|
U.S.-Russian Intelligence Chiefs Discuss Ukraine
Earlier today the Russian news outlet Kommersant reported on U.S.-Russian negotiations in Turkey (machine translation):
As it became known to "Kommersant", today, November 14, negotiations between the Russian and American delegations are taking place in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin flew to Ankara from the Russian side.
This meeting has not been publicly announced before. The source has so far declined to provide details of the talks.
Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov said that he could neither confirm nor deny the information about the talks in Ankara.
The last time the Russian and American delegations met in Geneva was on January 10 for talks on security guarantees. The lack of practical results of the January negotiation process is often seen as a diplomatic prerequisite for the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.
The U.S. counterpart of Sergei Naryshkin is CIA director Bill Burns.
The negotiations have long been requested by Russia:
In the last month, the volley of calls for negotiation from Putin has intensified. On September 30, Putin called on Kiev “to return back to the negotiating table.” On October 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia "was willing to engage with the United States or with Turkey on ways to end the war." Two days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is “open to negotiations to achieve our objectives." On October 26, Putin sent a message to Zelensky through President Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embalo of Guinea Bissau, saying that “He wishes and thinks that a direct dialogue should happen between your two countries.” On October 30, Lavrov said that Russia is “ready to listen to our Western colleagues if they make another request to organize a conversation" as long as Russia’s security needs were considered. And on November 1, Putin said that “necessary conditions” could arise that would be a catalyst to talks.
On the U.S. side only one voice had recently publicly urged to start negotiations:
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to US officials, Milley “has made the case in internal meetings that the Ukrainians have achieved about as much as they could reasonably expect on the battlefield before winter sets in and so they should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table.”
The top US general has made no secret of his stance. “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it,” Milley declared in a public speech this week.
At the end of last week the Wall Street Journal reported that more members of the Biden administration agreed with that position:
As Ukraine Retakes Kherson, U.S. Looks to Diplomacy Before Winter Slows Momentum
American arms are flowing, but officials in Washington question how much territory either side can win Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have turned off streetlights to conserve energy after Russian attacks on power plants.
Senior U.S. officials have begun nudging Kyiv to start thinking about peace talks in the event winter stalls its momentum, following Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson in one of its most stunning triumphs of the war.
The imminent onset of winter—coupled with fears of inflation spurred by mounting energy and food prices, the billions of dollars of weaponry already pumped into Ukraine, and the tens of thousands of casualties on both sides—has prompted talk in Washington of a potential inflection point in the war, now in its ninth month.
Fact is that the 'west' is running short of ammunition it can deliver to Ukraine. That is why the U.S. is buying 100,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition from South Korea:
“Negotiations are ongoing between the US and Korean companies to export ammunition, in order to make up for the shortage of 155mm ammunition inventories in the US,” the ministry said. The Pentagon said in a statement it has been “in discussion” about “potential sales” of ammunition by the US from South Korea.
But statements from South Korea and the US make clear that the deal, which has been in the works for months, has not yet been finalized. The purchase of such a large supply of artillery ammunition is highly sensitive for South Korea, especially given the recent missile launches and weapon tests conducted by North Korea.
To call 100,000 artillery rounds a 'large supply' is a joke. It is less than what the Russian army expenses in two days.
The 'west' currently no longer has the industrial capacity to make the products that are needed in a long high intensity war. It could rebuild that capacity but that would require a huge amount of money and long term commitments to buy significant amounts of such products.
Without a steady resupply of huge amounts of ammunition the Ukrainian army is done.
The Biden administration has now confirmed that CIA head Burns has met with Naryshkin. But it is lying about the content of the talks:
William J. Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, met with his Russian counterpart in Turkey on Monday to warn Russia against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a White House spokesman said.
The National Security Council said Mr. Burns’s meeting in Ankara was not in any way meant to negotiate or to discuss any settlement of the war in Ukraine. Ukraine was briefed in advance on the trip, the spokesman said.
President Biden has insisted that Ukraine, and not the United States, will dictate if and when negotiations commence to end the war.
Russia has not threatened to use nuclear weapons. There is no reason for it to do so and many good reason to refrain from using them. It would foremost alienate China and other Russian allies. It was in fact the U.S. which planted nuclear scare stories in another of its attempts to smear Russia. The U.S. of course knows that there is no danger that Russia would use nukes and it is likely that Burns did not even mention them.
There are enough other problems. The electricity situation in Ukraine is getting worse as the weather gets colder. Some 40% to 50% of the 330 kilovolt network is down and more of it will fail.
What the U.S. needs is more time for Ukraine to repair damage and for the production and delivery of more weapons and ammunition. It needs a pause in the war. It may well hope for a kind of ceasefire during the winter. It is highly likely that Burns went to Ankara to talk about that.
Sure, the Biden administration has no interest in ending the war. It is setting up a headquarter in Germany where a three star general and his headquarter staff will direct the U.S. efforts in its, for now, proxy war against Russia. The claim is that the new command will be responsible for supplying Ukraine. That is unlikely to be true:
The Pentagon puts a 3 Stars General in Charge of War Operations — not Inventory. And you do not need a Headquarters Staff of 300 to do an Audit. It’s a War Headquarters Staff. We are going to war against Russia unless the American People can figure out some way to stop it!
The headquarter means that the U.S. is planing for a very long and bigger war.
NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has said that a Russian victory in the conflict in Ukraine would be a defeat for NATO and that it can not allow such an outcome.
If you can not allow something to happen that is already mostly assured you will have to do something very serious to prevent that outcome. NATO is not united enough to go to war. But the chances for a direct conflict are growing by the day. It will be left to U.S. and some east European countries to send their own troops into Ukraine.
The U.S. public is not yet ready for such a step and it will take more time to get to that point.
It is another reason why the U.S. would like to pause the war for now. But Russia is unlikely to fall for such a scam. A ceasefire would allow the Ukrainian military to regain some strength and to build up more defensive lines.
After its mobilization of reservists in September Russia will soon have the forces available that are necessary to breach the Ukrainian front lines to then storm through and attack deep behind those lines. As soon as the ground freezes it will be ready to go. Any pause now would make a later move more difficult.
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.
@ Old Microbiologist | Nov 15 2022 8:23 utc | 454
Thank you for your excellent considered well reasoned/prepared posts. Am somewhat disappointed nary a single response.
Essentially concur entire post.
The tip of the spear ? In fact that’s all that’s really left, just the tip, no shaft, IMV.
Should they commit 80% of active forces (including National Guard and Reserves) to Europe this leaves the US naked.
Over what time frame re mobilization, transport, shakeout/re-org/runup post landfall for deployment in situ in EU, pending march to Laagers/FUPs, pending advance toward FEBA, & pending advance to contact/engagement ? Operational Planning purposes is ~4-6 months. (See: Persian Gulf War, Iraq War ’03. Last time we had realistic extant capabilities re Peer-to-Peer high intensity conflict) SEE below re NDRF … non existent heavy sea lift capability nor capacity at scale required en mass, let alone sustainable nor sustained.
And China & the other nations militaries & operational & strategic projection capabilities, ‘reach out and touch someone’ with warheads, the instant a mobilization commences. India has flipped, Turkey highly probable to do so at the least convenient time, previous personnel experience/interaction tells Turks damned well ain’t our bestest buddies nor pals. Gladio structure & human assets were sytematically annihilated post 2016 failed coup. Turks have been on the job re covert prep or actions ever since. NATO officers deserted, remainder systematically vetted for allegiance to the State, suspects monitored.
NATO partner forces capacity & lead time to effectively & credibly mobilize under current/future economic, political, energy/fuel, all resource, & imminently degrading industrial capacity constraints ? 🙁
Said capacities/capabilities will only further degrade/diminish over time … in current situ.
The 1,000 bases (~1,000 troops each …) scattered all about are deadly ground, self-prepared mini cauldrons, essentially indefensible, should the balloon go up. If it does there will be no relief force coming over the hill to the rescue from local forces or opportunistic insurgents, let alone indirect ranged fires/missiles strikes/Drone/air attacks. Dogdamn 1,001 dispersed lillipads. Even worse with covert/secret(NOT) smaller bases/facilities. Potential belligerents, especially second tier formal/informal, know. And with essentially no support from the local population, even if merely passive(not likely) …
Diego Garcia & Guam, etc will be annihilated by missile barrages in the opening moments along with vessels, combat & support(unless underway), aircraft, facilities, docks, airfields, dumps, hardened hangers & materiel & all pre-positioned logistical stores. How will those assets be replaced ? Catastrophic loss of force projection & critical force multipliers.
We’ve essentially sold off the strategic fuel reserves short-term perceived political economic advantage. Given our current Air & ground force assets are by design inefficient gas guzzlers, the EU is in, & increasingly so, fuel & energy deficit for their industries & populace, will ‘we’ commandeer from the civil economy & industry to fuel sustained high intensity ops with Humvee’s ~10-14MPG, & it only gets worse from there up. Sufficient truck logistics fleets, again sustained high intensity, including tankers(all types) ? Ability to provide effective force protection, including mobile AD defense, especially vs drones ?e
All tip, no shaft, ’tis the same with USAF, something like 35:1 re ordnance, service & support per pilot/aircraft, with ever reducing sortie rates & availability. In high intensity conventional conflict against 1st level peers, existing poor rates/availability will collapse. The ordnance & parts/spares for sustained high intensity don’t exist.
A critical issue IMV is the degradation in competency/experience/numbers of support/service techs across all sectors, too late no time to catchup once committed/engaged.
There will be no massive sea lift(nor ongoing supply) transporting 100,000s of troops & millions of tons of materiel & supplies to Europe, the The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) is functionally defunct, not merely mothballed, the crews are now geriatrics, or physically incapable of even light duty, the critical knowledge & experience needed to operate/service/maintain/repair the generations old obsolete systems, machinery, yet especially coal fired boilers for propulsion/secondary systems are but a memory. The knowledge & skills were NOT transferred to younger reserves, now its too late, semi-derelict obsolete vessels are useless without capable knowledgeable crews re materiel from a past era. Strategic airlift won’t cut it.
The ready to roll heavy divisions, ready to delay at the Fulda Gap/etc, are also but a memory. Laughed & cried at Sullivan’s BS talk re 40,000 US, 20,000 Romanian & 10,000 Poles ready to cross the borders & ‘directly intervene’. Light assault/airmobile infantry, & mostly Stryker Brigades ain’t gonna cut without functional air supremacy. Romanians & Poles ? Likely perform as poorly as they did for the Heer as 2nd rate Auxiliaries post Jun2241. Not.
The wider NATO ground forces are largely winnowed & decrepit after three decades of perceived ‘No threat’. Danes & Netherlands Armor IFV/APCs even wheeled veh are so worn out & decrepit, they relocate ’em from loc to loc using truck transports if they have drive more than a few kliks, so they can pretend to participate in tactical exercises.
The Bundeswehr can’t donate mothballed Leopards ’cause they’ve been left to rot, derelict. Active service AFV availability rates are abysmal. It is no joke for well over a decade shouting ‘bang-bang’ & ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ has been going on due to insufficient small arms ammo even for training or tactical exercise with partner forces. So how bad has basic/refresher training been ? Wooden props for MG3s, due to poor serviceability/availability. Train for war, Ready to Fight ! ’cause its too late once it starts, & that’s across the board for well over a decade. Brits Army is in the same state … SASR/SBS/Commandos capable & high readiness, but SF operators don’t cut it glacis plate to glacis plate in high intensity. Has been put to me(Credible?) Bundeswehr is ~40% offspring of former GDR parents, who well remember the ‘good old days’, even majority(?) of some units, possess Russian as second language, and have entered service primarily due economic disadvantage. Commitment to current government policies/war situ ? Any insights German Moonbats ?
Defense Depts & governments have taken ‘advantage’ of the incessant low intensity counter-insurgency wars, & ‘Peacekeeping’ to strut with comparatively modest to small limited light forces at lower cost in the ‘public eye’, yet behind the scenes robbing peter to pay paul.
Doubts re the scenario of homeland defense/invasion as a probable consequence of probable defeat in detail … comes to that the crazies will let loose the nukes … China/RF could simply ‘quarantine’, economically sanction us to hell & sever all trade.
Suspect Sth Korea will bail. The consequences are probable annihilation, may even possibly change colors. Japan’s a wildcard, but they can readily be totally isolated & ‘quarantined’, back to pre Pearl Harbor, insufficient EVERYTHING except rice.
Would appreciate anyone at all outlining the operational plan for a war with China. Land where ? How ? Supply & support how ? Sustain & replace highly probable insanely high loss rates of men & materiel ? DF series CVA killers & now deployed hypersonics can reach out sink any vessel 12,000 & counting. Understand (factual?) significant number of Taiwan Officers, NCOs & troops are from KMT families, who would prefer re-unification to wholesale war ‘for independence’. Understand Taiwan cannot has been unable to sustain let alone increase troop numbers, active reservists, or achieve any success in growing reservists. If true, and the civilian populace isn’t prepared even do well compensated minor reserve training per annum, then suspect the will ‘To Fight’ to the death for ‘Independence’ is lacking … Taiwanese Moonbats ? And against a Fully capable all aspect heavy combined arms Chinese militarily !2M strong, with active reserves of literally tens of millions more, trained & young combat capable.
Similar to the situation you outline, we deployed everything, all arms, all services, in Korean War, the cupboard was bare(See: Congressional investigative committee record post retreat to 38th parallel). As have posted before PVA did that with light infantry small arms, mortars, minimal arty, limited shells, no armor, no air force, no navy & 18th century logistics train, on the offense at a force ratio of 1 to 1. Now, today ?!
RF has capacity to mobilize, equip & deploy literally Millions of formerly trained conscripts who have served in last five years, young & fit, and promptly throw into the fray, skip refresher training. And they do have the war materiel & arms/armor/vehs/wpns from strategic war reserves to kit ’em out & arm ’em. Hell RF still has fully functional war reserve stocks of WWI era arms, just to be sure, to be sure. The recent partial mobilization served a secondary purpose of testing instant mass mobilization & apply the lessons learned, now on standby to move as above given the command. Planning lead time from callup to deployment to advance to contact at the FEBA from he line of march in Ukraine ? Rolling commitment of multi-division formation groupings, 3-4 weeks, in staged phase on rolling basis. Short massive, redundant, interior lines of communication & supply, on known ground with pre-existing 9 months of high intensity conflict experience … the kinks have long ago been worn out. Quantity, even fresh reservists from the line of march, has a quality all of its own …
Fully expect percentage of now high intensity combat experienced junior officers & NCO’s from RF 2nd rate units deployed in Ukraine have been rotated out on a monthly base to 1st rate Western Military District Units held in active reserve to transfer knowledge & experience & in effect insert a veteran/elite stiffening corp cadre. Rinse & repeat for 9 months now. Same same with percentage of technical, specialist & support cadres …
2c is up.
Peace
@ Old Microbiologist | Nov 15 2022 10:31 utc | 479
Will post after a nap 😉
Will work up a post after a rest
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 15 2022 14:22 utc | 468
@ Old Microbiologist | Nov 15 2022 10:31 utc | 435
That was easier, concur 🙂
Am unaware of any TEWT or Wargame simulation exercise from early ’80’s to ~’91 that had any other result than comprehensive defeat re a theoretical USSR conventional forces invasion, without recourse to nukes, which then resulted in inevitable MAD, & the annihilation of western Europe, for starters … 🙁
Understand that remains the case re last decade til today re RF/Belarus … scenario, however unlikely.(formal invasion and drive to Brussels/Paris)
Personally, I blame Stalin for not eliminating all Banderists after the war but exporting them to the flags never to be seen again.
In fact there was a brutal partisan/insurgent & counter-insurgency campaign in Ukraine against the Banderites from ’44 until it peaked in ’55-56. It cost USSR ~10,000 KIA, similar but less destructive/lethal occurred occurred in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, die hard fascists/sympathizers who had disbanded or would’nt accept 3rd Reich collapse had to be put down. Once the invulnerability of their imminent demise, exfiltrated to EU, UK, Canada, NZ, AU, USA, with our covert support & assistance, hence Nuland & Christiana, et al.
Concurrently in an almost handover of assigned ‘Higher Command Control’, we took over the General Gehlen Heer & SS eastern front assets Nazi intelligence assets, ‘rinsed’ ’em and then used ’em as the leaders and corp cadre of W Germanies MI and Stae Security & Intelligence services. In doing so we also took in the Soviet moles & agents & double agents within those Nazi services from day one.
From the 1st day of the end of the war in EU we were recruiting, training, and covertly inserting partisans & agents/operatives into USSR from ideologically anti-communist ethnicities re above and other eastern European nations, as well as recycling former such German run operatives who had escaped USSR. Essentially they ALL went to their deaths, promptly if they refused the first and only offer to be turned as double agents/disinformation streams, or inevitably after they wore out their usefulness. See above re infiltration re recycling Gehlen organization.
All Nazi Humint & agent operations on the Eastern front during WWII met the same fate, hence Airlifts of critically short resources & supplies to a fictional 10,000 strong pseudo-Stalingrad holdouts 100+ km behind Soviet lines for over nine months starting early ’44, such and associated totally compromised/turned Nazi Heer & SS covert Intel ops
were serial failures throughout the war. Large contributor to Germanies shockingly poor & serially ineffective Intelligence collection & analysis from start to finish on the Eastern Front. Let alone their remote manipulation re sophisticated & well resourced dis & mis information ops from small to massive scale. Also above was a significant contributor to successful Maskirovka ops from tactical to operational an strategic scale.
Concurrently we rinsed numerous ex nazi’s and slotted ’em into W Germanies intial paramilitary units & formal Border Guard Force, then subsequently the Bundswehr, NATO up to the highest command ranks. Often based on the now ‘clean’ referrals/references of our trusted German Intelligence Services allies … former Gehlen Nazi org …(SEE: also Op Paperclip et al)
And our Genuis’s under Dulles & co et al replicated it all including the personnel. Operational effectiveness reviews analysis in early 50’s eventually led to ever diminishing resource allocation and scope & scale, until it was shutdown and filed away with a closing report late ’50’s.
Similar occurred from ’49-’72 on the Burma/China border re ~10,000 KMT holdouts(with families) re terrrorist * covert * collection/insertion ops into mainland China over the lengthy border. All got shut Down When AUs Whitlam visted China, promptly followed up by Nixon.
Throughout the drug business was used to supplement black funds, which is where the Golden Triangle evolved from, on steroids, with many of the progressively disaffected & finally abandoned ex-KMT(& families) becoming muscle/protection/mercs & participants in the drug trade … past echoes to the future re Afghanistan … Colombia, etc
We ran in effect, combined with other ops a physical covert secret war against China from’49-’72 … apart from funding arming and supplying the KMT post WWII during the Civil War from ’45-’49.
Forgotten history …
Peace
Posted by: Outraged | Nov 15 2022 15:37 utc | 471
|
