@ Down South | Feb 6 2023 12:56 utc | 307
Putin is certainly “anything but suicidal,” but the evidence points strongly the other way for the overseer-classes of the US, “Five Eyes” and NATO, with special mention for Poland (see the instant proposal) and the Baltic States.
Can a NATO member cast the protective mantle of Article 5 over anyplace it declares a protectorate? whiffy, very whiffy.
At any rate, I’d try to avoid service in the Polish Protectorate troops.

Posted by: John Kennard | Feb 6 2023 13:18 utc | 304

John Kennard | Feb 6 2023 13:18 utc | 310
Article 5 has assumed mythical majestic status.
In theory, no. Poland putting a “NATO” umbrella over the pieces of Ukraine it wants to annex shouldn’t really work.
But we are now in a post truth, “we make the rules and give orders” world, so the “treaty” or Article can be interpreted any way the U$ wants…
But Turkiye has vetoed Sweden’s entry to NATO, and members like Hungary might not be keen on the Polish play… unless they grab a bit themselves…

Posted by: Melaleuca | Feb 6 2023 13:36 utc | 306

@ Melaleuca | Feb 6 2023 13:36 utc | 312
One remembers how after Hitler sandbagged Czechoslovakia how all that country’s neighbors rushed to take their own bites.

Posted by: John Kennard | Feb 6 2023 13:43 utc | 308

@ circumpsect, #90
You are probably correct that the Germans had less than a 100 Tiger IIs operational at anyone time on the Eastern Front. If you read the “Combat history” part of the Wikipedia article, it appears that this tank was fed piece meal into various battles along either the eastern and western fronts, as well as they were being made at the time so its not like the Germans had 500 Mark VIs to use at once, sort of amazing that over 100 were made in 1945.
To me, the situation with the Germans and the Tiger IIs is similar to what the Western countries are trying to do with the “main battle tank” gyrations for the Kiev government, except with a lot more political gymnastics and bureaucratic gumming of multiple countries. Maybe more people should know the Tiger II story and realize how futile in the end it became. But that’s probably asking too much…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II

Posted by: DakotaRog | Feb 6 2023 13:49 utc | 310

Posted by: Haassaan | Feb 6 2023 10:56 utc | 277
“If I were Russia I’d be seriously fortifying that Southern Front. Judging from satellite data they are.”
I understand the Russians have three layers of defence already prepared on the southern front.

Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Feb 6 2023 14:04 utc | 312

NATO is using Ukraine as a proxy to attack Russian territories. Russia confines its retaliation within Ukraine, because if it hits Poland, it may lead to a full fledged WWIII. But a suggestion came that merits serious attention: Russia ca create a small State out of Ukrainian lands captured outside of the 4 oblasts already taken into the RF, enter into a defence agreement with it, provide it with weapons and manpower; that Statelet can hit some nodal points outside Ukraine where arms and ammunition are transhipped. This will be the same playbook of the West, of course, but only the threat of a war in other European countries will force their rulers to reconsider their stupid support to Ukraine.

Posted by: Old Brown Fool | Feb 6 2023 14:21 utc | 314

Posted by: FZappa | Feb 6 2023 11:02 utc | 280
Was Moscow concerned with the West directly implementing of their demands from December 2021?
In the West there was not even an open discussion about this model, i.e. what motives Moscow might have for demanding exactly this map. It was presented to us directly as “out of the question and threatening”. There was no substantive reference.
We were not ready for reflection and thinking, which is the minimum requirement to conduct realistic politics and to solve problems together. The lack of these minimum requirements reflects the media discourse: discussions no longer exist in the discourse. We do not negotiate between parties’ strongest arguments to identify the keyproblems. We glorify one side (usually ourselves) and discredit the other.
Flint (US/UK) and firewood (Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine) could not support each other in supranational institutions to pursue destructive policies as we have observed. You only have to look at the role played by the Baltic States and Poland over the past five or six years in the context of EU foreign policy and in the EU Parliament: what goals and aspirations have these states pursued. Consider their role during the unrest in Belarus.
In all these states there were anti-Russian movements (issues of citizenship, censorship and dealing with opposition). These problems were (deliberately) ignored in Brussels. One might think these governments they were tacitly tolerated and empowered in their goals by Brussels. This is a central cause of today’s problems. These states also share a similar history coming to terms with their time in the Soviet Union. Young national governments dominate in these countries in search of traces of identity and achievements in their young history: meaningful elements such as claims to validity.
And this dusty document still exists. One might recall how easy it would have been to address Russian concerns about security architecture in Europe. “We” turned it down. For Moscow, this approach will always be an indicator of whether the EU states are prepared to pursue realistic policies on an equal level. The EU states behaved in a doubly destructive manner: they hid behind the United States, gave the United States, as a non-European power, the privilege of conducting security policy in Europe against the interests of the strongest European state. It can hardly be worse.
This December document already demonstrates why Russia will end the conflict victoriously and why the West is always threatened with its own moral bankruptcy – running forwards blind. It is simple an expression of the Russian view of the world: reasonable, cooperative, realistic, educational and timeless.

Posted by: Ktarie | Feb 6 2023 14:35 utc | 316

If I were to guess, those Royal marines were based in Ochakov special operation naval base, training ukie special forces on amphibious landings, operating underwater drones, missiles and such. Ochakov special operation base was supposedly hit on February 1st in artillery strike from the Kinburn peninsula and supposedly British “mercenaries” were eliminated according to RuMOD report.
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 5 2023 18:51 utc | 53
I seem to recall the first large missile strike after the Kerch Straight Bridge bombing included a British naval base near Nikolaev.

Posted by: First Time Poster | Feb 6 2023 17:12 utc | 318

Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 6 2023 4:16 utc | 204
«Because the Russian elite was perfectly happy being a resource appendage to the West with an economy with the structure of a Third world country and astronomical wealth inequality, and didn’t want to risk that.»
Not the whole of the RF elites believe in that, only those like Khodorkowski who seem to reckon that like the english elites they need USA “protection” against “communism”.
«The problem is that this is the mentality of the not very bright low- and middle-level gangster, who does not understand that eventually the really big guys will decide he is no longer needed, dispose of him, and take over his assets for themselves.»
Oh sure, like every operetta king and banana republic generalissimo. But I think that a majority of the RF upper and upper-middle classes would rather be the biggest fish in their own pond than middling fish in somebody else’s bigger pond. Including Putin.
«Putin did not do anywhere near as much as should have and could have been done. Even after 2014. What was needed after 2014 was an equivalent to Stalin’s 1930s in terms of industrial and, just as importantly, ideological preparation for war. None of the latter happened, and only a little of the former.»
Putin is not a dictator like Dzhugashvili was, and in 2014 the RF was quite far from being able to do a counter-attack from the Donbas against a very large country, however unprepared they were.
«full mobilization wasn’t done in April 2022 as it should have been (must maintain the neoliberal economic normalcy)»
Putin has very explicitly said that his current policy is “guns and butter” unlike the USSR. But I think that his attachment to a business-led economy is pragmatic: there is a strong thesis that a large part of why the USSR collapsed was not general economic weakness and excessive military spending, but specifically that the USSR was not self-sufficient in cereals, even if it was self-sufficient in fuels.
After neoliberalizing the economy now the RF is a large cereals exporter, and this has made a gigantic difference.
For Putin the business-led economy is a goose that lays the golden eggs; his main problem is to ensure that the RF does not get also business-led politics, only the economy, which is the same problem the PRC government has got.

Posted by: Blissex | Feb 6 2023 19:50 utc | 320

Exile | Feb 5 2023 16:16 utc | 17
Norwegian | Feb 5 2023 20:40 utc | 79
Good quote, but I think it is of battlefield deaths. That misses a vital point. Most injuries that are not immediately fatal are bariatric and death tends to occur after 3 to 5 days from shock (Hypovolemic shock (caused by too little blood volume), Septic shock (due to infections), Neurogenic shock (caused by damage to the nervous system)), pulmonary edema, peritonitis and other related sequelae. I don’t think that these deaths are being reflected as casualties.
Colin | Feb 5 2023 20:44 utc | 82
Well said
Colin | Feb 5 2023 20:56 utc | 84
The Soviet Union did not “collapse”, it was pushed. See my The USSR in a Nutshell: A Brief History of the Rise and Destruction of the Soviet Union and What Happens Next.

Posted by: Hermit | Feb 14 2023 23:57 utc | 322