinate the entire country (and then the world!) and Covid would disappear. I don’t know whether they understood from the beginning that the vaccines were not sterilizing and, at best, lowered the chances of hospitalization and death for a while. Now Democrats are rapidly eliminating all public health measures aimed at reducing the spread because a political consulting firm told them that pretending Covid was conquered would help them in the midterms. They believe their own bullshit to the extent that they gather together and spread the disease among their geriatric selves.
Weaving one’s way through such a dynamic and lie-filled landscape is difficult, and it’s tempting for us contrarians to say Covid is all a psy-op, but something managed to lower life expectancy by more than 2 years in the United States since 2020. Yes, some of that may be due to these MRNA vaccines’ link to myocarditis among males, etc., but Covid has been the third leading cause of death in this country since its appearance. Moreover, it is now a unified elite that claims it can be ignored. Why? The billionaires demand return on their capital regardless of a pandemic, so everybody better report to their jobs immediately and go out an enjoy those baby bck ribs at Applebees with a side of Covid.
The same situation holds with anthropogenic climate change. There are still the same oil company lies that everything is OK, but the dominant “green” narrative is a lie as well. The claim that 7 billion people can all enjoy an American “middle class” lifestyle if we all just buy electric cars and put PVs on our roof is bullshit as well.
Humans have been living in the Holocene Epoch for the last 11,000 years or so. Scientists use several methods to estimate past temperatures on Earth, and all show that this period has been the most stable, mild period of climate in Earth’s history. At no time, has the temperature during this halcyon time been more than 1 degree Celsius higher than it is now. It has been in the context of this favorable climate that humans began practicing agriculture and developing civilization.
Using other methods, scientists can also estimate the carbon content of the atmosphere, and they claim that carbon content is higher now than in any time in the last 800,000 years. They are also able to show a statistically significant connection between carbon content and temperature both through the pre-historical past and through recent times when we have human-measured temperature records.
The Earth is not some inert object. It is a complex, living system capable of adjusting over time to changes from external sources like increases in solar radiation. While resilient, the Earth is also like any other complex system that may break down or change rapidly when hit by massive, unrelenting external factors, like humans pouring carbon into the air at ever-increasing rates. What we are doing now is like red-lining a gasoline engine indefinitely and expecting it to never throw a rod or crack a piston.
Now the Techno Greens would like us to believe they can cure all this with wind generators, PVs and electric cars. What’s not to like? More money for the billionaires who capture all this technology through IP. And nobody has to give up anything! The billionaires can continue to fly around in private jets using BoJo’s no-guilt flying machines.
The truth is that addressing climate change at this late date would require drastically reducing the consumption of the rich. The world’s richest 10% contribute 50% of carbon emissions around the world, and Americans, with their giant pickups and long commutes are at the top, with carbon footprints twice as large as Europeans whose carbon footprints are larger than everyone else. Yes, China and India are burning a lot coal, and have large national footprints, but much of their activity is to produce the goods and services consumed by rich Americans and Europeans. In effect, the world’s “overeaters” are outsourcing their excess weight to the relatively skinny Asians. Degrowth among the rich is the only way to realistically address climate change, but that would mean reducing the return on capital for the billionaires. Not gonna happen.
So the old oil company narrative that GDP growth can continue forever on a finite planet and the Techno Wonder solution of deserts full of PVs are bullshit designed to preserve the status quo and the billionaires’ return on capital. The truth is that only radical and immediate reductions in consumption among the rich and “middle class” can address the problem, and that makes all the elites unhappy. If they allow their beautiful minds to think about it, they put off action and rely instead on some deus ex machina solution like Bill Gates’s and Harvard’s solution: shooting sulfur in the sky every two years to reflect enough sunlight to reduce temperature. When that kills all the plants, no doubt that Gates will unleash his robot bees and Frankplants to save us all.
So fellow Contrarians, be careful when rejecting dominant narratives. Don’t be misled into rejecting as much truth as lies and leaving yourself even further from reality. As Lao-Tzu, as channeled by Ursula Le Guin, recommends:
Keep the deep water still and clear
so it reflects without blurring.
Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Apr 27 2022 5:27 utc | 334
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